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Dispositions, motivations, and practices

Dispositions, motivations, and practices

Part of a series of teachings given during the Buddhism: One Teacher, Many Traditions Retreat in Jakarta, Indonesia. The retreat was organized by Ekayana Buddhist Center.

  • The initial capacity practitioner, the motivation and practices
  • The eight worldly concerns
    • Make us an emotional yo-yo and get in the way of practicing the Dharma
    • How we need to release our obsession with the happiness of this life
  • Thinking about our own mortality helps us set our priorities in this life and motivates us to prepare for the next life
  • With concern for future lives we look for a reliable guide and contemplate karma and its effects
  • The middle level practitioner is tired of being on the merry-go-round of rebirth in cyclic existence and wishes attain liberation
  • The motivation and practices of the middle capacity practitioner
  • How the advanced level practitioner develops the bodhicitta motivation and the practices to actualize his or her motivation

Jakarta Retreat 02: Overview of the path, part 2 (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.