14 Oct 2021
Questions on Selflessness consists of a dialogue between a group of followers of the Mahāyāna tradition and a group of tīrthikas, who pose several questions on the doctrine of selflessness.
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7 Oct 2021
After his attainment of buddhahood, the Buddha Śākyamuni is present in many locations simultaneously. The Ten Bhūmis takes place two weeks after his enlightenment, while he is sitting silently in meditation in the central palace in the highest paradise of the desire realm.
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30 Sep 2021
This sūtra describes the thirty-eight weeks of human gestation. It discusses conception, the composition of the embryo, the gestation period, the newborn being, the course of life and its sufferings, and the need to practice for one’s own good and the good of others.
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23 Sep 2021
In The Questions of Śrīvasu, the Buddha is approached by a young merchant named Śrīvasu, who requests instruction on how to live his life as a novice bodhisattva. Delighted by this request, the Buddha offers some pithy advice regarding the bodhisattva path that neatly summarizes the principal altruistic aims and practices of the Great Vehicle.
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16 Sep 2021
The Seal of Engagement in Awakening the Power of Faith consists of two lengthy discourses that address two separate inquiries voiced by the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī. At the beginning of the sūtra, the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī requests the Buddha to show how his followers should practice in order to attain the first bodhisattva level.
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9 Sep 2021
Subhūti sets off for town to collect alms. Eventually he arrives at the home of Strīvivarta, who immediately poses challenging questions to the monk on a series of profound subjects. In exchange after exchange, Subhūti does his best to reply to the laywoman, but she continuously confronts him with ever more provocative questions.
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2 Sep 2021
Distinctly Ascertaining the Meanings is a step-by-step contemplation of all facets of reality and freedom from suffering. It starts with the five aggregates that constitute the common basis of defilement and purification and goes through the teachings on selflessness, the path to realize selflessness, and the higher stages of realization, and it culminates in the special features that belong exclusively to a fully awakened buddha.
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26 Aug 2021
Bouquet of Flowers is a Great Vehicle sūtra in which the Buddha describes a vast array of wondrous, far-off world systems each inhabited by buddhas who teach the Dharma there.
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19 Aug 2021
This short discourse was taught to an audience of monks in Śrāvastī, in the Jetavana. The Buddha details thirty-seven ways in which the wise give gifts, how those gifts are properly given, and the positive results that ripen from giving such gifts.
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12 Aug 2021
The Gold Sūtra presents a very brief but meaningful teaching on the mind of awakening, the aspiration to attain the unsurpassed and perfect awakening of a buddha for the benefit of all beings. It consists of the Buddha’s answer to a single question posed by Venerable Ānanda about how the mind of awakening should be viewed.
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