Emptiness

Review  In our discussion of self-voidness in the context of the Gelug assertions, we saw that we can speak about impossible ways of existing with regard to persons and with regard to all phenomena. First, we focus on understanding that there is a self that is not to be...

The Need for Having a Strong Foundation for Studying This Text After listening to teachings, in the end, don’t just make a mandala offering and go off and practice, not having understood anything. That is not the procedure. Whatever you haven’t understood, you should think...

Developing Love and Compassion Even in the material world, we can’t put all of our efforts into one strong move and expect to get immediate results. Instead, we need to work progressively in stages. This is true in terms of working on our mind and working on our attitudes. To...

The next level of determination to be free is renunciation of clinging to self-established existence and having our main interest instead be in voidness, emptiness. What a Buddha Perceives To understand this, let me explain a little bit about what a Buddha actually perceives...

The Determination to Be Free, the First of the Three Principal Aspects of the Path   In Buddhism, we speak of three principal aspects of the path: the determination to be free, usually translated as “renunciation,” a vast enlightening aim of bodhichitta, and a profound,...

Recognizing Anything to Which Mind Gives Rise The Fourth Panchen Lama next explains how to cultivate seeing everything to be like illusion with the deep awareness we subsequently attain after we arise from total absorption on voidness. We cultivate this during our so-called...

Training in Higher Discriminating Awareness  Removing the Obscurations to Liberation and Enlightenment The discussion of training in higher discriminating awareness starts with the second half of verse 41:  (41b) However, if you have failed to apply yourself to far-reaching...

The Relation between the Object of Refutation in Voidness and the Ease of Understanding Voidness as Dependent Arising Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche II: [In the context of cognition of conventional truth] because there are cognizing minds (shes-pa), that’s why there are objects...

Going Beyond a Settled Mind: Vipashyana Once you have gained a stilled and settled state of mind of shamatha, one that is held with great flexibility of mind and exhilaration and ecstasy, just to have this by itself, this single-pointedness of a stilled and settled state of...

The Great Compassion of Bodhichitta When we think of the most kind and compassionate Buddha Shakyamuni, we think of his great qualities and his amazing deeds, and specifically of all the teachings he gave purely to benefit all others. Among all these teachings, when we think...