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Buddhism

My name

  • Sonam Palden (Glorious Merit)

Tibetan Language

Four preliminaries (Ngöndro)

  • Preciousness of human birth
  • Impermanence
  • Suffering of all sentient beings because of samsara
  • Karma

Three jewels - taking refuge in

  • Buddha, Dharma, Sangha

Ten virtues

  • Body: protect life, give generously, maintain one’s discipline
  • Speech: speak honestly, reconcile, speak pleasantly, speak meaningfully
  • Mind: generosity, loving kindness, correct view of reality

Ten non-virtues

  • Body: killing, stealing, sexual misconduct
  • Speech: lying, divisive speech, harsh speech, pointless gossip
  • Mind: greed/covetousness, harmful intent, wrong view (denial of cause and effect)

Four Noble Truths

  • The truth of suffering (Dukkha)
  • The truth of the origin of suffering (Samudāya)
  • The truth of the cessation of suffering (Nirodha)
  • The truth of the path to the cessation of suffering (Magga)

Four Seals of the Dharma

  • All conditioned phenomena are impermanent
  • All defiled phenomena (emotions) are suffering
  • All phenomena are empty and lack self
  • Nirvana is beyond extremes

Fourteen Samayas - Tantric vows to avoid

  1. Deriding the Guru
  2. Transgressing the words of the Buddha
  3. Accusing one's Vajra brothers and sisters out of anger
  4. Abandoning loving kindness for sentient beings
  5. Relinquishing Bodhiccita
  6. Deriding the teachings of Sutra and Tantra
  7. Disclosing confidential teachings
  8. Mistreating one's own body
  9. Raising doubt about the View
  10. Keeping bad company
  11. Failing to reflect on emptiness
  12. Deterring those with faith
  13. Failing to observe the Samaya commitments
  14. Denigrating women

Five Skandhas (aggregates)

  • Form (or material image, impression) (rupa)
  • Sensations (or feelings, received from form) (vedana)
  • Perceptions (samjna)
  • Mental activity or formations (sankhara)
  • Consciousness (vijnana)

Six Ayatanas (sense bases)

  • Eye and visible objects
  • Ear and sound
  • Nose and odor
  • Tongue and taste
  • Body and touch
  • Mind and mental objects

Eighteen Dhatus

Six sense objects

  • Visible forms
  • Sounds
  • Smells
  • Tastes
  • Textures
  • Mental objects

Six sense faculties

  • Eye faculty
  • Ear faculty
  • Nose faculty
  • Tongue faculty
  • Body faculty
  • Mental faculty

Six sense consciousnesses

  • Eye-consciousness
  • Ear-consciousness
  • Nose-consciousness
  • Tongue-consciousness
  • Body-consciousness
  • Mind-consciousness

Five poisons (Kleshas)

  1. Ignorance
  2. Attachment
  3. Aversion
  4. Pride
  5. Jealousy

Three poisons

  • Attachment
  • Hatred
  • Delusion

Sutras

  • Tripitaka (generic name for collections), contains
    • Sutra (authentic words of Buddha)
    • Vinaya (monastic rules)
    • Abhidharma (abstract and highly technical systematisation of doctrine)
  • Surangama Sutra
  • Pali Canon

Seven Vajra Points

  1. Buddha
  2. Dharma
  3. Sangha
  4. Buddha-nature
  5. Enlightenment
  6. Qualities
  7. Enlightened activity

Six Stains

  1. Pride
  2. Lack of faith
  3. Lack of effort
  4. Outward distraction
  5. Inward tension
  6. Discouragement

Cheka's Seven Points of Mind Training

  • The Preliminaries, the Basis for Practice
  • The Main Part, Training in Bodhichitta
  • Transforming Adversity into the Path to Awakening
  • Applying the Practice Throughout One’s Life
  • The Measure of Mind Training
  • The Commitments of Mind Training
  • The Precepts of Mind Training

Empowerments

  • 2022: Vajrakilaya
  • 2023: Lama Norlha
  • 2023: ?
  • 2023: Buddha Amithaba
  • 2023: Outer Tara
  • 2023: Inner Tara
  • 2023: Secret Tara
  • 2024: Kurukulle
  • 2025: Manjushri
  • 2025 Guru Rinpoche (Phakchok Rinpoche)
  • 2025 Vajrasattva (Phakchok Rinpoche)
  • 2025 Vajrakilaya (Phakchok Rinpoche)
  • 2025 Barché Lamsel
  • 2025 Sampa Lhundrup
  • 2025 Zabtik Drolchok

Eight Freedoms

  1. Not born in a hell realm
  2. Not born among the pretas, or tortured spirits
  3. Not born an animal
  4. Not born among savages
  5. Not born a long-life god
  6. Not holding totally erroneous views
  7. Not born in a dark Kalpa, where no Buddha has appeared in the world
  8. Not born with impaired sense faculties

Five Circumstantial Advantages

  1. A buddha has come
  2. He has taught the Dharma
  3. The teachings have survived
  4. There are followers of the teachings
  5. There are favourable conditions for Dharma practice

Five Personal Advantages

  1. Being a human being
  2. Born in a central land
  3. With faculties intact
  4. Lifestyle not harmful or wrong
  5. With faith in the three pitakas

Five Stains

  1. Stain of being fully attached to this life
  2. Stain of having no certainty in the working of karma, cause and effect
  3. Stain of clinging to happiness within samsara
  4. Stain of cherishing one's own benefit
  5. Stain of clinging to entities and characteristics as being truly existent

Five Realisations

  1. Realisation that future lives are more important than this present life
  2. Realisation that karma, cause and effect, work infallibly
  3. Realisation that samsara is painful
  4. Realisation that the benefit of others has much more benefit than our own
  5. Realisation that the ultimate is emptiness and the relative illusion

Buddha Properties

  1. Unconditioned
  2. Spontaneous
  3. Self-awareness
  4. Wisdom
  5. Impartial and limitless loving kindness
  6. Enlightened ability

Bodhicitta Pledge

Ho! So that all sentient beings, my mothers,
can attain the level of enlightenment,
I will refrain from harmful actions, gather virtuous deeds,
and always develop bodhicitta to benefit others.

Supplication to Tara

Quintessential embodiment of all the Buddhas of the three times,
resplendent exalted Guru and noble Tara, inseparable, I beseech you!
Please bestow your blessings upon me!
Bless me to thoroughly subdue all the stains of my distorted views,
to bring forth all aspects of genuine realization,
and to overcome all obstacles to actualizing the Mahayana teachings.

Meal Offering

To the precious Buddha, unsurpassable Teacher,
to the precious Dharma, unsurpassable Refuge,
to the precious Sangha, unsurpassable Guide,
to the three Jewels, the sources of Refuge, I make this Offering.

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