Compassion_ A Tibetan Analysis_ A Buddhist Monastic Textbook

Abstract

One of the distinguishing features of the study of Buddhist philosophy in the great monasteries of the past two thousand years has been the use of analysis and debate. Clear conceptual understanding is a crucial step in the process of gaining inner realization of the subjects studied, specifically emptiness and compassion, the two principal aspects of the path to enlightenment. This system was exemplified in such magnificent Indian monasteries as Nalanda, where at its peak ten thousand monks lived and studied, and has been kept alive for a thousand years in the great monasteries of Tibet. The texts used by students over the centuries have been commentaries of earlier scholars and meditators written to clarify the teachings originally expounded in the sutras of Buddha. In Compassion: A Tibetan Analysis, Guy Newland has translated and clarified the first part of a text entitled Ornament Adorning the Throats of the Fortunate, written in the sixteenth century by Jay-dzun Cho-gyi Gyel-tsen, a scholar of the Jay College of Sera Monastery. This text is still used today at Sera-Jay, where it is one of the five required textbooks on Madhyamika. Its subject — the development of compassion as expounded by sixth century Indian pandit, Chandrakirti, and elucidated by Dzong-ka-ba, the fourteenth century founder of the Tibetan Ge-luk-ba tradition — is dealt with in the highly technical language of debate. Using only the first part of the text, which comments upon Chandrakirti’s opening verses of praise to compassion, Newland has expertly extracted Jay-dzun-ba's major ideas and presented them so that they are comprehensible, relevant and accessible. This book will be welcomed by all students of Madhyamika Buddhism. Equally, it is an invaluable addition to the growing fund of authoritative literature written by Western Buddhist scholars for Western readers.