Course: The Wheel of Sharp Weapons

Text Description

Wheel of Sharp Weapons (Blo-sbyong mtshon-cha’i ‘khor-lo) – or, more accurately, Throwing-Star Weapon – is the earliest text in the genre of attitude-training or mind-training (Lojong). Written by Dharmarakshita, one of Atisha’s main Indian teachers, it focuses on the giving and taking (tonglen) method for overcoming the self-cherishing attitude and grasping for an impossible “true me.” “Giving and taking” is an advanced Mahayana method whereby we imagine taking on the sufferings of others and giving them happiness.

Here, we present the unedited recordings of the weekly classes on the text, taught by Dr. Alexander Berzin in Berlin, Germany. Skipped weeks indicate classes that were canceled. Unfortunately, the first class, 9 January 2006, as well as a short portion at the beginning of the classes held on 28 August and 2 October 2006, and a small portion at the end of the class held on 29 January 2007, are missing.

The course finished on 16 July 2007. We ask the listener’s patience with the varying quality of the recordings.

Recordings

The Recordings are available as direct download and as podcast in two different quality levels:

• Lower Quality, Smaller Files (about 10MB per class)
• Higher Quality, Larger Files (about 20MB per class)

The Text

• Wheel of Sharp Weapons - 1973 Loose Poetic Translation
• Wheel of Sharp Weapons - 2006 Literal Translation