The translators’ goal was to translate definitive works that would help people all over the world master these two combined practices: quietude, or deep meditation; and then the insight into reality which is only possible from inside this state of quietude. The book begins by presenting theory—a treatise called Light on the Path to Freedom: An Explanation of the Steps for Developing an Understanding That Nothing Is Itself, by Choney Lama, Drakpa Shedrup (1675–1748).It then continues with four different classics which—when taken together—are just about everything one would ever need to know for developing the platform of quietude: Stages of Meditation, by Arya Nagarjuna (200ad); the third Stages of Meditation, by Master Kamalashila (775ad); The Illustrated Stages of Meditation, by Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche (1900–1981); and a selection on how to develop quietude from The Gift of Liberation, Thrust into Our Hands, notes taken by Trijang Rinpoche, on an oral teaching given by Kyabje Pabongka Rinpoche (1878–1941), on Je Tsongkapa’s Great Book on the Steps of the Path.
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