Composed at the request of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and with a foreword by His Holiness, this translation with commentary on key parts of Khedrup Je's Clearing Mental Darkness: An Ornament of Dharmakirti's "Seven Treatises on Valid Cognition" is intended for all levels of understanding. You'll learn how a mind realizes its object, which types of consciousness realize their objects, and when a consciousness is considered to be valid in the sense of realizing its object. Having explained valid cognizers, or direct perceivers, which are essential to understanding the four noble truths, Khedrup Je goes on to brilliantly elucidate this essential teaching of the Buddha and offers a lucid presentation of how to progress on the spiritual paths of liberation and enlightenment, including how to generate yogic perception directly realizing selflessness. With this, one develops an unmistaken realization of the fundamental reality of selflessness of persons and phenomena, which eliminates ignorance, the root cause of all mental afflictions and samsaric suffering.

Freedom Through Correct Knowing: Khedrup Je's Interpretation of Dharmakirti's Seven Treatises on Valid Cognition , Khedrup Je, Geshe Tenzin Namdak, Tenzin Legtsok, Wisdom Publications, Hardcover, 344 pages, $39.95

Khedrup Je was one of the main disciples of Lama Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), founder of the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Before becoming Tsongkhapa�s foremost disciple, Khedrup Je had been a learned Sakyapa scholar. He is considered to be a reincarnation of Manjushri, the Buddha of Wisdom. He wrote an important text on Kalachakra initiation which is still used by Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, as the basis of his public initiations into the Kalachakra. Altogether, there are nine volumes of his collected works, containing fifty-eight treatises.

Geshe Tenzin Namdak first worked as an environmental researcher, having graduated with a bachelor of science degree in hydrology. He took ordination from His Holiness the Dalai Lama before engaging in his formal studies in Buddhist philosophy and psychology at Sera Jey Monastic University. He completed the entire twenty-year geshe program at Sera Jey and the traditional one-year Vajrayana study program at Gyume Tantric College. Currently he is the resident teacher at Jamyang Buddhist Centre, London, and teaches worldwide.

Tenzin Legtsok is a Buddhist monk in the eighteenth year of the geshe program at Sera Jey Monastic University, where he studies classic Indian Buddhist treatises and their Tibetan commentaries in the tradition of ancient Nalanda University. He was ordained by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2001. Born in Virginia in 1973, he obtained a bachelor of arts degree from Kenyon College in 1995. The question �What makes for the most happy and meaningful life?� compelled him to major in philosophy during college and gradually led him to study meditation, philosophy, and psychology with teachers among the exiled Tibetan communities in India and Nepal from 1999 until the present. For the past fifteen years he has worked to make basic Buddhist teachings accessible to various audiences in India and the United States through lectures, essays, and meditation instruction.