Meditation on the Nature of Mind

46 Pages·2011·1.66 MB·English

by  Tenzin Gyatso

Meditation Nature Mind Cover:Layout 1 4/21/11 10:38 AM Page 1
BUDDHISM m
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“Weallhavethesamehumanmind—eachandeveryoneofushas
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thesamepotential.Oursurroundingsandsoforthareimportant,
i
butthenatureofminditselfismoreimportant… t
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Toliveahappyandjoyfullife,wemusttakecareofourminds.”
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—HISHOLINESSTHEDALAILAMA i
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A o
MEDITATION
ttheheartofthisbookisTheWish-FulfillingJewelofthe
n
OralTradition,anaccessibleandnonsectariantreatiseon
penetratingthenatureofmindbyKhöntönPeljor t
Lhündrub,ateacheroftheFifthDalaiLama.HisHolinessthe h
FourteenthDalaiLama’sbroad-rangingoverviewofthiswork e
insightfullydistillssomeofthemostcentralthemesofBuddhism: n on the nature of mind
whythemindissoessentialtothetradition,whatdistinguishes a
thelevelsofconsciousness,andhowdifferentschoolsofTibetan t
Buddhismelaboratethosedistinctions.Profoundanderudite, u
itbringsthereaderclosertoafreshanddirectexperienceof r
e
Buddhism’scentraltruths.
o
Alongwithhislucidtranslations,JoséCabezónprovidesan f
introductiontotheroottextandpresentationsofthelifeand
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worksofKhöntönRinpoché,allrichlyannotated.
i
n
TENZIN GYATSO,theFourteenthDalaiLama,isthespiritualand d
temporalleaderoftheTibetanpeopleandarecipientoftheNobel
PeacePrize.Heisreveredworldwideforhisleadershipinfostering
harmonyamongreligioustraditionsandinbridgingthedivide
betweenscienceandspirituality.
t the dalai lama
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JOSÉ IGNACIO CABEZÓNisXIVDalaiLamaProfessorofTibetan e
BuddhismandCulturalStudiesandChairoftheReligiousStudies d
DepartmentattheUniversityofCalifornia,SantaBarbara. a khöntön peljor lhündrub
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l josé ignacio cabezón
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Meditation on the Nature of Mind
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M e d i t at i o n o n t h e
N at u r e o f M i n d
Tenzin Gyatso
The Fourteenth Dalai Lama
Khöntön Peljor Lhündrub
&
José Ignacio Cabezón
Wisdom Publications • Boston
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Wisdom Publications
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© 2011 His Holiness the Dalai Lama and José Ignacio Cabezón
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bstan-’dzin-rgya-mtsho, Dalai Lama XIV, 1935–
Meditation on the nature of mind / Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Khöntön Peljor
Lhündrub & José Ignacio Cabezón.
p. cm.
Includes translation of The wish-fulfilling jewel of the oral tradition.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-86171-628-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Consciousness—Religious aspects—Buddhism. 2. Meditation—Buddhism. 3. Buddhism—
Doctrines. 4. ’Khon-ston Dpal-’byor Lhun-grub, 1561–1637. I. Cabezón, José Ignacio, 1956– II.
’Khon-ston Dpal-’byor Lhun-grub, 1561–1637. Sñan rgyud yid bzin nor bu lta ba spyi khyab tu no
sprod pa’i khrid yig. English. III. Title.
BQ7935.B774M43 2011
294.3’442—dc22
2011007536
ISBN 978-0-86171-628-9
eBook ISBN: 978-0-86171-629-6
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Contents
Preface vii
The Nature of Mind
His Holiness the Dalai Lama 1
The Life of Khöntön Peljor Lhündrub
José Ignacio Cabezón 33
Introduction to Khöntön Peljor Lhündrub’s

Wish-Fulfilling Jewel of the Oral Tradition
José Ignacio Cabezón 49
The Wish-Fulfilling Jewel of the Oral Tradition:
Instructions on Identifying the Shared View of Reality
Khöntön Peljor Lhündrub 61
Appendix I: The Works of Khöntön Peljor Lhündrub 141
Appendix II: The Incarnation Lineage of Khöntön Rinpoché 145
Notes 149
Bibliography 193
Index 203
About the Authors 213
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Preface
In 2007, while reading through a collection of Tibetan texts pub-
lished two years earlier in eastern Tibet, I came across a short medi-
tation text on the nature of mind,
The Wish-Fulfilling Jewel of the Oral
, written by the Tibetan scholar Khöntön Peljor Lhündrub
Tradition
(1561–1637), or Khöntönpa. The work piqued my interest for a num-
ber of reasons: clearly written, it manages to combine both theory
and practical instructions for meditating on the nature of mind in a
manner that is easily accessible. Especially interesting was the non-
sectarian approach it took in regard to its subject matter, with liberal
citations of scholars from across the Tibetan Buddhist spectrum.
One other thing made the text intriguing to me personally: it was
written by the fifteenth abbot of Sera Monastery’s Jé College, at
which I had lived and studied as a monk for six years in the 1980s.
In the summer of 2008, I briefly met His Holiness the Dalai Lama
during his visit to Pennsylvania, and as the organizer for his upcom-
ing visit to the University of California Santa Barbara, I requested
him to lecture on Khöntön Rinpoché’s text. His Holiness replied
that he knew the text, but that his schedule did not permit him to give
a detailed commentary on the work. Instead, he agreed to offer some
general remarks that would contextualize Khöntönpa’s text within
the broader field of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist thought. This became
the subject of His Holiness’s first lecture at UCSB on the morning
vii
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viii
Preface
of April 24, 2009, a lecture entitled “The Nature of Mind.” His
Holiness’s broad-ranging overview of this important topic consti-
tutes the first part of this book. The lecture insightfully distills some
of the most central themes of Buddhism: why the mind is so essen-
tial to the tradition, how science and traditional Buddhist learning
can benefit from mutual interaction, what distinguishes subtle and
grosser levels of consciousness, how the different schools of Tibetan
Buddhism elaborate such a distinction, and how all of these schools
have a common source in the scholarly tradition of Nalanda Mon-
astery, the greatest Buddhist university of ancient India. His Holi-
ness’s teaching was profound and erudite, both in scope and detail,
and I am grateful to him for allowing its publication in this book.
The rest of this volume is devoted to Khöntön Peljor Lhün-
drub and to what is arguably his most important extant work,
The
. As little has been written in Western languages
Wish-Fulfilling Jewel
about Khöntön Rinpoché, I have composed a short biography of
this interesting figure. The biography is based on the few Tibetan
sources on Khöntön Rinpoché’s life available to us, chiefly the bio-
graphy written by his most famous student, the Fifth Dalai Lama.
An annotated translation of follows the bio-
The Wish-Fulfilling Jewel
graphy. I have tried to make the translation as accessible as possible,
rendering Tibetan names and terms in phonetics (rather than in the
more difficult Wylie transliteration scheme) and avoiding the use
of Sanskrit diacritical marks in the main body of the translation.
Full Wylie transliteration, references to the Indian and Tibetan
sources cited by Khöntönpa, and discussions of a more scholarly
nature have been relegated to the notes.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s 2009 visit to the campus of the
University of California Santa Barbara was his fourth visit here, and
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