A new translation and interpretation of a seminal fourteenth-century treatise on Tibetan Buddhist meditationSādhana, which translates as “realization,” is the primary form of meditation in the Tantric Buddhism of Tibet. In this spiritual exercise, practitioners dissolve their ordinary reality—their identity and environment—and in its place visualize an awakened being. Eventually they actually transform into this divine being. In this vital new volume, Yael Bentor offers an invaluable translation of Tsongkhapa Lobzang Drakpa’s famous treatise on this form of meditation.Tsongkhapa was an influential monk, philosopher, and tantric yogi whose activities led to the formation of one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. His treatise draws fascinating links between tantric practice, cosmogony, and the life cycle of a yogi engaged in the practice. Bentor’s vivid translation, accompanied by her expert introduction and commentary, provides the grounding necessary to properly understand the text, tracing the reception and trajectory of Tsongkhapa’s work through history and evaluating its great relevance up to the present day.

A new translation and interpretation of a seminal fourteenth-century treatise on Tibetan Buddhist meditationSādhana, which translates as “realization,” is the primary form of meditation in the Tantric Buddhism of Tibet. In this spiritual exercise, practitioners dissolve their ordinary reality—their identity and environment—and in its place visualize an awakened being. Eventually they actually transform into this divine being. In this vital new volume, Yael Bentor offers an invaluable translation of Tsongkhapa Lobzang Drakpa’s famous treatise on this form of meditation.Tsongkhapa was an influential monk, philosopher, and tantric yogi whose activities led to the formation of one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. His treatise draws fascinating links between tantric practice, cosmogony, and the life cycle of a yogi engaged in the practice. Bentor’s vivid translation, accompanied by her expert introduction and commentary, provides the grounding necessary to properly understand the text, tracing the reception and trajectory of Tsongkhapa’s work through history and evaluating its great relevance up to the present day.

A new translation and interpretation of a seminal fourteenth-century treatise on Tibetan Buddhist meditation Sādhana, which translates as “realization,” is the primary form of meditation in the Tantric Buddhism of Tibet. In this spiritual exercise, practitioners dissolve their ordinary reality—their identity and environment—and in its place visualize an awakened being. Eventually they actually transform into this divine being. In this vital new volume, Yael Bentor offers an invaluable translation of Tsongkhapa Lobzang Drakpa’s famous treatise on this form of meditation. Tsongkhapa was an influential monk, philosopher, and tantric yogi whose activities led to the formation of one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. His treatise draws fascinating links between tantric practice, cosmogony, and the life cycle of a yogi engaged in the practice. Bentor’s vivid translation, accompanied by her expert introduction and commentary, provides the grounding necessary to properly understand the text, tracing the reception and trajectory of Tsongkhapa’s work through history and evaluating its great relevance up to the present day.

A Classical Tibetan Reader answers a long-standing need for well chosen readings to accompany courses in classical Tibetan language. Professor Bentor has built her Tibetan reader out of time-tested selections from texts that she has worked with while teaching classical Tibetan over the past twenty years. She has assembled here a selection of Tibetan narratives, organized to introduce students of the language to complex material gradually, and to arm them with ample reference materials in the form of glossaries customized to individual readings.Instructors will find this reader an invaluable tool for preparing lesson plans and providing high-quality reading material to their students. Students, too, will find the selections contained in the reader engaging. Even novice readers of Tibetan will feel welcomed and encouraged, thanks to the author''s astute judgment of student capacity.

This commentary on Guhyasamaja tantra is the seminal guide to deity yoga and tantric visualization for the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism.The Guhyasamaja Tantra, called the king of all tantras, is revered in Tibet, especially by the Geluk school. Ocean of Attainments, a commentary on Guhyasamaja practice, was composed by Khedrup Jé Gelek Palsang (1385–1438), a key disciple of the Geluk school founder, Tsongkhapa Losang Drakpa. It explores the creation stage, a quintessential Buddhist tantric meditation that together with the completion stage comprises the path of unexcelled tantra. In the creation stage, meditators visualize themselves as buddhas at the center of the celestial mandala, surrounded in all directions by male and female buddhas, bodhisattvas, and other enlightened beings. Yet creation-stage practice is not merely visualization but deity yoga—indivisibly uniting the meditation on emptiness with the visualization of the mandala. The creation stage uses the conceptualization in visualization to overcome conceptualization, thereby creating a nonconceptual and nonerroneous direct perception. Such a mind, profound and vast, can bring about a transformation that stops samsaric suffering. How can visions generated as mental constructs not be erroneous? To the awakened eye, the buddhas and other beings who dwell in the mandala are “reality,” and in a sense they are more than real. While the previously published Essence of the Ocean of Attainments is a concise exposition on the practice of the Guhyasamaja sadhana, Ocean of Attainments is far more detailed, providing extensive scriptural citations, clear explanation of the body maanala, arguments on points of contention, reference to other tantric systems, and critiques of misinterpretations. With its extensive and clear introduction, this volume is a vital contribution to the growing body of scholarship on Guhyasamaja and on Buddhist tantra in general.

A new translation and interpretation of a seminal fourteenth-century treatise on Tibetan Buddhist meditationSādhana, which translates as “realization,” is the primary form of meditation in the Tantric Buddhism of Tibet. In this spiritual exercise, practitioners dissolve their ordinary reality—their identity and environment—and in its place visualize an awakened being. Eventually they actually transform into this divine being. In this vital new volume, Yael Bentor offers an invaluable translation of Tsongkhapa Lobzang Drakpa’s famous treatise on this form of meditation.Tsongkhapa was an influential monk, philosopher, and tantric yogi whose activities led to the formation of one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. His treatise draws fascinating links between tantric practice, cosmogony, and the life cycle of a yogi engaged in the practice. Bentor’s vivid translation, accompanied by her expert introduction and commentary, provides the grounding necessary to properly understand the text, tracing the reception and trajectory of Tsongkhapa’s work through history and evaluating its great relevance up to the present day.

A new translation and interpretation of a seminal fourteenth-century treatise on Tibetan Buddhist meditationSādhana, which translates as “realization,” is the primary form of meditation in the Tantric Buddhism of Tibet. In this spiritual exercise, practitioners dissolve their ordinary reality—their identity and environment—and in its place visualize an awakened being. Eventually they actually transform into this divine being. In this vital new volume, Yael Bentor offers an invaluable translation of Tsongkhapa Lobzang Drakpa’s famous treatise on this form of meditation.Tsongkhapa was an influential monk, philosopher, and tantric yogi whose activities led to the formation of one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. His treatise draws fascinating links between tantric practice, cosmogony, and the life cycle of a yogi engaged in the practice. Bentor’s vivid translation, accompanied by her expert introduction and commentary, provides the grounding necessary to properly understand the text, tracing the reception and trajectory of Tsongkhapa’s work through history and evaluating its great relevance up to the present day.

A new translation and interpretation of a seminal fourteenth-century treatise on Tibetan Buddhist meditation Sādhana, which translates as “realization,” is the primary form of meditation in the Tantric Buddhism of Tibet. In this spiritual exercise, practitioners dissolve their ordinary reality—their identity and environment—and in its place visualize an awakened being. Eventually they actually transform into this divine being. In this vital new volume, Yael Bentor offers an invaluable translation of Tsongkhapa Lobzang Drakpa’s famous treatise on this form of meditation. Tsongkhapa was an influential monk, philosopher, and tantric yogi whose activities led to the formation of one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. His treatise draws fascinating links between tantric practice, cosmogony, and the life cycle of a yogi engaged in the practice. Bentor’s vivid translation, accompanied by her expert introduction and commentary, provides the grounding necessary to properly understand the text, tracing the reception and trajectory of Tsongkhapa’s work through history and evaluating its great relevance up to the present day.

A Classical Tibetan Reader answers a long-standing need for well chosen readings to accompany courses in classical Tibetan language. Professor Bentor has built her Tibetan reader out of time-tested selections from texts that she has worked with while teaching classical Tibetan over the past twenty years. She has assembled here a selection of Tibetan narratives, organized to introduce students of the language to complex material gradually, and to arm them with ample reference materials in the form of glossaries customized to individual readings.Instructors will find this reader an invaluable tool for preparing lesson plans and providing high-quality reading material to their students. Students, too, will find the selections contained in the reader engaging. Even novice readers of Tibetan will feel welcomed and encouraged, thanks to the author''s astute judgment of student capacity.

This commentary on Guhyasamaja tantra is the seminal guide to deity yoga and tantric visualization for the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism.The Guhyasamaja Tantra, called the king of all tantras, is revered in Tibet, especially by the Geluk school. Ocean of Attainments, a commentary on Guhyasamaja practice, was composed by Khedrup Jé Gelek Palsang (1385–1438), a key disciple of the Geluk school founder, Tsongkhapa Losang Drakpa. It explores the creation stage, a quintessential Buddhist tantric meditation that together with the completion stage comprises the path of unexcelled tantra. In the creation stage, meditators visualize themselves as buddhas at the center of the celestial mandala, surrounded in all directions by male and female buddhas, bodhisattvas, and other enlightened beings. Yet creation-stage practice is not merely visualization but deity yoga—indivisibly uniting the meditation on emptiness with the visualization of the mandala. The creation stage uses the conceptualization in visualization to overcome conceptualization, thereby creating a nonconceptual and nonerroneous direct perception. Such a mind, profound and vast, can bring about a transformation that stops samsaric suffering. How can visions generated as mental constructs not be erroneous? To the awakened eye, the buddhas and other beings who dwell in the mandala are “reality,” and in a sense they are more than real. While the previously published Essence of the Ocean of Attainments is a concise exposition on the practice of the Guhyasamaja sadhana, Ocean of Attainments is far more detailed, providing extensive scriptural citations, clear explanation of the body maanala, arguments on points of contention, reference to other tantric systems, and critiques of misinterpretations. With its extensive and clear introduction, this volume is a vital contribution to the growing body of scholarship on Guhyasamaja and on Buddhist tantra in general.