Selected Works of the Dalai Lama III

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Selected Works of the Dalai Lama III: Essence of Refined Gold

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Descriptionངོ་སྤྲོད།

The Third Dalai Lama's famous work Essence of Refined Gold is a powerful exposition on Atisha's A Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment, the basis of Lam-rim teaching.

Continuing this living tradition to the present day, Tenzin Gyatso, the present Dalai Lama, provides an extensive "commentary to the meaning" of Essence of Refined Gold, drawn from his own penetrating experience. The discourse, which comprises the main body of this text alternates between personal reflections, direct spiritual advice and scriptural quotations. He presents the spirit of the Third Dalai Lama's brief work with an amazing ease and fluidity that is accessible to all.

Also included in this volume is the Lam-rim Preliminary Rite, a beautiful guide to the Avalokiteshvara tantric methods entitled The Tantric Yogas of the Bodhisattva of Compassion and several verse works. A traditional biography: of the Third Dalai Lama by Tse-chok Ling Gyal-tsen is given as an appendix. (Source: back cover)

Citation

Mullin, Glenn H. Selected Works of the Dalai Lama III: Essence of Refined Gold. Teachings of the Dalai Lama Vol III. Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, 1985.

Table of contents

• Publisher's Note6
• Acknowledgements8
• Preface10
• Foreword11
• Introduction13
• Part I. Essence of Refined Gold
  • One: The Nature of the Instruction32
  • Two: Three Scopes of Practice51
  • Three: Where the Guru and Disciple Meet59
  • Four: The Human Situation81
  • Five: Three Levels of Spiritual Application87
  • Six: Death and the Lower Realms92
  • Seven: Seeking a Place of Refuge101
  • Eight: The Laws of Karmic Evolution109
  • Nine: Hinayana Realism123
  • Ten: Generating The Bodhisattva Spirit136
  • Eleven: Practice of the General Mahayana153
  • Twelve: Vajrayana, the Esoteric Mahayana169
  • Thirteen: A Summary of the Path177
• Part II. A Lam-rim Preliminary Rite188
• Part III. The Tantric Yogas of the Bodhisattva of Compassion204
• Part IV. Five Poems213
• Appendix I. Biography of the Third Dalai Lama221
• Appendix II. A Biographical Sketch of the Fourteen Dalai Lamas241
• Notes250
• Bibliography256
• Glossary259
• Index266

Interconnections

Works related to this item

1 Full translation of

byang chub lam gyi rim pa'i khrid gser gyi yang zhun [བྱང་ཆུབ་ལམ་གྱི་རིམ་པའི་ཁྲིད་གསེར་གྱི་ཡང་ཞུན།]. [Essence of Refined Gold].བྱང་ཆུབ་ལམ་གྱི་རིམ་པའི་ཁྲིད་གསེར་གྱི་ཡང་ཞུན།

Classical WorksAbout this item

Essence of Refined Gold is one of the Third Dalai Lama's most popular written works. It extracts the heart of Lama Tsongkhapa's Great Exposition of the Stages on the Spiritual Path. Although brief, it summarizes the meaning of all Buddha's teachings and is easily put into practice. (Source: The Path to Enlightenment, preface)

1 Other editions

Dalai Lama, 3rd, Dalai Lama, 2nd, Dalai Lama, 7th. Essence of Refined Gold by the Third Dalai Lama with Related Texts by the Second and Seventh Dalai Lama. Translated by Glenn H. Mullin. Dharamsala: Tushita Books, 1978.

Books1978About this item

Essence of Refined Gold is among the Third Dalai Lama Gyalwa Sonam Gyatso's most widely read works. Drawing out the essential meaning of Lama Tsongkhapa's Great Exposition of the Stages of the Path, the text is valued for its concise summary of the Buddha's teachings in a form readily applicable to practice. This volume presents Glenn H. Mullin's translation of the root text together with a commentary compiled from a discourse on the text delivered by His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.

Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

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