In addition to taking bodhisattva and tantric vows, we also pledge at an anuttarayoga empowerment to maintain nine auxiliary bonding practices that bond us closely to tantra.

Background to the Text This weekend I’m going to be speaking about The Heart Sutra. Actually, with a longer title, it’s The Essence of Far-Reaching Discriminating Awareness, the Vanquishing Lady Surpassing All. When we talk about far-reaching discriminating awareness – and...

Verses 2 and 3 Review Prostration and Buddha-Nature We have been discussing the first verse of Bodhisattva’s Garland of Gems, which has to do with how to meditate in general and, more specifically, how to meditate on bodhichitta. The topic was introduced by the prostration or...

To deal with difficult experiences that arise in meditation and in retreat and to eliminate them, we need to know the causes of the problems.

The Dalai Lama warns not to fall into religious hypocrisy by only paying lip service to the Buddhadharma, without actually implementing the teachings in the form of right action in everyday life.

How to Develop a Mind That Is Interested in Dharma The procedure here will be one of a dialogue, back and forth, of asking questions, because if I just sit here and lecture you, that is not of great benefit as we only have a few days. Whereas, if we ask questions and talk...

A look at the ten destructive ways of behaving – actions that create our unhappiness – and how to avoid them.

Textual Sources Now you should all set the proper motivation for listening to these teachings, namely that you wish to achieve a state of enlightenment or clear evolvement in order to benefit all limited beings. Then, with this pure motivation of the dedicated heart of...

The Two Truths To develop a bodhichitta aim, the first thing that we need to know and be clear about is to have some idea of what bodhichitta is. There are actually two aspects of bodhichitta and this is in accordance with the two truths. The two truths about anything are the...

Introduction We’ve been going through, in summary, the main points of the 16 chapters of Aryadeva’s Four Hundred Verse Treatise. We saw that the first eight chapters speak about how to rid ourselves of incorrect views concerning conventional truth. Now we’re ready to look at...