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    The Essence of Tsongkhapa's Teachings: The Dalai Lama on the Three Principal Aspects of the Path
    The Essence of Tsongkhapa's Teachings: The Dalai Lama on the Three Principal Aspects of the Path
    The Essence of Tsongkhapa's Teachings: The Dalai Lama on the Three Principal Aspects of the Path
    Ebook102 pages2 hours

    The Essence of Tsongkhapa's Teachings: The Dalai Lama on the Three Principal Aspects of the Path

    By Dalai Lama and Jeremy Russell

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    About this ebook

    Learn from the Dalai Lama the three steps to awakening: 1) renunciation, 2) the awakening mind, and 3) emptiness.

    His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s commentary on Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Aspects of the Path helps us integrate the full Buddhist path into our own practice. His Holiness offers a beautiful elucidation of the three aspects of the path: true renunciation based on the wish for freedom, the altruistic awakening mind ( bodhichitta ), and the correct view of emptiness. These three aspects of the path are the axis of all the practices of both sutra and tantra, and they encapsulate Tsongkhapa’s vision of the Buddhist path in its entirety. In their absence, it is impossible for us to develop the great compassion that aspires to liberate other sentient beings from samsara and we will not be able to go beyond this cycle of existence.

    Practitioners will find The Three Principal Aspects of the Path invaluable as a manual for daily meditation. The universal and timeless insights of this text speak to contemporary spiritual aspirants, East and West. The root verses are presented in both Tibetan and English translation to accompany these profound teachings.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWisdom Publications
    Release dateMay 14, 2019
    ISBN9781614295945
    The Essence of Tsongkhapa's Teachings: The Dalai Lama on the Three Principal Aspects of the Path
    Author

    Dalai Lama

    His Holiness the Fourteenth DALAI LAMA, Tenzin Gyatso, is the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people and of Tibetan Buddhism. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal in 2007. He is the author of, among many other books, the international bestseller An Appeal to the World and the New York Times bestseller The Book of Joy, which he coauthored with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He lives in exile in Dharamsala, India.

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      The Essence of Tsongkhapa's Teachings - Dalai Lama

      Preface

      I am happy that Wisdom Publications is publishing His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s commentary on Three Principal Aspects of the Path, by Jé Tsongkhapa, which I had the fortune to simultaneously translate during the teaching itself, and later prepare this written translation for the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (LTWA) with the help of my friend Jeremy Russell. Tsongkhapa taught this short text to Tsakho Onpo Ngawang Dakpa in a place called Gyamo Rong in eastern Tibet.

      The three principal aspects of the path are the axis or lifeline of all the sutric and tantric practices that you undertake. In other words, it is important that your practice be influenced by the three aspects: renunciation or the determination to be free, bodhichitta or the mind of enlightenment, and right or correct view. For when your practice is influenced by renunciation it becomes a cause for achieving liberation (nirvana), when it is influenced by bodhichitta it becomes a cause for achieving omniscience (buddhahood), and when it is influenced by correct view it becomes an antidote to the cycle of existence (samsara). In the absence of these main aspects of the path, even if one is well versed in the five subjects of learning, even if one is able to remain in a meditative state for many eons, even if one possesses the five clairvoyances, and even if one has achieved the eight great accomplishments, one will not be able to go beyond this cycle of existence.

      The three principal aspects of the path are the essence of all the scriptures of the Buddha. The meaning of the Buddha’s teachings and the commentaries on them are included in the stages of the path of three types of individuals — the lowest, who is concerned with a higher rebirth; the medium, who is concerned with liberation or nirvana; and the highest-capacity individual, who is concerned with the bodhisattva motivation of becoming a buddha to benefit other beings. This is so because the purpose of all the scriptures containing the Buddha’s teachings and their commentaries is really to help followers achieve buddhahood. To attain that state of omniscience, one should practice the twofold practice of skillful means and wisdom, within which the main practice is bodhichitta and correct view (wisdom understanding emptiness). In order to cultivate these two, one should have first of all cultivated a deep sense of disgust toward the superficial marvels of the cycle of existence, and should have developed genuine renunciation — the wish to come out of samsara. In the absence of this, it is impossible to develop the great compassion that aspires to liberate other sentient beings from the cycle of existence. Hence renunciation is a must.

      Bodhichitta is the main practice of accumulation of merit for achieving the body of the Buddha (rupakaya), and correct view is the main practice for achieving the truth body (dharmakaya). Moreover, in the beginning, in order to convince one’s mind to embrace Dharma, one needs renunciation. To ensure that the Dharma practice becomes a Mahayana path of practice, one needs bodhichitta, and to eliminate completely the two obscurations, correct view is a must. Thus these three are known as the three principal aspects of the path. This way of practicing all the essential points of the path by including them in these three principal aspects is a very special instruction that Manjushri gave directly to Tsongkhapa.

      Ven. Lhakdor, Director, LTWA

      Part 1

      Three Principal Aspects of the Path by Jé Tsongkhapa

      I pay homage to the foremost venerable lamas

      I will explain, as well as I can,

      the essence of all the teachings of the Conqueror,

      the path praised by the Conqueror’s children,

      the entrance for the fortunate desiring liberation.

      Those who are not attached to the joys of the cyclic existence,

      who strive to make meaning of this leisure and opportunity,

      who rely on the path pleasing to the Conqueror —

      those fortunate ones, listen with a clear mind.

      Without a pure determination to be free,

      there is no means to achieve peace owing to fixation on the pleasurable effects of the ocean of existence.

      Embodied beings are thoroughly bound by craving for existence;

      therefore, in the beginning, seek a determination to be free.

      Contemplating how freedom and fortune are difficult to find,

      and that in life there is no time to waste, blocks the attraction to the captivating appearances of this life.

      Repeatedly contemplating actions’ infallible effects,

      and the sufferings of cyclic existence, blocks the captivating appearance of future lives.

      Having familiarized yourself in this way,

      if you do not generate admiration

      for the prosperity of cyclic existence even for an instant,

      and if you wish for liberation day and night,

      at that time you have generated the determination to be free.

      If this determination to be free is not influenced

      by a pure mind of enlightenment,

      it will not become a cause for unsurpassable enlightenment, the perfect bliss;

      therefore the intelligent should generate a mind of enlightenment.

      Carried away by the four torrential rivers,

      bound by tight bonds of actions, difficult to undo,

      caught in the iron net of the conception of self,

      thoroughly enveloped by the thick darkness of ignorance . . . 

      born into boundless cyclic existence,

      and in rebirths unceasingly tormented by the three sufferings —

      contemplating the state of mother sentient beings in such conditions, generate the supreme mind.

      Seeing the sufferings of the mother sentient beings that are in such a situation,

      we should generate the supreme mind.

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