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The Buddha’s life

The Buddha’s life

A talk given during Sravasti Abbey’s annual Exploring Monastic Life program in 2006.

Prince Siddhartha

  • Story of the Buddha’s life before he left the palace

Exploring Monastic Life 2006: Session 1, 1-4 (download)

The mendicant

  • Continuing the story of the Buddha’s life
  • Renounce dukkha of cyclic existence

Exploring Monastic Life 2006: Session 1, 2-4 (download)

Enlightenment

  • Attaining enlightenment
  • Buddha’s first teaching
  • What it means to renounce cyclic existence

Exploring Monastic Life 2006: Session 1, 3-4 (download)

Questions and answers

  • Good karma to benefit from Buddha’s teachings
  • Different ways of seeing the Buddha in Theravada and Mahayana tradition
  • Buddha’s companions contributing to his enlightenment
  • Omniscience
  • Enlightenment: in this lifetime, or three countless great eons

Exploring Monastic Life 2006: Session 1, 4-4 (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.