The Treasury of Lives

Tsen Khawoche Drime Sherab (btsan kha bo che dri med shes rab) was born in 1021 in Western Tibet, possibly Purang (spu rangs), and studied at at Toling Monastery (mtho lding).

He was a disciple of Drapa Ngonshe (grwa pa mngon shes, 1012-1090), and also of Paṇḍita Prajñāna. He attended the religious council of 1076 called by the Purang King Tsede (rtse lde), inviting Tibetan scholars from across the Plateau to study the Five Books of Maitreya.

At the age of fifty-six he set out for Kashmir, requesting Drapa Ngonshe to offer prayers for his safe passage. In Kashmir he approached Sajjana, saying "Now I have grown old! I cannot master many books. I wish to make the Doctrine of the Blessed Maitreya my death prayer. Please instruct me in it!"[1]

Sajjana had already or would soon translate the Ratnagotravibhāga, a treatise on buddha-nature considered by Tibetans to be one of the Five Books of Maitreya, with his disciple Ngok Loden Sherab (rngog blo ldan shes rab, 1059-1109).

As Tsen did not know Sanskrit he engaged the services of another of Sajjana's disciples, Zu Gawai Dorje (gzu dga' ba'i rdo rje), to translate for him.

In contrast to Ngok, who equated buddha-nature with emptiness, Tsen, like his master Sajjana, understood buddha-nature to be the natural luminosity of mind. Unlike to the mainline Madhyamaka embraced by Ngok, Tsen held that all phenomena are empty save for buddha-nature, which is unconditioned and which possesses innate qualities.

This position became known as the "Tsen tradition" (btsan lugs) or the "meditative tradition" (sgom lugs) of buddha-nature exegesis, in contrast to the "analytic tradition" (thos bsam gyi lugs) or "epistemological tradition" (mtshan nyi kyi lugs) based on Ngok's famous commentary to the Ratnagotravibhāga. Tsen is considered by Tibetan historians to have been a disseminator of Yogācāra doctrine, and likely accepted all Five Books of Maitreya as definitive. Ngok, by contrast, considered the Ratnagotravibhāga to be the sole definitive teaching of the Five Books of Maitreya; he classified the other four as Yogācāra and therefore provisional.

Zu himself wrote a commentary on the Ratnagotravibhāga that served as a main source for the Karma Kagyu compositions on the topic by the Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje (karma pa 03 rang byung rdo rje, 1284-1339), Karma Trinle (karma 'phrin las, 1456-1539), and Go Lotsāwa Zhonnu Pel ('gos lo tsA ba gzhon nu dpal, 1392-1481).

Tsen's work also inspired the "other-emptiness" (gzhan stong) writing of Dolpopa Sherab Gyeltsen (dol po pa shes rab rgyal mtshan, 1292-1361) and Tāranātha (1575-1634).

On his return from Kashmir, possibly in 1089, he based himself at Drakgya (brag rgya) in Yarto (yar stod). Among his disciples were a man called Lhopa (lho pa) of Lato (la stod), and Changrawa (lcang ra ba) who passed on his Ratnagotravibhāga teachings.

His lineage is said by some to have been interrupted by the fifteenth century, but he continued to be featured in many lineage histories of "other-emptiness" and Ratnagotravibhāga transmissions.

There is a short section in the One Hundred Instructions of the Jonang on Tsen Khawoche's teachings, titled Instructions on the View of Other-Emptiness (gzhan stong gi lta khrid). Kunga Drolchok (kun dga' grol mchog, 1507-1565), the compiler, was the twenty-fourth holder of the monastic seat of Jonang Monastery.