Background The Bodhipathapradipa text was originally composed in Sanskrit. It was translated into Tibetan with the title Jangchub lamkyi dronma, which in English is Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment. It starts: I prostrate to the Bodhisattva Youthful Manjushri. The text...

The qualities of the deepest, apparent and nominal Sangha Gem.

Dr. Alexander Berzin Buddhist groups began to officially register throughout the USSR only in 1988–1990. An important role in this was played by the visits and talks in 1987–90 by Dr. Alexander Berzin (1944– ), a Harvard PhD who had lived in Dharamsala, India for many years...

Review of the Importance of Working to Gain Precious Human Rebirths in the Future  In the previous session, we spoke about the person of initial scope or initial motivation. The verse in the text stated: (3) Anyone who takes keen interest in himself or herself...

The usual structure of the five aggregates is formulated in terms of our moment-to-moment experience, going from grossest to the most subtle.

Review: First and Second Points of the Four-Point Analysis First Point: Identifying the Object to Be Refuted We have discussed the first two points of the four-point analysis. The first point was identifying and recognizing within ourselves the object to be refuted. In order...

Outlines of similarities between Sufism and Buddhism go in the right direction concerning generalities, but need to be supplemented with detailed analyses of specific cases in order to avoid misunderstanding.

Review of Previous Sessions  We have been discussing the issue of time from a Buddhist and a relativistic point of view in current Western science. We’ve seen that, from a Buddhist point of view, time is a measurement of the change that occurs during the interval on a...

Presentation of the debate between Jetsunpa and Panchen on the topic of true stoppings and voidnesses on the sutra level.

The complex relation between a whole and its parts, as explained in the different tenet systems, and how they are cognized.