"The great Tibetan Buddhist master and reformer Tsongkhapa (1357-1419) founded the Geluk tradition, which birthed the institution of the Dalai Lamas, and the present Dalai Lama holds Tsongkhapa as the supreme Tibetan interpreter of the Buddha's teachings. Tsongkhapa was a scholar par excellence, and his command of the scriptures and treatises of the Buddhist tradition earned him numerous students from a young age. In 1402, after lengthy retreat and visionary experiences, he composed his magisterial exposition of the complete path to enlightenment, the Lamrim Chenmo, or Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path, now renowned well beyond Tibet. A dozen years later Tsongkhapa composed the Middle-Length Treatise on the Stages of the Path, published here in its first full English translation. Like the Great Treatise but half the length, it is a synthesis of the path to enlightenment starting with the stages shared with beings of small capacity, progressing through the meditations for those of medium capacity, and culminating in the stages unique to beings of great capacity. More approachable in style as well as size, the first half of this work abridges the Great Treatise, following the same headings and distilling its explanations. In the final and largest section, however, on wisdom and the meaning of emptiness, Tsongkhapa created a wholly new work, particularly in his treatment of conventional and ultimate truth. As a lamrim, the work is a series of meditations, beginning with recognizing the rarity of our human existence and the great opportunities it affords, followed by meditations on impermanence, suffering, and the promise of liberation from our karmic inheritance, until proceeding to the path of bodhisattvas, whose universal compassion seeks to liberate every being from cyclic existence by seeking the full awakening of a buddha. Tsongkhapa gives especially detailed instructions on âsamatha, the deep meditative concentration that is a necessary precondition for the highest insight into the nature of reality. By presenting a systematic overview of the entire path, this work will be an essential handbook for those new to Tibetan Buddhist teachings, but longtime students will also cherish its clear guidance on the journey to awakening from one of Tibet's greatest luminaries"--
