The Three Principle Paths
Written by
Lord Lama Je Tsongkhapa
Lozang Dragpa Sumati Kirti
I bow to the high and holy lamas.
1. As far as I am able I shall explain the essence of all high
teachings of the Victors, the path that their holy sons commend,
the entry point for the fortunate seeking freedom.
2. Listen with a pure mind, fortunate ones who have no craving for
the pleasures of life, and who to make leisure and fortune
meaningful strive to their minds to the path which pleases the
Victors.
3. There is no way to end, without the pure reunciation, this
striving for pleasent results in the ocean of life. It is because
of their hankering life as well that beings are fettered, so seek
reunciation first.
4. Leisure and fortune are hard to find, life is not long; think it
constantly, stop desire for this life. Think over and over how
deeds and their fruits never fail, and the cycle's suffering: stop
desire for the future.
5. When you have meditated thus and fell not even a moment's wish
for the good things of cyclic life, and when you begin to think
both night and day of achieving freedom, you have found
reunciation.
6. Reunciation though can never bring the total bliss of matchless
Buddhahood unless it is bound by the purest wish; and so, the wise
seek the high wish for enlightenment.
7. They are swept along the four fierce river currents, chained up
tight in past deeds, hard to undo, stuffed in a steel cage of
grasping "self," smothered in the pitch-black ignorance.
8. In a limitless round they are born, and in their births are
tortured by three sufferings without a break; think how your
mothers feel, think of what is happening to them, try to develop
this highest wish.
9. You may master reunciation and the wish, but unless you have the
wisdom perceiving reality you cannot cut the root of cyclic life.
Make efforts in ways then to perceive interdependence.
10. A person is entered the path that pleases the Buddhas when for
all objects, in the cycle or beyond, he sees that cause and effect
can never fail, and when for him they lose all solid
appearance.
11. You have yet to realize the thought of the Able as long as two
ideas seem to you disparate: the appearance of things- infallible
interdependence; and emptiness- beyond taking any position.
12. At some point they have no longer alternate, come together;
just seeing that interdependence never fails brings realization
that destroys how you hold objects, and then your analysis with
view complete.
13. In addition, the appearance prevents the existence extreme;
emptiness that of non-existence, and if you see how emptiness shows
cause and effect. You will never be stolen off by extreme
views.
14. When you have grasped as well as essential points of each of
the three principal paths explained, then go into isolation, my
son, make efforts, and quickly win your ultimate wish.
End of the Three Principal Paths written by Lama Je
Tsongkhapa
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