VKR Teachings Online
Public Talk: New York City Shambhala Center
October 20, 1998
The following pages comprise a public teaching given by the Venerable Khandro Rinpoche at the New York City Shambhala Center in 1998. The teaching is presented in sections due to its length.
The Profound Essence of Spiritual Practice
"The entire philosophy of Buddhism rests in, first of all, being able to truly realize the responsibility of being a human being."
- Learning What Needs to Be Abandoned & What Needs to Be Cultivated
"There is nothing to show, nothing much that actually says 'this is the true essence of having lived so many years.'"
- The Four Noble Truths
"If we are going to call ourselves "skeptics"–as most Buddhists are trained to be–we must only believe in the most absolute truth, and not believe in anything that may be just a dream, a mirage, or an illusion."
- Emptiness Nature
"...emptiness nature doesn’t need to be understood in a complicated way. It simply says that everything we hold to be true, real, or solid is, in fact, composite and doesn’t have any independent existence on its own."
- Questions & Answers
"Looking at it in terms of meditation, illusion needs to be understood to lessen our grasping and attachment; but on the other hand, [we must] always appreciate relative existence. "