Toh 4325Untitled

An Exposition of Toh 4325 — An Extract from the Tibetan Treatise Collection

Background

This scripture is numbered Toh 4325 in the Tengyur—the Treatise Collection of the Northern Mahayana canonical tradition, compiled and translated in Tibet beginning in the seventh century. The Treatise Collection comprises expositions, commentaries, and teachings by great Buddhist masters on the Mahayana scriptures, with particular emphasis on the path of practice founded upon bodhicitta and the Buddhist teaching that phenomena lack inherent existence.

Although the original title of the scripture has not been provided in full, within the context of the Tengyur, treatises on emptiness (Śūnyatā), Buddha-nature, and Mahayana methods of practice are all central subjects. These works were often composed by masters such as Nagarjuna and Asaṅga, or by teachers of the Tibetan schools—Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, and Gelug—to help practitioners gain a more profound understanding of the nature of mind and the Dharma.

Main Content

The Treatise Collection of the Tibetan tradition emphasizes that the whole of the Mahayana teachings revolves around two fundamental truths: relative truth (Samvṛti-satya) and ultimate truth (Paramārtha-satya). Relative truth is the manner in which phenomena exist in the phenomenal world under the veiling influence of ignorance. Ultimate truth is emptiness, the empty nature of all phenomena, which possess neither an independent essence nor any “inherent existence” (Svabhāva).

Like many other commentaries in the Tengyur, this scripture instructs practitioners to contemplate that the three spheres of action—the agent, the action, and the object—all lack inherent existence. This is the foundation of bodhicitta—the aspiration to liberate immeasurable sentient beings—for when emptiness is clearly understood, the practitioner’s mind is freed from the bonds of selfishness and attachment. The treatise then explores the bodhisattva path of practice: the six perfections (Pāramitā), or “perfect means”