Bodhichitta

Brief Introduction to Nalanda Monastery Today we are here at Nalanda Monastery in France. In ancient India there was also a Nalanda Monastery, or Shri Nalanda in Sanskrit, meaning the great all-around perfect Nalanda Monastery. Many great masters studied and taught there,...

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 Today, I’m here to teach on the Three Principal Aspects of the Path, a concise text written by Lama Tsongkhapa. What I’ll share is not my own knowledge, but rather what has been taught to me by my own precious teachers. I do not have any realizations myself, but...

Homage Verse and Verse 1 The Author, Atisha A Bodhisattva’s Garland of Gems (Skt. Bodhisattva-mani-avali) was written by the great Indian master Atisha (Atisha Dipamkarashrijnana, 982–1054). As a great Buddhist master at the Vikramashila Monastery, he was very concerned about...

(1) Respectfully, I prostrate to the Blissfully Gone (Buddhas) endowed with Dharmakaya, as well as to their (bodhisattva) offspring and to everyone worthy of prostration. Let me explain (how to) engage in the Blissfully Gone offsprings' code, which I’ve compiled and condensed...

Conventional and Deepest Bodhichitta There are two facets of bodhichitta: conventional or relative bodhichitta and deepest bodhichitta. Both of them are aimed at our own individual future enlightenment which has not happened yet; but on the basis of our Buddha-natures and a...

Introductory Verses and Verse 1 Setting the Motivation First of all, we need to have very good motivation for studying about the behavior of bodhisattvas. When we have a strong motivation, it is interesting how our minds work. If I were to say, “Let’s all go to the Dalai...

In this weekend seminar, we are going to speak about the bodhisattva vows. Obviously, to understand the bodhisattva vows, we need to know what a bodhisattva is, and what bodhichitta is, upon which the vows are based. We have many different quotations and sources which point...

Equalizing and Exchanging Self with Others We’ve been discussing the Seven Point Mind Training by the Kadam Geshe Chekawa who lived in the twelfth century. So far, we’ve covered the first two points: the preliminaries and the actual training in deepest bodhichitta. Now, we’re...

We were discussing bodhichitta and what it means to be a bodhisattva, and we saw what role taking the bodhisattva vows has in the general progression of developing bodhichitta, and in the stages of developing bodhichitta. What’s really important is to understand the role of...