Lama Dampa Sönam Gyaltsen - Treasury of Esoteric Instructions

CLICK IN THE COVER TO DOWNLOAD THE PDF (NEW LINK)!

Treasury of Esoteric Instructions: An Explication of the Oral Instructions of the Path with the Result by Lama Dampa Sönam Gyaltsen, translated and edited by Cyrus Stearns.

The Lamdré, or the Path with the Result, is the most important system of tantric practice in the Sakya tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. The goddess Vajra Nairatmya first transmitted these teachings to the Indian adept Virupa (ca. seventh-eighth centuries), who then composed the Vajra Lines. Virupa’s words were transmitted orally until the Tibetan master Sachen Kunga Nyingpo (1092-1158) wrote eleven commentaries to explain them. Two hundred years later, in 1342, Lama Dampa Sönam Gyaltsen (1312-75) composed the Treasury of Esoteric Instructions, the culminating commentary on Virupa’s work.

According to His Holiness Sakya Trizin, “There have been many treatises of commentary on the intention of the Vajra Lines. However, this Treasury of Esoteric Instructions, the commentary composed by the sovereign of the doctrine Lama Dampa Sönam Gyaltsen Palsangpo of the Khön family, has many special qualities, and is clearer and more easily understood than others, suitably elaborate, and precise in drawing out the key points.”

This book contains translations of Virupa’s Vajra Lines and Lama Dampa’s Treasury of Esoteric Instructions. Issued as a separate booklet is a translation of Pleasure Grove for the Intelligent, a structural commentary on the Vajra Lines written by Jamgön Ameshap Ngawang Kunga Sönam (1597-1659), the twenty-eighth throne holder of Sakya.

Virupa (ca. seventh-eighth centuries)was one of the legendary eighty-four great adepts of tantric Buddhism in ancient India. His instructions known as Lamdré, or the Path with the Result, have been the specialty of the Sakya tradition in Tibet for almost nine hundred years.

Lama Dampa Sönam Gyaltsen (1312-75) was the fifteenth throne holder of the Sakya tradition in Tibet. He was a great yogin and scholar who became the teacher of prominent Buddhist masters of all traditions. Lama Dampa spent years in solitary meditation retreat, but also composed many exceptional literary works.

Cyrus Stearns began studying and practicing Buddhism in 1973. He is the author/translator of two previous books about the Lamdré tradition: Luminous Lives and Taking the Result As the Path. He is a fellow at the Tsadra Foundation and lives in the woods on Whidbey Island, north of Seattle, Washington.