Venerable Thubten Chodron Offers Insightful Teaching on Sūtra, “Creating Our World,” in Honor of Chökhor Düchen

On Chökhor Düchen, about 350 practitioners watched 84000’s Teaching on Sūtra with Venerable Thubten Chodron, “Creating Our World,” hosted by Joie Chen. A pioneering teacher of Tibetan Buddhism and founder of Sravasti Abbey, Venerable Chodron focused her teaching on The Rice Seedling, which is considered one of the most important sūtras on the topic of dependent arising. Venerable Chodron provides a humorous and clear teaching on dependent arising as it is described in the sūtra: all things arise when causes and conditions come together, including ourselves. She also discusses the relationship of impermanence, emptiness, and rebirth in the context of dependent arising.

The session concludes with her insightful commentary on the Buddhist eightfold path.

‍‍‍About Venerable Thubten Chodron

‍Venerable Chodron teaches worldwide and is known for her warm, practical, and humorous explanations of how to apply Buddhist teachings in daily life. She is also involved in prison outreach and interfaith dialogue. She has published many books on Buddhist philosophy and meditation and is currently assisting His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the writing and publication of The Library of Wisdom and Compassion, a multi-volume series of teachings on the Buddhist path. Visit thubtenchodron.org for a media library of her teachings, and sravastiabbey.org to learn more about Sravasti Abbey.

Related Reading:

1. The Rice Seedling, (Toh 210). In this sūtra, at the request of venerable Śāriputra, the bodhisattva mahāsattva Maitreya elucidates a very brief teaching on dependent arising that the Buddha had given earlier that day while gazing at a rice seedling. The text discusses outer and inner causation and its conditions, describes in detail the twelvefold cycle by which inner dependent arising gives rise to successive lives, and explains how understanding the very nature of that process can lead to freedom from it.
2. The Rice Seedling and its Fruit, three minutes introduction video by Do Tulku
3. The Rice Seedling article by Rory Lindsay