Toh 3107Untitled

Explanation of Toh 3107 — A Tengyur Treatise

The Northern Transmission Mahayana Tradition

Context

Toh 3107 is one of the precious scriptural treatises preserved in the Tengyur, the vast collection of Buddhist Dharma commentaries of the Northern Transmission Tibetan Buddhist tradition. The Tengyur contains more than 3,600 works of explanation written by tribal scholars, Dharma masters, and Indian and Tibetan scholars.

The Mahayana Northern Transmission tradition emphasizes the bodhisattva path, that is, the path of practice directed toward buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings. Any scriptural treatise in the Tengyur is composed on the foundation of the Mahayana scriptures and profoundly develops the teachings on bodhicitta, the bodhisattva mind; emptiness (Śūnyatā); and Buddha-nature, innate in all sentient beings.

Main Content

Although the title of the scripture has not been fully translated, Toh 3107 belongs to the genre of explanatory treatises (śāstra) in the Tengyur, whose task is to clarify the essential intent of Mahayana sacred scriptures such as the Avataṃsaka Sutra, the Treatise Scripture of the Buddha, or the prajnaparamita scriptures.

Treatises of this kind often explain in detail: (1) the nature of the bodhisattva path, the long-term path of practice through the ten grounds (bhūmi); (2) the relationship between emptiness and phenomenal reality; (3) the power to benefit others through the pāramitās, the bodhisattva practices, especially wisdom (prajñāpāramitā) and loving-kindness and compassion (mettā-karunā).

Explanations in the Tengyur may also address complex issues of Dharma study such as the nature of the dharmadhātu, the concept of the two truths (dvi-satya, absolute and relative), or the subtle way in which a bodhisattva overcomes all obscurations (āvarana) in order to attain buddhahood.

Practical Meaning

As an explanatory treatise of the Northern Transmission Tibetan tradition, Toh 3107 is not merely abstract theory.