ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་བློ་སྦྱོང་གི་རྩ་བ།
Root Lines of Mahāyāna Mind Training
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Description
That the mind training teaching originated in a scattered oral tradition of Atiśa's instructions appears to be recognized also by the author of what is effectively the earliest history of the Kadam tradition. In his History of the Precious Kadam Tradition, Tibetan author Sonam Lhai Wangpo (fifteenth century) lists four different categories of master Atiśa's teachings: (1) those pertaining to the stages of the path, (2) scattered sayings, (3) epistles, and finally (4) the various pith instructions. Within this fourfold division, the author lists the entire collection of mind training teachings as belonging to the second class, namely scattered sayings. It is probably also for this reason that the root lines on mind training do not appear among the works attributed to Atiśa in the Tengyur. For until these scattered sayings were compiled together into a coherent text, no such work called the Root Lines on Mind Training existed. Almost all Tibetan sources agree that Langri Thangpa, and later Chekawa, were responsible for bringing the "secret" mind trainings teaching into the wider public domain.
Following the organization of the root lines on mind training into the seven key points, the Seven-Point Mind Training effectively became the root text of Atiśa's mind training teachings. (Thupten Jinpa, Mind Training: The Great Collection, 11)
| Citation | theg pa chen po'i blo sbyong gi rtsa ba [ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་བློ་སྦྱོང་གི་རྩ་བ།]. [Root Lines of Mahāyāna Mind Training]. |
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| Author | Atiśa |
