Toh 2787Untitled

Exposition of Toh 2787 — The Tibetan Treatise Section

Context

Toh 2787 is a work belonging to the Treatise Section (Tengyur) of the Tibetan Mahayana tradition, the collection of commentaries and treatises explaining the Buddha Dharma, compiled from the eleventh century onward. Within the Tibetan foundation, the Treatise Section plays an extremely important role, because it contains detailed teachings from great masters of the Buddha Dharma, especially those who transmitted the Buddha Dharma from India to Tibet.

This work stands within the development of Tibetan Mahayana, especially the schools of Buddhist logic and philosophy. The period in which the Tengyur was compiled was a golden age of Tibetan learning, when masters such as Atisha, Tsongkhapa, and other great teachers synthesized the whole of Buddhist wisdom from ancient India.

Main Content

Although the exact title has not yet been fully disclosed, scriptures and treatises from Toh 2787 in the Tengyur often focus on key issues of Mahayana philosophy such as: the nature of consciousness (citta), reality itself (tathatā), the five skandhas and eighteen dhatus, or the principles of cause and effect (karma-phala).

According to the Tibetan tradition, treatises of this kind often explain deeply the relative truth (samvṛti-satya) and the ultimate truth (paramārtha-satya). They explore the absence of self-nature (śūnyatā), not in order to deny the existence of phenomena, but to show that all things lack independent essence and are not governed by fixed language.

This treatise may also include instructions on how to cultivate the bodhisattva path — the path of those who aspire to awakening for the benefit of all beings. It is the path of compassion (karuṇā) and wisdom (prajñāpti), combined through the pāramitās (pāramitā — superior awakened actions).