Does anyone know of any summary or lecture on Lankavatara Sutra?

[Nalanda]

I find reading the raw translation text to be quite challenging to understand.

[Aemilius]

There is at least the study by D. T. Suzuki. Red Pine's translation of Lanka includes some useful commentaries.

[Inedible]

Please let us know if you make progress with this. I also find it difficult to get through a lot of Mahayana writing, and it is supposed to be powerful in training the mind. The Lankavatara was influential in Zen, if that helps. You may be able to get better answers from the schools of Zen which have stayed closest to this text. This is a more generalized forum and I think you are likely to find more Lotus Sutra people here for some reason. That seems to be the main specialty here.

[seeker242]

Lankavatara Sutra research page

Has a bunch of stuff.

http://lirs.ru/do/trans-lanka.html

[Leo Rivers]

Lankavatara Sutra research page

Has a bunch of stuff.

http://lirs.ru/do/trans-lanka.html

I chose jikido-analysis.pdf first.

http://lirs.ru/do/lanka_eng/jikido-analysis.pdf

Thanks

[desert_woodworker]

The Lankavatara is quite important in Chan and Zen. My teacher Sheng Yen often taught that our very practical and radical Ch'an -- if it has a philosophical core at all -- has a core of Yogacara AND Madhyamika. Well, the Lankavatara contains teachings on major issues in Yogacara philosophy, especially the Alaya vijñana, or storehouse consciousness.

Roshi Albert Low has a fine book, ZEN AND THE SUTRAS (2000), Tuttle, in which he summarizes FIVE major Mahayana sutras, each separately in its own chapter. There is a chapter devoted to the Lankavatara! (I thought you'd be be happy about that... ).

Roshi Low's chapter 6 in the book is "The Lankavatara Sutra", treated on pages 113-134. That's just 21 pages. By all means, do yourself a favor and pick up this very helpful and compassionately-written book.

Then, read the Lankavatara, sometime. And, if you just can't get enough, don't miss Prof. Suzuki's STUDIES IN THE LANKAVATARA, to enjoy some really delicious prose.

--Joe

[thomaslaw]

I find reading the raw translation text to be quite challenging to understand.

This site may be useful for your question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La%E1%B9% ... S%C5%ABtra

"In the sūtra, the Buddha asserts that all the objects of the world, and the names and forms of experience, are manifestations of the mind. Because the world is seen as being "mind-only" or "consciousness-only", all phenomena are void, empty of self (atman) and illusory. The Sūtra describes the various tiers of consciousness in the individual, culminating in the Tathāgatagarbha "Buddha-womb" (i.e., Buddha-nature) or "storehouse consciousness" (Skt. Ālayavijñāna), which is the base of the individual's deepest awareness and one's ties to the cosmic. However, the Buddha in sūtra makes clear that the Buddha-nature is not a self (atman) and is empty of self-nature. He states that it is merely a useful means (upaya) of teaching the dharma to others. The tathāgatagarbha or "Buddha-nature" doctrine has been interpreted as an expression of the doctrines of pratītyasamutpāda "dependent origination" and emptiness."

The mind-only is an essential teaching in the Chinese Mahayana traditions.

[Zhen Li]

I find reading the raw translation text to be quite challenging to understand.

I made a Laṅkāvatāra website for just this purpose:
https://sites.google.com/view/learningt ... sutra/home

Click the menu at the top to get summaries of each chapter. It used Red Pine's translation as a base.