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Practicing the Path: A Commentary on the Lamrim Chenmo

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Descriptionངོ་སྤྲོད།

The Lamrim Chenmo, or Great Treatise on the Steps of the Path, by Je Tsongkhapa is a comprehensive overview of the process of individual enlightenment. Meditation on these steps has been a core practice of Tibetan Buddhists for centuries. The Lamrim Chenmo presents the Buddha’s teachings along a continuum of three spiritual attitudes: the person who worries about rebirth, the person who wants to escape rebirth, and finally the person who strives for buddhahood in order to relieve the suffering of all beings—this is the supreme aspiration of the bodhisattva.

This book is composed of teachings from Yangsi Rinpoche's commentary on Lama Tsongkhapa's Lamrin Chenmo given Feburary-April, 2000 at Tushita Meditation Center in Dharamsala, India. (Source: Wisdom Publications)

Citation

Yangsi Rinpoche. Practicing the Path: A Commentary on the Lamrim Chenmo. Translated by Tsering Tuladhar. Edited by Miranda Adams. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003.

Publisher Link

https://wisdomexperience.org/product/practicing-path/

Table of contents

• Foreword by Geshe Lhundub Sopavii
• Editor's Preface vi
• Preface by Lama Zopa Rinpochexiii

• Part 1: Introduction to the Lamrim
  • Introduction to the Text3
  • The Excellent Qualities of the Author15
  • The Greatness of the Dharma23
  • How to Teach and Listen to the Dharma29

• Part 2: The Foundation of Practicing the Lamrim
  • Relying on the Spiritual Teacher 41
  • The Meditation Practice 63
  • Precious Human Rebirth81

• Part 3: The Small Scope
  • Remembering Death and Impermanence103
  • Contemplating the Suffering and Happiness of Future Lives 117
  • The Method to Attain Happiness in Future Lives 125
  • The Law of Cause and Effect155

• Part 4: The Medium Scope
  • Recognizing and Generating the Wish for Liberation 195
  • The Nature of the Path to Liberation247

• Part 5: The Great Scope
  • How Bodhichitta is the Doorway to Practicing the Great Vehicle 273
  • The Manner of Generating Bodhichitta Mind289
  • After Generating Bodhichitta, the Manner of Training in the Conduct of a Bodhisattva 353
  • Calming the Mind395
  • The Final Perfection419

• Part 6: Conclusion

• Dedication by Lama Zopa Rinpoche 486
• Appendix: Outline of the Text489
• Notes499
• Glossary of Tibetan Names and Terms 503
• Bibliography of Principal Sources 511
• Index521

• Note: A comprehensive outline of the commentary with page references can be found on pages 489–97.

Interconnections

Works related to this item

1 Teaching based on

Tsong kha pa (ཙོང་ཁ་པ་). lam rim chen mo [ལམ་རིམ་ཆེན་མོ།]. [The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment].ལམ་རིམ་ཆེན་མོ།

Classical WorksAbout this item

Lam rim chen mo. In Tibetan, "Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path"; the abbreviated title for one of the best-known works on Buddhist thought and practice in Tibet, composed by the Tibetan luminary Tsong khapa Blo bzang Grags pa in 1402 at the central Tibetan monastery of Rwa sgreng. A lengthy treatise belonging to the lam rim, or stages of the path, genre of Tibetan Buddhist literature, the Lam rim chen mo takes its inspiration from numerous earlier writings, most notably the Bodhipathapradīpa ("Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment") by the eleventh-century Bengali master Atiśa Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna. It is the most extensive treatment of three principal stages that Tsong kha pa composed. The others include (1) the Lam rim chung ba ("Short Treatise on the Stages of the Path"), also called the Lam rim 'bring ba ('"Intermediate Treatise on the States of the Path") and (2) the Lam rim bsdus don ("Concise Meaning of the Stages of the Path"), occasionally also referred to as the Lam rim chung ngu ("Brief Stages of the Path"). The latter text, which records Tsong kha pa's own realization of the path in verse form, is also referred to as the Lam rim nyams mgur ma ("Song of Experience of the Stages of the Path"). The Lam rim chen mo is a highly detailed and often technical treatise presenting a comprehensive and synthetic overview of the path to buddhahood. It draws, often at length, upon a wide range of scriptural sources including the Sūtra and śāstra literature of both the hīnayāna and Mahāyāna; Tsong kha pa treats tantric practice in a separate work. The text is organized under the rubric of the three levels of spiritual predilection, personified as "the three individuals" (skyes bu gsum): the beings of small capacity, who engage in religious practice in order to gain a favorable rebirth in their next lifetime; the beings of intermediate capacity, who seek liberation from rebirth for themselves as an arhat; and the beings of great capacity, who seek to liberate all beings in the universe from suffering and thus follow the bodhisattva path to buddhahood. Tsong kha pa's text does not lay out all the practices of these three types of persons but rather those practices essential to the bodhisattva path that are held in common by persons of small and intermediate capacity, such as the practice of refuge (śaraṇa) and contemplation of the uncertainty of the time of death. The text includes extended discussions of topics such as relying on a spiritual master, the development of bodhicitta, and the six perfections (pāramitā). The last section of the text, sometimes regarded as a separate work, deals at length with the nature of serenity (śamatha) and insight (vipaśyanā); Tsong kha pa's discussion of insight here represents one of his most important expositions of emptiness (śūnyatā). Primarily devoted to exoteric Mahāyāna doctrine, the text concludes with a brief reference to Vajrayāna and the practice of tantra, a subject discussed at length by Tsong kha pa in a separate work, the Sngags rim chen mo ("Stages of the Path of Mantra"). The Lam rim chen mo's full title is Skyes bu gsum gyi rnyams su blang ba'i rim pa thams cad tshang bar ston pa'i byang chub lam gyi rim pa. (Source: "Lam rim chen mo." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 465-66. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)

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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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  

Go to the page with the definition of 'bodhisattva'

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  

Go to the page with the definition of 'Bodhisattva'

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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Atīśa Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna (slob dpon chen po dpal mar me mdzad ye shes). Bodhipathapradīpa [बोधिपथप्रदीप]. byang chub lam gyi sgron ma [བྱང་ཆུབ་ལམ་གྱི་སྒྲོན་མ།]. [A Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment]. Tengyur, RKTST 3288 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=3288&typ=2.

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Sūtra - Sūtras mainly refer to the discourses delivered by the Buddha and his disciples, and the Sūtra corpus is one of the three main sets of teachings which form the Buddhist canon. Skt सूत्र  Tib མདོ།  Ch 佛经  

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Hīnayāna - The mainstream teachings and the early schools of Buddhism which primarily taught individual liberation through practice-focused renunciation and monasticism, considered lesser than the later movement of the Greater Vehicle (Mahāyāna), which professed enlightenment for all sentient beings and promoted compassion. Skt हीनयान  Tib ཐེག་དམན།  Ch 小乘  

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Mahāyāna - Mahāyāna, or the Great Vehicle, refers to the system of Buddhist thought and practice which developed around the beginning of the Common Era, focusing on the pursuit of the state of full enlightenment of the Buddha through the realization of the wisdom of emptiness and the cultivation of compassion. Skt महायान  Tib ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ།  Ch 大乘  

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Arhat - A person who has reached nirvāṇa by eliminating the three poisons of attachment, hatred and ignorance having followed the path of seeking individual liberation as a Śrāvaka or a Pratyekabuddha. An arhat, thus, is a person who has overcome the cause of rebirth in the cycle of existence and will not take an ordinary birth again. Skt अर्हत्  Tib དགྲ་བཅོམ་པ།  Ch 阿羅漢  

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Śaraṇagamana - Skt शरणगमन  Tib སྐྱབས་འགྲོ་  Ch 皈依  

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Bodhicitta - The altruistic thought to seek enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. It is said to have two aspects: compassion aimed at sentient beings and their problems and the wisdom of enlightenment as the solution. Skt बोधिचित्त  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས།  Ch 菩提心  

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Pāramitā - The six or ten types of practices which lead an individual to Buddhahood. The practice of perfections is particularly important in Mahāyāna Buddhism in which the entire path of the Bodhisattva to reach full enlightenment is included in the six or ten perfections. The six perfections are that of giving, of discipline, patience, zeal, meditation, and wisdom. The perfection of skill-in-means, aspirations, power, and pristine wisdom are added to them to make ten perfections. Skt पारमिता  Tib ཕར་ཕྱིན།;ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པ།  Ch 波羅蜜  

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Śūnyatā - The state of being empty of an innate nature due to a lack of independently existing characteristics. Skt शून्यता  Tib སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་  Ch 空;空門  

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Śūnyatā - The state of being empty of an innate nature due to a lack of independently existing characteristics. Skt शून्यता  Tib སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་  Ch 空;空門  

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Vajrayāna - The esoteric Buddhist tradition which developed as a syncretic system involving deity worship, use of mantras, physical energy, and mystical practices. It is also known as the mantra tradition and the tantric school as a result of being based on texts known as tantras. Skt वज्रयान  Tib རྡོ་རྗེ་ཐེག་པ།  Ch 金剛乘  

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Tantra - Tantra, when juxtaposed with Sūtra, generally refers to the scriptures and texts which discuss esoteric topics. While the term is used to refer to texts on other topics, it is mostly used to refer to the genre of scriptures and texts on themes and topics associated with Vajrayāna Buddhism. Skt तन्त्र  Tib རྒྱུད།  Ch 密宗  

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