The Index Page provides an outline of the topics discussed in each of the lectures. Click on the links below to go directly to a particular lecture.

VOLUME 1

Lecture 1

• Practicing Dharma
• Actualizing the path
• Compassion: Reasons to develop
• Compassion: Universal responsibility

Lecture 2

• Compassion: The best way to be selfish is to cherish others
• Bodhicitta: The disadvantage of anger
• Bodhicitta: The benefits of patience
• The importance of compassion
• The meaning of life

Lecture 3

• Dedicating our life for others
• The disadvantages of self-cherishing: Working just for the self
• Dedicating our life for others
• Bodhicitta: The benefits for ourselves and for others

Lecture 4

• The realization of impermanence and death is the source of happiness in life
• Following the dissatisfied mind brings problems
• The dissatisfied mind causes illness
• The evolution of human beings and skin cancer
• Renouncing desire frees us from problems

Lecture 5

• The wrong concept of permanence
• Facing death without the Dharma
• The is no anger when there is an understanding of impermanence
• The Heart Sutra recitation
• The meaning of life is to benefit others in three ways
• The three levels of practice
• We need to actualize the whole lamrim
• The qualities of a buddha

Lecture 6

• Meditation on impermanence and emptiness before the Heart Sutra
• The Prayer to the Lineage Lamas
• Conventional and absolute bodhicitta
• Conventional and absolute Dharma
• The five Hinayana paths
• The five Mahayana paths
• The lower and higher tantras
• Conventional and absolute Dharma and Sangha
• Vajrasattva practice

Lecture 7

• Meditation on the reality of life
• The real I can’t be found
• Like a dream
• Jorchö Lama Chöpa
• The need to practice
• The four kayas
• The meaning of rig

Lecture 8

• Emptiness: Like a dream
• Emptiness: We need a valid base
• Emptiness: The three ways of seeing a magician’s illusion
• Emptiness: How we see things is just one view of many
• Emptiness: First recognize the hallucination

Lecture 9

• Motivation: Universal responsibility
• Direct and inferential valid cognition
• Emptiness: The nyi of tong pa nyi
• The emptiness of letters and numbers
• The emptiness of money
• Having faith in the Buddha as a valid source

Lecture 10

• Emptiness: Real appearance as a hallucination
• Only the mind can remove the cause of the problems
• How realizations protect us
• We need to rely on the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha as our doctor, medicine and nurse
• Causal and resultant refuge
• Saying the refuge prayer

VOLUME 2

Lecture 11

• The importance of compassion
• The importance of compassion: Stories from the Buddha’s past lives
• What a bodhisattva is
• The need to study the mind
• Rinpoche’s Amdo trip
• The nature of the body and mind
• Reincarnation can’t be disproved

Lecture 12

• The suffering of change
• The need for compassion
• The shortcomings of following self-cherishing
• The benefits of remembering impermanence and death
• The problems of not understanding the mind
• The goal of life
• Q&A: Reincarnation

Lecture 13

• Practicing Dharma to benefit sentient beings
• The nature of the mind
• Western science is about external development
• Attaining clairvoyance
• The generation and completion stages of Highest Yoga Tantra
• Lama Yeshe’s astral travels
• Reincarnation stories
• Lama Yeshe and Ösel Rinpoche

Lecture 14

• Samsara and nirvana are completely empty
• The meaning of the Heart Sutra mantra
• Why we are afraid to die
• Spirit harm and pujas
• Stories about spirits and pujas
• Suicide
• Perfect human rebirth: This body is so precious
• Powa and the end of life
• Curing disease with meditation
• It’s wise to prepare for death

Lecture 15

• The need to subdue the mind
• Perfect human rebirth
• Awareness and concentration are not enough
• The three principal aspects of the path
• The importance of motivation: Four people recite the Tara prayer

VOLUME 3

Lecture 16

• Phenomena don’t exist as they appear
• Karma: The four suffering results of sexual misconduct
• Karma: The four happy results of abstaining from sexual misconduct
• Individual and collective karma: The drought in Africa
• Three beings see a bowl of liquid differently
• The appearance at death comes from the mind
• Everything comes from the mind

Lecture 17

• The purpose of the eight Mahayana precepts
• The three types of suffering
• The disadvantages of self-cherishing
• The kindness of others
• The eight Mahayana precepts ceremony

Lecture 18

• The eight Mahayana precepts motivation: The four noble truths
• The eight Mahayana precepts motivation: How the twelve links work
• The eight Mahayana precepts motivation: Everything comes from the mind
• The eight Mahayana precepts ceremony

Lecture 19

• The main mind and mental factors
• Buddha nature
• Understanding buddha nature brings hope

Lecture 20

• The eight Mahayana precepts motivation: The disadvantages of self-cherishing
• Experiencing disease without the self-cherishing thought
• The preliminary practices

Lecture 21

• Obscurations are temporary
• Even the concept of I can be eliminated
• In emptiness our mind and the Buddha’s are the same
• The ultimate nature of the mind is buddha nature

Lecture 22

• The eight Mahayana precepts motivation: The benefits of bodhicitta
• Bodhicitta is worth more than any other realization
• All happiness comes from bodhicitta

Lecture 23

• Mental consciousness and memory
• Rinpoche visits morgues, old people’s homes and institutions
• Rinpoche’s gurus
• Panchen Rinpoche
• Becoming one with the guru
• Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche and the start of Root’s destitute home

VOLUME 4

Lecture 24

• Eight Mahayana precepts motivation: The four wrong concepts
• The need for bodhicitta

Lecture 25

• Experiencing problems on behalf of others is the most beneficial thing
• The nature of self-cherishing
• The shortcomings of the self-cherishing thought
• Exchanging self with others
• Black food and tobacco

Lecture 26

• Buddha nature and subtle dependent arising
• Maitreya’s nine examples of buddha nature
• Buddha statues, merit and obscurations
• More of Maitreya’s nine examples of buddha nature

Lecture 27

• Eight Mahayana precepts motivation: With bodhicitta nonvirtues become virtues
• The four suffering results of killing, stealing and lying
• The results of not committing the ten nonvirtues
• The benefits of bodhicitta

Lecture 28

• Meditation on impermanence and death
• “This chronic disease of cherishing the self”
• Advice for practice
• The benefits of reciting the lamrim prayer
• Vajrasattva
• “This is no time to sleep!”
• Universal responsibility
• The kindness of Lama Yeshe
• The karma to practice Dharma
• Dedication

Lecture 29

• Refuge ceremony motivation: The nature of samsara
• Refuge ceremony motivation: The need to be free from all three types of suffering
• Refuge ceremony motivation: The benefits of taking the vows
• Refuge ceremony motivation: The general precepts
• Refuge ceremony