The Abhisamayalamkara summarizes all the topics in the vast body of the Perfection of Wisdom sutras. To understand this extraordinarily condensed text, it is necessary to have the assistance of reliable Indian and Tibetan commentaries. Together, they not only discuss the "hidden meaning" of the Perfection of Wisdom sutraspaths and groundsbut also serve as a basis for further reflection on the explicit topic of these sutrasthe principle of emptinessand how it is to be understood on the progressive levels of realization of bodhisattvas. Thus, these texts describe what happens in the mind of a bodhisattva who meditates on emptiness, making it a living experience from the beginner's stage up through buddhahood.

Gone Beyond contains the first in-depth study the Abhisamayalamkara (the text studied most extensively in higher Tibetan Buddhist education) and its commentaries in the Kagyu School. This study (in two volumes) includes translations of Maitreya's famous text and its commentary by the Fifth Shamarpa, Goncho Yenla (the first translation ever of a complete commentary on the Abhisamayalamkara into English), which are supplemented by extensive excerpts from the commentaries by the Third, Seventh, and Eighth Karmapas and others. Thus, it closes a long-standing gap in the modern scholarship on the Prajnaparamita Sutras and the literature on paths and bhumis in mahayana Buddhism.

The second volume presents an English translation of the final five chapters and its commentary by the Fifth Shamarpa.

Karl Brunnholzl was trained as a physician and presently works as a Tibetan translator and Buddhist teacher. He studied Tibetology, Buddhology, and Sanskrit at Hamburg University and Tibetan language and Buddhist philosophy and practice at the Marpa Institute for Translators in Kathmandu. Currently he works as a translator and interpreter for the Tsadra Foundation, Nalandabodhi, and the Nitartha Institute. In 2009 he was appointed as the first Western khenpo (abbot in the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages) by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. He is the author and translator of The Center of the Sunlit Sky (2004), the first in-depth study of the Kagyu interpretation of Madhyamaka in a Western language; Straight from the Heart (2007) with commentary by the Third Karmapa; and Luminous Heart (2009), the Third Karmapa on buddha nature, consciousness, and wisdom.

	An Aspiration by H.H. the Seventeenth Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje		13
	Foreword by H.H. the Seventeenth Karmapa by Ogyen Trinley Dorje		15
	Foreword by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche		17
	Acknowledgments		19
	Introduction		21
	The prajnaparamita sutras		23
	The Abhisamayalamkara and its commentaries		47
	What is the view of the Abhisamayalamkara?		81
	The Abhisamayalamkara in its traditional setting		93
	The place of the prajnaparamita sutras and the Abhisamayalamkara in modern scholarship		107
	Is there any practical relevance to the Abhisamayalamkara?		111
	The Abhisamayalamkara as a contemplative manual		119
	Some remarks on the distinct exegetical approaches of the commentaries by the Eighth Karmapa and the Fifth Shamarpa		129
	Overview of the present three-volume study of commentaries on the AA		201
	Translation: A Concise Elucidation of the Abhisamayalamkara (Topics One to Three)<sup>1</sup>		205
	Paying homage, which is the cause for other persons giving rise to openness for the fruitional mother		207
	The purpose and the connection, which are the causes for others giving rise to openness for this treatise		222
	The eight topics as what is to be explained		225
	The knowledge of all aspects (what is to be attained)		235
	The generation of bodhicitta (the motivation)		235
	The instructions that teach the means of practice		241
	The explanation of the branches of penetration (the result of practicing the instructions)		264
	The disposition as the foundation for the arising of practice		283
	The focal object of practice		292
	The aim of practice		296
	The armorlike practice in six sets of six		298
	The practice of ninefold engagement		301
	The practice of the seventeen equipments		309
	The practice of final deliverance		328
	The knowledge of the path (the means to attain the knowledge of all aspects)		331
	The causes of the knowledge of the path		331
	The manner of the knowledge of the path of sravakas		333
	The manner of the knowledge of the path of pratyekabuddhas		336
	The manner of the knowledge of the path of bodhisattvas		341
	The path of seeing		341
	The path of familiarization		345
	The function of the path of familiarization		345
	The path of familiarization as aspiration, which accumulates virtue		347
	Its benefit		348
	The path of familiarization as dedication, which makes virtue not going to waste		349
	The path of familiarization as rejoicing, which makes virtue increase		351
	The nature of the uninterrupted path-the path of familiarization as accomplishment		351
	The nature of the path of liberation-the pure path of familiarization		352
	The knowledge of entities (the root of the knowledge of all aspects, which includes the points to go astray)		357
	The nature of the knowledge of entities		362
	The reason for being close or distant		362
	The divisions of antagonistic factors and remedies		363
	The training (the engagement)		366
	The path of seeing (the fruition of engagement)		368
Appendix I	Selected General Topics From Jg and Jns		371
	1.	The knowledge of all aspects	371
A	Bodhicitta		371
	JG's presentation		371
	JNS's presentation		395
B	The instructions		397
	JG's presentation		397
	JNS's presentation		403
C	The two realities		406
	1.	General presentation	406
	2.	The way in which the two realities become the objects of the wrong ideas of apprehending them as mutually exclusive	409
	3.	The way in which the two realities are not mutually exclusive	415
	4.	The qualms that are to be eliminated	415
	5.	The reasoning that is the means for eliminating these qualms	416
	6.	The manner of eliminating said qualms	416
D	The path of preparation		417
	1.	The four stages of the path of preparation	417
	2.	The focal objects and aspects of the path of preparation	420
	3.	The four conceptions in the context of the path of preparation	423
E	The disposition		428
	1.	General explanation	428
	2.	The disposition is not a nonimplicative negation	446
	3.	The single yana and buddha nature in all beings	447
	4.	Other commentaries on the disposition	454
F	The focal object of practice		488
G	The equipment of wisdom		492
	1.	The nature of phenomena and wisdom in relation to being self-empty versus other-empty	492
	2.	The explanation of emptiness (the object) and the way in which it is observed by wisdom (its subject)	495
	3.	Various ways of asserting the definite number of emptinesses (including the wisdoms that correspond to the twenty emptinesses)	501
	4.	The basis of emptiness	505
	5.	The manner of being empty	506
	6.	Nondual wisdom	508
H	The equipment of the ten bhumis		514
	1.	The nature of the bhumis, which are the remedies	514
	2.	The nature of the object of meditative equipoise	525
	3.	The nature of the obstacles to be relinquished	534
	2.	The knowledge of the path	548
A	The five causes of the knowledge of the path		548
B	The knowledge of the path of sravakas		559
	1.	What is to be known-the nature of the path of the sravakas	559
	2.	The phase of the path of the mahayana during which this knowledge is generated	563
	3.	The question of whether the path or the knowledge of the path is taught here	564
C	The knowledge of the path of pratyekabuddhas		566
D	The knowledge of the path of bodhisattvas		570
	1.	The supports in which it arises	570
	2.	What is to be generated-the path of seeing	572
E	The path of familiarization		591
	1.	The path of familiarization and its function in general	591
	2.	The path of familiarization as aspiration	598
	3.	The path of familiarization as dedication	601
	4.	The uncontaminated path of familiarization	609
	5.	The utterly pure path of familiarization	610
	6.	Removing qualms about the manner in which the stains are relinquished	613
	3.	The all-knowledge	615
A	The presentation of the objects of knowledge (skandhas, dhatus, and ayatanas)		615
	1.	The explanation of the five skandhas	615
	2.	The way in which they correspond to the dhatus and the ayatanas	622
	3.	The way in which they correspond to the four realities, the five bases, and so on	624
B	Sravakas and pratyekabuddhas do not realize phenomenal identitylessness		625
C	The three natures		628
	1.	How they are taught in the sutras	628
	2.	Explanation according to the scriptural system of Yogacara	629
Appendix II	Charts		633
Chart 1	The three realms of samsara and their subdivisions		634
Chart 2	The 108 repetitive phrases of the prajnaparamita sutras		635
Chart 3	The five paths		636
Chart 4	The sixteen aspects of the four realities of noble ones according to the Abhidharmakosabhasya, TOK, and the Abhidharmasamuccaya		639
Chart 5	The aspects of the four realities of the noble ones in the abhidharma and the prajnaparamita sutras		643
Chart 6	The kinds of samgha according to the Abhidharmakosa		647
Chart 7	The twenty-five kinds of bodhisattva samgha in the revised edition of the Prajnaparamitasutra in Twenty-five Thousand Lines and the twenty kinds of samgha in AA I.23-24		649
Chart 8	The twenty kinds of samgha according to the Vrtti, the Aloka, the Vivrti, JNS, and CE		651
Chart 9	Comparison of the terminologies of the types of samgha in the revised edition of the Prajnaparamitasutra in Twenty-five Thousand Lines, the AA, and the Abhidharmakosa		655
Chart 10	The nine stages of settling the mind (calm abiding), the four flaws, and the eight remedies		657
Chart 11	General sets of samadhis		658
Chart 12	Specific sets of samadhis and qualities		659
Chart 13	The thirty-seven dharmas concordant with enlightenment and the five paths according to the Vaibhasikas		665
Chart 14	The common order of the thirty-seven dharmas concordant with enlightenment and their matching with the five paths (according to non-Vaibhasikas and the mahayana)		667
Chart 15	The factors to be relinquished through seeing and familiarization according to the sravakas		669
Chart 16	The way of relinquishment of the factors to be relinquished through seeing and familiarization on the eight levels of the sravakas		670
Chart 17	The factors to be relinquished through seeing and familiarization according to the mahayana (Abhidharmasamuccaya and Abhisamayalamkara)		671
Chart 18	Afflictive obscurations, cognitive obscurations, and obscurations of meditative absorption according to JNS		672
Chart 19	The sixteen moments of the wisdoms of readiness and cognition on the path of seeing according to the Abhidharmakosa, the Abhidharmasamuccaya, and Aryavimuktisena and Haribhadra as per JNS		675
Chart 20	The four remedies		677
Chart 21	The correspondences of skandhas, ayatanas, and dhatus		678
	Notes		679
	Index		923