Essentials Of Mahamudra

Mahamudra practice can lead to a profound realization, but it is also a peaceful and gentle practice.

What would you see if you looked directly at your mind? The Tibetan Buddhist teachings on mahamudra are known for their ability to lead to profound realization. Peaceful and infinitely adaptable, these teachings are as useful for today's busy world as they have been for centuries. Written by the tutor to the seventeenth Karmapa, Essentials of Mahamudra is a commentary on Tashi Namgyal's famous Moonlight of Mahamudra - a text that the sixteenth Karmapa had identified as the most valuable for Westerners. Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche recognized that Western meditators don't just need to know how to maintain our meditation practice - we need to know why we should do it. Unmatched in its directness, Essentials of Mahamudra addresses both these needs, rendering one of the most advanced forms of meditation more easily adaptable to our everyday lives.

Mahamudra is the first English translation of a major Tibetan Buddhist presentation of the theory and practice of meditation-a manual detailing the various stages and practices for training the advanced student. The original Tibetan text of nearly 800 pages was composed by Takpo Tashi Namgyal (1512-1587), a great lama and a scholar of the kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism. His text is so vast and thorough in scope that it is still the primary source used by living Tibetan meditation masters in instructing their disciples. The first major text representing the meditational methods of both mahayana and vajrayana Buddhism to appear in English, Mahamudra is an invaluable guide for advanced students, scholars, and Buddhist practitioners. Mahamudra is the first english translation of a major Tibetan Buddhist presentation of the theory and practice of meditation-a manual detailing the various stages and practices for training the advanced student. The original Tibetan text of student. The original Tibetan text of nearly 800 pages was composed by Takpo Tashi Namgyal (1512-1587) a great lama and a scholar of the Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism. The first major text representing the meditational methods of both mahayana and vajrayana Buddhism to appear in english. Mahamudra is an invaluable guide for advanced students, scholars, and buddhist practitionaers.

In simple and direct language, the Union of Mahamudra & Dzogchen contains Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche's teachings on a complete path to enlightenment, based on eight songs by the 17th century yogi and poet Karma Chagmey. As the first book by Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, a living master of the Practice Lineage, the Union serves as a forum for his subtle brilliance and humor, the trademark of his teaching style.

Crystal Clear, by the learned and realized Tibetan Master Thrangu Rinpoche, is a companion volume to the classic medi¬tation manual--Clarifying the Natural State. In his straightfor¬ward and lucid style Rinpoche gives us an indis¬pen¬sable guidebook for insight practice (vipashyana). For people who want more than just theory, this is a handbook that begins with watch¬ing the breath and leads practitioners through stages of realization, all the way to complete enlightenment. "In Mahamudra, as one takes the path of direct percep¬tion, a per¬son can obtain true and complete enlightenment within the same body and lifetime. Whatever the situation, Mahamudra provides appropriate methods and techniques. So, whether one is able to undertake a lot of hardship or not, whether one is very diligent or not, whichever type of person you might be there is always great benefit in practic¬ing Mahamudra. The practice can be done in the solitude of retreat or while involved in the daily complexities of mod¬ern life. Mahamudra training is always applicable in any situation, at any moment of life." --Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche

Mahamudra is the basic meditation practice for many Tibetan Buddhists, particularly of the Kagyu tradition. It is particularly adaptable for modern people, since it involves no rituals and can be incorporated into all daily activities. Saraha's "Song for the King" is a short verse text from classical India that is a basis for the tradition and is widely known in Tibetan Buddhist circles. It is often the basis for teachings given in the West, but there is only one outdated translation of it in print, first published in 1969. Michele Martin has produced a stellar new translation, which is accompanied by a commentary from the well-known teacher Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, who is uniquely skilled and concerned with making this method of meditation available to Westerners. While pithy and accessible, the book easily stands up to academic scrutiny, and includes the original Tibetan as well - making it ideal for the popular, scholarly, and Tibetan audiences all at once.

The Library Of Tibetan Classics is a special series being developed by The Institute of Tibetan Classics to make key classical Tibetan texts part of the global literary and intellectual heritage. Eventually comprising thirty-two large volumes, the collection will contain over two hundred distinct texts by more than a hundred of the best-known Tibetan authors. These texts have been selected in consultation with the preeminent lineage holders of all the schools and other senior Tibetan scholars to represent the Tibetan literary tradition as a whole. Peter Alan Roberts was born in Wales and lives in Hollywood, California. He obtained a B.A. in Sanskrit and Pali and a Ph.D. in Tibetan Studies from Oxford University. For more than thirty years he has been working as an interpreter for lamas and as a translator of Tibetan texts. He specializes in the literature of the Kagyii and Nyingma traditions with a focus on tantric practices, and he is the author of The Biographies of Rechungpa. Thupten Jinpa holds a Geshe Lharam degree from Ganden monastic university and a Ph.D. in religious studies from Cambridge University. The translator and editor of numerous books, he has been the principal English-language translator for His Holiness the Dalai Lama for over two decades, and he is the author of Self Reality and Reason in Tibetan Philosophy. He lives in Montreal with his wife and two daughters.

In Tibetan Buddhism, Mahamudra represents a perfected level of meditative realization: it is the inseparable union of wisdom and compassion, of emptiness and skillful means. These eighty-four masters, some historical, some archetypal, accomplished this practice in India where they lived between the eighth and twelfth centuries. Leading unconventional lives, the siddhas include some of the greatest Buddhist teachers; Tilopa, Naropa, and Marpa among them. Through many years of study, Keith Dowman has collected and translated their songs of realization and the legends about them. In consultation with contemporary teachers, he gives a commentary on each of the Great Adepts and culls from available resources what we can know of their history. Dowman's extensive Introduction traces the development of tantra and discusses the key concepts of the Mahamudra. In a lively and illuminating style, he unfolds the deeper understandings of mind that the texts encode. His treatment of the many parallels to contemporary psychology and experience makes a valualbe contribution to our understanding of human nature.

This spiritual manual describes mahamudra meditation from the perspective of the "gradual path," a progressive process of training that is often contrasted to sudden realization. The book contains a step-by-step description of the ways to practice, precise descriptions of the various stages and their intended realizations, and the typical problems that arise along with their remedies. Drawn from a variety of sources, "Pointing Out the Great Way" distills the experiences of many great masters who have traversed the path of meditation to the point of perfect mastery.

The Tibetan Buddhist teachings on the freedom that comes from perceiving the emptiness of all phenomena—teachings known collectively by the name Mahamudra—are presented here with remarkable clarity through commentary on a twelfth-century text. The text is "Gampopa's Great Teachings to the Assembly," by Gampopa, the foremost disciple of the legendary figure Milarepa and founder of Tibetan Buddhism's Kagyu school. The commentary is by Ringu Tulku Rinpoche, a contemporary teacher of deep learning and profound practice with a remarkable gift for presenting these traditional teachings in a way that is accessible to Western hearts and minds. Gampopa in his teaching combined the general Mahayana teachings he received from the Kadampa tradition of Atisha with the quintessential Vajrayana teachings, which he received from his teacher, Milarepa. These became the basis of the Kagyu lineage teachings that he founded. This particular text, which includes both Mahayana and Vajrayana teachings, is representative of the classic teachings of the Kagyu tradition in general.