Happiness

Introduction Mind training or attitude training, lojong in Tibetan, is a very broad topic that deals with how we experience our life and how we can change our attitudes about what we experience. We all know life is full of ups and downs and usually isn’t very easy. Many things...

Introduction In our weekend seminar we will focus on refuge. If we look at any of the Buddhist texts, we find that refuge is always described as the most fundamental aspect of the Buddhist path. In fact, it is the entry way into Buddhism. Refuge defines the dividing line...

Motivation Many people are here today from various different places, even Tibet, and you have all come for the Dharma purpose of listening to teachings. Therefore, concerning the development of a bodhichitta resolve and so forth, I shall teach here in Bodh Gaya 37 Bodhisattva...

Introduction His Holiness the Dalai Lama speaks of Buddhism as having three aspects: Buddhist psychology and science – how the mind works, as well as cosmologyBuddhist philosophy – a highly developed system of logic, and a very deep analysis of reality, cause and effect, and...

Introduction This weekend we are going to be talking about happiness and its role in sutra and tantra practice. There are of course many different ways to approach the topic, but what I propose to do first this evening, as a way of introduction, is to talk about where...

Review I’d like to continue our discussion, but before I begin, there is a piece of advice that a very wise woman once gave me, which I think is relevant here. If you have a group and you want to lead it into a destructive action, like into battle, then you instruct them at...

Recap We’ve been looking at some methods that help us to integrate our lives. We’ve also looked at the background from which these practices derive. In the larger Buddhist context, we are aiming to ensure that our future lives continue to have a precious human form like we...

The Relation between Incorrect Consideration of Nonstatic as Static and of Suffering as Happiness We were speaking about our incorrect consideration of things that change. We consider that something like a relationship is going to last forever, whereas, in fact, it is...

Review: Precious Human Life We have been going through the lam-rim graded stages of the path from the point of view of how they help us to develop a healthy sense of self. We have seen how thinking about the precious human rebirth and realizing how fortunate we actually are...

Review We were discussing the various methods used in Buddhism to strengthen the evolving Buddha-nature factor that we identified within the network of good qualities, namely our innate joy, our ability to experience things with happiness. As you recall, in order to strengthen...