This weekend I’ve been asked to speak about a practice that was composed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama called The Yoga of the Spiritual Master Inseparable from Avalokiteshvara, which is a practice of guru-yoga that focuses on the development and practice of compassion....

We have been discussing this practice, which has been composed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, called The Yoga of the Spiritual Master Inseparable from Avalokiteshvara. We have covered the taking of safe direction and reaffirming our bodhichitta motivation, the four...

In our discussion of this practice, The Yoga of the Spiritual Master Inseparable from Avalokiteshvara, we have discussed taking safe direction and reaffirming our bodhichitta motivation, and now we are up to the four immeasurable attitudes, which is a very essential part of...

In our final session, we have quite a lot of text left to cover, so I will just read each of the verses and comment very briefly on them.  Prayer for Inspiration to Develop the Graded Pathway Minds (Lam-rim)  We start with the lam-rim review. As I said, what we’re...

Purification of the Environment and the Offerings  In our discussion of this practice, The Yoga of the Spiritual Master Inseparable from Avalokiteshvara, we’ve done the safe direction and reaffirming our bodhichitta motivation and the four immeasurable attitudes. Then, we...

A mental factor of physical or mental happiness or unhappiness can accompany the physical sensation of pleasure or pain.

The Pursuit of Happiness We have two types of happiness, physical happiness and mental happiness, and most of the effort we put into our lives is involved in the pursuit of physical comfort and happiness. In the pursuit of physical happiness and comfort a lot of people engage...

December 10th 2024 marks a special day for all of us here at Study Buddhism – it’s Dr. Alexander Berzin’s 80th birthday! As the founder of Study Buddhism, Dr. Berzin’s extraordinary journey through life is an inspiring tale of adventure that would lead to the profound...

Introduction  This seminar is about how the five Buddha-family traits create our view of the universe. This is a topic that deals with what we call in Buddhism “Buddha-nature.” The word “family” in “Buddha-family” is actually the Sanskrit word for caste, a social system...

Verses 5 through 8 When we recite the refuge prayer, we have the line, “By the force of my giving and so on…” It’s good to know that we can change this line to suit the occasion. So, if we are prostrating, we can say, “By the positive force of prostrating to the Buddhas and...