New to Buddhism?

New to Buddhism? Want to see what it’s all about, or just use its teachings to improve your daily life? FPMT’s Introductory Programs are short courses that allow students to learn the basics and try Buddhist concepts on for size.

Meditation 101 is an introductory course on basic Buddhist meditation techniques for complete beginners. It teaches basic Buddhist meditations that can be used by anyone to create more peace and happiness in daily life.

Meditation 101 is presented in five sessions and covers these basic Buddhist meditation techniques:

• what is meditation?
• meditation posture and arranging the body
• purposes and benefits of meditation
• different skills that are used in meditation and useful in daily life
• the difference between meditation and relaxation
• two main types of meditation – analytical and stabilizing
• obstacles to meditation and their antidotes
• setting up a meditation session
• advice for establishing a long-term meditation practice
• using the benefits of meditation in everyday living
• meditation practice     
• breathing meditations such as counting the breath and nine-round breathing
• mindfulness meditations such as scanning the body, bare attention, mind like the sky, and mind like the ocean
• visualization meditations such as body of light, purification with light
• analytical meditations such as meditation on equanimity, and transforming negative experiences into positive

Buddhism in a Nutshell is an introductory course on Buddhism for complete beginners. It presents basic Buddhist philosophy and principles within the Tibetan Mahayana context, and provides simple meditation instruction. The course is presented in five sessions and covers these basic principles of Buddhism:

• Life of Shakyamuni Buddha — the similarities of Shakyamuni Buddha’s life to ours and how the Buddha answered the big “meaning of life” questions that we all have
• The four noble truths
  • The truth of suffering — the diagnosis of our existential situation
  • The truth of the cause of suffering — karma, delusions, ignorance
  • The truth of the cessation of suffering — nirvana
  • The truth of the path to the cessation of suffering — practices of the wisdom and methods taught by the Buddha
    
• The Buddha’s teachings set out in a gradual way to support the practice of an individual — where to start, what next, etc.
• What it means to be a Buddhist, or an inner being”
• Specifics of the path: the three principal aspects of the path to enlightenment based on the short text Foundation of All Good Qualities
• Different kinds of Buddhism: Theravadan, Mahayana, Vajrayana, Zen, Ch’an, Pure Land, etc.
• Different schools of Tibetan Buddhism: Gelug, Kagyu, Sakya, Nyingma
• A little history of Buddhism