Tibetan Buddhism

Before it was a religion, a culture, or even a system of meditation, what was Buddhism? On Buddhism Without Beliefs, celebrated teacher, translator, and former Buddhist monk Stephen Batchelor takes us back to the first years after the Buddha's awakening to reveal the root insights of Buddhism hidden beneath centuries of history and interpretation.

AnamThubten, in remarkably easy-to-understand language, provides teachings for doing exactly that, based on the wisdom of the Buddhist traditions. He illuminates the path of going beyond the misconceptions of the ego to experience the reality of our true nature, which is already enlightened. He communicates with clarity, humor, and refreshing honesty, lighting the way to a life full of love, compassion, and true satisfaction.

Over the years, Pema Chödrön's books have offered an exciting new way of living: developing fearlessness, generosity, and compassion in all aspects of their lives. In No Time to Lose Pema invites listeners to venture further along the path of the "bodhisattva warrior", explaining in depth how we can awaken the softness of our hearts and develop true confidence amid the challenges of daily living.

The Life of Milarepa, a biography and a dramatic tale from a culture now in crisis, can be explored on several levels. A personal and moving introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, it is also a detailed guide to the search for liberation. It presents a quest for purification and buddhahood in a single lifetime, tracing the path of a great sinner who became a great saint. It is also a powerfully evocative narrative, full of magic, miracles, suspense, and humor, while reflecting the religious and social life of medieval Tibet.

At 36 years old, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche was a rising star within his generation of Tibetan masters and the respected abbot of three monasteries. Then one night, telling no one, he slipped out of his monastery in India with the intention of spending the next four years on a wandering retreat, following the ancient practice of holy mendicants. His goal was to throw off his titles and roles in order to explore the deepest aspects of his being.

Based on Lodro Rinzler’s popular advice columns, Walk like a Buddha offers wisdom that can be applied to just the sort of dilemmas that tend to arise for anyone making even a modest attempt to walk like a Buddha - that is, to live with honesty, wisdom, and compassion in the face of whatever life surprises you with.

ChgyamTrungpa's unique ability to express the essence of Buddhist teachings in the language and imagery of modern American culture makes his books among the most accessible works of Buddhist philosophy. Here Trungpa explores the true meaning of freedom, showing us how our preconceptions, attitudes, and even our spiritual practices can become chains that bind us to repetitive patterns of frustration and despair.

Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness is a series of meditation practices on Emptiness, a particular aspect of the Buddha's teachings. The idea is that by beginning with one's first rather coarse commonsense understanding, one progresses through increasingly subtle and more refined stages until one arrives at complete and perfect understanding. Each stage in the process prepares the mind for the next in so far as each step is fully integrated into one's understanding through the meditation process.

Lama Yeshe didn't see a car until he was 15 years old. In his quiet village, he and other children ran in fields with yaks and mastiffs. The rhythm of life was anchored by the pastoral cycles. Food was carefully apportioned and eaten together, everyone was family. The arrival of Chinese army cars one day in 1959 changed everything. In the wake of the deadly Tibetan Uprising, he escaped to India through the Himalayas to start over as a refugee.

According to the Buddha, no one can attain basic sanity or enlightenment without practicing meditation. The teachings given here on the outlook and technique of meditation provide the foundation that every practitioner needs to awaken as the Buddha did. Trungpa teaches us to let go of the urge to make meditation serve our ambition; thus we can relax into openness.

How can we live our lives when everything seems to fall apart—when we are continually overcome by fear, anxiety, and pain? The answer, Pema Chödrön suggests, might be just the opposite of what you expect. Here, in her most beloved and acclaimed work, Pema shows that moving toward painful situations and becoming intimate with them can open up our hearts in ways we never before imagined. Drawing from traditional Buddhist wisdom, she offers life-changing tools for transforming suffering and negative patterns into habitual ease and boundless joy.

In this recorded retreat, based on the program Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change held at Omega Institute, Pema Chödrön and her teaching assistant, Meg Wheatley, provide a wealth of wisdom for learning to step right into the river: to be completely, fearlessly present even in the hardest times, the most difficult situations. It's the secret of being fully alive.

For modern science, the transitional states of consciousness lie at the forefront of research in many fields. For a Buddhist practitioner, these same states present crucial opportunities to explore and transform consciousness itself. This book is the account of a historic dialogue between leading Western scientists and the Dalai Lama of Tibet. Revolving around three key moments of consciousness - sleep, dreams, and death - the conversations recorded here are both engrossing and highly listenable.

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 18 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.

This classic teaching by a Tibetan master continues to inspire both beginners and long-time practitioners of Buddhist meditation. Chgyam Trungpa Rinpoche shows that meditation extends beyond the formal practice of sitting to build the foundation for compassion, awareness, and creativity in all aspects of life. He explores the six activities associated with meditation in action - generosity, discipline, patience, energy, clarity, and wisdom - revealing that through simple, direct experience, one can attain real wisdom.

Each day we deal with the challenges of ordinary life: a series of mundane experiences that could be summarized by the title of this book, Work, Sex, Money. We all hope that these aspects of our life will be a source of fulfillment and pleasure, and they often are. Yet they are also always sources of problems for which we seek practical advice and solutions.

Spacious Minds argues that resilience is not a mere absence of suffering. Sara E. Lewis's research reveals how those who cope most gracefully may indeed experience deep pain and loss. Looking at the Tibetan diaspora, she challenges perspectives that liken resilience to the hardiness of physical materials, suggesting people should "bounce back" from adversity. More broadly, this ethnography calls into question the tendency to use trauma as an organizing principle for all studies of conflict where suffering is understood as an individual problem rooted in psychiatric illness.

Death is a subject obscured by fear and denial. When we do think of dying, we are more often concerned with how to avoid the pain and suffering that may accompany our death than we are with really confronting the meaning of death and how to approach it. Sushila Blackman places death - and life - in a truer perspective, by telling us of others who have left this world with dignity.

The paradox of awareness is very profound and yet very simple. It can't be described because it has no objective qualities and no limitation. Sometimes it comes naturally to the surface when we are fully in the present moment and no longer lost in thought or mental projections. Pure consciousness is neither high nor low, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, neither good nor bad. No matter where we are, no matter what we are doing, we always have an immediate access to that inner stillness.

Lama Tsultrim Allione teaches you how to embody the enlightened, fierce power of the sacred feminine - the tantric dakinis.