Geshe Michael teaching from his new translation of Je Tsongkapa’s Illumination of the True Thought — one of the greatest books ever written on emptiness. The subject of these three classes is the presentation of the perfection of patience, as it’s found in the explanation of the third bodhisattva level, known as “Shining”.
This third of the bodhisattva levels
Is called “Shining,”
Because of the light given off
By the fire that burns
Every stick of the firewood
Of all the things you can know.
At this point, a light
Of a copper color, like that of the sun,
Shines forth from the child
Of Those Who Have Gone to Bliss.
Je Tsongkapa’s Illumination of the True Thought is one of the greatest presentations of emptiness in history. This work in turn is an explanation of Entering the Middle Way, by Master Chandrakirti, who lived during the seventh century and was commenting himself upon the 3rd‐century author Arya Nagarjuna, whose Root Text on the Wisdom of the Middle Way is considered the greatest commentary of all time upon the emptiness teachings of the Buddha himself.
Geshe Michael has said that in his opinion these are the greatest books about emptiness that have ever been written, and to have an opportunity to go through these books in an authentic way is extremely rare. Just to be able to hear them is unbelievably rare. It took him eight years in the monastery to learn these texts, after 2 years everyone else in the class dropped out and Geshe Michael was the only student left.
