Mahayana

The Source of the Tantras Tantra practice requires conviction in the authenticity of the tantras, correct understanding of their procedures and theory, and certainty of their validity as methods leading to enlightenment. According to the Tibetan tradition, Shakyamuni Buddha...

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...

Review We’ve been speaking about the bodhisattva vows, and we have taken a look at their role on the Buddhist path. We’ve seen that in order to take them, we need to have already developed ourselves along the Buddhist way through the various stages of the lam-rim, the graded...

(11) Teaching Voidness to Those Whose Minds Are Untrained We’ve been going through the bodhisattva vows. We have covered ten of the 18 vows and we’re up to number 11. What we want to avoid with this vow is teaching voidness to those whose minds are untrained. This is talking...

The Mahayana tradition of the four close placements of mindfulness correlates each of the four in terms of one of the four noble truths for countering one of the four discordant ways of paying attention to our five aggregates.

This article explains the various non-conflicting contextual presentations of the Buddha’s life, and teaches us how these can be practically applied to our spiritual path.

A short introduction to how Buddhism spread from its beginnings in northern India to become the major belief system across much of Asia.

The four immeasurable attitudes, also known as “the four Brahma abodes,” are found in the various Hinayana, Mahayana and Bon traditions. Different schools and texts interpret them slightly differently.

Dudjom Rinpoche’s commentary to the third chapter of Longchenpa’s “Precious Garland for the Four Themes of (Gampopa),” entitled “Having the Pathway Minds Eliminate Confusion.”

The ten far-reaching attitudes are states of mind that bring bodhisattvas to enlightenment. Although shravakas may also develop these attitudes, they are not considered “far-reaching” unless they are conjoined with a bodhichitta aim.