provides guidance for how individuals may direct their actions toward purifying the mind, and generating peace through their practice. Dated to the middle of the fifth century, and popularized by the famous scholar and pilgrim I-tsing, The Sutra of Golden Light is sometimes called the "king of sutras," as it explains the "chain of causation" through which the essence of the Buddha's teachings are established according to manifestation rather than through inquiry only. From the introductory chapter: "I will proclaim this blessing, the excellent, auspicious confession, whose aim is the ruin of all evils, producing the destruction of all evils, conferring every blessing, ruining every misfortune, the basis of omniscience, thoroughly adorned with every splendor. For those beings whose senses are defective, whose life is expended or failing, beset by misfortune, their faces averted from the gods, hated by dear, beloved people, oppressed in such places as households, or at variance with one another, tormented by the destruction of their property, both in grief and trouble, .....and in poverty, likewise in the plight of fear, in the affliction of planet or asterism, in the violent grip of demons, one who sees an evil dream full of grief and trouble should listen to this excellent sutra, when he has bathed well and is pure. For those who hear this sutra, the profound Buddha-region, with pure minds and good intentions, adorned with clean garments, and for all beings such most severe misfortunes are forever extinguished by the splendor of this sutra...

Hide more