About the Lamrim
The Buddha taught for 45 years. But he did not teach “Buddhism”, he taught dharma to monks and nuns, lay men and women, kings and beggars.
This was the Iron Age and he started his teachings within the existing framework of understanding. He was born among Indian people who already accepted beginningless lives, karma, the 4 Brahmaviharas, rebirth and so on. But he tweaked and reshaped those existing understandings until they were something else.
There was no Buddhism For Dummies, no A to Z Buddhism. He didn’t teach the Lam Rim but he taught everything that is in the Lam Rim.
Thousands of years later, every Buddhist school of thought accepts that the 4 Noble Truths is one of his fundamental teachings. They are repeated by the Buddha in different Sutta contexts.
It is reasonable to think these fundamental teachings must have been repeated many times to new people who came to hear the Buddha’s message, but were not recorded every time they were taught. The same situation must apply to many other teachings, so the question must have arisen again and again, how does an uninstructed person practise the Buddha’s teaching in a progressive manner?.
By the 10th century in India, teachers had responded to the need for a step-by-step orderly presentation of the Buddha’s teachings.
When he went to Tibet, Atisha took the Indian Kadampa tradition, which emphasised a gradual path to enlightenment. His principal work, “The Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment” (Bodhipathapradipa), served as a foundational text for the development of the Lamrim in Tibet.
The Lamrim has developed into a distinct and comprehensive presentation of the Budda’s teachings as conveyed by Indian masters and further elaborated by Tibetan scholars and practitioners.
Click here to read about Lamrim History
Lamrim (the Stages of the Path) is a graduated training of the mind. It organises all of the Buddha’s teachings according to capacity, motivation, and aim, so that nothing is contradictory and nothing is out of place. It is designed to take you from start to finish.
Lamrim is the systematic ordering of the Buddha’s entire path according to your understanding and your motivation, culminating in the union of bodhicitta and emptiness. There are variations across presentations but it basically follows this presentation in three stages or three scopes, which are not schools or views, but levels of intention.
(1) Small scope
Aim: a favourable rebirth within saṃsāra
Function: establish ethical restraint and responsibility
Core themes:
- Precious human life
- Impermanence and death
- Karma and its effects
- Refuge
This scope turns the mind away from heedlessness, not from saṃsāra itself.
(2) Middle scope
Aim: liberation from saṃsāra
Function: generate genuine renunciation
Core themes:
- Suffering of saṃsāra (three types, six realms)
- True origin of suffering
- True cessation
- True path
Here the practitioner sees that even the best rebirth is unsatisfactory.
(3) Great scope
Aim: full Buddhahood for the sake of all beings
Function: transform renunciation into bodhicitta
Core themes:
- Equality and exchange of self and others
- Seven-point cause-and-effect
- Bodhicitta (aspirational and engaging)
- Six perfections
- Four ways of gathering disciples
This scope does not reject the earlier ones; it subsumes them.
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Once bodhicitta is established, Lamrim culminates in the union of:
- Method – compassion, bodhicitta, skilful means
- Wisdom – insight into emptiness
This is where emptiness is placed last, not because it is secondary, but because it cannot function correctly without the prior training of motivation.
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The hidden structure: path of transformation
Underlying the whole Lamrim is a movement from:
- Ethical discipline – mental stability → wisdom
- Self-concern – renunciation – universal concern
- Conceptual understanding – experiential realisation
In other words, Lamrim is a map of how delusion is dismantled in the right order.
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Lamrim is Teleological
Teleological means explained or organised in terms of purpose, aim, or end (telos) rather than origin or mechanism.
In short:
It asks “what is this for?” rather than “where did this come from?”
In clear terms
A teleological structure:
Starts with an intended outcome
Orders steps backwards from that goal
Evaluates elements by how well they serve the end
Simple contrasts
Causal / mechanistic:
“This happens because X caused Y.”Teleological:
“This is done in order to achieve Z.”
Within the Lamrim context, why the word teleological matters)
When Lamrim is described as teleological, it means:
Teachings are not ordered historically
Not ordered philosophically by topic
Not ordered by metaphysical depth
They are ordered by what motivation and capacity they are meant to produce, culminating in Buddhahood.
So:
Ethics are placed first because they stabilise the mind
Renunciation comes next because without it bodhicitta degenerates
Emptiness comes last because without compassion it misfires
Each step is justified by its function, not its abstract truth.
One-line definition
Teleological = structured by purpose, not by the order of teaching