Discovering the Buddha Within
A three year study and practice curriculum of Buddha Dharma created by His Holiness Tai Situ Rinpoche
Discovering the Buddha Within is an experiential learning program of the Buddha Dharma created as part of the vast vision of Guru Vajradhara His Holiness the 12th Chamgon Kenting Tai Situpa.
The purpose of this curriculum is to explain the essence of the Buddha’s teachings in a simple and detailed way. This three-year course follows the Buddha’s teachings on the three wheels of the Dharma, and continues with the sacred transmission of the four tantras that correspond to the three gradual levels of recognition of the ultimate nature of mind and phenomena.
For each level, the teacher will explain the view (intellectual understanding), meditation (experiential understanding), and application (applying this understanding to change one’s daily habits) of the topics according to Shravakayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. Through these three aspects: View, Meditation, and Action, one will discover the Buddha within oneself.
Meditations that form the core part of each level are divided into two sections: Shamatha (calm abiding) and Vipashyana (advanced insight).
Programme is starting in Palpung Sampel Chöling
6TH – 10TH SEPTEMBER 2023
We are delighted to let you know that this sacred, new 3-year study and practice programme “Discovering the Buddha Within” Level 1: Inner Peace will be starting at Palpung Sampel in Spain this coming autumn. We have been waiting for this for a long time!
This sacred transmission is open to everyone (both Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike).
This is an amazing opportunity to connect with the lineage and deepen the knowledge and understanding of the Buddhist path along with gaining practice experience in a gradual, step-by-step manner.
You can find more information of the curriculum and the different levels below.
The Discovering the Buddha Within curriculum consists of three levels (3 years):
1. Inner Peace 2.Awakened Heart 3. Original Purity
Level 1: Inner Peace
Focuses on calming the mind and developing insight and wisdom through some simple yet profound study, meditations, and contemplations derived from the Shravakayana teachings of the Buddha.
Awareness meditations and precise knowledge will allow students to discover inner peace, accept and let go of worldly concerns without grasping at or rejecting them, and develop a stable aspiration for genuine freedom.
What is learned at Level 1
In this level students will:
1. Learn the essence of meditation
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Develop and nurture awareness and inner peace using breath, body, feelings, thoughts, emotions, and phenomena as a support for meditation.
2. Learn the basics of Buddhism through knowledge and advanced insight meditation
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Understand the shortcomings of one’s life and the world, the origins and cessation of suffering, and the means to reach that cessation, along with understanding refuge -the starting point of the path to an everlasting state of well-being, rich with innate goodness and radiant pure qualities.
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Develop advanced insight meditation mainly based on experiential observation of the natural flow of everything as being impermanent.
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Level 2: Awakened Heart
Through meditations on loving kindness, compassion, joy, equanimity and so forth, students will learn to awaken their hearts and discover their innate goodness, further enriching the calm state of mind and deepening their meditation through recognition of emptiness, which is the essence of the Mahayana.
What is learned at Level 2
In this level students will:
1. Discover their inner goodness
- By discovering and cultivating love, compassion, appreciation or joy, and equanimity.
- By developing their potential through six perfect states of mind, the six paramitas.
- By training their mind to transform defilements into love and compassion.
2. Widen their motivation and outlook and gain deeper insight
- By learning about and meditating on bodhicitta, the awakening mind.
- By gaining an advanced insight that understands selflessness through direct experience.
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Level 3: Original Purity
Meditations connected with Buddha nature, which is the basis of Vajrayana, the last of Buddha’s teachings, will allow students to discover their enlightened nature, the primordial purity of the mind and the universe, and to experience pure perception of everyone and everything.
What is learned at Level 3
In this level students will learn:
1. Discover the primordial purity of their own mind and the universe
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By discovering through advanced insight their own buddha nature and the original purity of everything.
2. Learn how to reveal that purity
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By appreciating and developing gratitude for one’s own enlightened mind, by meditating on guru yoga, and by learning about creation and completion stage meditations according to the Vajrayana.
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Teachers of the Programme
The main masters who will teach the Discovering the Buddha Within curriculum are His Eminence Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche and other masters including His Eminence Gyalton Rinpoche and senior Khenpos of Palpung Sherabling Monastic Seat. H.E. Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche has agreed to lead the program, which started at Palpung Sherabling Monastic Seat in November 2022.
From 2023, H.E. Gyalton Rinpoche and four venerable senior Khenpos will also travel to Palpung monasteries and Dharma Centers worldwide each year to teach this curriculum. For the Spain the teacher who will teach here this year is His Eminence Gyalton Rinpoche.
Following the annual teachings, resident Lamas from each centre will be offering follow up sessions with regular practice gatherings at each Palpung Centre.
After receiving the teachings by any of the appointed teachers and for a proper
follow up of this study curriculum, each student will be granted a username and password to access an online study platform, via which they will be able to send questions to the khenpos.
“All sentient beings, having buddha nature, will attain enlightenment ultimately. It may take some sentient beings a long time to purify their defilements and recognise their buddha nature, but others may become enlightened more quickly. It is based on how the individual being pursues the path to realisation, and what choices are made. One thing is certain: all beings will be able to do this because their essence is buddha.
— Tai Situ Rinpoche, Awakening the Sleeping Buddha
“Ignorant sentient beings are unaware of of their buddha nature because of their dualistic aspect of their minds. The dualistic mind of a sentient being does not recognise the essence of his or her nature. Some degree of buddha nature is recognised in the dualistic mind of a bodhisattva or a developed indivisual. When a person becomes buddha, the dualistic aspect of mind is totally purified. Mind is beyond dualism. The fully awakened person becomes the embodiment of buddha nature, transcending all limitations.
— Tai Situ Rinpoche, Awakening the Sleeping Buddha