Review I’d like to continue our discussion, but before I begin, there is a piece of advice that a very wise woman once gave me, which I think is relevant here. If you have a group and you want to lead it into a destructive action, like into battle, then you instruct them at...

Working on ourselves to overcome our shortcomings and realize all our potentials is the safest and most meaningful direction we can put in our lives.

Refuge, or putting a safe direction in our lives, begins with giving our lives more meaning by working on ourselves to be a kinder person.

Refutation of Nonrevealing Forms as Being Responsible for an Increase in Positive Karmic Potential from Offering Material Items to the Monastic Community  Vasubandhu states in his Autocommentary to “A Treasure House of Special Topics of Knowledge” (Skt....

Vasubandhu, in his (Auto)commentary on “A Treasure House of Special Topics of Knowledge” (Chos mngon-pa’i mdzod-kyi rang-’grel, Skt. Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya) (Gretil ed. 196.04-06, Derge Tengyur vol. 160, 169A), explains further reasons that Sautrantika gives for rejecting...

Refutation of a Pratimoksha Vowed Restraint as a Nonrevealing Form That Follows from a Revealing Form In response to the Vaibhashika objection that if the existence of nonrevealing forms were negated, the consequence would be that pratimoksha vowed restraints would not exist,...

Chapters 13 to 16 Thirteen: The Meditations for Refuting (Truly Existent) Cognitive Sensors and Cognitive Objects (1) You do not see absolutely everything about a vase (all its sensory qualities and parts) at the time when you see (its) form. Who would state “(because) the...

Chapters 9 to 12 Nine: Indicating the Meditations for Refuting Static Functional Phenomena (1) All (functional phenomena) arise as a fact of being the result (of a collection of causes and circumstances). Therefore, there’s no such thing as a static (functional phenomenon...

Assertions and Refutations of Self-Established Existence The next verse states: (IX.5) Functional phenomena are seen by the (common) world and conceptualized to be absolutely existent, and not like an illusion. It’s in this regard that there’s dispute between...

A seminar on the complicated topic of how to meditate on the voidness of a false “me” experiencing the four noble truths to attain liberation and enlightenment.