description: For over a thousand years, the Surangama Sutra has been held in great esteem in the Mahayana Buddhist countries of East and Southeast Asia and has been as popular as the Lotus, Heart and Diamond Sutras. Its wealth of theoretical and practical instruction in the spiritual life often made it the first major text to be studied by newly ordained monks, particularly in the Chan School.  The Sutra has been regarded as a complete and practical manual for spiritual practice that will lead to enlightenment. It gives instruction in the correct understanding of the Buddha-nature, which is the potential within all beings for becoming a Buddha. The Sutra explains how and why this true nature is hidden and how we can uncover this nature and recognize that it is our own true mind. The Sutra also explains that personal integrity and purity of conduct are prerequisites for spiritual awakening. It presents the principles of meditation, and provides guidelines for discerning what practices are correct and which deviate into wrong ones. It explains how our own intentional acts, whether physical, verbal, or mental, result in our experiences, including rebirths at various levels of being, both human and non-human. At the heart of the Sutra is the Surangama Mantra. The Sutra promises that the practice of reciting this mantra, in the context of the other practices taught in the Sutra, can succeed in eliminating whatever internal or external obstacles may lie in the way of spiritual progress.This is volume 4 of 8 volumes
language: English
title: The Shurangama Sutra: Volume 4
titlecomplete: The Shurangama Sutra: Volume 4
ratings_count: 3
publisher: Buddhist Text Translation Society (BTTS)