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Review of Chapter 5

Review of Chapter 5

The qualities of bodhisattvas and how they train in all actions of body, speech, and mind to attain full awakening. Part of the series of talks on Aryadeva’s Four Hundred Stanzas on the Middle Way.

  • How deeply studying and contemplating these teachings can inspire us
  • Using our creative, symbolic minds rather than our intellectual minds
  • The mind is the most powerful tool in accomplishing the bodhisattva deeds
  • Virtuous motivation is the key to making neutral actions virtuous
  • Bodhisattvas are particularly compassionate towards the unwise
  • How we can apply the bodhisattva deeds in our own lives, at our level
  • The five superknowledges
  • We practice in order to have strong and happy minds

34 Aryadeva’s 400 Stanzas: Review of chapter 5 (download)

Venerable Thubten Semkye

Ven. Semkye was the Abbey's first lay resident, coming to help Venerable Chodron with the gardens and land management in the spring of 2004. She became the Abbey's third nun in 2007 and received bhikshuni ordination in Taiwan in 2010. She met Venerable Chodron at the Dharma Friendship Foundation in Seattle in 1996. She took refuge in 1999. When the land was acquired for the Abbey in 2003, Ven. Semye coordinated volunteers for the initial move-in and early remodeling. A founder of Friends of Sravasti Abbey, she accepted the position of chairperson to provide the Four Requisites for the monastic community. Realizing that was a difficult task to do from 350 miles away, she moved to the Abbey in spring of 2004. Although she didn't originally see ordination in her future, after the 2006 Chenrezig retreat when she spent half of her meditation time reflecting on death and impermanence, Ven. Semkye realized that ordaining would be the wisest, most compassionate use of her life. View pictures of her ordination. Ven. Semkye draws on her extensive experience in landscaping and horticulture to manage the Abbey's forests and gardens. She oversees "Offering Volunteer Service Weekends" during which volunteers help with construction, gardening, and forest stewardship.

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