Yael Bentor

A Classical Tibetan Reader

A Classical Tibetan Reader answers a long-standing need for well chosen readings to accompany courses in classical Tibetan language. Professor Bentor has built her Tibetan reader out of time-tested selections from texts that she has worked with while teaching classical Tibetan over the past twenty years. She has assembled here a selection of Tibetan narratives, organized to introduce students of the language to complex material gradually, and to arm them with ample reference materials in the form of glossaries customized to individual readings.

Instructors will find this reader an invaluable tool for preparing lesson plans and providing high-quality reading material to their students. Students, too, will find the selections contained in the reader engaging. Even novice readers of Tibetan will feel welcomed and encouraged, thanks to the author’s astute judgment of student capacity.

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The Essence of the Ocean of Attainments

A comprehensive guide to the creation stage of the Guhyasamāja.

The Essence of the Ocean of Attainments (Dngos grub rgya mtsho’i snying po) is a commentary on the creation stage of the Guhyasamaja Tantra written by the illustrious Panchen Lama, Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen (1570–1662). The practice of Guhyasamaja, one of the earliest and most influential of the highest Tantras, along with its remarkable hermeneutic system, created a framework that was applied to other so-called unexcelled Tantras. Still very much a living tradition, in our time the Fourteenth Dalai Lama confers its empowerment every year. In this work, the Panchen Lama not only clarifies each step of the sadhana meditation ritual, but he also offers general insights into the practice and its workings. It is an Essence because it distills the much longer Ocean of Attainments commentary on the practice composed by Khedrup Jé (1385–1438), one of two key disciples of Tsongkhapa, the founder of Tibetan Buddhism’s Geluk school. The Panchen Lama identifies core elements of sadhana and with unparalleled precision clarifies many seminal points.

In her introduction, Yael Bentor surveys the creation stage of unexcelled Tantra as presented by the founding fathers of the Geluk school and unpacks the contents of The Essence of the Ocean of Attainments for readers. The translation features both explanatory annotations for practitioners and ample references for scholars.

Learn more about the Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism series.

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Ocean of Attainments

This commentary on Guhyasamāja tantra is the seminal guide to deity yoga and tantric visualization for the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism.

The Guhyasamāja Tantra, called the king of all tantras, is revered in Tibet, especially by the Geluk school. Ocean of Attainments, a commentary on Guhyasamāja practice, was composed by Khedrup Jé Gelek Palsang (1385–1438), a key disciple of the Geluk school founder, Tsongkhapa Losang Drakpa. It explores the creation stage, a quintessential Buddhist tantric meditation that together with the completion stage comprises the path of unexcelled tantra.

In the creation stage, meditators visualize themselves as buddhas at the center of the celestial maṇḍala, surrounded in all directions by male and female buddhas, bodhisattvas, and other enlightened beings. Yet creation-stage practice is not merely visualization but deity yoga—indivisibly uniting the meditation on emptiness with the visualization of the maṇḍala. The creation stage uses the conceptualization in visualization to overcome conceptualization, thereby creating a nonconceptual and nonerroneous direct perception. Such a mind, profound and vast, can bring about a transformation that stops saṃsāric suffering. How can visions generated as mental constructs not be erroneous? To the awakened eye, the buddhas and other beings who dwell in the maṇḍala are “reality,” and in a sense they are more than real.

While the previously published Essence of the Ocean of Attainments is a concise exposition on the practice of the Guhyasamaja sadhana, Ocean of Attainments is far more detailed, providing extensive scriptural citations, clear explanation of the body maṇḍala, arguments on points of contention, reference to other tantric systems, and critiques of misinterpretations. With its extensive and clear introduction, this volume is a vital contribution to the growing body of scholarship on Guhyasamāja and on Buddhist tantra in general.

Learn more about the Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism series.

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