Recent Essays/Post-25

[[ |300px|thumb| ]] Ngok Loden Sherab was one of the most outstanding figures of the New Translation (འགྱུར་གསར་མ་) and old Kadampa tradition. A prominent translator and scholar of the 11th century, Ngok Loden Sherab taught philosophy, logic, and religious practices to as many as twenty thousand students and worked with many Indian paṇḍitas to translate some thirty-seven thousand verses of texts. The Tibetan translation of the Ultimate Continuum (Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra) as we know it was executed by him with the Indian scholar Sajjana. An earlier one was done by Atiśa and Naktso Tsultrim Gyelwa but is considered lost. In addition to the translation, Ngok Loden Sherab also authored a commentary on the Ultimate Continuum and started the analytical tradition of the exegesis and study of the Ultimate Continuum.

Ngok Lotsāwa Loden Sherab generally equated buddha-nature with emptiness free from all elaborations and asserted buddha-nature to be a seed or potential for buddhahood rather a full-blown buddhahood in sentient beings obscured by temporary afflictions. In his epistle sent to Ga Sherab Drak and the monks of Tsong Kharusum, he writes:

བཤེས་གཉེན་སྤྲིན་ལས་ལེགས་བྱུང་མང་དུ་ཐོས་པ་ཡི། །

ཆར་རྒྱུན་བསིལ་བས་ཉོན་མོངས་གདུང་བ་ཞི་བྱེད་ཀྱིས། །

བདེ་གཤེགས་སྙིང་པོའི་ས་བོན་རབ་ཏུ་བརླན་བྱས་ནས། །

སངས་རྒྱས་ཡོན་ཏན་ཕུན་ཚོགས་ལོ་ཏོག་རབ་རྒྱས་བྱ། །

Quell the agony of afflictions with the cool shower of learning

Which flows gently from the cloud that is one’s master.

Having soaked the seed of buddha-nature,

Make the wholesome harvest of the Buddha's qualities boom.

The full translation of this epistle can be found here.

Weekly quote

Mahāmati, the Bodhisattvas and Mahāsattvas of the present and future should not construe and grasp this a self. 

~ Laṅkāvatārasūtra