Emptiness

How to Refute the Assertions of Lower Tenet Schools The way in which we should understand how the position of a higher school of tenets undermines or damages another lower school can be understood in terms of how Madhyamaka undermines and refutes the Chittamatra assertion in...

Jealousy and other disturbing emotions are symptoms of a larger problem: our basic, fundamental ignorance of how phenomena actually exist. Here, we look more deeply at convention, categories, and how things exist, and how we can use an understanding of it all to overcome...

The Four Point Analysis: Neither One nor Many We discussed voidness or emptiness in Buddhism, particularly in terms of the absence of a true identity for ourselves – the absence of an impossible false “me” – and we have talked a little bit about how to meditate. Now...

The methods for cultivating boon experiences and stable realizations is divided into two sections: The methods for cultivating boon experiencesThe methods for cultivating stable realizations. Prayer to Cultivate Boon Experiences Properly Verse 20 is a prayer to be able to...

We’ve been speaking in depth about mental appearances or holograms that arise in both non-conceptual and conceptual cognition, and we’ve seen that it’s rather complex. Before we go any further, perhaps it might be a good thing to ask if you’ve understood at least something...

Introduction and Question about Concepts and Nonexistent Phenomena We started going through the second half of the text, the chapters that deal with voidness, (specifically the topic is refuting or overcoming the incorrect views regarding voidness and the deepest nature of how...

We have been talking about the self or “me,” which is imputed onto the stream of continuity of our aggregate factors that make up each moment of our experience. That conventional “me” is what the word or concept of “me” refers to on the basis of these ever-changing aggregates...

Verses 18 through 24 Brief Review We have this incredibly precious human life, on the basis of which we can attain liberation and enlightenment. It’s very rare to have such a rebirth. It passes quickly and can end at any moment, so we need to take full advantage of it. To do...

What Do We Know after Negating Something  We have been speaking about affirmations and negations, and we have seen that they’re very important. There are quite a few things that came up from yesterday and some questions that are still there. A negation is one in which there’s...

Review We have been discussing yesterday how we develop relative bodhichitta – sometimes that’s called conventional bodhichitta. We make a differentiation between relative and deepest truth: In the Gelug tradition, when we speak about deepest truth, we’re only speaking about...