The Tibetan text presented here, “Summary of the General Path” occurs at the conclusion of The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path / Stages of the Path to Enlightenment Thoroughly Teaching All the Stages of Practice of the Three Types of Beings (often abbreviated as The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path, or simply as The Great Stages of the Path)  by Tsong-kha-pa, who lived from 1357 to 1419. This is an enormously detailed work—over 1,000 pages long. In it, Tsong-kha-pa presents how to properly practice the Great Vehicle Buddhism of the Perfection Vehicle. Tsong-kha-pa later wrote a companion book on the Mantra Vehicle known as the The Great Stages of Secret Mantra. Together these two books present how a meditator integrates the two branches of the GreatVehicle: the Perfection and Mantra vehicles.

Tsong-kha-pa wrote The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path outside Lhasa, Tibet’s capital city, in 1402. To place this within a historical perspective, consider the following:

• Tsong-kha-pa wrote 350 years after Atisha composed the Lamp for the Path—the short text on which Tsong-kha-pa states he bases The Great Stages of the Path.
• Tsong-kha-pa wrote 750 years after Chandrakirti in India wrote his influential commentaries on Någårjuna. Tsong-kha-pa takes Chandrakirti’s commentaries on Nagarjuna as his basis for presenting the Middle Way Consequence School view of emptiness.
• Tsong-kha-pa wrote 1,200 years after Nagarjuna wrote his Treatise on the Middle Way.

The Great Stages of the Path presents the sequence of mind training practiced by a single individual, from the beginning of one’s religious life up through Buddhahood, according to the Perfection Vehicle form of Great Vehicle Buddhism. The text is organized around an individual’s progression through three developmental stages termed the practices of the beings of the three capacities: small, middle and great. Before saying a bit about the practices of the beings of the three capacities, I will mention the general outline of topics Tsong-kha-pa discusses in The Great Stages of the Path.

• The greatness of the teaching’s author, Atisha.
• The greatness of the teaching.
• How to listen to and how to explain the teachings.
• How to rely on your spiritual guide.
• What to do during your actual meditation sessions.
• What to do between your sessions.
• Eliminating misconceptions about the interrelation between a meditator’s analytical meditations and stabilizing meditations.
• How to make the most out of leisure and opportunity: the eight freedoms from conditions making practice difficult, and the ten conditions of opportunity making fruitful practice possible.
• How to develop certainty regarding the general structure of the path.
• How to train the mind in the stages of the paths shared with beings of small capacity: mindfulness of death, reflecting on the already accumulated causes of bad migrations in future lifetimes, how to go for refuge to the Buddha, Doctrine and Spiritual Community, how to train in the precepts of refuge, how to develop the faith of conviction in actions and effects, reflecting on the varieties of karma, and how to engage in virtuous actions and disengage from non-virtuous actions after having reflected on cause and effect.
• How to train the mind in the stages of the paths shared with beings of middle capacity: how to develop the attitude of seeking liberation from cyclic existence through reflecting on suffering and its origins, and reflecting on the twelve links of dependent-origination.
• Understanding that the nature of the path leading to liberation is the three trainings: ethics, meditative stabilization, and wisdom.
• How to train the mind in the stages of the paths shared with beings of great capacity: the altruistic aspiration to Buddhahood is the door of entry for the Great Vehicle, how to train in the altruistic aspiration, and how to train in the Bodhisattva deeds—the six perfections—after having generated the altruistic aspiration to enlightenment.
• Extensive presentation of concentration: how to generate calm abiding.
• Extensive presentation of wisdom: how to generate special insight realizing emptiness according to Chandrakirti’s Middle Way Consequence School.
• How, after you have trained in the paths common to the beings of the three capacities, you should enter the paths of the Mantra Vehicle.

The Great Stages of the Path presents the mind training of a single individual from the beginning of one’s religious life up through how to achieve Buddhahood. The text is organized around an individual’s progression through three developmental stages termed the practices of the beings of the three capacities: small, middle and great. An individual’s training starts with the practices of a being of small capacity, then graduates to practices for beings of middle capacity, and finally to practices for beings of great capacity. These are the three developmental stages a single individual progresses through as the factors of wisdom and compassion are developed.

In brief, an individual at the stage of a being of small capacity has understood the predicament of being caught in cyclic existence and has turned to religious practice so that future rebirths will be good. The topics herein are the certainty of death and indefiniteness of when death will come, and the suffering in bad migrations of hell beings, hungry ghosts, and animals. This leads to a consideration of the benefits of the refuge provided by the three jewels: Buddha, the teacher of refuge; the Doctrine, which is the actual refuge; and the Spiritual Community of Superiors. The relation of actions to their effects is considered at length, leading to the adopting of the ten virtuous actions and abandoning of the ten non-virtuous actions, together with the ways to purify the effects of negative actions already accumulated.

A being of middle capacity has seen not just the suffering of bad migrations, but the whole sphere of cyclic existence as pervaded by suffering. Renunciation—the thought definitely to leave cyclic existence—is developed. In this section Tsong-kha-pa discusses the organizational principle of the four truths for Superiors, with special attention to true sufferings and true sources, and the mechanism of the twelve links of dependent origination. Finally, Tsong-kha-pa identifies the afflictions and the path to liberation.

The final section discusses the practices of beings of great capacity: bodhisattvas, beings under the influence of great compassion. Beings of great capacity, seeing the faults of cyclic existence and feeling a special closeness to all sentient beings, seek the enlightenment of Buddhahood so that they might optimally lead all sentient beings to their own Buddhahood. In this section Tsong-kha-pa presents the generation of the altruistic aspiration to enlightenment and the six perfections in which a bodhisattva trains: generosity, ethics, patience, effort, concentration, and wisdom.

Tsong-kha-pa’s discussion of emptiness occurs in his presentation of how to train in the final two perfections, concentration and wisdom. Concentration is discussed in the technical context of how to develop the one-pointedness of mind termed “calm abiding.” One-pointedness of mind alone is not enough to accomplish the bodhisattva’s object of attainment, her own Buddhahood, so that she may accomplish her object of intent, leading all sentient beings to their own state of Buddhahood. Buddhism teaches that concentration alone will never overturn cyclic existence, much less transform the mind into a Buddha’s omniscient consciousness. The most innately held misconceptions that actively bind individuals in cyclic existence are overcome only through repeated, prolonged meditation on emptiness. Accordingly, about one third of the 1,000+ pages of The Great Stages of the Path  is devoted to Tsong-kha-pa’s presentation of how to develop the wisdom consciousness understanding emptiness, termed “special insight.”

While Tsong-kha-pa’s brilliant and controversial treatment of emptiness occupies over 300 pages of The Great Stages of the Path, meditation on emptiness is not the focus of the “Summary of the General Path” presented in this book. Rather, in this passage Tsong-kha-pa is summarizing the basic structure of the complete path, an individual’s entire journey from the beginning of one’s religious life up to Buddhahood.

I chose this extract for a beginner’s reader for a number of reasons. The vocabulary found herein is quintessentially basic Great Vehicle Buddhism. Further, in recognition of how slowly beginning Tibetan students proceed, I wanted to choose a text that presented major ideas in a straightforward manner. In this summary, Tsong-kha-pa outlines the major topics of meditation for a practitioner at each of the three stages. Each sentence offers profound insight into how individuals might transform their minds from self cherishing into minds of altruism, the very core of Buddhist meditative practice. My hope is that it will hold your attention as strongly as it has held mine.