The Knowledge Base

A Gift of Liberation 25: Perfect Shelter (2017, Arizona)

Based on the great Tibetan Classic, A Gift of Liberation: Thrust into the Palm of Our Hand written by Pabonka Rinpoche, this retreat focused on using death meditation to reinvigorate your life and your practice and included the popular 3 day “Retreat within a Retreat”. This 10-day installment finished the portion of the text describing the animal and hell realms, included a beautiful death meditation and began the section of the Lam Rim which discusses the beautiful practice of going for refuge.

The Realized Asanga on Higher Protection, Part One (2016, Arizona)

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.

Using the experience of death as a path to reach the essence body of a Buddha (Arizona, 2016)

At a recent retreat, one of the meditation practices that Geshe Michael has been teaching students is to imagine going through the stages of death and learning how to meditate on emptiness at a very crucial moment during that process as a method of seeing emptiness directly and reaching the essence body of a Buddha.

A Gift of Liberation 24: Empty Buddha: The Ultimate Protection (2016, Thailand)

A Gift of Liberation 23: Protection from Life & Death (2016, Arizona)

Based on the great Tibetan Classic, A Gift of Liberation: Thrust into the Palm of Our Hand written by Pabonka Rinpoche, this retreat focused on using death meditation to reinvigorate your life and your practice and included the popular 3 day “Retreat within a Retreat”. This 10-day installment finished the portion of the text describing the animal and hell realms, included a beautiful death meditation and began the section of the Lam Rim which discusses the beautiful practice of going for refuge.

How to do a Daily Practice 02: Guided Meditation through the Preliminaries and a Meditation for Protection (1997, New York)

This collection of classes is for the purpose of having a regular daily practice. It’s different than many of the other courses here on The Knowledge Base which are meant to teach the philosophy, or intellectual background, of Buddhism. These classes were on monday nights and were taught in a completely different style, focusing on all the most practical and essential elements that should be done each day to really get the most out of all the other intellectual study.

How to do a Daily Practice 07: The Gift of Deathlessness (1998, New York)

This collection of classes is for the purpose of having a regular daily practice. It’s different than many of the other courses here on The Knowledge Base which are meant to teach the philosophy, or intellectual background, of Buddhism. These classes were on monday nights and were taught in a completely different style, focusing on all the most practical and essential elements that should be done each day to really get the most out of all the other intellectual study.

Locking The Door to the Lower Realms: Ultimate Protection on the Path of Preparation (Mexico, 2016)

There are five stages or paths in the spiritual evolution of a human being. The second of those five paths is called The Path of Preparation, preparation here specifically refers to gaining an increasingly deeper intellectual understanding of emptiness which gives us the necessary spiritual power to have the direct perception of emptiness on path number three. This increasingly deeper understanding of emptiness progresses through four distinct stages while traversing the second path.

ACI Course 02: Buddhist Refuge (1993, New York)

Topics include: what is the perfection of wisdom, what is refuge, the objects of refuge, the reasons for taking Buddhist refuge, the qualities of a Buddha, the different types of bodhichitta, what is nirvana, the divisions of nirvana, five different proofs that emptiness is the ultimate nature of reality, and the five paths which lead to full enlightenment.