Rebirth

We can have some questions about the points we’ve just covered and then we can go on. Let’s keep our questions specific to this topic. In the afternoon, we can open it up to more general questions about tantra. Questions and Answers Strengthening Belief in Rebirth You made the...

Introduction  We started our discussion of tantra in general with an introduction to what tantra actually is. One of the main points that I try to emphasize is that tantra is an advanced practice. It’s a practice that is not intended for beginners. Even if we have started...

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....

The next three links – eight, nine, and ten – are the causal links that actualize (bsgrub-byed-kyi yan-lag). They are what activate the karmic aftermath of throwing karma in the moments preceding death so that the karmic results will actualize. Thus, they serve as the...

Once we have dealt with this Dharma Lite version of renouncing our clinging to short-term benefit in this lifetime, and thinking instead of long-term benefit in this lifetime, then we’re ready to go to the Real Thing Dharma, which is the initial scope of lam-rim motivation....

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...

We were talking about the first link in this chain of dependent arising and we saw that this is the link of unawareness and it has to do with unawareness of how we and others exist. The main emphasis that we need to focus on is ourselves. We saw that there are two levels of...

No Permanent Identity of “Me” from Lifetime to Lifetime Based on considering the previous points of analysis, and far more points that could be discussed, we gradually come to accept that we have had beginningless past lives and there will be endless future lives as well. Our...

Review of the First Link: Unawareness  We have started our discussion of these 12 links, and we saw that they describe the mechanism for how we generate our uncontrollably recurring aggregates – the body and mind and so on – of each lifetime, and specifically our tainted...

Understanding Rebirth in Life Forms Other Than Human or Animal A topic that is often skipped over is that of the sufferings of the three lower realms, or the “three worse realms” as I prefer to call them. The Tibetan term is actually the “three bad realms,” but “bad” seems a...