Ven. George Churinoff’s March 2013 Teachings on YouTube

Guhyasamaja Center had the honor of hosting Venerable George Churinoff in March of 2013. He taught the FPMT Discovering Buddhism on Death & Rebirth, a class on Calm Abiding, and one on Emptiness. Recordings of all his classe are available on our YouTube channel.

Our YouTube channel also has recordings of Gyumed Khensur Rinpoche’s blessing of the Center and Lorne Ladner’s classes.

Enjoy!

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DB Samsara and Nirvana Homework for May 8

May 8 subject areas: understanding the afflictive emotions; karma.

Questions:

1. Do the lists of three, six, and eight sufferings  seem complete? Have you experienced a type of suffering that is not included in one of these categories? How are the three lists related?

2. Samsara is defined as the continuum of the contaminated five aggregates. Or, samsara is the continuum of an ordinary person bound by the mental afflictions to the five aggregates. In your own words, define renunciation from samsara.

3. Second Noble Truth, the origin of suffering. Explain why ignorance is the root cause of samsara. Be sure to discuss  the relationship between ignorance and the six root mental afflictions.

Readings: In the Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand and the Required Readings, finish reading about the six afflictions and twenty secondary afflictions; read about karma. Wish Fulfilling Golden Light of the Sun — concentrate on the 3rd PDF file.  You might also want to explore the Four Noble Truths in greater depth.

Meditations – for students who have attended class, please visit the URL given out in class. A nice Lam Rim meditation guide has been posted. Please do the meditations for the topics covered during our last class.

If you have any questions or feedback about the class, please feel free to contact me. I hope you are enjoying the class and finding it to be of some benefit to your practice.

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DB Samsara and Nirvana Homework Due April 17

Discussion Topic for April 17 class:  Second Noble Truth — Origin of Suffering, karma, ignorance, afflictive emotions.

Homework: Please explain the following verses based on our discussion of the Six  Sufferings and Three Sufferings and the generation of renunciation:

The pain of walking, one sees,
Decreases when doing the opposite.
Thus the intelligent generate
The intention to end all action. (v. 159)

The wise feel the same fear for even
A high rebirth as for the hells,
It is rare indeed for a worldly state
Not to produce fear in them. (v. 164)

If childish people ever perceived
The suffering of cyclic existence,
At that moment both their mind
[And body] would completely fail. (v. 164)

~ Aryadeva Four Hundred Stanzas on the Middle Way

Meditation suggestion: meditate on examples from your own life for each of the Six sufferings and Three sufferings. Then think of how someone you dislike experiences the same suffering. See if you can generate compassion for them based on your understanding of emptiness, karma and delusion.

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DB Samsara & Nirvana: Homework due April 10

In our first class we introduced the concept of samsara and defined it as the “continuum of the contaminated five aggregates.”

Please take a look at this blog post for an alternative definition before answering the following questions: http://guhyasamajacenter.wordpress.com/2010/03/29/what-is-samsara/

1) come up with your own analogy for samsara and share it with us.

2) take an opposing view point and list some reasons countering the definition of samsara (either the simple one, contaminated five aggregates, or the more refined definition that Rinpoche explained); pull apart the definition, word by word, examine it and challenge it. To clarify: The task is to examine the definition of samsara as being: “the continuum of the contaminated 5 aggregates”.

So you might challenge the assertions contained within the definition. These are:

1) the mind is a beginingless continuum with previous moments of existence giving rise to the next moment,
2) that our 5 aggregates are contaminated in the sense that it they are dependently arisen — yet we mistake self and phenomemon as inherently existing and this gives rise to afflictive emotions and actions,
3) the definition of the self as consisting of the 5 aggregates.

Do you agree with each of these assertions? Maybe…maybe not.

Share your thoughts using the Comment feature, or email me anitendrol@guhyasamaja.org.

Meditation suggestions: (written response not expected) reflect carefully on the 8 sufferings and think of examples from your own life. Think of these sufferings as the symptoms of an underlying sickness. Try to identify the self who experiences the 8 sufferings. Can you find it?

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Discovering Buddhism: Samsara and Nirvana Schedule Change

The Discovering Buddhism Module 9, Samsara and Nirvana class will meet from 10 am to noon (instead of 1:00 – 3:00 pm). I’ve decided to extend the class by half an hour in order to ensure that we have time for meditation as well as group discussion. In some of the previous classes, we seemed to run out of time particularly for the group discussion.

Samsara and Nirvana concentrates on people of the middle scope — that is, people whose main motivation is to seek liberation for themselves.

Those who seek peace for themselves alone –

Turning away from worldly pleasures

And avoiding destructive actions–

Are said to be of middling capacity.
~ Atisha, Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment

To put this in context, people of the lower scope are driven by the desire to avoid taking rebirths in the lower realms.  Practitioners of the great scope strive to attain Enlightenment not just for themselves but for the benefit of all sentient beings. The topics of meditation are the four Noble Truths, primarily suffering and its origin and the twelve dependent links. Through our discussions, we’ll explore how these concepts help us understand our human condition and how we can use them to break free of  negative thought patterns.

If you’re interested in joining this class but haven’t attended any of the earlier Discovering Buddhism modules, I’d suggest that you pick up one of the many books on the Lam Rim such as Geshe Sopa’s Steps on the Path to Enlightenment, Pabongkha Rinpoche’s Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, or Yangsi Rinpoche’s Practicing the Path. It would be helpful for you to come to class with some familiarity of what the Buddha taught and why it is so relevant in today’s society.

As in our other classes, discussion and meditation questions will be posted on the blog after class.

The June 5th class is open to everyone — not just students in this class. It will be a silent meditation retreat and will provide an opportunity to reflect more deeply on what we’ve learned.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me: anitendrol@guhyasamaja.org.

March 27, April 10, April 17, May 8, May 15, June 5
(Spring break April 3, no class)
10:00 AM- 12:00 pm
The Unitarian/Universalist Church, 1625 Wiehle Ave., Reston VA 20190, downstairs

Please visit the Center’s calendar on our website for more information and other events.

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Daily Practice Homework Oct 24 2009

Dear Establishing a Daily Practice students,

If you don’t have a meditation space and altar in your home, please set one up. It doesn’t have to be complicated.  If you already have an altar, you might want to re-examine it in light of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s guidance in the required readings hand-out. I’ll expand the discussion on how to prepare an altar in the next class.

Readings:

Please come to class next week having read: Required Readings handout — pages 1 – 17; 57 – 64.  Wish fulling golden light of the sun — pages 1 – 68. These readings will be very helpful for understanding why a daily practice is so important and for setting your motivation. If you are coming primarily from a Zen / Theravadan background, you’ll also find these readings to be interesting.

Also, order a copy of  the practice manual “Shakyamuni Buddha – A Daily Meditation on Shakyamuni Buddha” from the FPMT online shop. Written by Lama Zopa Rinpoche for use by beginning students, it is a clearly outlined practice complete with guided meditations for developing one’s motivation, the mind of refuge, and the thought of bodhichitta. In addition the practice contains mantra recitation and visualization based on Shakyamuni Buddha and a Lam-rim prayer in the form of a request for blessings to develop all the realizations on the path to full awakening. We will use this prayer book during class and you should try to do this practice daily. It takes 3 – 5 days for your order to arrive from FPMT. This practice is not available as a PDF download from FPMT, unfortunately, I checked. The practice is included in Essential Prayers Volume 1 in case you already have that book.

Please print the following prayer booklet. We will be doing some of these prayers together in class: 8 prayers to benefit the dead.

You might want to use a meditation journal to record your thoughts and observations. This can be helpful for tracking changes over time.

Sugggested Activity:

• On a piece of paper, write down your short-term goal for your daily practice just until the end of this course in early December. For example, your goal might be to do the Shakyamuni Daily Practice three times a week, and maybe calm abiding or vipassana meditation the other four days a week. Be realistic!  This is for your personal use only, you will not be asked to share your goals in class.
• Do at least three prostrations a day using whichever version you feel comfortable with.
• Recite at least ten malas of the Chenrezig mantra, OM MANE PADME HUM
• Recite as many Medicine Buddha mantras as possible, TAYATA OM BEKANZAY BEKANZAY MAHA BEKANZAY RADZA SAMUDGATAY SOHA

Discussion Question:

Do you find it difficult to establish a daily practice, and if so, why? What kind of experience in your life would it take to change your mind? Why do you think people tend to turn to the Dharma in times of stress and then abandon their practice when things are going well?

Please share your thoughts with the group using the Comment feature below.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via email: anitendrol@guhyasamaja.org.

Best wishes,

Tendrol

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Welcome to Establishing a Daily Practice

Hi, please check here for weekly class assignments. Use the comment feature to share your ideas or ask questions. Please be respectful and kind in your responses. Posts are moderated so your contributions will not show up immediately.

If you are currently not enrolled in this class but are visiting the blog, you are welcome to read the postings, however, please do not post answers.

Each week’s homework will be posted here as a new entry. Simply post your response as a comment. I will review your response and give you some feed back. If you would rather respond privately, you can email me at: anitendrol@guhyasamaja.org. Even if you don’t have time to prepare a written response, please read the questions and think about them.

(If you are new to blogging, please take a quick look at the Blog Rules and Guidance. One curious thing about this blog is that there’s no built in “Print” feature. So if you want to print out the questions, you can highlight the text with your mouse, click Ctrl + C and then paste the text into a word processing program.)

Enjoy your practice!

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March 15 Homework

Questions:

“sentient beings’ karma and the buddhas’ actions have equal power” — as quoted by Lama Zopa Rinpoche in a commentary on a Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga text. Please explain this quote.

“Giving to your Guru is the same as making continual offerings to all the Buddhas. From such giving much merit is gathered. From such collection comes the supreme powerful attainments of Buddhahood.” 50 verses of guru devotion ~ Asvaghosa Please explain this verse. Hint: remember the Six Perfections?

“Having become the disciple of such a protecting Guru should you then despise him from your heart, you will reap continual suffering as if you had disparaged all the buddhas.” 50 verses of guru devotion ~ Asvaghosa Please explain this verse. Are the faults that you are seeing coming from your side? Or the teacher’s side? Is the teacher testing you?

In a teaching on faith, Gyumed Khensur Rinpoche used the analogy of someone throwing down a strong rope to a person who had fallen down into a deep pit. What do you think he meant? Hint: the rope is the faith.

Meditation:

please read and reflect on this prayer:

The Hundred Deities of the Land of Snow http://www.gadenforthewest.org/prayers/LamaTsongKhapaSadhana_1_5.pdf

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Presenting the Path: Homework Jan 19

Questions

1. List several counter-arguments to the attitude that people who are suffering misfortunes are “getting what they deserve” because of the non-virtuous actions that they committed in the past.
2. Explain this statement by Geshe Sopa “…if you do not have any trust in karma and its results, then the whole structure of Buddhism has no base, no ground.”
3. Choose an example from your own life of a non-virtuous or virtuous action and please describe the basis, thought, action, and culmination of the action.

Daily Prayer

The Foundation of All Good Qualities

Daily Meditation

Karma, as outlined in The Lam Rim Beginners Outline available here: http://www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Buddhism/A%20-%20Tibetan%20Buddhism/Subjects/The%20Stages%20of%20the%20Path/Lam%20Rim%20Outlines/lam_rim_outline.pdf

A beautiful printed version is also available from FPMT’s shop (www.fpmt.org)

* * *

If you  prefer to respond privately, please email me at spc@guhyasamaja.org.  Lorne and I welcome your feedback about the class.

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Homework: Jan 5

1. What does it mean to attain Enlightenment?
2. How will practicing Buddhism help me improve my relationships both with myself and others in the near term?
3. “We usually look outside for our enemies. But Buddhist yogis realize there is no enemy outside, the real enemy is inside.” Method, Wisdom and the Three Paths” by Geshe Sopa p. 12 of the Required Readings. Explain briefly how self cherishing is the source of all our troubles.
4. Why is being born in the human realm considered so precious, and how can we best use our short lifespan?
5. Why is it so necessary to have a spiritual teacher?

Daily Prayer

Foundation of All Good Qualities by Lama Tsong Khapa
http://www.lamayeshe.com/otherteachers/khapa/ltk_fdtn.shtml

Daily Meditation

When you first wake up in the morning, spend a few minutes rejoicing that you are alive because of all the positive karma that you created in the past, remember that death or illness may strike at any time thus cutting short your opportunity to practice Dharma — to accumulate merit by helping others, and to remove negative karma. Then get out of bed, do 5 – 10 minutes of a simple breathing/mindfulness meditation. When your mind feels focused, spend at least another 5 – 10 minutes on the weekly analytical meditation topic (e.g., precious human rebirth). Close with a short dedication of merit.

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