The Indian Tenet Systems on Rebirth, Liberation and a Creator In India, at both the time before and after the Buddha came, there were many systems of tenets. Within the Charvaka school of tenets, there's no acceptance of past lives and future lives. They assert that the mind...

Buddha-Nature  What do family-traits mean?  A family-trait is “gotra,” which is family or caste. The traits are characteristics of someone who belongs to a certain family or caste. It can be the family or caste of those who can become Buddhas, so the Buddha-family....

Origin of the Text According to Tradition  In this seminar, we will talk about the great Mahayana text by Maitreya, Mahayana-uttaratantra Shastra (Theg-pa chen-po rgyud bla-ma’i bstan-bcos), about Buddha-nature. It’s An Indicative Composition on a Vast Vehicle of the...

Introduction The text that I will be explaining is called The Furthest Everlasting Continuum, Uttaratantra in Sanskrit, Gyu Lama in Tibetan. It has five chapters and if I were to explain this slowly in a relaxed manner, it would take one or two weeks. But today we need to...

Questions about the Clear Light Mind If the clear light mind is not influenced by causes and circumstances and it's not independently existing, then by what is it influenced? When we speak of clear light mind as being an unaffected or unconditioned phenomenon, we need to...

Precious Human Life Today, we are at Lama Tsongkhapa Institute, which is headed by two great spiritual masters. We have come together for spiritual teachings, and we are all very fortunate to have this opportunity. I am very happy to be here with you today. In general, it is...

Sources of Safe Direction In terms of objects that provide refuge or safe direction, there are the ultimate and provisional sources of safe direction. Sources of safe direction that can bring us to the ultimate or final endpoint of the path are referred to as ultimate or final...

Review Regarding the seven vajra points, our text states: (2) The sequential connection of these that is due to their defining characteristics, in the order in which they are to be understood, is as in The Sutra (Requested) by King Dharani. From its introduction, one is to be...

The First Chapter of the Text  Let’s begin our discussion of the text. The first chapter is the chapter on Buddha-nature, and the text starts by giving its subject matter in an outline form (remember that Maitreya’s texts start with an outline); the text is going to cover...

The Dharma Gem The first of the seven vajra points was the Clear Evolved Ones, the Buddhas. Now, we are up to discussing the second point, the Dharma Gem. For this, just as there were eight qualities for the Buddha Gem, there are eight qualities for the Dharma Gem. Of the...