Sera Khandro Dewai Dorje was a modern Tibetan Buddhist teacher who single-pointedly pursued a life of Dharma while balancing family life and public teaching. This collection of her advice, prayers, dreams, prophecies, and treasures (terma) is both biographical and instructional. It comes from within the tradition of Dzogchen, replete with practices for resting in the nature of mind. This lineage forms the bedrock of Christina Monson’s own spiritual path, lending a deep intimacy to the translations, which serve as a window into Sera Khandro’s life, teachings, and rich inner experience.
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Prayer Chapter 1, page 1-6
Sometimes the only thing to do is pray.
In the Buddhist tradition in general, to pray is to surrender to the infinite manifestative potency of interdependence: causes and conditions coming together such that anything and indeed everything is possible. In the Great Perfection tradition, prayer often carries a deeply devotional flavor, reflecting the special relationship between teacher and disciple at the core of its authentic transmission. Dewai Dorje’s unbounded devotion, love, and joy frequently burst forth through prayers. These sublime portals into her inner world reveal ways she worked with some of the most powerful emotions of her life and experienced their fullest transformative potential. Similarly, she grounded herself in times of bottomless pain, grief, and sorrow through expressions of heartfelt longing and aspiration. Her intimacy with the vast spectrum of human feeling shines through the numerous prayers she composed throughout her biographical writing and treasure revelations.
Chapter 1 welcomes us through prayer into Dewai Dorje’s sea of deep love as seen for and through the eyes and heart of her lama and consort, Drime Ozer. We are treated to a glimpse of their relationship through this first piece, “An Offering from the Vulture to the Cuckoo,” a poetic letter authored by Drime Ozer himself. While all other selected translations here were penned by Dewai Dorje, this unique prayer is a rare piece of his original writing. Little of the bulk of Drime Ozer’s treasure collection, unlike that of his father Dudjom Lingpa, appears to have survived the turmoil of post 1959 Tibet. However, some selections of his writing, ritual practice compositions, and profound instructions are included in Dewai Dorje’s Collected Works. A notable exception is his longest known existent work, an as-yet untranslated commentary on the meaning of his father’s seminal teaching Buddhahood without Meditation.
Drime Ozer’s letter to Dewai Dorje takes us into their multidimensional connection as he lauds her special qualities and prays for her longevity. Half prayer, half poem, the language overflows with reverence and love for her. The second half tells the tale of a white vulture and a cuckoo to intimate the connection between Drime Ozer and Dewai Dorje with metaphoric imagery. This unique love language, drawing from the natural world, is found elsewhere in Dewai Dorje’s writings. In the poem that directly follows this prayer, seemingly as a response to it, she tells the tale of a “blue lady cuckoo” who perfects Secret Mantra practice and concludes,
These secret words about secret conduct, inspired by the white vulture [Drime Ozer], naturally occurred from whatever arose.
She also refers to Drime Ozer as a “white vulture” in his biography.2 There she recounts a dream where Drime Ozer meets his father Dudjom Lingpa, who instructs him to unite with the magical emanation of Vajravarahi, Dakini Sukha Vajra (Dewai Dorje), to overcome negative circumstances in his life. Dudjom Linga predicts,
Hey, hey! When the luminescence of the eastern sky is welcomed by the roar of the southern turquoise dragon [Dewai Dorje] and the triple-skilled white [vulture] soars in space, if splendor and thunder come together, they are sure to make harmony as one.
The words of the cryptic prophecy continue but clearly refer to him and Dewai Dorje. As further evidence of their prophesized connection beyond the confines of time and space, Drime Ozer makes mention of her connection to his past lives. Some of these specificincarnations are also identified by Dewai Dorje in Drime Ozer’s biography where she lists, “At Yarlha Shampo, he was born as Pema Ledrel Tsal. At Dragdra Drogmoche, he was Longchen Dorje Ziji. At Tarpaling in Bumthang, Bhutan, he came as Pema Lingpa. At Yarlung, he was born as Urgyen Samten Lingpa.”
Such long-term connection stretching across lifetimes defies ordinary notions of relationship. It is a repeated theme between Dewai Dorje and Drime Ozer. The topic of Drime Ozer’s past incarnations comes up again in “The Ennobling Deeds of All Buddhas and Their Heirs.” There, his past lives as important treasure revealers are emphasized. The Nyingma tradition holds as a core tenet that the activities of realized beings include the revelation of treasures. Myriad in form and modality, treasures are encrypted wisdom teachings. The tradition identifies one hundred masters who are considered great treasure revealers, including five considered to be especially significant.3 Dewai Dorje’s list of Drime Ozer’s past lives name at least four with the treasure revealer name Lingpa: Pema Lingpa, Urgyen Samten Lingpa, Dodrul Lingpa, and Rok Dechen Lingpa.
Notable as well in the first prayer is the way Drime Ozer refers to Dewai Dorje using different names. He begins the homage by introducing the three kayas, dimensions of wisdom form. These are the dharmakaya, which is connected to mind’s empty essence, the sambhogakaya, which is connected to mind’s lucid and blissful nature, and the nirmanakaya, which is connected to mind’s compassionate capacity.4 Dakinis, wisdom manifesting through the feminine principle, are present in each dimension. In paying homage to Vajravarahi (Dorje Phagmo), Dewai Dorje’s principal tutelary deity, he is revering Dewai Dorje herself as a manifestation of mind’s empty and blissful unity. Her special connection with this deity is also further reflected in references to Khacho, the buddha field connected with Vajravarahi.
Dewai Dorje was a practitioner who had mastered the yogic teachings found in the inner tantric approach of anuyoga. These are powerful techniques for directly actualizing the potential of thebody’s subtle network of energy channels, winds, and vital essences to enable realization of primordial wisdom. Relying upon both one’s own and another’s body, the anuyoga practitioner induces experiences of bliss to swiftly catalyze and deepen recognition of mind’s nature. As restrictions to the movement of wisdom winds through the body are lifted, the practitioner’s capacity to encounter the entirety of perceptual experience as teacher and teaching and as phenomena of purity is enhanced. In this context, “wind-mind” is a designation used to refer to the mobile aspect of consciousness, refined and rendered pliable through these practices.
Indeed, Drime Ozer himself was a master who had fully perfected the techniques of anuyoga as well. As such, he was a fully qualified consort for Dewai Dorje, her “heruka of great bliss,” as she too was for him. Heruka is a Sanskrit term indicating a wrathful, “blood-drinking” deity. As a tantric couple, Drime Ozer and Dewai Dorje practiced divine union as a yab yum (masculine and feminine) couple, using visualization of the wrathful deities Hayagriva and Vajravarahi and other techniques. Their special relationship thus involved being destined tantric partners for each other, as well as having a mutually reciprocal guru-disciple bond. Dewai Dorje’s love and devotion for Drime Ozer as her lama, consort, and treasure-revealing partner are paramount themes throughout her writing.
She celebrates his realization in “The Accomplished Secret Mantra Yogi.” Likening him to the primordial Buddha Samantabhadra and the Second Buddha Padmasambhava, the great Indian adept who helped the Tibetan king Trisong Deutsen overcome obstacles to the propagation of the Buddhadharma in Tibet in the eighth century, she lauds his exalted level of realization. To see “the truth of ultimate reality,” as he did, is to directly encounter the empty yet luminous nature of mind precisely as it is, within the context of the Great Perfection. This approach—which emphasizes such an encounter and the subsequent training of familiarity with it until stability is achieved—is the only way to untangle the web of dualistic thinking and its mistaken understanding of reality. It’s theonly place where freedom from the confines of conceptual mind is found. This is what enabled Drime Ozer to “dance” with “wisdom’s illusions”: to be in the world of relative appearances but not be enslaved by them. This, of course, is made possible through realizing nothing that appears truly exists. Rather, according to Dzogchen, phenomenal existence is none other than a manifestation of the ground from which it arises: luminous, empty awareness. For Dewai Dorje, Drime Ozer’s realization of this fundamental truth made him a buddha, transcending even the limitation of necessarily appearing in a body made of flesh and blood.
“Prayer of a Crazy, Carefree Lady” uncovers more subtle qualities of his meditative presence, while “The Ennobling Deeds of All Buddhas and Their Heirs” unfolds Dewai Dorje’s utter disbelief and joy at having him in her life, as well as her despair at not being with him. This prayer is dated to the Tibetan year of the Dog. This may refer to 1911, according to the Western calendar, a time of intense turmoil for Dewai Dorje as she struggled to find her way without family or support as an outsider in the communities of eastern Tibet, where she had newly arrived.
The remaining prayers in the chapter unfold other dimensions of Dewai Dorje’s life in early nineteenth-century Golok. “I Supplicate Pema Totreng Tsal” laments the hypocrisies of fake treasure revealers. Dewai Dorje lived within a world of Dharma communities shaped by beliefs about the continuity of spiritual teachings from Guru Padmasambhava and his Tibetan consort Yeshe Tsogyal in eighth-century Tibet up to her own time and place in early twentieth-century eastern Tibet. These treasures were hidden in the physical world as well as in the intangible domain of the minds of those who were destined to discover them, the treasure revealers. The various mechanisms of their revelation and dissemination made sacred the landscape of Dewai Dorje’s life.
Even so, against such a highly sacrosanct backdrop, deceit existed. The degeneration of pure Dharma teachings and traditions for its followers is one sign of what made that time “dark” for Dewai Dorje. While Buddhist cosmology stemming fromIndian sources labels the current age one of dissolution when all things decline, Dewai Dorje identifies in this prayer specific negative characteristics of treasure revealers proximate to her in time and space. To ensure she remains free from such bad behavior, she concludes with an aspiration for the circumstances of her authentic Great Perfection practice to prevail.
Remaining selections include a refined overview of the view, meditation, and conduct of Dzogchen according to her personal experience and practice as well as a synthesized version of some of the most important moments of her life. Much of Dewai Dorje’s writing teaches through the way it reflects her own realization. Prayers blend with delicate expressions of insight and wisdom such as the final prayer to Yeshe Tsogyal. This, a supplication to Padmasambhava and Yeshe Tsogyal, presents the progressive unfolding of the visions of pure appearances induced through the Dzogchen practice of Togal. Dewai Dorje’s familiarity with the visions of Togal speaks to her stable recognition of awareness, as these appearances of purity both depend upon and enhance a practitioner’s authentic experience of it.
Sera Khandro (1892–1940) was one of the most prolific Tibetan female authors of the past several centuries. At the age of fifteen, she left her home in Lhasa for eastern Tibet, embarking on a lifetime devoted to her spiritual path—she became a spiritual master, a revealer of ancient hidden teachings, a mystic, a visionary, a writer, a mother, and a vagabond. Her written works and spiritual lineage have been preserved and are now cherished worldwide.
Christina Monson (1969–2023) was a Buddhist practitioner and teacher and Tibetan language translator and interpreter. She had over thirty years of study, translation, and practice experience in Buddhism beginning with an interest in Asian philosophy as an undergraduate student at Brown University. Later, she focused her studies on Tibetan Buddhism while completing a master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She journeyed to Nepal in 1989 where she met her root guru, Chatral Sangye Dorje Rinpoche, under whose guidance she studied and practiced in periods of intensive retreat for the next twenty-seven years. Chatral Rinpoche first introduced her to the person and treasure lineage of Sera Khandro Dewai Dorje and conferred empowerment, reading transmission, and practice instructions. She spent the last several years of her life translating Sera Khandro’s sheldam (instructions) into English as a Tsadra Foundation translator and scholar, along with teaching and practicing the Dharma.
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Sometimes The Only Thing to Do is Pray A Selection from Chapter 1 Excerpted from A Dakini's Counsel: Sera Khandro's Spiritual Advice and Dzogchen Instructions By Sera Khandro Translated by Christina Monson About This Title Sera Khandro Dewai Dorje was a modern Tibetan Buddhist teacher who single-pointedly pursued a life of Dharma while balancing family life and public [...]
Sera Khandro Dewai Dorje was a modern Tibetan Buddhist teacher who single-pointedly pursued a life of Dharma while balancing family life and public teaching. This collection of her advice, prayers, dreams, prophecies, and treasures (terma) is both biographical and instructional. It comes from within the tradition of Dzogchen, replete with practices for resting in the nature of mind. This lineage forms the bedrock of Christina Monson’s own spiritual path, lending a deep intimacy to the translations, which serve as a window into Sera Khandro’s life, teachings, and rich inner experience.
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Heart Advice Chapter 8, page 341-350
For Buddhist practitioners, death is an extraordinary opportunity. For it is that moment, when consciousness separates from the confines of physical form, that luminosity dawns and blazes as never before. Those who can seize the moment, by recognizing what is, are liberated on the spot. For others, subsequent events present further portals for recognition as the phenomena of the bardo unfold. Given the potency of the death experience for awakening, the Tibetan tradition as a whole, and especially the Dzogchen tradition, offer a plethora of skillful supports for the dying.
It is a natural inclination for those sensing into their own deaths, whether imminent or not, to want to say what is most important before the opportunity to do so is gone. To fully internalize the truth of death leads to speaking the truth, however and whatever that may entail for an individual. In this context, the tradition of final testaments (zhal chems), teachings and advice offered as the most essential by masters to disciples, enriches Tibetan Buddhism as a whole and especially the world of shaldam. Dewai Dorje’s writings contain several such selections, two of which conclude this final chapter.
“Heart Advice, A Final Testament,” written for Drime Ozer, covers with deeply felt earnestness crucial instructions on practicing most aspects of the path. Combining spiritual and practical advice, Dewai Dorje holds nothing back in telling her beloved exactly what she thinks he should and shouldn’t do. The intimacy between them is revealed in the moving and genuine pronouncements of what she sees would be dangerous for him. This degree of comfort and familiarity speaks to a relationship between heart Dharma friends, stripped of the formalities that otherwise could color communication between individuals of differing status within the tradition. Dewai Dorje taught Drime Ozer as an equal in a relationship of loving mutuality.
The final piece, “A Beggar Lady’s Final Testament,” combines the highest Dzogchen instructions with foundational Dharma advice. Written for monastics, it synthesizes Dewai Dorje’s indispensable counsel. For those who need something concise and easy to implement, this can be taken everywhere. It is as relevant for Dharma practitioners today as it was for her community one hundred years ago.
While neither of these final testaments is dated, Dewai Dorje might have written them at any time over her decades of life in eastern Tibet. From its language, the first likely was written before the passing of Drime Ozer in 1924. It’s not unusual for teachings labeled as final testaments to be composed well before a master’s actual passing. Genuine practitioners are steeped with the truth of impermanence and know that death can arrive at any moment. The urgency therefore to say what is most crucial is always upon them. What would be possible if such were the case for all of us?
Heart Advice, A Final Testament
How wondrous! Superb Heir of All Victorious Buddhas, gone before, present now, and still to come, Secret Consort throughout All Lifetimes, Great Hero—please, hear me.
I have little freedom, since my past accumulation of merit and wisdom was weak. I have fallen under the control of others, and as I am forced to wander in faraway places, my despair never lifts.
I have no desire to leave you, dearest partner, equal to my heart, eyes, and very life. But when negativity forces us apart for a little bit, please, listen to this heart advice, a final testament of what I am thinking.
Transmitting the mani mantra to the Great Compassionate One, or teaching sentient beings in the presence of Buddha— this is not what I am doing. Since our hearts are harmoniously intertwined and we have great love and pure samaya between us, I am just telling you what I think, without hiding or changing anything.
Visualize your father and lama, the actual buddha of triple time, Dudjom Dorje Drolo Tsal [Dudjom Lingpa] constantly upon your crown. Since he’s unrivaled among hundreds of lamas, you don’t need to rely on others, as there is the danger of breaking samaya.
Yidam deities, empty in their appearing, arise as the lama and are perfected as an expanse of self-arisen supports and supported manifestations. You don’t need development practice that fixates on these appearances. This brings the danger of falling into perpetual reification.
Mantra’s speech is the language of the unborn, emptiness. Breathing in and out is the wheel of mantra. You don’t need to count mantra recitation conceptually. You risk breaking its continuity with pointless chatter.
Self-arisen mind, beyond causes and conditions, is spontaneously present as an exalted state of primordial perfection. You don’t need to use antidotes of accepting and rejecting. These carry the danger of obscuring the twofold radiance of wisdom.
Present in and of itself and uncompounded, the dynamic energy of space and awareness appears as kayas and orbs of five-colored light. This is the actualization of the natural radiance of the four visions and six lamps. You don’t need to rely upon mere relative interdependencies. These bring the danger of temporary visual experiences of light rays.
In the illusory displays of dakinis, mind’s magical manifestations, connate primordial wisdom arises as the dakinis’ creative power. You don’t need to hold these as separate and distinct. Doing so risks inviting unwanted punishment.
The miraculous display of the haughty protectors’ wrath steals the life force of any enemy that is visualized. Killing for meat and beating drums is pointless. Misunderstanding the messengers risks harming yourself.
Wrathful, supreme method, the body of the vajra king penetrates the bhaga of the queen of unchanging space. You don’t need beautiful human seductresses. They bring the danger of losing the potency of your channels, winds, and vital essences.
Supreme accomplishment is evidenced by the power to reveal profound treasures, which are to be held as precious as life itself without any disrespect. You don’t need to compose teachings using the conventional language of intellectuals. Doing so risks profound teachings falling into the hands of transgressors.
Upon the face of the clear mirror of self-arisen phenomenal existence, the symbolic writing of the mother-dakinis appears in images. Practice these, the dakinis’ oral instructions, precisely as they should be. You don’t need to seek divination about the chaotic appearances of delusion. That brings the danger of being deceived by evil spirits.
Through powerful and persistent prayers, genuine Dharma holders, endowed with spiritual wealth yet humble in appearance, will come to your door. View them wisely, protect them, and give them ripening and liberating instructions. You don’t need to live according to others’ ethics. Doing so puts you in danger of wrong intentions, obstacles, and negative circumstances.
The spread and supervision of profound Dharma teachings are controlled by the dakinis of ultimate reality. You don’t need to cater to the wishes of ordinary humans. That carries the danger of mistaking the timing of Dharma teachings.
When the father’s riches are mined by the son, empty awareness, the best wisdom-dakini partner, is taken as the siddhi beyond method and wisdom. You don’t need human ladies as consorts. This risks entanglement with one who isn’t your destined partner.
The sole heart son Natsok Rangdrol will rely on only you as refuge, now and in the future. Protect him lovingly, and kindly give him the profound teachings. You don’t need to go to Gangri Tokar.4 There’s the danger of getting sick and dying.
When you instruct students in both worldly and spiritual matters, some cannot be tamed by gentleness and need wrath, and some cannot be tamed by wrath and need gentleness. Care for all beings with fearless conduct. You don’t need to hope, fear, or pretend anything. Pandering to others risks giving them control of your mind.
For transgressors untamed by either wrath or gentleness, incite the powerful display of the haughty protectors as opponents who will wipe them out until nothing, not even their names, remain. You don’t need to talk idly with transgressors. Doing so risks getting lost in their wildness.
Food taken and clothing worn are the wheel of the two accumulations, enjoyments to be invested as ornaments. Don yourself with nice clothing and enjoy special foods! You don’t need to eat and dress like a beggar. Doing so risks offending the wisdom deities in your body’s mandala.
When enacting great deeds for the teachings of the Buddha and beings, if you stay in retreat, you will accomplish benefit for self and other. You don’t need to run around on horseback doing village rituals. Doing so risks being affected by obscurations of ripened karma.
Trust only yourself. You don’t need the competition and conflict of friends and enemies. Sweet talkers with hearts of black smoke bring the danger of losing your freedom to others.
Without feeling discouraged by all these faults, focus on serving the Buddha’s teachings and sentient beings. The word death is just a bubble. Your own perception will dawn as a buddha field, present in and of itself.
Sera Khandro (1892–1940) was one of the most prolific Tibetan female authors of the past several centuries. At the age of fifteen, she left her home in Lhasa for eastern Tibet, embarking on a lifetime devoted to her spiritual path—she became a spiritual master, a revealer of ancient hidden teachings, a mystic, a visionary, a writer, a mother, and a vagabond. Her written works and spiritual lineage have been preserved and are now cherished worldwide.
Christina Monson (1969–2023) was a Buddhist practitioner and teacher and Tibetan language translator and interpreter. She had over thirty years of study, translation, and practice experience in Buddhism beginning with an interest in Asian philosophy as an undergraduate student at Brown University. Later, she focused her studies on Tibetan Buddhism while completing a master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She journeyed to Nepal in 1989 where she met her root guru, Chatral Sangye Dorje Rinpoche, under whose guidance she studied and practiced in periods of intensive retreat for the next twenty-seven years. Chatral Rinpoche first introduced her to the person and treasure lineage of Sera Khandro Dewai Dorje and conferred empowerment, reading transmission, and practice instructions. She spent the last several years of her life translating Sera Khandro’s sheldam (instructions) into English as a Tsadra Foundation translator and scholar, along with teaching and practicing the Dharma.
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Heart Advice: Pronouncements Before Passing A Selection from Chapter 8 Excerpted from A Dakini's Counsel: Sera Khandro's Spiritual Advice and Dzogchen Instructions By Sera Khandro Translated by Christina Monson About This Title Sera Khandro Dewai Dorje was a modern Tibetan Buddhist teacher who single-pointedly pursued a life of Dharma while balancing family life and public teaching. This collection [...]
The third volume of this series covers the teachings and practices of the Kadam lineage. This tradition is based on the teachings of the Indian master Atiśa, who traveled to Tibet in the early eleventh century and stayed for twelve years transmitting teachings that would be embraced by many traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. The three categories of teachings covered here and in the fourth volume of the series—Stages of the Path, Mind Training, and Esoteric Instructions—correspond to three root texts: Atiśa’s Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment, the aphorisms of the Seven-Point Mind Training, and Atiśa’s Bodhisattva’s Jewel Garland. This volume also contains ritual texts on the bodhisattva vow conferral, as well as commentaries by Tsongkhapa, Tāranātha, Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, and Jamgön Kongtrul, himself. The fourth volume of The Treasury of Precious Instructions series extends these commentaries and includes material on the esoteric instructions known as the Sixteen Drops.
About The Treasury of Precious Instructions
The Treasury of Precious Instructions by Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Taye, one of Tibet’s greatest Buddhist masters, is a shining jewel of Tibetan literature, presenting essential teachings from the entire spectrum of practice lineages that existed in Tibet. In its eighteen volumes, Kongtrul brings together some of the most important texts on key topics of Buddhist thought and practice as well as authoring significant new sections of his own.
Homage to great compassion. Homage to the teachers. Homage to the faith divinities.
Discard all lingering doubts, and strive with dedication in your practice. Thoroughly relinquish sloth, mental dullness, and laziness, and strive always with joyful perseverance. (1)
With mindfulness, vigilance, and conscientiousness, constantly guard the gateways of your senses. Again and again, three times both day and night, examine the flow of your thoughts. (2)
Reveal your own shortcomings, but do not seek out others’ errors. Conceal your own good qualities, but proclaim those of others. (3)
Forsake wealth and ministrations; at all times relinquish gain and fame. Have modest desires, be easily satisfied, and reciprocate kindness. (4)
Cultivate love and compassion, and stabilize your awakening mind. Relinquish the ten negative actions, and always reinforce your faith.(5)
Destroy anger and conceit, and be endowed with humility. Relinquish wrong livelihood, and be sustained by ethical livelihood. (6)
Forsake material possessions, embellish yourself with the wealth of the noble ones. Avoid all trifling distractions, and reside in the solitude of wilderness. (7)
Abandon frivolous words; constantly guard your speech. When you see your teachers and preceptors, reverently generate the wish to serve. (8)
Wise beings with dharma eyes and beginners on the path as well— recognize them as your spiritual teachers. In fact when you see any sentient being, view them as your parent, your child, or your grandchild. (9)
Renounce negative friendships, and rely on a spiritual friend. Dispel hostility and unpleasantness, and venture forth to where happiness lies. (10)
Abandon attachment to all things and abide free of desire. Attachment fails to bring even the higher realms; in fact, it kills the life of true liberation. (11)
When you encounter the causes of happiness, in these always persevere. Whichever task you take up first, address this task primarily. In this way, you ensure the success of both tasks, where otherwise you accomplish neither. (12)
Since you take no pleasure in negative deeds, when a thought of self-importance arises, at that instant deflate your pride and recall your teacher’s instructions. (13)
When discouraged thoughts arise, uplift your mind and meditate on the emptiness of both. When objects of attraction or aversion appear, view them as you would illusions and apparitions. (14)
When you hear unpleasant words, view them as mere echoes. When injuries afflict your body, see them as the fruits of past deeds. (15)
Dwell utterly in solitude, beyond town limits. Like the carcass of a wild animal, hide yourself away in the forest and live free of attachment. (16)
Always remain firm in your commitment. When a hint of procrastination and laziness arises, at that instant enumerate your flaws and recall the essence of spiritual conduct. (17)
However, if you do encounter others, speak peacefully and truthfully. Do not grimace or frown, but always maintain a smile. (18)
In general, when you see others, be free of miserliness and delight in giving; relinquish all thoughts of envy. (19)
To help soothe others’ minds, forsake all disputation and be endowed with forbearance. (20)
Be free of flattery and fickleness in friendship; be steadfast and reliable at all times. Do not disparage others, but always abide with a respectful demeanor. (21)
When giving advice, maintain compassion and altruism. Never defame the teachings. Whatever practices you admire, with aspiration and the ten spiritual deeds, strive diligently, dividing day and night. (22)
Whatever virtues you gather through the three times, dedicate them toward the unexcelled great awakening. Disperse your merit to all sentient beings, and utter the peerless aspiration prayers of the seven limbs at all times. (23)
If you proceed thus, you’ll swiftly perfect merit and wisdom and eliminate the two defilements. Since your human existence will be meaningful, you’ll attain the unexcelled enlightenment. (24)
The wealth of faith, the wealth of morality, the wealth of giving, the wealth of learning, the wealth of conscience, the wealth of shame, and the wealth of insight—these are the seven riches. (25)
These precious and excellent jewels are the seven inexhaustible riches. Do not speak of these to those not human. Among others guard your speech; when alone guard your mind. (26)
This concludes the Bodhisattva’s Jewel Garland composed by the Indian abbot Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna.
Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Taye (1813–1900) was a versatile and prolific scholar and one of the most outstanding writers and teachers of his time in Tibet. He was a pivotal figure in eastern Tibet’s nonsectarian movement and made major contributions to education, politics, and medicine.
Atīśa Dīpaṃkara Śrījñāna, the eleventh-century Indian Buddhist scholar and saint, came to Tibet at the invitation of the king of Western Tibet, Lha Lama Yeshe Wo, and his nephew, Jangchub Wo. His coming initiated the period of the second transmission of Buddhism to Tibet, formative for the Sakya Kagyu and Gelug traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. His chief disciple Dromtön went on to found the Kadampa tradition. Atisha's most celebrated text, Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment, sets forth the entire Buddhist path within the framework of three levels of motivation on the part of the practitioner. Atisha's text thus became the source of the lamrim tradition, or graduated stages of the path to enlightenment, an approach to spiritual practice incorporated within all schools of Tibetan Buddhism.
Artemus B. Engle studied Buddhism with the late Sera Mey Khensur Lobsang Tharchin Rinpoche for more than thirty years. Over much of the past decade he has continued his studies as a student of Gyumé Khensur Lobsang Jampa Rinpoche. In 1983 he earned a doctorate in Buddhist Studies from the University of Wisconsin and is currently a fellow with the Tsadra Foundation.
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Bodhisattva's Jewel Garland: A Root Text of Mahāyāna Instruction from the Precious Kadam Scripture Excerpted from Kadam: Stages of the Path, Mind Training, and Esoteric Practice, Part One By Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Taye Translated by Artemus B. Engle About Kadam The third volume of this series covers the teachings and practices of the Kadam lineage. This tradition [...]
Illuminating the Mind to See One's Nature: The Root of Taoist Inner Practice An Excerpt from Taoist Inner Alchemy
Taoism and Buddhism, specifically Chan Buddhism, share many similar ideas including the concept and practice of inner cultivation, the nature of emptiness and non-duality, down to seemingly obscure koan-esque puzzles like encouraging practitioners to seek the Tao, followed by phrases like "the Tao cannot be found."
In the following excerpt from Taoist Inner Alchemy, Ge Guolong comments on Huang Yuanji's discourse on illuminating the mind to see its fundamental nature, pointing out the significance of such inner cultivation as the root of Taoist practice. In this regard, Taoism and Chan Buddhism share a similar goal in the practice of turning inwardly toward the nature of one's mind. However, as Ge Guolong explains, "the angles from which it approaches this work, and the ways in which it expresses its goals can be quite different from Buddhism’s." In short, using Master Huang Yuanji's discourse, Ge Guolong demonstrates that Taoist practice enables Taoist Inner Alchemists to attune to the patterns of the Tao, arriving home at one's primeval state.
For those interested in Buddhist discourse related to Chan, Zen, and Dzogchen, Master Huang Yuanji's discourse alongside Ge Guolong's accessible commentary is an elegant deep dive into the language and worldview of Taoism.
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Illuminating Your Mind to See Your Nature Chapter 2, page 39-43
I did not choose the ten discourses from Huang Yuanji’s The Oral Record of the Hall of Joyous Teaching that appear in this book at random—they are interrelated and work in concert with one another. Huang’s lectures approach alchemy from different angles and, taken as a whole, present a system of practice. Exploring these ten discourses allows us to distill a basic summary of the process of refining the internal elixir as well as to encounter all of the major principles of Taoist cultivation.
“Illuminating Your Mind to See Your Nature” appears as the second discourse because the work the chapter title describes is Taoist alchemy’s most central component. In fact, speaking more broadly, it represents the centerpiece of all the different types of training in the entire corpus of Taoist cultivation. I am of the opinion that although there are different schools, lineages, and paths of true Taoist practice, they all revolve around this nucleus. Thus, if one were to ignore this core teaching, then one could not be on the correct path. This is why practicing without illuminating the mind is described in terms such as walking along corrupted routes, following crooked roads, entering side doors, or treading left-hand paths. If a teacher is speaking of the true, correct path—the Great Tao—then his or her teachings will most definitely contain this central point that is common to all branches of Taoism. The fact that all different schools and lineages eventually speak of illuminating mind and seeing original nature is not simply a matter of who influenced whom. Rather, it is a matter of the truth of life and the universe—of what reality fundamentally is. The reality of each of our true lives is the same, and thus, this teaching is pervasive.
Consider how Chinese Buddhism was inherited from India, a place that has had its own cultivation traditions since ancient times. After Shakyamuni founded the Buddhist tradition, it was transplanted to China. Taoism is China’s own native religion, and, like Buddhism, it too is a tradition that comes from antiquity. One cannot say that Taoism came into being because of Buddhism’s influence, just as one cannot say that Buddhism was born of the influence of Taoist philosophy or religion. They both descend from different origins. Nevertheless, from the Song and Ming dynasties onward, despite the fact that the three schools of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism had all developed independently of each other, many great masters began to emphasize that “the three teachings are one.” This included Huang Yuanji, who espoused the oneness of the three teachings when he taught the Tao. Sometimes he drew upon certain ideas from Confucians or cited the Confucian Four Books in order to flesh out his own ideas, and he of course quoted Buddhist ideas, most notably those of Chan Buddhism.
This melding of the three schools into one reflects the blending and exchange that took place at the level of cultural interaction, but it also reflects deeper intrinsic compatibility. This blending occurred a bit like the way people with distinct cultural backgrounds or world-views can suddenly meet and get along so well that they feel like kindred spirits. Mutual understanding can arise like this because, at the end of the day, the predicaments all humans face are quite similar. Similarly, because many of the key issues cultivators from different traditions are concerned with are the same, they are often able to find common ground without having had any prior encounters. Due to the intrinsic compatibility of traditions devoted to understanding reality, when different traditions’ representatives start to mingle there will always be mutual influence. It is as though they quickly discover, “I can use your vocabulary to explain my way, and you can use my vocabulary to explain yours. The true, eternal Way that transcends language itself seems to be the same thing for both of us.”
Lao-tzu’s first declaration in the Tao Te Ching was, “Any way that is called ‘the Tao’ is not the eternal Tao.” With language we can do no more than attempt to attach footnotes to Great Way, which remains beyond words no matter what we say about it. No explanation or expression will ever suffice to represent the Tao, as its ultimate truth lies beyond conception and is therefore ineffable. This is the reason why various traditions’ modes of verbally pointing in the direction of the Tao can come across as very different, while those things at their core that transcend language are completely identical.
I have a personal interest in many different philosophical schools and religions. I do not just research Taoism, but Buddhism, as well. I am also interested in some of the masters of New Age religions. After studying and experiencing their teachings, I have usually been able to find areas of intrinsic compatibility. These areas of overlap are found in the realm of methods for cultivating the mind in order to trigger an awakening to its fundamental nature—precisely the issue this chapter is devoted to.
“Illuminating the mind to see one’s nature” was originally a term from Chan Buddhism, which describes the ultimate purpose of Chan practice. Chan is described in Buddhism as being “a separate transmission beyond the sutras, not established in words, which directly points out the human mind, so that one can see one’s mind’s nature and become a buddha.” In short, Chan is not something that can be found inside of words. Being beyond language, the function of its teachings is to directly point toward the mind in order to create the conditions for one to see the Tao and directly experience one’s own buddha nature. This process is encapsulated in a pithy saying: “Seeing your mind’s nature, you become a buddha.”
Taoist alchemists also speak of illuminating the mind to see original nature, which can be written as hsing. Taoists’ understanding of this process is interconnected with Chan teachings and does not contradict them. However, Taoism’s points of emphasis, the angles from which it approaches this work, and the ways in which it expresses its goals can be quite different from Buddhism’s.
It is well known that Taoist alchemists speak of simultaneously cultivating hsing (original nature) and ming (life essence). People who have not looked deeply into these teachings sometimes reflexively react to them by saying, “but isn’t illuminating the mind to see one’s nature a Buddhist thing? It doesn’t have anything to do with Taoist alchemists.” Such statements are skewed. Taoists most definitely do emphasize illuminating the mind in order to see original nature, and doing so definitely does not contradict the cultivation of ming. The two are not opposed. In the broad framework of simultaneous hsing and ming cultivation, illuminating the mind to see one’s nature occupies the nucleus of hsing practice.
When inner alchemists talk about illuminating the mind to see original nature, they root their discussions within the framework of simultaneously cultivating hsing and ming. Hsing and ming are so fundamentally connected and integrated that, at the highest and most comprehensive level, there is no distinction between the two. They are unified. Because the Tao itself transcends all distinctions between hsing and ming, authentic hsing cultivation includes ming, and authentic ming cultivation cannot be separated from hsing. Thus it is that illuminating the mind to see its nature is not merely the nucleus of hsing cultivation—it lies at the center of both hsing and ming cultivation. This is why Huang Yuanji takes such pains to stress that illuminating the mind to see one’s nature is the root of all practice.
What exactly is meant by illuminating one’s mind to see one’s nature? We can try using various terms or theories to explain it, but regardless of what is said, if all one sees are words, then words are all one will ever get. Illuminating the mind is done by shedding light upon the interior of one’s heart, not by illuminating a manuscript. One must pierce through the words in these teachings in order to reverse one’s perspective and observe one’s own mind. This is what leads to locating one’s own hsing and realizing one’s own fundamental nature. The real experience of illuminating the mind and recognizing original nature is too subtle and profound to be approximated linguistically.
Despite the limitations of language, we can still compare the words left behind by accomplished Taoist cultivators with our own experiences of the mind’s original nature. As you read through Huang Yuanji’s discourses, you should connect with your own inner nature as best you can, so as to develop a feeling for his meaning. Do not focus solely on the words and the subject matter in these chapters. Instead, allow your mind to resonate with what is written here. This is the way to get this book to actually help you illuminate your mind to see your nature, instead of just giving you an intellectual understanding of the theories and lore related to Taoist practice.
A discussion of the concept of “illuminating the mind” might start with a very basic question: What is mind? But actually, it may be best if I do not make a stringent effort to explain or define mind, because everybody already knows what it is. After all, our minds neverstop working all day long. A very simplistic explanation for what the mind is is thought. The word “mind” can be conceived as representing the totality of our mental activity, while the word “thought” refers to individual instances of mental activity.
That we are humans is because we have minds, and not simply because we have bodies. There is a short story in Chuang-tzu in which a sow suddenly dies. At first her piglets do not realize that their mother has passed away, and they continue happily suckling at her teats for milk. But the instant they realize she is dead they run away from her body in fear. Is it that these piglets do not love their mother? Of course they love her, but now they realize that the sow’s corpse is no longer their mother. With the core—the sow’s mind—no longer present, her body is no more than a carcass. To the piglets it is incapable of representing “mother.” Nobody feels love for a cadaver, even that which belonged to a loved one. At essence, what we love are one another’s hearts, not one another’s bodies.
Buddhism teaches that all people have buddha nature, which means that all humans have an independent, sentient mind. However, the minds of most people are unawakened. In Buddhist terms, to have an “unawakened” mind means to remain bound to the habits of reification and objectification. Our minds are home to an endless stream of discrete objects of attachment that we think and worry about. At a certain level, our minds are filled with thoughts of external things: our businesses, careers, rent and mortgages, car payments, work responsibilities, and so on. At a somewhat deeper level, our minds get caught up in our bodily sensations, and they get focused on the act of thinking itself. All of us are aware of a huge spectrum of phenomena, but there always remains one crucial thing our minds are unaware of: the mind itself. To have a mind that cannot truly see itself is to be without self-knowledge.
This is a point that is worth soberly reflecting upon for a moment. We all know countless facts, and we are all capable of thinking about a huge variety of complicated matters, but do we actually know our own selves? If we have actually tasted self-knowledge, is it something that is present for us at all times and all places? If your honest answer is, “I always know myself, no matter where I am and what’s happening,” then congratulations! You are already at least halfway to being a spiritual immortal, and you certainly do not need to hear any more teachings about this.
For the rest of us, it is necessary to practice, in order to discover firsthand that the fundamental essence of our minds is the same as the Tao. Hsing, or original nature, is fundamentally sentient, brilliant, vast, and immeasurable. Our basic nature is as expansive as the empty sky and just as free of attachment and obstruction. However, despite being of this essential nature, our unawakened minds can be seized by one object or phenomenon after another, eventually becoming trapped by thought.
If we reflect upon our lives, it is possible to discover that we were each formed by the multitude of emotions, ideas, and thoughts in our minds, and yet this all took place without us ever having been conscious of the basic essence of the mind itself. The mind’s “basic essence,” which is another way of saying hsing, refers to what the mind was before it became tethered to conditions or yoked to this or that object or phenomenon. To find the way back to this uncontrived, primeval state is—to use the terminology of Chan Buddhism—to find one’s “original face.” This is to lay eyes upon hsing, our original state of being.
Ge Guolong has a PhD in philosophy from Peking University. Since 1999, he has worked as a researcher at the China Academy of Social Sciences Taoism Research Center. Professor Ge has published numerous books on Taoist inner alchemy in Chinese and has also conducted extensive research into Chan Buddhism He is a long-time practitioner of Taoist and Buddhist meditation.
Mattias Daly is a professional translator with a degree in acupuncture and a master’s in Chinese Literature. He was inducted into the Longmen lineage of Complete Reality Daoism by Abbess Liu of the Three Purities Monastery in Jilin province, China in 2013. He primarily translates for the National Palace Museum in Taipei and the Chinese Taipei PEN quarterly.
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Illuminating the Mind to See One's Nature: The Root of Taoist Inner Practice An Excerpt from Taoist Inner Alchemy By Master Huang Yuanji & Ge Guolong Translate by Mattias Daly About This Excerpt Taoism and Buddhism, specifically Chan Buddhism, share many similar ideas including the concept and practice of inner cultivation, the nature of emptiness [...]
Women in Buddhism
Throughout history women have played a vital role in the preservation and presentation of Buddhism. The Buddha himself expressed deep respect for his mother and as several contemporary Buddhist scholars have pointed out, women have played a significant role in helping to shape and preserve Buddhism. That is certainly true for Buddhism in today's world.
Today, contemporary Buddhism is largely shaped by a number of women who play vital roles from translation to teaching, to holding highly influential seats in Buddhist sanghas around the world. We are happy to publish a wide range of Buddhist authors from diverse traditions. This guide is certainly not complete in the sense of presenting each and every example of women in Buddhism today, but hopefully it will give readers a place to begin learning from and celebrating the many women who make Buddhism possible today.
The lives and writings of six leading Black Buddhist women—Jan Willis, bell hooks, Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, angel Kyodo williams, Spring Washam, and Faith Adiele—reveal new expressions of Buddhism rooted in ancestry, love, and collective liberation.
Lifting as They Climb is a love letter of freedom and self-expression from six Black women Buddhist teachers, conveyed through the voice of author Toni Pressley-Sanon, one of the innumerable people who have benefitted from their wisdom. She explores their remarkable lives and undertakes deep readings of their work, weaving them into the broader tapestry of the African diaspora and the historical struggle for Black liberation.
Dr. Toni Pressley-Sanonis an associate professor in the Department of Africology & African American Studies at Eastern Michigan University, having previously held positions at the University of Buffalo and Pennsylvania State University. Her work dwells on the intersections of memory, history, and culture in both Africa and the African diaspora. She is the author of four books and numerous journal articles and book chapters on these subjects. Toni has practiced Buddhist meditation and mindfulness for the past ten years.
Available 05/21/2024
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Sera Khandro (1892–1940) was one of the most prolific Tibetan female authors of the past several centuries. At the age of fifteen, she left her home in Lhasa for eastern Tibet, embarking on a lifetime devoted to her spiritual path—she became a spiritual master, a revealer of ancient hidden teachings, a mystic, a visionary, a writer, a mother, and a vagabond. Her written works and spiritual lineage have been preserved and are now cherished worldwide.
Christina Monson (1969–2023) was a Buddhist practitioner and teacher and Tibetan language translator and interpreter. She had over thirty years of study, translation, and practice experience in Buddhism beginning with an interest in Asian philosophy as an undergraduate student at Brown University.
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Embodying Tara Twenty-One Manifestations to Awaken Your Innate Wisdom
Tara, the Buddhist goddess of compassion, can manifest within all of us. In this illustrated introduction to Tara's twenty-one forms, respected female Buddhist teacher and practitioner Dorje Lopön Chandra Easton shows you how to invite Tara’s awakened energy to come alive in yourself through:
insight into core Buddhist concepts and teachings;
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mantra recitations; and
journal exercises.
The relatable stories from Buddhist history and the author’s personal reflections will give you the tools to live a more compassionate life, befriend your fears, and overcome everyday challenges.
Chandra Easton is a Dharma teacher, author, and translator of Tibetan Buddhist texts. She has taught Buddhism and Hatha Yoga since 2001. In 2015, she was given the title of Vajra Teacher, Dorje Lopön, for Tara Mandala Retreat Center by Lama Tsultrim Allione and H. E. Gochen Sang Ngag Rinpoche. Lopön Chandra studied Buddhism and Tibetan language in Dharamsala, India, and at UCSB’s religious studies department. During her studies, she cotranslated with her mentor, B. Alan Wallace, Sublime Dharma: A Compilation of Two Texts on the Great Perfection (Vimala Publishing, 2012).
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Shih Chao-Hwei is a Buddhist monastic, social activist, scholar, and recent winner of the Niwano Peace Prize. A leading advocate for animal rights, a vocal supporter of same-sex marriage, and a key figure in the Buddhist gender equality movement, she is also a professor at Hsuan Chuang University and the founder of Hong Shih Buddhist College.
Peter Singer, the “father of the modern animal welfare movement,” was named one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine. An Australian philosopher and professor of bioethics, he has contributed to more than 50 books in over 30 languages. Singer is founder of The Life You Can Save nonprofit and a professor of bioethics at Princeton University.
This is the second of two volumes that present teachings and practices from the Shangpa Kagyu practice lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. This tradition derives from two Indian yoginīs, the dākinīs Niguma and Sukhasiddhi, and their disciple, the eleventh-century Tibetan yogi Khyungpo Naljor Tsultrim Gönpo of the Shang region of Tibet. There are forty texts in this volume, beginning with Jonang Tāranātha’s classic commentary and its supplement expounding the Six Dharmas of Niguma. It includes the definitive collection of the tantric bases of the Shangpa Kagyu—the five principal deities of the new translation (sarma) traditions and the Five-Deity Cakrasamvara practice. The source scriptures, liturgies, supplications, empowerment texts, instructions, and practice manuals were composed by Tangtong Gyalpo, Tāranātha, Jamgön Kongtrul, and others.
The first part of this series is also available now.
Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Taye (1813–1900) was a versatile and prolific scholar and one of the most outstanding writers and teachers of his time in Tibet. He was a pivotal figure in eastern Tibet’s nonsectarian movement and made major contributions to education, politics, and medicine.
Sarah Harding has been a Buddhist practitioner since 1974 and has been teaching and translating since completing a three year retreat in 1980 under the guidance of Kyabje Kalu Rinpoche. Her publications include Zhije and Chöd, respectively the thirteenth and fourteenth volumes of The Treasury of Precious Instructions series. She was an associate professor at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, starting in 1992, and has been a fellow of the Tsadra Foundation since 2000.
Mahaprajapati was the only mother the Buddha ever knew. His birth mother, Maya, died shortly after childbirth, and her sister Mahaprajapati took the infant to her breast, nurturing and raising him into adulthood. In this first full biography of Mahaprajapati, Wendy Garling presents her life story, with attention to her early years as sister, queen, matriarch, and mother, as well as her later years as a nun. Garling reveals just how exceptional Mahaprajapati’s role was as leader of the first generation of Buddhist women, helping the Buddha establish an equal community of lay and monastic women and men. Mother to the Buddha, mother to early Buddhist women, mother to the Buddhist faith, Mahaprajapati’s journey is finally presented as one interwoven with the founding of Buddhism.
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Wendy Garlingis a writer, mother, gardener, independent scholar, and authorized dharma teacher with a BA from Wellesley College and MA in Sanskrit language and literature from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Stars at Dawn: Forgotten Stories of Women in the Buddha’s Life (2016, Shambhala Publications), a groundbreaking new biography of the Buddha that relates his journey to awakening through the stories of Buddhism’s first women.
Illumination A Guide to the Buddhist Method of No-Method
A modern guide to the transformative practice of silent illumination from Chan Buddhist teacher Rebecca Li.
Silent illumination, a way of penetrating the mind through curious inquiry, is an especially potent, accessible, and portable meditation practice perfectly suited for a time when there is so much fear, upheaval, and sorrow in our world. It is a method of reconnecting with our true nature, which encompasses all that exists and where suffering cannot touch us.
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Rebecca Li, PhD, is a meditation and Dharma teacher in the lineage of Chan Master Sheng Yen and founder and guiding teacher of Chan Dharma Community. She gives Dharma talks and leads Chan retreats in North America and Europe. She is also a sociology professor and lives with her husband in New Jersey. Her talks, writings, and schedule can be found at rebeccali.org.
The fifteenth-century Himalayan saint Drukpa Kunley is a beloved figure throughout Tibet, Bhutan, and Nepal, known both for his profound mastery of Buddhist practice as well as his highly unconventional and often humorous behavior. Ever the proverbial trickster and “crazy wisdom” yogi, his outward appearance and conduct of carousing, philandering, and breaking social norms is understood to be a means to rouse ordinary people out of habitual ways of thinking that leads them toward spiritual awakening.
Elizabeth Monson has spent decades traveling throughout the Himalayas, retracing Drukpa Kunley’s steps and translating his works. In this creative telling, she has reimagined his life based on historical accounts, autobiographical sketches, folktales, and first-hand ethnographic research. The result, with flourishes of magical encounters and references to his superhuman capacities, is a poignant narrative of Kunley’s life, revealing to the reader the quintessential example of the capacity of Buddhism to skillfully bring people to liberation.
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ElizabethMonson, PhD, is the spiritual codirector of Natural Dharma Fellowship and the managing teacher at Wonderwell Mountain Refuge. She is a Dharma teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, has lectured at the Harvard Divinity School, and teaches meditation throughout New England.
Living Theravada Demystifying the People, Places, and Practices of a Buddhist Tradition
An illuminating introduction to the contemporary world of Theravada Buddhism and its rich culture and practices in modern mainland Southeast Asia.
Theravada translates as “the way of the Elders,” indicating that this Buddhist tradition considers itself to be the most authoritative and pure. Tracing all the way back to the time of the Buddha, Theravada Buddhism is distinguished by canonical literature preserved in the Pali language, beliefs, and practices—and this literature is often specialized and academic in tone. By contrast, this book will serve as a foundational and accessible resource on Theravada Buddhism and the contemporary, lived world of its enduring tradition.
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Brooke Schedneck, PhD, is an assistant professor in the department of religious studies at Rhodes College. Her work focuses on contemporary Buddhism in Thailand, and she spent years teaching and conducting research in Chiang Mai. She has presented her research internationally, and her work has been featured in academic journals and publications such as Tricycle, Aeon, and The Conversation.
An inspiring and intimate tale set against the turmoil of recent Tibetan history, Inseparable across Lifetimes offers for the first time the translations of love letters between two modern Buddhist visionaries. The letters are poetic, affectionate, and prophetic, articulating a hopeful vision of renewal that drew on their past lives together and led to their twenty-year partnership. This couple played a significant role in restoring Buddhism in the region of Golok once China’s revolutionary fervor gave way to reform. Holly Gayley, who was given their correspondence by Namtrul Rinpoche himself, has translated their lives and letters in order to share their remarkable story with the world.
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Holly Gayley, Associate Professor of Buddhist Studies, is a scholar and translator of contemporary Buddhist literature in Tibet. She is author of Love Letters from Golok: A Tantric Couple in Modern Tibet, co-editor of A Gathering of Brilliant Moons: Practice Advice from the Rime Masters of Tibet, and translator of Inseparable Across Lifetimes: The Lives and Love Letters of Namtrul Rinpoche and Khandro Tāre Lhamo.
Black and Buddhist What Buddhism Can Teach Us about Race, Resilience, Transformation, and Freedom
Leading African American Buddhist teachers offer lessons on racism, resilience, spiritual freedom, and the possibility of a truly representative American Buddhism.
What does it mean to be Black and Buddhist? In this powerful collection of writings, African American teachers from all the major Buddhist traditions tell their stories of how race and Buddhist practice have intersected in their lives. The resulting explorations display not only the promise of Buddhist teachings to empower those facing racial discrimination but also the way that Black Buddhist voices are enriching the Dharma for all practitioners. As the first anthology comprised solely of writings by African-descended Buddhist practitioners, this book is an important contribution to the development of the Dharma in the West.
With contributions by Acharya Gaylon Ferguson, Cheryl A. Giles, Gyōzan Royce Andrew Johnson, Ruth King, Kamilah Majied, Lama Rod Owens, Lama Dawa Tarchin Phillips, Sebene Selassie, and Pamela Ayo Yetunde.
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Cheryl A. Giles, Psy.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist and the Francis Greenwood Peabody Senior Lecturer on Pastoral Care and Counseling at the Harvard Divinity School. Giles is the author of several articles and co-editor of The Arts of Contemplative Care (Wisdom, 2012).
Pamela Ayo Yetunde, J.D., Th.D. is a Community Dharma Leader in the Insight Meditation tradition. She teaches pastoral care and counseling and has taught at University of the West, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, and Upaya Institute and Zen Center. Ayo has written for Buddhadharma, Lion’s Roar, Religions, and Buddhist-Christian Studies. She is the author of Object Relations, Buddhism and Relationality in Womanist Practical Theology and Buddhist-Christian Dialogue, U.S. Law, and Womanist Theology for Transgender Spiritual Care.
Tara is one of the most celebrated goddesses in the Buddhist world, representing enlightened activity in the form of the divine feminine. She protects, nurtures, and helps practitioners on the path to enlightenment. Manifesting in many forms and in many colors to help beings, Tara’s red form represents her powers of magnetization, subjugation, and the transformation of desire into enlightened activity. She is considered to be particularly powerful in times of plague and disharmony.
This comprehensive overview focuses on the origins, forms, and practices of Tara, providing the reader with insightful information and inspirations relating to the goddess. Its second part focuses on Red Tara, a powerful and liberating form of Tara that is particularly important to connect with in a time of crisis. These chapters cover various forms of Red Tara found throughout the Tibetan Buddhist world, the particular qualities she represents, and how through prayers and meditation we can embody her principles and truly benefit beings.
$29.95 - Paperback
Rachael Stevensholds a doctorate from Oxford University, is an early education teacher, and is a long-term Buddhist practitioner. Rachael’s research focuses on Red Tara, and she has studied and practiced with Buddhist communities in Europe, Asia, North America, and Brazil.
The primary emblem of the feminine in Tibetan Buddhism is the dakini, or "sky-dancer," a semi-wrathful spirit-woman who manifests in visions, dreams, and meditation experiences. Western scholars and interpreters of the dakini, influenced by Jungian psychology and feminist goddess theology, have shaped a contemporary critique of Tibetan Buddhism in which the dakini is seen as a psychological "shadow," a feminine savior, or an objectified product of patriarchal fantasy. According to Judith Simmer-Brown—who writes from the point of view of an experienced practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism—such interpretations are inadequate.
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Judith Simmer-Brown, Ph.D., is professor and chair of the religious studies department at Naropa University (formerly the Naropa Institute), where she has taught since 1978. She has authored numerous articles on Tibetan Buddhism, Buddhist-Christian dialogue, and Buddhism in America. She is an Acharya (senior teacher) in the lineage of Chögyam Trungpa. A practicing Buddhist since 1971, she lives in Boulder, Colorado.
The Dīghanikāya or Long Discourses of the Buddha is one of the four major collections of teachings from the early period of Buddhism. Its thirty-four suttas (in Sanskrit, sutras) demonstrate remarkable breadth in both content and style, forming a comprehensive collection. The Art of Listening gives an introduction to the Dīghanikāya and demonstrates the historical, cultural, and spiritual insights that emerge when we view the Buddhist suttas as oral literature.
Each sutta of the Dīghanikāya is a paced, rhythmic composition that evolved and passed intergenerationally through chanting. For hundreds of years, these timeless teachings were never written down. Examining twelve suttas of the Dīghanikāya, scholar Sarah Shaw combines a literary approach and a personal one, based on her experiences carefully studying, hearing, and chanting the texts. At once sophisticated and companionable, The Art of Listening will introduce you to the diversity and beauty of the early Buddhist suttas.
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Sarah Shaw is a faculty member and lecturer at the University of Oxford. She has published numerous works on the history and practices of Buddhism, including Mindfulness and The Art of Listening.
Women in Tibetan Buddhism
Jetsunma Tenzin Palmowas raised in London and became a Buddhist while still in her teens. At the age of twenty she traveled to India, becoming one of the first Westerners to be ordained as a Buddhist nun. The international bestseller Cave in the Snow chronicles her twelve years of seclusion in a remote cave. Deeply concerned with the plight of Buddhist nuns, she established Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery in India. In 2008 His Holiness the Twelfth Gyalwang Drukpa, head of the Drukpa Kagyu lineage, gave her the rare title of Jetsunma (Venerable Master).
$21.95 - Paperback
Khandro Rinpoche - Born in India in 1967, Khandro Rinpoche is the daughter of Tibetan meditation master His Holiness Mindrolling Trichen and is herself a renowned teacher in the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. She is the head of a Tibetan Buddhist nunnery in India and divides her time between teaching in the West, running the nunnery, and supporting charity projects for Tibetan refugees in India.
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Pema Chödron served as the director of Karma Dzong in Boulder, Colorado, until moving in 1984 to rural Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, to be the director of Gampo Abbey. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche gave her explicit instructions on establishing this monastery for Western monks and nuns. She currently teaches in the United States and Canada and plans for an increased amount of time in solitary retreat under the guidance of Venerable Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. She is interested in helping to establish Tibetan Buddhist monasticism in the West, as well as continuing her work with Western Buddhists of all traditions, sharing ideas and teachings.
$24.95 - Hardcover
Thubten Chodron - Ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist nun in 1977, Venerable Thubten Chodron is an author, teacher, and the founder and abbess of Sravasti Abbey. Sravasti Abbey is the only Tibetan Buddhist training monastery for Westerners in the US and holds gender equality, social engagement, and care for the environment amongst its core values. Ven. Chodron teaches worldwide and is known for her practical (and humorous!) explanations of how to apply Buddhist teachings in daily life.
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Lama Tsultrim Allione is an author, internationally known Buddhist teacher, and the founder and resident lama of Tara Mandala Retreat Center. She is the author of Women of Wisdom, the national best-seller Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict, which has been translated into seventeen languages, and Wisdom Rising: Journey into the Mandala of the Empowered Feminine.
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Elizabeth Mattis Namgyelhas studied and practiced Mahayana Buddhism, as well as the Vajrayana tradition of the Longchen Nyingthik, for over 30 years under the guidance of her teacher and husband, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. She has been intimately involved with Rinpoche’s work in bringing Buddhist wisdom to the West, in particular the development of Mangala Shri Bhuti, an organization dedicated to the study and practice of the Longchen Nyingthik lineage.
$16.95 - Paperback
Anne Carolyn Klein is Professor and a former Chair of the Department of Religion at Rice University. She is also a cofounding director of the Dawn Mountain Tibetan Temple, Community Center, and Research Institute. Her publications include Path to the Middle (SUNY Press), Unbounded Wholeness, coauthored with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche (Oxford University Press), and Knowledge and Liberation (Snow Lion Publications).
$29.95 - Paperback
Sangye Khandro is an American woman who studied Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan language with Tibetan masters in India and Nepal. She has studied and translated many important Tibetan Buddhist texts. She is a cofounder of Light of Berotsana, a nonprofit organization for translators of Tibetan texts.
Carolyn Rose Gimian is a teacher of meditation, mindfulness, and Buddhism, as well as a writer, book editor, and archivist. She edited Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior in close cooperation with Chögyam Trungpa. After his death, she compiled and edited two additional books of his Shambhala teachings: Great Eastern Sun: The Wisdom of Shambhala and Smile at Fear: Awakening the True Heart of Bravery. She is also the editor of the ten-volume Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa, Mindfulness in Action, and many other volumes of his work.
"By being keen observers of our planet, we are more connected to the world around us and in a better position to prevent harm and improve the health of the earth." —Stephanie Kaza, Mindfully Green
Joanna Macy, PhD, teacher and author, is a scholar of Buddhism, systems thinking, and deep ecology. As the root teacher of the Work That Reconnects, Macy has created a groundbreaking framework for personal and social change that brings a new way of seeing the world as our larger body. Her many books include World as Lover, World as Self; Widening Circles, A Memoir; Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in without Going Crazy; and Coming Back to Life: The Updated Guide to the Work That Reconnects.
$27.95 - Paperback
Stephanie Kaza is Professor Emerita of Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont. A leading voice in Buddhism and ecology, her most recent book is Green Buddhism: Practice and Compassionate Action in Uncertain Times.
$18.95 - Paperback
Joan Halifax, PhD, is a Zen priest and anthropologist who has served on the faculty of Columbia University and the University of Miami School of Medicine. For the past thirty years she has worked with dying people and has lectured on the subject of death and dying at Harvard Divinity School, Harvard Medical School, Georgetown Medical School, and many other academic institutions. In 1990, she founded Upaya Zen Center, a Buddhist study and social action center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 1994, she founded the Project on Being with Dying, which has trained hundreds of healthcare professionals in the contemplative care of dying people.
$27.95 - MixedMedia
Natalie Goldbergis the author of fifteen books. Writing Down the Bones, her first, has been translated into nineteen languages. Three Simple Lines: A Writer’s Pilgrimage into the Heart and Homeland of Haiku is her latest book. For the last forty years she has practiced Zen and taught seminars in writing as a spiritual practice. She lives in northern New Mexico.
$16.95 - Paperback
Paula Arai was raised in Detroit by a Japanese mother and did Zen training in Japan. She obtained her Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from Harvard University in 1993 and is now the Eshinni & Kakushinni Professor of Women and Buddhist Studies at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, California. She is the author of Bringing Zen Home: The Healing Heart of Japanese Women’s Rituals, Women Living Zen: Japanese Soto Buddhist Nuns, and Painting Enlightenment: Healing Visions of the Heart Sutra.
$19.95 - Hardcover
Jan Chozen Bays, MD, is an ordained Zen teacher and a pediatrician who specializes in the evaluation of children for abuse and neglect. She has trained in Zen for forty-five years with Roshis Taizan Maezumi and Shodo Harada. With her husband she serves as co-abbot of Great Vow Zen Monastery, a residential center for intensive Zen training in Oregon.
$16.95 - Paperback
Zenju Earthlyn Manuelis an author, poet, and ordained Zen Buddhist priest. She is the author of Deepest Peace, Sanctuary, The Way of Tenderness, Tell Me Something About Buddhism, and Black Angel Cards: 36 Oracles and Messages for Divining Your Life. She compiled and edited Seeds for a Boundless Life: Zen Teachings from the Heart by Zenkei Blanche Hartmann and is a contributing author in Dharma, Color, Culture and The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women.
$18.95 - Paperback
Laura Burges(Ryuko Eitai) is a lay entrusted Buddhist teacher in the Soto Zen tradition. She lectures, offers classes, and leads retreats at the San Francisco Zen Center and at other practice places in Northern California. She is the abiding teacher at Lenox House Meditation Group in Oakland. Laura taught children for 35 years and now mentors other teachers.
$21.95 - Paperback
Susan Moonis a writer, editor, and Buddhist teacher in the Soto Zen tradition. For many years she has taught and led Zen retreats nationally and internationally. Her books include This Is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity; the groundbreaking collection, The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women, with Florence Caplow; and What Is Zen? with Norman Fischer.
$17.95 - Paperback
Women in the Insight and Theravada Tradition
Ven. Ayya Khema was born into a Jewish family in Berlin in 1923 and escaped the Nazi regime in 1938. She was ordained a Theravadin Buddhist nun in 1979 and established a forest monastery near Sidney, Australia; a training center for nuns in Colombo, Sri Lanka; and, later, Buddha-Haus, a meditation center in the Allgäu, Germany. Among her books are When the Iron Eagle Flies; Being Nobody, Going Nowhere; Who Is My Self?; and an autobiography, I Give You My Life. She passed away in 1997.
$18.95 - Paperback
Sharon Salzbergis one of America's leading spiritual teachers and authors. A practitioner of Buddhist meditation for over thirty years, she is a co-founder of the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies and the Insight Meditation Society, and she directs meditation retreats throughout the United States and abroad.
$16.95 - Paperback
Christina Feldman - In the early 1970s, Christina Feldman spent several years in Asia, studying and training in the Buddhist meditation tradition. She has led insight meditation retreats in the West since 1974. A cofounder of Gaia House, in Devon, England, she is a regular teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts and at Spirit Rock in Woodacre, California. In addition, she leads retreats in Europe.
Sera Khandro (1892 - 1940), also known as Kunzang Dekyong Wagmo, was one of the great masters of the early 20th century and the English speaking world is fortunate now that both her story and her writings have been emerging more and more over the past few years. Her story is at once fascinating, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting. Tulku Thondup Rinpoche, in his remarkable Incarnation: The History and Mysticism of the Tulku Tradition of Tibet gives a superb overview: "This...
This series of blog posts are meant to be resources guides to complement the biographies of the great masters and scholars on the Treasury of Lives site. Mandarava Mandarava Mandarava was one of the great 8th century adepts and was one of the main consorts of Guru Rinpoche. As such a central figure at the time of Guru Rinpoche, she is a focus of many works. A wonderful complete biography was published by our friends at Wisdom Publications as The...
On Translation: Sarah Harding and Larry MermelsteinIn our second On Translation video series cosponsored with the Tsadra Foundation, we are pleased to share this recording of Sarah Harding (Naropa University and the Tsadra Foundation) & Larry Mermelstein (Nalanda Translation Committee). This session is for any student, practitioner, or translator of Tibetan Buddhism and is an opportunity to enter the world of translators of the Buddhadharma with two of the most experienced Tibetan translators. Most people encounter the Buddhist teachings through translations of texts, so like...
Women in Buddhism Throughout history women have played a vital role in the preservation and presentation of Buddhism. The Buddha himself expressed deep respect for his mother and as several contemporary Buddhist scholars have pointed out, women have played a significant role in helping to shape and preserve Buddhism. That is certainly true for Buddhism [...]
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Buddism in 2023 Read More Explore our more general interest books on Buddhism we published in 2023
Buy 2 books for 20% off, 3 books for 30% off, 4 or more for 35% off.
Applies to physical copies only, Discount applies automatically
We are very happy to share with you a look back at our 2023 books that are general interest Buddhist titles. Be sure to see our Zen and Tibetan lists as well!
An illuminating introduction to the contemporary world of Theravada Buddhism and its rich culture and practices in modern mainland Southeast Asia.
Theravada translates as “the way of the Elders,” indicating that this Buddhist tradition considers itself to be the most authoritative and pure. Tracing all the way back to the time of the Buddha, Theravada Buddhism is distinguished by canonical literature preserved in the Pali language, beliefs, and practices—and this literature is often specialized and academic in tone. By contrast, this book will serve as a foundational and accessible resource on Theravada Buddhism and the contemporary, lived world of its enduring tradition.
Brooke Schedneck has done extensive research on topics such as religions of Southeast Asia, contemporary Buddhism, gender in Asian religions, and religious tourism. Narrowing in on topics such as temples, monastic lives, lay Buddhists, meditation, and Buddhist objects, Schedneck highlights the thriving diversity of Theravada Buddhists today. Exploring Theravada as a lived religion reveals how people apply various expressions in everyday life. She presents to readers the most important practices and beliefs of Theravada Buddhists, illustrated through contemporary debates about what represents proper Theravada practice within Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand in the twenty-first century. Additionally, practical information is provided in appendices about what temples and practice centers readers can visit as well as a temple etiquette guide offering tips for being a respectful visitor. While academics will benefit from and appreciate this overview, the writing offers a refreshing introduction to a complex tradition for readers new to the subject.
Stop chasing happiness and reconnect to the meaning of each moment through this practical guide, told through vignettes of life training as a Buddhist monk under world-renowned spiritual leader Thich Nhat Hanh.
We spend so much time in pursuit of happiness—trying to purchase it, experience it, meditate our way toward it—but happiness is elusive and doesn’t last. According to the teachings of the Buddha, Cuong Lu writes, “Suffering is not a problem to be solved. It is a truth to be recognized.” Happiness Is Overrated invites us to look deeply at the truths in our lives—not glossing over or denying our suffering—and to focus on the meaning and value already within us.
Each chapter of Happiness Is Overrated shares a lesson drawn from Buddhist psychology, accessible for all readers. Short practices at the end of each of the 30 short chapters help readers apply the teachings on their own.
Happiness Is Overrated helps us get in touch with our true selves and our true minds, through meditation and mindfulness practices that include paying attention to the breath, observing our minds, connecting with our hearts, practicing “interbeing” with others and the Earth, and more.
A practical roadmap to cultivating the heart’s capacity to face and transform our greatest challenges—like the climate crisis, oppression, anxiety, and burnout—from the best-selling author of Say What You Mean.
Meditation teacher Oren Jay Sofer shares a pragmatic guide to living a life of meaning and purpose in a time of great social, environmental, and spiritual upheaval. Through touching stories, insightful reflections, and concrete instructions, Sofer offers powerful tools to strengthen our hearts and nourish the qualities that can transform our world. Each chapter guides you to cultivate a quality essential to personal and social transformation like mindfulness, resolve, wonder, and empathy. You’ll learn ways to:
Find more choice and freedom in life
Strengthen focus, sustain energy, and accomplish goals
Identify burnout and take steps to renew yourself
Imbue your daily activities with clarity and vitality
While not explicitly a book on Zen practice, Into theMirror is a call, based on Mahayana Buddhism, to cultivate wisdom and compassion—right within this world of illusion—and an insightful challenge to the rampant materialism of modernity. Andy Karr presents accessible and powerful methods to accomplish this through investigating the way our minds construct our worlds.
Combining contemporary Western inquiries with classical Buddhist investigations intothe nature of mind, Karr invites the reader to make a personal, experiential journey through study, contemplation, and meditation. He presents a series of contemplative practices from Mahayana Buddhism, starting with the Middle Way teachings on emptiness and interdependence, through Yogachara’s subtle understanding of nonduality, to the view that buddha nature is already within us to be revealed rather than something external to be acquired.
Accessible and adaptable Japanese Buddhist rituals to infuse your life with purpose, healing, and gratitude when you need it most.
How do we make and sustain meaning amidst the messy conditions of daily life? Personalized rituals can help us blossom like lotuses right in the mud of the present. On a pilgrimage she began after her mother’s death, author Paula Arai encountered numerous Japanese Buddhists who taught her the remarkable power of ritual to heal—practices you can adapt to your own cultural and personal circumstances. Applying principles of Zen practice, she offers stories and insights that illuminate how to nourish and reap a healing bounty of connection, joy, and compassion. Examples include how to:
Relate to a late loved one as a “personal Buddha” who supports you
Create a home altar to serve as a safe space to be vulnerable, face intense emotions, and experience a depth of warm gratitude that melts fear and anger
Engage in daily tasks with attentiveness, intention, and creativity such that they become opportunities for body-mind integration
Develop family rituals to celebrate relationships and mark transitions
Approach illness and grief with a purposeful sense of connection to life-and-death in its wholeness
Like Marie Kondo's Shinto principles for decluttering, Paula Arai uses rituals influenced by Japanese Zen for personal and relational nourishment and spiritual healing.
An unlikely duo—Professor Peter Singer, a preeminent philosopher and professor of bioethics, and Venerable Shih Chao-Hwei, a Taiwanese Buddhist monastic of the Chan tradition and social activist—join forces to talk ethics in lively conversations that cross oceans, overcome language barriers, and bridge philosophies. The eye-opening dialogues collected here share unique perspectives on contemporary issues like animal welfare, gender equality, the death penalty, and more. Together, these two deep thinkers explore the foundation of ethics and key Buddhist concepts, and ultimately reveal how we can all move toward making the world a better place.
“In a moment, in a breath, we can drop in and have the wherewithal to meet whatever the moment is offering.”
Featuring the original artwork of Roshi Joan Halifax, this collection of cards offers short and powerful meditative practices that allow you to tune in, still the mind, and cultivate courage—in just a moment’s time.
A poignant portrait of spiritual relationships evoked through the remarkable words of Buddhist teachers, leaders, and trailblazers.
Across nearly forty years of practice in Zen and socially engaged Buddhism, Hozan Alan Senauke has had a range of remarkable encounters with Buddhist teachers and spiritual friends. Here are stories of moments in which someone’s words, actions, or presence opened his mind and heart. Touching on meditation, insight, social action, race, family, community, and more, these vignettes build like a chorus and convey lessons such as taking one’s work seriously without taking oneself seriously, letting things fall apart, and using oneself up on behalf of others. The book’s stories feature many of the great Zen teachers, engaged Buddhists, and global Buddhist leaders of our day, including Robert Aitken, Bernie Glassman, Shodo Harada, Dainin Katagiri, Jarvis Masters, Ven. Sheng Yen, Sulak Sivaraksa, and many more—with a special section devoted to the teachings of Senauke’s primary teacher, Sojun Mel Weitsman.
While not an explicitly Buddhist book, this exploration of the importance of silence in our lives is full of Buddhist wisdom. Silence is habitually overlooked—after all, throughout our lives, it has to compete with the cacophony of the outside world and our near-constant interior dialogue that judges, analyzes, compares, and questions. But, if we can get past this barrage, there lies a quiet place that’s well worth discovering.
The Lost Art of Silence encourages us to embrace this pursuit and allow the warm light of silence to glow. Invoking the wisdom of many of the greatest writers, thinkers, contemplatives, historians, musicians, and artists, Sarah Anderson reveals the sublime nature of quiet that’s all too often undervalued. Throughout, she shares her own penetrating insights into the potential for silence to transform us. This celebration of silence invites us to widen our perspective and shows its power to inspire the human spirit in spite of the distracting noise of contemporary life.
Translated By Gil Fronsdal, foreword by Jack Kornfield
In this renowned translation of Buddhism’s most widely read scripture, freshly updated for a new generation of readers, Gil Fronsdal provides extensive explanatory notes and easy-to-understand insight for practice. Whether a practicing Buddhist of any tradition or simply a reader of the world’s literary classics, all will be enriched by this centuries-old wisdom.
Here is Gil Fronsdal's overview of what is new in this second edition:
"One of the main changes to the translation in the second edition is a greater thoroughness in using gender-neutral pronouns. The original Pali only uses male pronouns. In the first edition, while most of these are conveyed with neutral pronouns, in some paired verses I used male pronouns for one verse and female ones for the other. In this current edition, I have rendered all of these in gender-neutral language.
Other changes result from a newer—and hopefully improved—understanding of the original Pali words. For anyone interested in these changes, the most noteworthy are those in verses 3, 4, 153–154, 221, 266, 275, and 367."
Buddism in 2023 Read More Explore our more general interest books on Buddhism we published in 2023 See our other Year in Review Guides: Zen and Chan | Tibetan Buddhism | More in Buddhism Yoga | Kids Books Buy 2 books for 20% off, 3 books for 30% off, 4 or more for 35% off. [...]
It is with the most profound sadness that we share that Tulku Thondup Rinpoche, one of the great lamas of our time, passed away on December 29th, 2023. This is also the anniversary of Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche with whom he had a profound connection.
We are bereft. Tulku Rinpoche was one of the last of great masters of his generation, and his deep wisdom, humility, humor, and ever-present kindness were a constant source of respite in world filled with so much suffering.
The Mahasiddha center in Massachusetts which Tulku Thondup was very close with wrote that Rinpoche's faithful and perfect companion Lydia said that Tulku did not want prayers for his rebirth. She said people should say whatever prayers with love and devotion, but especially can say prayers for rebirth in Dewachen.
We will update this page with any guidance on appropriate prayers and practices, but Alak Zenkar Rinpoche said that Guru Yoga should be emphasized.
For many of us, he was the Buddha of Cambridge, a hidden but fully realized yogi, always stepping out of the spotlight and pointing to others, in particular his teacher Dodrubchen Rinpoche. He was very much a lama’s lama, and few passing through anywhere near New England would miss an oppportunity to pay a visit and receive the wisdom of one of the great scholars and masters of our day.
Tulku who was in many ways a guide to many of us here at Shambhala Publications. I would often go to him to ask his advice on the suitability of certain projects and he lovingly would suggest a path.
All of his works are absolutely invaluable, but two of the ones dearest to him were Masters of Meditation and Miracles and The Heart of Unconditional Love: A Powerful New Approach to Loving-Kindness Meditation.
The first is a highly engaging set of biographies of thirty-five realized teachers whose lives were full of peace, enlightenment, and amazing miracles. They flourished in Tibet, the Roof of the World, in its golden days. These teachers belong to the Longchen Nyingthig lineage of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, a cycle of mystical teachings revealed by the great scholar and adept Jigme Lingpa.
The second, his most recent, he told us was very dear to his heart. In the preface, he wrote:
In this book, we try from the very beginning to generate unconditional love in ourselves by feeling the Buddha’s unconditional love through devotion and to serve others with that love. We try to see the whole world as a world of unconditional love and to perfect the ultimate unconditional love that is free from concepts. I have not explicitly written about this anywhere else, nor seen it in other books. This is the first time I have talked about transforming oneself and the world through this meditation. Yet, at the same time, this presentation extracts the very heart essence of Buddhism’s ageless wisdom teachings.
Tulku Thondup Offers An Explanation and Guided Meditation on Loving Kindness
When Dodrubchen Rinpoche passed away just under two years ago, Tulku Thondup sent out the following advice. We are including it here as we think the same advice very much applies here:
Today we are all feeling the same emotions, the same ups and downs.
However, we were taught by Kyabje Rinpoche himself. He taught Guru Yoga as our main meditation. So today especially is the time and situation when we must focus most on Guru Yoga, meditating on UNITING OUR minds with the wisdom mind of Guru Rinpoche as Kyabje Rinpoche's mind is inseperable and has become inseparable from Guru Rinpoche. Rest in that trust, that feeling. Awaken it again and again and rest in that state again and again.
Kyabje Rinpoche has been with us all these years in the form of Nirmana-kaya. But now his Nirmana-kaya form has merged into Sambhogakaya, his inner pure Buddha presence, and then into his innermost Dharmayaka Buddha-nature.
The Third Dodrupchen Rinpoche wrote a prayer to himself explaining the principle of manifesting through the three Kayas successively: "From the Basis of the Ultimate Sphere of Dharmkaya, Various displays of Sambhogakaya appear in all ten directions. And then ceaseless Nirmanakayas serve beings: To Jig-me Tenpe Gyaltshen (Nyima) I pray."
So if we, with the force of devotion, could pray and unite our mind with Guru Rinpoche's wisdom mind as we have been taught to do in Guru Yoga, -- then because of (a) the power of our minds' devotion and (b) the blessing power of Guru Rinpoche and Kyabje Rinpoche, we will receive true blessings and WILL MEET Kyabje Rinpoche's enlightened presence there.
So in brief, please focus on doing Guru Yoga and try to rest in the nature of the mind where you meet Kyabje Rinpoche.
Tulku Thondup's Opening Verses to The Heart of Unconditional Love
O Buddha of Unconditional Love, Your all-knowing wisdom eyes see all; Your boundless power protects every being As a mother protects her only child with unconditional love.
For he who sees the compassionate eyes of the Buddha of Loving-Kindness, His own heart wakes up with the force of boundless devotion in the Buddha; His own face blossoms with unconditional love for every mother-being. I, a mere distant spectator, am imbued with awe-inspiring wonder.
Devotion to the Outer Buddha opens our heart as the heart of loving-kindness, Transforming it into unconditional love for all, the Inner Buddha, Awakening every image, sound, and feeling as the Universal Buddha, and Uniting all as loving-kindness free from concepts, the Ultimate Buddha.
Sage of Great Accomplishments—true image of loving-kindness— Knowledge-holders, Seekers of Enlightenment, and Angels of Wisdom I beseech you all from my heart-core with undying trust. Please grant us your blessings to unite us indivisibly with you.
Infinite beings are caught in the wheel of endless cyclic existence, Trapped in the eye of conceptual and emotional hurricanes, Plunged in the midst of the turbulent waves of conflicting sensations, Whirring around the world like bees—with no end to this nightmare in sight.
I have been wandering in many unknown lands for nearly sixty years. But by the ever-present kindness of the Sage of Great Accomplishments, And by the reminiscences of the Blazing Glorious Seat of Accomplishments, I haven’t drifted too far from the light of the Dharma.
However great the sweetness of samsara is, It cannot be compared with the joy of Dharma, by even a sixteenth. However vehement the flame of evil deeds and the pain of samsara are, There is none that the rain of Dharma cannot quench!
The brilliance of the sun-like Buddha’s love illuminates the sky. The radiance of our mighty ocean-like devotion embraces it. The glow of earth and sky unite into a single world of boundless joy. This is the true meditation on devotion to the Buddha of Loving-Kindness.
Avalokiteshvara, noble lord of omniscient wisdom, Is always looking at us with eyes of loving-kindness. Whenever we see him with devotion, the unconditional love of his heart Awakens in us, miraculously. This is what I adore to articulate in this book. Exceedingly destitute in both learning and realization, I fear that
My attempt to write about loving-kindness will be a cause of laughter—even to my own tongue. Nevertheless, to not let some drops trickle forth from the miraculous ocean of loving-kindness is harder for me to bear. O learned readers, please forgive me for my pitiable flops.
The image of Avalokiteshvara Tulku Thondup designed as the focus for The Heart of Unconditional Love.
Remembering Tulku Thondup Rinpoche (1939-2023) It is with the most profound sadness that we share that Tulku Thondup Rinpoche, one of the great lamas of our time, passed away on December 29th, 2023. This is also the anniversary of Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche with whom he had a profound connection. We are bereft. Tulku Rinpoche was [...]
Kids Books in 2023 Read More Over a dozen beautiful books for kids to instill compassion and wisdom
By Vanessa Zuisei Goddard, illustrated by Paddy Donnelly
A playful rhyming meditation story to help kids ages 4-8 be the captain of their own ship and navigate emotional highs and lows.
Learn to breathe through storms of emotions in this nautical meditation adventure.
Whether you’re grouchy or grumpy, gloomy or grey, the Wildering Billies cannot get their way. They yell and they shout and they cry and they weep but your breath holds you steady way down in the deep.
When sailing through the open seas of life, the waters are not always calm. From out of nowhere waves of stress, worry, and anxiety known as Wildering Billies can rock our boat. Step by step, this story shows us how to calm the dreaded and colorful Wildering Billies, and send them on their way. By imagining yourself as a ship, anchored by your breath, you can learn to ride through the storms of life to smoother waters.
Inspired by Zuisei’s years of Zen practice and working with kids, she has created this delightful introduction to the world of meditation. The book ends with a helpful recap of concrete steps such as stop, imagine, breathe, and anchor, so kids can remember how to tame the Billies whenever emotions are overwhelming.
Follow Bu and his new friends through the park as they encounter creatures who crawl and buzz all around us—bugs! From spiders and ladybugs to bees and beetles, this lively story shows kids that every living creature deserves our kindness and compassion and that we can all be everyday heroes.
A playful, rhyming book for kids ages 3-7 on how to send loving, kind thoughts to yourself and others to make the world a better place.
Keep sharing your love from morning till night. See the change you can make with a love that shines bright.
Worried or sad, grateful or glad, you can send good wishes to yourself, others, and the whole world with your thoughts! Just repeat these simple phrases: “May you be protected and safe. May you feel happy and pleased. May your body be healthy, and may you live with ease.”
This book teaches young readers that even from far away, you can wish others happiness, good health, peace, and safety. Starting with the individual child and extending outward to the whole universe, the rhyming couplets and beautiful art carry the reader through the thoughtful process of extending love and kindness to yourself and all those around you. The book makes a great daily ritual to increase lovingkindness, and if a child is having a rough time or witnessing outside struggles, they can use the repeated phrases in the book to find peace and calm.
An exploration of Japanese food, culture, and history that celebrates the special relationship between a child, her grandmother, and the power of kindness, for kids 3-7, by the author of Japanese Home Cooking, Sonoko Sakai.
This charming story invites the reader on a journey through rural 1960s Japan following a little girl named Mai on the Enoden train, past the oceanside populated with fishers, and to the classic shrine-like home of her grandmother, or obachama.
Loosely based on an event in Sonoko’s childhood, Mai wishes to share the gift of a sweet muskmelon with her grandmother but loses it on the train along the way. Obachama shares the Japanese folktale of The Stone Buddhas as an example of the power of good intentions to cheer Mai up.
After the story, Mai hears from the train station master that the melon has been found, and she and her obachama are able to enjoy the sweet muskmelon together.
This sweet story explores the cherished relationship between a young girl and her grandmother–two great friends despite the age gap–while the expressive art takes the reader through the Japanese countryside, past the sea, bamboo forests, and temples, drawn from the author’s own childhood memories.
Explore a fresh telling of the inspiring, mysterious, and magical life of the great master Padmasambhava—the Lotus-Born—who planted the seed of Buddhism in Tibet that is still blossoming today, beautifully illustrated for ages 10+.
The Lotus-Born is one of the most iconic and important figures in Tibetan history. Here, his magical life story is outlined in colorful and captivating detail, offering young readers a rare glimpse into his fierce adventures and battles that transformed Tibet, a land of malevolent spirits and wild folk, into a fertile ground for Buddhism. The rich and vibrant spiritual tradition that resulted in Tibet has thrived for over one thousand years. This timeless tale is sure to capture the imagination of future generations, just as the oral, theatrical, and written accounts of it have in the Himalayas for centuries.
Zen-inspired activities and stories to help kids learn about patience, kindness, honesty, sharing, and forgiveness.
Have you ever heard the word Zen? It’s what happens when you sit quietly, noticing your breath and what it feels like to just be alive. Zen is a way of closely looking at our life and the world around us so that we can share love and compassion with everyone and everything!
Each chapter has a new story to explore, with themed discussion questions, meditations, journal prompts, and hands-on projects.
Make Zen a part of your everyday life with this fun and friendly guide!
A charming and inquisitive story that celebrates tracing the origin of ideas, language, and every day objects, for children 4–8.
Where does snow come from? What language did the word thermos come from? And who was the Buddha's teacher?
So many problems in the world come from accepting information at face value without looking into where it comes from. How Do You Know What You Know? follows a child and their father on a cozy, snowy day outing. The child asks questions about how things came to be the way they are. The questions range from how the father knows how to tie a shoe to why it’s not a good idea to eat yellow snow. These queries are met by the father with patience and humor that weave a delightful narrative of intergenerational knowledge sharing. In this exchange, respectful inquiry is beautifully modeled for young learners.
The journey includes an amble in the park, a trip to the library, a bus ride, and a visit to a local Buddhist temple where the father is a student. The teacher there introduces the child to the idea of lineage, that wisdom and understanding comes from generations of knowledge passed down from person to person. With a quaint and welcoming simplicity, the illustrations bring this beautiful story to life, and every spread has a subtle nod to the progression of how things come to be the way they are. The story encourages children’s natural curiosity and shows them that everywhere they look there is a story to be told if we just ask.
By Christopher Willard and Tara Wosiski, illustrated by Holly Clifton-Brown
When Green arrives in a crayon box as a present to a little girl, he has no idea of the impact he will have on her life in small but profound and meaningful ways.
The Life of a Crayon is a colorful story (ages 4–8) about a girl and her crayon who grow up together and draw the world around them. When a little girl receives a box of crayons for her birthday, Green becomes her favorite.
Over the years, as the girl creates art and projects and greeting cards, Green learns new skills and important lessons alongside her. Perhaps most importantly, Green fills her—and others’—worlds with color and the emotions it evokes, and in doing so leaves a legacy that is vast and meaningful.
The story can just be an engaging and thought-provoking adventure on its own, or it can help kids and families cope with change, the challenges of growing up, and even loss as this book touches on themes like life cycles, impermanence, and connection.
By Wendy O'Leary, illustrated by Sandra Eide Afterword by Christopher Germer
This sweet book teaches children 3–7 the simple and profound power of self-compassion through simple affirmations that can be repeated when things are hard.
All too often kids get down on themselves when they experience things that make them sad, angry, guilty, or jealous. It’s amazing how powerful it can be to move past a difficult emotion when we think about all the other people feeling that same way and show ourselves some much need kindness.
Sometimes I have to do something I don’t want to do. I feel really angry. . . . Then I remember that everyone feels angry sometimes. I put my hand on my heart, and here’s what I say: “It’s OK—I love you. I’m with you today.”
The main story is followed by 10 exercises focused on ways to develop self-compassion, such as Kind Voice, Kind Body, Kind Touch, and Hugging Breath.
Feeling happy, sad, brave, or frustrated? Whatever you're feeling, this book is here to help!
Feel all your feelings and better understand them with activities and ideas to help you grow. The more you know about feelings, the more feelings you can feel—and the more you can help yourself and others on your journey through life.
Organized by types of feelings, this book includes activities, illustrations, journal ideas, and hands-on projects.
Make feelings an important part of each day with this amazing activity book!
"Every night the moon rises, the stars come out, and we get ready for bed. We snuggle together, and before we sleep, we send our love into the world . . ."
Children will sleep as soundly as sloths after breathing along with this big-hearted meditation that embraces the ritual of bedtime and connects to their capacity for kindness.
By Jennifer D. Hutton Illustrated by Addy Rivera Sonda
2023 National Parenting Product Award Winner Mom’s Choice Awards® Gold Recipient
Let’s get movin’!
Jump over lava, zoom like a racecar driver, and balance like a flamingo with this inclusive activity deck that inspires kids’ big imaginations and gets their little bodies moving. These 48 cards—for all levels of ability—celebrate movement diversity and explore fun categories of creative movement including:
By Jennifer Nicole Bacon Illustrated by Letícia Moreno
This empowering story inspires kids from all backgrounds to Look, Listen, Feel, and Act like antiracist superheroes, even in times of adversity (ages 5–9).
This book tells the story of 6-year-old Malik, who after learning about racism in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, decides to change the world by becoming an antiracist superhero. With the help of his parents, and inspiration from historical figures like Rosa Parks and James Baldwin, Malik learns that even when he feels scared, he can still be a superhero by Looking, Listening, Feeling, and Acting!
Join Malik and his friends as they help other children feel safe, included, and empowered. Inviting children from all backgrounds to become superheroes, this touching story provides inspiration for children when faced with adversity.
The book also includes a practical section including a glossary of of relevant terms, as well as hands-on guided activities and practices (like creating a vision board and drawing their superpowers) that kids can do so that they can change the world around them by Looking, Listening, Feeling, and Acting like an antiracist superhero too!
Kids Books in 2023 Read More Over a dozen beautiful books for kids to instill compassion and wisdom See our other Year in Review Guides: Zen and Chan | Tibetan Buddhism | More in Buddhism Yoga | Kids Books Buy 2 books for 20% off, 3 books for 30% off, 4 or more for 35% [...]
Yoga Books in 2023 Read More See our six yoga books of 2023
A guide to self-remembrance with practices, meditations, and self-inquiry questions inspired by yoga and Tantra to help you connect with your inner wisdom, remember your wholeness, and live with clarity and compassion—by the best-selling author of Radiant Rest.
The Luminous Self shares teachings and practices that can help us connect with our true Self and reclaim our inherent power and wisdom—essential for living with purpose and grace in our turbulent world. In this book, Tracee Stanley shares teachings and practices in each chapter—including meditation, yoga nidra, breath work, dreaming rituals, community care practices, journaling, and more—that can help us remember and honor our deepest Self.
The book is a journey of inner exploration for anyone who desires to know themselves more deeply. Chapters introduce different paths to personal discernment—including facing obstacles to liberation, forgiveness, the power of memory, transitions as portals to wisdom and devotion, and nature as a teacher—and include stories from Stanley's life, teachings, and practice. Six audio practices accompany the book.
An approachable, user-friendly guide to inversions of all kinds for anyone who wants to try going upside down, featuring 85 practices that explore the physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects of yoga.
Learn to hop into a handstand, do a forearm stand with blocks—and even appreciate legs up the wall in new ways with this comprehensive and accessible guide to inversions in yoga.
Kat Heagberg Rebar offers an easy-to-follow guide with 175 beautiful color photos. For each pose Kat offers adaptations, challenging variations, and everything in between. She also shares options to prepare safely and practices to build strength. In addition to teaching the physical practice of inversions, Rebar addresses the mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of this often-challenging practice.
Yoga Inversions offers a progressive, biomechanically sound, inclusive, step-by-step approach to anyone who wants to try being upside down, and includes:
Downward dog and dolphin variations to set you up for success
Innovative prop tips
Handstand preps and drills
Tips for stepping, jumping, hopping, and pressing into handstand
Handstand against the wall and away from the wall
Forearm stand, headstand, and shoulderstand variations
Customizable practices to help you reach your goals
Bring the wisdom of yoga into your parenting journey.
Mom and yoga teacher Sarah Ezrin offers 34 practices to find more presence, patience, and acceptance—with your child and with yourself.
“I can say without a doubt that the most advanced yoga I’ve ever done is raising a child,” writes Sarah Ezrin. While many people think of yoga as poses on a mat, The Yoga of Parenting supports people in bringing the spiritual principles of yoga into their lives—particularly their families. Ezrin, a longtime yoga teacher, supports readers and practitioners in slowing down, becoming present with our children and ourselves, and acting with more compassion.
Each chapter highlights a yogic posture and theme and explores how it relates to parenting, including presence, boundaries, balance, and nonattachment. Chapters include prompts such as intention setting, breathwork, and journaling. Ezrin also features the stories and insights of a wide range of yoga practitioner parents whose experiences include single parenting, grandparenting, and passing on intergenerational yoga traditions. In addition to the opening posture, each chapter includes:
“Breath Breaks” invitations to mindfully breathe
“On the Mat” practices to show us how we can apply the lessons on our yoga mat in a more general sense
“Parenting in Practice” offerings and advice from parents in the US and abroad
“Off the Mat and Into the Family” fun exercises to help us bring the work off the mat and into our homes
Practicing yoga can help us become kinder to ourselves, more aware of our thoughts and actions, and more present in our lives. What more important sphere to want to become kinder, more aware, and more present than with our families?
Lakshmi Voelker’s Chair Yoga™ method upends the myth that yoga is only for the flexible, strong, balanced, thin, and conventionally able-bodied. Whether you need or want chair support, or you’d like to get in some yoga practice while you sit at your work desk, Lakshmi Voelker Chair Yoga offers 40 active and restorative poses, illustrated with 250 photos, along with breathing techniques and meditation practices—all adapted so that you don’t have to leave your chair. Poses include:
Tree Pose—for a flexible spine and to combat the “slump” we often get in our sedentary lifestyle
Eagle Pose—for healthy joints
Squat Pose—to relax the lower back
Knee-to-Chest Pose—to support good digestion
Coherent breathing—to bring the body’s systems into balance
And much more
Lakshmi Voelker and Liz Oppedijk offer a powerful, inclusive practice that is appropriate for new students or longtime practitioners and can easily be adopted by yoga instructors, educators, medical professionals, exercise professionals, or caretakers for work with their clients.
By Lara Land, with a fireword by Michelle Cassandra Johnson
An essential manual for yoga teachers and students to create a trauma-sensitive practice that benefits and supports all.
People are turning to yoga for its stress-reducing practice and transformative philosophy. But for those who have a trauma history, the practice can be triggering. The Essential Guide to Trauma Sensitive Yoga offers an inclusive approach to yoga for teachers and students of all ages and abilities, especially those who have experienced trauma. Some of the themes covered include:
How do the impacts of trauma show up in yoga spaces
Suggested language for shifting power to the practitioner
How to create an environment conducive to healing
How to practice or teach poses in a way that includes all
And much more
This book is beautifully illustrated with 260 photos of poses and sequences, modeled by trauma survivors who share stories of how yoga helps them heal. Land works with people of all ages, from young children to seniors, who are coping with a range of traumas including physical, emotional and sexual abuse, homelessness, genocide, and incarceration. She is a passionate advocate for making the benefits of yoga and mindfulness available to all.
By Mary Richards, foreword by Judith Hanson Lasater
Honor your yoga students' unique practice with this essential guide to identifying and supporting healthy, safe movement for every body. Includes more than 80 exercises and 43 instructional drawings.
Teach People, Not Poses is the manual that yoga teachers and yoga therapists need to help their students step onto the mat on their own terms, comfortably and safely. Mary Richards, a yoga teacher, yoga therapist, and expert in kinesiology and anatomy, says that we leave too many people off the mat, due to overly aggressive pace, sequence, and ambition in asana. She offers advice, techniques, observations, practices, and sequences to give teachers and yoga therapists the tools they need to move beyond the popular ideas of “should” on the mat.
To safely guide others in asana, especially when people come to the mat for relief from residual effects of acute injuries, chronic pain, and repetitive strain, yoga teachers need to understand what is typical and atypical in terms of posture and movement. Richards offers teachers myriad exercises to address imbalances and strengthen, such as
"Tighten the Corset" for deep core training
"Forearm Chaturanga/Plank" to develop core strength and stability
"Revolved Warrior I with Resistance Band" for core stabilization
"Wall-supported Downward-facing Dog" to activate the abdominal muscles and support the lower back
and much more
This unique book masterfully blends yoga philosophy with practical body knowledge and physical core stabilization skills, so that asana is truly an individualized expression—and what the Yoga Sutras describe as sthira sukham asanam, asana that is steady and comfortable.
Yoga Audiobooks
Forthcoming in 2024
And we have even more books related to yoga and ayurveda coming out next year from the likes of Brian Hyman, Mary Taylor, Richard Freeman, Kate O'Donnell, Michelle Casandra Johnson, and more. So make sure you sign up for our emails so you do not miss them! Here is a sneak peek at our first 2024 release which you can pre-order now and take advantage of the discount.
Drawn from yoga philosophy and mindfulness, this collection of thirty potent, supportive tools will bolster, inspire, and assist those in addiction recovery.
This collection of yoga and mindfulness tools will help support those in recovery from addiction of all kinds. Thirty accessible, pointed teachings offer inspiration, comfort, and solidarity in the moment, helping us cultivate a powerful and purposeful life in recovery and to create a new design for living. Each chapter focuses on a quality—such as vigilance, acceptance, accountability, among others—and delves into how to manifest it in your recovery journey.
Brian Hyman, a yoga teacher and recovery activist, understands deeply what people need to maintain sobriety and strengthen recovery—and knows that those who struggle with addiction also often need support with other mental health challenges, like obsession, anxiety, depression.
The practices—which include inquiry questions, meditations, awareness exercises, breathing practices, yoga nidra, among others—will quiet the mind in difficult moments, support us as we establish meaningful relationships, and reinforce the power that recovery offers us. He offers resources and additional reading suggestions in the back matter. Hyman uses yogic philosophy, mindfulness teachings, personal anecdotes, and secular wisdom to illuminate each quality and the role it plays in helping us create the life we want.
Yoga Books in 2023 Read More See our six yoga books of 2023 See our other Year in Review Guides: Zen and Chan | Tibetan Buddhism | More in Buddhism Yoga | Kids Books Buy 2 books for 20% off, 3 books for 30% off, 4 or more for 35% off. Applies to physical copies [...]
Holly Gayley, Associate Professor of Buddhist Studies, is a scholar and translator of contemporary Buddhist literature in Tibet. She is author of Love Letters from Golok: A Tantric Couple in Modern Tibet, co-editor of A Gathering of Brilliant Moons: Practice Advice from the Rime Masters of Tibet, and translator of Inseparable Across Lifetimes: The Lives and Love Letters of Namtrul Rinpoche and Khandro Tāre Lhamo.
Cheryl A. Giles, Psy.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist and the Francis Greenwood Peabody Senior Lecturer on Pastoral Care and Counseling at the Harvard Divinity School. Giles is the author of several articles and co-editor of The Arts of Contemplative Care (Wisdom, 2012).
Judith Simmer-Brown, Ph.D., is professor and chair of the religious studies department at Naropa University (formerly the Naropa Institute), where she has taught since 1978. She has authored numerous articles on Tibetan Buddhism, Buddhist-Christian dialogue, and Buddhism in America. She is an Acharya (senior teacher) in the lineage of Chögyam Trungpa. A practicing Buddhist since 1971, she lives in Boulder, Colorado.
Lama Tsultrim Allione is an author, internationally known Buddhist teacher, and the founder and resident lama of Tara Mandala Retreat Center. She is the author of Women of Wisdom, the national best-seller Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict, which has been translated into seventeen languages, and Wisdom Rising: Journey into the Mandala of the Empowered Feminine.
Joanna Macy, PhD, teacher and author, is a scholar of Buddhism, systems thinking, and deep ecology. As the root teacher of the Work That Reconnects, Macy has created a groundbreaking framework for personal and social change that brings a new way of seeing the world as our larger body. Her many books include World as Lover, World as Self; Widening Circles, A Memoir; Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in without Going Crazy; and Coming Back to Life: The Updated Guide to the Work That Reconnects.
Stephanie Kaza is Professor Emerita of Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont. A leading voice in Buddhism and ecology, her most recent book is Green Buddhism: Practice and Compassionate Action in Uncertain Times.
Joan Halifax, PhD, is a Zen priest and anthropologist who has served on the faculty of Columbia University and the University of Miami School of Medicine. For the past thirty years she has worked with dying people and has lectured on the subject of death and dying at Harvard Divinity School, Harvard Medical School, Georgetown Medical School, and many other academic institutions. In 1990, she founded Upaya Zen Center, a Buddhist study and social action center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 1994, she founded the Project on Being with Dying, which has trained hundreds of healthcare professionals in the contemplative care of dying people.
Natalie Goldbergis the author of fifteen books. Writing Down the Bones, her first, has been translated into nineteen languages. Three Simple Lines: A Writer’s Pilgrimage into the Heart and Homeland of Haiku is her latest book. For the last forty years she has practiced Zen and taught seminars in writing as a spiritual practice. She lives in northern New Mexico.
Sharon Salzberg is one of America's leading spiritual teachers and authors. A practitioner of Buddhist meditation for over thirty years, she is a co-founder of the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies and the Insight Meditation Society, and she directs meditation retreats throughout the United States and abroad.
Sera Khandro (1892 - 1940), also known as Kunzang Dekyong Wagmo, was one of the great masters of the early 20th century and the English speaking world is fortunate now that both her story and her writings have been emerging more and more over the past few years. Her story is at once fascinating, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting. Tulku Thondup Rinpoche, in his remarkable Incarnation: The History and Mysticism of the Tulku Tradition of Tibet gives a superb overview: "This...
This series of blog posts are meant to be resources guides to complement the biographies of the great masters and scholars on the Treasury of Lives site. Mandarava Mandarava Mandarava was one of the great 8th century adepts and was one of the main consorts of Guru Rinpoche. As such a central figure at the time of Guru Rinpoche, she is a focus of many works. A wonderful complete biography was published by our friends at Wisdom Publications as The...
In our second On Translation video series cosponsored with the Tsadra Foundation, we are pleased to share this recording of Sarah Harding (Naropa University and the Tsadra Foundation) & Larry Mermelstein (Nalanda Translation Committee). This session is for any student, practitioner, or translator of Tibetan Buddhism and is an opportunity to enter the world of translators of the Buddhadharma with two of the most experienced Tibetan translators. Most people encounter the Buddhist teachings through translations of texts, so like...
