Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 19-minute Q&A, Ven Robina Courtin responds to questions about which Buddhist books to read, guiding students through FPMT’s published series in systematic order. She starts by explaining the Lamrim (graded path)—the foundation of all Buddhist studies—and recommends beginner texts like Awakening the Mind and The Essential Nectar, which teach through analytical meditation designed to move teachings from intellectual into intuitive understanding. She then progresses through Introduction to Tantra and How to Meditate for broader foundations, advanced texts on emptiness and concentration training, and concludes with East-West bridging books and Tibet-focused historical works. For students beginning systematic Buddhist study.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 FL 1988 09 16.mp3
UUID: 2d9b237a-c0cd-471e-99e9-5267dabb7815
Teacher: Ven Robina Courtin
Collection: y Freedom from Loneliness (Ven Robina Courtin)
Date: 1988-09-16
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 19.0 minutes
Words: ~3,398
Has it been worked out yet? Would he sort of give any talks like this or will people see him individually or don’t think it’s worked out, Audrey. I think all these things are possible, I think, somehow. Everybody who’s involved with working out the programme in the centre, I think is going to be meeting and then when Jampa gets back meeting with Khensur Rinpoche and putting various requests and then just working out a whole programme. But certainly one of his jobs is to see people, is to advise people, so he’s always to see people personally.
But generally speaking, teachings, he’ll be giving teachings in here to groups of people. That would be sort of worked out, a programme of teaching would be worked out. Gosh, no. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Yep. Yep. Maybe that’s it then. Yeah. I’m only given an hour’s worth.
Is that alright? You feel like you got your money’s worth yet? What? Yeah, know. What?
Anyway, I’ll talk quicker. People always tell me that you probably have to only take an hour, you know. So just why don’t you just tell us a little bit about the wisdom books? What ones you really recommend out of all those ones? Oh, okay.
Okay. Well, they’re divided into basic, intermediate, and advanced. It’s just a general guide, you know, for people. And there’s sort of Yeah, it’s difficult, really. Okay, beginner’s type ones.
One way that the traditional way, within particularly the Gelug tradition in Tibet, the Gelug order of Tibetan Buddhism, the way that the teachings, all these teachings of impermanence, karma, emptiness, all this stuff, this kind of groundwork that we’re talking about, this way of training the mind, you know? That is presented in a graded way. They call it the graded path, or Lamrim in Tibetan. And somehow, to get a solid grounding, you can never go wrong but read books like that. It gives you the complete picture, you know?
And the point of this too, the way it’s taught in Tibet, is that they’re taught as meditations, which they’re analytical meditations. I mean, we’ve talked about meditation, and we haven’t talked about meditation, but you know about meditation. There are two main kinds. One is to train yourself to become controlled, to become concentrated, which gives you then the fine tool to work in a more deep way on whatever you’re thinking. And so the other type of meditation is called, if you like, analytical meditation.
It’s where, once you’ve developed more control in the mind, you’re then able to use the intellectual process, the conceptual mind, not just chuck it out, but you actually use that. And each of the points in this presentation of the graded path, there’s a way they’re set out that you can actually, in a formal way, think about them within meditation. And the logic of that is because when you’re quieter, and your senses are being less bombarded, you’re able to go more deeply into the subject matter, and therefore, bring it deeper, more deeper into the intuitive mind, rather than just making it intellectual knowledge. So it’s really important, it’s groundwork, and they always, the Lamas continually stress that this is just because this in a way is how to lead our lives, how to put the guard, how to kind of put it into practice in our life. That’s what they mean by the Lamrim.
And it refers to nothing other than all the stuff in our own life, and our own mind, and our own experiences. And so that’s really basic stuff. And within the Orange series of books, the basic books, there are two Lamrim books published. They’re both really good and different. I mean, it’s just a question of picking up each one and getting the feeling of which one you prefer.
They’re both subtitled Meditations on the Buddha’s Path, in this sense that I was talking. And they say some emphasise more qualities and some more others. You know, one of them has more has actual stuff about how to learn to how to do concentration meditation. But it is different. There’s a question of getting one you prefer.
One is called Awakening the Mind, Enlightenment and one is called The Essential Nectar. Both by Geshe’s, one in London and one who was in Switzerland who died a couple of years ago, who was a teacher of Lama Zopa and Lama Yeshe. So they’re really I mean, you can’t go wrong, but go into those, you know. Can’t go wrong. They’re really basic stuff.
Thought a bit of what they were saying tonight was in London. Somehow. Yep. For So Introduction to Tantra, which is exactly what its name implies, is also in the Orange series and it’s a compilation of some of the various teachings that Lama Yeshe gave over the years. Lama Yeshe, for those of you who don’t know, was the lama who, with Lama Zopa, who’s his main disciple, who started this center and many others connected with it around the world.
That was published last year, that book. And it touches on in a very down to earth, street level way. It demystifies what tantra is. It’s not something that you’ve to practise in the future somewhere, way up in the clouds. It’s someone who brings it right down to earth and explains it very clearly and very simply.
And it touches. Although it’s simple, it’s also quite profound. It’s all there, you know? So it’s invaluable to really get a feeling what tantra means. It’s very rich.
There’s masses of stuff in there. And so that combined with a Lamrim book and that tantra book, if you read those two, you’ve got the entire Tibetan Buddhist path. In one sense, the entirety of the Tibetan Buddhist path to enlightenment is is is within those two books. So, I mean, if you’ve those two, you’ve got a basis, you know. Okay.
They’re only a basis, of course. There’s masses of stuff you need to go into to to to to to enrich that, you know, to enrich those things, obviously. But it gives you a a a feeling. It gives you a picture. It gives you, like, the map, you know, of what’s involved in a way of how you literally achieve enlightenment.
I mean, the book How to Meditate, which is quite popular, that’s very yeah. And out of stock, I’m afraid. Into its six three print. That’s that just has taken Yeah, that’s been That was put together, again touching on the Buddhist philosophy in terms of how you meditate on it, giving the different types of meditation. So, to understand the process of meditation is quite useful.
But at the same time, it gives an insight into the various points about impermanence, all these various things we’ve been talking about impermanence, karma, like this, like that, you know. It’s very useful, very practical. It’s a good handbook. Gosh, what else? I mean, there’s just some, you know, I can mention every one, but the technique will be here four hours later.
I’ll tell you what typeface they’re in, what kind of paper we use. Who did the drawing? Okay, well that’s a selection of the orange books. Highly recommended. Another one I recommend is called Advice from a Spiritual Friend.
There’s a whole aspect of the teachings very emphasised in Tibet called mind training. And what it really means, and in a way it’s like a very It’s the part, almost the most difficult part of the Sūtra path. It’s this thing I mentioned, I touched on it before, about learning when we become so steady and so solid and so in touch with what our potential is, and so steady about our negative mind, that we actually learn to welcome problems. I mean, it sounds really perverted, doesn’t it? To actually welcome problems.
But very much the emphasis in Tibetan Buddhism is, unless we can start to do that, we get stuck. We stay very, very limited. And these teachers called mind training or mind transformation are on that aspect of learning to completely let go of blame, in fact, give the victory to others, learn to use everything that comes to us as some precious teaching, learning to welcome the person who makes us angry and completely see that person as being fantastic and my teacher. All that kind of approach, you know. So, it’s it’s two different texts in that book.
And then and then a commentary by two, again, contemporary lamas, both of them from Sera Je Monastery. Again, Geshe Rabten, the same as Essential Nectar. And another Geshe whom you might know is Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, who’s in who’s based now in New Zealand. Two very high Gelugpa lamas, about the same lineage as Khensur Rinpoche. The same age group, know, same class at Sera Je.
So that’s a very sweet book, but there’s masses of stuff in there, just really rich stuff about the teachings in that book as well, advice from a spiritual friend. So that’s four orange books, five orange books, four, whatever. So in the white books, what is there? Well, a really good another book by Geshe Rabten called Echoes of Voidness, is very useful about the teachings, which we haven’t gone too much into tonight. The teachings on wisdom, which is the opposite to the thing of ego, and which is the path, actually the direct achievement of Buddhahood.
On that, emptiness in other words, the view of emptiness. There’s a really sweet little book called Opening the Eye of New Awareness by the Dalai Lama, and that is a text that he wrote soon as soon soon after he came out of Tibet in sixty two, I think. Came out in fifty nine. He wrote this in sixty two, and it was a very simple for us, quite technical, actually, for Westerners. If you look at it, you’ll see what I mean.
It’s very technical, but it’s it’s a complete again, it’s the whole path. It’s the philosophy, not so much the Lamrim, but it’s the path, the Tibetan path, terms of philosophy, very condensed. But it’s quite, well you’ll see if you read it, it’s quite complicated. You need some kind of basis to understand it, but it’s also got lots of stuff in it. Now another really useful book in the White series is Tantric Distinctions by Professor Jeffrey Hopkins, who’s an American practitioner and a professor, who also functions mostly as the main translator for the Dalai Lama.
Oh, wonderful, he’s taught here. That’s just a selection of various lectures that he’s given at different times. They’re quite basic, and they explain at a different level the type, the philosophy. Again, there’s sort of not just the Lamrim, but there’s a whole way of presenting the teachings on emptiness within Tibetan Buddhism. And in that book, he touches on that quite a bit.
It’s very, very helpful. It’s very useful. It really explains quite clearly the different levels of the ways of understanding, or the different levels of the ways that Buddha taught about emptiness, taught about wisdom. It’s very useful. Very clear.
In the Blue series, there’s a kind of classic handbook, again by Jeffrey Hopkins, called Meditation on Emptiness, which is really just like a thousand or so pages. And again, you need some basis for it, but also if you look at it, sort of you start without mystifying it too much and thinking, wow, this is so difficult. It’s very, very rich, know, and especially if you start studying, you’d find an indispensable handbook. It’s got so much in it. I mean, people who starting to do collected topics, it’s all there, you know, all the Dura stuff’s all in it, you know.
All that’s the whole outline of all, the whole thing of Dura, it’s excellent. If you start to study the whole philosophy. It’s a really good book, excellent book. What’s it called? Meditation on Emptiness.
It’s a big fat one. And in relation to the practice of training in what we call single pointed concentration, which I mentioned before, a prerequisite on the path of developing wisdom, is the development of deep concentration that allows one to touch the subtle levels of one’s mind, which is the level that knows wisdom, right? And in order for that, you need to be concentrated, in order for that, you need to practise how to be. And so there’s a way, a very sort of established method of training the mind to become concentrated. Usually, one has to do it in retreat, on one’s own.
And that’s gone into in a book, part of the book called Meditative States in Tibetan Buddhism. It’s quite complicated, the philosophical stuff, too. But part of it is very clear. It goes right through the nine point training, I think I call it, I can’t remember now, of learning to develop concentration, meditative states. It’s a blue book.
Then there’s another series called the grey series, the East West series, and that’s just a series that we started a couple of years ago. There’s about nine titles published in that one. And as you can sort of see by the title East West, it’s kind of a bridging series, you know? So there’s a really sweet book kind of looking at Jungian psychology and Tibetan Buddhism. It’s very sweet.
Not heavy, not technical, very tasty, nice little book. There’s a book called The Fine Arts of Relaxation, Concentration and Meditation by an American man who works in a fairly open kind of way, using all kinds of techniques. And over the years he’s put together hundreds of little techniques he’s taken from all sorts of traditions, and this book is the kind of end result of that work. I think one of the things he was telling us, he worked for six months with a special project of the American military. They used to have zen and meditation.
Just one kind of example, they’d come in from their training with their guns, put their guns down beside them, and they’d do their meditation, you know, train their meditation. Made them more effective soldiers, he said. He said it was a very good experience working with them. The grey books, what else? Other nice grey books.
There’s some, a few coming, don’t know, they were when I was left, but maybe they’re not coming anymore with those. Alan Keightley. Was a really nice little book called Into Every Life a Little Zen Must Fall, and I have to tell you, it sells really well because it’s got Zen in the title. I mean, it’s wonderful. Really, it’s incredible.
Zen is the most magic word. That’s just a he’s a Christian, he’s a sweet man, you know? A little working class man, who was a British rail worker. British rail family, never learned anything, never read any books, he said. And then he just became he had a strong spiritual aspiration.
He started off to be a Methodist minister, didn’t feel happy with it, he moved on and started studying philosophy. And then I got involved in lots of the New Age kind of philosophical, kind of psychological, religious stuff, you know. He’s a Christian, very devoted, very open minded, very skillful writer. He was touched a lot by people like Krishnamurti and Alan Watts and people like that. And this little book, mean, lot of it’s been said before, but it’s coming from his heart.
In that sense, it’s kind of dharma, you know. It’s a very nice little book. Into every life, a little zen must fall. Then there’s a yellow series, which is the books concentrating on Tibet. Somehow, it was a way we started this series as a way of touching people who want to know about Tibet, who are interested in that aspect of things, but not so much in the kind of religious side, you know?
And so there are probably eight or nine titles in that too. There’s an excellent one called In Exile from the Land of Snows by John Avedon, who’s a New York journalist, who’s the son of a very well known photographer called Richard Avedon. It’s an excellent book. It’s summarised the whole the current history of Tibet. Excellent book, excellent book.
In Exile from the Land of Snows. It was current until about ‘eighty five, and much has happened since then, but it’s excellent for a background. There’s another wonderful book, Portrait of a Dalai Lama, which is the portrait it’s an autobiography of the thirteenth Dalai Lama, was the one before this one. And somehow, again, it gives you an incredible insight into how Tibet was and also gives you a feeling for the continuity, somehow, of the line of Dalai Lama. Mean, that was from the experience to me, you know, very strong somehow, this wonderful man.
You can sort of feel it was like the learning process for the fourteenth Dalai Lama, who was the next incarnation. And it’s by a man, a British man called Sir Charles Bell, who was a British he was in the foreign The Buddhas Indian service, you know, around the 20s and 30s of this century. And he had a very close relationship with the thirteenth Dalai Lama. And according to him, it was the karma he it was because he had he had been some high Tibetan something or other, lama probably, in a previous life, and he had prayed to be reborn in a situation where he could benefit Tibet. This is what he was told when he was in Tibet.
I mean, was a Christian, he kind of accepted this, but somebody had a very close connection with the Dalai Lama. It was a lovely book, actually. It’s very colloquially written, but it’s very kind of personal. It gives you a real feeling for Tibet and Dalai Lama. This is a portrait of the thirteenth, a portrait of a Dalai Lama.
And there’s a Tibet guide, which is a five hundred page guidebook to Tibet. Probably of all the guidebooks in Tibet, the only one that’s really authoritative. Commissioned an ex monk called Stephen Bachelor, who was an author of a few of our books, to go to Tibet two years ago, maybe three years ago now, I can’t remember. And he speaks Tibetan. That’s excellent.
And last year it won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, Best Guidebook of the Year. I think it’s going quite well. It was an excellent book, lots of massive information. Even if have only tablets to bed, it’s really good to read in a lot of the pictures. What else in the yellow series?
There’s about nine titles in that series too, think. Well, the Tibet series almost exclusively was that, actually. That was the idea. You know, there were hundreds and hundreds of books being published over the years about Tibet. And when the idea of this series came, it was to go and look at the older books that had been published and by the rights, and which is what we did with ex well, exile.
We bought the paperback rights for England and the American publisher. Unfortunately, our Lama we bought from from the trust of sir Charles Bell had been published in nineteen forty six. Very, very likely. I know. I mean, I don’t work at the museum anymore, but if you’ve got any good ideas, I’d to I’d like to listen to them.
Fantastic. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. Good.
Good. If there’s anything out of print, they’re really right to listen and tell them, for sure. Yeah. No. The last word, mean, it might come again.
But the last wave, just it was a. That’s right. Yeah. From the office. Cup of tea time?
Well, well, thank you, everyone. Thank you very much. Having a to say. I’ll see you whenever I come to LA to do. I’m off on Monday morning.
What to say? We’ve got a course this weekend. So if anyone wants to come, you’re very welcome. Thank you. I’ve enjoyed being in Adelaide for sure.
Thank you very much. We finish. That’s it. Amen. Kimmel.