Free Buddha Dharma ebook

Lucid Exposition of the Middle Way
The Essential Chapters from the
Prasannapada of Candrakirti
Translated by Mervyn Sprung

The Prasannapada is the explanation of the versed aphorisms of Nagarjuna which are the first and basic statement of the Buddhist philosophy of the middle way. When first published, this volume was the first attempt, in any European language, to present all the essentials of this most radical of Buddhist philosophical works. Seventeen of its twenty-seven chapters have been chosen to give an integrated statement of every aspect of its arguments and conclusions.

Free download here:
https://static.sariputta.com/pdf/tipitaka/1051/95463567-candrakirti-1979-lucid-exposition-of-the-middle-way-essential-prasannapada-tr-mervyn-sprungpdf.pdf
===

Two truths (Skt. dvasatya; Tib. བདེན་པ་གཉིས་, denpa nyi) The ultimate is the inherent nature of everything, how things really are. The relative is how things appear. They are not to be understood as two separate dimensions, but as two aspects of a single reality.

Relative truth includes all dualistic phenomena in this world. These are called maya, or illusion, because we mistakenly believe they are solid, separate, and independent. But the problem is not relative truth itself but our misunderstanding of its nature.

Absolute truth is the reality beyond dualistic mind. It’s the true nature of relative phenomena. In the Mahayana, it is emptiness or interdependence. In Vajrayana, it is referred to as space, complete openness, or primordial purity.

The two truths are a provisional teaching-helpful for where we are on our path but not the final truth. The final truth is that there is only one reality, and it unites the relative and absolute. Absolute truth is the true nature of the relative.

Free Buddhism Dharma ebook

Heart Sutra
By Khenpo Sodargye Rinpoche

Shortly before Buddha Shakyamuni was to enter nirvana, he passed on the eighty-four thousand teachings to Ananda. He then solemnly addressed him, declaring, “I will not fault you if you forget entirely, or if you blemish completely, the eighty-four thousand teachings, except for the Perfection of Wisdom. But if you misplace a single line of the Perfection of Wisdom, I will hold you accountable.” This passage illustrates the importance of the Perfection of Wisdom.

Anyone who genuinely wishes to understand the aspects of conventional phenomena and ultimate reality should study this sutra. As Khenpo Sodargye Rinpoche said when he was giving this teaching, “Our lifespan and energy are limited. Therefore, even if we wish to study the entire eighty-four thousand teachings, we will find it impossible to fathom the entire Buddhadharma thoroughly and without obstructions. However, if we grasp the main points, we could then effectively apprehend the essentials. From this perspective, to study the Heart Sutra is the wisest option.”

Free download available:

https://khenposodargye.org/content/uploads/2022/12/Heart-Sutra-20221208.pdf

Bardo Is Not a Myth
By Mahamudra Master Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

If we see the Tibetan Book of the Dead only from the point of view of what happens when we die, it becomes like the study of a myth. We need practical experience of this continual process of bardo. There is always the conflict between body and consciousness, and there is the continual experience of death and birth. There are also experiences of luminosity, or the bardo of dharmata, and experiences of the bardo of becoming, which are described as meeting possible future parents and grounding situations.

At this very moment, we also have the visions of wrathful and peaceful divinities, which are happening constantly. If we are open and realistic enough to look at our experience in this way, then the actual experience of death and the bardo state will not be either purely a myth or an extraordinary shock, because we have already worked with it and become familiar with the whole thing.

From The Tibetan Book of the Dead: The Great Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo, translated with commentary by Francesca Fremantle and Chogyam Trungpa, pages 2 and 3.

Free Buddha Dharma ebook

The Sadhana of the Recollection of the Noble Three Jewels

The practice of The Sadhana of the Recollection of the Noble Three Jewels (Triratna Anusmṛti Sādhanā) offers us the opportunity to continuously remember who we really are and to celebrate this precious life. This sadhana gives us a base to practice together, to help us rediscover our emotional resilience and purify our perspective.

The Sadhana of the Recollection of the Noble Three Jewels acts as an antidote to our stubborn habits and negative emotions that harm ourselves and others. By combining psychology and ritual including the use of mudras and chants, the sadhana bolsters mental discipline, which in turn enhances mindfulness.

Free download here:

English text:
https://triratnasadhana.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/English-Triratna-Sadhana-June-2024.pdf

Hindi text:
https://triratnasadhana.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Hindi-Triratna-Sadhana-June-2024.pdf

Spanish text:
https://triratnasadhana.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Spanish-Triratna-Sadhana-JUNE-2024-1.pdf

Portuguese text:
https://triratnasadhana.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Portuguese-Triratna-Sadhana-June-2024.pdf

Russian text:
https://triratnasadhana.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Russian-Triratna-Sadhana-JUNE-2024.pdf

In the Great Perfection tradition this is understood to be the substrate consciousness, which is characterized by the three qualities of bliss, luminosity, and nonconceptuality. Penetrating the illusion deeper still, you will enter the deepest dimension of consciousness, known as rigpa, or pristine awareness.

According to the Great Perfection teachings, just as the world of dreams emerges from the relative space of the substrate consciousness, so do all worlds of experience ultimately arise from the nondual realm of primordial space (dharmadhatu) and primordial consciousness (jnana). Dream yoga provides one avenue for exploring and waking up to the depths of consciousness and its role in the natural world. When asked what kind of a being he was, a human or a god, the Buddha replied simply, “I am awake.” In our nonlucid dreams, we are mired down in the illusion that we are awake, and we suffer by grasping onto everything in the dream as being absolutely “out there.” In the same way, we are afflicted during the day by regarding ourselves and everything around us as being separate and disconnected. Imagine the bliss of becoming lucid at all times, perceiving all things as luminous displays of the deepest dimension of our own awareness. This is the truth that sets us free.

===

Wake Up! 5 methods for inducing lucid dreams

(1) Note events that are impossible in waking reality. Something is odd - too odd! -and suddenly it dawns on you that you must be dreaming! One moment you're in London, and the next moment you're in New York. You're engaged in conversation with an old friend, and a moment later he has turned into a poodle chewing on a bone. Or you may be in the midst of an outlandish nightmare, and as soon as you notice it's just too bizarre to be true, you recognize that you're dreaming.

(2) Prepare yourself by taking note of anomalies during the daytime. Whenever they occur, ask yourself, "Am I dreaming?" If you ask yourself enough, eventually the answer may be yes.

(3) If you want to find out whether you're dreaming or awake, find something to read. Read and memorize a line, turn your head away from the printed material, then look at it again. Psychologists have found that when you are dreaming the material changes with the second reading 75 percent of the time. If you read it a third time, the chances of it changing are 95 percent.

(4) Induce lucid dreams by the power of "prospective memory." When awake, we can remember to do things in the future, like remembering to shop for groceries on the way home from work. In the same way, through out the day, you can develop a strong resolve to recognize that you're dreaming after you've fallen asleep. You can direct your prospective memory to recognize things or events in a dream that are too odd to occur in waking reality, setting them as cues that you are dreaming.

(5) Fall asleep without losing consciousness. This is perhaps the subtlest method for inducing lucid dreaming; the trick is to maintain the clarity of awareness as you relax and drift off to sleep. Slowly, your physical senses shut down, and you may consciously pass through a phase of contentless awareness. This is the state of lucid dreamless sleep. From that vacuous state of consciousness a dream may suddenly emerge, and you may recognize it for what it is from the very beginning. The challenge now is to sustain both the dream and your recognition that you are dreaming, and this takes some practice. Once you have stabilized your lucid dream, the real adventure begins.

B. Alan Wallace is the founder and president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies. He's the author of multiple books, including The Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind from Wisdom Publications.

Part 1:

https://t.me/tantrayanabuddhism/3191

Part 2:

https://t.me/tibetanbuddha/3223

===
Buddha dharma teachings channel:

https://t.me/lorddivinebuddha

Telegram

Vajrayana Tantrayana Buddhism

Awakening to the Dream The nocturnal landscape of lucid dreaming and Tibetan dream yoga according to Dzogchen Great Perfection teachings. By B. Alan Wallace Part 1 of 2 For centuries, people around the world have reported experiences of lucid dreams, in…

Awakening to the Dream

The nocturnal landscape of lucid dreaming and Tibetan dream yoga according to Dzogchen Great Perfection teachings.
By B. Alan Wallace

Part 2 of 2

The daytime practice of dream yoga centers on maintaining the awareness that everything we experience around us is illusory. Although things appear to be out there, independent of any perceiving or conceiving subject, everything is “empty” of such an inherent self-nature. Descartes’s absolute split between subject and object, which has exerted an enormous and lingering effect on Western science, is totally rejected in Tibetan Buddhism. All things, mental and physical, consist of dependently related events, with no absolute demarcations between subject and object, mind and matter, or outer and inner. The nighttime practice of dream yoga begins with recognizing that you are dreaming and then sustaining that awareness. To achieve such attentional stability and clarity, it’s very helpful to train first in the practice of samadhi, or focused attention, both during the daytime and as you fall asleep. Once you’ve stabilized your awareness that you are dreaming, you progress to the second phase, in which you learn to control and transform the contents of your dreams. This is not just an ego trip, seeing how much you can dominate your dreams. Rather, it is a practical way to investigate the pliable nature of your dreams and to fathom more and more deeply how illusory they really are.

For example, you may set yourself the task of walking through walls. After all, the walls are made of the stuff of dreams, so why shouldn’t your dream body be able to glide right through a dream wall without obstruction? But when you try this, you may find to your surprise that you move halfway through the wall and then get stuck! This shows that there’s a whole range of degrees of lucidity. You may know that you’re dreaming, but that knowledge hasn’t yet sunk in enough for you to transform anything in the dream as you wish. (You still may be able to fly, one of the easiest paranormal abilities to achieve in a lucid dream.) In this second phase of dream yoga, like an infant exploring the world of waking reality, you investigate the world of dreaming by interacting with your environment, discovering through experience how all objects in the dream arise in relation to the experiencing subject.

Sustained training in dream yoga is bound to stir up your subconscious, occasionally resulting in bizarre and terrifying dreams. These provide a special opportunity for learning how to overcome fear and gain insight into the illusory nature of dreams, the third phase of this practice. Whenever you feel threatened in a dream—perhaps from ferocious animals, roaring fire, or raging waters—deepen your awareness of the nature of the dream by asking your- self, “How can such illusory apparitions possibly hurt my illusory self?” Then allow yourself to be attacked by the marauder, incinerated by the fire, or drowned in the water. All this is like one rainbow assaulting another rainbow, and insofar as you recognize the illusory nature of everything in the dream, there is no way you can be harmed.

A lucid dream provides you with the perfect laboratory for exploring the nature of the mind, for everything you experience in the dream consists only of manifestations of awareness. According to Buddhism, consciousness has two defining characteristics: luminosity and cognizance. “Luminosity” refers to the capacity of the mind to create, or illuminate, appearances. As you investigate the nature of dream appearances, you begin to comprehend the luminous potential of the mind. Then, while retaining the awareness that you are asleep, you may let the dreamscape fade away, leaving only a vacuous state of consciousness with no object. Now you are left with nothing but the cognizance of consciousness—consciousness with no object other than itself.

Telegram

Buddha

Buddha dharma teachings from the suttas and commentaries

Free Buddhism Dharma ebook

The Madhyamakāvatāra (dbu ma la 'jug-pa) is a text by Candrakīrti (600–c. 650) on the Mādhyamaka school of Buddhist philosophy. Candrakīrti also wrote an auto-commentary to the work, called the Madhyamakāvatārabhasya. It is traditionally considered as a commentary on the meaning of Nagarjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā and the Ten Stages Sutra (Daśabhūmika Sūtra).

The Madhyamakāvatāra relates the Mādhyamaka doctrine of śūnyatā to the "spiritual discipline" (Sanskrit: sādhanā) of a bodhisattva. The Madhyamakāvatāra contains eleven chapters, where each addresses one of the ten pāramitās or "perfections" fulfilled by bodhisattvas as they traverse the 'ten stages' (Sanskrit: bhūmi) to buddhahood, which is the final chapter.

Free download the root text here:

http://media.dalailama.com/English/texts/madhyamakavatara-ENG.pdf

Free download the auto commentaries available:

https://media.dalailama.com/English/texts/madhyamakavatara-autocommentary-ENG.pdf

==================

Tara Tantra the Origins
By Taranatha (circa 1575), Tibetan greatest historian
Sgrol Ma'i Rgyud Kyi Byung Khung Gsal Bar Byed Pa'I Lo Rgyus Gser Gyi Phreng Ba Zhes Bya Ba
#originsoftaratantra# #part21of30#

The Acărya Jñānadeva was a student of Santideva. He went to the south of India, to Trimala, to preach over a long period of time. Finally he went to the Himālaya mountains to meditate. Having thus arrived in the northern areas he worked for part of the time for the welfare of beings in the Tirāhut district. At that time in a certain part of the country in a small village of the Tharu people, there was much mischief caused by a Rāksasa of the Brahma(gods) and as a result all those (whose position was) between village headman and senior field-worker were slain in one blow. On that very day the Ācārya arrived there. A malicious Zombie was cavorting about the place. The Acārya, intoning Tära's Mantra and wielding his phurbu at the corpse, caused the Zombie to fall backwards and collapse, with the crown of its head caved in. Arriving back in the village, the Ācārya prayed to Tārā and a great shower of nectar, able to cure death, rained down, and the great host of dead villagers were revived.

Now follow stories about the eight unaccomplished saints and the accounts of their perfection.

A certain monk who had made Tārā his tutelary divinity went off to gather alms so that he might build a temple. A Brahmin offered him a full measure of giham which he accepted and made into pills inside a certain Tārā temple. The remainder of the ingredients he put in the sun. The wind took the gold particles and the dust of herbs and other substances of the pills and scattered them. However, when the monk recited some mantras and counted them on his rosary, flames started to shoot from the middle of one pill in particular. The monk grasped hold of it and at one instant saw in his mind's eye the (celestial) city of the Thirty-Three Gods, visited them and resided there for 12 earthly years.

A farmer named Phu Phu, who had made Tārā his tutelary divinity, was digging in the ground when a subterranean door opened. Having arrived in the abode of the Nāgas and drunk some nectar, it is said that his body was transformed into that of a 'rainbow body'.

A Yogini who had inhabited a cemetery for 29 nights, during which time many corpses were cremated, recited Tārā's mantra and from the midst of the ash pile rays of light streamed forth. It covered her eyes and (from then on) she could become invisible even in the midst of her friends.

Join Words of the Buddha - daily Buddha Dharma teachings on Telegram channel:

https://t.me/wordsofbuddha

Telegram

Words of the Buddha

Daily teachings of Buddha Dharma