Four gateways to liberation
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 🙏🙏🙏
According to Sutra there are three gateways to liberation, whereas according to Vajrayana there are four gateways (Tib. རྣམ་པར་ཐར་པའི་སྒོ་བཞི།, Wyl. rnam par thar pa’i sgo bzhi) or four types of understanding through which one can approach realization and hence liberation. They are:
- emptiness (Skt. śūnyatā; Tib. སྟོང་པ་ཉིད།, Wyl. stong pa nyid)
- absence of characteristics or attributes; signlessness (Skt. animitta; Tib.མཚན་ཉིད་མེད་པ།, Wyl. mtshan nyid med pa)
- wishlessness; absence of expectancy in terms of result (Skt. apraṇihita; Tib.སྨོན་པ་མེད་པ།, Wyl. smon pa med pa)
- the ultimate emptiness or lack of composition of all phenomena.
In terms of symbolism the four doors of a traditional Tibetan temple are said to symbolize the four gateways to liberation [1] and act as a reminder that if we want to attain permanent liberation from suffering we need to enter the path that leads to liberation.
Footnotes
- ↑ *Robert Beer, The Handbook of Tibetan Symbols, Serindia Publications.