26 Jun 2024
Since 84000 launched our vast Reading Room more than thirteen years ago, the multi-layered database of Buddhist terms, places, people, and other information found in the collection of the Buddhist Kangyur and Tengyur published texts has continued to grow. It …
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26 Jun 2024
This short text presents a set of mantras that, when placed inside a stūpa, multiply the merit of having built one stūpa by one hundred thousand. These dhāraṇīs are specifically said to be of benefit to future generations whose merit will be weak.
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21 Jun 2024
While the Buddha Śākyamuni is staying in Śrāvastī, a bodhisattva named Dharmaketu asks him what qualities a bodhisattva must possess in order to reach awakening quickly. In response, the Buddha enumerates the ten most important qualities for bodhisattvas to cultivate.
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18 Jun 2024
While giving teachings at Vārāṇasī, the Buddha Śākyamuni discerns that the time is right to train King Udayana of Vatsa. When he meets the king, who at the time is embarking on a military expedition, the king flies into a rage and tries to kill the Buddha with an arrow. However, the arrow circles in the sky, and a voice proclaims a verse on the dangers of anger and warfare. Hearing this verse, the king pays homage to the Buddha, who explains that an enemy far greater than worldly opponents is the affliction of perceiving a self, which binds one to saṃsāra.
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18 Jun 2024
Discerning that the time is right to train King Bimbisāra, the Buddha Śākyamuni goes to Magadha, along with his entourage. The king is hostile at first but when his attack on the Buddha is thwarted and a verse on impermanence is heard, he becomes respectful.
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14 Jun 2024
The Dharma Council is a Great Vehicle sūtra in which the path of a bodhisattva is taught initially by the Buddha, but principally by a host of bodhisattvas and śrāvakas. Among them, the bodhisattva Nirārambha takes center stage, delivering long discourses and engaging in dialogues and debates on the key points of Great Vehicle Buddhism.
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13 Jun 2024
Atisha Mathur was volunteering as a cook, brewing coffee in the kitchen at the Deer Park Institute, when Khyentse Foundation held a conference there in March 2009 that gave birth to 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha. Since then, he has completed 10 years of an intensive 16-year-long program in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics (IBD), in Dharamsala, India, and is on track to complete a PhD in Buddhist Studies at L’Orientale, in Italy, with an emphasis on Madhyamaka.
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11 Jun 2024
On Chökhor Düchen 2024, a day that celebrates the Buddha’s first turning of the wheel of Dharma, 84000 will host a Teaching on Sūtra with Venerable Thubten Chodron. A pioneering American Buddhist practitioner, teacher and founder of Sravasti Abbey, Venerable Chodron will teach on The Rice Seedling sūtra, one of the most important Buddhist texts on “dependent arising.” We hope everyone will join us for this online event.
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5 Jun 2024
In The Acceptance That Tames Beings with the Sky-Colored Method of Perfect Conduct, the Buddha Śākyamuni and several bodhisattvas deliver a series of teachings focusing on the relationship between the understanding of emptiness and the conduct of a bodhisattva, especially the perfection of acceptance or patience.
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4 Jun 2024
The Questions of the Nāga King Anavatapta is a discourse that provides guidance on core features of the bodhisattva path, including the perfections, mindfulness, and meditation, with a strong orientation toward emptiness as the inexpressible ultimate nature. As the Buddha is teaching at Vulture Peak Mountain near Rājagṛha, a nāga king named Anavatapta approaches, questions him on these topics, and receives instruction on them.
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