Tsongkhapa Losang Dragpa (1357–1419) was one of the finest scholar-practitioners in Tibetan Buddhism. Renowned for both his written works and his meditative accomplishments, he founded the Gelug school, which produced the lineage of the Dalai Lamas.
Philip Quarcoo began studying Tibetan Buddhism in London in the late 1990s. He earned his first degree in modern European languages at the University of Durham, UK, and in 2007 graduated with a masters degree in Tibetan studies from the University of Munich, Germany, where he is currently researching nineteenth-century Tibetan and Mongolian devotional poetry.
摘要
Tsongkhapa (1357–1419), author of the well-known Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment and guru to the First Dalai Lama, is renowned as perhaps Tibet’s greatest scholar-saint. A dozen years after writing his Great Treatise, he wrote the Middle-Length Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, presented here in its first complete English translation.
Less than half the length of the Great Treatise, this work similarly presents a systematic overview of the Buddha’s teachings. Tsongkhapa begins by abridging the longer work, distilling its meditations for quicker integration. After recognizing the rarity of our human existence and the great opportunities it affords, he follows with reflections on impermanence, suffering, and the promise of liberation from our past actions, proceeding then to the path of bodhisattvas, whose universal compassion seeks to free every being from suffering. Tsongkhapa gives especially detailed instructions on śamatha, the deep meditative concentration that is a precondition for the highest insight into the nature of reality. The final and largest section, on that very insight, is unique to this work, particularly Tsongkhapa’s presentation of conventional truth and ultimate truth. Beginners and longtime practitioners alike will cherish the clear guidance from one of Tibet’s great luminaries.
目次
Foreword by His Eminence Ling Rinpoche Translators Preface PRELIMINARIES The Greatness of the Author 2 The Greatness of the Dharma Listening to and Explaining the Dharma Relying on a Teacher The Meditation Session The Freedoms and Endowments of This Life The Paths of the Three Types of Persons THE STAGES SHARED WITH PERSONS OF LESSER CAPACITY Death and Future Lives Refuge in the Three Jewels Karma and Its Effects THE STAGES SHARED WITH PERSONS OF MEDIUM CAPACITY Suffering Contemplating the Eight Types of Suffering Contemplating the Six Types of Suffering Mental Afflictions Entering the Great Vehicle Equalizing and Exchanging Oneself and Others Guarding Ones Bodhicitta Training in the Perfections and Gathering Disciples MEDITATIVE STABILIZATION AND WISDOM The Practice of Special Insight Conclusion Notes Bibliography About the Authors
