Bodhicitta is not one teaching among many. It is, as the Buddha taught, the one teaching that contains all others. It determines whether or not practice actually becomes a journey to awakening.
This course is about understanding it on a profound level: its philosophy, its history, its vows, its meditations, and the wisdom that reveals its ultimate nature.
It's also an experiential, immersive course where you begin embodying the experience and practice of bodhicitta from the very first lesson.
The course starts May 29, includes a live Q&A with your teacher Lopen Karma Phuntsho, and includes lifetime access. Don't miss out on this precious opportunity for a truly profound training.
Learn more at the Wisdom Academy
- The Course Includes
- 11 lessons of HD video teachings
- Guided practices
- Rich readings
- A live Q&A with Karma
- Discussion forum
- Lifetime access
Meet Your Instructor
Lopen (Dr.) Karma Phuntsho is one of Bhutan’s leading intellectuals and has received bodhicitta teachings from many masters, including H.H. the Dalai Lama and Penor Rinpoche. He finished his monastic training in Bhutan and India before he pursued a M.St in Classical Indian Religions and a D.Phil in Oriental Studies at Balliol College, Oxford. He was a researcher at CNRS, Paris, a Research Associate in the Department of Social Anthropology at Cambridge University, and the Spalding Fellow for Comparative Religion at Clare Hall, Cambridge University. He was also a Research Consultant at the University of Virginia.
An author of over one hundred books and articles, including the authoritative History of Bhutan and Mipham’s Dialectics and the Debates on Emptiness, he speaks and writes extensively on Bhutan and Buddhism. His work has received extensive media coverage by the BBC, BBS, Kuensel, The Bhutanese, Science, Radio Free Asia, Oxford Today, Times of India, India Today, and Channel News Asia. He is also the President and founder of Loden Foundation, a leading educational, entrepreneurial, and cultural initiative in Bhutan. He is currently based in Thimphu, Bhutan.
Watch a Dharma Chat with Lopen Karma Phuntsho and Daniel Aitken at Wisdom Publications in New York:
Lesson Plan
- Lesson 1: Bodhicitta: The Jewel of Mind
- Discovering the personal stories and timeless wisdom of revered Buddhist masters, receive your first glimpse of a path toward transforming the ordinary, self-centered mind into one of boundless compassion and wisdom.
- Lesson 2: Different Types of Bodhicitta
- Learn how cultivating compassion can lead to a fulfilling life, and then delve into the key divisions of bodhicitta, including presentations originating in various sūtras and śastras. Lopen Karma breaks down the immense benefits of "jewel-like” bodhicitta, highlighting the expression of those benefits at distinct stages of the bodhisattva path.
- Lesson 3: Bodhicitta’s Scriptural Origins and Evolution
- Where does the idea bodhicitta come from? Trace its evolution from early Buddhism through to its flourishing in India and its vibrant transmission to the non-Indian Buddhist schools. Piece together how its living presence was preserved by legendary masters and lineages.
- Lesson 4: Śāntideva’s Way of the Bodhisattva
- Identify the foundational texts where bodhicitta was first defined, discovering how later masters like Śāntideva systematized its theory and practice in works that remain central. Lopen Karma dives deeper into Śāntideva’s Way of the Bodhisattva, including its miraculous origin story.
- Lesson 5: Generating Bodhicitta Through the Bodhisattva Vow
- Dive into bodhicitta’s practical application with the bodhisattva’s vow. Develop familiarity with each step of the vow ceremony, from crucial prerequisites and preparing the mind, through reflections on precious human birth, detailed visualizations, and chanting, to the actual ritual of taking the vow.
- Lesson 6: Protecting Bodhicitta Through the Bodhisattva Precepts
- Understand the ethical discipline of the bodhisattva path, including crucial distinctions among the three levels of morality. Learn the do’s and don’ts that follow the formal taking of the bodhisattva vow, including the four dark dharmas to avoid, the eighteen root downfalls, and the essential practices of ritual confession and purification.
- Lesson 7: Enhancing Bodhicitta: The Aspiring Mind I
- Go beyond mere protection of the bodhisattva vow and actively cultivate it as a natural state of being. Learn with the essential practices of the six perfections and the four means of attracting beings, discovering powerful methods for developing equanimity and great compassion.
- Lesson 8: Enhancing Bodhicitta: The Aspiring Mind II
- Explore a powerful alternate approach to cultivating great compassion and bodhicitta. You’ll receive an uncommonly thorough presentation of the seven-point cause-and-effect instruction from the vast conduct tradition, beginning with recognizing all beings as one’s mothers and progressively developing loving-kindness, compassion, the special intention, and finally bodhicitta itself.
- Lesson 9: Enhancing Bodhicitta: The Applied Mind I
- Master techniques that can help you strengthen and enhance aspiring bodhicitta, including how to practice with experiences of harm and hardship. Gain greater familiarity with the tangible actions of the first three of the six perfections, namely the profound arts of generosity, ethical discipline, and patience.
- Lesson 10: Enhancing Bodhicitta: The Applied Mind II
- Energize your altruistic practice with a bodhisattva’s diligence and meditative concentration. You’ll learn to overcome the three forms of indolence through the four forces of interest, steadfastness, joy, and relinquishment, and discover the systematic nine stages of developing calm abiding (śamatha).
- Lesson 11: Enhancing Bodhicitta: The Applied Mind III
- Conclude your course experience with an extended foray into the perfection of wisdom, the heart of the bodhisattva path. You’ll discover the real distinction between relative and ultimate truth, the systematic methods for analyzing the emptiness of self and phenomena, and how to gradually progress from intellectual understanding to the direct realization of emptiness.
