Dear Dharma friends, thank you for attending this season’s inaugural Dharma talk yesterday. The theme for this season’s Dharma talks is “Question and Answers On Tibetan Buddhism”.
In our last session, Geshe Lama Konchok introduced and touched on:-
- the life of the historical Buddha and how he left a life of luxury in the palace to find the way to end suffering, and eventually attained enlightenment,
- the origin of the Sutras which contain the written teachings of the Buddha towards cessation of suffering; these were recited by His very first disciples from memory during the First Council, a number of years after the Lord Buddha passed into Parinirvana. The First Council comprised of the 500 arhats who had committed His teachings to memory.
- the laws of karma or causality which explains all things that happen/will happen to us in this life.
- related to the laws of causality, the concept of samsara, i.e. the phenomenon that our consciousness from beginingless time, have been and will continue to go through rounds and rounds of uncontrolled rebirth in the 6 realms (六道轮回）through the effect of our karma, and that such uncontrolled rebirth which causes suffering, but which can be stopped by practising the Buddha’s teachings,
- how the teachings of the Lord Buddha relating to reducing the importance of or clinging to the concept of the inherently existent “self”, and having kindness and more regard to others, will lead one to gaining wisdom and move closer towards liberation from suffering in samsara,
- the differences between Sutra and Tantric practices, the latter of which is unique to the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition and which has the power to enable one to achieve enlightenment in just one lifetime, but which cannot begin without first having a very firm grounding in the knowledge (and practice) of the sutras.
In our next session this coming Saturday, 10th July, Geshe la will explain why and how the teachings of Lord Shakyamuni Buddha are extraordinary, unparalleled, and unsurpassed. Dharma friends are invited to actively participate in the usual question and answer session.