Recent Essays/Post-51

Kyotön Monlam Tsultrim's Instructions on the Path to Reality

[[ |300px|thumb| ]] Among the collection of short texts by the Narthang hierarch Kyotön Monlam Tsultrim recently revealed from the Drepung library is the Instructions on the Path to Reality (ཆོས་ཉིད་ཀྱི་ལམ་ཁྲིད།). The text claims to highlight the intent of Maitreya and does so by blending the main topics of the Ratnagotravibhāga and the Dharmadharmatāvibhāga. It discusses the four topics of the basis for the spiritual path, the manner of confusion in the cycle of existence, the cultivation of the path, and the actualization of buddhahood. Under the first topic, it presents buddha-nature, or the spiritual gene (རིགས་), as the luminous nature of the mind and as the cause for spiritual awakening. The text also gives the categories of beings with or without a functional spiritual gene.

Under the second topic, Kyotön uses the structure in Maitreya's Dharmadharmatāvibhāga to discuss how the cycle of existence is the work of conceptual fabrication. He then discusses the path to buddhahood and ends with the fourth main topic of how the pristine wisdom of the Buddha shines forth by explaining the different enlightened bodies.

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