This chapter provides the general setting for the subject of contemplation. After an initial homage addressed to the innate state of spontaneous presence, it explains the practical necessity of finding a solitary place of retreat, so as to be able to engage in contemplation undisturbed. It also discusses the difference between inner and outer solitude. This chapter covers such topics as the need to be committed to the practice of meditation and to be detached from worldly concerns. Also addressed is the indispensable necessity to study the Buddhist doctrine and to obtain the pith instructions related to the meditations that the practitioner seeks to undertake.

This is the first of the four main chapters of the text. Its subject matter is the gradual approach of the classical Mahāyāna, which gNubs-chen places at the bottom of his doxographical scheme. Like the other vehicles to be discussed in the chapters that follow, the gradual approach is examined in terms of a fourfold structure pertaining to the specifics of its view, meditation, conduct, and fruition. This approach is compared to the gradual ascent of a mountain. Among the topics covered in this chapter are the cultivation of the four immeasurables, the proper understanding of the two truths (relative and absolute), the meditative practices of calm abiding and insight, and the manner of measuring one’s progress by examining omens in one’s dreams. The chapter also discusses the purification of the obscurations and the necessity of virtuous action, seeing the two accumulations of merit and wisdom as integral components of enlightenment.

This book presents an English translation of the bSam-gtan mig-sgron (pron. Samten Migdron, Lamp for the Eye of Contemplation) by gNubs-chen Sangs-rgyas ye-shes (pron. Nubchen Sangye Yeshe), a seminal 10th-century Tibetan Buddhist work on contemplation. This treatise is one of the most important sources for the study of the various meditative currents that were transmitted to Tibet from India and China during the early dissemination of Buddhism in Tibet. Written from the vantage point of the Great Completeness (rDzogs-chen, pron. Dzogchen) and its vehicle of effortless spontaneity, it discusses, in the manner of a doxography, both sūtra-based—including Chan—and tantric approaches to meditation. The unabridged, annotated English translation of the Tibetan treatise is preceded by a general introduction situating the author—a pivotal figure in what would become the rNying-ma (pron. Nyingma) school of Tibetan Buddhism—and discussing the historical and doctrinal context of his work. The detailed annotations to the translation provide elucidating comments as well as crucial references for the numerous texts quoted by the Tibetan author. This book gives access to a groundbreaking Tibetan work on meditation and opens fascinating windows on early forms of contemplative practice in Tibet.

This chapter broaches the interrelationship between correctly assimilating the doctrinal standpoint or view of a given contemplative approach and deepening and stabilizing this comprehension through meditation. It then provides a bird’s-eye view of the differences among the vehicles examined in the text. This is achieved by looking at their respective understanding of the key notion of non-discursiveness, or non-conceptuality. The chapter proceeds to identify and refute the deviations in the lower vehicles’ understanding from the perspective of Atiyoga or rDzogs-chen, the approach favored by the author, gNubs-chen Sangs-rgyas ye-shes. This chapter thus provides a condensed version of the topics to be covered at length in the main chapters of the text.