Precious Human Life

Tsongkhapa, the Author of the Text All of you here have great interest in the Dharma and great intentions to follow the teachings. You’ve invited me here to give you teachings and I’m very happy to be with you. I’ve been asked to teach the text called The Foundation for Good...

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...

Introductory Verses and Verses 1 through 4 Introduction The mind training text, 37 Bodhisattva Practices, was written in Tibet in the fourteenth century by the Sakya master Togme Zangpo. Togme Zangpo was well known as being an actual bodhisattva, and his text is studied by all...

Healthy Relationships with Spiritual Teachers It is very important for the disciple to examine and check the lama very carefully before studying with him. Don’t go just because a famous teaching is being given. You have to examine the lama very carefully. It is said in a...

Introductory Verses and Verse 1 Setting the Motivation First of all, we need to have very good motivation for studying about the behavior of bodhisattvas. When we have a strong motivation, it is interesting how our minds work. If I were to say, “Let’s all go to the Dalai...

Background The Bodhipathapradipa text was originally composed in Sanskrit. It was translated into Tibetan with the title Jangchub lamkyi dronma, which in English is Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment. It starts: I prostrate to the Bodhisattva Youthful Manjushri. The text...

The Importance of Meditating on Impermanence and Death His Holiness the Dalai Lama will be giving some very precious teachings soon. Because of that, my Italian friend and I had a conversation about this and came to the conclusion that, before the teachings, we could have a...

Verses 2 through 4 Today, you are going to listen to me talk. But the words coming out of my mouth have already been spoken by the Buddha himself many times, and by His Holiness the Dalai Lama many times. Gyalse Togme Zangpo, the author of the text, is teaching us indirectly. ...

The Three Levels of Motivation for Real Thing Dharma The lam-rim presents three levels of motivation: Initial level – we think in terms of ensuring that we have one of the better types of rebirths, not just in our next lifetime, but in all future lifetimes. ...

Mental Activity and How the “Me” Exists We began our discussion of the healthy development of the self through the lam-rim graded stages. We established the need to clearly differentiate between the conventional self and the false self, the one that needs to be refuted. When...