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The Essence of the Vast and Profound: A Commentary on Je Tsongkhapa's Middle-Length Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment
A beloved teacher’s explanation of the path to enlightenment in its first-ever English translation.
Pabongkha Rinpoche is renowned as one of the greatest and most charismatic contemporary teachers of Tibetan Buddhism. Both Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, the junior and senior tutors of the 14th Dalai Lama, accounted him as their root guru. Giving explanations of the stages of the path to enlightenment (lamrim) was considered one of his greatest talents—often thousands of students would come to hear his teachings—and with The Essence of the Vast and Profound the English-speaking reader can experience this firsthand.
Drawn from teachings given over the course of thirty-six days in 1934 in Tibet’s capital city of Lhasa, The Essence of the Vast and Profound masterfully weaves together Tsongkhapa’s Middle-Length Exposition on the Stage of the Path to Enlightenment, the Second Panchen Lama’s Swift Path, and the Third Dalai Lama’s Essence of Refined Gold. Rinpoche offers wise and compassionate guidance on such crucial subjects as how to rely on a spiritual teacher, how to develop certainty on the path, what it means to take refuge, how to understand karma, and the importance of compassion—explaining the entire spectrum of the Buddhist path, and also inspiring the reader to follow it.
The Essence of the Vast and Profound will soon find its place as one of the greatest lamrim commentaries ever given.
Pabongkha Rinpoche is renowned as one of the greatest and most charismatic contemporary teachers of Tibetan Buddhism. Both Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, the junior and senior tutors of the 14th Dalai Lama, accounted him as their root guru. Giving explanations of the stages of the path to enlightenment (lamrim) was considered one of his greatest talents—often thousands of students would come to hear his teachings—and with The Essence of the Vast and Profound the English-speaking reader can experience this firsthand.
Drawn from teachings given over the course of thirty-six days in 1934 in Tibet’s capital city of Lhasa, The Essence of the Vast and Profound masterfully weaves together Tsongkhapa’s Middle-Length Exposition on the Stage of the Path to Enlightenment, the Second Panchen Lama’s Swift Path, and the Third Dalai Lama’s Essence of Refined Gold. Rinpoche offers wise and compassionate guidance on such crucial subjects as how to rely on a spiritual teacher, how to develop certainty on the path, what it means to take refuge, how to understand karma, and the importance of compassion—explaining the entire spectrum of the Buddhist path, and also inspiring the reader to follow it.
The Essence of the Vast and Profound will soon find its place as one of the greatest lamrim commentaries ever given.
941 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 3, 2019
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About the author
Pabongkha Rinpoche
13 books6 followersDéchen Nyingpo (Tibetan: བདེ་ཆེན་སྙིང་པོ, Wylie: bde chen snying po), the second Pabongkha Rinpoche (Tib.: ཕ་བོང་ཁ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་, Wyl.: pha bong kha rin po che), most frequently referred to posthumously as Pabongkhapa, was an influential lama and Geshe (equivalent to Doctor of Theology) of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. He was the principle teacher of the 3rd Trijang Rinpoche, Geshe Lharampa Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (1901–1981), who was in turn the junior tutor and "root guru" of the 14th Dalai Lama.
He became a controversial figure both because of his staunch pro-Gelug sectarianism, and within the Gelug for his innovations to the tradition established by the reformer Tsongkhapa at the founding of the order, making Vajrayogini rather than Cakrasamvara the central focus of practice and introducing and emphasizing the replacement of the "the traditional supra-mundane protectors of the Ge-luk tradition" with the propitiation of an arguably worldly (and also fiercely sectarian) spirit, which he received from his teacher Takpu Pema Vajra.
He became a controversial figure both because of his staunch pro-Gelug sectarianism, and within the Gelug for his innovations to the tradition established by the reformer Tsongkhapa at the founding of the order, making Vajrayogini rather than Cakrasamvara the central focus of practice and introducing and emphasizing the replacement of the "the traditional supra-mundane protectors of the Ge-luk tradition" with the propitiation of an arguably worldly (and also fiercely sectarian) spirit, which he received from his teacher Takpu Pema Vajra.
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