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Meditating on emptiness: The four point analysis, part 1

Meditating on emptiness: The four point analysis, part 1

Part of a series of teachings on The Easy Path to Travel to Omniscience, a lamrim text by Panchen Losang Chokyi Gyaltsen, the first Panchen Lama.

  • Vocabulary and definitions important for understanding the teachings on insight and selflessness
  • Everything seems very real and concrete when in fact they exist dependently
    • Looking at examples to see how things are dependent—manners, relationships, democracy
  • We impute labels and meaning onto things and think that the meaning is inherently part of the object which evokes emotions and actions such as the confederate flag, national borders
  • The two meanings of self and selflessness
  • The word my seems like a harmless word but when we attach the word my to something all kinds of things happen
  • Explanation of the meditation on the selflessness of persons
  • The first point: Evoking a strong sense of I to see how the innate grasping apprehends the self
  • The second point: If such an I existed, it could only exist in one of two ways, there is no third option

Easy Path 58: Meditating on emptiness: The four point analysis, part 1 (download)

 

Venerable Thubten Chodron

Venerable Chodron emphasizes the practical application of Buddha’s teachings in our daily lives and is especially skilled at explaining them in ways easily understood and practiced by Westerners. She is well known for her warm, humorous, and lucid teachings. She was ordained as a Buddhist nun in 1977 by Kyabje Ling Rinpoche in Dharamsala, India, and in 1986 she received bhikshuni (full) ordination in Taiwan. Read her full bio.