Forgetting Future Life, Heaven & Veganism: Force For Good Lam Rim | 1/31/2018

Forgetting Future Life, Heaven & Veganism: Force For Good Lam Rim with Robert AF Thurman

In this short video Professor Thurman discusses the value of re-examining all worldly beliefs including belief in past and future life, heaven and even veganism.

Full archive video recording explores the history of the “Lam Rim: Stages of The Path” a collection of mind training teachings preserved in Tibet & their connection to the Buddhist Tantra. Professor Thurman provides an introduction to these cherished practices as refined + passed down by Tsongkhapa & the Dalai Lama lineage.

Archive Video includes a discussion the First Dalai Lama, past + future lives, The Three Kinds of Suffering and concludes with a guided meditation on the exchange of Self + Other, Mother Kindness Recognition & the Causal Steps used in Tsongkhapa’s Lam Rim teachings.

“The ancient Buddhist understanding, which is also taught by people like St. Francis and in other spiritual traditions like the Sufis, is that the worldly person is insane, actually, from the point of view of the dharma person or spiritual person, while the spiritual person can be expected to be considered insane by the worldly person.

The worldly person lives for the purpose of this life. They want to get everything out of this life: get membership in this society, make their money, get their fame, get their status, have their relationships. That’s really what they’re living for.

The spiritual person is seeking to become an infinite being – to become the vast one – in the theistic tradition, becoming one with the divine, and in the Buddhist tradition to become a Buddha. Therefore, worldly success is defined in a different way: this life is seen as an evolutionary opportunity for you to evolve toward becoming an infinite being, and therefore you’re not that interested in the goals of status and success within the context just of this life. That becomes less interesting to you.”

Robert AF Thurman via www.awaken.com

‘A Force For Good’ is a Tibet House US course to further the Dalai Lama’s contemporary world initiatives, from His Holiness’ American Institute of Buddhist Studies and Mind & Life Institute science dialogues (Universe in a Single Atom) and His creation of Abhidharma 2.0 through the “Science for Monks” programs, his “secular ethics” (Ethics for the New Millennium and Beyond Religion), His nonviolent approach to conflict resolution, including His Nobel Peace Laureate activities to seek dialogue and a win-win reconciliation with China in the face of the ongoing ethnicidal policies in Tibet (Freedom in Exile and Man of Peace: The Illustrated Life Story of Tibet’s Dalai Lama) & along with his emphasis on positive activism (A New Reality: Charter of Universal Responsibility).

“Modern Mendicants – No Haircut, No Free Lunch : Force For Good Lam Rim” is an excerpt from the Tibet House US #ForceForGood Class Series Video: “Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Sources : Madhyamaka Lam Rim with Robert Thurman“.

To join the on-going #ForceForGood series please visit: www.tibethouse.us.

To watch more videos from past ‘Force for Good’ programs please visit the Tibet House US Member Archive, available to monthly supporters.

Full access starts at $2 a month.

? Music by Tenzin Choegyal, Used with Permission www.tenzinchoegyal.com