The Principal Teachings of Buddhism
About this ebook
The entire teachings of Buddhism explained in a few short pages by the greatest Buddhist master of ancient Middle Asia.
The spread of the teaching of Gautama Buddha began in India over twothousand years ago and reached perhaps its highest peak in the hidden mountain kingdom of Tibet, five centuries before our time. The great illuminary of this renaissance of the religion of total peace was Tsongkapa (1357-1419). He inspired a movement that at its height saw nearly a million monks and nuns living in thousands of cloisters around the country.
Tsongkapa was the greatest commentator in the history of Buddhism and wrote some 10,000 pages in eloquent explanation of the entire range of the ancient Buddhist classics. He undertook the challenge of compressing all this knowledge into a single poem. The result was his famous Three Principal Paths, fourteen verses written for a favored student in a faraway land.
Tsongkapa's masterpiece appears here with a commentary by the illustrious Pabongka Rinpoche (1878-1941), generally regarded as the foremost Tibetan teacher of Buddhism during the last century. The work has been translated by Geshe Lobsang Tharchin, one of the last Buddhist masters of old Tibet. The cover shows a statue of Tsongkapa known as "Looks Like Me," named from Tsongkapa's comment at the unveiling of the image. Theoriginal stood in the great Jokang Temple of Lhasa, Tibet, and was destroyed.
About the author
TSONGKAPA (1357–1419), also known as Je Rinpoche Lobsang Drakpa, was perhaps the single greatest commentator in the 2,500-year history of Buddhism. He was born in the district of Tsongka in eastern Tibet, and took his first vows at a tender age. As a teenager he had already mastered much of the teachings of Buddhism and was sent by his tutors to the great monastic universities of central Tibet. Here he studied under the leading Buddhist scholars of his day; it is said as well that he enjoyed mystic visions in which he met and learned from different forms of the Buddha himself.
The 18 volumes of Tsongkapa’s collected works contain eloquent and incisive commentaries on virtually every major classic of ancient Buddhism, as well as his famed treatises on the “Steps of the Path to Buddhahood.” His students, who included the first Dalai Lama of Tibet, contributed hundreds of their own expositions of Buddhist philosophy and practice.
Tsongkapa founded the Great Three monasteries of Tibet, where by custom nearly 25,000 monks have studied the scriptures of Buddhism over the centuries. He also instituted the great Monlam festival, a period of religious study and celebration for the entire Tibetan nation. Tsongkapa passed away in his 62nd year, at his home monastery of Ganden in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet
KHEN RINPOCHE, GESHE LOBSANG THARCHIN (1921–2004) was born in Lhasa, and as a boy also entered the Gyalrong House of Sera Mey. He studied under both Pabongka Rinpoche and Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, and after a rigorous 25-year course in the Buddhist classics was awarded the highest rank of the geshe degree. He graduated from the Gyumey Tantric College of Lhasa in 1958 with the position of administrator. In 1959 he escaped the violence in Tibet and in 1974 became abbot of Rashi Gempil Ling, a Kalmuk Mongolian temple in New Jersey, USA. He was the founder of the Mahayana Sutra & Tantra Centers of New Jersey and Washington, D.C., and the author of numerous translations of major Buddhist texts, including Pabongka Rinpoche’s 3-volume masterpiece, Liberation in Our Hands. In 1977 he directed the development of the first computerized Tibetan word processor, and played a leading role in the re-establishment of Sera Mey Monastic College, of which he was a lifetime director. Khen Rinpoche passed away in 2004 at the age of 83.
PABONGKA RINPOCHE (1878–1941), also known as Jampa Tenzin Trinley Gyatso—or by his Diamond Way name, Dechen Nyingpo—was born into a leading family in the state of Tsang in north-central Tibet. As a boy he entered the Gyalrong House of Sera Mey, one of the colleges of the great Sera Monastic University, and attained the rank of geshe, or master of Buddhist philosophy. His powerful public teachings soon made him the leading spiritual figure of his day, and his collected works on every facet of Buddhist thought and practice comprise some 15 volumes. His most famous student was Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche (1901–1981), the junior tutor of the present Dalai Lama. Pabongka Rinpoche passed away at the age of 63 in the Hloka district of south Tibet.
GESHE MICHAEL ROACH (1952–) graduated with honors from Princeton University and received the Presidential Scholar Medallion from the president of the United States. He is the first westerner in the 600-year history of Sera Mey Tibetan Monastic University to be awarded the degree of geshe. Michael is the founder of the Asian Classics Input Project, which has digitally preserved thousands of ancient Asian books by training and equipping poor people in many countries during the past 35 years. To pay for this work, he helped found Andin International Diamond Corporation of New York, which reached US$250 million in sales and was sold to super-investor Warren Buffett in 2009. The Diamond Cutter, his international business bestseller, tells the story of how he used ancient Asian principles for success. Michael founded Diamond Cutter Institute Global for spreading this message to over 100,000 people each year, in more than 30 countries around the world.
