Foreword |
xvii |
Foreword |
xix |
Introduction |
1 |
Prologue |
17 |
The title |
17 |
Homage to the Three Jewels |
18 |
Commitment to Compose the Text |
20 |
Turning the Mind to the Dharma |
25 |
The Value of Human Existence |
27 |
An Incentive for the Practice |
33 |
Impermanence |
35 |
The Gradual Path of the Three Kinds of Beings |
41 |
The Law of Karma |
43 |
The Path of Beings of Medium Scope |
65 |
The Sufferings of Samsara |
67 |
The Extraordinary Path of Beings of Great Scope |
95 |
The Preparation: The Four Wheels |
97 |
The Foundation of the Path: Refuge |
123 |
Cleansing the Mind by Training in the Four Boundless Attitudes |
149 |
The Vow of Bodhichitta |
157 |
The Precepts of Bodhichitta in Aspiration and Action |
181 |
Impermanence demonstrated by the formation and destruction of the universe according to Buddhist cosmology |
269 |
The gradual formation of the universe |
269 |
The gradual formation of animate beings |
270 |
The duration of the universe |
272 |
The destruction of beings |
273 |
The destruction of the universe |
274 |
The period of voidness |
274 |
The four periods reflected in the existence of an individual being |
275 |
The ceaseless continuity of the process of formation and destruction |
276 |
The Bardo |
279 |
The four bardos |
279 |
The four truths |
283 |
Essential definitions and aspects of the four truths |
283 |
The meaning of the term "four truths" |
284 |
A sequential exposition of the four truths |
284 |
The five aggregates |
287 |
A Buddha's qualities of realization |
297 |
The five paths and the thirty-seven elements leading to enlightenment |
301 |
The two truths |
307 |
The two truths according to the Madhyamika view |
307 |
The specificity of the two truths |
308 |
Their literal, etymological meaning |
308 |
Their necessarily binary character |
309 |
The kinds of cognition that validly ascertain the two truths |
310 |
Divisions and categories of the two truths |
310 |
The necessity and benefits of establishing the two truths |
320 |
The Madhyamika school |
323 |
The Svatantrika Madhyamikas |
323 |
The Prasangika Madhyamikas |
327 |
The twenty-one qualities of Dharmakaya wisdom |
341 |
The three doors of perfect liberation |
347 |
Notes |
349 |
Glossary |
401 |
Bibliography |
441 |
Index |
447 |