Middling Lam Rim

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Human transcription — may contain minor errors.

The Stages of the Path to Enlightenment

to be practiced by the Three Beings1

by Je Tsong kha pa lobsang dragpa (1357-1419)

(Translated by Lotsawa Ilia Durovic©)

With veneration I prostrate to the feet of the Noble Holy Ones endowed with Great Compassion.

Bhagavan, Lord of the fields bereft of fear,

Regent of the Victorious One, Dharma Lord Maitreya,

Manjushri, Sole Sire of all the Sugatas,

Nagarjuna and Asanga prophecied by the Victorious One,

Having paid obeisance with veneration, for the sake of entering forthwith

Into the Path of the Profound View and of Vast Deeds,

Yet again, concisely, I shall explain these [topics].

Herein is encapsulated the pith of all of the teachings of the Victorious One,

The traditions of the paths of the trailblazers2, Nagarjuna and Asanga,

The system of Dharma of the Supreme Being leading to the ground of Omniscience,

The complete [presentation] of all of the stages of the path to be practiced by the Three Beings,

The manner in which the fortunate, after treading the the stages of the path leading to Full Enlightenment, will be led to the Ground of Full Enlightenment, is the Dharma which will be expounded here !

Regarding that, in keeping with the explanation of the glorious scholars of Vikramashila, concerning the importance of initially :

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  1. The greatness of the author.

  2. The greatness of the Dharma

  3. How to explain that [Dharma]

as well as the three modes of explaining, instructions regarding the stages of the path are [subdivided] in four:

  1. Teaching the greatness of the author, for the sake of indicating the nobility of the origin of the Dharma [taught]4.

  2. Teaching the greatness of the Dharma, for the sake of instilling veneration for the instruction.

  3. How to listen to and teach a Dharma endowed with the two greatnesses.

  4. The stages of how to guide disciples by means of the actual instructions.

1. Teaching the greatness of the author

Although this instruction, in general, is an instruction of the Noble Maitreya’s Abhisamayalamkara, specifically, [since] the treatise here is the Bodhipathapradipa, the author thereof is also the author of this. Moreover, the great Acarya Dipamkara-shrijnana, otherwise renowned as the Glorious Atisha had those three greatnesses, viz. :

  1. The manner of what is explained as a birth of perfect caste,

  2. The manner of attaining qualities on that basis and, after attaining [them],

  3. The manner of performing deeds for the Teachings.

  1. The manner of what is explained as a birth of perfect caste

In keeping with the “Praise of the Lotsawa5”:

To the east, in the supreme land of Zahor,

Lay the vast city of Vikramanipura,

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In the center thereof, rose a vast royal palace,

Named “The one with the golden banners”,

It’s wealth, power and fortune,

To that of the Sovereign of the Tang6 akin.

The monarch of that land was Kalyanashri,

[And] the queen, Shriprabha,

The monarch and queen had three sons,

Named Padmagarbha, Chandragarbha and Shrigarbha.

Prince Padmagarbha had five queens and three sons.

The oldest Prince, Shripunya is a great scholar of the present age,

Renowned [under the name of] Dhanashri.

The benjamin, Shrigarbha,

Is the bhikshu, Viryachandra.

The middling [son], Chandragarbha,

Is the present Noble Guru !

1.2 The manner of attaining qualities on that basis

The manner of attaining qualities is [subdivided] into two sections:

1.2.1 The manner of attaining the qualities of scripture through great scholarship.

1.2.2 The manner of attaining the qualities of realization through practicing appropriately.

1.2.1 The manner of attaining the qualities of scripture through great scholarship.

At twenty-one, he had become a perfect scholar,

Through training in the ordinary Buddhist and Non-Buddhist sciences,

[As well as] the four disciplines of sculpture and logic, craftsmanship and medicine.

Specifically, Drolung pa says that, at the age of fifteen, through hearing the “Drop of Reasoning7” only once, he defeated a famed and learned non-buddhist sophist through debate. His fame spread thereby far and wide.

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Then, after requesting empowerment from Guru Rahulagupta, the Lord of the Yogis of the Temple on the Black Mountain, who had received prophecies from Vajradakini and had had a vision of the Glorious Hevajra, he was given the secret name, Jnanaguhyavajra. Upon reaching the age of twenty-nine, he had become learned in all the treatises and instructions, without exception, having trained in the Vajrayana, under the guidance of numerous Gurus who had attained realizations. When the thought:

“ Learned am I in Secret Mantra !”,

arose, his conceit was cut down when Dakinis showed him in the dream state numerous, as yet of him unseen, tantric tomes. Then, in dependence on the encouragement of Gurus and Tutelary Deities, both in the dream state and in reality, [indicating] that if he became ordained, vast benefit for both the Teachings and for numerous beings would arise, taking as Abbot the great Holder of the Vinaya, the Mahasamghika Elder, Shilarakshita, who had attained a Samadhi which engaged single-pointedly Thatness on the Path of Preparation, he received ordination and took the name, Sheri Dipamkarajnana. Then until the age of thirty-one, he trained in the higher and lower baskets of reasoning, the Buddhist path of definitions and, specifically, he attended teachings under the great Vaibhashika [master], Guru Dharmarakshita at Odantapuri.

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Having become highly knowledgeable in the treatises of the Four Root Schools,he knew the fine points of what was to be practiced and what was to be abandoned, viz. [what could be] offered and [what could be] accepted [according to] the different schools.

  1. Vol. 14 (pha) of Je Tsong ka pa’s Collected Works, in the Zhol (Lhasa) edition, pp. 11-412.↩︎

  2. Shing rta chen po↩︎

  3. Actual Tibetan page numbers in the Zhol edition are put in bold letters, in the left margin. They differ from the pagination given by Gene Smith in his outline.↩︎

  4. The actual outline of the text begins here. For the outline used in this translation, we have relied on the outline of « The Middling Stages of the Path « , found in the Zhol edition of the Collected Works of Je Tsong kha pa, Vol. 14 (pha), pp. 413-440.↩︎

  5. Composed by Nag tsho lotsawa (1011-1064) who invited Atisha to Tibet.↩︎

  6. Stung ‘khan in keeping with Stein’s interpretation.↩︎

  7. Dharmakirti’s famous Nyaya-bindu –prakarana.↩︎

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