Tsongkhapa Quotes

Whatever depends on conditions Is empty of inherent existence, What excellent instruction could there be, More amazing than these words?

Pleasant feelings experienced by beings in cyclic existence are like the pleasure felt when cool water is applied to an inflamed boil or carbuncle: as the temporary feeling fades, the pain reasserts itself.

If renunciation is not embraced By the pure motivation of bodhicitta, It will not become a cause for the perfect bliss of unsurpassed awakening, So the wise should generate supreme bodhicitta. Beings are swept along by the powerful current of the four rivers, Tightly bound by the chains of their karma, so difficult to undo, Ensnared within the iron trap of their self-grasping, And enshrouded in the thick darkness of ignorance. Again and yet again, they are reborn in limitless saṃsāra, And constantly tormented by the three forms of suffering. This is the current condition of all your mothers from previous lives— Contemplate their plight and generate supreme bodhichitta.

According to Lama Je Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), the essence of the entire path to awakening can be distilled into three main realizations: renunciation, the mind that relinquishes distortions, afflictive emotions, and compulsions, as well as their unfavorable results; Bodhicitta, the mind set on awakening for the benefit of others; and wisdom, the mind that directly perceives the ultimate reality of emptiness and interdependence.

Taking refuge means, “I trust you. Please give me the medicine and I will take it.

As Stearns puts it, for many of Dolpopa's contemporaries as well as later masters, his entire system including the novel use of terminology came as a "hermeneutical shock."''" It was first severely criticized during Dolpopa's time by parts of the Sakya school. Later, Tsongkhapa rejected Dolpopa in all aspects, and this rejection persisted throughout the Gelugpa school. The critiques by the Eighth Karmapa and Pawo Rinpoche were explained at the beginning of the chapter.

Wisdom is like our spiritual vision, guiding us toward what is good.

Wisdom teaches us that our real enemies are never other living beings. They are ignorance and its minions, including greed, hatred, anger, pride, and envy.

ethical conduct (śīla), meditative stabilization (samādhi), and wisdom (vipaśyanā).

Buddhist classics and also composed authoritative commentaries on key texts. Chapa is remembered for his original views on logic and epistemology and for inventing the Tibetan system of dialectical debate.

Kadam Lamrimpas of the present day study texts such as Je Tsongkhapa’s Great Exposition of the Stages of the Path and Middling Exposition of the Stages of the Path. Kadam Menngagpas of the present day study a few short texts such as the first Panchen Lama’s Blissful Path and the second Panchen Lama’s Quick Path. Although these texts are brief they include all the practices of Lamrim.

I consider it an unacceptable fault to nourish the wrong attitude of angrily denigrating others, and I believe that it serves no purpose to speak about what one does not oneself find meaningful. And yet one only has to say something that diverges from the position of others, and the majority of people nowadays cling strongly and aggressively to their own side. They have no sense of impartiality. The readers of both the old and new traditions spend years squabbling over verbal formulations, squeezing every syllable of the words. Few are those who understand the profound key points correctly, whereas the ignorant majority think to themselves, “The teachings of Tsongkhapa and other great masters are being attacked even by this nonentity,” and they are full of indignation. For this reason, and because those who grasp the crucial points are few, I did not say much.

Now in the snowy land of Tibet, the great and venerable lord Tsongkhapa was unrivaled in his activities for the sake of the Buddha’s teaching. And with regard to his writings, which are clear and excellently composed, I do indeed feel the greatest respect and gratitude. Nevertheless, there are still some differences between his position and the view of the supreme and holy masters of the earlier tradition; and it is the responsibility of those who uphold that same tradition to treasure its teachings, establishing them by scripture and reasoning.

For my own part,” he says in his answer to Drakar, “I have an equal and impartial respect for all the excellent teachings of the holy masters of both our own and other schools….But however may be the assertions of the wise and accomplished masters of other schools, I have cultivated the attitude of thinking that they were made according to need and were meaningful for the training of their disciples.” More to the point, Mipham remarks elsewhere with regard to the refutations of the tetralemma, that beginners who have not gained certainty in the reasoning involved, and who merely talk about the absence of conceptual extremes, are unable to dislodge their clinging to inherent existence and consequently go astray. “This being so, and in order to protect them with his compassionate hand, he [Tsongkhapa] said that, for the time being, it is very important to continue apprehending or focusing on the absence of inherent existence as this is revealed by reasoned inquiry.”89 This, according to Mipham, was an expedient devised according to need and did not correspond to the actual view of Tsongkhapa himself.

In the scroll that Tsongkhapa composed and offered to Rendawa, he said that when the noble beings of the Prāsaṅgika tradition rest in meditation, they remain evenly in the nonfigurative ultimate that is free from all assertion. And he said that, afterward, in their postmeditative state, the figurative ultimate—the fact that phenomena occur through dependent arising and are like reflections—arises unobstructedly. Therefore, since Tsongkhapa said that the sphere of noble beings is the authentic freedom from conceptual elaboration, namely, the nonfigurative ultimate, it is clear that he considered the state of nonelaboration to be the ultimate nature.

emptiness is the lack of chains preventing us from becoming more wise and loving.

Tsong-kha-pa gives clear guidance on how to proceed: Form a clear concept of the object that reason will be refuting. Then focus on how, if there were such an intrinsically existing person, it could only be one with or different from its aggregates, and how reason contradicts both of these positions. Develop certainty in seeing this critique. Finally, solidify your certainty that the person does not even slightly exist intrinsically. In the phase of meditating on emptiness, practice this often.

For Tsongkhapa, in other words, the tetralemma is not an intellectual yoga intended to push the mind beyond the confines of habitual intellection and into a meditative state free from mental proliferation. Instead it is a pedagogical tool for clarifying one’s understanding of the relationship between the two truths and for arriving at a correct idea of emptiness.63