Ornament of Precious Liberation (Tibetan Classics) - Hardcover

"A classic work on the spiritual path, brought to life in for contemporary English readers in this lively new translation. This is among the clearest explanations of the Mahayana path in any language."--Kurtis R. Schaeffer, University of Virginia

"Though there are several earlier translations of Ornament of Precious Liberation, this translation is the most readable and faithful, and the extensive footnotes will be of help to practitioners and scholars alike."--The Seventeenth Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje

"The Ornament of Precious Liberation by the dharma lord Gampopa is not only an authoritative and comprehensive blueprint of Buddhist spirituality, it is also a classic of world literature. Ken Holmes's beautiful new translation will help ensure that these much needed guidelines of Gampopa for developing wisdom and compassion will receive timely new attention in our shared experience of the 21st century."--Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

A welcome new translation of Gampopa's classic overview of the Buddha's teachings.

Ornament of Precious Liberation is the main textbook for the study of Buddhism in the Kagyu tradition by its renowned founder, Gampopa. Compact and precise, with extensive citations from scripture, it is an overview of the Buddha’s teachings for meditators and, for scholars, an excellent master plan into which all other teachings can be slotted.

Gampopa Sönam Rinchen (1079–1153) is famous for establishing the monastic life and systematizing the bodhisattva teachings in the Kagyu tradition in the early twelfth century. He trained as a physician, but when his wife died while he was still young, he turned to the life of a monk of the Kadam order. Later, he became the principal disciple of the great yogi Milarepa. While not quite as famous as his teacher Milarepa now, in his life he drew more than fifty thousand disciples to him, and he set up the first Kagyu monastery in Dakpo. Through him flowed the transmission of mahamudra meditation, the six tantric practices of Naropa, and the Buddhist fundamentals and deep scholarship he was steeped in during his training in the Kadam school. It is not for nothing that the broadest Kagyu tradition from which all the smaller Kagyu lineages flow is called the Dakpo Kagyu after him.

Ornament of Precious Liberation lays out the practice of the Mahayana path in twenty-one chapters. Beginning with the basis of buddha nature, it shows how a practitioner ascends step by step through the preliminary contemplations, through the six perfections of a bodhisattva, to the paths and levels leading to buddhahood, describing a buddha’s exalted form and activities. Richly ornamented with the words of the Buddha and the great Indian commentators, it is a master sourcebook that meditators can turn to over and over again as they progress along the path to enlightenment.