Self-Cherishing

Introduction His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama emphasizes that religious harmony must be based on education, knowing about each other’s traditions. With thorough knowledge, we can acknowledge the common goals we share, while respecting the differences. In fact, from...

Points 1 and 2 “Lojong” is the Tibetan word usually translated as “mind training,” but I don’t find this translation terribly appropriate, because it seems to imply an exclusively intellectual activity to most people. “Lo” means “attitude” while “jong” means both “to cleanse”...

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 I would like to speak about a problem that is quite typical among Westerners, which is the problem of a negative attitude toward ourselves, low self-esteem. It can go even to the extreme of not only not liking ourselves, but even hating ourselves. It’s very...

Today I’d like to begin our discussion of an important text known as Wheel of Sharp Weapons (mTshon-cha ’khor-lo). I first studied this with one of my teachers in India, Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, and translated it under his supervision, with Sharpa Rinpoche, Khamlung Rinpoche...

I make prostration to the Three Rare Supreme Gems. “The Throwing Star Weapon Striking the Vital Point of the Foe.” I make prostration to forceful Yamantaka. (1) In the case of peacocks strutting in jungles of poisonous plants, although medicine gardens have been finely...

Introduction: Examining the Self and “Me” Our topic for this series of talks is the healthy development of the self through the lam-rim graded stages. The “self” is very central to the Buddhist spiritual path. We can see this even when we set our motivation for listening to...

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...

The Need for an Equal Attitude toward Everyone In order to develop compassion it’s necessary to purify and train the mind and the heart. The definition of compassion is the attitude with which you wish everybody to be free from their problems and unhappiness. The attitude with...

Part One: Contrasting Bodhisattvas with Ordinary Beings Two Traditions for Developing Conventional Bodhichitta To destroy self-grasping and self-cherishing and to attain enlightenment, all mind training texts emphasize tonglen. This is the practice of giving and taking as...