Toh 2503Untitled

EXPLANATION OF SCRIPTURE TOH 2503

From the Northern Transmission Canon (Tengyur)

Background

This scripture is preserved in the Tengyur (Sgyur-'jug), the treasury of commentarial treatises in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, which gathers works that explain the Buddha Dharma according to the Mahayana school, especially the Northern Tibetan tradition, with the attestation of holy masters from India and Tibet.

The Mahayana tradition, unlike the Hinayana, emphasizes the bodhisattva path, a foundation of ethical conduct intended for all sentient beings, not only for monastics. The Northern Transmission, or Tibetan transmission, deeply inherits the teachings of the Yogacara and Madhyamaka schools, with a strong integration of tantric Buddha Dharma.

The specific contents of this scripture have not yet been fully translated into Vietnamese from the original Tibetan. However, scriptures of this type in the Tengyur collection often present profound explanations of the nature of mind, universal Buddha-nature, or methods of meditative practice in the manner of the bodhisattvas.

Main Contents

Treatises in the Tengyur often delve deeply into central Mahayana issues: the absence of self (anatman), the absence of intrinsic nature (shunyata), and the Buddha-nature of all sentient beings. According to the Northern Tibetan tradition, all dharmas are empty of independent existence, yet are luminous and knowable. This point is called "not falling into extremes" - freedom from both the traps of materialist impermanence and the doctrine of an unchanging soul.

Scriptures of this type may also focus on the doctrine of the "continuum of mind" (dharmakaya) - continuous states of mind that never cease, from within ignorance until the realization of Buddhahood. This continuum is the legitimate basis for bodhisattva practice: if the mind can be transformed, then it is entirely possible to escape the cycle of samsara through patient cultivation.