Atisha's Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment

Download or read book Atisha's Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment written by Atisha and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Atisha's most celebrated text sets forth the entire Buddhist path Atisha, the eleventh-century Indian Buddhist scholar and saint, came to Tibet at the invitation of the king of Western Tibet, Lha Lama Yeshe Wo, and his nephew, Jangchub Wo. His coming initiated the period of the second transmission of Buddhism to Tibet, formative for the Sakya Kagyu and Gelug traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. Atisha's most celebrated text, Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment, sets forth the entire Buddhist path within the framework of three levels of motivation on the part of the practitioner. Atisha's text thus became the source of the lamrim tradition, or graduated stages of the path to enlightenment, an approach to spiritual practice incorporated within all schools of Tibetan Buddhism.