Understanding emptiness: Part 1

Questions and answers on emptiness: Part 1 of 3

Question-and-answer session following teachings given by Khensur Jampa Tegchok on Nagarjuna's Precious Garland.

  • Balancing the practice of love and compassion and bodhicitta with the practice of emptiness
  • Clarifying the meaning of “causes cease before the result begins”
  • The meaning of non-conceptual realization
  • Realizing dependent arising before realizing emptiness
  • Emptiness as ultimate purification
  • The two kinds of self-grasping, of persons and phenomena
  • Our ability to have a direct perception

Precious Garland: Emptiness 01 (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.