Atisa's Stages of the Path to Awakening

This book contains a lost Stages of the Path (Lamrim) work composed by the originator of the genre, Atisa, one of the greatest Indian Buddhist masters to ever set foot in Tibet.

Nearly a millennium ago, the great Indian Buddhist master Atisa Dipamkarasrijñana (ca. 982-1054) wrote a guidebook for realizing all the stages to awakening at the repeated request of his closest Tibetan disciple. Atisa is famously the author of the Lamp for the Path to Awakening (Bodhipathapradipa), a short work in verse, but this longer prose work has been virtually unknown, even in Tibet--until now. Atisa's Stages of the Path Awakening (Bodhipathakrama), translated here, synthesizes all aspects of Buddhist practice, from the very beginning of the path--reflecting on the fortunate opportunity of human rebirth--up through to attaining omniscient buddhahood by nondual meditation. The Indian master's faithful disciple Dromtönpa kept these teachings secret, and they were only transmitted to select disciples in a closely guarded transmission, but the lineage died out centuries ago, after Dromtönpa's Kadam school was eclipsed by history.

Now this significant work of Buddhist path literature has become available owing to recently recovered manuscripts of the Kadampas. This book offers a study and complete translation from the Tibetan of this monument of guidance on the Buddhist path accompanied by the commentaries and ritual texts that were transmitted alongside Atisa's text. Apple's substantial introduction includes a structural comparison with Atisa's famous work, charts the transmission lineage for the present work before it died out, and explores various hypotheses for why their fates diverged. Recovered from the contingencies of history, this book brings to life one of the most holistic and integrated approaches to the highest realizations of the Indian Buddhist path ever transmitted in Tibet.

"Atisa's Stages of the Path to Awakening is the latest of James Apple's publications dedicated to the works of Atisa Dipa?karasrijñana. The book presents Stages of the Path to Awakening for the first time in full to an Anglophone readership, together with translations of several commentarial and instructional works and accompanied by a detailed introduction by the author. I am delighted to see these little-known texts from the tradition of the famous Buddhist master finally receiving the attention they deserve."--Ulrike Roesler, University of Oxford
"The lamrim, or 'stages of the path, ' is one of Tibet's most important and popular methods of self-transformation. Based on the works of the eleventh-century Bengali saint Atisa, it is practiced in every school of Tibetan Buddhism. In this book, James Apple translates and brings to life hitherto unknown writings of Atisa on the lamrim. This is a tremendously important contribution to Indo-Tibetan religious literature, and a great gift to those of us who study and practice the stages of the path."--José Ignacio Cabezón, distinguished research professor of religious studies, Dalai Lama Professor Emeritus, UC Santa Barbara

James B. Apple is a professor of Buddhist studies at the University of Calgary. He received his doctorate in Buddhist studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His current research focuses upon the critical analysis of Mahayana sutras and topics within Indian and Tibetan Buddhist scholasticism. He has published over seventy-five articles in the study of Buddhism. His books include Stairway to Nirvana (2008), A Stairway Taken by the Lucid: Tsong kha pa's Study of Noble Beings (2013), Jewels of the Middle Way: The Madhyamaka Legacy of Atisa and His Early Tibetan Followers (2018), Atisa Dipamkara: Illuminator of the Awakened Mind (2019), and An Old Tibetan Dunhuang Manuscript of the Avaivartikacakrasutra (2021).

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