So welcome everyone to Buddha House and this course on Samsāra nirvana. So before I start, I’d just like to check. Are there some people here who are more or less completely new to Buddhism? Who’ve never really okay. Yes.
Okay. Right. So this is gonna be recorded. So I’m just gonna start again for the purpose of the recording. I just wanted to know that bit first.
Maybe I’ll just explain what I’m doing first because this can be deleted from the recording anyway. This first part is just an introduction to the whole program, and particularly, I want to record this so it can be put up on the website. So so I’d like to welcome everyone to Buddha House and the Discovering Buddhism program. So Buddha House is a member of a worldwide organization called the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahāyāna tradition, which was established by two great Lamas of the Gelugpa school, Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche. So Lama Thubten Yeshe passed away in nineteen eighty four.
So now the the sole spiritual head of the of this organization is Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, who happens to be also my main teacher, my root guru. So the the foundation for the preservation of Mahāyāna tradition follows one of the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism, which is the Gelugpa school, which is the school the Dalai Lama is most closely associated with. The organization tries to present the Mahāyāna Buddhism or Tibetan Mahāyāna Buddhism from the Gelugpa school point of view, and particularly the way our our main teachers, Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche, have have taught it for for many, many years to inspire many students all around the world. So the the Discovering Buddhism program particularly is designed to encourage people to not only just come and listen to the teachings, which is what people tend to do in Buddhist centers all over the all over the world, but but to do a bit more than that, which is to try to really experience the teachings by studying some written material, meditating on it, doing some daily mindfulness practice. So the aim of the course, although I don’t push this a lot because you’re all grown people and I can’t make you do anything, but the course is designed to encourage people not just to listen to the teachings, but certainly if you feel any connection with them to to really put them into practice as much as possible by meditating on them, studying the topic as much as you can, and so on.
So. This course is not an academic presentation. It is really designed to hopefully, if one had, you know, has want some connection with the teachings to change one’s mind, to transform one’s mind. So for that person for that reason also, maybe I should stop there and just introduce myself. So my name is Thubten Dondrub.
I’ve been a monk since nineteen seventy seven. I got it I got ordained all the three levels of ordination I received here in Australia. And my main teacher is Lama Zopa Rinpoche and as a result of the request of the director of this center, Lama Zopa Rinpoche said it would be good for me to come here to be the resident teacher. I was a resident teacher in another FPMT center for ten years in Perth called Hayagrīva Buddhist Centre. So I’ve had the good fortune to receive teachings from many great lamas of the Gelug tradition, especially his holiness, the Dalai Lama, and his holiness’s root guru, Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, but also some of the other great masters.
So I don’t make any claim to have any experience of the teachings or to be any great practitioner, but at least I have heard the teachings. And maybe I’ve understood them a little bit, and at least my teacher has entrusted me to teach. So that’s my basis for being here. The reason I’m saying these things is to maybe give you some confidence that, this course and this center is something you can rely on, but maybe the way I’m presenting it doesn’t give you any confidence at all. I’m not sure.
Anyway, so in doing this course, what I’d ask people to do is to take I think it’s good to take some notes because most of us are not very good at remembering things. So I would encourage people to take notes during during the talks, especially since part of the homework is to review what was said during the the the talk. One way you can do that, of course, is to listen online to the talk again, which I would encourage people to do. But sometimes it is good to take notes as well. And and by having those notes or reviewing the the classes as a basis for being able to do some of the meditations that I ask people to do throughout the week.
Also, I encourage people to ask questions. Not that I often leave much time to do that, but people really should ask questions about anything that they have some doubts about or would like some clarification about. I would really I think it’s really important in doing the course, especially for the new people, but really applies to everyone, is to make a commitment to do the whole course because every aspect of the Buddha’s teachings is even the simplest part of the teachings really deserves a lot of thought, and it takes time to explain it. And so if you just hear a little bit, you can think, oh, I that doesn’t make sense to me, or I don’t believe that, or that’s very strange, or I find that hard to relate to. And then one just on on on one hearing, one can dismiss everything.
But by hearing another bit, then everything you can start to put the the jigsaw together a little bit, and one part explains another part. So I think it’s really important to make a commitment to try and attend the whole course. If you have to miss one of the classes, I would request that you contact the center and let let us know that you’re not gonna be here for one of the classes. And if you decide to leave the course altogether, it would also be nice to know that. We won’t chase you or hound you or anything like that.
It’s just useful to know these things. Also, the retreat, is done on the Sunday of the last week of the course, is really meant to be an integral part of the course. So I do really encourage people to come for the the one day retreat. Some people who have never done anything like this think it may feel it’s something really difficult to do, but actually, it’s a very pleasant day. It only goes from nine in the morning till three thirty in the afternoon.
And it’s a way to again, integrate more deeply what we’ve been covering during the the course. And this course is going to last for seven weeks. Okay. Then so that’s a little bit in general. Then a little bit more specifically in listening to the dharma, especially if we’re new to it, it’s really important to try to listen with an open mind, especially since most of us come from we have been influenced by other philosophies and religions throughout much of our life.
So it’s really important to try and listen with an open mind and try to understand the Buddhist teachings within their own context rather than trying to fit them into a box that one already knows. Some people like doing that. But and and there is a a popular view that all religions are the same. They all lead to the same point. I’m not sure if this is true or not, but I think somehow that kind of that attitude, we fail to appreciate the unique qualities of each tradition.
And although there are many similarities between Buddhism and Christianity and other religions, there are differences and there is a a unique viewpoint which may take some time to really get. But to really appreciate the Buddha Dharma, the Buddha’s teachings, one needs to be able to open the mind to really see that unique viewpoint on all sorts of different aspects of life. And, also, one of the problems for us to studying the Buddha’s teachings is terminology because, of course, in in India, there was a various languages that really the Buddhadharma is about our mind, and the the languages that the Buddha taught in had had terminologies related to the idea of the mind. Whereas in the West, our languages are very much based on the senses and the external world. It’s not a language related to the mind.
So one needs to be able to learn when you study any philosophy, any religion, any any topic, it has its own terminology. So one needs to become familiar with that terminology and understand that some words that have a particular, you know, in an ordinary context in the in the context of the Buddhadharma may have a different meaning because we can only use English words. But the trouble is English words have these all these connotations that we’re familiar with, but sometimes we need to let go of those, and it takes time to become familiar with them. Also, especially for the newer people, I would suggest don’t try to understand everything at once. Some hopefully, some of the Buddhadharma or much of it, most of it is easy to understand if one has a connection with it.
But some things are either intellectually difficult to understand and some things can be emotionally difficult to accept, can be quite threatening in various ways. So sometimes people make the mistake when they hear things that are difficult either intellectually or emotionally, then they put up a block and say, that’s it. This is difficult. I don’t wanna know about this. But or they reject it.
So we’re not gonna get very far if we have that kind of approach. It’s really helpful to be patient with me and yourself so that one can, with time, start to understand what’s being said. Because, you know, by hearing more of the teachings than something that was difficult intellectually or emotionally can start to become more understandable, more acceptable, hopefully. This has been the experience of many people, including myself. Okay.
I think that’s the general introduction so far. So now just in terms of introducing the topic itself, in the Gelugpa tradition, which is the only school of Tibetan Buddhism or only school of Buddhism that I can claim any familiarity with, All of the teachers that I’ve received teachings from have put a great emphasis on listening to the teachings with the right motivation, that this is extremely important to have a good motivation and to make one’s motivation as strong and clear and as positive or virtuous or meaningful as possible. So when when we first come to the teachings, we we listen to them, hope