Description
Karl Brunnholzl was trained as a physician and presently works as a Tibetan translator and Buddhist teacher. He studied Tibetology, Buddhology, and Sanskrit at Hamburg University. This superb collection of writings on buddha nature by the Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje (1284-1339), focuses on the transition from ordinary deluded consciousness to enlightened wisdom, the characteristics of buddhahood, and a buddha's enlightened activity. These materials, most of them never before translated, comprehensively represent the Third Karmapa's unique and well-balanced view which synthesizes Yogacara, Madhyamaka, and the classical teachings on buddha nature. Rangjung Dorje not only shows that these teachings do not contradict each other, but also that they supplement each other and share the same essential points in terms of the ultimate nature of mind and all phenomena. His fusion is remarkable because it clearly builds on Indian predecessors and precedes the later, often highly charged debates in Tibet about the views of Rangtong ("self-empty") and Shentong ("other-empty").