Liberation and Enlightenment

Introduction to the Four Noble Truths In this seminar, we will be looking at the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths. To attain liberation from uncontrollably recurring rebirth – in other words, liberation from samsara – and to attain the enlightened state of a Buddha, we...

The 12 links of dependent arising is a central and important topic in the Buddhist path, it’s important to know why it’s important in order to develop interest and motivation to study and learn about it. As way of introduction, let me discuss that for a little while first. The...

Background on the Text: Seven Point Mind Training We’re going to start the seminar with a very important and essential text that is found in all the Tibetan traditions from India, called Seven Point Mind Training, which I received teachings on primarily from two of my main...

Dharma-Lite vs. The Real Thing Dharma I’m very happy to be back here in Seattle once more and to have the opportunity to speak to you about the meditations for developing bodhichitta.I suppose that it would be appropriate to give an introduction. Bodhichitta is something that...

Working toward a Spiritual Goal There are two ways that we can work toward a spiritual goal: On the basis of faith – we have faith that it’s possible to achieve that goal. On the basis of this faith you work toward it, and as you proceed further in your training, you...

The Importance of Having an Accurate Idea of Enlightenment With bodhichitta – relative bodhichitta is what we are talking about here – it’s very important to have an accurate mental representation of enlightenment, an accurate idea of what enlightenment is. Otherwise...

Brief Review We started our explanation of Atisha’s text, and we saw that he was speaking about the stages by which we develop or progress along the spiritual path. We saw that one way of describing how we progress is that the scope or aim of our goal gets progressively...

Review We started our discussion of how to make our tantra practice more effective. We saw that the most fundamental thing to start with is to understand what tantra is and what the essential points of tantra practice are – how does it work. Also, we saw that the word “tantra”...

Proper Motivation and Explanation of the Title and Homage Before beginning, we set the motivation of wishing to listen to these teachings in order to actually achieve the state of enlightenment in order to benefit everyone. If we set this type of motivation, the benefits of...

Verses 5 through 9 Brief Review We have seen that Togme Zangpo starts his poem with a presentation of the main points that we find in the lam-rim, the graded stages of the path. After paying homage to Avalokiteshvara, and the promise to compose the text, he talks of the...