©2024 The Ringu Tulku Archive
In chapter 9 verses 62-67 Shantideva is returning to a form of dialogue to examine consciousness, asking if it can be a permanent singular entity. Is hearing consciousness active only when there is a sound? Or does hearing consciousness exist even when there is no sound? He asks if the same consciousness that hears a sound is also the same as the consciousness that sees an object, and presents the examples of a father, who is also a son, and asks can he be both at the same time? Or an actor who plays the role of one person then later changes roles. He points to the continuous flow of activity that is always changing, and that in essence the person of the actor remains constant.
The point here is that sense consciousness is constant and continuously responding to stimuli, so it is not a permanent, fixed thing.
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 4th July. 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.
A new hypothetical conversation is now begun between Shantideva and an adherent of Samkhya, an important Philosophical School in India who believe in the continuum of consciousness and of Atman, or self existence. In these next two verses Shantideva sets forth to demonstrate that the reasoning used to promote this philosophical stance cannot hold, because perception of a sound or feeling is always in response to an object appearing, causing awareness of sound to arise. Awareness is constantly changing and responding and can even be aware of many objects as they appear moment by moment, this illustrates that there is constant change, not continuum.
If the relationship between conscious awareness and a sense object were a continuum, sound would be heard until the cause and condition––the sense object––disappears, when awareness would also cease. For this reason, Buddhists argue that conscious awareness cannot be a continuum dependent on causes and conditions.
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 4th July. 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.
The dialogues have now ended, and an examination of the source of “I” begins. Here Rinpoche explains how we can explore the emptiness of self, which we habitually view as independent, demonstrating how this way of thinking is the root of all suffering. We are, in these following verses, required to examine our physical body and investigate whether or not it truly can be called “I” or “me.” When I hold my body or my body parts as solid, I feel protective and fearful of their being damaged, I become anxious at losing them and my energy is spent trying to keep them safe, and so “I” retain the sense of “myself.” But this is a mistake and will not free us from suffering, because this fearful holding on is actually the source of our suffering.
This, Rinpoche tells us, might be easy to understand intellectually, but experientially it is harder. If someone berates or demeans us we cut that person off and isolate ourselves, nursing our bruised ego, but this behaviour is not the path to freedom. The path to freedom is first recognising that there is no self to feel harm, be angry or anxious about, so we begin the journey by investigating the notion of “I.”
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 20th June. 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 the Shravakayana argument points to the difference between the Pali sutras which are held to be the perfect words of the Buddha, and the Mahayana path which they say strays from his original teachings, and have no foundation in the sutras. It is explained in this way: the Buddha taught directly to those who sat in front of him, according to their capacities. Some received simple instruction and others more elaborated lessons, but there was never a contradiction, one set of teachings was built on the previous ones.
The Mahayana schools evolved through more complex understandings and therefore include and elaborate on the Shravakayana teachings, nothing is lost, but the terminology used and the explanations given bring a fuller understanding of emptiness not only of self, but of all phenomena. Thus when the Mahayana teachings which explain the way of the bodhisattva become integrated, the kleshas are set free; true compassion naturally arises as a result of fully realising the nature of self and all phenomena as 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 20th June. 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.
Still in dialogue with himself, Shantideva continues to pose questions and answers from the perspectives of the Shravakayana and Mahayana adherents. The questioner continues to ask whether a meditator must fully experience emptiness on order to be free from samsara because, he muses, once they have let go clinging as a result of deep and profound meditation, are they not liberated?
Again, this is refuted from the Mahayana perspective because, they say, the more subtle defilements resulting from ignorance remain, and then through the kleshas, samsara continues. These kleshas or mind poisons are only fully eliminated once all conceptual thinking has ended. This in turn only occurs once voidness is completely realised through understanding the Four Noble Truths, and has become the basis of all understanding and activity.
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 13th June. 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.
These verses return to the question and answer format, where an imagined conversation is outlined by Shantideva, between adherents of the Shravakayana school and the Mahayana school of Buddhism.
The question is whether the understanding of emptiness, or shunyata, is necessary for enlightenment and for the practitioner to experience cessation of suffering. In teaching the Four Noble Truths the Buddha did not say that it is so, but he made clear in many other teachings and sutras that it is so.
However the rationale for the understanding as being necessary is arrived at in this debate, because, it is argued, the path to end suffering through seeing the causes of suffering and bringing about a cessation of suffering can only be fully understood once a person has discovered the truth 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 13th June. 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 verses 35-39 the discussion turns to looking at the motivation of an enlightened being, and asks why, given his or her understanding of the emptiness of all phenomena, would this being feel responsible for those who are still caught in the cycle of samsaric behaviour? It is explained that this way of thinking is incorrect, because it presumes that a buddha is a saviour, actively engaging with a process of rescue, selecting who or what to save.
Rinpoche reminds us of the metaphore of the moon’s reflection on water, which can be witnessed by everyone who cares to look at it, without affecting the existence of the moon. The moon doesn’t make a deliberate attempt to be seen in the water, and its light is not altered by the act of reflecting: the moon is effortlessly shining and the water reflects the light. It doesn’t become dimmed even when witnessed by a thousand beings. And so it is with an enlightened Buddha.
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 13th June. 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 discussing verses 33 and 34 Rinpoche shows us how understanding the nature of mind will come once we have relinquished grasping to what we believe to be true. Whether something exists or not is irrelevant, because on the Dharma Path, if we believe in the existence or non existence of something it will not bring equanimity, because this always leads to further judgement, which in turn leads to attachment and aversion, the roots of samsara.
However, even when someone has understood this truth, it is the skilful person who will never abandon the qualities of kindness and compassion, as these are essential for the development of Wisdom.
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 13th June. 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.
The imagined conversation between Madhyamika and Chittamatrin debaters is coming to an end, now the verses move to look into illusory nature of things in even greater depth. Rinpoche explains through his commentary how the mind of the perceiver perpetuates samsaric thinking and understanding. He returns to the dream as metaphore to explain how we believe what appears real in the dream is revealed as illusion on waking: the problem is our response to the dream; or, when the magician who creates a beautiful image, if he becomes attached to its beauty despite knowing that it is a product of his imagination. The answer lies not with understanding its illusory nature but with being attached or averse to the beauty or otherwise of the illusory experience, because suffering is a result of our reaction to something, not in whether or not it is real.
However, if we grasp at the notion of everything that exists as being illusory; by extension, this is just another concept, another extreme. Thus to find liberation from samsara, we must, he says, move away from our opinions and emotions, even abandoning attachment to understanding emptiness itself.
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 30th 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.
These verses continue the imagined dialogue between the Chittamatrin and Madhyamika philosophers, debating through negation whether the mind exists independently of the sense objects.
Shantideva firmly presents the Madhyamaka philosophy, bringing the reader along the Middle Way view of emptiness and countering any argument for mind existing independently of causes and conditions.
He points out that thoughts are dependent upon mind, even though they are illusory, because they would not arise if mind was a self contained independent entity. This challenges the Chittamatra view that samsara must be based on something that is real. Interdependence, Shantideva says, is the cause of impermanence and change; and so the debate teases out the various arguments for and against mind as existing separate from phenomena, arriving at the understanding that everything is impermanent, arising and disappearing and that this interdependence is the basis for samsara.
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 30th 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.
We continue to follow a dialogue as it might occur between Chittamatra and Madhyamaka philosophers, investigating whether the mind is dependently arising and separate from the object of experience. This discussion examines the possibility of mind and its arisings or radiations (thoughts and experiences), as being either the same, or independent of, the mind. Then, if mind and thoughts are both illusory, what is there to discuss? If mind and thought are one and the same, what is there to discuss? If mind and thought are not the same, do they exist dependent of each other? An object that truly exists separate to the mind cannot change, so cannot be illusory, so are thoughts illusory? It is said the two must be the same, yet they are not the same.
These subjects of debate are argued in different ways by different teachers and Buddhism invites questions and debate at every level. The Buddha himself taught through the sutras always according to who he was with, so that each person was given what they needed to hear to come to an understanding of the nature of things and become highly a realised being.
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 30th 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.
In this session the verses continue with a dialogue that might occur between followers of the Chittamatrin and Madhyamaka philosophical schools. Their debate examines whether the radiance of mind is inherently or independently existing. Does mind reflect its surroundings, as a quartz crystal might, which is the Madhyamaka view, or is it, as the Chittamatrins say, more like blue lapis lazuli which is inherently blue? This argument is countered when it is pointed out that lapis lazuli, a blue rock, is not self arising, but is the result of causes and conditions.
When we bring this same reasoning to the question of mind equating a lamp, is mind simply reflecting the object of its perception, or is it radiating something whether or not there is an object to reflect? We can also ask: ‘What is being seen and what sees it?’ What is seen is the mental activity, the response, not the mind itself. Even so, what is really important, is to understand not so much whether or not mind can be seen, but that mind is always the source of samsara until we cease to react to the object of our perception.
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 1–8 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 30th 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 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.
©2024 The Ringu Tulku Archive