Lam Rim Flashcards
3 Types of beings practicing Buddha’s Teaching
1) Small Scope Beings - favorable rebirths
2) Middle Scope Beings - personal Nirvana
3) Great Scope Beings - attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings
5 Types of Teaching for Different Scopes
1) Teaching for the small scope person
2) Teaching in common with the small scope.
3) Teaching for the middle scope person.
4) Teaching in common with the middle scope.
5) Teaching for the great scope person.
Practices for the small scope
1) Taking refuge in the 3 jewels
2) Reflect on the preciousness of human birth
A) Rare to obtain
B) Can end at anytime
C) Must practice Dharma now in this life since more opportunities are uncertain
3) Reflect on the efficacy of the law of Karma
4) Reflect on the demerits of Samsara and the miseries of lower realms
5) Practice morality, avoid the 10 non-virtuous actions
The 8 Leisures (Freedoms)
1) Non-human states such as hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals and celestials with long lives.
2) The suffering of those in bad states of rebirth is so intense they cannot think about spiritual practice.
3) Celestial beings with long lives are absorbed in sensual pleasures or the pleasure of concentration and cannot develop an aversion to cyclic existence.
4) The body and the mind is not suitable as a basis for vows of any kind.
5) Holding wrong views such as that there are no past and future lives and that there is no karma.
6) Being born a barbarian in a remote place with no access to the Dharma.
7) Being born at a time when the Buddha’s teaching do not exist in the world.
8) Having defective faculties which serve as a serious impediment.
The 10 Endowments (Fortunes)
1) Being born as a human.
2) Being born in a place where the dharma exists and there are ordained men and women.
3) Possessing healthy faculties
4) Not having created any seriously negative actions like the 5 Heinous Actions or the 5 Almost as Heinous Actions.
5) Having faith in spiritual teachers, the 3 kinds of training, and texts.
6) A Buddha has come to the world.
7) The Buddha has lit the lamp of teachings.
8) The teachings are alive insofar as there are people who hear, think and meditate on them.
9) There are those who can be looked upon as role models because of their exemplary practice of the teachings.
10) Support and encouragement for practitioners is available.
10 Non-virtuous Actions
Three Physical:
1) Killing
2) Stealing
3) Sexual misconduct
Four Verbal:
4) Harsh words
5) Telling lies
6) Idle gossip
7) Slander/ divisive words
Three Poisons
8) Desire (attachment)
9) Anger (aversion)
10) Ignorance (wrong view)
Practices for the middle scope
Three Higher Trainings to remove afflictive obscurations supported by renunciation
1) Wisdom - wisdom of emptiness to cut the root of self grasping ignorance
2) Shila - morality, refraining from non-virtues
3) Samadhi - meditative concentration
Practices for the great scope
1) Wisdom - 3 Higher Trainings
to remove afflictive obscurations
2) Method - cultivate Bodhicitta
