Sakya: The Path with Its Result, Part Two

The Treasury of Precious Instructions by Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Taye, one of Tibet’s greatest Buddhist masters, is a shining jewel of Tibetan literature, presenting essential teachings from the entire spectrum of practice lineages that existed in Tibet. In its eighteen volumes, Kongtrul brings together some of the most important texts on key topics of Buddhist thought and practice as well as authoring significant new sections of his own.

The sixth volume of this series, and part two of Sakya: The Path with Its Result, completes Kongtrul’s presentation of a selection of texts from the Sakya tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. This volume includes the complete teachings and practices of the Eight Ancillary Path Cycles. These eight complete the nine path cycles that begin with Virūpa’s Vajra Verses found in volume five of the series. These path cycles are generally only taught to students who have received the entire Path with Its Result (Lamdre) teaching. They contain oral instructions transmitted to Drokmi Lotsāwa by the early eleventh-century Indian masters—Ācārya Vīravajra, Mahāsiddha Amoghavajra, Pandita Prajñāgupta of Oddiyāna, and Pandita Gayadhara. These cycles provide copious material on the creation and completion stages, which was incorporated later into the Three Tantras literature, the signature Vajrayāna teaching of the Sakya school.