Happiness

Motivation Many people are here today from various different places, even Tibet, and you have all come for the Dharma purpose of listening to teachings. Therefore, concerning the development of a bodhichitta resolve and so forth, I shall teach here in Bodh Gaya 37 Bodhisattva...

Introduction His Holiness the Dalai Lama speaks of Buddhism as having three aspects: Buddhist psychology and science – how the mind works, as well as cosmology Buddhist philosophy – a highly developed system of logic, and a very deep analysis of reality, cause and effect, and...

Introduction This weekend we are going to be talking about happiness and its role in sutra and tantra practice. There are of course many different ways to approach the topic, but what I propose to do first this evening, as a way of introduction, is to talk about where...

Introduction Mind training or attitude training, lojong in Tibetan, is a very broad topic that deals with how we experience our life and how we can change our attitudes about what we experience. We all know life is full of ups and downs and...

Precious Human Life Today, we are at Lama Tsongkhapa Institute, which is headed by two great spiritual masters. We have come together for spiritual teachings, and we are all very fortunate to have this opportunity. I am very happy to be here with you today. In general, it is...

Introduction In our weekend seminar we will focus on refuge. If we look at any of the Buddhist texts, we find that refuge is always described as the most fundamental aspect of the Buddhist path. In fact, it is the entry way into Buddhism. Refuge defines the dividing line...

Review I’d like to continue our discussion, but before I begin, there is a piece of advice that a very wise woman once gave me, which I think is relevant here. If you have a group and you want to lead it into a destructive action, like into battle, then you instruct them at...

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...

Recap We’ve been looking at some methods that help us to integrate our lives. We’ve also looked at the background from which these practices derive. In the larger Buddhist context, we are aiming to ensure that our future lives continue to have a precious human form like we...

Finding Inspiration We have looked at the framework from which these teachings about integrating our life derive, and there are just a few more points I want to add before I open it up for questions. This is concerning the term “inspiration.” We have the Sanskrit word...