Toh 1572Untitled

Exposition of Toh 1572 — Tengyur, Treatise Collection

Context

Toh 1572 is a treatise (sastra) preserved in the Tengyur, the collection of commentaries on the Buddhist Dharma in the Northern Tibetan tradition. The Tengyur includes more than 3,600 works by great exegetes from India and other Buddhist regions, translated into Tibetan from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries. The Treatise Collection (Sutra Class) in the Tengyur contains commentaries and explanations on such fields as the phenomena of mind, being, conduct on the path, and consciousness (Yogacara and other Mahayana schools).

Although no specific title of Toh 1572 has been recorded, it is classified among the profound exegetical works of the Northern Tibetan canon. Works without clear titles in the Tengyur are often excerpts or specialized commentaries on topics of the study of mind, cause and effect, or transcendent wisdom. According to the context of the Treatise Collection, it may be related to teachings on pure consciousness or the cultivation of the threefold path (three levels of practice).

Main Content

In the Northern Tibetan Mahayana tradition, treatises usually revolve around three fundamental themes: (1) the nature of the minds of sentient beings and buddha-nature; (2) the path of practice leading to awakening; and (3) the nature of transcendent wisdom and skillful means.

Toh 1572 may focus on a detailed analysis of how consciousness is transformed through the practice of the Buddhist Dharma. In Yogacara, the mind-only school of the Mahayana, all phenomena arise from mind. Thus, this commentary may emphasize how the mind of sentient beings (alaya-vijnana, the storehouse consciousness) is gradually purified through practice until the mind of a Buddha is attained: a mind free from confusion, wholly luminous, and endowed with limitless compassion.