Vows

From my heart, I take safe direction from the Three Precious Gems. May I free all beings from torment and place them in everlasting bliss. To become fully enlightened for their sake, I develop bodhichitta and train myself through bodhisattva acts.In the sky before me, on a...

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...

Day One: Opening Addresses Welcoming Speeches by the Host Institution Prof. Dr. Ing. Habil. Monika Auweter-Kurtz, President of the University of Hamburg Prof. Dr. Ludwig Paul, Dean of the Asia-Africa Institute, University of Hamburg Rinchen Khandro Chogyal,...

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...

Fear of "A Breach of Guru-Devotion" Almost every classical text on the disciple-mentor relationship includes a section on the hellish suffering that follows from what is usually translated as "a breach of guru-devotion." The material derives mostly from Ashvaghosha's vivid...

Session Four, Day Two: History of the Vinaya Lineages Bhikkhu Sujato, Abbot of the Santi Forest Monastery, Sydney, Australia “The Origin of the Three Existing Vinaya Lineages: Theravada, Dharmaguptaka, and Mulasarvastivada” Indian ordination lineages did not develop...

Review Having an Accurate Idea of Bodhichitta and Enlightenment We have seen that there is a relative and deepest bodhichitta, and it is aimed at enlightenment, and specifically our own individual enlightenment that has not yet happened, but which can be imputed on...

The Ceremony for Wishing Bodhichitta, Together with Advice  When we talk about developing bodhichitta, of course, this is a process that we need to work up to and that requires a great deal of work and effort to sincerely feel. There are stages of meditation for...

Review of Some Essential Points First, I shall speak a little about what is going to take place today. We have reached the point in the empowerment at which we have entered the mandala. First, we did so with blindfolds on and now our blindfolds have been removed. We have...

Nonrevealing Forms Can Be Known Only with Mental Cognition When we talk about a nonrevealing form, how is this known? Can we in our practice learn to be able to perceive it? “Nonrevealing” means that it doesn’t reveal its motivation to anybody. It is something that can be...