འཕགས་པ་དཀན་མཆག་སྤྲན་ཅས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.13

intro.13

In the course of Śākyamuni’s explanations to Sarva­nīvaraṇa­viṣkam­bhin there emerge certain statements that have become particularly absorbed into Tibetan Dharma literature and discourse in general. One such classic maxim is The Jewel Cloud’s definition of Buddhist meditation in terms of śamatha and vipaśyanā (): “Tranquility is one-pointed mind. Special insight is to discern phenomena as they actually are.” This passage, as well as The Jewel Cloud’s description of the stages of the realization of emptiness (), had already been cited by the Indian master Kamalaśīla, who relied on The Jewel Cloud to support his account of a gradual path for which careful reflection and the accumulation of vast merit are indispensable.¹⁴ Later, in his Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path, Tsongkhapa Losang Drakpa (1357–1419) refers to both The Jewel Cloud and Kamalaśīla¹⁵ in his own discussion of the relationship between tranquility and special insight, thus warning against a pursuit of nonconceptual meditation at the expense of scholarly learning.