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.
The name of the book in English is Commentary on the Latter Part of the Series, in the Greater Way. In Sanskrit this is Mahayana Uttara Tantra Shastra, or Uttara Tantra for short. The “series” here refers to the three progressive turnings of the wheel of the Dharma by Lord Buddha. The “latter part” of the series refers to the second and third turnings of the wheel, which are devoted to the beliefs of the two great schools of the mahayana, or greater way: the Middle-Way and Mind-Only Schools, respectively. The book is a commentary which explains the primary difference between these two schools, which is how they present the idea of emptiness.
This course is meant to give much more detail than the related original ACI course, ACI Course 15: What the Buddha Really Meant (1998, New York, Geshe Michael Roach).
This was a small private teacher training at Diamond Mountain University to prepare teachers for a large public teaching. The teacher training went into a lot more detail than the public teaching. The students who completed the teacher training then went on to help teach some of the classes during the public teaching in Tucson, Arizona.
Interestingly, Geshe Michael began teaching the first class of the teacher training on the very same day he finished his three-year retreat in 2003. It will go down in history as the first teaching given at Diamond Mountain University.
Course Materials
The readings for this course are still incomplete. Readings 1-5 are complete, readings 6 & 10 are included but unfinished. Readings for class 7, 8, & 9 are still untranslated. All of the answer keys with the most important information required to complete all the homework are complete.
Please note: we combined all the course materials into a single PDF file, and to make it even more convenient for you we also bookmarked each section (readings, homework, answer keys, etc.). Please make sure to select that option in your PDF viewer. Should be listed as “bookmarks” or “table of contents”.
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**Please note: This is a work in progress. We are working to remaster the original audio and video, and to create chapters for all videos to make it easier to navigate the important ideas in this course. There are a total of eight classes, and we will be uploading them as they are finished. Please check back for updates.**
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Video
Taught by Geshe Michael to a small group of students at Diamond Mountain University in 2003.
Audio
Taught by Geshe Michael to a small group of students at Diamond Mountain University in 2003.
