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The final three verses of Chapter 8 on Meditation are a summary reminder of the instructions in previous verses, based on exchanging: having a sense of the suffering and difficulties of others, and being there for them, placing their welfare before our own, and thereby becoming more mature through relinquishing selfish behaviours. This is the advice of the wise ones who have recognised that the way to happiness is by being selfless, ridding ourselves of the impediments such as preoccupations with doubt and desire, arrogance and malice, as these rob us of the energy for positive transformation.
We are reminded to employ the antidotes to these obstructions, by training in meditation, compassion and wisdom. Rinpoche points out that Shantideva’s instructions are important because they include explanations and reasoning, providing a logic to using these guidelines in our life, saying that when we engage in this way and see the benefits, we realise that it is not unnatural or a sacrifice, and the benefits are universally felt.
(This is the final session of Chapter 8 on Meditation.)
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 8 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–8 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 2nd May. 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 8 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.
The previous verses focused on the importance of caring for others, ‘placing ourselves in their shoes’, exchanging ourselves with them and taking their burdens and suffering as our own. This is a process of transformation.
Now we look at why that is so difficult to do, especially when, as Shantideva says, it is the authentic route to our own happiness. For most of us, self cherishing, attachment to our body and emotions plays the greater part in our quest to be happy, but this is misguided and he says will always lead us in the opposite direction.
The following verses remind us that the body is a finite entity and will sooner or later return to the earth. We are asked what it is exactly we are holding onto so tightly? Because if we are able to examine the physicality of our body and its inner workings in an objective way, we will find it is quite ugly; we will see that without a conscious mind to govern its movement and actions, it is literally a composite of inert molecules. The conscious mind is what energises the body. So, if we can see the body as an instrument for the mind, as something to maintain in healthy equilibrium without indulging in excesses, to keeping in good working order; it becomes something we can skilfully use to help others while creating the harmony we are looking for in our own lives.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 8 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–8 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 18th April. 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.
Approaching the final verses on meditation, the text now summarises the result of physical and mental craving if we allow it to determine our life and relationships. Here we are given a skilful way to attain happiness: the text points out once again that the placing others first in every situation and putting their needs before our own is the only way to contentment. Our never-ending grasping to satisfy our own desire for comfort, Rinpoche says, will lead to an attitude of self protection, me first, and never bring what we ultimately search for: peace, and contentment.
The text also reminds us that being demanding or over-desirous of perfection leads to an unhappy mind, regardless of our circumstance. Even a person with plenty of material things will keep searching and not be satisfied unless they understand that there is nothing to be gained or lost.
Dissatisfaction with our experience lies at the heart of suffering, when we believe we are missing something and we continue to search for what our mind tells us is lacking; so without placing the needs of others before our own and without recognising the insubstantiality of phenomena, our grasping mind is never satiated and contentment will always be out of reach.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 8 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–8 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 18th April. 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 here reminds us that all of these instructions are directed at working with the mind, with our own inner dialogue; we are training ourselves to see where we fall into the old habitual tendencies that govern our behaviours, which––despite the immediate pleasure or happiness they may bring––are not actually in the best interests of ourselves in the long term, and never of others. Thus the next five verses give us an example of the possible mental exchanges we might have with ourselves regarding influences to our decision making. It is an unequivocal fact, he says, that the direct route to the gates of hell is through indulging our own selfishness and negative emotions.
The answer to redirecting this comes in the form of developing self awareness and discipline, spotting the habitual responses that work for personal gain and halting the resulting behaviours––before we act out. It is a training, and sometimes requires us to go against our own natural responses with a willpower and firmness. That way we will begin to see results that in turn encourage us to bring about a permanent change of attitude.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 8 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–8 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 18th April. 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 here summarises the previous verses that point to the way our suffering is caused by a self centred approach to life and relationships. These next verses suggest that what may appear to us to be contrary to our common logic, is actually the way to happiness.
Nobody is actively looking for a way to unhappiness, regardless of the negative behaviours that are acted out, or the number of beings they harm. Rather than judge that behaviour we look for qualities in them that can be amplified for the benefit of others. We also recognise our own shortcomings, we don’t hide those, we accept them for what they are, as samsaric beings we will always have faults.
By downplaying our own positive qualities, our talents, our happiness and looking for those qualities in others, and by seeking out and acknowledging their strong points, we make ourselves a servant to their needs. We don’t attempt to declare ourselves or our accomplishments but keep any we might feel we have, well hidden. In this way we are elevating others and assuming their greater capacities take precedence over our own and which helps lessen our attachment to our egotistic tendencies.
This is real meaning of a ‘hidden yogi’.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 8 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–8 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 18th April. 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 8 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.
Summarising the previous verses Rinpoche reminds us that so far we have been shown how to practise exchanging with others – firstly with their dissatisfactions based in wrong view; experiencing for ourselves how it is to be caught in the cycle of suffering caused by this arrogance and envy. Then by exchanging our own well being for their suffering as an expression of compassion in the recognition that we are equal and interdependent. The following steps in the training come in the next verses, first gently, then with a little more force.
To begin we are asked to contemplate the weariness that comes with entrapment in this never-ending cycle of samsara. Then to develop compassion, showing kindness firstly to ourself and then to others. We need, it says, to lessen our own sense of self importance, to see that we are only the chance result of a union of the sperm and seed of our parents and to cease perpetuating the desire to judge others differently; to see that by sharing our qualities and abilities we can create a better situation for everyone.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 8 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–8 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 4th April. 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.
Here again we return to examining the effects of our pride, jealousy and competitiveness in ourselves and those we come into contact with. Focusing in these verses on the effects of our competitive nature, we try to experience how it feels to be competitive, what makes us that way, and how it poisons relationships with people who are in truth equal to ourselves. Competing with other people for the purpose of self aggrandisement makes us blind to our actions and engenders hostility. It is fuelled by anger and a lack of self esteem, driven by a fear that our own qualities will not be recognised and, it worse again, generates a lack of trust in us which can only achieve the opposite of what we wish for.
When competition is healthy, we focus on bettering ourselves, excelling in our own capacity to improve and on encouraging our friends to do the same, then each of us will succeed.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 8 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–8 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 4th April. 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 verses describe the process of training in exchanging, in which we place ourself ‘in the shoes’ of another person, for instance one who displays pride, as well as a person who is prey to our own arrogance, or who constantly competes. By doing this we have the means to recognise the qualities of our shared humanity.
There are three ways of training and here Rinpoche discusses the benefits of these as a practice: the first instruction is to exchange with someone who may be impacted by our own arrogant attitude, to see what it feels like to be on the receiving end, to experience envy and get a glimpse of how we appear to them. Pride is slippery, hard to see in oneself and easy to observe in others.
The text says that the shortcomings of pride and envy disrupt our relationships and happiness, causing competitiveness and jealousy and we must overcome these habitual responses by fully understanding the ramifications of our behaviour.
Further, it points out that as long as we engage these poisonous responses we have no chance of developing a compassionate outlook.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 8 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–8 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 4th April. 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 continue in these next verses to consider the value and importance of placing other peoples’ needs and wishes before our own and here we are instructed to embody this as an ethic that informs our whole way of life and interaction with others. This is the journey from head to heart, from conceptual notions to true compassion and wisdom.
The text identifies our ego and selfishness as the obstruction that prevents freedom from suffering, both for ourselves and other beings. Rinpoche here points out that all the pain we feel and inflict on each other can be avoided if we were to transform our thinking, beginning with the real intention to destroy the demon of ego clinging, followed by actually carrying the idea through. The paradox is that if we follow this instruction and can be totally selfless, we will discover it is also the direct route to our personal happiness.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 8 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–8 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 4th April. 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 8 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.
In the next three verses the text continues to extol more deeply the outcomes of being self centred with no regard for others and the inevitable karmic result of such indifference. Rinpoche makes the case that even if we are not able or willing to ponder the possibility of a future life or lives, we can contemplate such a possibility just by looking at the workings of cause and effect in our current existence. There is a logic that can be extended beyond what is immediately obvious or tangible.
If we take the case of a servant or an employer, there will be a direct result to doing our work badly or not paying proper attention to those we work for, or who we ask to work for us. If they are not treated kindly or with disdain, the work will be shoddy, the business will fail. We can apply this to people in power as well, if they are motivated by selfish greed, the happiness they seek for themselves will be short-lived or fail to come entirely. There will be retribution and any wrongs done in the name of leadership may take aeons to atone. There will be no route to happiness as long as there is no recognition of our mutual interdependence, and the necessity for developing compassion and wisdom.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 8 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–8 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 21st March. 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.
Here we are examining the karmic results of doing something positive for others and the benefits we also receive through this way of acting – even to the extent of placing oneself into harms way to help another living being if they need it. In the short term this may appear to be irrational, as the instinct is usually one of self preservation before all else, but here we are looking at creating the conditions for long term benefit: the excellent karmic result.
These verses encourage us through examples and reasoning to generate positive intention; to detach ourselves from our samsaric habits that reliably maintain the status quo. They describe through vivid examples what happens when we turn a blind eye to the results of our harmful negative actions in return for short term gain, and the benefits to being able to let go any wish for recognition or reward when our actions are motivated by compassion. If we are to progress on the path, this is an essential part of mind training. It is, Rinpoche says, the path from Earth to Heaven.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 8 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–8 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 21st March. 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 four verses are examining our habit of being over attached to physical desires, and satisfying them in the long term to the exclusion of other people and out of fear of not getting what we need for ourselves. Again this is contrary to what we must actually do if we are to look after our own and other’s welfare. Rinpoche reflects on the ignorant greed that leads us as a ‘civilised people’ to imagine that taking and accumulating more than we need from our environment and killing and consuming wildlife when we already have more than enough to live on, is actually destroying that which supports us. This affects us negatively and even limits our capacity as social beings.
All we are doing through this addiction to gross and thoughtless consumption is creating hellish futures for ourselves, and our children.
We need to remedy the destruction by overcoming our fear of not having enough for ourselves by thinking of the needs and welfare of everyone, be generous with what we have, for the good of all.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 8 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–8 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 21st March. 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.
Here we stay with the theme of seeing others as more important than ourselves and continue by extending the potential benefit even further: by training to exchange with others, learning to give them the same care and protection as I would my loved ones and myself.
I must train myself to the point where this exchange is habitual, until it eventually becomes second nature. Slowly I see that when the welfare of others is placed above my own, I benefit as well––that this is my secret doorway into developing compassion and wisdom: it is the practice of a Bodhisattva, the path to enlightenment. This altruistic approach to life requires faith and bravery. It disregards attachment to personal welfare and one that could easily be seen as crazy by others if we were to advertise it as our practice.
For now we embrace it as a sacred mystery that will reveal itself once we are ready to understand its power. Those who live their lives blind to this understanding––through wealth, greed or lust for power do untold damage because a negative self centred approach feeds on itself and is the basis of our suffering.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 8 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–8 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 21st March. 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 8 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.
We continue studying the reasons for placing the good of others beyond our own. Rinpoche points out that we are naturally altruistic, for example we don’t think twice about stepping in if a loved one needs protection. The practice of exchanging ourselves with others will train us to extend our capacity to benefit others, taking it beyond our normal instinctive but limited response. Without looking for praise we learn to be wholeheartedly, selflessly, compassionate to other beings, protecting them as we would our own body: as it is when we nourish ourselves with food, the reward is in our own well-being. We can extend this care to others with the understanding that if I am well, so are they.
If we generate compassion for others in this way, with little thought for ourselves, it eventually brings clarity and, the text says, we are following the path of Lord Avalokiteshvara, who by doing this, generated an energy so powerful that if a person simply brings him to mind they will receive his protection.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 8 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–8 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 7th March. 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 three verses discuss making the transition from taking other beings as equal, to exploring the possibility of viewing every being in the same way that we do our closest family and loved ones. This, and the practice of exchanging myself with others, it is said, will help us alleviate the self clinging and habitual attachment we have to those we identify with as our own people, and free us to be more wise and compassionate to others.
The example given is that of our own body, which is an aggregate of many parts; limbs, organs, inner and outer aspects, together we call these an “I” that we identify with and protect when they are suffering. If we can apply this way of seeing and try exchanging suffering with those who are beyond our immediate circle, and no matter how they act or what they look like no-one is excluded from the whole, then we will find ourselves moving beyond those self imposed egocentric limitations that recreate samsara.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 8 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–8 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 7th March. 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.
Verses 110 – 112 conclude the section of Bodhicharyavatara that instructs on training ourselves to see the common and shared feelings of other beings––those of wanting to be happy and be free from suffering––providing a starting point for understanding that in this respect we are all equal. With this understanding, we can begin to view ourselves on an equal playing field, without erecting self-protective barriers.
Throughout many lifetimes we have habitually defended ourselves from criticism and solidified a misperceived separateness, providing the perfect conditions for personal suffering that are so contrary to our intention. We can extend this understanding to view the health of our whole environmental eco-system as dependent upon us; to see we are not separate or independent of it.
Rinpoche tells us this is an introduction to a practice of giving and taking in lojong, an exercise in supreme generosity that will ultimately generate compassion: we exchange ourselves with others, taking their suffering, and radiating joy in the form of light. In these verses the notion that we were born with a unique identity is broken down, as we are asked to examine the truth of our origins and subsequent self-fabrication.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 8 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–8 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 7th March. 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 continue to examine the benefits of placing another’s happiness before our own, which can appear contrary to our better judgement. However the text tells us that when we do so, it will in fact generate compassion and joy for us, as well as benefit to those we wish to help. In fact when learning to do this so that it becomes second nature, we will be able to withstand any hardship easily.
If everyone were to understand this and live their life accordingly, there would be no war, no need for legal structures or systems of economic control. For many many lifetimes we have been struggling to find happiness, but continue to create the same conditions that cause suffering, again and again, so if humanity as a whole were to try out this rather radical instruction – to put others first, we would find that very quickly everything would change, and the basic currency for interactions with others would be kindness and compassion. Once we realise this truth and carry it through, it should be done without boasting of achievement, as we are also beneficiaries, and that is nothing to brag about.
You can can also view the teaching on the Chapter 8 page along with the other teachings on this chapter. All previous sessions on Chapters 1–8 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 7th March. 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.
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