Gdams ngag mdzod Shechen Printing/Volume 3/Introduction

Translator’s Introduction

This current volume, volume 3, and the next, volume 4, of The Treasury of Precious Instructions are dedicated to a collection of spiritual literature identified with the Kadam tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. This lineage arose from the visit to and twelve-year stay in Tibet by the Indian master Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna, better known by the popular epithet Atiśa, who traveled there in the middle of the eleventh century c.e.

Atiśa was born in 982 c.e. into what is described as the royal family of a region referred to as Zahor by Tibetans, which is thought to be located in the northeast region of the South Asian continent in what is now Bangladesh. At the time, this area was under the sway of the Pāla dynasty. Biographies describe Atiśa, whose childhood name was Candragarbha, as having developed an interest in Buddhism at a relatively young age. He was introduced to tantric practice by an Indian master named Rāhulagupta and remained a layperson until the age of twenty-nine. After deciding that his spiritual efforts would be most effective if he were to become a Buddhist monk, he took ordination and was given the name Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna. For several years following this event, Atiśa undertook to study the full range of Buddhist doctrine and religious literature. Some years later, in his early thirties, he traveled to Sumatra, known at the time as Suvarṇadvīpa, or the Isle of Gold, to study with a Buddhist teacher referred to by Tibetans as Lama Serlingpa, which means “the guru from the Isle of Gold.” Atiśa sought out this teacher, a renowned master of Mahāyāna spiritual practices, in order to receive instruction on the topic of enlightenment mind, or bodhicitta, which is the spiritual attitude that is the entry point for the path that leads to the attainment of supreme buddhahood. He remained in Sumatra for a period of twelve years receiving instruction from this teacher. Later, Atiśa often remarked to his Tibetan disciples that Lama Serlingpa was the most revered among all of his one hundred and fifty-seven spiritual teachers, because it was this figure who enabled him to gain some mastery of the crucially important attitude of enlightenment mind.

After returning to India, Atiśa continued to study with one of Lama Serlingpa’s disciples, Ratnākaraśānti, and is said to have begun carrying out activities in support of the Buddhist teaching. It was during this period that he was invited to become a resident scholar at Vikramaśīla Monastery, a religious center established in the late eighth or early ninth century c.e. by the Pāla monarch Dharmapāla that continued to enjoy the patronage of his successors. Biographical accounts state that it was a Pāla monarch of the time, possibly Neyapāla, who conferred upon Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna the epithet Atiśa, which means “preeminent one,” in recognition of his outstanding qualities among the learned scholars at Vikramaśīla.

At the end of the tenth century c.e., the Tibetan rulers in the western region of Ngari had become active in seeking to promote the development of Buddhism in their kingdom. One monarch, Lha Lama Yeshe Ö, who had become an ordained monk himself and abdicated his rule, was instrumental in sponsoring young scholars’ travel to India to study Buddhism with the aim of returning to their homeland in order to continue translating important Indian Buddhist works into Tibetan. Some of the Tibetans who studied at Vikramaśīla Monastery were the ones who recommended to their patrons that Atiśa be invited to Tibet to help promote Buddhism in their homeland. Lha Lama Jangchup Ö, the great nephew of Yeshe Ö, is the figure who first sought to invite Atiśa to Tibet, an effort that did not succeed initially. Nevertheless, eventually Atiśa did accept the Tibetan invitation and arrived at Tholing, the capital of the Ngari kingdom, in the year 1042. Although it had originally been agreed that he would only spend three years in Tibet, Atiśa lived out the remainder of his life in this northern land, passing away in 1054 at the age of seventy-two at Nyethang, which lies nearby Lhasa in a southwesterly direction.

One year prior to the end of the original three-year period, one of Atiśa’s translators, Naktso Lotsāwa, urged his Tibetan colleagues to request teachings from the master. This led Jangchup Ö, who had become a disciple of Atiśa, to formally request a Mahāyāna teaching that would dispel mistaken views that were prevalent among Tibetans and would address the key elements of both sūtra and tantra doctrine. This act resulted in the composition of Atiśa’s most widely known composition, A Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment, which is also the first treatise that appears in this volume. A verse text of just sixty-eight verses, it is recognized as the root text for the influential system of instruction known as The Stages of the Path for the Three Types of Person, a body of teachings that has spawned an enormous quantity of commentarial literature over subsequent centuries. Elements of this system of instruction are addressed in all the works contained in the first of five categories of Kadam literature.

While Atiśa met with and taught a significant number of well-known Tibetan scholars of the day, it was not until the original three-year period for Atiśa’s stay was about to end that the individual who was to become his most influential Tibetan disciple, Drom Tönpa Gyalwai Jungne, met the master. Tradition holds that the deity Tārā had prophesied to Atiśa that he would meet an upāsaka, or lay disciple, in Tibet and that this individual would be instrumental in ensuring the success of his efforts on behalf of the Buddha’s teaching there. Indeed, Drom Tönpa is referred to as the patriarch of the Kadam tradition, and it is his efforts that played the largest role in establishing Atiśa’s legacy in Tibet. After meeting his teacher, Drom Tönpa arranged for Atiśa to travel to other regions of Tibet where he continued to teach. It was these efforts that resulted in the extension of Atiśa’s stay in Tibet.

The two syllables that make up the name of the Kadam tradition are nouns; ka, which means “word” in the sense of the discourses of the Buddha, and dam, which means “instruction” in the sense of a teacher’s oral explanations on how to put those canonical teachings into practice. While historical works record several interpretations of this name, the most widely cited one states that the followers of the Kadam lineage were referred to by this term because they believed that not even a single letter of the Buddha’s “word” contained in the three baskets of his teachings could be discarded and that, if properly understood, they would all be recognized as supreme forms of “instruction” that contribute to and promote the attainment of the ultimate goal of buddhahood. This notion is illustrated in the following lines that are attributed to Drom Tönpa:

The marvelous word contained in the three baskets
is richly filled with instruction for the three types of person.
True meaning will be gained by anyone who counts
the Kadam tradition’s precious golden prayer beads.

The Tibetan tradition established more than three centuries later at the end of the fourteenth century by Je Tsongkhapa also placed great importance on the Kadam teachings that have come to be known by the name Lamrim, or Stages of the Path. Indeed, Tsongkhapa’s followers, who are known most widely as adherents of the Geluk, or “virtuous system,” are also referred to as the “new Kadampas.” The two Kadam volumes contain a number of works by Je Tsongkhapa and several important religious figures who were his followers.

Jamgön Kongtrul’s catalog to The Treasury of Precious Instructions classifies the Kadam literature into five categories: (1) treatise, (2) instruction, (3) esoteric instruction, (4) ancillary works, and (5) associated works. It also asserts that the first three of these categories are related to three Kadam lineages that were established by three students of Atiśa’s principal disciple, Drom Tönpa Gyalwai Jungne, who were known as the “Three Brothers”— namely, Potowa Rinchen Sel, Chengawa Tsultrim Bar, and Puchungwa Zhönu Gyaltsen. While these three individuals were important early Kadam figures and the names for the first two categories do correspond to distinct Kadam lineages, this explanation of the nature of the first three categories is somewhat misleading. Moreover, the third category, called “esoteric instruction,” in fact refers to the esoteric Kadam lineage of Sixteen Drops, which I do not believe Tibetan historical literature has ever been described by this name. It would be more accurate to describe them as being made up of three separate bodies of Kadam instruction, each of which is represented by a particular “root text.” These representative works are (1) Atiśa’s Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment, (2) the aphorisms of the instruction known as the Seven-Point Mind Training, and (3) Atiśa’s Bodhisattva’s Jewel Garland, respectively, and they are the first three texts that appear in volume 3.

Atiśa’s Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment is the root text for the Kadam teaching that in recent times has come to be known as Lamrim, or Stages of the Path. During the original Kadam period, this system of instruction was also referred by such names as the Supreme Path and the Stages of the Teaching. The second category of Kadam literature is devoted to the genre of Mahāyāna teachings known as Lojong, or Mind Training. While the “root text” for this category is an annotated version of the aphorisms to the specific Lojong teaching known as Seven-Point Mind Training, the second category of Kadam literature includes a wide range of works associated with the Lojong tradition as a whole. The third root text, Atiśa’s Bodhisattva’s Jewel Garland, is meant to represent the esoteric Kadam instruction known as the Sixteen Drops, despite the fact that it does not make any direct reference to that teaching. Nevertheless, as explained below, there is a justification for linking it with teaching on the Sixteen Drops. The editors did not assign any root text to the final two of the five categories of Kadam literature—that is, ancillary works and associated works, respectively.

1. The Treatise Lineage

Volume 3 of The Treasury of Precious Instructions contains ten works that are associated with Atiśa’s Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment, the representative work for this first category. While authorship of the first of the ten, titled The Brilliant Illumination of the Path to Enlightenment, is attributed to Jamgön Kongtrul, the colophon explains that it was “composed by extracting essential elements from the writings of excellent spiritual teachers.” In fact, it is largely a truncated version of a commentary to Atiśa’s root text written by the Paṇchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen, to which Jamgön Kongtrul added several passages from Je Tsongkhapa’s Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment and a single passage from his Shorter Treatiseon the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment. It should also be noted that the Tibetan version of this commentary does not provide the individual verses from Atiśa’s root text on their own, prior to explaining their meaning. Rather, the words that make up the root verses are simply woven into the language that forms the prose text. Nevertheless, for the convenience of the reader, the root verses have been added to the English translation of the commentary at the beginning of each passage in which they are being explained, with the individual words of the verses placed in italics in the prose explanations.

Jamgön Kongtrul’s catalog to the overall Treasury of Precious Instructions states that he intended to include a Lamrim work by the second Shamar Tokden Khachö Wangpo, which he described as a “Lamrim text written according to the system of Gampopa [Sönam Rinchen].” The illustrious Kagyu master Gampopa had been a student of the Kadam teacher Jayulwa Zhönu Ö before he sought out the great yogi Milarepa as his principal spiritual teacher. Gampopa himself wrote a well-known treatise that combines the Kadam Lamrim instructions with elements of the Kagyu Mahāmudrā doctrine. However, Tokden Khachö Wangpo’s work was not included in any of the published editions of The Treasury of Precious Instructions.

In addition to Jamgön Kongtrul’s commentary to A Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment, the first category of Kadam texts includes three prose commentaries that address the entirety of the Lamrim system of practice: the Third Dalai Lama, Sönam Gyatso’s Nectar That Is Like Highly Refined Gold; the Fourth Paṇchen Lama, Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen’s Easy Path That Leads to Omniscience; and Jetsun Tāranātha’s Essence of Nectar. Sönam Gyatso’s work is one of the earliest Lamrim works composed by a Geluk master other than Je Tsongkhapa. It is organized around a Lamrim verse text composed by Je Tsongkhapa, known variously by such popular names as A Compendium of the Stages of the Path and The Song of Spiritual Realization. This poem is also included among the ten Lamrim works in volume 3 under the title A Verse Compendium of the Spiritual Practices of the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment.

Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen’s Easy Path is another well-known Geluk Lamrim commentary. As the colophon notes, its origin can be traced to an oral teaching that the Paṇchen Lama gave at Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in which he presented the Lamrim instructions as they were preserved in a Geluk tradition known as the Wensa Oral Transmission Lineage. Using notes that were taken down by disciples who attended the teaching, Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen edited the material into its current written form.

Tāranātha’s Lamrim text is the second longest composition in this first of the two Kadam volumes. The instructions are presented in the framework of sixty-four meditation topics. This structure is the most distinctive feature of the treatise, which the author meant as an outline for a practitioner to use in his or her effort to cultivate the overall system of practice. While the explanations themselves are deliberately presented in an abbreviated manner, Tāranātha makes the following statement regarding the methodology underlying his text:

This work is an instruction manual that addresses how to meditate in the sense of the manner in which to direct the mind as one reflects on the various individual topics. Explanations of the doctrinal meanings that one must understand in order to bring them to mind as the subject matter for reflection should be sought out from other writings composed by the former spiritual masters of this tradition.

The five remaining works in this first category of Kadam literature address specific elements of the Lamrim tradition. Of these, chapter 6, titled The Flower Cluster of Spiritual Attainments, is a short poem by Je Tsongkhapa written in the genre of verses of supplication, which, in this case, are addressed to the lineage masters of a so-called “near,” or short, lineage that is made up of three beings: Vajradhara, Mañjughoṣa, and Tsongkhapa’s contemporary, a yogi known popularly as Lama Umapa but who is referred to in the poem by his spiritual name Pawo Dorje. This lineage reflects a tradition that originated when Je Tsongkhapa, initially through the assistance of Lama Umapa, gained the ability to communicate directly with the divine figure Mañjughoṣa, also known as Mañjuśrī. Verses 4 and 5 of the text that is contained here do not appear in Je Tsongkhapa’s original composition; rather, they represent later figures in a lineage that primarily constitutes an esoteric body of instruction on right view and that was originally propagated from teacher to disciple only through direct oral communication.

Although the title of chapter 9, a work by Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo titled An Essential Summary of the Method of Practice in the System of the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, seems to address the overall system of Lamrim practice, it is mainly devoted to the topic of the six preliminary practices, a devotional exercise that is meant to be carried out at the beginning of each meditation session on the Lamrim instruction. This topic is also addressed in some detail both in Sönam Gyatso’s Nectar That Is Like Highly Refined Gold and Paṇchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen’s Easy Path. The only main topic of instruction that Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo’s work touches on is that of how to rely upon a spiritual teacher.

The next two works in this first category each provide explanations on carrying out the ritual for generating enlightenment mind and accepting the bodhisattva vow. Both texts indicate that, depending on the nature of the disciples, separate rituals can be carried out at different times in order to confer only the aspirational form of enlightenment mind and not the active form of enlightenment mind. Alternatively, both forms of enlightenment mind can be received sequentially during one and the same overall ceremony.

Chapter 11, titled A Guidebook for the Path to Great Awakening and composed by Jamgön Kongtrul, addresses the ritual ceremony based largely upon material presented in Śāntideva’s Entry into the Conduct That Leads to Enlightenment and describes it as the system that has been propagated in the Lineage of the Profound View. This name refers to a lineage of masters associated with the Madhyamaka, or Middle Way school, that was established by Nāgārjuna.

Chapter 12, titled The Excellent Path of the Bodhisattvas and composed by Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, takes up the same topic as the preceding work; however, this treatise presents the ritual according to the System of Great Vastness, a lineage that is more commonly known as the Lineage of Extensive Conduct. This tradition is identified with the Yogācāra school of Mahāyāna Buddhism that was founded by Ārya Asaṅga. The principal resource for this second presentation is the morality chapter of Asaṅga’s Stage of a Bodhisattva.

Both Jamgön Kongtrul and Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo refer to these two systems as being distinct from one another in a variety of significant ways, including the person who confers the vow, the person who receives the vow, the nature of the ritual in which the vow is received, the particular precepts that are accepted in the ritual, and the method by which transgressions of the vows can be remedied. An opposing viewpoint maintains that the two systems should not be regarded as distinct in any meaningful way. The early Kadam master Sharawa Yönten Drak mentions these same five purported differences in his treatise on the stages of the path and argues that they do not represent substantive differences. Je Tsongkhapa also addresses this controversy in his commentary on bodhisattva morality titled A Guidebook for the Path to Enlightenment and concurs with Sharawa that these two historical Indian systems for generating the bodhisattva vow should not be considered distinct in any meaningful way. In fact, his work formulates a system of practice that combines the views presented in the two traditions.

The final work in this first category of Kadam literature, Chenga Lodrö Gyaltsen’s Opening the Door to the Dharma, is the longest text contained in volume 3. This text is placed at the end of the first Kadam volume in the Tibetan edition of The Treasury of Precious Instructions. Although it occurs after the introduction of several works that form part of the second category of texts—that is, those associated with the Instruction Lineage—Jamgön Kongtrul’s catalog clearly indicates that Chenga Lodrö Gyaltsen’s work is meant to be included in the Treatise Lineage. Therefore, we have moved the text in this English translation to chapter 13 in order to include it among the other works associated with the general topic of The Stages of the Path to Enlightenment and Atiśa’s root text, A Lamp for Path to Enlightenment.

Chenga Lodrö Gyaltsen’s entire composition is devoted to the topic of “mentally abandoning this life.” While this goal is typically associated with the spiritual practice of a so-called lesser person—a term that is generally thought of as referring to a novice—the discussion is actually directed toward those Buddhist practitioners who are capable of following the strict and austere lifestyle of a Buddhist contemplative ascetic. It is also tacitly understood that this type of practitioner is one who seeks the ultimate Mahāyāna goal of supreme enlightenment rather than simply a favorable samsaric rebirth. As evidence that the author was a committed follower of the recently formed Geluk school who studied with a number of Je Tsongkhapa’s direct disciples, Chenga Lodrö Gyaltsen refers to himself as “a dharma teacher who has placed on the crown of his head the dust under the feet of the omniscient and precious lord, the spiritual father who was from the Shar Tsongkha region, and his spiritual sons.” Nevertheless, in addition to many early Kadam teachers, his work cites passages from the writings of numerous spiritual figures from virtually all the major historical Tibetan traditions.

After providing a somewhat lengthy introductory section that sets out to describe and illustrate what is meant by the act of “mentally abandoning this life,” Chenga Lodrö Gyaltsen refers to a text composed by the Kagyu master Tsangpa Gyare Yeshe Dorje, which identifies seven defining attributes, or character traits, that a true dharma practitioner needs to possess and then lists eleven precepts or commitments that such individuals should also be willing to adopt in order to overcome attachment to this life. After listing the commitments, Chenga Lodrö Gyaltsen presents instructions on nineteen distinct topics that he recognizes as conforming to these commitments. The style or methodology consists of citing multiple passages—mostly, but not exclusively, from the writings of Tibetan masters. These quotations are typically not more than a few verses or a short paragraph, often from just two or three masters but sometimes more, for each point. There are also citations from various sūtras, most notably the Sūtra Encouraging a Superior Attitude. Another feature of this work is the numerous annotations that offer brief historical details about the religious figures referenced in the text. One exception is a passage from the Sūtra Encouraging a Superior Attitude, in which the annotations serve to explain virtually every expression that appears in a passage describing the faults of being attached to gain and honor, the very antithesis of the goal of mentally abandoning this life.

2. The Instruction Lineage

As noted earlier, although the second category of Kadam literature is purported to be identified with the so-called Instruction Lineage that originated with the early Kadam teacher Chengawa Tsultrim Bar, in reality it is devoted to literature associated with systems of instruction known as Lojong, or Mind Training. While some examples of Indian Lojong texts were known from the earliest period of the Kadam tradition, Atiśa himself seems to have only taught the key elements of this form of spiritual practice orally and to a very limited number of disciples, among whom Drom Tönpa was the most prominent figure.

Perhaps the most influential and complete example of Mind Training practice is a teaching that came to be known as the Seven-Point Mind Training. Although it did not exist in written form during the earliest Kadam period, Atiśa is nonetheless regarded as having been its source. According to tradition, Chekawa Yeshe Dorje is responsible for having made the decision to teach it more openly and perhaps is even responsible for systematizing the instructions into seven sections. While there are a number of different written editions of the root text for this system of practice—no less than six appear in volumes 3 and 4 of The Treasury of Precious Instructions, either as stand-alone works or embedded in commentaries—the version that was selected as the primary text for this second category of Kadam literature was extracted from a commentary on the Seven-Point Mind Training composed by the important fourteenth-century Tibetan teacher Gyalse Tokme Zangpo. Annotations were added to the aphorisms, perhaps by Jamgön Kongtrul himself, principally to identify which portions of the text correspond to each of the overall instruction’s seven sections. Despite its original source, Jamgön Kongtrul’s catalog to The Treasury of Precious Instructions refers to this text as having been “created” by Chekawa Yeshe Dorje.

As for the group of works chosen to illustrate this second category of Kadam instruction, the majority were selected from an important collection of Mind Training texts known popularly in Tibetan as Lojong Gyatsa, or The Hundredfold Collection on Mind Training. Geshe Thupten Jinpa has produced an English translation of this entire volume published under the title Mind Training: The Great Collection. Permission was obtained to use his translations of the twenty-eight titles from this collection that appear in volumes 3 and 4 of The Treasury of Precious Instructions. Chapter 14 of volume 3, titled A Listing of the Mahāyāna Works on Mind Training, identifies the specific works from The Hundredfold Collection on Mind Training works that were chosen by the editors to be included in The Treasury of Precious Instructions.

The first two of the Mind Training texts that were selected from The Hundredfold Collection are early works of a biographical nature that describe different periods in Atiśa’s life. Of these, the first is a verse text that addresses the early years of his youth and describes the manner in which he first began to pursue the dharma. The second, written in mixed prose and verse, describes his journey to Sumatra to meet and receive instructions from the spiritual teacher known as Lama Serlingpa. A third work that addresses an incident in Atiśa’s life is item fourteen in chapter 14’s listing of texts, which is titled Two Yoginīs’ Admonition to Atiśa to Train His Mind. This text contains a very brief description of a vision-like experience in which Atiśa encounters two semi-divine female figures, identified as emanations of the deities Tārā and Bṛkutī, who appear in the sky while he was visiting Bodhgaya, the holy site of the Buddha’s enlightenment. He observes them discussing how anyone who wishes to achieve enlightenment quickly must cultivate an esoteric method of cultivating enlightenment mind. The practice is a tantric form of meditation that is described in the next work, item fifteen entitled Kusulu’s Accumulation Mind Training. Several other selections from The Hundredfold Collection explicitly state that the instruction contained in them was given to Atiśa by one or another of his spiritual teachers.

Items three and four of chapter 14, which appear near the end of volume 3 in The Treasury of Precious Instructions, contain separate versions of the root text to the Seven-Point Mind Training; one is an annotated version of the aphorisms with the second containing just the root text. Item five, the first work that appears in volume 4, which is titled simply A Commentary on the Seven-Point Mind Training, was compiled by Chekawa’s principal disciple Se Jilbuwa Chökyi Gyaltsen. This important and influential text is one of the earliest written commentaries on the teaching. The next two titles, items six and seven, are well-known Indian Mind Training works that were both composed by the Indian master Dharmarakṣita, one of Atiśa’s three principal teachers on Lojong practice—namely, The Wheel of Sharp Weapons and The Peacock’s Neutralizing of Poison.

The above-referenced Tibetan edition of The Hundredfold Collection on Mind Training includes a catalog/table of contents at the beginning of the volume. A noteworthy feature of this tabulation is that in a number of instances, a series of texts is grouped together under a single, separate title page. This attribute is mirrored in the Mind Training works included in The Treasury of Precious Instructions. For instance, items eight through twelve in the listing of volume 3’s chapter 14 appear in volume 4 grouped together under the single title Melodies of an Adamantine Song: A Chanting Meditation on Mind Training. The section title for this series of texts is derived from the first item, which contains the descriptive phrase “adamantine song of chanting meditation,” and thus it can be understood as referring specifically to this work. Item nine, a text in four sections titled Stages of the Heroic Mind, is a verse composition that mainly addresses instructions that relate to two practices that are central to the Mind Training tradition—namely, the Equality and Exchange between Oneself and Others, and Giving and Taking. Item ten, referred to by the descriptive name A Mind Training Teaching That Serlingpa Taught to Jowo Atiśa for the Purpose of Taming Inhabitants of a Borderland, is a composition made up of ten verses that describe key elements of Mind Training practice. It should be noted that item twenty-seven, which has no formal title but ends with a statement that is virtually identical to the descriptive title of this text, is in fact a prose commentary on these verses. Items eleven and twelve are two short prose texts that were committed to writing by an unnamed Tibetan author or authors as a record of Mind Training instructions that were transmitted orally by lineage holders. The former is titled A Teaching on Taking Afflictions onto the Path and the latter is simply identified as Guru Yoga.

A second example in which a series of texts is grouped together under a section title applies to items eleven through nineteen. These works are combined together under the title Instructions on the Purification of Evil Deeds. One reason for grouping these texts together may be that some of the instructions are not identified by any specific name. This is particularly true of the initial practice that is presented at the beginning of this second group of texts. While Geshe Jinpa assigns it the name of the section title, the listing in chapter 14 does not mention it as a separate work nor is it identified explicitly in the corresponding series of texts in volume 4 of The Treasury of Precious Instructions. This quite short instruction is simply described in the body of the text as a practice that conveys a great blessing and has the ability to purify such great evil deeds as the creation of discord within a religious community. We have included the instruction at the beginning of item thirteen, which is titled A Mahāyāna System of Practice for Eliminating Grudges. The subject matter of items fourteen and fifteen—titled Two Yoginīs’ Admonition to Atiśa to Train His Mind and Kusulu’s Accumulation Mind Training, respectively—were addressed above. Item fifteen, titled Mind Training Taking Joys and Pains onto the Path, is a short prose commentary that is devoted to a single verse attributed to the Indian master Śākyaśrībhadra, who came to Tibet in 1203 and taught there for a decade before returning to India. The prose commentary, no doubt by a Tibetan author, is distinguished by its reference to elements of tantric practice in which the practitioner identifies him- or herself with a buddha’s three bodies. Item fourteen, titled Sumpa Lotsāwa’s Ear-Lineage Mind Training, is a relatively short prose text that is based on another vision-like experience, similar to the one experienced by Atiśa that is described in item thirteen, in which the Tibetan Sumpa Lotsāwa, while making a pilgrimage to Bodhgaya, witnesses two female figures discussing four essential maxims relating to spiritual practice. Explanations of these maxims are addressed in the prose text. Item fifteen, Bodhisattva Samantabhadra’s Mind Training, derives its name from a description of the nature in which bodhisattvas must develop an “expansive mind,” an expression that is meant to indicate the manner in which a bodhisattva must generate an attitude that is dedicated to the welfare of all sentient beings. After referring to how Buddha Śākyamuni and the three bodhisattvas Avalokiteśvara, Vajrapāṇi, and Mañjuśrī developed such a mind, the text praises the extraordinary manner in which Samantabhadra did so. The text also addresses the necessity of developing both a “resolute mind” that is unwavering in the face of hardships and a “diamond-like mind” that relies on an understanding of emptiness in order to combine the elements of wisdom and means. The final work in this section, titled Eight-Sessions Mind Training, is attributed to Drom Tönpa, who is said to have received the teaching from Atiśa. After describing its lineage and a few general comments about the nature of Mind Training practice, the text describes how to practice elements of this system in relation to these eight topics: food, breath, taking on beings’ suffering, flesh and blood, torma oblations, the four elements, a wish-fulfilling jewel, and the moment of death.

The remaining selections from The Hundredfold Collection on Mind Training—namely, items twenty through twenty-eight from the chapter 14 listing—also are grouped within a single section heading in that source that is titled Mind Training That Removes Obstacles; however, for reasons that are not clear this heading does not appear as a separate title page in volume 4 of The Treasury of Precious Instructions. Rather, the names of items twenty through twenty-eight are simply presented consecutively, wherever they may occur in the middle of a particular folio. With the exception of Chekawa’s commentary to the Eight Verses on Mind Training, these are somewhat less familiar works by both Indian and Tibetan masters. For example, items twenty and twenty-one—titled A Mahāyāna Mind Training That Dispels Obstacles and A Mahāyāna Mind Training for Averting Future Abandonment of the Practice, respectively—are related works that likely were composed by a single Tibetan author of unknown identity. In some instances, the authorship is fairly well established, such as items twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, and twenty-seven, which were either composed in their entirety or contain essential elements of instruction by such figures as the Tibetan Kadam master Chim Namkha Drak and the Indian masters Virvapa, Atiśa, and Serlingpa, respectively. Another case, item twenty-two is a work that, despite the name Atiśa’s Seven-Point Mind Training, was probably written by some unidentified figure. Likewise, item twenty-eight, titled A Mahāyāna Mind Training, is another Seven-Point Mind Training text of uncertain authorship. Item twenty-six, titled A Commentary on the Eight Verses on Mind Training and attributed to Chekawa Yeshe Dorje, is noteworthy in that it is an early explanation of the famous Mind Training root text by the Kadampa master Langri Tangpa Dorje Senge.

The final five entries in this category of Kadam works do not appear in the chapter 14 listing, as they do not form part of the aforementioned Hundredfold Collection on Mind Training. These include Gyalse Tokme Zangpo’s fourteenth-century commentary, identified by the title The Seven-Point Mind Training Instruction Composed by Gyalse Tokme Zangpo Pel; Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo’s Seeds of Benefit and Happiness, which mainly discusses the same six preliminary practices that he explained in his earlier work in the first category of Kadam works that appears in volume 3 and three separate Lojong works by Jamgön Kongtrul; his commentary titled A Guidebook for the Path to Enlightenment: An Instruction Manual on the Mahāyāna Seven-Point Mind Training Composed for Ease of Practice by Persons of Lesser Proficiency; a supplication prayer to the lineage masters of this tradition titled Dispelling the Torment of Faith; and a Mind Training aspirational prayer titled Entry Point for the Ocean of Enlightenment Mind.

3. The Esoteric Instruction Lineage

The root text for the third category of Kadam works is Atiśa’s Bodhisattva’s Jewel Garland, a relatively short poem of twenty-six verses, which addresses a range of fundamental Mahāyāna spiritual practices. While it also appears as the first text in The Hundredfold Collection on Mind Training, it does not mention such key Mind Training practices as the Equality and Exchange between Oneself and Others or Giving and Taking, presumably because Atiśa did not teach these practices openly. Nor does it make explicit reference to any esoteric Kadam practices. Nevertheless, this composition is recognized as the root text for another treatise titled The Jewel Garland of Dialogues, an extraordinary and lengthy work consisting of twenty-three chapters written almost entirely in verse that records verbal exchanges principally between Atiśa and Drom Tönpa on a wide range of topics, including many that are central to the practices of the Sixteen Drops. While this longer work describes many visionary experiences and makes reference to various elements of esoteric practice, it too makes no explicit reference to the practice known as the Sixteen Drops.

In any case, volume 4 of The Treasury of Precious Instructions contains three works that make up this third category of Kadam teachings, all of which are devoted to the teaching known as the Sixteen Drops. The various forms of meditation and mantra recitation that make up the Sixteen Drops represent the quintessential form of esoteric instruction within the Kadam tradition. All of the practices are said to be subsumed within five recollections that were articulated by Tārā in a statement she addressed to Drom Tönpa, whom she addresses as Avalokiteśvara, indicating that he is to be regarded as an emanation of the deity. The five recollections are: recalling the lamas as the object of refuge, recalling all beings as one’s fathers and mothers, recalling emptiness as the mind’s ultimate nature, recalling one’s body as a deity’s form, and recalling one’s speech as mantra recitation. Each of the sixteen stages of practice is made up of a range of divine visualizations and related devotional exercises, starting with the Drop of the Outer Inconceivable Array, in which the practitioner visualizes a divine realm within which one generates oneself as a form of Avalokiteśvara called Jinasāgara and reflects on spiritual qualities that are said to resemble those described in the Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra. These meditations progress through the remaining stages in which each successive drop, consisting of a divine realm and its related deity, is generated inside the heart of the preceding drop’s deity, culminating with the final Drop of Enlightenment. The overall practice is described as encompassing all the elements of the three trainings and the four categories of tantra. Several commentaries also state that this practice is informed by instruction on the completion stage of Highest Yoga Tantra as taught by Buddha Jñānapāda in his divinely inspired oral instruction titled Meditation on the Reality of the Two Stages.

The first of the three works devoted to the Sixteen Drops, authored by Jamgön Kongtrul and titled An Ornament of Compassion’s Transcendent Play, is made up of two parts: a sādhana ritual that devotees can use to carry out the practice and a manual that a lama can use to confer the empowerment or consecration ritual upon qualified disciples. This empowerment ritual is a requirement for disciples to undertake the practice, which includes elements of many forms of Buddhist tantra practice, in particular the generation and completion stages that are unique to Highest Yoga Tantra. The remaining two works, which address the spiritual exercises themselves, are both described in their titles as “essential summaries of the practice.” The first of the two, titled An Essential Summary of the Method of Practicing the Meditation and Mantra Recitation of the Sixteen Drops, was composed by the Geluk lama Gungtang Könchok Tenpe Drönme. It is a ritual text composed in verse with a short prose introduction and occasional brief explanatory notes interspersed throughout. The second explanatory text, titled An Essential Summary on the Stages of a Profound Oral Instruction on the Kadam Teaching Known as the "Sixteen Drops That Confer the Supreme Boon of the Two Spiritual Attainments" was composed by Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo. It is a more expanded presentation of the practice that also includes the relevant forms of recitation. The author states in the colophon that the work was compiled on the basis of memorial notes taken at an oral teaching by the Geluk lama Könchok Tenpa Rapgye at Tashi Lhunpo Monastery.

4. Ancillary Works

This fourth category of Kadam writings, which has no root text, is made up of four works. The first, titled The Permission Rituals for the Four Deities That Are the Untainted Root Practice of the Kadam Tradition and That Were Extracted from "The Jewel Mine of Sādhana Rituals," contains four brief rituals for each of the four principal Kadam deities: Buddha Śākyamuni, Avalokiteśvara, Tārā, and Acala. As the title indicates, all four rituals have been extracted from a much larger collection of sādhana rituals compiled by Tāranātha that is titled The Jewel Mine of an Ocean of Tutelary Deities’ Sādhana Rituals. At the conclusion of the first ritual devoted to Buddha Śākyamuni, the text also repeats language that Tāranātha expresses in his source work, which is that the first three liturgies are not true permission rituals but rather merely “methods for conferring an oral transmission” that enable practitioners to perform the sādhana of the particular deity that is addressed in the opening portion of the text. He further asserts that the fourth ritual, devoted to the deity Acala, is both an oral transmission for reciting the deity’s mantra and a genuine permission ritual. To emphasize this point, he declares that later collections of ritual texts have improperly represented the first three to be true permission rituals when they are not. The principal issue seems to be that the first three rituals devoted to Śākyamuni, Avalokiteśvara, and Tārā, respectively, do not include formal invocations by the officiating lama of the deity’s body, speech, and mind. The colophon of the text that appears in The Treasury of Precious Instructions further states that the editor has inserted additional words of clarification.

The second text, titled A Collection of the Essence of the Sūtra and Tantra Paths: A Written Account of an Oral Teaching on the Practice of the Four Kadam Deities, is a commentary on spiritual practices that relate directly to the four deities addressed in the first work. The colophon identifies the work as a record of memorial notes that was compiled by Jamgön Kongtrul from an oral teaching given by Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo at Palpung Thupten Chökor Ling Monastery. He further states that he also consulted the writings of Nyukla Paṇchen Ngawang Drakpa, Jamgön Kunga Sönam, and Jetsun Kunga Drölchok.

The instructions for all four deities include a sādhana ritual for the deity, followed by meditation on the relative and ultimate forms of enlightenment mind. In the case of the Tārā section, in particular, the instruction is presented in the context of the five recollections that were mentioned earlier. The portion of the text devoted to the deity Acala includes a special section of instruction on the six practices of tummo, or psychic heat; dream yoga; illusory body; clear-light meditation; powa, or transference yoga; and meditation on the intermediate state, or bardo, all of which are associated with Highest Yoga Tantra.

The third work in this section is a well-known poem by Je Tsongkhapa titled The Three Principal Elements of the Path, which consists of fourteen verses. It was originally written as a letter that Je Tsongkhapa sent to one of his earliest disciples named Tsako Wönpo Ngawang Drakpa, who had returned to his native region of Gyalrong in eastern Tibet. The three topics addressed in the poem are the spiritual attitudes of renunciation, enlightenment mind, and right view. The instruction related to these topics is considered to have been received by Je Tsongkhapa directly from Mañjughoṣa, and thus the work is identified with the lineage addressed in the supplication prayer titled The Flower Cluster of Spiritual Attainments', which appears in chapter 6 of volume 3.

The fourth and final work in this section, titled The Entry Point to Liberation for Fortunate Beings: A Brief Word Commentary on “The Three Principal Elements of the Path,” was composed by Jamgön Kongtrul. The expression “word commentary” indicates that it is a work in the genre that explains the actual wording of a particular text rather than elaborating in any extensive way on the import of the subject matter that is being addressed. Jamgön Kongtrul states in the colophon that his work stems from a teaching on the root text that he received from Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo. He further notes that the teaching was based on the commentaries to the poem written by the Fifth Dalai Lama, Ngawang Losang Gyatso and the Fifth Paṇchen Lama, Losang Yeshe. He states that he wrote this commentary because he felt that this was an important instruction that needed to be included in The Treasury of Precious Instructions. He further notes that he used the language found in Ngulchu Dharmabhadra’s commentary on Tsongkhapa’s poem to write his own treatise. This last point is reminiscent of Jamgön Kongtrul’s commentary on Atiśa’s Lamp for the Path, in that in both instances he incorporated the language of an existing work into his own composition.

Associated Works

The fifth and final category of Kadam works can be thought of as being made up of two groups of works. The first four texts are loosely related to the general topic of right view, while the latter four are devotional in nature. Of the first four, the first two are works by the Fourth Paṇchen Lama, Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen on the topic of Mahāmudrā, or the Great Seal, as taught in the Geluk tradition of Je Tsongkhapa and his followers. The first of these, titled A Guidebook for the Path to the Victorious One’s State: A Root Text on the Great Seal of the Precious Genden Lineage, presents the instruction in verse form. The second, titled The Lamp of Utmost Brightness: An Extensive Explanation of the Root Text on the Great Seal according to the System of the Precious Genden Lineage, is an autocommentary on that root text. Prior to Paṇchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen, this body of Geluk instruction had not been committed to writing and was only taught in a restricted manner to a few select disciples.

While the Geluk version of the Great Seal teaching includes the main features of earlier Kagyu traditions, it is considered to contain instruction that is unique to Je Tsongkhapa on the nature of ultimate reality or emptiness, particularly that of the mind itself, which represents one aspect of the Great Seal. A second aspect of the Great Seal is identified as the mind that perceives this emptiness. In addition, the root text notes that there are two versions of the teaching, one that is limited to Mahāyāna sūtra doctrine and a second that is based upon the esoteric doctrine of Highest Yoga Tantra, especially that of the Ārya Nāgārjuna system of the Guhyasamāja tradition.

The Paṇchen Lama only devotes a few lines of the root text to the tantric form of the Great Seal, describing it as “the clear light of great bliss that arises / through carrying out such skillful means / as piercing the vital points of the adamantine body” that is made up of psychic channels, vital airs, and subtle drops. The root text cites the Sevenfold Collection of Siddhi Texts and the Trilogy on the Essence as the principal Indian source texts for this instruction, and identifies Saraha, Nāgārjuna, Naropa, and Maitrīpa as its main exponents.

However, the main body of the text is limited to the sūtra form of the Great Seal, which is identified with the explicit teachings of the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtras on the topic of emptiness or the nature of ultimate reality. This material is also divided into two parts: instruction for meditating one-pointedly on the mind’s relative truth nature of clarity and awareness in order to develop quiescence and instruction on how to realize the mind’s ultimate-truth nature of emptiness. He describes the overall system as one that “pursues the view on the basis of meditation,” which means to initially pursue quiescence and, after having attained that state, to seek to gain a realization of the correct view of emptiness. This is contrasted with the more conventional approach that “pursues meditation on the basis of the view,” which means to begin by developing a correct conceptual understanding of emptiness through relying upon correct forms of reasoning and then making that understanding the meditation object for cultivating quiescence, followed by the practice of insight, and ultimately the union of quiescence and insight.

Of the next two works in this section, the first is a brief overview of the practice of quiescence, along with a description of the topic of insight according to the tenets of the Indian Middle Way and Mind Only schools, respectively, that is attributed to the sixteenth-century Sakya scholar Mangtö Ludrup Gyatso. Titled The Essence of Nectar: An Instruction Manual on the Middle Way View That Conforms to the Treatises of the Two Great Champions, the work is actually an excerpt from a larger text by Ludrup Gyatso that was selected by Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo as a concise presentation of this author’s views on the just-mentioned topics. As the title also suggests, the discussion includes citations from authoritative Indian treatises and canonical texts that support the explanations that are presented.

The last of the first four works is also devoted to the topic of correct view in that it is a treatise by Jamgön Kongtrul on the doctrine known as zhentong, or “emptiness of the other.” A somewhat brief overview of this doctrine, it is titled The Immaculate Light Rays of the Adamantine Moon: An Instruction Manual on the Great Middle Way View That Is the Emptiness of Other.

As noted above, the remaining four works in this fifth and last category of Kadam literature are principally devotional in nature. The subject matter of the first among them is explicitly described in its title: The Ocean of Auspicious Renown: A Ritual for Honoring and Making Supplication to the Lamas of the Kadampa Lineage, of Which Lord Atiśa Is the Principal Figure. The final three works are related to the protector class of deities. All three were extracted from the same collection of sādhanas and permission rituals compiled by Tāranātha that was mentioned earlier. The title of the first of these clearly indicates its topic, as well as the source text from which it was extracted: A Sādhana for the Five-Deity Form of White Jambhala together with Its Permission Ritual, Which Were Extracted from the Jewel Mine of Tutelary Deities’ Sādhana Rituals.

The final two works, also extracts from Tāranātha’s collection of rituals, are devoted to a form of the protector deity Kartarīdhara, which is a form of the protector Mahākāla. The first of the two, described as containing both a sādhana ritual and a permission ritual, is titled Destroyer of All Wickedness: A Sādhana and Permission Ritual for Protector Kartarīdhara, Defender of the Teaching. By contrast, the second work, titled A Sādhana for the Solitary-Hero Form of Kartarīdhara, together with a Method for Conferring an Oral Transmission, only contains a sādhana ritual for Kartarīdhara, along with a description of a method for conferring an oral transmission of that sādhana ritual.

The Kadam tradition did not survive as a distinct Tibetan Buddhist institution much beyond the fifteenth century c.e. All the historical lineages of its unique teaching systems that are still viable today were eventually absorbed into one or another of the four principal Tibetan schools that are active in the modern era—namely, Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu, and Geluk. Many of the original Kadam monastic seats, such as Radreng, Narthang, and Gyama Rinchen Gang, also came under the control of Geluk monastic institutions. With a series of notable exceptions, even the bulk of the writings by early Kadam figures were not readily available until the fairly recent discovery of some thirty handwritten volumes that had been in the possession of the Dalai Lama’s private library at Drepung Monastery.

It is also evident that the editors of The Treasury of Precious Instructions did not intend to provide a historical record of Kadampa literature. Only a few of the writings in volume 3 and 4 were even written by Kadam masters. The ones that were are limited to the three “root texts” that appear as the first three items in volume 3, which can be attributed to Atiśa himself, and several of the Mind Training texts that are spread out in both volumes 3 and 4. Rather, the principal aim of Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo and Jamgön Kongtrul seems to have been to bring together works associated with three distinct Kadam teachings that continue to exert a significant influence on Tibetan Buddhism and that therefore represent the main legacy of the Kadam tradition. The three teachings are addressed in the first three of the five categories of literature that were discussed above: the instruction that is most widely known today as Lamrim, or Stages of the Path, the Lojong, or Mind Training, teachings, and the esoteric practice known as the Sixteen Drops. In my estimation, this first aim was effectively achieved.

While the makeup of the first three categories of Kadam-related writings is fairly straightforward, I don’t believe the same can be said for the final two. The main purpose of these sections seems to have been twofold: to present liturgical works associated with the principal deities that were worshiped in the Kadam tradition and to include several examples of important Geluk writings by such figures as Je Tsongkhapa and the Paṇchen Lama, Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen. Regarding the devotional material, both the fourth and fifth categories contain ritual texts devoted to the principal deities worshiped by followers of the Kadam tradition. As noted above, all the rituals were extracted from an anthology of sādhanas and permission rituals compiled by Tāranātha. While the decision to include this devotional material is understandable, the same cannot be said for the choice of Je Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Elements of the Path and the Paṇchen Lama’s two Mahāmudrā works. None of these three has any direct link with the teachings propagated within the Kadam tradition. The only explicit reason that Jamgön Kongtrul provides for their inclusion is that he considers Je Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Elements of the Path to be an important example of the literature of the New Kadam tradition. While this can be interpreted as an acknowledgment that the Geluk school is something of an heir to the teachings of the original Kadam tradition, one can also easily argue that, despite this fact, neither Je Tsongkhapa’s poem nor the Paṇchen Lama’s two Mahāmudrā works have any direct link with the teachings propagated within the original Kadam tradition.

Technical Note

In Tibetan canonical references in the bibliography and notes, I have numbered the volumes of the Derge Kangyur and Tengyur editions according to the lettering system in the catalog published by the Tohoku Imperial University. In the case of the Kangyur, each of the first seven of the collection’s nine sections begins with ka—hence, volume 1—and none of the sections contains more than thirty volumes. Although the final two sections— which are dedicated to a lengthy Kālacakra commentary and a collection of dhāraṇī mantras and maṅgala (auspicious) verses, respectively—have a different lettering system, none of those works are referenced in this volume of The Treasury of Precious Instructions. The case of the Tengyur is a bit more complicated. The first section of the Tengyur, called bstod tshogs (works of praise), contains a single volume listed as volume 1, ka. The second section, rgyud (tantra), which is the largest of the entire corpus, contains sevent yeight volumes that begin with volume 1, ka, and then follows the system of adding the vowel i to the thirty Tibetan consonants for volumes 31–60 and the vowel u for volume 61 down to tshu for the final volume 78. The remainder of the collection contains 134 volumes, which are organized into fifteen sections. The first fourteen of these, which range from shes phyin (perfection of wisdom) to sna tshogs (miscellaneous works), are designated consecutively from volume 1, ka, for the first volume of the shes phyin section to volume 133, po, for the final volume of the sna tshogs section. The last section, Jo bo’i chos ’byung (teachings associated with Lord Atiśa), is made up of a single volume of 219 folios and does not seem to have a letter designation. The two Tibetan dkar chag (catalog) volumes at the end are named Lakṣmī and Śrī, respectively.