BUDDHIST STUDIES COURSES
LOTUS UNDERGROUND offers a wide range of online Buddhist Studies courses, meditation instruction, visual presentations, workshops, and retreats. Below you will find an ever-growing catalog of past courses that are available to order for self-paced study.
Courses are offered on a sliding scale of $400-$100.
Upon receipt of tuition, you will receive access to course videos, syllabi, and other reading materials.
Wondering where to start? If you are new to Buddhism, or would like to review the basics, Lotus Underground offers a three-step introduction to the essentials.
Step One is a 10-part overview of basic terms, concepts, and practices common to all forms of Buddhism.
Step Two is a 6-part deep dive into the concept of Dependent-Origination, and how it was interpreted by early, middle, and late period schools of Buddhism.
Step Three is an 8-part survey of the Eight Schools of Buddhism, covering the origins, histories, and developments of all contemporary schools of Buddhism.
After completely these three courses, you are then invited to join more advanced courses.
STEP ONE
Turning the Dharma Wheel
10-part introduction to Buddhism
A traditional way of learning Buddhism is called anguttara, ‘adding one’ – wherein the teachings of the Buddha are presented numerically, in increasing order, such as the Three Poisons, the Four Noble Truths, and the Five Aggregations. This 10-part course uses a similar method to explore the fundamental concepts of Buddhism and their interrelation. The ideas presented in each session grow in complexity and systematically build on previous session topics, thus ‘turning the wheel' of Dharma.
STEP TWO
Wheel of Becoming
6-part course on Dependent Origination
Pratītyasamutpāda ('Dependent Origination') is a Buddhist term for the principle that all phenomena arise and exist in dependence upon other phenomena and, therefore, have no inherent self-nature. To understand this fundamental concept, this six-week course uses the traditional 12-Link 'Chain of Causation' structure to demonstrate the ‘self’-perpetuating, cyclical nature of existence.
STEP THREE
The Eight Schools of Buddhism
8-part overview of the history of Buddhism
The ‘Eight Schools’ is a traditional Buddhist classification system used throughout East Asia as a way of understanding the relationship between the various forms of Buddhism that arose during the first thousand years of Buddhist history The Eight Schools in this course begin with the ancient traditions of renunciation and monasticism persevered by the Theravada schools of Southeast Asia, and concluding with the highly advanced, esoteric teachings of the remote, mountainous temples of Tibetan, China and Japan.
ADVANCED COURSES
After completing the introductory series, or for those already familiar with the basics, choose from the following advanced courses.
SUTRA STUDY
The NeverEnding Dharma
8-part introduction to reading Buddhist sutras
This course gives a broad overview of the history, translation, and transmission of sutras, from what is known of their origins up to their availability in the modern world. The course also investigates areas still shrouded in mystery, including sutras that remain lost, forgotten, untranslated, or those waiting to be studied.
Prajñāpāramitā Heart Sutra
8-part sutra study course
This course is an in-depth, word-by-word study of the Heart Sutra focused on understanding its underlying teaching of ‘Emptiness’, the philosophical foundation of Mahayana Buddhism. The course will also present the contested origins of the sutra and its various interpretations by different schools of Buddhism.
Vajra Prajñāpāramitā Sutra
8-part sutra study course
The Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, ‘The Sutra That Cuts Like Lightning’, more commonly known as the 'Diamond Sutra,' is one of the most influential Mahayana Buddhist sutras. This course is a line-by-line reading and study of the entire Vajra Sutra, including a discussion of the text's possible origins, its place within the broader context of Buddhism, and its contemporary use and related practices.
Mother of Buddhas
8-part sutra study course
This course is a close reading of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, the ‘Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 lines.’ This sutra is nicknamed the ‘Mother of Buddhas’ because throughout the text Prajñāpāramitā is approached as a somewhat ‘divine feminine force,’ given the pre-eminent position of ‘mother’ of enlightened beings.
The Universal Gateway to the Inconceivable
6-part sutra study course on the Mañjuśrī Samantamukha (MRK#10)
The Universal Gateway is a deceptively brief sutra. It is a series of short poems recited by the Buddha that describe entry into different samādhis (‘meditative absorptions’) by observing various characteristics of reality, such as sights, sounds, scents, flavors, etc., all the way to the very characteristics of being and non-being.
Unlocking the Mystery
8-part advanced study of the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra
This course is a line-by-line reading of the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, one of the primary texts of the Mind-Only School of Buddhism containing explanations of key Yogācāra concepts such as the storehouse consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna) and the doctrine of consciousness-only (vijñapti-mātra) – the final phase of the Buddha’s teaching in which he revealed the Ultimate Truth (Paramārtha).
Being Invincible
10-part advanced sutra study course on the Śūraṅgama Sūtra
The Śūraṅgama Sūtra (‘Indestructible’) is an enigmatic sutra. The first part of the sutra is a question-and-answer between the Buddha and Ānanda regarding the location of the mind. This is followed by a section wherein twenty-five different arhats and bodhisattvas recall their process of enlightenment, each using a different sense organ, sense object, consciousness, or element to describe their experience.
Entering the Inconceivable
Year-long advanced sutra study course on the Avataṃsaka Sūtra
The Avataṃsaka Sūtra is not exactly the words of the historical buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama, so much as it is a description of what happened (or what happens, or is happening) to the would-be Buddha as explained by bodhisattvas from this world and beyond. This course is a line-by-line reading of the entire Avataṃsaka Sūtra, translated from the Chinese version of by Śikṣānanda, with commentary.
DHARMA STUDY
EMPTINESS: The Wisdom of Nāgārjuna
8-part Dharma study course
This course is a line-by-line reading of the Śūnyatāsaptatikārikā (’Seventy Verses on Emptiness’), a commentarial poem written sometime before the year 100 AD attributed to Nāgārjuna. This brief text is similar to Nāgārjuna’s larger work, the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (’Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way’), but was written for a more general audience, and is therefore an good introduction to the work of Nāgārjuna.
TATHATĀ: The Meaning of True Suchness
8-part intermediate Dharma study course on the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna
While the concept of Tathatā may be found among the earliest teachings of the Buddha, True Suchness (bhūtatathatā) and "reality as-it-is" (yathābhūta) become central to the Mahayana Buddhist teachings on the innate purity of the phenomenal world. This course is an introduction to this foundational Mahayana Buddhist teaching based on the seminal commentary attributed to Aśvaghoṣa, The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana.
Mind-Only
8-part course on Vasubandhu’s Triṃśikā-vijñaptimātratā
Introduction to Yogacara Buddhism
This course is an overview of the ‘consciousness-only’ (vijñapti-mātra) teachings of Yogacara Buddhism, an idealistic school of Buddhism that arose in India around the 4th-century AD. The course is a close reading of Vasubandhu’s Triṃśikā-vijñaptimātratā (‘Thirty Verses on Consciousness Only’).
The Ground of Being
6-part course on Vasubandhu’s Trisvabhāva-nirdeśa ('Treatise on the Three Natures')
The concept of the Trisvabhāva (‘Three Natures’) is considered the conclusion of Buddhist ontology. Early Buddhism saw all phenomena as momentary and impermanent. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, the concept of emptiness negates there being any thing to be. In light of emptiness, how is the perceived world to be understood? That is the essence of the ‘Ground of Being’ and the Yogacara teaching on the Three Natures.
Ten Bhumi Stages
8-part course on the Bodhisattva Path
The Ten Stages (bhūmi) describe the process of awakening (or ‘enlightenment’), from the initial determination to do so all the way to the attainment of Buddhahood. This ten-step rubric is the foundation of the Bodhisattva Path, in which each stage is associated with different practices, teachings, and contemplation exercises. This course is a ten-part exploration of each stage of that path.
Way of the Vajra
8-part introduction to Tantric Buddhim
This is an overview of Vajrayāna Buddhism, the ‘thunderbolt vehicle,’ one of the many names given to the occult, esoteric form of Buddhism that developed in medieval India during the 5th century AD and spread throughout Asia. This course expands upon the ideas presented in the Eight Schools of Buddhism course and presumes a certain basic understanding of Buddhist teachings as well as Buddhist history and geography.
MEDITATION
Acts of Remembrance
4-part Meditation Workshop
This meditation workshop presents the traditional satipaṭṭhāna system of Buddhism, a four-step meditation practice to imporve focus, or mindful awareness. Broken into four sessions, each session includes a guided meditation, periods of silent sitting, and analytical discussion of these foundational ideas and their numerous sub-categories.
The above courses are available as pre-recorded series. In gratitude and with respect to those who initially took each course, these recordings are available on a suggested/sliding scale basis.
Suggested tuition per course: $400-$100. Upon receipt of tuition, you will receive access to course videos, syllabi, and other reading materials.