The Wheel of Sharp Weapons - Dharmarakṣita, a Mahayana Mind Training Text in Atisha's tradition

"The Wheel of Sharp Weapons Effectively Striking the Heart of the Foe" is a Mahayana Mind training text from India. The author, Dharmarakṣita, was a c. 9th century Indian who was the teacher of Atiśa, a master who was instrumental in establishing a second wave of Buddhism in Tibet.
The "wheel of sharp weapons" can be visualized as something we throw out or propel towards others, which then comes back to cut us... something like a boomerang or the Indian wheel weapon called the chakram. In the same way, Dharmarakṣita explains, the non-virtuous causes we create through our self-interested behavior come back to 'cut us' in future lives as the ripening of the negative karma such actions create. This is the source of all our pain and suffering. Our suffering is not a punishment, merely a self-created karmic result.
The way to make an end of this cycle is to understand how this process comes about and how it is rooted in the grasping at a self or "I". When we contemplate how our actions, rooted in the sense of self and other, cause suffering, then we use these very negative actions we have done in the past as a contemplative "weapon" to attack self grasping, the real "foe" in our lives. Thus, the weapon which harms us is turned against the true enemy, the false sense of self. This explains the full title of the text, "The Wheel of Sharp Weapons Effectively Striking the Heart of the Foe".
Read by Alexander Berzin.
studybuddhism.com/en/tibetan-...

[@spunkyrigpa]

Will you be putting out another video with the rest of this? It sounds like where the video ended is not where the text ends? I really appreciate you putting this out as audio. My Lama told me to read this but I have a hard time reading a physical book so I am grateful for the audio!

[@reginadegiovanni6685]

So interesting