Lama Tsongkhapa’s A Prayer for Birth in Sukhavati is one of the great devotional verses in Mahayana Buddhism. Alongside The King of Prayers and Maitreya’s Prayer of Love, this prayer is one of the nine great prayers in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. It is also an important practice text composed to help us cultivate the aspiration and enthusiasm we need to practice the entire path to enlightenment. As always, Geshe Tashi’s emphasis in these teachings will be on how we can best experience the material for ourselves.
At this point in the text we begin to look at topics included in the middle scope of the Lam Rim teachings – seeing the shortcomings of all of our conditioned existence, the good and the bad together. We seek to see the scope of our difficulties, to see that they have no essential essence of their own, and then turn our mind towards the possibility and attractions of emergence. As Geshe Tashi highlights in his commentary, here Lama Tsongkhapa captures the overall middle scope practice in a few short paragraphs.
Geshe Tashi then turns to the great scope teachings. What makes confidence and how can we cultivate it? What qualities do we need to help us work for others? Geshe la begins a teaching on the Four Wisdoms, to be continued next week.
We look forward to seeing you then at the same time.
With best wishes,
The Admin Team
You can find details of upcoming classes as well as the text available for download here.
https://foundationsofbuddhistthought.org/