Ten articles written by Dr. Herbert Guenther offer fresh insights into the quest for truth and its extraordinary
expression in the Buddhist teachings. Essays and excerpts from the author's translations clarify the distinctive qualities
of Tibetan philosophy and religious practice. From the chapter "Indian Buddhist Thought in Tibetan Perspective,": O Teacher Kun-tu bzang-po, since in your spiritual being
there is neither identity nor difference, kindly explain the existential mode of the inner light of reality which is the
ultimate knowledge of ultimate reality in ultimate reality. Then the exalted primordial Lord, by mere thought of the
inconceivable reality, became silent and when he had answered the question by way of being silent, his face, hands, and
other limbs and marks, all of which are the unchanging indestructibility of reality, faded in the process of awakening to
Buddhahood (as infinite transcendence). Then Ye-shes-rdo-rje, who is one with all Buddhas, exhorted by the compassion of the
inconceivable mystery of Kun-tu-bzang-po and having opened the great treasure of wisdom revealing the existence of an
ultimate reality, expressed his feelings in these words: Indeed! The Buddha-existence of true reality awareness which is a
unitary existence to which neither cognitive existence (being transitory), nor radiancy (being continuous), apply
separately, is the ever young inner light; it is the essence of the five Buddhas and their awareness in the vastness of
radiant reality as infinite as the sky which has neither end nor center. It is ever young because it does not age nor ever
become frail, and it is an inner light because its cognitive nature is radiant within… In brief, that which is the great
transcending awareness of the intellectually inconceivable mystery of the Buddha's existence, communication, spirituality,
culturedness, and activity is in union with the realm of the Real.
