This Wednesday’s usual meditation/prayer has been changed to a Medicine Buddha prayer. This practice is beneficial for healing physical, mental, and emotional ailments.

22 OCT, WED 6:30 – 8pm

Recordings

Oct 12 recording: https://youtube.com/live/JzTQ-s4dJ-M?feature=share

The first class on the Eight verses of mind training.

Geshe la emphasizes the importance of questioning and logical reasoning rather than blind faith. One should choose their spiritual path through deep study and understanding of benefits.

Proof of Enlightenment’s Possibility

Geshe la poses a question to students, whether they believe enlightenment is achievable for all sentient beings, if so, provide proof of why it is possible. After discussion, Geshe la explains how to reason about the proof.

True Compassion vs. Ordinary Compassion

Buddhist great compassion differs from ordinary compassion by being completely impartial – extending equally to friends, enemies, all humans, animals, and beings in all realms, without leaving anyone out.

Oct 19 recording: https://youtube.com/live/GgFfb73SF9Y?feature=share

Introduction to Eight Verses (0:04)

• Eight verses designed to transform the mind through constant contemplation
• All Buddhist teachings ultimately aim to transform the mind, like airplanes landing at an airport
• Goal: make the mind expansive, open, and inclusive, not narrow or rigid

Importance of Study (0:12)

• with effort you can learn anything; without effort you know nothing
• Learning is easy; applying teachings to transform yourself is difficult

Mind Training vs Body Training (0:24)

• Body training improves physical health but cannot transform the mind
• Mind training makes mind peaceful and expansive, which automatically benefits physical body as well

Types of Minds (0:28)

• Small-minded: easily affected, quick to anger, fear, depression
• Stubborn like rock in river: never changes mind, no improvement possible
• Negative/harmful: readily steals, kills, takes advantage without hesitation
• Complacent: “as long as I have food and shelter, everything is cool”—wastes life avoiding effort

Purpose of Practice (0:36)

First Verse (0:37)

Second Verse (0:42)

Practicing with Suffering People (0:49)

Story of Asanga and Maitreya Buddha and how the Buddhas are always with us (0:52)

Clarifying Second Verse (1:07)

• Not about becoming inferior or losing confidence

Third Verse (1:15)

Examples of Guarding Mind (1:21)

Why Stop Negative Emotions (1:28)

• Should desperately wish to escape bad habits like a prisoner wanting to escape prison

Three Things to Take Home (1:30)

1. Buddhas are always with you: Even if you can’t see them, they are 100% there. Remember Maitreya’s words to Asanga.
2. Stop harmful impulses immediately: When desire to harm arises, recognize and stop it. If you can’t help, at least refrain from harming.
3. Contemplate impermanence: Think on impermanence frequently so you’re not swayed by emotions—good things won’t last, bad things won’t last. This keeps you peaceful.

2-day retreat

ཆོས་བརྡ་གསལ་བསྒྲགས། བྱམས་བརྩེ་ཆོས་གླིང་ཆོས་ཚོགས་ནས་གོ་སྒྲིག་འོག ། ཕྱི་ཟླ་བཅུ་པའི་ཚེས་བཞི་དང་ལྔ་ ཉིན་གཉིས་ཀྱི་རིང་ལ་རང་ཉིད་ཀྱི་ཚོཊ་བསཊ་སྒྲིབ་སྦྱོང་གི་ཆེད་དུ་དམིཊ་སྟེ་སྐྱབས་ འགྲོ་དང་ཐུབ་པའི་མཚན་སྔཊ་གྲངས་གསོག་གནང་རྒྱུ་ལགས་ན། འབྲེལ་ཡོད་དད་ལྡན་མི་མང་རྣམས་དུས་ཚོད་ཡོད་ན། དུས་ཐོག་ངེས་ཕེབས་ཡོང་བ་ཞུ་རྒྱུ།ཚོགས་དུས། རེས་གཟའ་སྤེན་པ་དང་ཉི་མ། ཕྱི་ཟླ་༡༠ པའི་ཚེས་༤ དང་༥ ཆུ་ཚོད་ ༡༡:༠༠ནས་༤:༠༠བར Hello Dharma Friends. We will have a 2-day retreat in October for taking refuge vows and Shakyamuni mantra recitations to accumulate merit. When:  Saturday, Oct 4th, 2025 from 11:00am to 4pm.  Sunday: Oct 5th 2025 from 11:00am to 4pm. Lunch will be served each day at 12:30pm. ཚོགས་ཡུལ་བྱམས་བརྩེ་ཆོས་གླིང་ཆོས་ཚོཊ་ཀེལ་གྷེ་རི། 924 36 St, SE. JamTse Cho Ling Tibetan Buddhist Temple -Calgary.

October Schedule

Hello Dharma Friends, This is the schedule for the month. 1 Oct, Wed 6:30 – 8pm Meditation and Tara Prayer 20m meditation followed by Tara prayer 4 Oct, Sat 11am – 4pm Shakyamuni mantra retreat Day 1 5 Oct, Sun 11am – 4pm Shakyamuni mantra retreat Day 2 8 Oct, Wed 6:30 – 8pm Meditation and Tara Prayer 20m meditation followed by Tara prayer 12 Oct, Sun 11am – 12:30pm Regular Dharma teaching Topic: Eight verses of training the mind 15 Oct, Wed 6:30 – 8pm Meditation and Tara Prayer 20m meditation followed by Tara prayer 19 Oct, Sun 11am – 12:30pm Regular Dharma teaching Topic: Eight verses of training the mind 22 Oct, Wed 6:30 – 8pm Meditation and Tara Prayer 20m meditation followed by Tara prayer 26 Oct, Sun 11am – 12:30pm Dharma teaching Q&A 29 Oct, Wed 6:30 – 8pm Meditation and Tara Prayer 20m meditation followed by Tara prayer Scheduling is subject to change, please refer to the website calendar for the latest schedule: https://jtclcalgary.ca/calendar/ You can also attend virtually on Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/4102590148?pwd=RkphclNKK21LUEQySmk1UVdSWnlMUT09

Regular Dharma Teaching

The Jam Tse Cho Ling Calgary Dharma teaching occurs every Sunday at 11am MT. The schedule can be checked on the website. Topic: Eight verses of training the mind Electronic copy of the prayer book for reciting before and after teaching:https://jtclcalgary.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/dedication-100dpi.pdf

Meditation and Prayer

We meet Wednesday evenings 6:30pm to 7:30pm for a meditation followed by recitation of Tara prayer. Prayer book: https://jtclcalgary.ca/prayer-books/#tara

Recordings

Sep 28 teaching recording Slides: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ynk-Hc1QOHnUqgHlOgCjtPRKqcQKI5Lx/view?usp=sharing Core premise: Mental suffering requires Buddhist psychology to resolve; physical doctors cannot address it On the Real Enemy The real enemy is not external people but the 6 root afflictions within. Believing in inherent self-existence is the root cause that triggers attachment, anger, and all suffering.This wrong view can lead to harming oneself and others. On Valid Knowledge & Certainty Buddha’s teaching: Cannot reach 100% certainty without direct valid perception Example given: Teacher cannot definitively say whether ghosts exist in the room without yogic direct perception. Achārya Dharmakīrti’s text Pramāṇavārttika cited: “Unless you have direct valid perceiver mind, you cannot conclude ‘this is it’ or ‘this is not it’”. Legal/accusation example: Cannot accuse someone of theft with certainty unless you have direct valid perception of the act. On Valid vs. Invalid ReasoningJust having a reason doesn’t make it valid.Invalid reasoning examples:Dark cloud over mountain → must be fire (wrong).Person carrying umbrella → must have rained (wrong – could be for sun protection) Valid reasoning example:Smoke behind mountain → fire exists (valid) Understanding Impermanence Through Reasoning We know we’re impermanent through inference, not direct perception Two reasons given: We exist due to causes/conditions (parents conventionally; past karma according to Dharma). Anything dependent on causes eventually disintegrates/ages. Discussion Examples & Analogies On Following Wrong Mind “If you are blind and require help, and the person helping you is also blind, you never get to the correct destination”. Currently we are “slaves” to believing in self-existence. This leads to attachment, anger, and potentially even harm. On Variable Mental Factors (Sleep example) If you pray/think positively before sleep → entire sleep becomes virtuous. If you go to bed with hatred/anger → entire sleep becomes non-virtuous On Regret as Variable Regretting harmful actions (killing, harming) → virtuous. Regretting generous actions (wishing you’d given less to poor) → non-virtuous On Non-Discerning Direct Perception Watching movie while someone talks beside you – you hear sound but don’t register meaning.. Eye/ear consciousness functioning but mental consciousness not engaging On Jaundice Example (Non-conceptual Wrong Consciousness) Person with jaundice sees white conch/mountain as yellow. Two conditions met:  (1) non-conceptual (direct eye consciousness),  (2) wrong (white is actually there) Other examples: seeing mirage as water, trees appearing to move backward while driving. Importance of This Study “Without knowing these divisions of mind, you won’t make real change in your life”. Other practices accumulate merit, but this study creates genuine transformation. Required for serious practitioners who want actual results.