This is a practical guide to the two types of meditation that form the core of Buddhist spiritual practice. Tranquillity (Samatha) meditation aims at stilling the mind, while insight (vipasyana) meditation produces "clear vision" or insight into the nature of all phenomena. These teachings are based on the eight chapter of the "Treasury of Knowledge" by the great nineteenth-century master Jamgon Kongtrul. With Thrangu Rinpoche's commentary, this complex, encyclopedia work is now made accessible to Western students of meditation.

The Practice of Tranquillity & Insight: A Guide to Tibetan Buddhist Meditation

Religion & Spirituality

Thrangu, Khenchen

Buddhism

Shambhala

Essential Practice is an accessible and authoritative portrait of a bodhisattva's view, meditation, and conduct by one of the foremost masters of the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism and the tutor of H.H. the Seventeenth Karmapa. Teaching on Kamalashila's treatises outlining the stages of meditation, Thrangu Rinpoche explains the need for compassion and the way to develop it, the necessity for a bodhisattva's vast and durable altruism, as well as the means to generate, stabilize, and fortify it and the elements key to the meditative practices of calm abiding and insight. An engaging element of Essential Practice is the lively interaction of Thrangu Rinpoche with students and members of the faculty of Naropa University as he unfolds the text for them. With exceptional generosity, Thrangu Rinpoche took delight in fielding basic and knotty questions that were put to him by relative newcomers and relatively seasoned practitioner/scholars. This record of a masterful teacher's instructions will help students old and new to determine what is essential to the practice of Buddhism and thereby bring the Buddha's teachings into their own experience. Essential Practice presents an incomparable wisdom on the methodology and means of meditation, as well as the ways in which to bring oneself to the transcendence of selfless behavior.

Essential Practice: Lectures on Kamalashila's Stages of Meditation in the Middle Way School

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Alternative Medicine

Snow Lion

At the heart of successful Mahamudra practice is the ability to understand the nature of mind. The Ninth Karmapa Wangchuk Dorje (1556–1603) was the acknowledged master of this approach. No more authoritative or useful instructions exist than in his three definitive texts on Mahamudra, of which this easy-to-use manual is the shortest and most practical. Pointing Out the Dharmakaya is an indispensable companion to The Ocean of Definitive Meaning, the most vast and detailed of the texts. An invaluable guide for Mahamudra practitioners on how to look at the mind, it is clearly laid out so that the instructions are easy to recall and put to use. Brilliant explanations by Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche make this text vividly relevant for contemporary Western practitioners. For those committed to ascertaining the mind's true nature, checking their experience, and refining and extending their insight, there is no more systematic or comprehensive approach than can be found in this extraordinary set of instructions.

Pointing Out the Dharmakaya: Teachings on the Ninth Karmapa's Text

This new translation of Padampa Sangye's One Hundred Verses, beautifully rendered into English, provides timely guidance for people trying to practice the Buddhist path in the workaday world. The urgency of spiritual practice has seldom been as simply and powerfully conveyed as it is in Padampa Sangye’s One Hundred Verses. This Tibetan Buddhist classic is an antidote to the tendency we all have to waste our precious human lives. Khenchen Thrangu’s lively commentary on the text brings to light its subtleties and amplifies its applicability to our daily struggles, showing how an understanding of its teaching on impermanence is the key to working with common difficulties such as loneliness, craving, betrayal, competitive colleagues, or squabbling families. It speaks to us today as profoundly as it did to the people of Dingri, Tibet, to whom it was first addressed a millennium ago.

Advice from a Yogi: An Explanation of a Tibetan Classic on What Is Most Important

Sangye, Padampa

An accessible commentary by a popular and respected Tibetan Buddhist master opens the door for Westerners to Karma Chagme's classic text that integrates two of the great meditation systems of Tibet: Mahamudra and Dzogchen. This book grows out of an oral teaching that Khenchen Thrangu gave in Crestone, Colorado, on Karma Chagme's text Meaningful to Behold: The Essential Instructions of the Compassionate One on the Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen. Thrangu Rinpoche explains in lucid detail the advanced meditation practices of Mahamudra and Dzogchen and also their similarities and differences, including advice on how to safely perform some of the more advanced Dzogchen practices. Many chapters include his answers to questions from the audience, which give the book an intimate feeling.

Luminous Clarity: A Commentary on Karma Chagme's Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen

Chagme, Karma

Other Eastern Religions & Sacred Texts

The only book in English on a popular Tibetan Buddhist lineage prayer that explains how it can be used as a guide to practice. One of the most beloved and oft-recited prayers in the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, The Mahamudra Lineage Prayer combines a supplication to the Mahamudra lineage with a concise guide to Mahamudra practice and the stages of the path to enlightenment. In this commentary on the prayer, Thrangu Rinpoche teaches in his down-to earth yet direct manner the importance of the Mahamudra lineage, how to develop renunciation and devotion through the common and uncommon preliminary practices, and how to practice calm abiding (Shamatha) and insight (Vipashyana) meditation in the Mahamudra tradition. He explains that Mahamudra teachings are easy to practice yet are very powerful, and are especially appropriate for serious Western Dharma students.

The Mahamudra Lineage Prayer: A Guide to Practice

Accessible and practical teachings on both the life of Tilopa, who founded the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, and one of his most important texts on the practice of Mahamudra. Most traditions of Mahamudra meditation can be traced back to the mahasiddha Tilopa and his Ganges Mahamudra, a “song of realization” that he sang to his disciple Naropa on the banks of the Ganges River more than a thousand years ago. In this book, Khenchen Thrangu, a beloved Mahamudra teacher, tells the extraordinary story of Tilopa’s life and explains its profound lessons. He follows this story with a limpid and practical verse-by-verse commentary on the Ganges Mahamudra, explaining its precious instructions for realizing Mahamudra, the nature of one’s mind. Throughout, Thrangu Rinpoche speaks plainly and directly to Westerners eager to receive the essence of Mahamudra instructions from an accomplished teacher.

Tilopa's Wisdom: His Life and Teachings on the Ganges Mahamudra

Accessible and practical teachings on the life of Naropa, with verse-by-verse commentary on his two most important Mahamudra songs by a contemporary Karma Kagyu master. Naropa is one of the accomplished lineage holders of the Mahamudra tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. In this book, Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, a beloved Mahamudra teacher, first tells the extraordinary story of Naropa’s life and explains its profound lessons. He follows this with lucid and practical commentaries on two of Naropa’s songs of realization, explaining their precious instructions for realizing Mahamudra, the nature of one’s mind. Throughout, Thrangu Rinpoche speaks plainly and directly to Westerners eager to receive the essence of Mahamudra instructions from an accomplished teacher.

Naropa's Wisdom: His Life and Teachings on Mahamudra

Three songs by recognized masters of different Tibetan Buddhist traditions illustrate what their views have in common--with commentary by Thrangu Rinpoche and songs by Ju Mipham, Changkya Rolpay Dorje, and Ch gyam Trungpa. Do different Tibetan Buddhist traditions share an essential, common view? The great Geluk scholar Changkya Rolpay Dorje (1717-1786) wrote a song describing the view of the Middle Way, comparing it to a mother. Later, the nonsectarian polymath Ju Mipham Rinpoche (1846-1912) and the influential Kagyu master Ch gyam Trungpa Rinpoche (1939-1987) wrote songs modeled upon it that describe the views of dzogchen and mahamudra, one comparing dzogchen to a jewel and the other comparing mahamudra to a lover. Even though the imagery and the specific points each author makes are different, the songs share many characteristics in structure and content. Read together, the three songs show how the essential points of these three practices are the same and reveal how Buddhism's various traditions--including the pinnacles of the Middle Way, dzogchen, and mahamudra--are harmonious. The three songs are presented with a commentary by Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, who explains how studying the profound view helps develop the certainty that is necessary to bring meditation practice to fruition. He shows how songs such as these can serve as antidotes to discouragement and provide help to people who have had strong meditation experiences but find themselves unable to sustain a high level of practice. Thrangu Rinpoche explains that, in comparison to oral instructions and treatises, songs of this kind are of special benefit because of their engaging eloquence. The songs are not long, and they are a delight to read, reread, and memorize. By clarifying the view again and again in this way, they offer continual inspiration to practitioners.

A Harmony of Views: Three Songs by Ju Mipham, Changkya Rolpay Dorje, and Chögyam Trungpa

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.

An Ocean of the Ultimate Meaning: Teachings on Mahamudra

Occult & Paranormal

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Thrangu, Khenchen. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Thrangu, Khenchen