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The Foundation of Buddhist Practice (2)
The second volume in the Dalai Lama’s definitive and comprehensive series on the stages of the Buddhist path, The Library of Wisdom and Compassion.
Volume 1, Approaching the Buddhist Path , contained introductory material that set the context for Buddhist practice. This second volume, The Foundation of Buddhist Practice , describes the important teachings that will help us establish a flourishing Dharma practice.
Traditional presentations of the path in Tibetan Buddhism assume the audience already has faith in the Buddha and believes in rebirth and karma, but the Dalai Lama realized early on that a different approach was needed for his Western and contemporary Asian students. Starting with the four seals and the two truths, His Holiness illuminates key Buddhist ideas, such as dependent arising, emptiness, and karma, to support the reader in engaging with this rich tradition. This second volume in the Library of Wisdom and Compassion series provides a wealth of reflections on the relationship between a spiritual mentor and student, how to begin a meditation practice, and the relationship between the body and mind.
Volume 1, Approaching the Buddhist Path , contained introductory material that set the context for Buddhist practice. This second volume, The Foundation of Buddhist Practice , describes the important teachings that will help us establish a flourishing Dharma practice.
Traditional presentations of the path in Tibetan Buddhism assume the audience already has faith in the Buddha and believes in rebirth and karma, but the Dalai Lama realized early on that a different approach was needed for his Western and contemporary Asian students. Starting with the four seals and the two truths, His Holiness illuminates key Buddhist ideas, such as dependent arising, emptiness, and karma, to support the reader in engaging with this rich tradition. This second volume in the Library of Wisdom and Compassion series provides a wealth of reflections on the relationship between a spiritual mentor and student, how to begin a meditation practice, and the relationship between the body and mind.
400 pages, Hardcover
Published May 15, 2018
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About the author
Dalai Lama XIV
1,554 books6,198 followersJetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (born Lhamo Döndrub), the 14th Dalai Lama, is a practicing member of the Gelug School of Tibetan Buddhism and is influential as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the world's most famous Buddhist monk, and the leader of the exiled Tibetan government in India.
Tenzin Gyatso was the fifth of sixteen children born to a farming family. He was proclaimed the tulku (an Enlightened lama who has consciously decided to take rebirth) of the 13th Dalai Lama at the age of two.
On 17 November 1950, at the age of 15, he was enthroned as Tibet's ruler. Thus he became Tibet's most important political ruler just one month after the People's Republic of China's invasion of Tibet on 7 October 1950. In 1954, he went to Beijing to attempt peace talks with Mao Zedong and other leaders of the PRC. These talks ultimately failed.
After a failed uprising and the collapse of the Tibetan resistance movement in 1959, the Dalai Lama left for India, where he was active in establishing the Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan Government in Exile) and in seeking to preserve Tibetan culture and education among the thousands of refugees who accompanied him.
Tenzin Gyatso is a charismatic figure and noted public speaker. This Dalai Lama is the first to travel to the West. There, he has helped to spread Buddhism and to promote the concepts of universal responsibility, secular ethics, and religious harmony.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, honorary Canadian citizenship in 2006, and the United States Congressional Gold Medal on 17 October 2007.
Tenzin Gyatso was the fifth of sixteen children born to a farming family. He was proclaimed the tulku (an Enlightened lama who has consciously decided to take rebirth) of the 13th Dalai Lama at the age of two.
On 17 November 1950, at the age of 15, he was enthroned as Tibet's ruler. Thus he became Tibet's most important political ruler just one month after the People's Republic of China's invasion of Tibet on 7 October 1950. In 1954, he went to Beijing to attempt peace talks with Mao Zedong and other leaders of the PRC. These talks ultimately failed.
After a failed uprising and the collapse of the Tibetan resistance movement in 1959, the Dalai Lama left for India, where he was active in establishing the Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan Government in Exile) and in seeking to preserve Tibetan culture and education among the thousands of refugees who accompanied him.
Tenzin Gyatso is a charismatic figure and noted public speaker. This Dalai Lama is the first to travel to the West. There, he has helped to spread Buddhism and to promote the concepts of universal responsibility, secular ethics, and religious harmony.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, honorary Canadian citizenship in 2006, and the United States Congressional Gold Medal on 17 October 2007.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 29, 2023
230529: so far this has been the least interesting of this library of wisdom and compassion series, not that it decreases my estimation, enjoyment, fascination with convincing buddhist thought, but as work this text focuses on 'the practice', that is the religious program held to be enormously useful in fully achieving enlightenment. reading this, I wonder what it is I want from any philosophy text and how this differs from religious texts, and decide that this begins with philosophical models assumed not argued, that this begins with some questions implicitly answered before read- such as veracity, insight, relevance through history, of what is given as primarily the buddha's words. I want discussion, I want metaphysics, I want such knowledge that has no obvious affinity for promoting the freedom from bondage of human consciousness...
this begins with the buddhist approach of four seals (all conditioned phenomena are transient, all polluted phenomena are unsatisfactory by nature, all phenomena are empty and selfless, nirvana is true peace ), two levels of truth ( conventional, ultimate), emptiness, dependent arising, together indicate thought is buddhist. when meditated, read sutras on, enacted with awareness, this is buddhist religion. to understand this there are three valid ways (evident, inferred, authoritative testimony) of gaining non-deceptive knowledge, known as 'cognizers', that we can apply in 'three-fold analysis' here using ancient Indian cosmology and modern science...
there is basis of self: body and mind. classification of phenomena was apparently the Dalai Lama's first teaching as child: selfless, which does not inherently exist, is existent or non-existent: existents are 1) permanent phenomena 2) things or impermanent phenomena, of three types- form, consciousness, abstract composites. I find consciousness most interesting, defined as what is cleared cognizant, here divided into mind, mental factors. mind is of sense faculties eg. eye consciousness, ear consciousness. then mental factors fill out cognition eg. feeling, discrimination, contact, and occasional ones like love, anger. things are made of the 'five aggregates': form, feeling, discrimination, miscellaneous (all) other factors, and primary consciousness. there are five omnipresent mental factors: 1) feeling 2) discrimination 3) intention 4) attention 5) contact. there are five object-ascertaining mental factors: 1) aspiration 2) admiration 3) mindfulness 4) concentration 5) wisdom. there are eleven virtuous mental factors, six root afflictions, twenty auxiliary afflictions, four variable mental factors... a lot of lists, I can see why Chan buddhism (zen) very popular, as this is definitely wisdom communicated in the text..
this is where the book is less interesting to me: religion. in chapters each: finding spiritual mentor, becoming qualified disciple, relying on spiritual mentor, how to structure meditation session: then a fascinating chapter on mind, body, rebirth, which makes it sound ultimately plausible. then chapter on essence of human life, the eight worldly concerns: gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and disrepute, pleasure and pain. these are obsessions of common people, not, like you, studying and enacting the dharma. these are distractions, hindrances, delusions, illusions. better use of your precious human life is to follow the dharma... then several chapters explaining workings, efficacy, inevitability of karma in this or subsequent lives, when condition and karmic seed are ripe...
more
What the Buddha Thought
Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment
Nietzsche and Buddhist Philosophy
Buddhist Philosophy: Essential Readings
Buddhist Philosophy: A Historical Analysis
Empty Words: Buddhist Philosophy and Cross-Cultural Interpretation
Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction
The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
Self, No Self?: Perspectives from Analytical, Phenomenological, and Indian Traditions
After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age
Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School
The Kyoto School
Nishida And Western Philosophy
Buddhism: A Philosophical Approach
What the Buddha Thought
Wisdom Beyond Words: The Buddhist Vision of Ultimate Reality
Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction
An Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy
Why I Am Not a Buddhist
Why I Am a Buddhist: No-Nonsense Buddhism with Red Meat and Whiskey
this begins with the buddhist approach of four seals (all conditioned phenomena are transient, all polluted phenomena are unsatisfactory by nature, all phenomena are empty and selfless, nirvana is true peace ), two levels of truth ( conventional, ultimate), emptiness, dependent arising, together indicate thought is buddhist. when meditated, read sutras on, enacted with awareness, this is buddhist religion. to understand this there are three valid ways (evident, inferred, authoritative testimony) of gaining non-deceptive knowledge, known as 'cognizers', that we can apply in 'three-fold analysis' here using ancient Indian cosmology and modern science...
there is basis of self: body and mind. classification of phenomena was apparently the Dalai Lama's first teaching as child: selfless, which does not inherently exist, is existent or non-existent: existents are 1) permanent phenomena 2) things or impermanent phenomena, of three types- form, consciousness, abstract composites. I find consciousness most interesting, defined as what is cleared cognizant, here divided into mind, mental factors. mind is of sense faculties eg. eye consciousness, ear consciousness. then mental factors fill out cognition eg. feeling, discrimination, contact, and occasional ones like love, anger. things are made of the 'five aggregates': form, feeling, discrimination, miscellaneous (all) other factors, and primary consciousness. there are five omnipresent mental factors: 1) feeling 2) discrimination 3) intention 4) attention 5) contact. there are five object-ascertaining mental factors: 1) aspiration 2) admiration 3) mindfulness 4) concentration 5) wisdom. there are eleven virtuous mental factors, six root afflictions, twenty auxiliary afflictions, four variable mental factors... a lot of lists, I can see why Chan buddhism (zen) very popular, as this is definitely wisdom communicated in the text..
this is where the book is less interesting to me: religion. in chapters each: finding spiritual mentor, becoming qualified disciple, relying on spiritual mentor, how to structure meditation session: then a fascinating chapter on mind, body, rebirth, which makes it sound ultimately plausible. then chapter on essence of human life, the eight worldly concerns: gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and disrepute, pleasure and pain. these are obsessions of common people, not, like you, studying and enacting the dharma. these are distractions, hindrances, delusions, illusions. better use of your precious human life is to follow the dharma... then several chapters explaining workings, efficacy, inevitability of karma in this or subsequent lives, when condition and karmic seed are ripe...
more
What the Buddha Thought
Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment
Nietzsche and Buddhist Philosophy
Buddhist Philosophy: Essential Readings
Buddhist Philosophy: A Historical Analysis
Empty Words: Buddhist Philosophy and Cross-Cultural Interpretation
Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction
The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
Self, No Self?: Perspectives from Analytical, Phenomenological, and Indian Traditions
After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age
Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School
The Kyoto School
Nishida And Western Philosophy
Buddhism: A Philosophical Approach
What the Buddha Thought
Wisdom Beyond Words: The Buddhist Vision of Ultimate Reality
Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction
An Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy
Why I Am Not a Buddhist
Why I Am a Buddhist: No-Nonsense Buddhism with Red Meat and Whiskey
February 19, 2023
An incredible series that lays out the full Buddhist path for modern practitioners/seekers. No matter the tradition in which you practice, this is a valuable series for all Buddhists - or those who are interested in understanding Buddhist philosophy/view and practice.
May 4, 2024
I don't know that I understood all of this, but I liked it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews