Toh 3931Untitled

Exposition of Scripture Toh 3931 — Tengyur, Collection of Treatises

Context

Scripture Toh 3931 belongs to the Tengyur, the collection of scriptural commentaries comprising expositions and treatises that explain the Buddha’s teachings in the Northern Tibetan Mahayana tradition. The Tengyur was compiled and completed over many centuries, beginning in the period of the Great Eastern Buddha, when Indian and Tibetan masters worked together to translate and preserve the Dharma.

In the Northern Tibetan tradition, the Tengyur is not a canonical collection containing the Buddha’s direct words—that is the function of the Kangyur—but a treasury of profound commentaries by Mahayana and Vajrayana masters. These works are regarded as precious guides that help us understand more clearly the profound intent of the scriptures.

Although the title of this scripture has not been fully identified in the available data, it belongs to the collection of treatises and is therefore certainly an exegetical work concerning one of Mahayana’s central issues: the deliverance of sentient beings, the nature of Buddha-nature, or the bodhisattva path of practice.

Main Content

The treatises in the Tengyur often revolve around such themes as the nature of mind (citta), the relationship between mind and phenomena, the doctrine of emptiness (śūnyatā), and especially the path of practice followed by adherents of Mahayana.

Within the Northern Tibetan context, such works often emphasize that, in their essential nature, saṃsāra—the cycle of birth and death—and nirvana are not distinct. We are taught that saṃsāra itself is nirvana, provided that we correctly understand the nature of mind and phenomena. The utterly luminous mind (Rigpa), when properly recognized, is itself the unbroken stream of liberation.

The commentaries also frequently delve deeply into the doctrine of the bodhisattva vehicle (Bodhisattva-yāna), emphasizing that a true practitioner cannot abandon any sentient being and that nirvana has meaning only when attained for the sake of helping countless sentient beings escape suffering.