Science of the Mind

• 452Stillness Practices

  Analyze various stillness practices, evaluate their value in daily life, and implement discerning choices about energy expenditure, recognizing that sometimes the best option is to do nothing.
• 456Sense Restraint

  Analyze the Buddha’s teachings on sense restraint; evaluate how sensory input influences mental states, thoughts, and emotions; and develop the habit of pausing before reacting to sensory experiences.
• 457Wise Attention

  Analyze the distinction between wise and unwise attention in personal experience; evaluate how different types of mental focus either support or hinder insight development; and implement specific techniques for cultivating wise attention during challenging emotional states or decision-making situations.
• 325Abhidharma

  Define abhidharma precisely; analyze how its practice reduces aversion, craving, and suffering; and evaluate examples from personal experience.
• 327Sukha or Contentment

  Analyze different definitions of happiness; evaluate how equanimity transforms our relationship to pleasant and unpleasant experiences; and experiment with showing “no preference” toward perceived beauty and ugliness.
• 231Three Yanas: Mahayana Buddhism

  Articulate the distinctive characteristics of Mahayana Buddhism, including the bodhisattva ideal and emphasis on universal liberation; analyze how Mahayana approaches to practice (emptiness philosophy, Pure Land practice, Zen meditation) address different paths to awakening; and evaluate the relationship between Mahayana adaptability and preservation of core Buddhist principles.
• 125Buddhist Debate

  Analyze diverse perspectives through structured debate, and demonstrate the application of gestures and concepts from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition of debate.
• 323Pramana

  Evaluate how we know what’s real by analyzing the two key ways of knowing: direct experience and inference (logical reasoning); assess how differentiating between clear and confused thinking supports better decision-making and helps avoid the ignorance that keeps us stuck in suffering; integrate this understanding by applying these principles to real-life situations, demonstrating how valid ways of knowing (cognition) helps us distinguish between how things seem (appearance) and how they really are (reality), both in everyday life and in meditation.
• 324Five Skandhas

  Analyze the five aggregates (skandhas) as the components that create the illusion of a permanent self; evaluate how understanding the constantly changing nature of form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness supports the teaching of anatta (no-self); and synthesize this understanding by implementing daily practices that demonstrate selfless action based on logical analysis of the impermanent nature of identity.
• 232The Three Yanas: Vajrayana Buddhism

  Identify the methodologies specific to Vajrayana Buddhism. Examine how tantric practices integrate ritual, visualization, and guru-disciple relationships, and evaluate how Vajrayana approaches to transformation relate to the foundational teachings preserved in Theravada and Mahayana traditions.