The Four Seals of Dharma, Session 1

Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche opens a series on the four seals, the four summaries into which, he says, the Buddha’s teaching can be condensed. He first explains what the Dharma covers and why it is studied in order to be practised, then the freedoms and advantages of a human life and why teacher and student must examine each other. He says a learned person is not necessarily a tamed one.

He explains why he chose the four seals as a basis for conversation with a group of scientists. Then he takes the first three: conditioned things are impermanent, defiled things are suffering, and all phenomena are empty and without self. He describes a nihilistic view as a danger of the present age, and ends on love and compassion as the thing the world most needs.