[2] When Atiśa, the originator of the lamrim came from India to Tibet,[3] he was asked by king Jang Chub Ö to give a complete and easily accessible summary of the doctrine[3] in order to clarify wrong views, especially those resulting from apparent contradictions across the sutras and their commentaries.
According to Tsong Khapa, in his Lam Rim Chen Mo ("The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment"), Atiśa took the number and order of the subjects in Maitreya-natha and Asaṅgas Abhisamayalankara ("Ornament of clear realizations"), which was based on the wisdom sutras, as the basis to write the Bodhipathapradīpa.
Gampopa, a Kadampa monk and student of the famed yogi Milarepa, introduced the lamrim to his disciples as a way of developing the mind gradually.
His exposition of lamrim is known in English translation as "The Jewel Ornament of Liberation" and is studied to this day in the various Kagyu schools of Tibetan Buddhism.
The main Lam Rim text in the Nyingma tradition is Longchen Rabjampa's Finding Rest in the Nature of Mind, along with its voluminous auto-commentary, The Great Chariot.
[7] Desideri studied the Lam Rim Chen Mo of Tsongkhapa, and his manuscript describing Tibet was one of the most extensive and accurate accounts of Buddhist philosophy until the twentieth century.
Atiśa wrote in "Lamp of the Path" (verse 2) that one should understand that there are three kind of persons: One of the formulaic presentations of the Buddhist path in the Nikayas is anupubbikathā, "graduated talk"[8] or "progressive instruction,"[9] in which the Buddha talks on generosity (dāna), virtue (sīla), heaven (sagga), danger of sensual pleasure (kāmānaṃ ādīnava)[10] and renunciation (nekkhamma).
The training in the medium scope path will lead to the development of the wish to be liberated from all un-free rebirths in cyclic existence through the power of afflictive emotions and karma.