Photo: OHHD
His Holiness the Dalai Lama concluded a three-day teaching on the Four Noble Truths and their Sixteen Characteristics, The Thirty-Seven Factors of Enlightenment as well as Nagarjuna’s Commentary on Bodhicitta in the Tsuglakhang main Temple in Dharamshala on September 6. The teaching was requested and sponsored by a group from Asia and attended by an estimated 6,500 people from 69 different countries.Each of the teaching days started with prayers and chants and the event was broadcasted live and simultaneously translated into English, Chinese, Vietnamese, Hindi, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Italian, Spanish, German, Thai and Indonesian.
On the first day His Holiness gave an introduction to the Four Noble Truth, emphasising the importance of love and compassion. His Holiness explained that all religions in the world convey a message of tolerance and contentment as they all share the principle of love and compassion. The nature of all human beings is love and to be loved so ultimately the essence of religion is human relations to practice compassion. “Seeing the positive benefits of spiritual practice, whatever tradition people follow, I work to promote love and compassion as well as to encourage inter-religious harmony”, His Holiness said.
As His Holiness elaborated on the Four Noble Truths, he explained change and the inability to accept impermanence as root of suffering, saying that by clinging on to the idea of self as well as a static condition of life we experience suffering within our mind. Buddha’s wisdom teachings offer a profound understanding to overcome the ignorance and the idea of an independent existence of self which ultimately leads to liberation.At the end of the day, he reminded the audience to always question the teachings in order to understand them on the basis of reasoning instead of just following his teachings out of affection and admiration towards his person.
The second day was dedicated to Nagarjuna’s Commentary on the Awakening mind. His Holiness said that the session was intended as a class, rather than a formal discourse. He read and explained the text and at the end there was an opportunity for questions. The lecture mainly focused on the awakening mind and emptiness. “The ultimate clear light mind absorbed in emptiness, which serves as the antidote to the final defilements, is the awakening mind of Bodhichitta referred to in the text”, His Holiness explained.
On the final day of the teaching, His Holiness continued to read and complete the text of the Awakening Mind. He concluded the day by stating that when you understand that there is a means to overcome suffering, you can generate a wish to help others do just that. The teaching was then finalised with a ceremony for generating the awakening mind of Bodhichitta.
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