Steps on the Path to Enlightenment: A Commentary on Tsongkhapa’s Lamrim Chenmo - Volume 2: Karma

The book is organized into twelve main chapters that progressively unfold the Lamrim treatment of karma, suffering, and liberation. “The General Characteristics of Karma” explains the certainty, expansion, and persistence of karmic results, while “The Varieties of Karma” classifies actions according to their causes, ethical quality, and experiential consequences. “Cultivating Ethical Behavior” presents moral discipline as the operational foundation for all later stages of practice. “The Attitude of a Person of Small Scope” develops the motivation for avoiding lower rebirth and creating the causes for future well-being. The chapters on “The Eight Types of Suffering,” “The Six Types of Suffering,” and “Further Meditations on Suffering” deepen the practitioner’s recognition that cyclic existence is structurally unsatisfactory. “The Origin of Suffering” analyzes how afflictions and karma generate continued bondage, while “The Twelve Links of Dependent Origination” explains the causal mechanism through which saṃsāra unfolds and can be reversed. “The Attitude of a Person of Intermediate Scope” establishes renunciation as the strategic pivot toward liberation. “Ascertaining the Nature of the Path Leading to Liberation” clarifies the path that overcomes suffering, and “The Nature of the Three Trainings” presents ethical conduct, meditative stabilization, and wisdom as the integrated framework through which liberation becomes attainable.