Clear Light of Bliss : The Practice of Mahamudra in Vajrayana Buddhism

by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso 

Within all of us lies a source of infinite bliss and compassion for others. The special methods explained within Tantric Buddhism enable us to discover this bliss for ourselves.
The contemporary Tantric master, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, explains step-by-step how we can generate a deeply peaceful and concentrated mind by harnessing the subtle energy system within our own body. With this blissful awareness we can uncover our true nature, destroy ignorance and suffering at its root, and swiftly become a source of inspiration and benefit for others.

"A source of great happiness and immeasurable benefit to the beings of this world."  —Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, Tibetan Buddhist master

About the Author

Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso is a fully accomplished meditation master and internationally renowned teacher of Buddhism who has pioneered the introduction of modern Buddhism into contemporary society. He is the author of 22 highly acclaimed books that transmit perfectly the ancient wisdom of Buddhism to our modern world. He has also founded over 1200 Kadampa Buddhist Centers and groups throughout the world.

In his teachings, Geshe Kelsang emphasizes the importance of meditation and how to apply it in daily life. He reveals practical methods for developing wisdom, cultivating a good heart and maintaining a peaceful mind through which we can all find true and lasting happiness. Demonstrating these qualities perfectly in his own life, Geshe Kelsang has dedicated his whole life to helping others find inner peace and happiness.

The Abhisamayalamkara summarizes all the topics in the vast body of the prajñaparamita sutras. Resembling a zip-file, it comes to life only through its Indian and Tibetan commentaries. Together, these texts not only discuss the "hidden meaning" of the prajñaparamita sutras—the paths and bhumis of sravakas, pratyekabuddhas, and bodhisattvas—but also serve as contemplative manuals for the explicit topic of these sutras—emptiness—and how it is to be understood on the progressive levels of realization of bodhisattvas. Thus these texts describe what happens in the mind of a bodhisattva who meditates on emptiness, making it a living experience from the beginner's stage up through buddhahood. 

Groundless Paths contains the first in-depth study of the Abhisamayalamkara (the text studied most extensively in higher Tibetan Buddhist education) and its commentaries from the perspective of the Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism. This study consists mainly of translations of Maitreya's famous text and two commentaries on it by Patrul Rinpoche. These are supplemented by three short texts on the paths and bhumis by the same author, as well as extensive excerpts from commentaries by six other Nyingma masters, including Mipham Rinpoche. Thus this book helps close a long-standing gap in the modern scholarship on the prajñaparamita sutras and the literature on paths and bhumis in mahayana Buddhism. 

Arya Maitreya's Ornament of Clear Realization, with its Indian and Tibetan commentaries, presents the complex dynamics of the path to liberation as a succession of realizations of the empty nature of all phenomena. This presentation is a powerful antidote to whatever two-dimensional views we might hold about spiritual experience and the journey to enlightenment.

"A comprehensive and rich teaching that combines skillful instruction and scholarly knowledge. Minding Closely draws on wisdom from both Theravada and Vajrayana traditions to offer a systematic and practical approach to liberation through mindfulness."—Jack Kornfield, author of The Wise Heart 

Bringing his experience as a monk, scientist, and contemplative, Alan Wallace offers a rich synthesis of Eastern and Western traditions along with a comprehensive range of meditation practices interwoven throughout the text. The guided meditations are systematically presented, beginning with very basic instructions, which are then gradually built upon as one gains increasing familiarity with the practice.

"Its ingenious structure combines theoretical and philosophical discussions with guided meditations, leading readers simultaneously into deeper understandings and experiences of mindfulness. Wallace's writing is clear and often informal, providing readers with personal insights and reflections from an experienced meditator who is also a scholar. An impressive feature of this volume is that it allows those with little prior exposure to Buddhism to gain a solid introduction to numerous core Buddhist concepts and terms without the process seeming arduous. As a popular introduction to Buddhist traditions of mindfulness, this volume is superb and useful as background reading for any student of Buddhism. The exercises are especially valuable."—Choice  

About the Author

B. Alan Wallace has authored, translated, edited, and contributed to more than forty books on Tibetan Buddhism, science, and culture. With fourteen years as a Buddhist monk, he earned a BA in physics and the philosophy of science and then a PhD in religious studies. After teaching in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, he founded the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies to explore the integration of scientific approaches and contemplative methods.

Maitreya’s Distinction between Phenomena and the Nature of Phenomena distinguishes the illusory phenomenal world of saṃsāra produced by the confused dualistic mind from the ultimate reality that is mind’s true nature. The transition from the one to the other is the process of “mining for wisdom within delusion.” Maitreya’s text calls this “the fundamental change,” which refers to the vanishing of delusive appearances through practicing the path, thus revealing the underlying changeless nature of these appearances. In this context, the main part of the text consists of the most detailed explanation of nonconceptual wisdom—the primary driving force of the path as well as its ultimate result—in Buddhist literature. 

The introduction of the book discusses these two topics (fundamental change and nonconceptual wisdom) at length and shows how they are treated in a number of other Buddhist scriptures. The three translated commentaries, by Vasubandhu, the Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje, and Gö Lotsāwa, as well as excerpts from all other available commentaries on Maitreya’s text, put it in the larger context of the Indian Yogācāra School and further clarify its main themes. They also show how this text is not a mere scholarly document, but an essential foundation for practicing both the sūtrayāna and the vajrayāna and thus making what it describes a living experience. The book also discusses the remaining four of the five works of Maitreya, their transmission from India to Tibet, and various views about them in the Tibetan tradition.

Review

“Mining for Wisdom within Delusion provides us with a much-needed comprehensive treatment of Maitreya’s text, something that both scholars and meditators will find illuminating. Karl Brunnhölzl’s adept translation, annotations, and introduction add layers of richness that always bring us back to the basic point: wisdom is discovered within delusion.”—Elizabeth Callahan, translator of The Treasury of Knowledge, Book Six, Part Three: Frameworks of Buddhist Philosophy 

“Once again Tsadra and Karl Brunnhölzl have given us access to a classic of Buddhist Mahayana, so important in recognizing the true nature of reality. This classic will guide the scholar and the practitioner alike in discovering the nonconceptual wisdom within delusion. This is a monumental work.”—Judith Simmer-Brown, Ph.D., Professor of Religious Studies, Naropa University

“While scholars will delight in this rich banquet of information, all practitioners who wonder how it works that their meditation bears fruit as the dawning of ‘nonconceptual wisdom,’ what it actually is that undergoes the ‘fundamental change,’ and how that process unfolds will definitely find overwhelming insight in this book.”—Susanne Schefczyk, translator and editor of Everyday Consciousness and Primordial Awareness 

“There is no doubt that everything a scholar or a practitioner needs to know on this subject is here, and that Karl Brunnhölzl is the reigning expert and right person to have written it. If anything at all was left out, we don’t need to know it.”—Sarah Harding, translator of Machik’s Complete Explanation

About the Author

Karl Brunnhölzl, MD, was trained as a physician and also studied Tibetology. He received his systematic training in Tibetan language and Buddhist philosophy and practice at the Marpa Institute for Translators, founded by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche. Since 1989 he has been a translator and interpreter from Tibetan and English. He is presently involved with the Nitartha Institute as a teacher and translator.

A new translation of the primary Indian Buddhist text on buddha nature, with Tibetan commentaries explaining how this text can be used to contemplate and realize one's own buddha nature.

"Buddha nature" (tathāgatagarbha) is the innate potential in all living beings to become a fully awakened buddha. This book discusses a wide range of topics connected with the notion of buddha nature as presented in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and includes an overview of the sūtra sources of the tathāgatagarbha teachings and the different ways of explaining the meaning of this term. It includes new translations of the Maitreya treatise Mahāyānottaratantra (Ratnagotravibhāga), the primary Indian text on the subject, its Indian commentaries, and two (hitherto untranslated) commentaries from the Tibetan Kagyü tradition. Most important, the translator’s introduction investigates in detail the meditative tradition of using the Mahāyānottaratantra as a basis for Mahāmudrā instructions and the Shentong approach. This is supplemented by translations of a number of short Tibetan meditation manuals from the Kadampa, Kagyü, and Jonang schools that use the Mahāyānottaratantra as a work to contemplate and realize one’s own buddha nature.

About the Author

KARL BRUNNHÖLZL was trained as a physician and presently works as a Tibetan translator and Buddhist teacher. He studied Tibetology, Buddhology, and Sanskrit at Hamburg University and Tibetan language and Buddhist philosophy and practice at the Marpa Institute for Translators in Kathmandu. Currently he works as a translator and interpreter for the Tsadra Foundation, Nalandabodhi, and the Nitartha Institute. In 2009 he was appointed as the first Western khenpo (abbot in the Kagyü and Nyingma lineages) by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche.