Steps on the Path to Enlightenment
A Commentary on Tsongkhapa's Lamrim Chenmo. Volume 5: Insight
1st Edition
Published on 12. December 2017
721 pages
978-1-61429-334-7 (ISBN)
Description
The final installment of the Steps on the Path to Enlightenment series examines the nature of reality with a master class in Buddhist Middle Way philosophy and meditation.
The late Geshe Sopa was a refugee monk from Tibet sent to the United States by the Dalai Lama in 1963. He became a professor at the University of Wisconsin, training a generation of Western Buddhist scholars, and was a towering figure in the transmission of the Buddhism to the West. In this fifth and final volume of his commentary on Lama Tsongkhapa's masterwork on the graduated steps of the Buddhist path, Geshe Sopa explains the practice of superior insight, or wisdom, the pinnacle of the bodhisattva's perfections. All the Buddhist practices are for the purpose of developing wisdom, for it is wisdom that liberates from the cycle of suffering. All other positive actions, from morality to deep states of meditation, have no power to liberate unless they are accompanied by insight into the nature of reality. With unparalled precision, Geshe Sopa unpacks this central principle with scholarly virtuosity, guiding the reader through the progressive stages of realization.
The late Geshe Sopa was a refugee monk from Tibet sent to the United States by the Dalai Lama in 1963. He became a professor at the University of Wisconsin, training a generation of Western Buddhist scholars, and was a towering figure in the transmission of the Buddhism to the West. In this fifth and final volume of his commentary on Lama Tsongkhapa's masterwork on the graduated steps of the Buddhist path, Geshe Sopa explains the practice of superior insight, or wisdom, the pinnacle of the bodhisattva's perfections. All the Buddhist practices are for the purpose of developing wisdom, for it is wisdom that liberates from the cycle of suffering. All other positive actions, from morality to deep states of meditation, have no power to liberate unless they are accompanied by insight into the nature of reality. With unparalled precision, Geshe Sopa unpacks this central principle with scholarly virtuosity, guiding the reader through the progressive stages of realization.
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Geshe Lhundub Sopa | Dechen Rochard
The Steps on the Path to Enlightenment
A Commentary on Tsongkhapa's Lamrim Chenmo. Volume 5: Insight
Book
01/2018
Wisdom Publications,U.S.
€37.50
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Person
Born in the Tsang region of Tibet in 1923, Geshe Lhundub Sopa was both a spiritual master and a respected academic. He rose from a humble background to complete his geshe studies at Sera Je Monastic University in Lhasa with highest honors and was privileged to serve as a debate opponent for the Dalai Lama's own geshe examination in 1959. He moved to New Jersey in the United States in 1963 and in 1967 began teaching in the Buddhist Studies program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1975 he founded the Deer Park Buddhist Center in Oregon, Wisconsin, site of the Dalai Lama's first Kalachakra initiation granted in the West. He was the author of several books in English, including the five-volume comprehensive teaching Steps on the Path to Enlightenment. Geshe Lhundub Sopa passed away on August 28, 2014, at the age of 91. His Holiness the Dalai Lama composed a prayer of request for the swift return of Geshe Sopa.
Dechen Rochard has a BA in philosophy from the University of London and a PhD in Buddhist philosophy from the University of Cambridge. She also completed the first ten years of the geshe degree program at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Dharamsala, India, including the study of Madhyamaka. She is currently translating texts for The Gaden Phodrang Foundation and is a fellow of the Dalai Lama Centre for Compassion (Oxford) and an honorary fellow of the University of Bristol.
Dechen Rochard has a BA in philosophy from the University of London and a PhD in Buddhist philosophy from the University of Cambridge. She also completed the first ten years of the geshe degree program at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Dharamsala, India, including the study of Madhyamaka. She is currently translating texts for The Gaden Phodrang Foundation and is a fellow of the Dalai Lama Centre for Compassion (Oxford) and an honorary fellow of the University of Bristol.
Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- Contents
- Foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama
- Editor's Preface
- Technical Note
- Introduction
- 1 Why Insight Is Needed
- 2 Relying on Definitive Sources
- 3 The Stages of Entering into Reality
- 4 Misidentifying the Object to Be Negated
- 5 Dependent Arising and Emptiness
- 6 Rational Analysis
- 7 Valid Establishment
- 8 Conventional Existence
- 9 Production Is Not Negated
- 10 Not Negating Enough
- 11 The Actual Object to Be Negated
- 12 Qualifying the Object of Negation
- 13 Misinterpretations of the Svatantrika/Prasa?gika Distinction
- 14 Refuting Misinterpretations of the Svatantrika/Prasa?gika Distinction
- 15 Our Interpretation of the Svatantrika/Prasa?gika Distinction
- 16 Our Critique of Svatantrika Does Not Hurt Our Own Arguments
- 17 Analyzing a Chariot
- 18 The Person Lacks Inherent Nature
- 19 The Person Appears Like an Illusion
- 20 Objects Lack Inherent Nature
- 21 Eliminating Obstructions
- 22 Insight Requires Analysis
- 23 Cultivating Insight in Meditation
- 24 Uniting Samatha and Vipasyana
- 25 Summary and Conclusion
- Appendix: Outline of the Text
- Glossary
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Also Available from Wisdom Publications by Geshe Lhundub Sopa
- About Wisdom Publications
- Copyright
