Nitartha Institute

Nitartha Institute for Higher Buddhist Studies was established in 1996 under the guidance of the Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche to provide a classical study and training program in the Kagyu monastic college tradition specifically for Western students.

The course texts and commentaries are translated by the Nitartha Translation Network. Initially, courses are taught twice from the traditional root texts and commentaries in Tibetan by the Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche or an acharya, then taught in English by Western faculty members. Thus, while the material is rooted in the shedra (monastic college) tradition, it is made accessible to Westerners using appropriate Western pedagogy.

Tsadra Foundation Grantee from 2003 until 2010. For more on the Institute, please see the Buddhist Higher Education section of the website.

Nitartha Institute’s completed projects as a Tsadra Foundation Grantee
  • The Karmapa’s Middle Way: Feast for the Fortunate, Chandrakirti, commentary by the Ninth Karmapa Wangchuk Dorje (trans. Tyler Dewar). Snow Lion Publications, Nitartha Institute Series
  • Nitartha Institute Foundation, Intermediate, and Advanced Curriculum textbooks
  • Classifications of Mind, Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche (trans. Karl Brunnhölzl), commentary by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche (ed. Scott Wellenbach)
  • The Practice of Analytical Meditation, Acharya Lama Tenpa Gyaltsen (ed. Carmen Rumbaut)
  • Ocean of Texts on Reasoning, the Seventh Karmapa Chödrak Gyatso (trans. Tyler Dewar)

Tyler Dewar joined Nitartha Institute as a faculty member in 2000 translating for the Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, and for Acharya Sherab Gyaltsen Negi and Acharya Tashi Wangchuk when they began teaching at the Institute. Tyler has regularly translated for such courses as Collected Topics, Abhidharma, Mind Only and Madhyamaka.

Translators

Institutions

Marked by eloquent poetry, vigorous and extensive analysis, and heart instructions on breaking through the veils of confusion to independently experience the true nature of things, The Karmapa’s Middle Way contains the The Ninth Karmapa, Wangchuk Dorje’s comprehensive commentary on the Indian master Chandrakīrti’s seminal text, the Madhyamakāvatāra, or Entrance to the Middle Way. This commentary, Feast for the Fortunate, is the Ninth Karmapa’s abridgement of the Eighth Karmapa, Mikyö Dorje’s masterpiece, the Chariot of the Takpo Kagyü Siddhas. In it readers will find previously unavailable material on the Karmapas’ Middle Way view and a rare window into a philosophically charged era of Middle Way exposition in Tibetan Buddhism.

In this book, Chandrakīrti and the Karmapa present in precise detail the vital Buddhist concept of emptiness, through which the Mahāyāna path of compassionate altruism becomes complete. Introductory material, copious footnotes, appendices, and a reader-centric approach to the language will make this volume equally accessible to the seasoned scholar of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and the newly curious nonspecialist alike.

This book contains Chandrakīrti’s root text to the Entrance to the Middle Way and its commentary by the Ninth Karmapa, entitled Feast for the Fortunate; an informative Introduction detailing the history of the Middle Way, key Middle Way philosophical principles, and the main points of each chapter of the text; a thoroughly annotated translation of a famous excerpt of Chandrakīrti’s Lucid Words; and other useful appendices and reference materials.

—excerpt from The Karmapa’s Middle Way: Feast for the Fortunate, Chandrakirti, commentary by the Ninth Karmapa Wangchuk Dorje, translated by Tyler Dewar.