Knowledge-Wisdom: The Peaceful Path to Liberation
About this audiobook
What I’m saying is that you should have perfect determination, knowing that understanding knowledge-wisdom is the only solution to problems, the only source of happiness and joy. That is what we call Dharma.
—Lama Yeshe
This first volume of collected teachings is drawn from teachings given by Lama Yeshe in the 1970s and 1980s, when he and Lama Zopa Rinpoche traveled the world, teaching extensively. Lama Yeshe consistently encouraged students to recognize and develop their limitless potential, and his dynamic teaching style means that these teachings are as relevant and accessible today as when first taught.
In Part 1 of this book, Lama Yeshe advises how we can transform our lives by developing warm-heartedness and “knowledge-wisdom,” while maintaining a relaxed attitude to our practice. The teachings in Part 1 are edited by Nicholas Ribush and include new material published for the first time. Part 2 is edited by Uldis Balodis and features three discourses given by Lama Yeshe at the sixteenth Kopan meditation course, Nepal, in 1983. In these final teachings at Kopan, Lama offers essential advice on how to practice Dharma in the West.
Excerpts from these discourses have been previously published in the ebook series, The Enlightened Experience: Volumes 1–3, online at Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive and in other publications including Mandala magazine.
We acknowledge the kindness of Ven. Tenzin Drachom and students in sponsoring the production of this book.
Ratings and reviews
About the author
LAMA THUBTEN YESHE was born in Tibet in 1935. At the age of six, he entered the great Sera Monastic University, Lhasa, where he studied until 1959, when the Chinese invasion of Tibet forced him into exile in India. Lama Yeshe continued to study and meditate in India until 1967, when, with his chief disciple, Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, he went to Nepal. Two years later he established Kopan Monastery, near Kathmandu, in order to teach Buddhism to Westerners. In 1974, the Lamas began making annual teaching tours to the West, and as a result of these travels a worldwide network of Buddhist teaching and meditation centers—the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT)—began to develop. In 1984, after an intense decade of imparting a wide variety of incredible teachings and establishing one FPMT activity after another, at the age of forty-nine, Lama Yeshe passed away. He was reborn as Ösel Hita Torres in Spain in 1985 and recognized as the incarnation of Lama Yeshe by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 1986. Lama’s remarkable story is told in Vicki Mackenzie’s book, Reincarnation: The Boy Lama (Wisdom Publications, 1996) and Adele Hulse’s official biography, Big Love.
DR. NICHOLAS RIBUSH, MB, BS, is a graduate of Melbourne University Medical School (1964) who first encountered Buddhism at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in 1972. Since then he has been a student of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche and a full time worker for their international organization, the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT). He was a monk from 1974 to 1986. He established FPMT archiving and publishing activities at Kopan in 1973 and with Lama Yeshe founded Wisdom Publications in 1975. Between 1981 and 1996 he served variously as Wisdom’s director, editorial director and director of development. Over the years he has edited and published many teachings by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lama Yeshe, Lama Zopa Rinpoche and many other teachers and established and/or directed several other FPMT activities, including the International Mahayana Institute, Tushita Mahayana Meditation Centre, the Enlightened Experience Celebration, Mahayana Publications, Kurukulla Center for Tibetan Buddhist Studies and now the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. He was a member of the FPMT board of directors from its inception in 1983 until 2002 and currently serves on the boards of LYWA and Maitripa College.
ULDIS BALODIS was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1949 to Latvian refugee parents. His father, Jānis, had an interest in Theosophy and practiced hatha yoga and concentration meditation, so Uldis was bought up within an environment of Eastern philosophy. In 1975 he met Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche and attended several courses and decided to practice the Tibetan tradition of Buddhism. In 1976, Uldis established Tara Institute in Melbourne, one of the first FPMT centers. In the early 1980s Uldis settled in Nepal and started a family. For some years he was director of the Himalayan Buddhist Meditation Center (formerly Himalayan Yogic Institute) in Kathmandu. In 1999 he was invited to Latvia to teach, and, following that, in 2000 Lama Zopa Rinpoche instructed him to go to Latvia and continue teaching there. Along with teaching and leading retreats, Uldis established Ganden Center in Riga and Den Nyi Ling retreat center in rural Latvia. He organized His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s 2001 visit to Latvia. Uldis has done several longer retreats and has done all nine ngon dro preparatory practices. He has received initiations from high lamas of all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as His Holiness the Dalai Lama. In 2011 he ordained as a bhikshu in Bodhgaya, India, for five years. He later remarried and continued to live in Latvia while maintaining a home in Kathmandu.
SANDRA SMITH, BCOMN, first met Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche in New Zealand in 1975. Later that year she joined the community at Chenrezig Institute in Queensland, Australia, where she has offered service in various roles for many years. Sandra was director of Chenrezig Institute from 2004–06 and FPMT Australia’s national coordinator and tour coordinator in 2007–08. She compiled and edited children’s booklets for FPMT Education Services, including Meditations for Children, and has written numerous feature articles for Australian publications. Sandra commenced work as a web and general editor for Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive in 2009 and manages Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Online Advice Book at LamaYeshe.com.
