©2024 The Ringu Tulku Archive
This last Bodhicharyavatara LIVE Question and Answer Session with Rinpoche took place on:
The recorded video of the live session is now above. For the audio only version, and all the audio translations, visit the Chapter 10 page.
If you would like to make an offering for translations, please click the links below:
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
This is the final teaching by Ringu Tulku Rinpoche on Bodhicharyavatara Chapter 10 which is on Dedication. In these final verses Shantideva outlines the various people to whom his dedication prayers are directed. And, he says, because we are restricted by our limited knowledge and understanding, we ask that we can enjoin our dedication with all the great Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, so that our own dedications take on the power of theirs and reach the whole of the limitless universe, missing nothing and one.
Finally in his now famous dedication prayer, Shantideva asks that he will always remain a monk, to help sentient beings in samsara, prostrating to his own yidam, Manjushri along with all his teachers and guides in past and future lives, asking that this will come true.
And now as long as space endures,
As long as there are beings to be found,
May I continue likewise to remain
To drive away the sorrows of the world.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 10 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–9 are available in the Courses section of the Teachings Archive.
New sessions will be posted twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Friday. Every Friday we will send a mailout with links to all new teachings posted during the week.
Rinpoche has kindly agreed to answer questions regarding these teachings once in every two weeks in a live webinar on Zoom. The course is coming to its end and so are the Live Question and Answers sessions. Next – and the last – webinar will be on 31st October. You are encouraged to ask your question live in the webinar, but if you are more comfortable with submitting it in writing, you can do so by using the comment area below. Please reflect on your question carefully before you send it, and be concise and only use one short paragraph and less than 80 words.
Vous pouvez également envoyer des questions en français. También puede enviar preguntas en español. Sie können Fragen auch auf Deutsch senden. Puoi anche inviare domande in italiano. Presubmitted questions in other languages are also welcome and they will be translated to English.
In any other questions and for technical help, please contact us at Teachings Archive.
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
The dedication verses now focus on dispelling the negative, what is unwanted and harmful and prevents us from staying on the path, in this way focusing the necessary conditions to maintain and sustain practice: places of worship, monastics, sanghas, solitary retreats, protection from harmful influences and the capacity to recognise distractions that lead to those wayward behaviours that in turn cause suffering.
We dedicate ourselves to focusing and preserving the gift of the buddhas’ teachings, treasures that are so freely given, and we continually make offerings to all the buddhas.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 10 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–9 are available in the Courses section of the Teachings Archive.
New sessions will be posted twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Friday. Every Friday we will send a mailout with links to all new teachings posted during the week.
Rinpoche has kindly agreed to answer questions regarding these teachings once in every two weeks in a live webinar on Zoom. The course is coming to its end and so are the Live Question and Answers sessions. Next – and the last – webinar will be on 31st October. You are encouraged to ask your question live in the webinar, but if you are more comfortable with submitting it in writing, you can do so by using the comment area below. Please reflect on your question carefully before you send it, and be concise and only use one short paragraph and less than 80 words.
Vous pouvez également envoyer des questions en français. También puede enviar preguntas en español. Sie können Fragen auch auf Deutsch senden. Puoi anche inviare domande in italiano. Presubmitted questions in other languages are also welcome and they will be translated to English.
In any other questions and for technical help, please contact us at Teachings Archive.
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
The next group of verses begin with a wish that through our dedication, aspiration and intention, all beings will abandon harmful actions and find happiness. Through this we pray they may they come into contact with great teachers and follow the bodhisattva path as their disciples. As a result of this not only the beings, but the whole of our environment will become wholesome, nourishing and healing so that even harmful or negative influences are transformed into expressions of compassion.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 10 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–9 are available in the Courses section of the Teachings Archive.
New sessions will be posted twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Friday. Every Friday we will send a mailout with links to all new teachings posted during the week.
Rinpoche has kindly agreed to answer questions regarding these teachings once in every two weeks in a live webinar on Zoom. The course is coming to its end and so are the Live Question and Answers sessions. Next – and the last – webinar will be on 31st October. You are encouraged to ask your question live in the webinar, but if you are more comfortable with submitting it in writing, you can do so by using the comment area below. Please reflect on your question carefully before you send it, and be concise and only use one short paragraph and less than 80 words.
Vous pouvez également envoyer des questions en français. También puede enviar preguntas en español. Sie können Fragen auch auf Deutsch senden. Puoi anche inviare domande in italiano. Presubmitted questions in other languages are also welcome and they will be translated to English.
In any other questions and for technical help, please contact us at Teachings Archive.
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
Rinpoche continues to discuss the dedication verses, in this short session focussing on the human realm. These verses touch on the suffering and vulnerabilities of beings that exist in the human realm that are caught in samsara, praying that every condition that causes experiences of sadness and suffering be transformed into a cause of happiness.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 10 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–9 are available in the Courses section of the Teachings Archive.
New sessions will be posted twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Friday. Every Friday we will send a mailout with links to all new teachings posted during the week.
Rinpoche has kindly agreed to answer questions regarding these teachings once in every two weeks in a live webinar on Zoom, which will be simultaneously streamed on this website. Next webinar will be on 31st October. You are encouraged to ask your question live in the webinar, but if you are more comfortable with submitting it in writing, you can do so by using the comment area below. Please reflect on your question carefully before you send it, and be concise and only use one short paragraph and less than 80 words.
Vous pouvez également envoyer des questions en français. También puede enviar preguntas en español. Sie können Fragen auch auf Deutsch senden. Puoi anche inviare domande in italiano. Presubmitted questions in other languages are also welcome and they will be translated to English.
In any other questions and for technical help, please contact us at Teachings Archive.
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
Continuing our study of the verses on Dedication, we are brought in graphic detail through the throw lower realms of existence, the Hell Realm, the Animal Realms, and the Realm of the Pretas, or Hungry Ghosts. Shantideva tells us that through our genuine heartfelt dedication prayers to the great Bodhisattvas: Vajrapani, Avalokiteshvara and Manjushri, all beings trapped in the Hell Realms can be released from their torments and the Hell Realm itself transformed into a Buddhafield. We are reminded of the dreadful limitations of the Animal Realm, where beings only exist to feed, or be fed, both as predators themselves, or as slaves to human beings. It is a miserable existence where survival is the only objective and there is no escape. The third of the three lower realms presented here is the Hungry Ghost Realm, where beings know nothing of satisfaction, but constantly want for more, often despite having enough.
Through dedicating everything positive, we are drawing on the power and compassionate eyes of all the great Bodhisattvas who release those beings trapped in the lower realms from their suffering, and the Realms themselves are transformed into Purelands.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 10 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–9 are available in the Courses section of the Teachings Archive.
New sessions will be posted twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Friday. Every Friday we will send a mailout with links to all new teachings posted during the week.
Rinpoche has kindly agreed to answer questions regarding these teachings once in every two weeks in a live webinar on Zoom, which will be simultaneously streamed on this website. Next webinar will be on 17th October. You are encouraged to ask your question live in the webinar, but if you are more comfortable with submitting it in writing, you can do so by using the comment area below. Please reflect on your question carefully before you send it, and be concise and only use one short paragraph and less than 80 words.
Vous pouvez également envoyer des questions en français. También puede enviar preguntas en español. Sie können Fragen auch auf Deutsch senden. Puoi anche inviare domande in italiano. Presubmitted questions in other languages are also welcome and they will be translated to English.
In any other questions and for technical help, please contact us at Teachings Archive.
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
In this fourth session on the last chapter which is on Dedication, we are taught about the required depth of a bodhisattvas’ intention that accompanies a dedication, and the potential transformative results. This is followed by step by step examples of the benefits that can be felt by beings who experience the lower realms of samsaric existence.
We are also reminded that while on the one hand, all of the six realms we experience are aspects of mind, they are still felt in a very real and solid way. If in our dedication we can specifically direct our intention to those who find themselves in the named hell realms, and we pray that peace and tranquility will replace the suffering currently experienced as a result of wrong view and karmic causes and conditions, this will have a powerful effect.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 10 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–9 are available in the Courses section of the Teachings Archive.
New sessions will be posted twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Friday. Every Friday we will send a mailout with links to all new teachings posted during the week.
Rinpoche has kindly agreed to answer questions regarding these teachings once in every two weeks in a live webinar on Zoom, which will be simultaneously streamed on this website. Next webinar will be on 17th October. You are encouraged to ask your question live in the webinar, but if you are more comfortable with submitting it in writing, you can do so by using the comment area below. Please reflect on your question carefully before you send it, and be concise and only use one short paragraph and less than 80 words.
Vous pouvez également envoyer des questions en français. También puede enviar preguntas en español. Sie können Fragen auch auf Deutsch senden. Puoi anche inviare domande in italiano. Presubmitted questions in other languages are also welcome and they will be translated to English.
In any other questions and for technical help, please contact us at Teachings Archive.
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
Verse One of this final chapter of the Bodhicharyavatara begins the instruction on dedication. Rinpoche explains what is entailed in offering an authentic dedication which goes beyond the habit of a recitation of words, emphasising the need for understanding and believing in the possibility that brings one’s dedication to bear fruit. He reminds us to visualise a cloud of enlightened beings in front of us, because it is the power of the Three Jewels waiting to be called upon to aid us in our quest to reach the bodhisattva ideal that makes our practice effective, and it is the four aspects that we engage with, step by step in dedicating our practice and positive actions: aspiration, intention, commitment alongside the power of the Buddhas, that provides the force that brings result.
Dedicating positive practice is essential to gathering merit, one of the two accumulations, and through engaging the power of the three jewels we will not exhaust ourselves and will receive help beyond measure.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 10 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–9 are available in the Courses section of the Teachings Archive.
New sessions will be posted twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Friday. Every Friday we will send a mailout with links to all new teachings posted during the week.
Rinpoche has kindly agreed to answer questions regarding these teachings once in every two weeks in a live webinar on Zoom, which will be simultaneously streamed on this website. Next webinar will be on 17th October. You are encouraged to ask your question live in the webinar, but if you are more comfortable with submitting it in writing, you can do so by using the comment area below. Please reflect on your question carefully before you send it, and be concise and only use one short paragraph and less than 80 words.
Vous pouvez également envoyer des questions en français. También puede enviar preguntas en español. Sie können Fragen auch auf Deutsch senden. Puoi anche inviare domande in italiano. Presubmitted questions in other languages are also welcome and they will be translated to English.
In any other questions and for technical help, please contact us at Teachings Archive.
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
This LIVE Question and Answer Session with Rinpoche took place on:
The recorded video of the live session is now above. For the audio only version, and all the audio translations, visit the Chapter 10 page.
The next LIVE Question and Answer Session with Rinpoche will be:
See the LIVE Teaching Events page for more details.
Please join us for these bi-monthly live sessions with Rinpoche and ask your question live or send them in advance using the comments areas or forms on any of the Bodhicharyavatara teaching posts.
If you would like to make an offering for translations, please click the links below:
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
At the start of chapter 10, Rinpoche explains what dedication is, why we do it and what the differences are between dedicating the merit, reciting wishing prayers and making aspirations and commitments. In Buddhism dedication is described as polishing the diamond, it is a way of enhancing the value and sharing the benefit of a positive action with others. If we don’t dedicate––whether it is our practice or something else, it is similar to leaving the door of the treasury open, allowing the jewels to be stolen. So when we dedicate, we accumulate virtue through our positive deeds using skilful means and we share the merit of our positive deeds for the benefit of everyone. Sealing each positive act with a prayer for the long term happiness of all beings is central to the development of the second accumulation, the Paramita of Wisdom. If this is not done, any negative act will override and negate the positive, the treasury will remain empty.
However although the teachings thus far have brought us to an understanding of the emptiness of phenomena, if the illusory appearances of subject, object and action (the three circles) are acknowledged and we dedicate with that understanding, our dedication will be perfect.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 10 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–9 are available in the Courses section of the Teachings Archive.
New sessions will be posted twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Friday. Every Friday we will send a mailout with links to all new teachings posted during the week.
Rinpoche has kindly agreed to answer questions regarding these teachings once in every two weeks in a live webinar on Zoom, which will be simultaneously streamed on this website. Next webinar will be on 3rd October. You are encouraged to ask your question live in the webinar, but if you are more comfortable with submitting it in writing, you can do so by using the comment area below. Please reflect on your question carefully before you send it, and be concise and only use one short paragraph and less than 80 words.
Vous pouvez également envoyer des questions en français. También puede enviar preguntas en español. Sie können Fragen auch auf Deutsch senden. Puoi anche inviare domande in italiano. Presubmitted questions in other languages are also welcome and they will be translated to English.
In any other questions and for technical help, please contact us at Teachings Archive.
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
We have been looking at the suffering of those who, because they are unable to understand the nature of emptiness and interdependence, endlessly swim in the ocean of samsaric existence, and we have seen how attachment to the eight worldly concerns perpetuates that. This situation is so normal to us, we don’t even realise we are suffering; we enjoy the little pleasures afforded to us and fail to see how this temporal happiness could be vastly expanded if we truly understood the experience of emptiness and interdependence. However Shantideva tells us even that understanding is not enough.
In this final teaching on the Wisdom chapter, he guides the student back to the Bodhisattva ideal: the ultimate goal is not only to cultivate our understanding of emptiness and interdependence for ourselves. Now we must develop the skilful means of compassionate action. This brings true merit because it goes beyond short-lived acts of kindness alone; it focuses on accomplishing the two accumulations of wisdom and compassion. The ultimate goal of a bodhisattva is to help all beings–regardless of their situation–to recognise that they have the power and means to free themselves from samsaric existence in a truly genuine and lasting way.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 9 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–9 are available in the Courses section of the Teachings Archive.
New sessions will be posted twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Friday. Every Friday we will send a mailout with links to all new teachings posted during the week.
Rinpoche has kindly agreed to answer questions regarding these teachings once in every two weeks in a live webinar on Zoom, which will be simultaneously streamed on this website. Next webinar will be on 3rd October. You are encouraged to ask your question live in the webinar, but if you are more comfortable with submitting it in writing, you can do so by using the comment area below. Please reflect on your question carefully before you send it, and be concise and only use one short paragraph and less than 80 words.
Vous pouvez également envoyer des questions en français. También puede enviar preguntas en español. Sie können Fragen auch auf Deutsch senden. Puoi anche inviare domande in italiano. Presubmitted questions in other languages are also welcome and they will be translated to English.
In any other questions and for technical help, please contact us at Teachings Archive.
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
In the next verses Rinpoche goes into detail how we let life slip by with distractions, even pointing to what we give most importance to, family, friends, livelihoods as a way of distracting ourselves from living life well in terms of dharma practise, and he emphasises again the problem of taking it easy when times are good, relaxing the training, and letting ourselves slide down a slippery slope, or worse, fall off a cliff into the ocean of suffering––which perpetuates samsaric existence. Life is, he says, always up and down, and until our awareness is fully cognisant of interdependence and emptiness, it will continue to be so. This personal transformation may be at odds with our usual habits, and requires diligence in our practise.
A genuine teacher, someone who is not overtly interested in his or her own self image is crucial, as is an understanding of using the dharma path itself, in the development of wisdom and compassion. According to the text, the genuine compassion of a bodhisattva recognises at a very deep level that happiness comes from understanding the true nature of emptiness and interdependence, and a being thus motivated will dedicate their life to help as many beings as possible to reach that understanding.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 9 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–9 are available in the Courses section of the Teachings Archive.
New sessions will be posted twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Friday. Every Friday we will send a mailout with links to all new teachings posted during the week.
Rinpoche has kindly agreed to answer questions regarding these teachings once in every two weeks in a live webinar on Zoom, which will be simultaneously streamed on this website. Next webinar will be on 3rd October. You are encouraged to ask your question live in the webinar, but if you are more comfortable with submitting it in writing, you can do so by using the comment area below. Please reflect on your question carefully before you send it, and be concise and only use one short paragraph and less than 80 words.
Vous pouvez également envoyer des questions en français. También puede enviar preguntas en español. Sie können Fragen auch auf Deutsch senden. Puoi anche inviare domande in italiano. Presubmitted questions in other languages are also welcome and they will be translated to English.
In any other questions and for technical help, please contact us at Teachings Archive.
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
Having gained some understanding of emptiness, Rinpoche tells us, we experience benefits, and in this session he demonstrates clearly and unambiguously how we keep ourselves frantically trying to stay afloat in a sea with no shore, which in turn becomes an ocean of suffering. In the last session we were told that peace, fearlessness, and equanimity are the first benefits of recognising emptiness. Here the 2nd benefit––that of real lived compassion, is ascribed to those bodhisattvas who truly understand emptiness and interdependence.
Rinpoche elaborates here in the next verses which attribute the everlasting nature of samsara to not recognising that the endless pursuit of pleasures of the senses will only cause endless suffering. If we follow our basic instinct to indulge in sensual pleasures without recourse to those beings who are negatively affected by our behaviours, the only possible outcome is further suffering. This he says can only cause conflict, even as we cycle through any momentary periods of relief brought by previous karma. If we don’t use that window of opportunity to change our behaviour, we will fall once again, because we are ignorant of the true nature of things.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 9 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–9 are available in the Courses section of the Teachings Archive.
New sessions will be posted twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Friday. Every Friday we will send a mailout with links to all new teachings posted during the week.
Rinpoche has kindly agreed to answer questions regarding these teachings once in every two weeks in a live webinar on Zoom, which will be simultaneously streamed on this website. Next webinar will be on 3rd October. You are encouraged to ask your question live in the webinar, but if you are more comfortable with submitting it in writing, you can do so by using the comment area below. Please reflect on your question carefully before you send it, and be concise and only use one short paragraph and less than 80 words.
Vous pouvez également envoyer des questions en français. También puede enviar preguntas en español. Sie können Fragen auch auf Deutsch senden. Puoi anche inviare domande in italiano. Presubmitted questions in other languages are also welcome and they will be translated to English.
In any other questions and for technical help, please contact us at Teachings Archive.
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
This LIVE Question and Answer Session with Rinpoche took place on:
The recorded video of the live session is now above. For the audio only version, and all the audio translations, visit the Chapter 9 page.
The next LIVE Question and Answer Session with Rinpoche will be:
See the LIVE Teaching Events page for more details.
Please join us for these bi-monthly live sessions with Rinpoche and ask your question live or send them in advance using the comments areas or forms on any of the Bodhicharyavatara teaching posts.
If you would like to make an offering for translations, please click the links below:
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
Shantideva’s explanation of emptiness was the subject of the previous verses, so here we have a new focus for our study: understanding how the eight worldly concerns monopolise and give perpetuity to samsaric existence. When we are able to bring forth a deep understanding of interdependence we will be less driven by profit, loss, fame, insignificance, blame, praise, joy and pain. We will feel less separated from those who wish to cause us harm. What we have perceived as problems become insignificant when equanimity, fearlessness, compassion arise naturally and with this understanding of emptiness and interdependence we no longer grasp at people, feelings and objects with attachment.
We ourselves, along with our relatives and friends, are all in a process of change, so by cultivating caring and nurturing relationships with the understanding of impermanence, we create the capacity within ourselves to let go and move on when things naturally come to an end and this will bring peace of mind.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 9 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–9 are available in the Courses section of the Teachings Archive.
New sessions will be posted twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Friday. Every Friday we will send a mailout with links to all new teachings posted during the week.
Rinpoche has kindly agreed to answer questions regarding these teachings once in every two weeks in a live webinar on Zoom, which will be simultaneously streamed on this website. Next webinar will be on 19th September. You are encouraged to ask your question live in the webinar, but if you are more comfortable with submitting it in writing, you can do so by using the comment area below. Please reflect on your question carefully before you send it, and be concise and only use one short paragraph and less than 80 words.
Vous pouvez également envoyer des questions en français. También puede enviar preguntas en español. Sie können Fragen auch auf Deutsch senden. Puoi anche inviare domande in italiano. Presubmitted questions in other languages are also welcome and they will be translated to English.
In any other questions and for technical help, please contact us at Teachings Archive.
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
The third system of analysis: in this session, Rinpoche elucidates on the final stage of examining the truth of the philosophical view on cause and result through the three doors of liberation, focusing here on the analysis of the result.
Staying with the metaphor of a dream, here he unpicks the reasoning of certain schools, which argue that entities do not need a cause in order to truly exist and asks us to consider how can things arise from nothing, pointing to non-existence as an equally valid state. Here the text reminds us that our reasoning logical mind attempts to comprehend the existence of phenomena by ascribing a cause and as an example Rinpoche points to our creation of a God and creator in order to help us give meaning. He or she had no cause, but in the Christian mind always existed, however we have ascribed to that God the power to create without a cause.
Understanding the way our mind constructs these arguments to make sense of experience will point us to an understanding of the concept of emptiness.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 9 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–9 are available in the Courses section of the Teachings Archive.
New sessions will be posted twice a week, usually on Tuesday and Friday. Every Friday we will send a mailout with links to all new teachings posted during the week.
Rinpoche has kindly agreed to answer questions regarding these teachings once in every two weeks in a live webinar on Zoom, which will be simultaneously streamed on this website. Next webinar will be on 19th September. You are encouraged to ask your question live in the webinar, but if you are more comfortable with submitting it in writing, you can do so by using the comment area below. Please reflect on your question carefully before you send it, and be concise and only use one short paragraph and less than 80 words.
Vous pouvez également envoyer des questions en français. También puede enviar preguntas en español. Sie können Fragen auch auf Deutsch senden. Puoi anche inviare domande in italiano. Presubmitted questions in other languages are also welcome and they will be translated to English.
In any other questions and for technical help, please contact us at Teachings Archive.
These teachings are dedicated for all who are sick and dying of corona virus, and for all who are tirelessly working in order to help them.
©2024 The Ringu Tulku Archive