Following in the Buddha’s Footsteps: Hindrance of Sensual Desire

John Bruna, the spiritual director of the Way of Compassion Dharma Center, continues his commentary on the text “Approaching Buddhism” by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Venerable Thubten Chödron. In this session, John unpacks the Four Truths of the Aryas which are commonly known as the Four Noble Truths.

  John Bruna continues to teach on the six perfections. Generosity, ethics, patience, joyous effort, concentration, and wisdom. These practices coupled with the motivation of Bodhicitta are the practices of a Bodhisattva.

John Bruna continues the discussion on the Three Principle Aspects of the Path: Renunciation, Bodhicitta, and Wisdom. These three aspects are the wish for freedom, the altruistic intention to be of ultimate benefit to others, and the wisdom realizing emptiness. These three were laid forth by the wise and compassionate Je Tsongkhapa (1357 – 1419).

In this session, spiritual director John Bruna comes to the culminating phase of the seven-point cause and result for cultivating bodhichitta. This seventh and final point, which is developing the motivation of bodhichitta, is the result of the previous 6 points that were covered in detail over the past several dharma talks. Bodhichitta is the…

In this session, spiritual director John Bruna offers a teaching about becoming a qualified disciple so that our practice and teacher/disciple relationship will bear fruit. He speaks about how one needs to be unprejudiced, intelligent, and interested when listening to and studying the Buddha’s teachings. John also speaks about the need to be open-minded not…