Spiritual Teachers

The Sanskrit and Tibetan classical Buddhist literature provides the source material for how to relate to a spiritual mentor. Most of the texts, however, explicitly refer only to the relationship with a tantric master. The main examples include Ashvaghosha's Fifty Stanzas on...

Description of the Phenomena in Classical Psychoanalysis Transference and regression are phenomena that occur in most ordinary human relationships, but in classical Freudian psychoanalysis, as described by Menninger in Theory of Psychoanalytic Technique, they are...

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...

The Rectification of Terms Titles, particularly those in foreign languages, often mystify Western people. They frequently conjure romantic images that are inappropriate. This especially happens with the various titles for spiritual teachers, such as – in the Tibetan...

Recognizing Our Mental Blocks The mahamudra teachings also emphasize the importance and need for extensive preliminary practice. The point of such practice, for example making hundreds of thousands of prostrations, is to purify ourselves of the grossest levels of obstacles...

According to Buddhist analysis, not only do a self that is hugging someone, the other person being hugged and an action of hugging arise dependently on and simultaneously with each other, a self that is hugging also arises dependently on and simultaneously with many other...

For the remainder of this seminar, I’d like to not follow a strict structure, but just answer questions you might have about tantra and let a wider picture of tantra unfold from that. Can Visualization Help with Dealing with Disturbing Emotions?  When, on a practical level,...

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...

Basis, Pathway, and Resultant Viewpoints Most Tibetan texts that discuss tantric masters' being Buddhas explain the topic of impure and pure appearances from a specific viewpoint. Often, however, the texts neglect to state their point of view. This may cause confusion. In...

Verses 5 through 9 Brief Review We have seen that Togme Zangpo starts his poem with a presentation of the main points that we find in the lam-rim, the graded stages of the path. After paying homage to Avalokiteshvara, and the promise to compose the text, he talks of the...