Three Dharmachakras, Indicative & Definitive Meaning, Two Truths, Shamatha & Vipashyana

Description

During the 1994 Treasury of Knowledge Retreat, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche taught on four topics: (1) The Three Dharmachakras or periods of Buddha's teaching (Talks 2-4); (2) Indicative and Definitive Meaning (Talks 4-5); The Two Truths (Talks 6,8,10 & 12-14); and (4) Shamatha and Vipashyana meditation (Talks 7, 9 & 11). Distinguishing between indicative and definitive meaning runs through the first three topics. The teaching on the periods of Buddha include profound information about the characteristics of Buddha's teaching, what he taught, how he taught, when he taught, and how Buddha's students met after his death to collect and record his teachings. In Rinpoche's talks on The Two Truths he discusses the distinctions between them and the reasons or need for distinguishing between them. This discussion concludes with brief presentations on the assertions made about The Two Truths by the Buddhist Tenet Systems (Vaibhashika, Sautrantrika, Prasangika and shentong). Finally, in the three talks on Shamatha and Vipashyana Rinpoche taught the benefits of cultivating samadhi, the obstacles to cultivating shamatha and vipashyana, and several shamatha practices. These retreat teachings were transcribed, but we are unsure where copies of the transcripts can be purchased. Translation was provided by Lama Yeshe Gyamtso. These precious recordings have never been available for purchase until now. Due to technical difficulties, the audio cassette recordings were only recently produced in MP3 format for audio download. The sound is very clear. This is the Full Tibetan version which includes all of DPR's talking in Tibetan. Fourteen talks. No videos were made during this retreat.