FPMT Online Learning Center

Buddhist Meditation 101 is an introductory course to Buddhist meditation. It is suitable for people encountering both meditation and Buddhism for the first time, as well as for people who have done some meditation in other traditions but would like to know more about how meditation is practiced in the Tibetan Buddhism. It provides an overview of meditation in general and specific meditation techniques including breathing, mindfulness, visualization, and analytical meditations. It explains what kinds of skills are developed in meditation and how to apply them in daily life.

The course is taught by Ven. Connie Miller, a senior American teacher of Tibetan Buddhism known for her accessible teaching style.

Buddhism in a Nutshell is an FPMT introductory course that provides an overview of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and practice. It is suitable for people encountering Buddhism for the first time, as well as for people who have heard or read some Buddhist teachings but would like a more structured approach to understanding the path to enlightenment as taught by Shakyamuni Buddha. It consists of five sessions that cover topics including the life of Shakyamuni Buddha, the four noble truths, and the three principal aspects of the path to enlightenment—renunciation, bodhichitta, and the right view of emptiness. The course also provides a brief presentation of meditation and five guided meditations suitable for beginners. The course book, Buddhism in a Nutshell: Essentials for Practice and Study, includes teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Lama Thubten Yeshe. The course is taught by Ven. Amy Miller, a senior American teacher of Tibetan Buddhism known for her accessible teaching style.

Present the views of Buddhism and science on cultivating lasting happiness, and set up the framework for the remaining modules of this course. Explore which methods are worthwhile and effective in discovering lasting happiness and developing our potential. 

Focus on the fundamentals of meditation and techniques to calm the mind and refine attention, with special emphasis on mental balance, emotion regulation, and how to work with challenging emotions and afflictive states of mind. Aim to enhance wholesome emotions and inner states as a first step to cultivate inner well-being.

Explore what the mind is and its role in the experience of well-being and suffering. Present techniques to become aware of the mind itself and how to deal with disturbing emotions and mental afflictions. Further explore the possibility of the mind’s continuity, and what karma is.

Offer an overview of the different Buddhist paths to facilitate an exploration on how these suggested paths lead to lasting happiness. Explore the foundational practices of the Buddhist path by learning about relevant insights and methods that foster them.

Focus on the cultivation of positive attitudes and mental states such as loving-kindness and compassion. Examine how to first develop a caring attitude toward oneself, and to extend these qualities further by cultivating the mind of awakening that cares for all beings. 

Present the cognitive aspects related to how we perceive reality and ourselves. Explore the notions of dependent-arising and emptiness, as well as a deeper presentation of the nature of mind itself, focusing on the luminous quality of the experience. 

Present attitudes that enhance the positive transformation, including the six perfections, methods for transforming difficulties into the path to lasting happiness, and how to bring compassion into the world. Investigate the role of spirituality in a balanced and meaningful life.

In this module, Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains three practices:

• The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment): specifically compiled by Lama Zopa Rinpoche as a way for his students to start their day with bodhichitta
• Blessing the Speech: to increase the power of speech and prevent its power from being taken away by idle talk and black foods
• Daily Mantras: the recitation of various mantras for specific purposes

Based on the Sutra of the Clouds of the Sublime Rare Ones taught by the Buddha and supplemented by his own additions, Lama Zopa Rinpoche presents specific mindfulness practices for taking the essence of every moment of our precious human life by keeping bodhichitta present when doing all our normal daily activities, such as waking up, going to the bathroom, dressing, and so on. This module also includes extensive bodhichitta practices to do when eating, bathing, and going to sleep, as well as a tonglen mindfulness practice.

In this module of Living in the Path, Lama Zopa Rinpoche inspires us to make our life meaningful - to take its essence - by taking and keeping the eight Mahayana precepts for one day. If you have never received the lineage of the precepts from a master/teacher, Rinpoche gives special permission to receive it by repeating the words of the ritual after him while watching the video of the precept ceremony. 

This module of Living the Path contains a compilation of various teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche on how to take the essence of a precious human life by creating "the limitless skies of benefits" that come from making various types of offerings.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche places great importance on taking every opportunity of our perfect human life to create the causes of enlightenment, including every time we eat and drink. This module of Living in the Path contains practices for offering food and drinks as well as a compilation of teachings on different ways of offering them.

This module contains Lama Zopa Rinpoche's explanations of the verse for taking refuge and generating bodhichitta that is commonly recited at the beginning of teaching sessions and many practices. Lama Zopa Rinpoche unpacks each word of these deceptively simple four lines to reveal their great profundity and tells us how to meditate on the whole path to enlightenment while reciting it.