Exploring Buddhism is a new program being developed by FPMT to serve as a bridge between Discovering Buddhism and the Basic Program. It is designed to help students of Buddhism delve more deeply into a broad array of topics that form a solid foundation for furthering one’s study and practice. The program will initially be run as a pilot program in FPMT centers to further test and refine the curriculum.
The classes in this series introduce key Buddhist philosophical concepts and connect them to the context of practice and realization.
They also familiarize students with text-based explanations by introducing short texts in its curriculum, such as the popular Foundation for All Good Qualities and Three Principal Aspects of the Path by Je Tsongkhapa, Eight Verses of Thought Transformation by Langri Tangpa, and Seven Point Mind Training by Geshe Chekawa.
The Exploring Buddhism Modules
The Exploring Buddhism curriculum currently consists of seven modules:
Exploring the Mind and Exploring the Truths teach the principal levels of reality together with the potential to bring about changes in our minds that culminate in achieving full enlightenment. These two modules also explore the common ground between the universal aspects of Buddhist mind science and philosophy and those of contemporary science.
Exploring Meditation helps to bridge the two topics by introducing the means to carry out the exploration and familiarization needed to bring about positive changes through the practice of meditation.
To proceed on the stages of the path to enlightenment it is important to get a good understanding of this entire spiritual journey. Then, in order to develop our full potential, we need to engage in its associated mind training and the bodhisattva vows. Exploring the Path and Exploring Mind Training explain these points of the Buddhist path.
As a support for developing realizations, it is also important to engage in prayers and practices in order to purify negative karma and accumulate a vast store of merit. Exploring Common Prayers and Practices provides explanations of how to do various prayers and practices commonly done by individual students and performed in FPMT centers. Exploring the Preliminary Practices teaches how to do the nine preliminary practices of the Gelug tradition in Tibetan Buddhism as well as additional preliminary practices often recommended by our Spiritual Director, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, with the intention that students become familiar with them, feel inspired to do them, and gain confidence that they will be able to do them correctly.