Rays of Sunlight

Rays of Sunlight

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Ayang Thubten Rinpoche’s Rays of Sunlight is a commentary on Zhedang Dorje’s The Heart of the Mahayana Teachings, a detailed guide to the stages of the path to awakening. Containing all of the Drikung Kagyu tradition’s essential teachings on sutra and tantra, Rays of Sunlight is one of the most treasured works in the Drikung Kagyu tradition.

Like Gampopa's Jewel Ornament of Liberation, the text Rays of Sunlight begins with a discussion of Buddha-nature, the nascent buddha within all beings, before presenting the sequential practices we must cultivate to fully awaken its transcendent qualities. With its lucid explanation of how a single individual can uphold the pratimoksha vows, bodhisattva precepts, and tantric samaya without contra-diction, Rays of Sunlight is sure to be of interest to dedicated practitioners of all traditions. And for those with an affinity for the profound path of meditation, the text closes with an extraordinary explanation of “The Fivefold Path of Mahamudra.” (Source: Edition Garchen Stiftung)

Citation	Staron, Gabriele, trans. Rays of Sunlight: A Commentary on the Heart of the Mahayana Teachings. By Ayang Thubten Rinpoche. Munich: Edition Garchen Stiftung, 2015.

ContentsSources

• Foreword7
• Acknowledgement10

Ayang Thubten Rinpoche Rays of Sunlight A Commentary on The Heart of the Mahayana Teachings

• • Homage13
  • Commitment14
  • Textual Outline of the Treatise Itself15

• The Initial Virtue - Introduction16
• The Middle Virtue - Subject Matter of the Text18
• Part One: THE GROUND23
  • How Buddha Nature Abides23
  • How Buddha Nature Is Obscured by Adventitious Stains When It Is Not
    Realized24
  • Showing the Purpose of Realizing This Very Buddha Nature27
• Part Two: THE PATH28
  • What Should Be Known28
  • What Should Be Reflected Upon34
  • What Should Be Trained In42
  • What Should Be Meditated Upon118
• Part Three: THE RESULT134

• • The Final Virtue -Conclusion143
  • The Reason of Being Profound and Thus Dedicating Its Virtues143
  • The Act of Completing the Treatise: The Colophon144

Appendix

• Bibliography149
• Glossary154
• Detailed Table of Contents162

1. yongs 'dzin a dbyangs thub bstan. theg chen bstan pa'i snying po'i 'grel pa nyi ma'i 'od zer. In 'Bri gung bka' brgyud chos mdzod chen mo, vol. 134, 22–96. Lhasa: 'Bri gung mthil dgon, 2004.

Kagyu - The Kagyu school traces its origin to the eleventh-century translator Marpa, who studied in India with Nāropa. Marpa's student Milarepa trained Gampopa, who founded the first monastery of the Kagyu order. As many as twelve subtraditions grew out from there, the best known being the Karma Kagyu, the Drikung, and the Drukpa. Tib. བཀའ་བརྒྱུད་

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tantra - Tantra, when juxtaposed with Sūtra, generally refers to the scriptures and texts which discuss esoteric topics. While the term is used to refer to texts on other topics, it is mostly used to refer to the genre of scriptures and texts on themes and topics associated with Vajrayāna Buddhism. Skt. तन्त्र Tib. རྒྱུད། Ch. 密宗

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Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to Buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have Bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt. बोधिसत्त्व Tib. བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ། Ch. 菩薩

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