The 22 levels from earth to sky refer to the development of the Wish for Budhahood (Bodhichitta), from the initial intention in a baby Bodhisattva to the full Bodhichitta in the mind of a Buddha. This list of 22 comes from the Ornament of Realizations (Abhisamayalankara) by Arya Asanga which is one of the Five Great Books of Maitreya—The Future Buddha. They were taught by Maitreya to Arya Asanga in Maitreya’s heaven and then he brought them back to this world.
The 22 levels from earth to sky refer to the development of the Wish for Budhahood (Bodhichitta), from the initial intention in a baby Bodhisattva to the full Bodhichitta in the mind of a Buddha. This list of 22 comes from the Ornament of Realizations (Abhisamayalankara) by Arya Asanga which is one of the Five Great Books of Maitreya—The Future Buddha. They were taught by Maitreya to Arya Asanga in Maitreya’s heaven and then he brought them back to this world.
Around 1000 AD, 1500 years after the time of the Buddha, the Tibetans undertook a monumental task: to translate thousands of pages of Buddhist literature from Sanskrit into Tibetan. It took them 700 years to complete translations of the kangyur (the word of the Buddha) and the tengyur (the Indian commentaries). Now, as Buddhism has been making a big push westward, Geshe Michael’s aim is to complete an even larger task: to translate hundreds of thousands of pages of Buddhist literature into modern languages.
In this series of classes, Geshe Michael dives deeper into the subject of protection using a famous book called The Necklace of Understanding (Abhisamayalankara), which was revealed by Maitreya to Arya Asanga, in which he teaches about what it means to take refuge by covering the following three topics: 1. What it means to go for refuge, 2. Where you go for refuge (The Three Jewels), and 3. The Four Bodies of a Buddha.
In this first course of the ACI In-Depth Course Series, we will study the fifth of the five books of Maitreya, the coming Buddha. Centuries ago, the Coming Buddha, Lord Maitreya, taught his disciple Arya Asanga the secret of how to reach Enlightenment. He described to him in detail, the inner nature, which guarantees that each of us can, and will, become enlightened. Each of us carries within us a seed, a potential, a capacity to become a fully enlightened being: A Buddha.
Topics include: the definition and types of bodhichitta, types of morality, types of vows, how bodhisattva vows are taken, an explanation of the eighteen root bodhisattva vows and forty-six secondary bodhisattva vows, the four factors needed to break bodhisattva root vows, how bodhisattva vows are broken, how bodhisattva vows are lost, how to keep your bodhisattva vows, how to restore your bodhisattva vows, and the benefits of keeping bodhisattva vows.