Liberation and Enlightenment

The 12 links of dependent arising is a central and important topic in the Buddhist path, it’s important to know why it’s important in order to develop interest and motivation to study and learn about it. As way of introduction, let me discuss that for a little while first. The...

Introduction to the Four Noble Truths In this seminar, we will be looking at the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths. To attain liberation from uncontrollably recurring rebirth – in other words, liberation from samsara – and to attain the enlightened state of a Buddha, we...

Dharma-Lite vs. The Real Thing Dharma I’m very happy to be back here in Seattle once more and to have the opportunity to speak to you about the meditations for developing bodhichitta.I suppose that it would be appropriate to give an introduction. Bodhichitta is something that...

We’re going to start the weekend seminar on a very important and essential text (which is found in all the Tibetan traditions) from India called Seven Point Mind Training, which I received teachings on primarily from two of my main teachers: Serkong Rinpoche and Geshe...

Verses 5 through 9 Brief Review We have seen that Togme Zangpo starts his poem with a presentation of the main points that we find in the lam-rim, the graded stages of the path. After paying homage to Avalokiteshvara, and the promise to compose the text, he talks of the...

The Importance of Having an Accurate Idea of Enlightenment With bodhichitta – relative bodhichitta is what we are talking about here – it's very important to have an accurate mental representation of enlightenment, an accurate idea of what enlightenment is. Otherwise...

We started our explanation of Atisha’s text and we saw that he was speaking about the stages with which we develop or progress as we go along the spiritual path. And we saw that one way of describing how we progress is that our scope or aim of our goal gets progressively...

Working toward a Spiritual Goal There are two ways that we can work toward a spiritual goal: On the basis of faith – we have faith that it’s possible to achieve that goal. On the basis of this faith you work toward it, and as you proceed further in your training, you...

We started our discussion of how to make our tantra practice effective or more effective. And we saw that the most fundamental thing to start with is to understand what tantra is and what is the essential point of tantra practice – how does it work. And we saw that tantra...

The Second Noble Truth — True Causes of Suffering Just as we looked at the First Noble Truth in a more personal and accepting kind of way, likewise we need to look at the other three Noble Truths in the same way, so that we can have our Buddhist practice touch us personally...