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Hi Buddha Bums, I wrote this one hundred percent from memory and in my own words. Mostly is a distillation from The Heart of The Buddha’s Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh. It was a fun exercise that i hope will illuminate a new facet or two of these familiar gems. Did i get it right? What are some additional examples? Four Foundational Perceptions Experiential suffering (a.k.a. attachment) is inherent to physical existence. At the very least, we are all literally going to die. In the meantime there will be widely varying degrees of hunger, thirst, tiredness, striving, decay, and grief. Even the positive counterparts to these have some potential to be problematic if overindulged. Discernment of root causes of suffering and ensnarement. The first truth may seem a bit of doom and gloom but it is only a call to attention of how interdependently arising all these phenomena really are. By positioning the awareness outside of the ever re-balancing cycles of cause and effect, it becomes possible to not take things too personally. Disentanglement of attachment is possible. From our new vantage point, we begin to notice what patterns perpetuate various outcomes. There should be a way to nudge our own tangled thread of fate out of tumultuous regions, and into more harmonious currents. A way to achieve liberation is to learn and embody the eight virtues taught by the Buddha. Eight Virtuous Ways Right View - what influences are we taking in? Right Thought - how are those influences being processed? Right Speech - what influence are we putting back out? Right Action - might any of our endeavors cause harm to self or others? Right Livelihood - do we stand to profit by harming or exploiting others, even if indirectly? Right Diligence - are we willing to work on improving the situation? Right Focus - is our energy being channeled effectively? Right Mindfulness - where do we fit into the bigger picture?

I ended up doing a search on the internet to see if there were any video and/or audio commentaries on Lama Tsongkhapa's Lam Rim Chen Mo/The Great Treatise On The Stages of The Path To Enlightenment from any venerable teachers...Lo and behold, I found some resources which I think are good enough to share. For anyone interested you can read the text from a 3 part translation on amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Great-Treatise-Stages-Path-Enlightenment/dp/1559391529 A collection of mp3 files from a set of teachings on this text by H.E. Choden Rinpoche: http://www.lamrim.com/lamrim/ Audio commentary by Abbess Thubten Chodron: http://www.thubtenchodron.org/AudioLibrary/index.html A link to someone's youtube channel, that has a set of talks given by H.H the Dalai Lama, on the Lam Rim Chen Mo at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA (also included in this link is a partial listing of his other teachings on this text given elsewhere): http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL63437123ADC315D0 Another youtube channel with a video series of talks on the Lam Rin Chen Mo: http://www.youtube.com/user/ChenrezigCtr?feature=watch This is from the official website of H.H. the Dalai Lama which has recordings of numerous teachings and appearances at events, press meetings, etc. I'm posting a link to a series of talks on Atisha's Lamp For The Path To Enlightenment and Tsongkhapa's Great, Middling, and Concise Treatises on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment: http://dalailama.com/webcasts/post/267-18-great-stages-of-the-path-lam-rim-commentaries Other recommended video/audio commentaries from that website: Je Tsongkhapa's Praise for Dependent Origination - http://dalailama.com/webcasts/post/226-praise-for-dependent-origination--avalokiteshvera-permission-initiation Je Tsongkhapa's The Three Principal Aspects Of The Path - http://dalailama.com/webcasts/post/289-the-three-principal-aspects-of-the-path