Decisive Determination and Apprehension A decisive determination (nges-shes, determining cognition) is a cognition that ascertains (nges-pa) its own object (rang-yul) correctly by decisively cutting it off from incorrect interpolations (sgro-’dogs bcad-pa) that it is something...

The cultural context in which Buddhism originated and spread plays an important role in its practice, however, there are indispensable points that characterize Buddhism, regardless of culture.

Disturbing emotions occur not only in conceptual cognitions, which are always mental cognition, but also in non-conceptual sensory and mental cognition.

Review  Yesterday, we started our discussion of the topic of self-voidness and other-voidness, and what we saw was that it’s extremely important to have an understanding of voidness (emptiness) in order to overcome the sufferings of samsara. We can gain an appreciation of...

The four Tibetan Buddhist traditions – Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya and Gelug – present slightly different division schemes of the six far-reaching attitudes.

The remarkable behavior of small children identified as reincarnate lamas can serve as convincing evidence for rebirth.

Review  We have been speaking about the importance of understanding voidness, whether we speak in terms of self-voidness or other-voidness, and we’ve seen that it is necessary for overcoming and achieving a true stopping of the true sufferings that we all experience and...

Review We have been speaking about incorrect consideration, and if we think in terms of incorrect consideration of “me,” a person, or a self, whether it’s with respect to ourselves or others, what’s incorrect here is to consider that there is a “me” that’s separate from a body...

The subtlest level of mind, the clear light mind, naturally makes an appearance similar to that when non-conceptually cognizing voidness. Even when not cognizing voidness, it does that explicitly at the moment of death and, according to the Jetsunpa textbooks, subliminally...

Grasping for truly established existence entails both projecting an appearance of such an impossible mode of existence and believing it corresponds to reality. Dormant grasping for it occurs when one or both aspects of grasping are not manifest.