Dharma Wheel

Tibetan is much easier to get up and going with but you have already done that. Along that vein, can you recommend a place to start learning Tibetan? It depends on if you want to learn colloquial or classical Tibetan. They really are two different sets of skills. If you want to learn colloquial Tib...

Is it possible, without participating in a cpurse, to get a decent level of skill in reading Sanskrit using books and online resources? Not really. Despite books being named " Teach Yourself Sanskrit " you really need to take about three years of course work to get going. This is just a g...

mutsuk wrote: Decency should be a key point in this issue. The price of so-called restricted books are not decent. It is a good fate for them to end up for free on the internet.

I agree that the price of these books should be descent. Sorry, I haven't understood your other points.

This is nonsense. What is good enough for Tibetans who may or may not have received initiations should be good enough for Westerners who may or may not have received initiations for reading such and such a book. What is nonsense? You did not seem to understand my post. As I said, I understand that ...

Just an FYI, saw that Elizabeth Callahan has translated this, along with Kongtrul's commentary, and it will be available as a restricted text in September from Shambhala. Website says you must have completed ngondro, have had pointing out instructions, and be practicing HYT yidam under the guidance...

Just an FYI, saw that Elizabeth Callahan has translated this, along with Kongtrul's commentary, and it will be available as a restricted text in September from Shambhala. Website says you must have completed ngondro, have had pointing out instructions, and be practicing HYT yidam under the guidance...

Sherlock wrote:Harvard's South Asian and Himalayan Studies site says they very rarely take students in for a one year master's.

They basically don't but the Harvard Divinity school offers a masters.

Does anyone have any info about Virginia in terms of funding and residency requirements? Or Harvard? Funding might ultimately be the most important factor. Harvard PhD programs offer a fully funded five year package but two of those years will require you to teach. If you go longer than five years,...

And, also glad to know that many of the masters teaching this set of instructions have complete devotion towards H.H. the Dalai Lama.

What are the different schools' opinions on the need for some level of sutrayana style shamatha skill before starting on creation stage (like what Alan Wallace is saying)? I mentioned in another thread that I was confused by Alan's approach. I understand that developing a stable mind by way of conc...

Konchog1 wrote:Do anyone know good sources for the various visualizations that can be done during Migtsema practice for various benefits?

Those instructions should be included in this text:
https://awakeningvajrapubs.org/products ... es-tushita

also try here:
http://anandadharma.org/GandenLha

Can you give me a synopsis of what he is teaching here that makes it a Dzokchen retreat? I'm not sure if I will get around to listen to them. Is he just teaching different types of methods for developing samatha including object-less type stuff? I'm more enquiring because I have some friends who pr...

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but from what I can work out (from friends who attended a couple of his retreats) is that Alan has put together his own system and draws on different teachings in the Pali, Gelug and Nyingma with a particular emphasis on shamatha. I am not sure what lineage this woul...

I would like to know what tibetan buddhist traditions Alan Wallace and Matthieu Ricard belong? Alan Wallace seems to be a Gelugpa and I think Nyingmapa, and Matthieu Ricard is a Gelugpa Alan Wallace started out in the '70s as a Gelug monk in their geshe program. He never completed it. These days he...

No. Buddhaghosa lists several possible readings of tathāgata: tathāgata = tathā (thus) + gata (gone) > Thus-gone tathāgata = tathā (thus) + āgata (come, arrived) > Thus-come For some strange reason most later commentators have got stuck with these two. They both demand rather equilibristic interpre...

So it seems we should be translating tahtāgatha as "{thus/truth}-{gone/arrived}" ! :tongue: Joking aside, Kare that is an interesting interpretation. Zhen Li suggests that most Sanskrit commentators seem to read it as both "thus-come" and "thus-gone" is that your unders...

Tom, I am just telling you that if you get a vigraha of tathāgatha or any others of these terms you're not going to learn anything new. You realise that just about anyone can interpret a text whatever way they want and just write their own preferred vigraha? Sometimes they are garbage. And part of ...

Well, CamelCase certainly is English, since it's used. The question is whether it works nicely in this case. Maybe it doesn't. As regards your questions, yes there is ambiguity as regards whether bodhisattva was originally bodhisatvan or bodhisakta in the Prakrit. In the PP in 8000 Lines you can se...

Yes, what I meant then was both a compound and semantic solution. I think if you choose to use CamelCase for some terms like this, then the two definitions of the words must be functionally similar, and contextually relevant. Okay, it still seems rather awkward to me but that is just my feeling. Fo...

Here's the wikipedia article about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CamelCase I have found that tihs might be useful for some Sanskrit Compounds, where meanings are ambiguous. For instance: tathāgata, could be, Thus–ComeGone–One, or Thus ComeGone One, or Thus–ComeGone One. bodhisattva, could be, A...