Toh 1493Untitled

Exposition of Toh 1493 (Tengyur - Treatise Collection)

Context

This scripture belongs to the Tengyur (Bka' 'gyur), the treatise collection of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, compiled and preserved in Tibetan canonical collections from the eighth century onward. The Tengyur is a treasury of commentaries, treatises, and explanations of the Dharma, written by great masters and wise ones in order to clarify the teachings of the Buddha.

Toh 1493 is found within the Treatise Collection (bDen pa'i gter), the section containing profound philosophical works and explanations of the principles of the Dharma. Although the title of the scripture has not yet been fully translated into Vietnamese, according to the principles of the Tibetan Mahayana tradition, this scripture certainly teaches one of the core aspects of the Dharma: the Four Noble Truths, the true nature of emptiness, or the luminous essential nature of mind (Buddha-nature). The treatises in the Tengyur were often composed by great bodhisattvas and meditation masters such as Vasubandhu, Nagarjuna, and Asanga to guide practitioners on the path of practice.

Main Contents

In the Tibetan Mahayana tradition, especially according to the Madhyamaka (Middle Way) and Yogacara (Mind-Only) lineages, the treatise at Toh 1493 may instruct on how to understand the character of emptiness (sunyata) without distortion. It is not absolute nonexistence, but the absence of independent reality in all phenomena. This Dharma is called emptiness (sunyata), the profound nature of all things.

For those who study and practice, recognizing emptiness is not an abstract doctrine but the direct seeing of the way mind and the world exist. When emptiness is understood, the practitioner no longer clings to “self” (atman) and “phenomena” (dharma) as permanent, independent entities. From this, boundless compassion (maha-karuna) naturally arises, because one recognizes that there is no truly existing separation between self and other.

This treatise may also teach that all sentient beings possess Buddha-nature (Buddha-dhatu), that is, the potential to become a Buddha.