Practicing the Path

The Lamrim Chenmo, or Great Treatise on the Steps of the Path, by Je Tsongkhapa is a comprehensive overview of the process of individual enlightenment. Meditation on these steps has been a core practice of Tibetan Buddhists for centuries. The Lamrim Chenmo presents the Buddha's teachings along a continuum of three spiritual attitudes: the person who worries about rebirth, the person who wants to escape rebirth, and finally the person who strives for buddhahood in order to relieve the suffering of all beings--this is the supreme aspiration of the bodhisattva. Given over two months to a group of Western Students in Dharamsala, India, Yangsi Rinpoche's commentary revitalizes our understanding of Tsongkhapa's work, giving readers renewed inspiration.

Yangsi Rinpoche was born in Kathmandu, Nepal in 1968 and recognized as a reincarnate tulku at age six. At the age of ten, he entered Sera Je Monastery in South India, and in 1995 graduated with the highest degree of Geshe Lharampa. In 1998, Rinpoche came to America, where he lived and taught for several years at Deer Park Buddhist Center near Madison, Wisconsin. He now lives in Portland, Oregon, where he is president and professor of Buddhist Studies at Maitripa College, a Buddhist institute of higher education.

Born in the Tsang region of Tibet in 1923, Geshe Lhundub Sopa was both a spiritual master and a respected academic. He rose from a humble background to complete his geshe studies at Sera Je Monastic University in Lhasa with highest honors and was privileged to serve as a debate opponent for the Dalai Lama’s own geshe examination in 1959. He moved to New Jersey in the United States in 1963 and in 1967 began teaching in the Buddhist Studies program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1975 he founded the Deer Park Buddhist Center in Oregon, Wisconsin, site of the Dalai Lama’s first Kalachakra initiation granted in the West. He was the author of several books in English, including the five-volume comprehensive teaching Steps on the Path to Enlightenment. Geshe Lhundub Sopa passed away on August 28, 2014, at the age of 91. His Holiness the Dalai Lama composed a prayer of request for the swift return of Geshe Sopa.

Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche is the Spiritual Director of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a worldwide network of Buddhist centers, monasteries, and affiliated projects, including Wisdom Publications. Rinpoche was born in 1946 in the village of Thami in the Solo Khumbu region of Nepal near Mount Everest. His books include Transforming Problems into Happiness, How to Be Happy, and Ultimate Healing. He lives in Aptos, California.

Venerable Tsen-la is a nun in the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Born in Lhasa, she grew up in Kathmandu, Nepal, and was ordained there in 1979 by Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. She has acted as translator for many Buddhist lamas, led meditation courses around the world, and was instrumental in the founding of Khachoe Ghakyil Nunnery in Kathmandu.

Namdrol Miranda Adams holds an MA in Education with a focus on Educational Leadership and Policy from Portland State University, and a BA in English Literature from New York University. Since 1998 she has dedicated her life to the study and practice of the Tibetan language and the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, seven of those as a Buddhist nun. She studied the traditional texts and their commentaries at Deer Park Monastery in Wisconsin from 1998-2003 and her editing and translation work includes Practicing the Path, the Rubin Foundation's Treasury of Lives, Karmapa 900, and the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive's Kopan Lam Rim Courses. She has been the assistant of Yangsi Rinpoche since 1999 and is one of the founders of Maitripa College, where she is Dean of Education.