Tibetan Buddhism Books

Book SynopsisFlavio A. Geisshuesler is the Khyentse Macready Senior Lecturer for Tibetan Buddhism at the University of Sydney, Australia.

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Book SynopsisAfter his enlightenment, the Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths—the foundation and essence of all forms of Buddhism. The first truth diagnoses the nature of our existential illnesses and neuroses. The second explores their causes and conditions for arising. The third shows that the causes of our problems can be removed and that we can be free of suffering. The fourth includes the many paths Buddhism offers to realize that goal. The Buddha has shown that the spiritual path is pragmatic and works directly with everyday experience in order to fundamentally transform the practitioner. This presentation is a succinct and a very clear introduction to the Buddha''s core teaching.

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Book SynopsisWhether you are looking for a room, visiting a monastery, or bargaining for a bus seat, Learning Practical Tibetan will make immediate communication with Tibetans easy and fun. This book is designed for anyone wishing to communicate with Tibetans, either in Asia or in the West, and is suitable for beginners as well as for students familiar with the Tibetan language. Learning Practical Tibetan begins with a simple but complete grammar so that you can immediately begin to form your own sentences. Using both Tibetan script and an easy-to-understand phonetic system, the book then presents useful vocabulary, phrases, and dialogues related to situations you might encounter with Tibetans: eating in restaurants, shopping, speaking to monks, traveling with pilgrims, or visiting a Tibetan doctor. The appendix provides helpful sections on Tibetan numbers, dates, telling time, festivals, religious terms, and an extensive vocabulary list. To help you learn how to pronounce Tibetan words correctly, mp3 files of Yanki Tshering reading Tibetan text found in Learning Practical Tibetan are available for download at this link: http://www.shambhala.com/learning-practical-tibetan.html

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Book SynopsisThe most profound and fundamental teaching of the Sakya tradition of Tibetan Buddhism is that of the Path Including Its Result. This unique teaching of Virupa, one of India''s extraordinary Mahasiddhas, covers the entire Buddhist path from the time of entering the spiritual discipline up to the attainment of full and perfect enlightenment. It serves as a manual for contemplating and meditating upon the various stages leading to the final result of ultimate happiness and liberation. The Three Visions examines the state of those experiencing suffering, those engaged in the methods leading towards freedom from unhappiness and misery, and those fully enlightened ones who have attained the highest goal of omniscient awakening. In a very direct and simple manner, the text leads the reader step-by-step over the vast path culminating in ultimate peace.

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisA guide to the Tibetan Buddhist practice of lojong meditation—or mind training—as a way to pause, reflect, and discover the true meaning and value of life   In this society, with its hurly-burly pace demanding of our time, it is ever so easy to let life slip by. Looking back after ten, twenty, thirty, years—we wonder what we have really accomplished. The process of simply existing is not necessarily meaningful. And yet there is an unlimited potential for meaning and value in this human existence.   The Seven-Point Mind Training is one eminently practical way of tapping into that meaning. At the heart of the Seven-Point Mind Training lies the transformation of the circumstances that life brings us, however hard as the raw material from which we create our own spiritual path. The central theme of the Seven-Point Mind Training is to make the liberating passage from the constricting solitude of self-centeredness to the warm kinship with others which occurs with the cultivation of cherishing others. This Mind Training is especially well-suited for an active life. It helps us to reexamine our relationships—to family, friends, enemies, and strangers—and gradually transform our responses to whatever life throws our way

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Book SynopsisDzogchen (Great Perfection) goes to the heart of our experience by investigating the relationship between mind and world and uncovering the great secret of mind''s luminous nature. Weaving in personal stories and everyday examples, Pema Rigtsal leads the reader to see that all phenomena are the spontaneous display of mind, a magical illusion, and yet there is something shining in the midst of experience that is naturally pure and spacious. Not recognizing this natural great perfection is the root cause of suffering and self-centered clinging. After introducing us to this liberating view, Pema Rigtsal explains how it is stabilized and sustained in effortless meditation: without modifying anything, whatever thoughts of happiness or sorrow arise simply dissolve by themselves into the spaciousness of pure presence. The book is divided into chapters on the view, meditation as the path, conduct, the attainment, and the four bardos. Each chapter consists of mini-sections that can be read as stand-alone Dharma talks. Pema Rigtsal has studied and lived with several authentic Dzogchen masters and has surprising stories to tell about their unconventional methods to introduce students to the subtle view of Dzogchen.

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Book SynopsisAutobiographical accounts of meetings with visionary beings together with the spiritual advice they imparted, from the thirteenth-century Bönpo scripture-revealer Shense Lhaje.     Visionary Encounters presents four chapters from the collection known as The Golden Teaching of Trenpa Namkha, a cycle of Dzogchen teachings recovered or rediscovered by the thirteenth-century master Shense Lhaje, an important scripture-revealer in the Bön tradition. These chapters include unusual autobiographical detail, providing a window into the daily life of this "wandering beggar," as he calls himself, as well as a record of the extraordinary messages he received from visionary beings known as knowledge-holders and dakinis. Includes an introduction that places the work in its historical and literary context.

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Book SynopsisBuddhism teaches that enlightenment is our natural state; the problem is that we do not recognize this state, owing to the mind's confusion about its true nature. Thinley Norbu presents the Buddhist view in a way meant to clear up misconceptions and awaken the reader's innate wisdom. Thinley Norbu is a distinguished teacher of the Nyingma lineage of Tibetan Buddhism and the author of The Small Golden Key and Magic Dance.

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