Buddhist Yoga: A Comprehensive Course [Paperback]

This book is meant as a precursor to meditation, to be read and re-read, pondered upon and read again.

Sitting on a cushion and meditating may be good to relieve stress, however true insight comes effortlessly after first perfecting ones intellectual understanding of ultimate truth and reality.

Only after this perfection, which is clearly outlined in this sutra, will meditation yield results beyond mere mystic states. As stated above, the sanskrit word "yoga" means union, and this text is a translation of the Buddha's teaching which outlines the perfection of intellectually understanding the functioning of Mind and consciousness and the right frame in which to apprehend ultimate truth (ones union with ultimate truth is then free to follow).

Liberation is one thing, and you may gain it in meditation, but only after perfecting your intellectual understanding can reason come to its conclusion and meditation yield concentration and contemplative results effortlessly.

The Samdhinirmocana Sutra stands with the Lankavatara Sutra at the origin of what became the Yogacara and even Dzog Chen approaches to understanding the mind and meditation for Buddhists. It is with the wish this text is "rediscovered" I mount this study aide to comparing translations.

Key to Coordinating the available english translations:

Cleary Buddhist Yoga 1.) [ Cleary Classics 2.) ]
[Powers 3.) ]

1.) Cleary, Buddhist Yoga, Shambhalla, 1995
& the same text republished in
2.) Cleary, Classics of Buddhism and Zen, Shambhalla, 2002
3.) Powers, Wisdom of the Buddha, Dharma, 1995
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Cleary Chapter One Page 1 [ Classics Vol. 5 - p. 753]
"Introduction"
[Powers Chapter One] Gambhirarrthasamdhinirmocana p.5

Cleary Chapter Two Page 5 [ Classics Vol. 5 - p. 755]
"Characteristics of Ultimate Truth"
[Powers Chapter Two] Dahrmodgata p. 25
[Powers Chapter Three] Suvisuddhamati p.35
[Powers Chapter Four] Subhuti p. 53

The first four chapters in Powers version focus on a discussion of the ultimate truth (paramartha).
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Cleary Chapter Three Page 19 [ Classics Vol. 5 - p. 766]
"Characteristics of Mind, Intellect, and Consciousness"

[Powers Chapter Five] Visalamati p.69

Cleary Chapter Four p. 23 [ Classics Vol. 5 - p. 769]
"Characteristics of All Phenomena"

[Powers Chapter Six] Gunakara p.82

The fifth and sixth chapter in Powers discuss the concept of alayavijñana or "storehouse consciousness" and the three characteristics of phenomena (trilak'a'a), which refer to the incomplete and absolute truth of various phenomena.
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Cleary Chapter Five Page 27 [ Classics Vol. 5 - p. 772]
"Essencelessness"
[Powers Chapter Seven] Paramarthasamudgata p.95

Powers seventh chapter is mainly concerned with outlining principles of Buddhist HERMENEUTICS
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Cleary Chapter Six Page 43 [ Classics Vol. 5 - p. 784]
"Analyzing Yoga"
[Powers Chapter Eight] Maitreya p. 151

Powers eighth chapter focuses on MEDITATION theory and practice.
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Cleary Chapter Seven Page 69 [ Classics Vol. 5 - p. 805]
[Chapter Nine] Avalokite'vara p. 221
"The Transcendent Way of the Sages"

Powers ninth chapter describes the bodhisattva PATH.
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Cleary Chapter Eight - Page 91 [ Classics Vol. 5 - p. 822]
"Deeds of the Enlightened "
Powers [Chapter Ten] Mañju'r' page 275

Powers tenth and final chapter is concerned with the characteristics of buddhahood, the culmination of the practices the text describes.
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If your idea of yoga is body postures or breath control or sitting in meditation to deepen your tranquility of mind and clarify your insight into wisdom you are on a path that leads, at least in the Buddhist context, to this text, which has been translated twice before by Thomas Cleary as [a course in] "Buddhist yoga" and John Powers as "the Wisdom of the Buddha".

The Cleary text is aimed at being very simple and straightforward, an effort to make it easy to assimilate text. The power's book is lovely having facing pages of Tibetan and English text and a full set of notes. In a review of John Powers book that you can find on the Internet by Tom Graham you can get the background picture of just how frustrating it is that a text this important as a background to both the Yogacara School and the view of the Tantras is almost completely overlooked by American Buddhists. This newest translation offers a both a crystal clarity of translation and a wonderful table of contents as well as some insightful footnotes that make for a compact commentary on the text all by themselves.

Those who are used to physical yoga and the notion yoga involving conceptual meditation don't even recognize this as a form of yoga because they are unfamiliar with the presentation and the essence of non-conceptual yoga which is of course the pinnacle of Vajrayana Buddhism. Originally written in the early second century it lay the foundation for all the Buddhist yoga to come. I have written a concordance to the chapters of the "Buddhist yoga" and "Wisdom of the Buddha" translations in my review of both of those books. You would do well to check all the comments on those two translations as well as the Tom Graham review. It is only then you'll begin to understand what you're missing if you are a Buddhist of the Mahayana tradition.

Yes. The previous reviewer is correct: this is the deepest of the deep of the Buddha's cosmic sutras. Don't waste your money on this book if you are not a meditating Buddhist.If you've found the cushion, however, taste this! This is a book for Bodhisattvas to bathe in.

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