Living in the Path Online
Realizing the Lamrim, Emptiness: Smashing the Delusions

Overview

Living in the Path is an online program taught exclusively by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, the spiritual director of the FPMT. Many of the modules are extracted from Rinpoche’s explanations of the topics of the lamrim – the teachings on the stages of the path to enlightenment according to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition of Lama Tsongkhapa (Gelug). Other modules cover specific practices intended to help us purify our negative karma and create the merit necessary to actualize the lamrim topics.

Prerequisites

Living in the Path is ideal for anyone who wishes to deepen their personal practice and develop the realizations of the path to enlightenment by relying on Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s heart advice and teachings. However, as Rinpoche’s teachings often assume familiarity with the topics of the lamrim, it is advisable to have done some prior study of the lamrim, such as by having completed some or all of the modules of Discovering Buddhism.

Course Contents

In this module of Living in the Path, Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains the meaning of an often-recited verse from the Vajra Cutter Sutra:

A star, a defective view, a flame,
An illusion, a drop of dew, a bubble,
A dream, a flash of lightning, a cloud:
See causative phenomena as such."

In doing so, Rinpoche urges us to be mindful in our daily live of how we ourselves and all the objects of our attachment, anger, and ignorance are impermanent in nature and empty of true existence.

“Look at causative phenomena” basically means that you recollect the specific objects that are your objects of attachment, anger, and ignorance. Remember those main objects of the delusions. Then, meditating on this verse is like throwing an atomic bomb on your enemy, the delusions, in that instantly they are smashed. (Lama Zopa Rinpoche)

Course Materials

The course materials consist of 43 pages of lightly edited transcripts drawn from the Light of the Path Retreats 2009 and 2010 held in North Carolina, USA. This module is introduced in a video featuring Ven. Lhundup Jamyang.

Chapters:

1. Being Mindful Brings Peace
2. It’s Like Throwing an Atomic Bomb
3. Like a Star
4. The Remaining Analogies

To help you deepen your personal understanding and experience of the teachings, the chapters are supplemented with:

• points for reflection at the beginning of each chapter
• guidelines for meditation
• mindfulness practices for keeping the teachings present throughout the day
• a service practice to benefit others

A “Certificate of Achievement” is granted upon the successful completion of all the course requirements.

Important information about your order of online materials: Following your order, you will receive an email with a link to a webpage to download a PDF document which will contain the enrollment key for the course and instructions on how to access the course on the FPMT Online Learning Center.