''Easy Practice'' chapter
Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia is now 14 years old
Our Encyclopedia recently received a wonderful opportunity for a major renewal on its 14th birthday . After many years of growing our Encyclopedia had become bit slow and sometimes even decided not to answer when people knocked on the door.
A very big thank you and blessings to Dmytro Rudiy (rudiy.nl) for his great work in upgrading the server, website and all of the infrastructure and helping make TBE fast and reliable again for everyone!
We kindly ask our readers to help us cover the cost of this important upgrade and also help with the ongoing costs of keeping the Encyclopedia alive and freely available.
or card
Every little donation helps and every one is deeply appreciated. 🙏🙏🙏
OM AH HUM VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HUM 🙏🙏🙏
May blessings shower down on all of yous 🙏🙏🙏
Easy Practice" chapter
易行品 ( Jpn Igyo-hon )
The ninth chapter of Nagarjuna's Commentary on the Ten Stages Sutra, later treated as an independent text. "Easy practice" means to meditate on Buddhas, and to call upon their names. With this practice, the chapter says, one can reach the stage of non-regression and finally attain enlightenment.
The chapter emphasizes salvation through the power of Amida Buddha, saying that one can be saved by meditating on the Buddha and calling his name.
Nagarjuna presented this as an easy form of practice. Thus the "Easy Practice" chapter came to be revered by the patriarchs of the Pure Land school as one of their most important texts. They classified the Buddhist teachings into two categories, the Sacred Way teachings and the Pure Land teachings.
Then, based on the ideas contained in this chapter of Nagarjuna's commentary, they defined the Sacred Way teachings as the difficult-to-practice way and the Pure Land teachings as the easy-to-practice way, advocating the latter as the only effective means of attaining salvation.