Vows

The six-session yoga is a practice which helps us to keep the commitments from receiving an initiation or empowerment in the anuttarayoga class of tantra. And so this evening what I’d like to do is give a little bit of introduction and background to what’s going on with this...

As an aid to those unfamiliar with the topics presented here, some background information and a few technical terms and dates have been filled in to the summaries of some of the papers. Introduction to the Bhikshuni Vows The Importance of Having Bhikshunis The...

I take safe direction wholeheartedly from the Three Supreme Gems. I shall free all wandering beings from suffering and secure them in everlasting bliss. To reach full enlightenment for their sake, I reaffirm my bodhichitta aim and shall train myself in bodhisattva behavior. In...

[Clarification of His Holiness' answers by Dr. Berzin are included within square brackets.] Topics for Introductory Talks for Taking the Kalachakra Initiation Dr. Berzin: When I go to the West next year to give introductory talks for the Kalachakra initiation, what would be...

In this weekend seminar, we are going to speak about the bodhisattva vows. Obviously, to understand the bodhisattva vows, we need to know what a bodhisattva is, and what bodhichitta is, upon which the vows are based. We have many different quotations and sources which point...

Premises People at Dharma centers often have difficulty relating to spiritual teachers, even properly qualified ones. Some may feel nothing toward the resident teacher, even if the person is a geshe or a lama. Others may be unimpressed with a famous teacher who visits,...

I am very happy to be with all of you today. Although I am not a monk, still I have had the good fortune to have been able to study Kalachakra with a number of different great Lamas. Based on their kindness in teaching me, I shall try to pass on their wisdom to you by...

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...

We were discussing bodhichitta and what it means to be a bodhisattva, and we saw what role taking the bodhisattva vows has in the general progression of developing bodhichitta, and in the stages of developing bodhichitta. What’s really important is to understand the role of...

I have a stack of questions here in front of me. Let me try to answer some of them during the course of explaining what will happen today during the first day of the actual empowerment. Following the Visualizations One thing to keep in mind about what is going on here is...