Tripitaka Research
After Rinpoche’s visit, he left us some resources for rebuilding the library, and I volunteered to help there.
A group of us decided to choose the books that will be put into the library, and I was assigned to catalogue the Tripitaka needed for the library. Tibetan Tripitaka is all in Tibetan, and not yet been translated, so I applied the principle that Mahayana sutras are the foundation of Vajrayana, so I used Taisho Tripitaka made by Takakusu Junjiro in Japan as reference.
In the Vinaya part, I chose Dharmagupta-Vinaya, which means Vinaya of Four parts, it is the most popular Vinaya among Mahayana Buddhists, which describes the basic rules, conducts and moral in a monastery. And I also included Mulasarvastivada, which is an additional set of Vinaya for Tibetan Buddhists. In addition, I included Vinaya for Bodhisattva vows, which can be taken by both layman, laywomen, and the Sangha. I then included other common Vinaya for reference. This is the most sutras for the Vinaya School (lvZong).
In the Sutta part, I included all the important ones, including Agama (which is all of the Theravada Suttas, includes some of the fundamentals of Buddhism, such as the four noble truth, eight fold path etc.), Jataka (which is the stories of the Buddha’s past life, or what he experience), Prajnaparamita (The perfection of wisdom sutras, which talks about emptiness), Lotus Sutra, Flower Garland Sutra, Ratnakuta (which contains story of the Bodhisattvas, and how they become a Buddha) , Nirvana Sutras( which talks about attainment, instead of emptiness).
Some of the sutras are very popular, includes the Lotus Sutra, which is a beautiful Buddhist literature piece that talks about perfection and equality, that everyone can become a Buddha. The section on Avalokiteśvara is one of the most chanted sutras. This collection of sutras also includes Samantabhadra Meditation Sutra. This sutra is regarded to be the most important sutra of TianTai School or known as Ten-Dai shu in Japan.
Flower Garland Sutra is the first sutra that Saddharma Buddha delivered, which talks about dependent origination, and the progression to Buddhahood(10 stages of Bodhisattva). It also has a chapter on the universe, which explains some interesting concepts such as multiple universe, four stages of the universe etc… It is also the most important sutra for Hua Yan (Avatamsaka) school of Buddhism, and the section on Amitabha formed the pure land school.
Prajnaparamita is the longest volume in the Tripitaka. It is also known as perfection of wisdom, it talks about emptiness, non-attachment, and it was concentrated onto a small summary called the heart sutra, which says that emptiness is the true form of everything. In this volume, Diamond sutra is the most sutra for Chan (Zen) school of Buddhism.
I purposely take out the Tantric section of the Sutta canon, it has a lot of details regarding ways to conduct a ceremony, the mandala that it is supposed to draw, the mudra and mantra that is related to that ceremony. And this section of the Sutta canon, is based on all other Mahayana Sutras. The Tibetan Buddhism, and Tangmi (Chinese Tantric, which is where Shingon originates from) uses this part of the sutra. The Tibetan Tantric section includes more contents, including Yoga, and Anuttarayoga Tantra. These ceremony usually connects people to Chenrezig or Kwan Inn or Avalokiteśvara, Cundhi and Vairocana Buddha. Chinese Tantra or Tangmi no longer exists, however some of the practice was carried out by the Chan School, including the great compassion Tantra, oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ, or Cundhi Tantra.
For the Abhidharma canon, I picked the most significant part of it, like Abhidharma volume, which is the first Abhidharma that was written; Yogacara, which talks about existence; Madhyamaka, which talks about the middle way. And I even included an encyclopedia for the terminologies and concepts.
Abhidharma, is the higher Dharma, talks about the philosophy, ideas and doctrine in Buddhism. It includes all the Abhidharma canon of the Theravada School. It is also the most important sutra for the Kosa School (Ju She School, one of the Chinese Vinayana School) and Satyasiddhi School, or ChengShi School or Jōjitsu-shu.
Yogacara, which talks about consciousness, which is the basic for Fa Xiang School, which practices bases on. Its practice is based on both meditation and yoga to discover phenomenon and ontology. Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra in it, is the foundation of Buddhist practice, which revealed how everyone can become Buddha.
Madhyamaka, which talks about the middle way. It did not come from the Buddha, but from Bodhisattva Nāgārjuna. It talks about the right view in the eight fold path. It mediates the view of emptiness school and existence or consciousness school, it talks about the view on as what should be seem as empty and what should be seem as real.
After that I have finished cataloguing, I can finally go back to my farming, and Durha just told me that I can perform a tribute ceremony to ask a Bon god for help for my wife’s safe return.
