Emptiness

How to Integrate the Teachings Before we began today, I asked you to try to remember the main points of what we discussed last evening. This is a very important thing to try to do after we have heard a lecture, or after we’ve read something. I am not just referring to reading...

We were speaking about voidness (emptiness) and we saw that voidness is a negatingly known phenomenon, it’s a negation. We know it by negating something. If we put the word voidness into different terms, then we could say that it is an absence of something. There are many...

Review Yesterday, we began the Seven Point Mind Training by the Kadampa Geshe Chekawa, and we covered the first of the seven points: the preliminary teachings to rely upon. The second point, which we’ll explain today, is the actual training in bodhichitta.  The text...

Chapter Five: Indicating the Behavior of Bodhisattvas (5.1) There are no actions of the Buddhas that are not causes (for benefiting others). Even their breath is issued only for the sake of (acting as a) medicine for limited beings. Chapter five deals with indicating the...

Far-Reaching Discriminating Awareness Yesterday we began our discussion of the Heart Sutra, and we saw that this sutra is presenting, in a very condensed form, the teachings on far-reaching discriminating awareness. Discriminating awareness, usually translated as “wisdom,” is...

Introduction When we speak about the two truths in Chittamatra and the other Mahayana schools, we’re not talking about two different types of true phenomenon, we’re going to talk about the true truths. But speaking about the two truths that are descriptive of all phenomena,...

Are there any questions left over from what we discussed this morning? We were discussing how voidness means absence of impossible ways of existing, or impossible relations of cause and effect, and that it’s the same word as is used in Indian languages for the number zero. And...

Definition of the Two Truths Deepest Truth A mind that analyzes the deepest nature of a knowable phenomenon takes as its involved object (’jug-yul) its deepest essential nature, i.e. it takes the voidness of the phenomenon as the main object with which it cognitively engages....

Question about Mediation of Disputes at Work When we try to apply this principle of looking at the validity of others’ points of view, particularly in a work situation when you’re a manager, sometimes we can be overwhelmed by the view of the workers and it’s hard to...

The Tantra Tradition of Mahamudra The text continues, As for the actual basic methods, although there are many ways of asserting mahamudra, there are two when divided according to the sutras and tantras. On the basis of our efforts to eliminate obstacles and build up...