Download this overview of the course
The resources include:
- Notes for the course leader (including learning objectives, guide lines for input and exercises, background information, suggestions for home practice)
- Exercises, and handouts
- Overview of the course
- An overview of the whole of life’s dynamics in symbolic form.
- The wheel of life – knowing our realm
- The wheel of life – karma and rebirth
- The wheel of life – the chain of conditioning, “staying in the gap”
- The spiral path – to Insight and beyond
- The mandala of the five Buddhas – Akshobya and Amitabha
- The mandala of the five Buddhas – Ratnasambhava, Amoghasiddhi and Vairocana
Week 1: Karma & Rebirth
a) Notes for the teacher, including suggestions for:
- Why symbols?
- Overview of the Wheel of Life
- Sources of suffering (the hub) and their opposites
- Skilfulness/unskilfulness (the ring of karma)
- Rebirth (in every moment)
b) Handout summarizing the main points as mentioned above.
Week 2: Knowing your realm
a) Notes for the teacher, including suggestions for:
- Review of previous class and home practice (dharmavijaya)
- The six realms as karma vipaka
- The realms as objective vs. subjective
- Exercise: Imagining a realm from within
b) Materials/handouts:
- Exercise on the six realms
- Handout on the various realms
Week 3: Cyclic conditionality
a) Notes for the teacher, including suggestions for:
- Review of previous class and home practice (experience of the six realms)
- Nidana chain exercise (in unfolding and reverse order) – three-lives interpretation
- Feeling (vedana) and craving (tanha)
b) Materials/handouts:
- Exercise on the Nidana chain
- Handout on cyclic conditionality and vedana
- Reading material: Extract from Foundation Year of the old Mitra Course
Week 4: Progressive conditionality
a) Notes for the teacher, including suggestions for:
- Vedana exercise
- Review of previous class (cyclic conditionality) and home practice (exploring vedana)
- Exercise to work out the order of progressive conditionality
- The crucial link; “In dependence of unsatisfactoriness arises faith.”
- Concentration, insight, and the transcendental path
b) Materials/handouts:
- Exercise to work out the order of progressive conditionality
- Exercise to review cyclic conditionality
- Handout on progressive conditionality
Week 5: Akshobhya and Amitabha
a) Notes for the teacher, including suggestions for:
- Review of previous class (progressive nidanas and point of intersection with wheel) and home practice
- Imagination and the archetypal dimension
- Exercise around archetypes and superheroes
- Introducing Akshobhya and Amitabha
- Principles of correlations/correspondences
b) Materials/handouts:
- Exercise on progressive nidanas
- Exercise on correspondences between Akshobhya and Amitabha
- Handout on Akshobhya and Amitabha
Week 6: Ratnasambhava, Amoghasiddhi, and Vairocana
a) Notes for the teacher, including suggestions for:
- Review of previous class (correspondences Akshobhya and Amitabha) and home practice (visualizing colour in meditation)
- Mudras
- Qualities of Ratnasambhava, Amoghasiddhi, Vairocana
- The Buddha families and our personal affinities
- Symbolism of the Mandala
- Personal mandalas
b) Materials/handouts:
- Exercise on correspondences between Ratnasambhava and Amoghasiddhi
- Handout on the Five Buddha Mandala