Compiled in the fifteenth century, Mind Training: The Great Collection is the earliest anthology of a special genre of Tibetan literature known as "mind training," or lojong in Tibetan. The principal focus of these texts is the systematic cultivation of such altruistic thoughts and emotions as compassion, love, forbearance, and perseverance. The mind-training teachings are highly revered by the Tibetan people for their pragmatism and down-to-earth advice on coping with the various challenges and hardships that unavoidably characterize everyday human existence.
The volume contains forty-four individual texts, including the most important works of the mind training cycle, such as Serlingpa's well-known Leveling Out All Preconceptions, Atisha's Bodhisattva's Jewel Garland, Langri Thangpa's Eight Verses on Training the Mind, and Chekawa's Seven-Point Mind Training together with the earliest commentaries on these seminal texts. An accurate and lyrical translation of these texts, many of which are in metered verse, marks an important contribution to the world's literary heritage, enriching its spiritual resources.
Industry Reviews
"The practice of mind training (lojong) is based on the essential Mahayana teachings of impermanence, compassion, and the exchange of self and other that the eleventh-century master Atisha brought to Tibet from India. The lojong teachings are a source of inspiration and guidance shared by masters of all Tibetan traditions. This makes Thupten Jinpa's translation Mind Training: The Great Collection a natural choice for publication as part of the Library of Tibetan Classics series. For the first time, this early collection of the instructions of the great Kadampa masters has been translated in its entirety. The clarity and raw power of these thousand-year-old teachings are astonishingly fresh, whether studied as a complete anthology of opened at random for inspiring verses on the heart of Buddhist practice."
