Refuge

This text was written by Atisha, a great Indian master who lived about a thousand years ago. He had studied in Indonesia, the island of Sumatra; he’d made a long journey there, a very difficult journey. Buddhism had spread there long before and he went there particularly to...

Introductory Verses The text begins with the salutation and promise to compose: Namo mahamudraya: Homage to mahamudra, the great seal of reality. I respectfully bow at the feet of my peerless guru, lord of that which pervades everywhere, master of those with actual...

Initial Sketch of the Topic "Mahamudra" is a Sanskrit word meaning "great seal" and refers to the nature of all phenomena. Just as a wax seal is stamped on legal documents to authenticate their signature, likewise the nature of reality is figuratively stamped upon everything...

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. And...

Letting Down the Walls toward Learning As we discussed yesterday, what we try to do is to feel open to being of help to others – relating to others directly with the walls down. The walls need to be down not only toward people, but also toward learning things. It’s a similar...

Verses 1 through 7 Taking Advantage of Being in a Holy Place As I explained yesterday, we are at a special place here where the Buddha manifested his enlightenment and where many enlightened beings have been. Nagarjuna and his two spiritual sons, for instance, and many...

The Difficulty of Obtaining a Precious Human Rebirth and How to Take Best Advantage of It It is important to think in the beginning about the difficulty of obtaining a precious human rebirth with all its respites from situations preventing Dharma practice and all its...

Continuation of Refraining from Using Divisive Language Yesterday, we were speaking about the fifth destructive action, which is using divisive language. We have already covered the three destructive actions of body and the first of speech. We were discussing the second...

Review of the Main Points of the Lam-rim The lam-rim is divided into three scopes, each with different states of mind that act as pathways enabling us to reach enlightenment. This structure was first formulated by the great eleventh-century Indian master Atisha, who was...

The Three Levels of Motivation for Real Thing Dharma The lam-rim presents three levels of motivation: Initial level – we think in terms of ensuring that we have one of the better types of rebirths, not just in our next lifetime, but in all future lifetimes. ...