The Five Core Topics

The Shedra curriculum, which evolved over many centuries in Tibet, distills the vast corpus of Indian Buddhist literature into five core texts, which represent the essence of Buddhist philosophy and practice.  While we do not yet have complete and viable translations of all of five texts into English, we do have complete translations of three of them and of substantial related literature—other texts similar to the five core ones as well as many commentaries on either the five texts themselves or the topics they present. This makes it now possible to pursue the Shedra curriculum in English by expanding the exclusive focus into five topics instead of exclusively focusing on the five core texts. Additionally, instead of limiting our study to the texts to only one tradition, in the spirit of the Rime or unbiased movement, we are using texts from all traditions of Buddhism in India and Tibet. 

Core Texts 

When viewed more broadly, these five texts represent the five topics, as follows:

  • Abhidharmakosha-The Treasury of Knowledge, by Vasubhandu – Identifying the elements of our experience, both internally and externally, and how they function;

  • Pramanavartikka-The Commentary on the Compendium of Valid Cognition, by Dharmakirti -Sharpening the logical mind so that it can understand the subtleties of experience and so that inference can be strong enough to lead to direct cognition;

  • Madhyamakavatara-The Introduction to the Middle Way, by Chandrakirti - Gaining certainty in the view of the middle path free from the extremes of superimposition and deprecation;

  • Abhisamayalankara-The Ornament of Clear Realization, by Maitreya – Travelers, stages and realizations on the various paths. In our version of the curriculum, the focused of this topic is extrapolated into the gradual path of the Bodhisattva as presented in the lamrim literature;

  • Vinayasutra-The Compilation of the Precepts for Conduct, by Gunaprabha - Understanding the vows for individual liberation required for monks and nuns. In Tibet this topic was often expanded to the study of all three vows as precepts for practice and broader guidelines for conduct, and in particular as the conduct of the Bodhisattva. 

However, since our audience consists of lay practitioners, the last topic is exchanged for the study of the subtleties of meditation, in particular the practice of the four immeasurable, lojong (mind training slogans), tonglen (exchanging the focus our wish to benefit ourselves with the wish to benefit others), and shamatha-vipashyana. As such, the Five Topics expand on the earlier scheme of the Three Wheels of the Buddhist path — Shila (virtue), Samadhi (meditation), and Prajna (wisdom-awareness). 

Supporting Literature

The successful study of the traditional Shedra curriculum also requires the understanding of a substantial range of more introductory subjects. Thus the material used in preparation for studying the five root texts includes the following standard introductory subjects which are also included in the Rime Shedra Curriculum:

  1. History: The development of the lineages of transmission for the five topics and the biographies of the main figures;

  2. Collected Topics: The precise definition and skilful classification of the basic terms and topics used first in the Abhidharma and then throughout the curriculum;

  3. Science of Mind: The classification and definitions of our various mental states, and in particular, the distinction between valid and invalid cognition;

  4. Science of Reasoning: The practical application of valid cognition through logic;

  5. Tenets: The foundational frameworks of the main systems of Buddhist philosophy;

  6. Grounds and Paths: The delineations and the characteristics of the various stages of attainment on the various paths. 

  7. Practice Instructions: The foundational instructions for meditation practice. 

The Progression

  1. Understanding phenomena as empty is abhidharma 

  2. Understanding mind as empty is pramana. 

  3. Understanding this realization as empty is Madhyamaka

  4. Letting go of understanding is samadhi 

  5. The path is the progression of abhisamayas. 

Descriptions of Each of The Five Topics

Abhidharma

The Abhidharma presents clearly and unmistakably the phenomena that we all experience every moment of our conscious existence - the sense powers, the identification of their objects, both independently as unlimited fields of the manifest and as they are perceived by our senses and their interaction as our sense consciousnesses; the functioning of our psycho-physical being including the body and the various levels of the mind from its foundations in bare mental capabilities such as consciousness and subconsciousness to attention, discrimination, discursive thought and memory. From that foundation the abhidharma then presents the fundamental profundity of the Buddhas teachings in the form of the four noble truths and the eightfold path. 

Together with the tools presented in the teachings on pramana, these prepare one to understand the profound truth nature of all phenomena as being without self or ultimate truly existent essence. 

The core text in this tradition is vasubhandu's encyclopedic text, Treasury of Abhidharma, Abhidharnakosha. We approach this text through Mipham's Gateway to Knowledge.

Pramana

The pramana teachings highlight the importance of certain or authoritative cognition - understanding or awareness.  

The study of these teaching begin with delve first into a classification scheme for the phenomena identified and defined in the abhidharma texts which distinguishes between them depending upon their ontological status and how they function. Existents are distinguished from non existents, then functioning existents from non functioning ones. And then the categories of the skandhas as laid out in the abhidharma. Then we proceed to an analysis of awareness that classifies it into various levels depending upon the degree of certainty and then classifies it by various types. 

Finally by identifying all of these nuances of awareness and clearly elaborating the characteristics of each one then the means for generating certainty are clearly defined, explained, and utilized to develop certainty about the true nature if reality in the form of the two truths - the relative or conventional level of mere appearances of sensory data and the absolute or Ultimate level which is the very absence of essential true reality. This entails understanding the mechanics of valid proof by inferential reasoning in the form of a three part syllogism made firm by fulfilling the three requirements of a valid syllogism called the three modes and utilizing one of the three forms of proof - dependency, function and absence or non observation. 

By learning how to generate an inferential valid cognition of the ultimate, emptiness, and repeatedly revisiting that, contemplating it, letting it seep into the fabric of one’s consciousness or being, we can then join it with the state of meditative quiescence as insight. When these two, shamatha and vipashyana, are conjoined upon the inferential understanding of the ultimate repeatedly and skillfully, this gradually gives way to an unmediated or unfabricated experience of the ultimate. This is the goal of the pramana praxis. 

The core text for this topic is the Commentary on Valud Cognition, Pramanavartikka, by Dharmakirti. Perhaps one of the most difficult texts in all of the busdhait tradition, the atandaed access to it is made lore accessible with the study of three introductory texts - the compendium of topics for understanding, Dudra; the Classifications of Valid Cognition, Lorik; and the Claasifixations of Reasons, Tarik. Additionally, the essence of the Commentary And the preparatory texts is presented eloquently by mipham in his sword of wisdom and expanded clearly by the contemporary scholar khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche.

The Bodhisattva Path

The presentation of paths, travelers on those paths, qualities developed and stages of maturity is based upon the presentation in the core text Abhisamayalankara, The Ornament of Higher Realization by Maitreya as recorded and made available to us by his amanuensis, Asanga. By studying the nuances of the path we are able to pull ourselves along the path more quickly and by studying the qualities to be nurtured we are more easily able to develop them.

Along with this text, and in the spirit of the rime tradition, we study the paths and their stages as presented in:

  • The Abhidharma manuals of the early “Theravadin” schools; 

  • And as presented in the Lamrim literature of Tibet, especially Atisha’s Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment and Jigme Lingpa’s Treasury of Precious Qualities; 

  • And as presented in encyclopedic compilation texts such as Jamgon Kongtrul’s Treasury of Knowledge. 

The second topic that is included here is that of the Pratimoksha vows of the monastic practitioner, however instead of focusing on this topic and studying the traditional core text of this topic, the Vinayasutra by Gunaprabha, here we follow the tradition as it was transformed in Tibet and expand the topic into the study of the three vows, understanding them as precepts for practice by lay practitioners as well as monastic practitioners. The three vows in our version are the refuge vow, the bodhicitta vow and the samaya vow. 

The root texts for the three vows are Sakya Pandita’s A Clear Differentiation of the Three Codes and Pema Wangi Gyalpo’s Perfect Conduct. Additionally, we focus on the traditional rules for the bodhisattva as presented in Shantidevi’s Bodhicharyavatara, Atisha’s Seven Points of Mind Training and Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva by Ngulchu Thogme Zangpo. 

Meditation

Meditation is the heart of the path, the discipline by which all of the intellectual understanding is absorbed into our blood and bones as it were. Meditation is presented under the division into two as Shamatha and Vipashyana. These two are considered to be the basis of and inclusive of all of the various types of meditation that are possible. 

Meditations that are essentially mind or body training are considered Shamatha in that they are taming the mind and body and making them a powerful foundation for vipashyana practice. So this includes mindfulness practices, concentration practices, mantra and visualization practices, breathe retention and any practices that work with the emotions such as the brahmaviharas, tonglen and lojong. 

Here in the context of the Shedra curriculum the main focus is on vipashyana meditation. We start with the most important Buddhist text on meditation common to all traditions of Buddhism - the Establishment of Mindfulness Sutra or Satipathanasutta. All subsequent Buddhist meditation practices are derived from this text. 

The next key text is the Samdhinirmocana Mahayana Sutra where in the eighth chapter the Buddha presents an extensive discourse in the form of a dialogue with the bodhisattva Maitreya about Shamatha and Vipashyana from the Mahayana point of view. In this sutra we find the seeds for all of the various qualities and characteristics of Shamatha and Vipashyana that we find in the various Mahayana traditions that come down to us today from Tibet and the Far East. 

In particular, we trace the development and refinement of vipashyana into two types – analytical and non-analytical and the condensation of the latter into four stages in practice. These are presented indirectly in the two sources noted above but explicitly in various other sources ranging from very brief explications in the Lankavatara Sutra, Maitreya’s Ornament of Mahayana Sutras, and more extensively in texts by Nagarjuna, Atisha and in particular Kamalashila in his three-part Bhavanakrama or Stages of Meditation. Since this the most extensive and elaborate discussion of the Indian Mahayana system of Vipashyana, this text is the third key text of this segment. While Rathakarashanti has written extensively on this scheme, his text is unfortunately not yet available in English translation. 

Lastly, we study two presentations from the Tibetan tradition. The first, a chapter from the Treasury of Knowledge by Jamgon Kongtrul summarizes the essence, types, varieties and stages of Shamatha and Vipashyana. This text presents a wonderful summary of the Indian Mahayana tradition and also blends that with paradigms from the Indian Vajrayana Mahamudra tradition. In the latter, we see a dynamic development in the presentation of Shamatha as progressing through three stages, represented by progressively more subtle objects of the practice. 

In the second presentation we see the way that the Tibetan tradition has evolved into its present state where meditation upon the most subtle object of Shamatha is used as a bridge to access non-analytical vipashyana directly in a way that shortens the normally much longer progression through extensive analytical vipashyana as a preliminary stage. 

View

The development of the view together with the cultivation of meditation from the heart of our path. There is an alternation between the two such that at times we develop the view within meditation And other times we develop meditation within the view. In other words they compliment each other and by cultivating both together or alternately they each advance more deeply and expansively.

Normally when we say view we are talking in a dualist way about viewing an object. So in a conventional sense we can talk about developing the viewing of the truth. By saying that we are developing the view we mean that our understanding of the truth changes as we progress on the path, as we shift through the silt that has built up on our visor or our windshield by practicing Shamatha and as we piece the many layers of delusion through vipashyana.

In all phases of that process and in all stages of the path and in all traditions of Buddhism the ultimate goal is to understand or develop the view of the middle between all extremes. What that is gets refined by each tradition, at every stage, into progressively more and more sophisticated definitions. The culmination varies depending upon which tradition one adheres to. 

The core text in this segment is the Madhyamakavatara by Chandrakirti. Using the framework of the path of the bodhisattva progressing thru the ten bhumis, he presents the definitive presentation for the development of the view accepted as definitive by all traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. There are certainly differences in interpreting his text and certain traditions include other texts as essential to complete their presentation but Chandrakirtis masterpiece is universally accepted as the authoritative presentation of the highest understanding of the nature of our world, of reality, as consisting of two aspects aimultaneously inter penetrating - the conventional level that we participate in with concepts and preconceptions and the ultimate level that transcends all of our mental fabrications.

He eloquently and clearly presents the traditional schemes of reasoning refuting inherent existence in both persons and phemomena. For refuting the true existence of persons Chandrakirtis uses the traditional scheme of the sevenfold contemplation of the chariot as a metaphor for comparing our belief in a self to the way we actually experience the aggregates that serve as the basis of imputation for that belief. In refuting the true existence of phenomena, Chandrakirtis presents in great detail what has become known as the vajra slivers argument. This is one of four or five main arguments that nagarjuna codified in his Root Text on the Middle Way, Mulamadhyamikalarika. The others are presented in detail in other major texts of the tradition. They are presented altogether by Mipham in his short text, The Four Great Arguments of the Middle Way.