Buddhist Scriptures

Introduction The text that I will be explaining is called The Furthest Everlasting Continuum, Uttaratantra in Sanskrit, Gyu Lama in Tibetan. It has five chapters and if I were to explain this slowly in a relaxed manner, it would take one or two weeks. But today we need to...

Origin of the Text According to Tradition This weekend we are talking about the great Mahayana text by Maitreya, Mahayana-uttaratantra Shastra (Theg-pa chen-po rgyud bla-ma’i bstan-bcos), about Buddha-nature. It’s An Indicative Composition on a Vast Vehicle of the Mind, the...

Homage to all past, future and present buddhas, bodhisattvas, pratyekabuddhas and shravakas! Thus I have heard at one time: the Tathagata, entering buddhas’ domain of experience, the profound sphere of reality, at Vulture Peak expounded to the supreme bodhisattvas, who were...

Today, we are gathered in a very special place, Bodh Gaya, the site in India where the most skillful, compassionate, and kind universal teacher, Shakyamuni Buddha, manifested his state of enlightenment. The Dharma teaching we shall be dealing with here on this occasion is...

Methodology Karma is a prominent topic discussed throughout the history of Indian thought, with several different explanations found in the varied schools of Indian philosophy, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist. Even within the Buddhist fold, there are several different...

Verses of Homage and Promise to Compose The name of this text is A Text for Discourse on the Mind Training “Parting from the Four Clingings”: Key to the Profound Essential Points (Blo-sbyong zhen-pa bzhi-bral-gyi khrid-yig zab-don gnad-kyi lde’u-mig). It was written by the...

Let us first examine the main assertions concerning karmic impulses and revealing and nonrevealing forms in the Mahayana Sutra Basket and then, in the next part of this series, in the Sarvastivada Abhidharma Basket. These are the forerunners of some of the main features of the...

Furthermore, at that time, during that period, in the great city of Raja-griha, there dwelt the bodhisattva, the great being Ruchira-ketu, who had venerated previous buddhas, cultivated roots of virtue and rendered service to many hundreds of thousands of millions of buddhas....

The Fragmentation of Tibet after Langdarma’s Assassination The Tibetan Empire disintegrated after the assassination of Langdarma in 842 CE. Central authority was not restored for four centuries. The imperial Tibetan troops had already started to withdraw from the border...

Chinggis Khan In 1207 CE, news reached Tibet that Chinggis Khan (Sog-po Ching-ge-se Kh’ang) (1162 – 1227) had conquered the Tangut Empire in Gansu and Amdo. The Tibetans had a close relation with the Tanguts at this time. They had already been engaged in translating Buddhist...