The 5-Year Rigpe Dorje Philosophy Program
(2017 - 2021)

Overview

A Curriculum for Progressing towards Liberation

As always has been, and always will be, the heart wish of all living beings is to be utterly devoid of suffering and never to part from true happiness. The one complete and unmistaken method to fill the empty chalice of this cherished hope to overflowing is assurance in the scriptural and realized canon of the peerless Shakyamuni Buddha.

Why is that? The cause of samsara is certainly our mistaken system of view and conduct with respect to the two truths: apparent reality (the way all known things appear to be) and genuine reality (the way things actually exist). What’s more, our ageless habit of engaging in this mistaken system automatically, even instinctively, is tenacious and difficult to counteract.

For this reason, it is vital to actively choose nirvana over samsara, by relinquishing misguided views and conduct — that is, those contrary to the way things actually appear and exist. This is why the Victor instructs that three pure principles comprise the very heart of practice: first, the view which assesses the two truths accurately; second, meditative habituation to suffuse the mindstream with that view; and third, behaviour in synchrony with this confident view and conduct.

Therefore, having the prerequisites for entering into this triad of authentic view, authentic meditation, and authentic conduct is the way to attain the enlightenment consisting of the plenitude of happiness and the definitive end to absolutely all suffering. In other words, it depends on learning this approach. The sole instruction presenting this system completely, unmistakably, and in orderly progression, however, are the Buddha’s explicit teachings, together with the commentaries elucidating their intent. Thus, exhaustive study and contemplation of those teachings are uniquely appropriate for those ardent for liberation.

To that end, the Rigpe Dorje Institute has crafted the following five-year curriculum of philosophy study, providing an approachable method for penetrating the two truths and ascending to the heights of gathering the two-fold accumulations and manifesting the two kayas in a complete and orderly progression.