tulku thondup

Tulku Thondup Rinpoche was born in Golok, Eastern Tibet, and was recognized as the reincarnation of Khenpo Konchog Dronme, a renowned Nyingma scholar from Dodrupchen Monastery. In 1958 after being forced to flee Tibet, he settled in India where he taught Tibetan and Tibetan literature at Lucknow University and Visva Bharati University. In 1980 he came to the United States and taught at Harvard University as a visiting scholar. Today, he still lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts where he writes, translates, and teaches and dedicates himself to preserving the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. He is well known for books such as Masters of Meditation and Miracles, The Heart of Unconditional Love, and The Healing Power of Mind, which has now been published in eighteen languages!

In Buddhism, the wisdom taught in the scriptures is mainly aimed at realizing enlightenment. However, spiritual exercises can also help us find happiness and health in our everyday life. There are extensive discourses in Buddhism on improving our ordinary life and having a peaceful, joyous, and beneficial existence in this very world.

-Tulku Thondup, The Healing Power of the Mind

Latest and Upcoming Releases

Paperback | Ebook 

$16.95 - Paperback

The Healing Power of Loving-Kindness
A Guided Buddhist Meditation
By Tulku Thondup

All Buddhist traditions teach that the practice of loving-kindness can transform our lives. Here, Tulku Thondup offers a step-by-step guide to a Tibetan Buddhist approach to loving-kindness meditation, which focuses on connecting to Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. Dividing the practice into twelve simple steps, this book provides everything readers need to uncover their innate joy and compassion. The accompanying downloadable audio program guides meditators through the steps of visualizing Avalokitesvara, generating devotion to the ideals he embodies, and radiating loving-kindness to all beings in the universe.

Paperback | Ebook 

$18.95 - Paperback

The Heart of Unconditional Love
A Powerful New Approach to Loving-Kindness Meditation
By Tulku Thondup

The unconditional love that we all long for can be experienced in the practice of loving-kindness. In this popular form of meditation, the love inherent to our own nature is gradually expanded until it embraces infinite beings. Tulku Thondup introduces a new four-stage format for this practice, rooted in the traditional teachings of Tibetan Buddhism: We first meditate on the Buddha of Loving-Kindness as a body of unconditional love and receive his blessings. This spontaneously awakens his unconditional love in our heart. We then find the whole world reflecting back to us as a world of love and peace. Finally, we remain in oneness in the realization of ultimate love.

Precious Advice

Loving Kindness is the thought of wishing joy for all beings and the whole universe--without limits and conditions--and putting that wish into practice. The eighteenth-century Dzogchen teacher Jigme Lingpa wrote, "the essence of loving-kindness is wishing happiness for others. Like a loving mother for her [only] child--It is giving up [your care for] your own body, wealth, and [the benefits of] virtuous deeds, and solely serving others and tolerating hardship cause by them." Loving-kindness is love, but it is pure love, love that is totally open, universal, having no limits, unconditional--a love that has no attachment, no ego-centeredness, no self-centeredness.

Meditation on loving-kindness is a training on the thoughts and deeds that benefit others. It is a practice that opens our heart with love to all, causing our life to blossom with feelings of boundless peace and joy.

-Tulku Thondup, The Healing Power of of Loving-Kindness

Prominent Nyingma Scholarship By Tulku Thondup

Paperback | Ebook 

$34.95 - Paperback

Masters of Meditation and Miracles
Lives of the Great Buddhist Masters of India and Tibet
By Tulku Thondup

Masters of Meditation and Miracles presents colorful 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.

Hardcover| Ebook

$44.95 - Hardcover

The Practice of Dzogchen
Longchen Rabjam's Writings on the Great Perfection
By Tulku Thondup

In The Practice of Dzogchen, Tulku Thondup translates essential passages from Longchen Rabjam’s voluminous writings to illuminate and clarify this teaching. He also draws on the works of later masters of the tradition, placing Dzogchen in context both in relation to other schools of Buddhism and in relation to the nine-vehicle outline of the Buddhist path described in the Nyingma tradition. This expanded edition includes Counsel for Liberation, Longchenpa’s poetic exhortation to readers to quickly enter the path of liberation, the first step toward the summit of Dzogchen practice.

Paperback | Ebook 

$18.95 - Paperback

Incarnation
The History and Mysticism of the Tulku Tradition of Tibet
By Tulku Thondup

A tulku is a fully enlightened one (buddha) or highly accomplished adept (siddha) who chooses to be reborn again and again for the benefit of all beings. Most tulkus, though, are the rebirths of well-trained masters who are engaged in spiritual training and serving others. Tibetan Buddhists have, for well over a millennium, been meticulously following the tradition of finding, recognizing, enthroning, training, and venerating these revered figures who provide teachings of liberation for both monks and laypeople. This guide to the tulku tradition covers its long history, separating fact from fiction, giving an overview of how the system works, and providing short biographies of some of the great tulkus of the past and present. Included are accounts of the magical occurrences that are associated with these remarkable beings, and advice for how anyone can set out on the tulku path.

Tulku Thondup Offers An Explanation and Guided Meditation on Loving Kindness

In this segment: Tulku Thondup Rinpoche talks about his teacher, Dodrupchen Rinpoche, and his connection with Trungpa Rinpoche.

Paperback|  eBook

$21.95 - Paperback

The Healing Power of Mind
Simple Meditation Exercises for Health, Well-Being, and Enlightenment
By Tulku Thondup

Our minds possess the power to heal pain and stress, and to blossom into peace and joy, by loosening the clinging attitudes that Buddhists call "grasping at self." If we apply the mind's healing power, we can heal not only our mental and emotional afflictions, but physical problems also.

This book is an invitation to awaken the healing power of mind through inspiring images and sounds, mindful movements, positive perceptions, soothing feelings, trusting confidence, and the realization of openness. The healing principle on which these exercises are based is the universal nature and omnipresent power envisioned in Mahayana Buddhism. Yet for healing, we don't have to be believers in any particular faith. We can heal body and mind simply by being what we truly are, and by allowing our own natural healing qualities to manifest: a peaceful and open mind, a loving and positive attitude, and warm, joyful energy in a state of balance and harmony.

More From Tulku Thondup

Through meditation, we can learn how to encourage our minds to create a feeling of peace in the body. This can be as simple as relaxing and saying to ourselves, "Let my body be calm and peaceful now," and really feeling that this is happening. It is the beginning of meditation--and of wisdom, too.

-Tulku Thondup, Boundless Healing

Paperback|  eBook

$26.95 - Paperback

Boundless Healing
Meditation Exercises to Enlighten the Mind and Heal the Body
By Tulku Thondup

This book offers simple meditation techniques to awaken healing energies in the body and mind. Using Buddhist principles as a basis, Tulku Thondup has created a universal guide that anyone can use. It will benefit those who want to preserve good health as well as those who need comfort and relief from illness or mental distress. Boundless Healing offers:

  • Ways to employ the four healing powers: positive images, positive words, positive feelings, and positive belief
  • Detailed healing exercises that can be done individually or as part of a twelve-stage program
  • Exercises for dispelling anxiety
  • Healing prayers for the dying and the deceased, plus advice for helpers and survivors
Paperback|  eBook

$29.95 - Paperback

Peaceful Death, Joyful Rebirth
A Tibetan Buddhist Guidebook
By Tulku Thondup

Buddhism teaches that death can be a springboard to enlightenment—yet for all but the most advanced meditators, it will be the gateway to countless future lives of suffering in samsara. Tulku Thondup wrote this guide to help us heal our fear and confusion about death and strengthen our practice in anticipation of this transition, and to help us realize the enlightened goal of ultimate peace and joy—not only for death and rebirth, but for this very lifetime. In simple language, he distills a vast range of sources, including scriptures, classic commentaries, oral teachings, and firsthand accounts. The book includes:

  • A downloadable audio program of guided meditations (URL provided in the book)
  • An overview of the dying process, the after-death bardo states, and teachings on why, where, and how we take rebirth
  • Accounts by Tibetan “near-death experiencers” (delogs), who returned from death with amazing reports of their visions
  • Ways to train our minds during life, so that at death, all the phenomena before us will arise as a world of peace, joy, and enlightenment
  • Simple meditations, prayers, and rituals to benefit the dead and dying
  • Advice for caregivers, helpers, and survivors of the dying
Paperback|  eBook

$23.95 - Paperback

Enlightened Journey
Buddhist Practice as Daily Life
By Tulku Thondup

This collection of fifteen articles and talks by Tulku Thondup constitutes a manual on how to transmute the situations encountered in daily life, whether external or internal, into spiritual disciplines and experiences. Among the topics covered are:

  • The fundamental principles of Buddhism.
  • The practice of meditation as a means of arousing compassion.
  • How suffering can become a more powerful tool than happiness in achieving enlightenment.
  • The symbolic significance of holy places, temples, statues, books, and other spiritual artifacts.

More to Explore

Discover Reading Recommendations from Tulku Thondup!

A Reader's Guide on Tibetan Buddhist Essentials: An Exploration of the Nyingma Lineage with Tulku Thondup

This reader guide offers a selection of books recommended by Tulku Thondup including cherished classics from the Buddhist tradition.

Additional Resources

Learn More about Tulku Thondup and explore his teaching schedule supported by the Buddhayana Foundation