Buddhist Scriptures

Today, we are gathered in a very special place, Bodh Gaya, the site in India where the most skillful, compassionate, and kind universal teacher, Shakyamuni Buddha, manifested his state of enlightenment. The Dharma teaching we shall be dealing with here on this occasion is...

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...

Origin of the Text According to Tradition This weekend we are talking 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 Mind, the...

Homage to all past, future and present buddhas, bodhisattvas, pratyekabuddhas and shravakas! Thus I have heard at one time: the Tathagata, entering buddhas’ domain of experience, the profound sphere of reality, at Vulture Peak expounded to the supreme bodhisattvas, who were...

Furthermore, at that time, during that period, in the great city of Raja-griha, there dwelt the bodhisattva, the great being Ruchira-ketu, who had venerated previous buddhas, cultivated roots of virtue and rendered service to many hundreds of thousands of millions of buddhas....

The Fragmentation of Tibet after Langdarma’s Assassination The Tibetan Empire disintegrated after the assassination of Langdarma in 842 CE. Central authority was not restored for four centuries. The imperial Tibetan troops had already started to withdraw from the border...

Chinggis Khan In 1207 CE, news reached Tibet that Chinggis Khan (Sog-po Ching-ge-se Kh’ang) (1162 – 1227) had conquered the Tangut Empire in Gansu and Amdo. The Tibetans had a close relation with the Tanguts at this time. They had already been engaged in translating Buddhist...

Then the bodhisattva Ruchira-ketu slid into sleep. He dreamed he saw a golden drum, its light shining like the orb of the sun. In every direction, countless inconceivable numbers of tathagatas were preaching the Dharma, seated on lapis thrones at the foot of jeweled trees,...

One night, without distraction, I dreamed a vivid dream: I saw a large and beautiful drum filling the world with golden light and glowing like the sun. Beaming brightly to all places, it was seen from ten directions. Everywhere buddhas were seated on thrones of precious lapis...

Then the Tathagata said this to the noble goddess Bodhisattva-samucchaya: “O noble goddess, at that time, at that moment, a king called Suvarna-bhujendra, with this eulogy of all the tathagatas called the Source of Lotuses, praised past, future and present buddhas: Conquerors...