Toh 4075Untitled

Exposition of Toh 4075—The Tengyur Collection of Treatises

Background

This text belongs to the Tengyur (Bka’ ’gyur), the collection of treatises—a compilation of commentaries, treatises, and explanations concerning the Buddha’s discourses and systems of practice in the Northern Mahayana tradition (Mahāyāna—Tibetan Buddhism). The Tengyur was compiled under the supervision of King Sakya Pandita and completed in Tibet around the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries; it was the largest undertaking in history to translate Buddhist works from Sanskrit into Tibetan.

Toh 4075 is located in the collection of treatises, which gathers works by royal masters and great commentators such as Nāgārjuna, Vasubandhu, Asaṅga, and other Buddhist thinkers. The purpose of the collection of treatises is to clarify scriptural language, teach practices, and establish the stages of cultivation from the beginner’s level through attainment.

Main Content

In the context of the Northern Buddhist tradition, treatises such as Toh 4075 commonly focus on the essential concerns of the Mahayana: the bodhisattva path (Bodhisattva-yāna), the doctrine of the pure mind (Buddha-nature), emptiness (Śūnyatā), and methods of meditation. They teach the means of practicing to attain awakening, not merely for personal benefit but for the liberation of all sentient beings.

The treatises in the Tengyur emphasize that all sentient beings possess Buddha-nature (Buddha-dhātu), the intrinsic capacity to become Buddhas. This is not a process of creation but the reappearance of one’s originally present foundation. Mahayana practice according to the Northern tradition includes cultivating ethical discipline (Śīla), mental concentration (Samādhi), and wisdom (Prajñā)—the three excellent trainings (Triśikṣā)—together with generating bodhicitta for the benefit of all sentient beings.

The practices particularly emphasized include recollection of the Buddha (Buddha-smṛti), visualization of Buddhas and bodhisattvas, and especially the practices of the generation stage (Utpattikrama) and completion stage (Sampannakrama) within tantric systems.