Ongoing programs

1. Middling Lamrim: Stages of the Path to Enlightenment

The basis of the course is the text by Lama Tsongkhapa, a great Tibetan scholar and practitioner. The text presents in a clear and concise form instructions on how to meditate and apply to daily life the teachings of the Buddha. Instructions begin with the preliminaries, and then progresses through the essential practices of the 'beings of the three scopes', including correct guru devotion, renunciation, the altruistic wish for enlightenment, and the view of the Middle Way.

2. Mind Training Like the Rays of the Sun

The basis of the course is the text with the same title composed by the Tibetan Namkha Pal (1373-1447), a direct disciple of Je Tsong-khapa.
The basis of all our happiness is love and affection for all living beings. Conversely, the root of all our problems is self-centeredness or the selfish attitude. The path to enlightenment is the gradual reduction of our self-centered attitudes and the gradual increase of out compassion, wisdom, generosity and other qualities based on the pure wish to bring happiness to others and ourselves.
The text explains in a simple and concise way how to transform every experience we encounter in our day to day lives into a path which brings us and all living creatures nearer to the perfect happiness of enlightenment. It especially focuses on clarifying the most unique instructions contained in Arya Shantideva's Guide to the Boddhisatva's Way of Life for transforming adverse and troubling circumstances into favorable conditions for increasing our compassion and other virtuous qualities.

3. The Seven Limb Practice: for Purification, Accumulation & Blessings

Most of us, beginners in the pursuit of spiritual progress encounter this problem: when we study but cannot retain the words, contemplate but do not understand, meditate but nothing develops. That is because our feeble mind is said to be like "a field littered with stones, pebbles & weeds". Before any fruits of transformation or positive qualities in our mind can grow, we need to first do the following to clean up our mind and receive positive conditions:

• Purify negativities - to remove the obstructions to change
• Accumulate merits - to gather favorable conditions
• Seek & receive the guru's blessings for inspiration

The Seven Limb practice contains all the key practices for preparing our mind to achieve realizations quickly. Other topics covered during the course will include:

• Practice of the Confession to 35 Buddhas
• Benefits of making offerings
• Vajrasattva practice
• Mandala Offering

4. Introduction to Buddhist Psychology: the Mind & Mental Factors

The great Tibetan master Gon-pa-wa said, "To eliminate disturbing emotions, you must know their faults, their characteristics, their remedies, and the causes for their arising. Once you know the root and secondary afflictions, then when any attachment, hostility, or such arises in your mind-stream, you can identify it thinking , "this is that, now it has arisen - and fight the disturbing emotion."
The course is based on a text written by the great 18th century Tibetan master Kachen Yeshe Gyeltsen, following Abhidharma tradition of Buddhist thought. It will provide a detailed overview of the mind and the various virtuous and non-virtuous mental and emotional states that color and control it, which are known as the 51 mental factors. It will offer a practical guide on how to cultivate virtuous mental states and how to weaken and eventually abandon the disturbing emotions, the key to lasting peace and well-being.