Precious Human Life

Reaffirming the Motivation We need to have a proper motivation for listening to the teachings; otherwise we will miss an opportunity to build up a great deal of positive force and to incorporate this teaching in our mental continuum. We try not to be motivated by wanting...

Verses 1 through 7 Taking Advantage of Being in a Holy Place As I explained yesterday, we are at a special place here where the Buddha manifested his enlightenment and where many enlightened beings have been. Nagarjuna and his two spiritual sons, for instance, and many...

Making Life Meaningful Now we will continue with the text. We are on the second verse. (2) Listen with a clear (mind), O fortunate one, whose mind would rely on the path pleasing to the Triumphant through being unattached to the pleasures of compulsive...

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...

The Rarity of a Precious Human Life In our first discussion, we spoke about how this precious human rebirth that we all have is a perfect working basis for our Dharma practice. This working basis is complete with all of the eighteen qualities: the respites and the enrichments....

Three Types of Spiritual Persons To continue with the text, the next verse reads:  (2) Since (practitioners) come to have small, intermediate, and supreme (scopes), they are known as the three types of spiritual persons. I shall therefore write about these specific...

Fear of Death and Lower Realms I wanted to ask something about fear. Rinpoche said that we can develop fear for states of rebirth that can come to us after death. I was thinking that fear is suffering too. Are we making ourselves suffer for something that may or may not happen...

(1) As a Triumphant Ones’ offspring, having firmly gained hold of bodhichitta like this, I’ll strive never to transgress its training, without ever wavering. (2) For something undertaken all of a sudden or something I didn’t examine well, even if I’ve given a promise about...

Contemplation on the Rare Precious Human Life, Certainty of Death and Necessity of Dharma  We’ve been talking about the precious human rebirth that we have all achieved. This precious human rebirth has the eight respites and ten enrichments necessary for Dharma practice....

There are three emotional states that we need to develop as our motivation for refuge, for going in this safe direction. They are usually called fear, belief or confidence and compassion. The main issue is learning how to put them together in a way that they mean something and...