The Rice Seedling Sutra

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“Dependent arising, one of the Buddha’s most profound teachings, is brought to life in this lucid commentary on the Rice Seedling Sutra by Geshe Yeshe Thabkhe, one of the greatest living scholars of the Tibetan tradition.”

—José Ignacio Cabezón, Dalai Lama Professor of Tibetan Buddhism and Cultural Studies, UC Santa Barbara

“Geshe Yeshe Thabkhe is the most eminent Tibetan scholar of Buddhist philosophy of the past century. His studies of Madhyamaka thought are peerless in their depth, clarity, and insight. Geshe-la’s commentary on the Rice Seedling Sutra exemplifies his precise, profound, yet entirely accessible commentarial style, making the purport of this sutra immediately available to the reader and demonstrating the power of a great commentary. This text has much to offer to practitioners, beginning students, and advanced scholars alike.”

—Jay L. Garfield, Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities, Smith College, and the Harvard Divinity School

THE RICE SEEDLING SUTRA

Buddha’s Teachings on Dependent Arising

Geshe Yeshe Thabkhe

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One of Tibet’s great scholars presents the Buddha’s profound teachings on the laws of karma and dependent arising.

In the Rice Seedling Sutra, the Buddha unpacks the law of cause and effect. He notes how in the natural world, a seed becomes a sprout, which produces a flower, which bears fruit. A seed has no intention to sprout; when the right conditions are assembled the fruit arises. Similarly, when our senses encounter an object, a sense consciousness arises naturally, without our intending it. This, says the Buddha, is also how karma works and how actions performed out of ignorance create suffering, whether we want it or not. And this same law of causality also governs enlightenment—when the right conditions are assembled, awakening is assured.

In many sutras like this one, the Buddha explains that to understand his Dharma is to understand dependent arising. Geshe Yeshe Thabkhe explores dependent arising, and the corollary teaching of emptiness, through this sutra and others. Commenting on the works of Indian masters such as Śāntarakṣita, he shows how belief in a creator god is incompatible with dependent arising, and by illuminating the teachings of Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti, he shows how we do—and do not—exist.

Geshe Yeshe Thabkhe was among the last generation of scholars to be trained in Tibet before the Chinese occupation. He has been teaching Westerners for decades, having worked with top scholars in the United States, and he is especially familiar with this sutra, having translated the commentary by Kamalaśīla into Hindi. Here his deep familiarity, combined with his extensive command of the Buddhist scriptures, allows him to present the Buddha’s words in a rich and authoritative context.

book information
  • ebook
  • 176 pages pages
  • $17.99
  • ISBN 9781614296447
  • Paperback
  • 176 pages pages, 6 x 9 inches
  • $20.95
  • ISBN 9781614296430
about the author
The Rice Seedling Sutra

Professor Geshe Yeshe Thabkhe was born in 1930 in Lhokha, Central Tibet, and became a monk at Drepung Loseling Monastery at the age of thirteen. After completing his studies in 1969, Geshe Thabkhe was awarded the highest academic degree offered in the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism. Since 1972, he has served as professor of the Indian tradition of Buddhist philosophy at Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, the only Tibetan university in India. He has also served as a lecturer at the School of Buddhist Philosophy, Leh, Ladakh, and at Sanskrit University in Sarnath. His works include Hindi translations of Tsongkhapa’s Essence of Good Explanation of the Definitive and Interpretable and Kamalaśīla’s commentary on the Rice Seedling Sutra. He was the primary traditional source for the English translation of Tsongkhapa’s Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path. He is a resident teacher at the Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center in New Jersey and has also taught at Drepung Loseling in Georgia, Jewel Heart in Michigan, and Sravasti Abbey in Washington State.

Photo by Armen Elliott.

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