Two Truths

What arises in a moment of mental activity includes both ways of cognitively taking objects and cognitive objects that are cognitively taken. Although we can say that both of these appear in a moment of cognition, in the sense that both of these arise, usually what is  meant...

Madhyamaka-Svatantrika Madhyamaka is divided into two schools according to the Gelug presentation of it. We have Svatantrika and Prasangika, and Svatantrika is divided also into two: Sautrantika-Svatantrika and Yogachara-Svatantrika. Sautrantika-Svatantrika accepts externally...

Review The Fourth Panchen Lama has divided his text into the preparation practices, the actual material, and the concluding procedures; and in the presentation of the actual body of the material he specified the various divisions of mahamudra, specified that there’s a sutra...

Preliminaries for Shamatha Meditation The text continues with a full discussion of the sutra tradition of mahamudra, And so for this (sutra tradition of mahamudra), out of the two methods, namely seeking a meditative state on top of having gained a correct view (of voidness)...

Mahamudra Meditation on the Conventional Nature of Mind The mahamudra realization is never "Just live naturally like an animal. Just see and hear, and have no thoughts." That is not it at all. Furthermore, even if we are able, through the initial mahamudra methods, to...

Review We have been speaking about appearances in conceptual and non-conceptual cognition. We got the basic mechanism with the Sautrantika presentation and in the Chittamatra variation on it we had just a few things that were different, specifically concerning the natal...

Recognizing Anything to Which Mind Gives Rise The Fourth Panchen Lama next explains how to cultivate seeing everything to be like illusion with the deep awareness we subsequently attain after we arise from total absorption on voidness. We cultivate this during our so-called...

Working to Benefit Others As the Fully Enlightened Buddha has said, "Refrain from all negativities and build up everything positive. By relying on this, one becomes enlightened." This is a fundamental point of Buddha's teachings. We all wish to be happy, and nobody wishes...

We have now covered the meditation on the superficial or conventional nature of the mind or mental activity. Now we’re ready to look a little bit at the meditation on the deepest nature of the mind. The Two Natures of the Mind or Two Truths about the Mind When we talk...

Removing the Obstacles Preventing Liberation and Enlightenment The Fourth Panchen Lama now continues with the method for gaining a decisive understanding of the deepest devoid nature of mind in accordance with the intentions of Chandrakirti and other masters of the...