Tending the Buddha Within

Course Resources

Session 4

Video: https://vimeo.com/796110773/958369ba8b

Week 4 Slides

Practice This Week

  • Trusting Buddha Nature Meditation

  • Explore your Buddha Nature image/simile – does it work with a collective, shared understanding of mind? Play with images and metaphors – dance, write, paint your concept of Buddha Nature to incorporate this new understanding

  • Practice a contemplative reading of Thay's verses on the Nature of the mind, or any aspect of today's teachings to rest into this model of consciousness

  • Explore the mirror-like mind of direct perception: try seeing just colors and shapes, and let the labels dissolve – hear sounds as sounds without added stories – experience thoughts without them being “my thoughts” - meet all phenomena as natural process

Resources

Article: Yogacara
Article: Alaya-vijnana, Store Consciousness
Podcast: Bonnie Duran on the Five Hindrances
Book: Thich Nhat Hanh - Understanding our Mind
Extra: The Mother Tree Project

Music

Birdtalker, One
Sweet Honey in the Rock, We Are

Session 3

Video: https://vimeo.com/793932474/cd3b66afd6

Note: some of the traditional language carries strong non-Buddha Nature connotations with words like “impure” and “defilements.” This is part of the challenge of working with old text translated, often from Victorian-era dictionaries.
Week 5 will focus on a contemporary, trauma-informed perspective of “defilements” as protectors, like the husk of a seed.

Week 3 Slides

Practice This Week

Three Doors of Liberation Meditation
Connect with a Buddha Nature metaphor or create your own
And/or try a Contemplative Reading of a passage in the slides or try the texts below (see instructions in Session 1)

Resources

Tathāgatagarbha/Buddha Embryo Sutra
Srimahadevi Simalanada Lion' Roar Sutra
Anunatva-Apurnatva-Nirdesa/No Increase No Decrease Sutra
Mahayana Mahaparinirvana/Nirvana Sutra
Mahayana Angulimaliya Sutra
Lankavatara/Sri Lanka Sutra

Music

Stevie Wonder, As
Jon Batiste, Freedom

Session 2

Video: https://vimeo.com/791709828/3278375259

Note: some of the traditional language carries strong non-Buddha Nature connotations with words like “impure” and “defilements.” This is part of the challenge of working with old text translated, often from Victorian-era dictionaries.
Week 5 will focus on a contemporary, trauma-informed perspective of “defilements” as protectors, like the husk of a seed.

Week 2 Slides

Practice This Week
Luminous Mind Meditation
move/do a task from Buddha Nature
And/or try a Contemplative Reading of a passage in the slides or the Sutras below (see instructions in Session 1)

Resources

Diamond Sutra, Flower Garland (Avatamsaka) Sutra (excerpt), Lotus Sutra (about)
The Three Doors of Liberation by Thich Nhat Hanh

Music

Breathing and Walkking (“let the Buddha breathe…”)
Wishless, Joe Reilly

Session 1

Video: Click here for full session

https://vimeo.com/789567944/9431b2ef90

Suttas:

Pabharassa Sutta: Luminous * Upakkilesa Sutta: Obscurations * Pansadhovaka Sutta: The Dirt-washer

This Week: Try out the contemplative reading of one of the suttas (in the slides and emailed to you) and the meditation

Contemplative Reading

1 - Read a passage slowly, aloud - which words speak to you?

2 - Read the passage again and focus on the word(s) that stood out - does this give the text a new meaning?

3 - Read the passage a third time and listen to your heart – what are the ancestors, the Buddha, your heart saying to you through this?

4 - Rest with all of this in silence

Resources

Slides, including text for the suttas

Introduction to Buddha Nature - Tricycle Magazine

Scholarly Research - Bhikkhu Analayo “The Luminous Mind in Theravāda and Dharmaguptaka Discourses”

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche on Buddha Nature with short guided meditation