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...

General Assertions Buddhism does not assert creation or a creator. The mental continuums of all sentient beings have no beginning. “Sentient beings” are living beings that act with intention and experience happiness or unhappiness as a result. Like souls in Islam, however, the...

Differentiating the Various Aspects of Feelings Adjusting the ten mental factors is an effective means for increasing attentiveness to problems and for enhancing the intention to respond. Several factors, however, may still hamper this response. One of the more troublesome is...

5 Decisions There are five decisions that come from thinking about the nine points for equalizing our attitude toward ourselves: 1. I Shall Stop Being Fickle, But Rather Develop a Kind Attitude toward Myself Equally All the Time The first decision is: No matter how well or...

Review We’ve looked at what we’re dealing with in attitude training or mind training, which is our experience of everyday life. We live our lives, and experience each moment ourselves. Even if we broadcast everything that we do on Facebook and Twitter, still, we’re the only...

You make up your own rules, laws and constitutions. If others break your laws, you catch and punish them. But, if you break them yourself, you let yourself get away with it. Geshe Sharmawa said, “As long as you do not see your own weaknesses and self as the enemy you will...

Brief Review We started our discussion of the Eight Verses of Mind Training by Langri Tangpa, with the first verse: (1) May I always cherish all limited beings by considering how far superior they are to wish-granting gems for actualizing the supreme aim. We discussed how...

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...