Nubchen Sangye Yeshe - Works - Lamp For The Eye in Contemplation The Samten Migdron (Tib. BSam-gtan Mig-sgron.)

Lamp For The Eye in Contemplation The Samten Migdron (Tib. BSam-gtan Mig-sgron.)

Capriles (2003: p.194) in discussing the 'Lamp for the Eye in Contemplation' the Samten Migdrön discovered in 1908 at Tun-huang by Paul Pelliot states:

...this book was entombed in the ruins of Tun-huang, where it remained from the eleventh or twelfth century CE until 1908, when French Sinologist Paul Pelliot explored the cave temples that a local farmer discovered accidentally at the turn of the twentieth century. Therefore, its authenticity is beyond question.

In the Samten Migdrön, Nubchen Sangye Yeshe establishes a salient distinction within the Mahayana between:

• the 'Gradual Vehicle of Bodhisattvas' (Sanskrit: Bodhisattvayana); and
• the 'Sudden Mahayana' corresponding to the Dhyana, Ch’an or Zen school.

The 'suddenness' is further explicated and contextualised by Capriles (2003: p.246) who mentions Huineng:

In his sutra, Hui-neng noted that no tradition is sudden or gradual, and that these adjectives should be applied to students rather than to teachings or schools, for no doubt some students are more “sudden” than others (Wong Mou-Lam and A. F. Price, translators, 1969); however, the term is used to refer to the Ch’an or Zen School insofar as in it Awakening is not posited as the result of a gradual development through paths and levels, but as an instantaneous breakthrough.

For 'instantaneous breakthrough' and 'awakening' refer kensho (Japanese) and satori (Japanese), respectively.