This guidebook for cultivating the meditative practices of stability and insight—the first major work from the Drukpa Kagyu lineage to become available in English—stands out among works of its kind as one of the clearest and most comprehensive presentations of coemergence, or mahamudra. In it, the eighteenth-century Tibetan master Ngawang Kunga Tenzin, the Third Khamtrul Rinpoche, details a step-by-step program of spiritual exercises that bring the meditator directly to clear realization of the fully perfect, ever-present, nondual nature of mind.
Beginning with the close relationship between phenomena and mind and the immense benefits of meditating on the nature of mind, the Third Khamtrul Rinpoche offers careful instructions on the four yogas of mahamudra together with advice on how to recognize genuine progress and how to remove obstacles that arise during meditation. Characteristic of the Drukpa Kagyu approach is that, even from the earliest stages of training, the author explains how all experience, thoughts, and perceptions may be used as the path to enlightenment from the perspective of insight into the nature of 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.
The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way was written in the second century and is one of the most important works of Nagarjuna, the pioneering commentator on the Buddha's teachings on the Madhyamika or Middle Way view. The subtle analyses presented in this treatise were closely studied and commented upon by many realized masters from the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist tradition.
Using Nagarjuna's root text and the great modern master Ju Mipham's commentary as a framework, Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso explains the most important verse from each chapter in the text in a style that illuminates for modern students both the meaning of these profound teachings and how to put them into practice in a way that benefits both oneself and others.
The treasure text of Nuden Dorje renders a very clear and authentic account of the view and essential meditation of dzogchen the practice of nondual experience. The presentation is in the Men ngag style, a personal instruction distilling the author's own realization in a manner both beautiful and deeply meaningful. Short verses show with pithy clarity how the various aspects of dzogchen fit together. The text provides both an authentic portrayal of the practice and a clear instruction in how to apply it.
In this new book, Khenchen Thrangu provides an exhaustive commentary on the longest and most comprehensive of the three classic treatises on Mahamudra composed by the sixteenth-century scholar Wangchuk Dorje, the Ninth Karmapa. Khenchen Thrangu's teachings encompass the entire path of Mahamudra, including the preliminaries, the main practice, removing obstacles, and attaining the result of buddhahood—with detailed instruction in tranquility and insight meditation. This is the only available volume that presents Khenchen Thrangu's detailed commentary on this entire text.