Four Preparatory Trainings
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 🙏🙏🙏
Four Preparatory Trainings (四加行), or Four Roots of Goodness (四善根位). According to the Consciousness-Only School, after the stage of Gathering Provisions is completed, one embarks upon the stage of Preparatory Trainings by investigating the four aspects of dharmas: name, meaning, self-essence, and differentiation, to successively develop the four roots of goodness:
(1) Warmth—one realizes in the Illumination Samādhi that objects are empty;
(2) Pinnacle—one affirms the same realization through the Enhanced Illumination Samādhi;
(3) Endurance—one realizes in the Sealing-in-Accord Samādhi that consciousness as the agent of differentiation is empty;
(4) Foremost in the World—one ascertains in the Uninterrupted Samādhi that both the object perceived and the agent that perceives are empty.
With this realization, one ascends to the First Bodhisattva Ground (see stages of the Bodhisattva Way), beginning the holy stage toward Buddhahood.