Eighteen freedoms and advantages
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Eighteen freedoms and advantages (T. dal 'byor bco brgyad དལ་འབྱོར་བཅོ་བརྒྱད་) are identified within some Tibetan Buddhist traditions as essential to practicing the dharma. These eighteen factors consist of eight freedoms and ten advantages.
Dudjom Rinpoche states:
- The precious human body is the indispensable support for accomplishing enlightenment, and it has to have the following perfect features: the essence of the support, namely freedom, which is the opposite of the eight states of lack of opportunity; and its particular features, namely the five individual advantages, which are like ornaments, and the five circumstantial advantages which, as it were, illuminate and enhance those ornaments.[1]
The eight freedoms
Freedom from the eight states where there is no opportunity to practise the Dharma:
- hells
- preta realms
- animals
- long-living gods
- uncivilized lands
- incomplete faculties
- with wrong views
- a buddha has not come
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The ten advantages
The five circumstantial advantages
- a buddha has come
- he has taught the Dharma
- the teachings have survived
- there are followers of the teachings
- there are favourable conditions for Dharma practice
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The five individual advantages
- being a human being
- born in a central land
- with faculties intact
- lifestyle not harmful or wrong
- with faith in the three pitakas
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Notes
- ↑ Dudjom Rinpoche, Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje (2011). A Torch Lighting the Way to Freedom. Shambhala. (p. 59)