Disentangling the Flower from Its Perfume: Āśraya and Ālaya in a Tibetan Tantric Text

In this paper, I address the relationship of body and mind through the work of a thirteenth-century Tibetan author exploring embodiment and appearances in tandem. Jetsün Drakpa Gyaltsen’s Commentary on the Inseparability of Saṃsāra and Nirvāṇa exemplifies the unique convergence of ritual and philosophical approaches characterizing the Lamdré or “Path and Fruit”— an esoteric system preserved by the Sakya tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. In guiding his reader to realize that all phenomena are included in both body and mind, Drakpa Gyaltsen grapples with the somewhat paradoxical way in which the body is both a product of the mind and its support. I illuminate ways in which his formulations of āśraya [Tib. rten] and ālaya [Tib. kun gzhi] are not only informed by tantric ritual and physiology but also converge with and diverge from Yogācāra approaches in significant ways, with attention to dynamics of reliance, pervasion and inclusion.