jeff
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Post by jeff on Dec 9, 2013 15:25:01 GMT 1
The original Lamrim is attributed to Atisha and is well-documented as in: www.kagyumonlam.org/Download/TEXT/Lamp%20For%20the%20Path%20to%20Enlightenment/English%20Root%20Text%20BodhipathapradIpa.pdfHowever, the Lamrim commentary that is so popular such as Lama Tsongkhapa's, Pabongka Rinpoche's and Geshe Sopa's (among others) are not only a vast expansion but they seem to all adhere to particular headings and structures. I am curious how this major leap from Atisha's 68 verses to +- thousand pages was created. Was this the work of Tsongkhapa and then his structure and headings were used by others? Was there commentary in the interim period between Atisha and Tsongkhapa? It seems that the major work would then be attributable to Tsongkhapa who took great liberties with Atisha's work. Jeff
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matt
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Post by matt on Dec 9, 2013 20:43:48 GMT 1
The way I think of it, Jeff, is like this. If I understood Einstein I could tell people E=MC2, but to explain it so they could understand it would take a lot more words. Je Tsongkapa lived 300 years after Atisha, there was already a Kadampa tradition, so I think there was probably a lot of textual development beyond Lamp for the Path, and Lojong or whatever else Atisha passed on, but there is always room for development for the sake of lessor minds like mine.
You know, Tsongkapa's Three Principals of the Path is only a page or so long, but my teacher once spent a whole week, 9 two hour sessions explaining it to us. At the end he chanted it in Tibetan by way of transmission and I had a very cool experience where it seemed like the whole room opened up to blue sky, and I felt like I knew that that text resonated for infinity. So I wouldn't call it liberties exactly. Great teachers have realization of the teachings of those who come before them, and ways of helping the rest of us get some benefit from them.
Another example, I went to a week long teaching by the same teacher in Seattle on Shantidiva's 400 verse text. After a whole week, again about 9 sessions, we had finished verse eleven. Then he did a symbolic transmission where he chanted part of the text. And this is typical of his teachings, and from what I hear that is traditional for Tibetan teachings. The meaning comes off in layers, and takes time to understand, and then there is the whole matter of non conceptual realization, which I think is required for transmission.
So it is kind of a wonder, that Tsongkapa, who wrote with a brevity that seems impossible in itself, was really expanding on what Atisha had written even more briefly.
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jeff
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Post by jeff on Dec 10, 2013 11:52:28 GMT 1
I know calling it liberties connotes distortion, and that's not really what I wanted to convey. I did want to note that the Lamrim which seems most popularly studied is Tsongkhapa's, which is a vast expansion of the original.
I believe even His Holiness teaches from it.
I was also wondering if this "leap" from 68 verses to a thousand pages came originally from Tsongkhapa or were there expanded versions in the interim?
Yes, it seems every teaching I attend is an intensive digression (again aware of connotation) of a short text.
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matt
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Post by matt on Dec 10, 2013 18:58:52 GMT 1
I am not sure, but the way I have always heard it, Tsongkapa developed the Graded Path from Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment. Atisha was asked by a King in Tibet to develop a Dharma for the common people. According to tradition this made him very happy, and he was especially pleased he was asked for that instead of some great esoteric teaching for the elite. That early and like you say much more brief work was developed by Tsongkapa into the long, medium and short forms of the Graded Path to Enlightenment. As you probably know, this is the foundation one needs to be familiar with in the Gelug tradition not necessarily before the completion paths, but usually before and certainly as a part of, and each school has their own equivalent to Lamrim. But Tsongkapa was not just working from written texts, he was familiar with many traditions both written and oral, practiced and taught the six yogas, described himself once as a "meditator who has listened to many teachings," so it all probably informs the Lamrim. Buddhists don't seem to treat information as property like we do in the West. Authorship of many texts is unknown and or posthumously credited to Buddha. For those who have followed the path to completion, developing a teaching is a matter of perfect motivation, authorship and credit are not a concern, whether or not it will benefit sentient beings is the only real concern. But Tsongkapa is late enough we know what he wrote, but you might think of him as an enlightened compiler and editor instead of an author. That is a test of all Buddhist teachings, that they are not invented. All these beings practice devotion and dedication, all these teachings can be properly attributed to Buddha. That is the non conceptual truth of it, in my opinion, and that is why when texts were first written and by whom is often a little unclear. They all begin with oral traditions and are codified by beings that are essentially Buddha. Is that at all helpful?
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matt
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Post by matt on Dec 10, 2013 20:10:17 GMT 1
Speaking of digressions, this may be a little frustrating for you, Jeff, if you feel like you are asking a simple question and getting a long and complicated and less than clear answer, but I think it may be an opportunity to think about the Dharma and enlightenment in a less linear way. What does it mean to you that each of Buddha Shakyamuni's 84,000 teachings are perfect and complete?
What if Buddha came back? Let's say he arrived in your Dharma Center in New York and was asked to give a teaching. Instead of teaching something "new" he picked up a written text, translated in English and briefly edited it, discarding anything adventitious that might have developed through oral traditions and bad translations and what not, and added any component that may have been lost. That is what it is like, in my view, when Atisha writes the Lamp for the Path to enlightenment, or Tsongkapa writes the Graded Path to Enlightenment, and that is what your Dharma teachers are doing their utmost to maintain in a pure form.
And there is something else, when I hear that each of these 84,000 teachings,( and I am not sure if anyone knows precisely what they all are) is perfect and complete, that means that an enlightened mind could discover in any of them, long or short, the entire path to enlightenment. I know you understand there is a big difference between hearing or reading a teaching once, and meditating on it for a long time, but I think it helps to remember that.
When a person becomes enlightened, when they realize their Buddha nature, they are not a sentient being any more and they no longer have the limitations of time or distance that sentient beings have, and they are not really distinguishable from any Buddha. They are an emanation of all Buddhas. To me, beings like Tsongkapa and Atisha are like that. Tsongkapa was able to write the Graded Path to Enlightenment, because he was enlightened, he eventually got to the point he could meditate on a few lines by Atisha, and write a much more detailed explanation, because he was unfettered by time and space and even concept.
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matt
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Post by matt on Dec 10, 2013 21:12:17 GMT 1
So when I hear the story of Atisha being asked for this Dharma for the common people, and being very happy, I ask myself what makes a Buddha happy? Atisha set in motion the Lamrim. Now here we are 950 years later in a far away land, studying what his student who lived 300 years later than him developed from his Lamp for the Path. That effects everyone we know, and sets unforeseeable events in motion. For Atisha, all this is happening now in a sense, the roof comes off, countless beings overcome obsucrations, resolve suffering and discover a reliable path to happiness. That is the kind of thing that makes a Buddha happy. It is delusion that separates us in the guise of space and time, the Dharma burns through, cuts through, dissolves it all into an endless field of enlightenment, simultaneously centered in the heart of all beings.
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matt
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Post by matt on Dec 10, 2013 21:19:00 GMT 1
It is because Buddha was enlightened, that his students asked the right questions at the right time, and he was happy to answer. It was because Atisha was enlightened that the King of Tibet made the right request at the right time, and Atisha was very happy to respond to it. We are a small part of that happiness, but big and small, those are just concepts, relative truths. Ultimately we will realize our own Buddha nature, and know the happiness of these beings.
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matt
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Post by matt on Dec 11, 2013 19:07:42 GMT 1
I read a book by Robert Thurman many years ago, I can't remember which one of his it is, but in this book he really underscored that for Tibetans, these very famous meditators and teachers are Buddhas. Now we all know that the same people are less known and may be understood differently in other countries and Buddhist traditions. A lot of people who come and read here are not dedicated to a particular path, probably fairly new to Buddhism, so written displays of our devotion may be off-putting. And then we have Theravadan people here too, and they believe Buddhas are extremely rare, just the recognized wheel- turning Buddhas or Tathagatas are considered Buddhas in that system. But in Tibetan Buddhism, given that the whole nation has been filled for centuries with fairly serious practitioners, and there were thousands of monasteries and nunneries when the Chinese invaded, it is not surprising to me that there are scores of men and women who are commonly believed to have become fully enlightened. Each of the four schools has them, and from what I have seen Tibetans usually regard them all as enlightened.
An example: I read a teaching by Dzongzar Rinpoche on Maitreya's Utaratantra Shastra, and in that teaching he said that Sakya Pandita did not regard that text as an Ultimate teaching, and Dzongzar Rinpoche acknowledged that people might find that a little shocking. I have always felt attracted to Maitreya, but I find some of his statements difficult to reconcile, like he uses the word permanent, and talks at times about a true self. My teacher, Geshe Wangdak was trained in the Gelug system, so I was curious what he would make of this statement by the man who inspired the Sakya tradition. The next time he came to boise I asked him. I remember the translator who was a young Tibetan was a little shocked by the question, he did not really want to translate it, but I persisted and he finally translated the question. My teacher did not bat an eye, he said, "Yes, that is true, Utaratantra is a generation teaching, Sakya Pandita is higher." and he pointed up to the sky. Then he paused, and said, "We all like Sakya Pandita, it's not just Sakyapas who regard him as enlightened." The audience really liked this non-sectarian answer, I could tell.
Anyway, Thurman briefly biographed a lot of famous Tibetans, and said that as far as Tibetans are concerned, these are fully enlightened Buddhas. Atisha and Tsongkhapa were on his list, as was not surprisingly, Padmasambava, Marpa, Milarepa, Sakya Pandita, the Dalai Lamas and many others. He basically related that for himself and most Tibetans all the great names and the recognized incarnations are thought of as Buddhas. And of course if you practice Guru-yoga you regard your teacher as various manifestations as well, particularly when they self initiate. Would someone want to be more conservative or more liberal in deciding for themselves who is fully enlightened? Well, I think for most of us Westerners we try to keep an open mind, but are not in a hurry to decide someone is enlightened, and that is a good thing, we don't want to get involved in an unhealthy situation. But the other side of it is pure vision, and as we develop pure vision there are more opportunities to recognize more fully enlightened beings, and that can be very helpful.
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matt
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Post by matt on Dec 11, 2013 20:17:57 GMT 1
So what is pure vision, then? I know that there are many of you waiting with bated breath, perched on the edge of your seats hoping I will tell my opinion. LOL
Well, my understanding of pure vision is basically a view that is informed by emptiness. In 2001 I went to see my teacher speak in Boise, and that was the only time he had a large audience here. The local paper did a write up on him, and his credentials are impressive, and some smart people from our Dharma group booked a large room and about 1500 people attended. Usually when I go to one of his teachings there are 15-30 people, so that was interesting to see. During that teaching he talked about Maitreya, (I asked him the question about Utaratantra Shastra in 2011). He told us that Maitreya is in Tusita Heaven, and described the different bhumis, the levels of attainment Bodhisatvas evolve through, and what allows them to move to the next. He described it all in terms of competitiveness, each progression was a matter of overcoming more competitive attitudes. For example, after the eighth bhumis, I think it was, a Bodhisatva takes on instinctual competitiveness and works to resolve it. Any way, that is a bit of a digression, but I have always found it helpful.
Anyway, at one point he said that there is some debate about whether Maitreya is fully enlightened, yet, and then he paused. I remember during his pause, I thought very clearly to myself as if I was speaking it, "Well, I would say he is enlightened, because it is more convenient for me." And behind this thought was my understanding of pure vision, which I did not even know the name for it, yet. I was sitting near the back, and my teacher, well he became my teacher later, he leaned forward and to his left and looked right at me, and distinctly nodded his head while making eye contact. Anyway, I am not the only one of Geshe Wangdak's students who thinks he has that kind of clairvoyance.
A couple years later Alex Berzin came to Boise and during his teaching he described Recognition, which he said is recognizing a fact to be a fact. And that gave a name to this practice for me. Alex said that you practice this "without naivety." So basically what you are doing is on the one hand you acknowledge that what you are seeing is not enlightened on a relative level, but is enlightened on an ultimate level. And this has a powerful transformative effect on the practitioner, at least. In truth, all of reality is this way, but some things appear more clearly recognizable than others. "Recognizing" the enlightenment of Maitreya is of great benefit to my practice. Having an opinion based on relative thoughts and experience really does not help me at all. Because I am empty, because, Maitreya is empty and all beings are empty, I can recognize that Maitreya is a Buddha. All the potentials for enlightenment are there, and there is no ultimate truth in their current appearance. That is why we are taught that Maitreya is a Bodhisatva on the Sutra Level, but on the Mantra level we recognize that he has always been a fully enlightened Buddha. Both are true on their respective levels, the difference is in our view. That is what pure vision means. Recognition of all experience, all appearances as they arise, that is what Dzongchen is. So perhaps you get an idea of just how much concentration and discipline it takes to practice DZongchen all the time, like many well known teachers do.
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matt
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Post by matt on Dec 11, 2013 20:34:20 GMT 1
So maybe you can begin to see how Dzongchen is the opposite of a competitive attitude. With our normal competitive attitude we have friends and enemies and most people we are just eager to ignore. The last thing we want to believe is that someone who is annoying us somehow is better than we are. We are very quick to disdain and dismiss anyone who gets in the way of something we want. But with Dzongchen, you would do everything in your power to recognize that person in particular, and all people in general are fully enlightened beings, and as such are much higher than our selves. The point is this is absolutely the truth, it is not some nice attitude you are trying to adopt, it is the ultimate truth, and in this kind of practice we are doing what we can to realize it. Of course this all occurs in a context of non duality, so you aren't really putting yourself down. If you were it would be kind of depressing. Saying these beings are higher is just a relative component of a practice that leads to bliss, and bliss is a great equalizer for sure, and it feels good.
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matt
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Post by matt on Dec 11, 2013 21:30:09 GMT 1
At my level of practice it is much easier to believe that my teacher is a Buddha than recognize that the jerk who just cut me off in traffic is an enlightened being. But I have seen and heard and even at times recognized enough to know that many of the Dharma teachers I know could realize it. That is a source of both some humility and real inspiration for me. I believe we live in an amazing time. The Buddha Dharma has come to the West, and though it is still pretty young, there are real signs it is thriving here.
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matt
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Post by matt on Dec 12, 2013 5:29:00 GMT 1
One last note, having described pure vision, I should probably relate what Dzongzar Rinpoche said about it. He said something nearly identical to this: "There is a lot of guilt around pure vision. Pure vision does not mean you have to see your teacher as enlightened. It means you see him with six arms and golden skin." So if you are practicing it in a more conceptual way, as a part of devotion to enhance your practice, then that sounds like good advice. If it is a form of recognition, then you can take it a little farther. The point I am trying to make is practice should help us and calm us not make us feel miserable. It is important to have a lot of patience with yourself and your practice.
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jeff
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Post by jeff on Dec 12, 2013 16:42:10 GMT 1
Ummm, I'm kind of speechless.
Matt, thank you and I really love your verbose answers.
It seems you sometimes answer from a conventional perspective and other times from a more ultimate level. Regardless, it's always valuable and very thought provoking.
I'm missing a lot of action in Boise!
I've always looked at statements such as there are 84,000 teachings as made up rather than precise. I guess to me it just means that the Buddha gave a lot of teachings, sometimes indirectly. But to hold to a precise number seems unlikely.
Matt, I'd like to ask you a question (which I find very valuable), if you don't mind... When it comes to Dharma, what are you most unsure about?
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matt
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Post by matt on Dec 12, 2013 17:33:06 GMT 1
Thanks, Jeff, you are very kind to say that. Boise has been a lucky place for me to attend teachings. This a relatively small city, 180,000 people. Idaho is an extremely conservative state, and Boise was a very conservative city when I was growing up. It also is kind of Isolated, the nearest cities of any size are 6-8 hours from here. But my teacher has been here for week long teachings about a dozen times since 2001, the Dalai Lama came to a nearby town once, and was going to come back to Boise 2 years ago, but the Chinese managed to sabotage that trip. Alex Berzin has come twice for a week. There are at least three Tibetan Dharma groups, and I have attended teachings and permissions from highly regarded teachers of all 4 Schools. Thubten Chodren wanted to found her Abbey near here, she made offers on two properties, but she ended up buying land about 4 hours away. She founded the group I attend. The truth is I skip more good teachings than I attend, but I have always had access to the information I needed here.
As far as what I am most uncertain of in the Dharma? I am actually acutely aware of it, I am uncertain of the details, at least 99.9% of the Dharma and a lot of the basics I have either never learned or not bothered to memorize. I could not tell you what the 8 spokes of the wheel are, for example. I remember three or four, no idea as to their order. I won't ever be a Dharma teacher, that is not my path. But I may write a book someday. My teacher and great Nyingma, Sakya and Kagyu teachers have all told me to just keep meditating the way I am, that I am doing it right. I feel like I am making good progress all the time, not just with insight and view, but with mind training too. So I feel good about my practice, like somehow I got to the heart of the path, but very ignorant of the Buddha Dharma in general.
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matt
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Post by matt on Dec 12, 2013 19:20:41 GMT 1
Okay, I will write a little about the 84,000 teachings, and I would like to hear Rudy's thoughts on it and anyone else who has heard or read a teaching about this number. I don't remember hearing or reading an explanation of this tradition. I believe it is a very popular one, though, not just in the Mahayana, but in the Pali Cannon, too. So what does it mean? I don't believe Buddha gave 84,000 spoken teachings in this world during his lifetime. He did teach for over forty years, so there were thousands no doubt. 84,000/365 is 230, so if he gave a new teaching that became a Sutra or Tantra or instruction every day it would take 230 years. I think it is entirely possible he did give that many during his life time, though, because he taught in a lot of realms. We are multidimensional beings, all sentient beings are. When we dream, we can be in several realms or dimensions simultaneously. We wake up and remembering fragments it seems like there was a series of dreams, but often those are occurring simultaneously on different levels. Buddha is fully awake on a lot of different levels and can give teachings to any kind of audience that asks for them.
We have to remember that Buddha never wrote a teaching down. Neither was one of his teachings written in his lifetime. So every teaching, and every word attributed to Buddha was written posthumously by someone else. The Pali Cannon was created by students with remarkable powers of memory, dedicated to preserving the oral teachings Buddha gave that the so called Hearers remembered. A lot of those seem to have been given in other realms, too. In the Mahayana and Vajrayanna paths, though, teachings can be discovered any time, I think. Buddha may have given a teaching in his life time in a place where time works differently or does not apply, and a great meditator who lived much later could attend it and then write it down, or pass it on.
84,000 is a symbolic number, but people tend to be ignorant of what a symbol is or symbolism really means. Symbolism in a religious context does not mean metaphor or parable. What it means is something that has both outer, or relative as well as inner meanings and in Buddhism, can refer to an ultimate truth. I believe that what seems to be an infinitely diverse Universe actually manifests in fractal fashion based on repeated patterns that have finite kinds of components. So that is a pretty deep idea, and no one has to take my word for it. But basically I would say at the heart of all sentient beings, and scattered throughout what we regard as material reality there are patterns of energy that look like an 8 spoked wheel. And there can be a lot of beings and a lot of realms, and they can all be unique, but they grow on basic patterns the way any living thing or even mineral does. I suspect Buddhas 84,000 teachings represent a path to enlightenment for 84,000 components of consciousness that can also represent points of view or attitudes. If we follow one to completion, we can absorb the rest in our wheel and eventually in our continuum, which is really profound (maybe infinite) and interdependent.
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matt
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Post by matt on Dec 12, 2013 19:45:55 GMT 1
The other day I was reading about Saraha, because of something Dan had sent me. Saraha was one of the first Mahasidhas. He was an arrow maker by trade, and is always shown holding an arrow. In his songs and teachings he uses an arrow as an analogy for the central nerve channel. The writer I was reading pointed out that the word for arrow in TIbetan is a homonym for symbol, which apparently they find significant. Anyway, that may support my interpretation of how Buddhist in particular and Religious symbols in general work. Most of my ideas about symbols come from observing and working to purify subtle energy though.
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Post by Rudy on Dec 12, 2013 20:22:48 GMT 1
About the origin of the Lam Rim, I just found that Gampopa's 'The Jewel Ornament of Liberation' is an exposition on the basis of Atisha's text, and he lived about 2 centuries before Tsongkhapa. I think Atisha's original work provided a unique structure to present the entirety of the Buddha's teachings. His own text is extremely condensed, more like an index then an explanation. And as Matt describes, Tibetans seem to be masters in elaboration. Of course Gelukpa masters like Pabongka and Geshe Sopa are very familiar to Tsongkhapa's work, and when they taught (orally), they more or less gave their own summary of Tsongkhapa's work, and used the same structure - if perhaps only because 'it works'. I have no idea where the number 84,000 comes from, I also always took it as 'very many'.
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jeff
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Post by jeff on Dec 13, 2013 14:32:26 GMT 1
About the origin of the Lam Rim, I just found that Gampopa's 'The Jewel Ornament of Liberation' is an exposition on the basis of Atisha's text, and he lived about 2 centuries before Tsongkhapa. Rudy this is what I was wondering... It says Atisha lived 980-1054 and Gampopa lived 1079-1153 so they missed each other by only 25 years. It probable that Gampopa's Lamrim was the first expansion of Atisha's text and provided a basis for future commentaries. This fills in the historical blanks for me. Thank you.
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tamara
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Post by tamara on Dec 14, 2013 4:08:44 GMT 1
Hello, am back after a busy time. Wanted to mention Gampopa here, but Rudy just did. Jeff asked: ``When it comes to Dharma, what are you most unsure about?`` Could you elaborate on this question a bit, Jeff, what exactly do you mean ? I am unsure about one thing only..., my own mind. About the fact that it might loose the right track so to speak. This certainly might happen if (karmically speaking) obstacles arise which I cannot handle with all my Dharma knowledge. But then...., what is stored due to the `right actions` is not lost and will resurface again. So my being unsure about this point is utterly unnecessary Tamara
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tamara
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Post by tamara on Dec 14, 2013 4:19:03 GMT 1
Matt, I find it funny that you wonder about 84.000 teachings Spent the last 4 weeks dealing with one subject and one subject only. Reading, meditating on and receiving teachings about it from many different points of view: What is the essence of the 84.000 ? Well,...... got it, at least theoretically (`Hitting the Essence in 3 Words`). I wish you all progress and luck with the practice. It`s wonderful to come to this forum again and again and to see how people are struggling, making effort and so forth. Tamara
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