His Holiness the Dalai Lama: Buddhism seeks to reduce self-centred arrogance by focussing on the idea of no solid 'I', no permanence.

First part of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s teachings in Klagenfurt Austria May 18-20, 2012 translated from Tibetan into English by Mr Tenzin Tsepag. Trascript by Dr. Peter Lawrence-Roberts, first revision and editing by Dr. Luciano Villa within the project “Free Dalai Lama’s Teachings” for the benefit of all sentient beings. We apologize for possible errors and omissions.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Humanity has developed many ways of providing assistance when we face tremendous difficulties. For 5000 years or more man has developed faith in different ways in different places. This is useful.

The major world religious traditions have developed different ways of showing faith. For thousands of years faith was the only real source of hope.

For the last few hundred years science has developed to provide different explanations for things.

Humanity shows more interest in material development than in spiritual matters. They claim faith but they are interested in more wealth, money and power. They have no hesitation in lying, cheating or bullying to achieve what they want. Their religion is simply a tradition but they are not serious about it. There is a lot of hypocrisy. If we practice genuine love and compassion for others there is no basis for lying, cheating or bullying. These are not serious religious practitioners.

We need a serious approach to promote inner values, whether we are a believer or not. There are people who have everything materially but lack something deep inside. They suffer with fear, anxiety and stress and often feel very lonely. Material prosperity alone cannot bring peace, joy or inner strength.

The Buddha stressed the need for scepticism. Scepticism brings investigation. Investigation brings questions, and questions bring answers.

Emotions and biological factors are interdependent. Our emotions can affect our physical bodies and how they react. The world’s major religions have long focussed on the mind and emotions. All the major religious traditions carry the message of love, compassion, self discipline etc, and all of these come from mind. Continue reading »

His Holiness the Dalai Lama: In Buddhist philosophy ignorance and distorted views are the causes of all negative emotions.

Second part of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s teachings in Klagenfurt Austria May 18-20, 2012 translated from Tibetan into English by Mr Tenzin Tsepag. Trascript by Dr. Peter Lawrence-Roberts, first revision and editing by Dr. Luciano Villa within the project “Free Dalai Lama’s Teachings” for the benefit of all sentient beings. We apologize for possible errors and omissions.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

The Heart Sutra

The Heart Sutra belongs to a group of sutras known as the Prajnaparamita sutras. It consists of 17 sutras. The most extensive is in 100,000 verses, the middle one has 25,000 verses and the short version has 8,000 verses. This version has 25 verses.

Commentaries to the Heart Sutra were written by both Indian and Tibetan great masters.

The title of the sutras is Perfection of Wisdom Sutras. Sherab means the essence of wisdom. Wisdom should be cultivated, as, for Buddhist practitioners, the main goal to be achieved is the actualisation of the cessation of suffering. This cessation can only occur through the attainment of wisdom that realises emptiness.

The second Noble Truth, the origin of suffering, deals with two things in detail, karma and afflictions. There are two types of afflictions. First, wrong view, intellectual but wrong, a wrong view that is distorted. This kind of wrong view must be abandoned as it is the root of suffering. Second, anger. The antidote is to cultivate love and compassion.

If we have strong difficulty with attachment, an antidote would be to visualise revulsion for things and events to which we are attached.

A further antidote is to get rid of completely the root of the difficulty. This is done through the cultivation of the wisdom realising emptiness. In this way afflictive emotion can be uprooted. Continue reading »

His Holiness the Dalai Lama: Atisha's main teaching is the gradual path to enlightenment.

Third part of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s teachings in Klagenfurt Austria May 18-20, 2012 translated from Tibetan into English by Mr Tenzin Tsepag. Trascript by Dr. Peter Lawrence-Roberts, first revision and editing by Dr. Luciano Villa within the project “Free Dalai Lama’s Teachings” for the benefit of all sentient beings. We apologize for possible errors and omissions.liness the Dalai Lama.

Atisha – Lamp For the Path to Enlightenment

This is a text from the 10th century Lamp For the Path to Enlightenment https://www.sangye.it/altro/?p=1095. Tibet was then already divided into small distinct areas. At this time there was a small kingdom in Southern Tibet. From there they bought Atisha to Tibet from Vikramashila in India. When Atisha came to Southern Tibet he was asked to write a text. He said that they didn’t need an extensive text so he would write a short text that captured the essence of Buddha’s teaching.

When Atisha came to Tibet Buddhism was already well established and there were not many different views. So he didn’t need to set out a refutation of different belief systems.

After Atisha composed this text some Tibetan masters wrote commentaries on it, particularly Longchenpa and Gampopa. It is very clear that these are based on Atisha. Also, Lama Tsong Khapa own Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment is also based on Atisha.

We can meditate on different levels of dependent arising. Meditating on the grosser levels will help us to avoid non-virtuous action. Continue reading »

Fourth part of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s teachings in Klagenfurt Austria May 18-20, 2012 translated from Tibetan into English by Mr Tenzin Tsepag. Trascript by Dr. Peter Lawrence-Roberts, first revision and editing by Dr. Luciano Villa within the project “Free Dalai Lama’s Teachings” for the benefit of all sentient beings. We apologize for possible errors and omissions.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama – The Song of the Four Mindfulnesses https://www.sangye.it/altro/?p=4680

This test came initially from Lama Tsong Khapa and then went to the first Dalai Lama who passed it down. Continue reading »

His Holiness the Dalai Lama: Moral ethics is linked with warm-heartedness. Warm- heartedness is tied up with the happiness of others. The happiness of others is ultimately the source of one's own happiness.

Public Talk Klagenfurt May 20, 2012 – The Art of Happiness

Trascript by Dr. Peter Lawrence-Roberts, first revision and editing by Dr. Luciano Villa within the project “Free Dalai Lama’s Teachings” for the benefit of all sentient beings. We apologize for possible errors and omissions.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Some feel that the term ‘secularism’ has negative connotations towards religion. Some have the view that any ethics must be based on religious belief. Continue reading »