Wisdom Dharma Chats | Thupten Jinpa – Illuminating the Intent Book Launch

Please enjoy this unedited recording of our Wisdom Dharma Chat book launch with host Daniel Aitken and special guest Thupten Jinpa Langri.

In this episode, we celebrated the launch of Jinpa’s translation Illuminating the Intent: An Exposition of Candrakirti’s Entering the Middle Way.

Topics discussed include:

the significance of this text;
common nihilistic misunderstandings of Nagarjuna’s madhyamaka;
understanding different levels of analysis, including moving beyond the conventional;
developing a deeper understanding of different kinds of thought;
some of Tsongkhapa’s most important ideas and philosophies, including his psychological models;
different schools’ views of truth;
Tsongkhapa’s teachings on realizing emptiness, including that one of the most important challenges for anyone serious about liberation is to examine how we perceive the world;
how to understand meditation on emptiness as an interactive, dynamic exploration;
and much more.

Thupten Jinpa Langri was educated in the classical Tibetan monastic academia and received the highest academic degree of Geshe Lharam (equivalent to a doctorate in divinity). Jinpa also holds a BA in philosophy and a PhD in religious studies, both from the University of Cambridge, England. Since 1985, he has been the principal translator to the Dalai Lama, accompanying him to the United States, Canada, and Europe. He has translated and edited many books by the Dalai Lama, including The World of Tibetan Buddhism, Essence of the Heart Sutra, and the New York Times bestseller Ethics for the New Millennium.

Jinpa has published scholarly articles on various aspects of Tibetan culture, Buddhism, and philosophy, and books such as Songs of Spiritual Experience: Tibetan Poems of Awakening and Insight (co-authored); Self, Reality and Reason in Tibetan Thought; and the definitive biography of Je Tsongkhapa, Buddha in the Land of Snows. He serves on the advisory board of numerous educational and cultural organizations in North America, Europe, and India. He is currently the president and the editor-in-chief of the Institute of Tibetan Classics, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to translating key Tibetan classics into contemporary languages. And he also currently chairs the Mind and Life Institute and the Compassion Institute.

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