What are the teachings on Discovering the Heart of Buddhism?

Discovering the Heart of Buddhism is not an academic course. Rather, it is a comprehensive training in Buddhist study, reflection and meditation-providing a sound basis for a lifetime of deep spiritual practice.The training on Discovering the Heart of Buddhism is a search for truth, a process of exploring our experience and coming to understand and relax into our true nature. In the midst of all the pain, doubt, hesitation, stress and confusion of our lives, there is something that keeps us going. We talk of losing heart and yet, somehow, there is something deep inside us that spurs us on, restores us and gives us hope.

The path of Buddhist training is to uncover this heart of our being, to recognise it, to value it and to base our lives and actions on it. According to the Buddhist tradition, this is our Awakened Heart or Buddha Nature.

The teachings in Discovering the Heart of Buddhism are based on some of the most profound Buddhist teachings, the Mahamudra and Dzogchen teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. The ideas introduced are ones you will keep coming back to however long you study, and so it is equally suitable for those who have read about and practised Buddhism for years or for those who are completely new to it.

Read on for more about the Awakened Heart and the training to uncover it.

How is meditation involved?

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What is the Awakened Heart and the training needed to uncover it?

In the midst of all the pain, doubt, hesitation, stress and confusion of our lives, there is something that keeps us going. We talk of losing heart and yet, somehow, there is something deep inside us that spurs us on, restores us and gives us hope.

The training is to uncover this heart of our being, to recognise it, to value it and to base our lives and actions on it. According to the Buddhist tradition, this is our Awakened Heart or Buddha Nature.

We may recognise in our immediate experience that deep down we have the qualities of clarity, awareness, sensitivity, warmth and love, but according to the Buddhist tradition, we have little idea at the outset just how deep and vast those qualities can be.

It is obvious that some people display these qualities more than others, but the idea that all beings could awaken such qualities to their utmost degree seems too much to hope for. Nevertheless, to be even a little more open, clear and sensitive, seems to be a good thing, both for our own sake and for the sake of others. That is why the training is suitable for everyone, whether you pursue it for a little while or for a lifetime.

The process takes the form of discovering how we have lost touch with the heart essence of our being, our Awakened Heart, that basic goodness that constantly eludes us. If it is so essential to our being, how could we have lost touch with it and having found it again, how could we fail to cultivate it? The answer to such questions can only be found through deeper self knowledge and an inner understanding of the true nature of reality itself.

Somehow, we have come to identify ourselves with our negative habits of mind. Instead of feeling open, clear and sensitive, we feel a certain hardening of our heart from a vague but deep-seated sense of inadequacy, confusion or fear. The training is about letting those negative patterns go, developing confidence and allowing our own natural openness, clarity and sensitivity to emerge, strengthen, expand and deepen through meditation, reflection and study.

Through this process and especially through our connection with others and a deepening appreciation of the quality of awareness possible in our daily life, our sense of claustrophobia, limitation and loneliness starts to give way to a more positive outlook on life. There is suffering, but there is a detectable cause of suffering and a path of awareness that gradually alleviates that suffering for ourselves and others.

This is a long and subtle process and requires great commitment, confidence and determination to pursue to the end. Nevertheless to pursue it even a little can significantly transform our lives.

The aim of Discovering the Heart of Buddhism is ambitious. It is to do nothing less than provide everyone, young or old, Buddhist or non-Buddhist, with a direct, authentic and systematic way of starting to reconnect with their Awakened Heart.

This approach of reconnecting with our Awakened Heart through simple yet profound exploration of our experience is the essence of Discovering the Heart of Buddhism, and of the whole training within the Awakened Heart Sangha. In fact, it is essence of the whole Buddhist path to complete Awakening. This is why it is suitable both for those who have read about and practised Buddhism for some time and for those who are completely new to it.

This is also why, although further more elaborate teachings are available in the Awakened Heart Sangha, these further teachings are only for the purpose of deepening and expanding our understanding of the core material presented in Discovering the Heart of Buddhism, material to which everyone returns time and time again with ever deepening appreciation.

Learning has tended to be thought of as a linear development, gaining knowledge about a series of different topics one after another, progressing through to ever more advanced topics. But the path of true Buddhist training is not like this, and this is why Discovering the Heart of Buddhism has been constructed using the principles of spiral learning instead.

Spiral learning follows the idea that learning is a deepening process and that there are fundamental essential themes, the deepening understanding of which leads to a deeper understanding of the whole. Learning about more 'advanced' topics is valued largely because of the light which these 'advanced' topics shed on the essential points.

Although Buddhism, particularly Tibetan Buddhism, is often presented as if the sign of progress is to have acquired some new more complicated 'higher' teaching, really it is much more akin to spiral learning, for it is a journey to understand ever more profoundly the simplicity at the heart of our being.

The training in the Awakened Heart Sangha, of which Discovering the Heart of Buddhism is the core, is designed as a spiral learning programme. Although the themes introduced in Discovering the Heart of Buddhism are beautifully simple and accessible to everyone, they can be understood at many different levels.

In fact, if understood profoundly the material in the course is nothing other than the teachings of Mahamudra and Dzogchen, the 'highest' teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. Further training within the Awakened Heart Sangha serves to deepen our appreciation of the material in Discovering the Heart of Buddhism.

Thus it is not a mere beginner's course: it reveals the heart of the Buddhist path to perfect Awakening.