A Lamp to Illuminate the Five Stages : Teachings on Guhyasamaja Tantra (eBook)

Tsongkhapa’s Lamp is one of the most comprehensive and detailed presentations of the highest yoga class of Vajrayana Buddhism, especially the key practices in the advanced phase of Guyhasamaja tantra. Tsongkhapa draws extensively from Indian sources, especially the writings of Nagarjuna, Aryadeva, Candrakirti, and Naropa, to systematize this quintessential practice of Buddhist esoterism. Traditionally the work belongs to a class of “hidden texts” that are to be read only by those who have received initiations. Of the two stages of generation and completion, this volume focuses on the latter stage. In the generation stage, meditators visualize the Buddha in the form of the deity Guhyasamaja residing in a mandala palace. In the completion stage, meditators transcend ordinary consciousness and actualize the state of a buddha themselves. In tantra, this is achieved through manipulation of a subtle physiology of internal winds, or pra?a, and the channels they run through, and the highest realization occurs when the wind energies dissolve in the central channel at the heart chakra. For on the winds ride the consciousness, like a rider on a horse, and this dissolution initiates a dissolution of ordinary conceptuality and the dawning of the intrinsic nature of the mind, which is empty and luminous. Other topics, such as the Buddhist understanding of the process of death and dying, the intermediate state of existence, and rebirth, as well as complex theories of human psychology—such as the scope and dynamic of the emotions, dream states, and near-death experiences—are also addressed in detail in this work. This work was Tsongkhapa’s last major composition, completed in 1419, the year of his death.

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Tsongkhapa's A Lamp to Illuminate the Five Stages (1419) is a comprehensive presentation of the highest yoga class of Buddhist tantra, especially the key practices - the so-called five stages (pancakrama) - of the advanced phase of Guhyasamaja tantra. Beginning with a thorough examination of the Indian sources, Tsongkhapa draws particularly from the writings of Nagarjuna, Aryadeva, Candrakirti, and Naropa to develop a definitive understanding of the Vajrayana completion stage. Whereas in the generation stage, meditators visualize the Buddha in the form of the deity residing in a mandala palace, in the completion stage discussed in the present volume, meditators transcend ordinary consciousness and actualize the state of a buddha themselves. Among other things, Tsongkhapa's work covers the subtle human physiology of channels and winds along with the process of dying, the bardo, and rebirth. This definitive statement on Guhyasamaja tantra profoundly affected the course of Buddhist practice in Tibet.