The Fundamental Potential for Enlightenment

Description

One of the most inspiring tenets of Mahayana Buddhism is that all beings have the potential to be enlightened. This potential is linked to the fundamental nature of the mind of every being.

The Fundamental Potential for Enlightenment sets forth an analysis of the natural and developed potential from the perspectives of the two main schools of Mahayana thought – the Mind-Only school and the Middle Way school.

It explains how this potential is transformed into the state of enlightenment and gives precise definitions and explanations clearly establishing the existence and nature of the various facets of enlightenment.

Fundamental Potential is drawn from the three of Maitreya’s five great treatises, which deal with Buddha potential – the Sublime Continuum of the Mahayana (Tib. theg pa chen po rgyud bla ma’i), the Ornament for the Mahayana Sutras (Tib. theg pa chen po’i mdo sde’i rgyan) and the Ornament for Clear Realisation (Tib. mngon par rtogs pa’i rgyan).

Definitions and explanations of natural and developed potential, the six clairvoyances, the four Buddha bodies, the major signs and minor marks, and so forth, are drawn from Sera Jetsun Chokyi Gyal Tsan’s General Meaning commentaries to the above texts.