Obstacles

When we talk about meditation in a Buddhist context, we’re talking about something rather specific. Nowadays, we often hear the word “meditation” in all sorts of places, because it has quite a good reputation and many people are using it as an aid to relaxation and so on....

Introduction Tomorrow is the Buddhist holiday known as Lhabab Duchen in Tibetan, or the Descent from the Heaven of the Thirty-three in English. The best way to celebrate this special day is to have a Buddhist teaching on the four noble truths, the first teaching that the...

Voidness (emptiness) ̱̱is a very difficult topic, but a very essential topic. In order to approach it, we need to see where it fits into the general presentation of the Buddhist teachings. As we all know, Buddha taught his understanding, his realization in terms of what is...

This weekend I’ve been asked to speak about self-voidness and other-voidness, what is called in Tibetan rangtong (rang-stong) and zhentong (gzhan-stong; shentong). This is a very advanced, very complicated and very important topic. Therefore, it requires a great deal of...

Avoiding Overdependence on Others for Spiritual Energy Even after committing oneself to a spiritual path and establishing a disciple-mentor relationship, maintaining energy and motivation in one's spiritual practice may often present a challenge. Thus, seekers need a variety...

Setting a Good Motivation Now, please don’t forget the purpose of this course. As I mentioned yesterday, this is a very important subject – meditating on impermanence. Without this, whatever very profound teaching we find in our life, we won’t be able to practice it very well....

Brief Review We started our discussion of the Eight Verses of Mind Training by Langri Tangpa, with the first verse: (1) May I always cherish all limited beings by considering how far superior they are to wish-granting gems for actualizing the supreme aim. We discussed how...

The Meaning of Karma There are many explanations of karma in the different Indian Buddhist tenet systems. Let us use the least complicated of them, the main explanation followed by the non-Gelug Tibetan traditions. We also find it in the Gelug explanation of all the Indian...

Review of Day One Yesterday, we covered the smaller scope and looked at one of its primary topics, which is meditating on impermanence. That helps in reducing our attachment to the appearances of this life, because we see that nothing lasts. To recap, there are meditations on...

Clarification of Points about Kagyu and Sakya Teachings There are many different traditions, for instance in Kagyu there’s the tradition of two streams merged together, which refers to having both sutra and tantra mixed together within the mahamudra teachings. The disciple...