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Tibetan

 The Tantric Buddhism of the Himalayas; its best-known teacher is the Dalai Lama
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    Enduring The Fires Paid Member

    By H.H. the Dalai Lama
    Patience is one of the vital elements in the bodhisattva's training. This third chapter of the Bodhicaryavatara, which deals with patience, and the eighth chapter, which deals with meditation, together explain the key points of bodhicitta. 1. Good works gathered in a thousand ages,Such as deeds of generosityOr offerings to the Blissful Ones:A single flash of anger shatters them. 2. No evil is there similar to hatred,Nor austerity to be compared with patience.Steep yourself, therefore, in patienceIn all ways, urgently, with zeal More »
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    Lama Hates The Sunset Paid Member

    By Jeffery Paine
    So long as their high mountains kept the Tibetans isolated, their attitude toward Westerners—which was generally dismissive or indifferent—remained an academic matter. But with the Chinese invasion in 1959, an academic matter turned into one of life and death. During the 1960s, the Communists leveled monasteries and forbade the teaching of Buddhism, and the world’s power brokers forgot Tibet in favor of China’s potential billion-customer market. The “last ancient civilization,” as it was called, was under a death sentence. Under such circumstances, the fate of Tibet’s religion was not hard to predict. More »
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    Letting Go of Spiritual Experience Paid Member

    By Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche
    Spiritual Experiences and RealizationsThere will be all sorts of experiences on the spiritual path. Positive periods of development—those that are reassuring and comforting—are an important part of the process. It is important to realize, however, that even positive experiences will fluctuate. We will rarely, if ever, perceive a steady development of them, precisely because experiences are fickle by nature. Enjoying a series of good experiences does not ensure that they will continue indefinitely; they may stop suddenly. Even so, they remain an important part of spiritual practice, not least because they help to maintain our motivation to continue practicing. More »
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    Prayer: Gareth Sparham Paid Member

    By Gareth Sparham
    The most basic Buddhist prayer is “may all beings find peace,” which expresses the positive mental state of lovingkindness. It is not a prayer directed to some higher power outside the meditator, but the articulation of an attitude; at a deeper level, an aspiration; and at a still deeper level, a commitment. Lovingkindness is cultivated by the inner expression of this “prayer,” so that the meditator not only feels the peace of an open heart, but also in order that the meditation itself is not just another act dominated by narrow, selfish aims. In the earliest Buddhist literature, such basic prayers are called brahma-viharas (“the grounds of a spiritual person”), because they are the basic underpinning of a spiritual life, turning the activity that follows into a spiritual one. Such prayer is not particularly Buddhist at all, but expresses the basic attitude of spiritual life. More »
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    Nagarjuna's Verses from the Center Paid Member

    By Stephen Batchelor
    Although Nagarjuna is arguably the most important figure in Buddhism after the Buddha himself, very little is known about him. All that can be said with any certainty is that he lived at some time around the second century C.E. in India and is the author of a Sanskrit work of 448 verses, divided into twenty-seven chapters entitled: Verses from the Center (Mulamadhyamakakarika). The first known account of Nagarjuna’s life was composed from Indian sources by Kumarajiva, the Central Asian scholar who translated Verses from the Center from Sanskrit into Chinese in 409 C.E. More »
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    Realizing Guiltlessness Paid Member

    Pema Chödrön, an American nun in the Shambhala lineage of Tibetan Buddhism and the author of several books, including the best-selling When Things Fall Apart and The Places that Scare You, currently practices under the guidance of the Venerable Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, a teacher in the Nyingma lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. Dzigar Kongtrul established the mountain retreat center Longchen Jigme Samten Ling, in southern Colorado. He spends much of his time there guiding students, with particular emphasis on long-term retreat practice. At his retreat center last spring, Pema Chödrön spoke with Dzigar Kongtrul about a primary obstacle Westerners face in their practice: guilt. More »