Charla impartida en español con traducción al inglés por Nagapriya. | Talk given in Spanish with English translation by Nagapriya.
As part of the series on Vasubandhu’s Four Factors at the 2023 Pan-American Convention, Saddhajoti delivers a hugely insightful talk on Dharma practice as a precursor to the emergence of the Bodhichitta. She illustrates how the Dharma transforms our worldview and shifts our focus outward from self-interest. Echoing Sangharakshita teachings, she describes this kind of practice as channeling the Dharma niyama - evoked as a supra-personal force working through us.
Saddhajoti also explores Theravadan and Mayahana models of the path towards Enlightenment: discussing the relationship between 'stream entry' and the way of the Arahant with the Bodhisattva's journey through the bhumis. She then explores the shared concept of breaking through to realisation in experience, looking particularly at the first three fetters. And, drawing on her own life of practice, offers stories and reflections that elucidate what it might mean to go beyond the kind of self-clinging that lies at the heart of suffering.
Intriguingly, Saddhajoti closes her talk by suggesting that while there are three distinct fetters they might fundamentally be considered simply as one, separated out for didactic clarity by the Buddha. Similarly, she touches upon the threefold way of ethics, meditation and wisdom, positing that its stages too are intrinsically unified. There are not even Three Jewels, she argues playfully - there is one! And just like that, a new title for an excellent talk is born…
Recorded at Abadía Benedictina de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles, Ahuatepec, Mexico, October 2023.
PAN-AMERICAN CONVENTION 2023
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