Lamrim glancing meditation.

Preliminaries

· Guru Yoga.

1. Who reveals the path.

2. Embodies the teachings.

3. Who is the Buddha entering our awareness.

· Leisure and Fortune.

1. Through meeting the teachings of the guru, our rebirth becomes a perfect rebirth.

2. We have the opportunity and capacity to practice dharma.

3. Temporary Value – Health, wealth and good conditions.

4. Ultimate value – Complete release from Samsara.

5. Value in every instant – The opportunity of utter joy of each moment of life through joining it with Dharma. With Love, Compassion, generosity, patience, joy, equanimity, wisdom, concentration and so forth.

Small Scope

· Impermanence

1. Death is definite - Reflect that such a life is impermanent, like a bubble in water.

2. Time of death uncertain – With limited time we know we must practice dharma.

3. Only Dharma can help – Therefore we must do the thing that is of most value to ourselves and other. Practice dharma now, in this moment, at this instant. Generating the minds of love, compassion and wisdom now! Practice dharma now!

4. Practice Dharma properly and purely – As dharma is the only thing that can help us in this life and the next we must practice properly and purely and so we take refuge in the 3 Jewels.

· Refuge

1. Buddha Jewel – As the embodiment of the goal of refuge.

2. Dharma Jewel – As the means to its attainment.

3. Sangha Jewel – As the community of supporting practitioners.

· Karma

1. Abandoning the negative.

2. Cultivating the positive.

3. Deconditioning the mind from negative karma of the past.

4. Purifying negative karma through the 4 opponent powers.

5. Constantly directing ourselves the positive, to virtue.

Medium Scope

· Suffering – 4 Noble Truths

1. True Suffering –

§ 8 Sufferings

· Birth.

· Aging.

· Sickness.

· Death.

· Meeting the unpleasant.

· Separation from the pleasant.

· Not gaining what is desired.

· The 5 contaminated aggregates.

§ 6 Sufferings

· Uncertainty.

· Dissatisfaction.

· Discarding your body again and again.

· Being reborn again and again.

· Constant change of status.

· Loneliness.

§ 3 Sufferings

· Manifest suffering.

· Changeable suffering.

· Pervasive suffering.

§ Paranoid and painful states of the hell realms.

§ Grasping states of the preta realms.

§ Ignorant states of the animal realms.

§ Confused states of the human realms.

§ Competitive states of the demi-god realms.

§ Indulgent states of the god realms.

2. True Source

§ Suffering is created by us not by others, not by those that seem to afflict us but, by the mind that engages them improperly through the force of delusion and karma. Thus the true source of suffering is our own delusion.

· Attachment.

· Anger.

· Pride.

· Ignorance.

· Doubt.

· Deluded View.

1. View of the Transitory Collection.

2. Extreme View

3. Holding a false view as supreme.

4. Holding false ethics and conduct as supreme.

5. Preserve View

§ All of these arise from not understanding the nature of reality. From not realizing emptiness. From an ignorance adhering to inherent existence which is a non-existent imaginary.

3. True Cessation

§ By knowing true suffering we strive for true cessation a state free from karma and delusion. A state no longer obscured by any form of ignorance. A state utterly free, utterly at peace and completely blissful.

§ True Cessation is the state where complete extinguishment of true suffering and true sources to the point that they will never return.

4. True Path

§ True Paths are the means for attaining True Cessations.

§ Just as a state of health is to be attained by the sick and the medicines to attain that state are to be relied upon, so True Cessations are to be realized and
True Paths are to be relied upon. True path are minds such aslove, compassion and wisdom and the 3 Higher Trainings.

§ The 3 Higher Trainings.

· Higher training is Wisdom – The wisdom that eliminates the ignorance that is the source of any form of suffering. The wisdom that cuts through the basis of samsara. The higher training in wisdom depends itself upon the higher training in concentration.

· Higher Training in Concentration – Which in turn depends on higher training in ethics.

· Higher Training in Ethics – The ethics of restraining from harm, of actively helping others and of cultivating virtue such as the
8 Fold Noble Path –

1. Correct View.

2. Correct Realization.

3. Correct Speech.

4. Correct Actions.

5. Correct livelihood.

6. Correct Effort.

7. Correct mindfulness.

8. Correct Meditative Stabilization.

Great Scope

· The Mind of Enlightenment.

1. With love for being that wishes them happiness, with compassion that would free them from suffering, we determine to become enlightened, to be of ultimate value to every living being, to be able to release them from suffering and bring them happiness.Ornament for Clear Realisation – Maitreya
Bodhichiita means: for the sake of others,
Wishing to attain complete, perfect enlightenment.

· The 6 Perfections -

1. Generosity.

§ Giving materially.

§ Giving love.

§ Give the dharma.

§ Give protection.

§ Conjoining with Bodhichitta and Emptiness, Generosity becomes the Perfection of Generosity.

2. Ethics.

§ Restraining from harming others.

· 10 non-virtues.

· Breaking vows.

§ Actively seek to help those in need, those that are suffering, those that are confused, those that are on the wrong path, those that are on the right path. The sick, homeless, those that are suffering.

§ Practice the ethics of consciously cultivating virtuous states or generating positive minds.

§ Conjoining with Bodhichitta and Emptiness, Ethics becomes the Perfection of Ethics.

3. Patience.

§ Not retaliating to the harm from others.

§ Voluntarily bearing suffering.

§ Remaining definitely immersed in the dharma.

§ Definitely thinking of dharma.

§ Definitely generating the minds of love, compassion and wisdom.

§ Conjoining with Bodhichitta and Emptiness, Patience becomes the Perfection of Patience.

4. Joyous Effort.

5. Concentration.

§ Generating Clam Abiding by removing agitation, excitement and dullness. Of achieving great steadiness, utter peacefulness of mind.

§ Conjoining with Bodhichitta and Emptiness, Concentration becomes the Perfection of Concentration.

6. Wisdom.

§ Then with this concentration we then actively remove the obscurations to liberation and the obscurations to omniscience by focusing our meditation on emptiness, on ultimate truth, on the non-affirming negative which is the final nature of all phenomena – their emptiness of inherent existence.

§ This emptiness implies dependant arising, ultimate truth implies conventional truth. Ultimate and conventional truths, emptiness and dependant arising are utter non-contradictory and support each other.

§ With Bodhichitta motivation our meditation on emptiness becomes the Perfection of Wisdom.