INTRODUCTION
I am very happy to be able to share with you the Buddha's teachings known as Dharma. Your interest in these teachings is a positive sign of the power of a great accumulation of virtuous activity gathered in previous lifetimes coming to fruition at this moment. This is very wonderful, and my greetings to you! I am an old man of eighty-four years now, the first fifty-two of which were spent completely isolated from the rest of the world in the land of Tibet. Several of those years I spent studying and practicing the Dharma and principles of vajrayana in solitary retreat. Since I have left Tibet, I have traveled worldwide to bring the truth of these teachings to all sentient beings ready and capable of receiving them. I welcome you and pray that a continuous rain of benefit comes to you for taking the time and effort to understand that upon which I am discoursing.
For many centuries, the Dharma of the Buddha has been preserved in the snowy, mountainous land of Tibet, where all the pith instructions, traditions of practice, and resultant realizations were widespread. Although this Dharma is often called Tibetan Buddhism, it is not originally Tibetan, for it comes directly from the Lord Buddha Shakyamuni. Once a noble prince, Lord Shakyamuni became the historical Buddha of our time when he attained enlightenment in the place called Bodh-Gaya in northcentral India. Through his activities during his lifetime and his teachings during the historical occasions of turning the wheel of Dharma, all the vast array of Dharma teachings (numbering