Accurately taking refuge in the Buddha is said to be the one single act that makes any person a Buddhist. And so the next ACI course explores how we do this: how we seek protection from the pain of life, within our heart. Incidentally we cover other important ideas of Buddhism associated with refuge: the Wish for enlightenment, the bodhisattva, nirvana, emptiness, and Buddhahood itself.This course is founded in the fourth topic—the Perfection of Wisdom—and includes readings from commentaries upon the Jewel of Realizationscomposed by the future Buddha, Maitreya (shown here), with Arya Asanga (c. 350AD). These commentaries were written by Kedrup Tenpa Dargye (1493-1568), an esteemed author of textbooks for the geshe curriculum at Sera Mey Tibetan Monastery.
Test
Translated by Adam Andrade with Geshe Michael Roach
The promise of these ancient books, for more than two thousand years, is that there exists—in tandem with the world we know—an invisible higher world, going on around us all the time. We can call it the “Diamond World,” but a simpler (and easily misunderstood) name is simply “Emptiness.”
