Toh 3035Untitled

Exposition of Toh 3035 (Treatise Collection)

Context

Toh 3035 is a precious treatise within the treasury of Tibetan Buddhism, preserved in the Tengyur, the collection of the full range of treatises and commentaries by Indian Buddhist masters from the fifth to the tenth centuries. The Treatise Collection (Agama-pada) contains profoundly subtle works by eminent masters in the Mahayana tradition, especially masters from the Chinese and Tibetan schools.

Although the title of this scripture has not been clearly identified in the present descriptive information, according to the classification of the Tengyur this work belongs among treatises on the mind (mano-vijnana-sastra), or treatises on the nature of consciousness and the doctrine of liberation. These are works composed by Mahayana patriarchs in order to clarify the teachings of Buddha Shakyamuni concerning Buddha-nature and the swift path of practice.

Main Content

In the Northern Transmission Mahayana Tibetan tradition, treatises in this position often explore three essential domains: (1) the nature of consciousness through its ever-changing deeper layers; (2) the relationship between surface consciousness and the storehouse consciousness (alaya-vijnana), the hidden treasury that contains all the seeds of future lives; (3) the path of practice (bhavana-marga) by which these seeds are transformed into perfect wisdom.

According to the Tibetan Mahayana Dharma approach, consciousness is neither material nor non-material, but the presence of Absolute Mind (cittamatra), an ideal later developed by the Yogacara school into an entire philosophical system. This treatise may delve deeply into how the laws of cause and effect (kamma-vipaka) operate within the domain of consciousness, how unwholesome deeds of the past are stored and affect the present, and the methods for purifying these imprints.