One of the main concepts in Buddhism is that our external world is not solid and real. The Buddha in several sutras stated that this world is a dream, a mirage, an illusion.

This idea was further expanded by Nagarjuna and the Middle Way school around the first century of our era. He presented arguments that one could logically prove that all external phenomena are not solid and "real," but rather phenomena are just mental concepts that we hold. They called this "emptiness" and the belief that everything is empty later became known in Tibet as the Rangtong (empty of self) view.

A few centuries later, Asanga published the Five Treatises of the Maitreya that he had received directly from the Maitreya Buddha. These teachings extended the concept of emptiness to include buddha nature––the belief that all sentient beings have the potiential for achieving enlightenment. The reason we are not all automatically enlightened having buddha nature is that our buddha nature is covered up by our disturbing emotions and false beliefs about reality.

Understanding buddha nature involves a careful examination of ultimate reality which was  developed and carefully explained by Dolopopa in the 13th century. Dolpopa wrote a 300 page book, Mountain Dharma, which contained over 500 quotations from the sutras, shastras, and tantras to support his view of buddha nature and its characteristics. He also directly introduced his ideas to the Karmapa of Kagyu and Longchenpa of Nyingma linage of Tibet which became known as the Shentong (empty of other) view.

Thrangu Rinpoche was introduced to the Shentong view in Tibet at an early age. When he was asked to teach Dolpopa at a week-long seminar, he condensed all the main ideas of Mountain Dharma into a very lucid narrative explained all the main topics of Mountain Dharma. In this book we have also added many selected quotes from the original text to give the reader more context and flavor of the reasonings used by Dolpopa.

This 171 page book is priced only at $ 9.95 and this exact PDF of this book is available for only $1.25. For the rest of the year (2023) the PDF will be free.