Table of Contents

Introduction

More than 2,500 years ago, Siddhartha Gautama, a prince of the Sakya clan located in Lumbini, Northern India, gave up his title and all of his possessions and set out to discover how to be free from suffering and achieve spiritual liberation. After six years of extreme ascetic practices, Siddhartha, which means “he who achieves his goal”, became enlightened under a bodhi tree near Bodh Gaya, India. After his enlightenment and for the next 45 years until his death, Buddha Shakyamuni taught the Buddha Dharma to all those interested in attaining spiritual liberation. His teachings encompassed many subjects including: the Four Noble Truths, Compassion, Loving-kindness (Tsewa), and the defects of Ego-clinging (Shenpa) to help lead people to enlightenment.

Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche has dedicated his life to preserving and promulgating these teachings, and presents these in his unique manner to today’s students. The following are excerpts from these teachings:

 The Four Noble Truths

One of the first teachings the Buddha gave after his enlightenment was on the Four Noble Truths. These truths are:
  •  The world is full of suffering or dissatisfaction; 
  •  There is a cause of this suffering;
  •  There is an end to suffering; and 
  •  There is a path to the end of suffering.   
The Buddha’s timeless wisdom on the truth of suffering and the cause of suffering is more relevant than ever as we navigate this increasingly uncertain and polarized time.  Venerable Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche illuminates these teachings of the Buddha in his unique style here:
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Tsewa: The Tender Heart of Enlightenment

We know when our heart is open and when it is closed. We’ve tasted the warmth and freedom of an open heart and suffered with tightness and coldness when it is not. In his book, Training in Tenderness: The Radical Openness of Heart that Can Change the World, Rinpoche introduces the notion of tsewa, a warmth and openness of heart that all sentient beings are capable of. Tsewa is naturally present at the core of our being.

In this series of videos drawn from a conversation with Pema Chodron, Rinpoche delves deeply into the many dimensions of this profound insight:

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Patience

Everyone can reap the benefits of having more patience. That is not just a maxim; there is a practical way to increase our patience through the Buddhist teachings. Read and watch Rinpoche’s teachings on patience:
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Shenpa: The Visceral Experience of Ego-Clinging 

In Buddhism we speak about the false belief in an ego or self and how clinging to that self creates suffering. Sometimes this notion of clinging to the self may seem abstract. What does it feel like when we cling to the self? It is important to be able to identify that experience. The raw, visceral experience of self-clinging and the suffering it produces is known as shenpa in Tibetan. Read and watch Rinpoche’s teaching on shenpa:
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The Five Skandhas

Have you ever asked yourself what your experience consists of? An examination of the aspects of our experience, known in the Buddhist Abhiddharma teachings as the five skandhas (or heaps) is central to understanding selflessness.   
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Dependent Origination

“Whoever sees dependent origination sees the Dharma;
 Whoever sees the Dharma sees dependent origination.” – Buddha Shakyamuni

The Buddha taught that everything arises due to causes and conditions, that nothing exists independently. This teaching refutes both eternalism (that things exist permanently) and nihilism (that nothing matters). Instead, the Buddha revealed the Middle Way, that all phenomena are interdependent, impermanent and empty of an inherent self.

Rinpoche’s teachings on dependent origination can be read here: 

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The Four Marks of Existence

The Buddha taught the Four Marks of Existence, also known as the Four Dharma Seals, to help liberate people from the cycle of suffering by revealing to them the true nature of conditioned existence. The Four Marks of Existence are:  
  • That all compounded things are impermanent;
  • That all contaminated phenomena is suffering/dissatisfaction;
  • That all phenomena are empty and have no permanent, unchanging self;
  • That Nirvana is peace.
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Additional Resources

Discover books, magazines, and teachings by Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche other fellow respected Buddhist teachers in our collection. 

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