Message from Lama Shenpen:
In late March we will be running the online course on the theme of the precepts.
This course is based on the teachings and discussions the Shrimalagana did with me during their training.
For those of you who want to train to be a core member of the Awakened Heart Sangha this is a course essential for your training. It is also recommended for all students regardless of the level of their training.
The reason it is essential is because the precepts are fundamental guidelines for how to live a life that causes as little harm to ourselves and others as possible. More than that, they point us in the direction of how to contribute to the welfare of ourselves and others through our actions of body, speech and mind.
In essence, when we are aligned to our true nature of Openness, Clarity and Sensitivity, we will naturally and spontaneously be able to always act in a way that is beneficial to ourselves and others. However, before we have stable realisation of that nature, we are continually faced with moral dilemmas and conflicts of interest and we need to set strong boundaries for ourselves about what we will and will not do.
It is these boundaries, the precepts, which stir up emotions of unease and even turmoil when they are pushed. Having taken the precepts and then having gone against them, their boundary guardians will stir us up, telling us something is wrong. Something must be protected and not transgressed.
This alerts us to apply our Dharma principles and align ourselves strongly with our true Heart Wish and to not get carried away by our distorted emotions, perceptions, notions and false assumptions. The precepts become our warning system and protection from negative karma and keep us firmly on the path to Awakening.
I hope many of you will take this opportunity to participate in the course and contribute to the discussions online. It is an opportunity to deepen your knowledge of the Buddhist tradition and its practical teachings on how to live our lives.
All the training in the Awakened Heart Sangha is called Living the Awakened Heart. The principles in DHB and THB are taken deeper through working on the six areas outlined in the Living the Awakened Heart booklet. All the online courses, retreats, materials and events in the Awakened Heart Sangha are aimed at taking the DHB principles deeper by means of the six areas.
For those of you not yet familiar with the Living the Awakened Heart Training, the six areas are as follows:
· Love and compassion: Allowing boundless goodwill to others to rise
up in us.
· Investigating our experience: Noticing and letting go of our
mistaken assumptions about the nature of our experience
· Relating to the World: How to act and relate to the world and
others, making all our life activities into the path to Awakening, so that appropriate action flows spontaneously from our hearts.
· Understanding the nature of being: Studying and reflecting on the
vision of reality presented by the Buddhist tradition, thereby opening ourselves to see new possibilities in our experience.
· Focusing our intention: Linking to our Heart Wish so that our
intention has great power to move us effortlessly along the path.
· Strengthening our connections to the Mandala of Awakening:
Allowing its adhistana to draw us into it.
The precept online course comes under the third area: Relating to the World.
It also brings in doctrinal features such as karma cause and effect and the Buddhist model of the universe that assumes past and future lives and so on but these will not be the central feature of the course and you don't have to believe in all of that in order to benefit from the course.
Participation on this course is by donation only. We have suggested £20, however, please adjust the total at the payment stage accourding to your inspiration and means.
Yeshe will send more information closer to the start date.