New & Featured
Tim Olmsted: Spontaneous Teachers, Spontaneous Student (#185)
This episode of the Wisdom Podcast features Tim Olmsted. Tim is the founder and president of the Pema Chödrön Foundation and former director of Gampo Abbey. He began his Buddhist studies in 1977 under the late Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in Boulder, Colorado. In 1981, after being moved by a visit from Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, Tim and his family moved to Kathmandu to study with Tulku Urgyen and his sons. For 12 years, Tim lived in Nepal, working as a psychotherapist serving the international community. In 2000, he moved to Nova Scotia where he served for three years as the director of Gampo Abbey, the largest residential Buddhist monastery in North America. He spends much of his time traveling internationally, teaching meditation in his role as a senior instructor for Tergar International, a worldwide meditation community under the guidance of Tibetan meditation teacher, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche.
In this episode host, Daniel Aitken, and Tim discuss:
- His journey into the Dharma, including his life in Nepal and his time spent with Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche and his son;
- Perfect devotion vs the guru complex;
- The significance of community;
- and much more!
Mentioned in this episode:
- Blazing Splendor: The Memoirs of the Dzogchen Yogi Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
- Tergar.org
- Vajrayana Online
- The Joy of Living an online meditation course and training with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
Remember to subscribe to the Wisdom Podcast for more great conversations on Buddhism, meditation, and mindfulness. And please give us a 5-star rating in Apple Podcasts if you enjoy our show—it’s a great support to us and helps other people find the podcast. Thank you!
A Monk’s Guide to Finding Joy
A profound and practical guide to uncovering your own wise mind and kind heart.
We all want to find happiness. But how do we go about it? In this easygoing and clear-sighted guide, celebrated Buddhist meditation and philosophy master His Eminence Khangser Rinpoche provides us with down-to-earth advice on how to train our minds and find our own innate wisdom and kindness along the way. He helps us see the profound insight that is open to us all, and how it can awaken us to the truth of the way things are. This insight into the truth, and the practices that help you cultivate this awareness, transform suffering into wisdom and compassion—and ultimately joy.
A Monk’s Guide to Finding Joy brings the ancient Tibetan mind-training tradition into our twenty-first-century lives. Through stories, real-life examples, reflections, and meditation practices—all told with warmth and humor—H.E. Khangser Rinpoche shows us how we can transform the suffering of our life into happiness. When we train the mind from within the context of our difficult emotions, we can find true joy, just as the oyster transforms sand into a pearl.
The Jhanas
Experience new levels of joy, calm, and clarity with this revised and enhanced edition of the bestselling Focused and Fearless.
The Pāli word jhāna literally means “to meditate.” It also refers to a traditional series of states of absorption, each deeper than the last, in which the mind is undistracted by sensation, thoughts, or moods. Shaila Catherine’s friendly, wise approach, blended with contemporary examples and pragmatic “how to” instructions that anyone can try, will show meditators (and non-meditators) how to attain these extraordinary states with relative ease.
But jhāna practice is about much more than just meditation or concentration; it offers a complete path toward bliss, fearlessness, and true awakening. From the introduction:
Jhānas are states of happiness that can radically transform the heart, reshape the mind, imbue consciousness with enduring joy and ease, and provide an inner resource of tranquility that surpasses any conceivable sensory pleasure. Jhānas are states of deep rest, healing rejuvenation, and profound comfort that create a stable platform for transformative insight. In this approach to jhāna, we use the calming aspects of concentration to support the investigative aspects of insight meditation. The fruit of concentration is freedom of heart and mind.
This new edition of the meditation classic clarifies crucial points and offers twenty-one additional exercises, making this a great book for both those new to jhāna practice and those looking to deepen their practice.
Bearing the Unbearable
In this journaling book, grief expert Joanne Cacciatore provides support and guidance, as writing prompts, for anyone experiencing traumatic loss and grief. This beautifully designed book offers 52 writing prompts for exploring grief and journaling about those whom we’ve lost. Writing about those we’ve lost can be part of a contemplative practice, alone or with therapists, family, friends, or with a grief support group. However you use this journal and its writing prompts, please take the time to write from the heart, really be with each prompt, dive deeply—and do so with a spirit of love and compassion for all beings, including yourself.
A Note from Dr. Jo:
This journal is an invitation. A passage. An open heart. Use the prompts throughout for deep contemplation. Write your experiences, feelings, memories of your beloved. Know that, wherever you are, you are not alone in this. We grievers, we rememberers, walk the same road, some ahead and some behind. But we walk together. Let this journal be the invisible thread that weaves together our hearts and souls and minds as we endure one more day—together, never alone. Let this journal be a space in which you remember and grieve and explore.
You can also explore Dr. Jo’s books, Bearing the Unbearable and Grieving is Loving, her Cards for Bearing the Unbearable, as well her Wisdom Academy course, Bearing the Unbearable.
The Blazing Inner Fire of Bliss and Emptiness
The Blazing Inner Fire of Bliss and Emptiness presents lucid translations of a pair of detailed commentaries by the famed Tibetan tantric master Ngulchu Dharmabhadra (1772–1851), illuminating a set of extremely secret and restricted tantric practices of highest yoga tantra.
The first of these commentaries details the practices of the Six Yogas of Naropa, one of the most celebrated and revered systems of completion-stage practice in Tibet. Dharmabhadra presents the Six Yogas by elaborating upon Lama Tsongkhapa ’s (1357–1419) masterpiece on the subject entitled Endowed with the Three Inspirations, which served as the basis for nearly all subsequent commentaries on the Six Yogas within the Gelug tradition. Ngulchu Dharmabhadra’s commentary is unique in that it presents the Six Yogas within the context of Vajrayogini practice, making this book a perfect companion piece to The Extremely Secret Dakini of Naropa (Wisdom Publications, 2020).
Also contained in this book is Ngulchu Dharmabhadra’s lucid and concise commentary on the First Panchen Lama’s (1570–1662) famous Supplication for Liberation from [Fear of] the Perilous Journey of the Intermediate State. The prayer—a beautiful literary contribution from the First Panchen Lama in its own right—invokes the immediacy of death and the potential to use the process of dying as an opportunity for liberation. The prayer extols the efficacy of the “nine mixings” of the completion stage as direct means of transforming our ordinary death process by using advanced yogas presented in the first commentary on the Six Yogas.
Together, these works present the reader with a vast and profound vision of spiritual transformation—one in which every aspect of human experience can be used as an opportunity for transcendence and spiritual liberation.
The Dechen Ling Practice Series from Wisdom Publications is committed to furthering the vision of David Gonsalez (Venerable Losang Tsering) and the Dechen Ling Press of bringing the sacred literature of Tibet to the West by making available many never-before-translated texts.
Abiding in Emptiness
Before the growth of the Mahāyānā and the Perfection of Wisdom, the Buddha gave his own teachings, to his attendant Ānanda, on the importance of emptiness (Pāli suññatā, Sanskrit śūnyatā) in formal meditation and everyday practice. In this volume, renowned scholar-monk Bhikkhu Anālayo explores these teachings and shows us how to integrate them into our lives.
Bhikkhu Anālayo draws from instructions found in the Greater and the Smaller Discourses on Emptiness (the Mahāsuññatasutta and the Cūḷasuññatasutta). In each chapter, he provides a translation of a pertinent excerpt from the discourses, follows this with clear and precise explanations of the text, and concludes by offering instructions for practice.
Step by step, beginning with daily life and concluding with Nirvana, Bhikkhu Anālayo unpacks the Buddha’s teachings on the foundational teaching of emptiness.
Perseverance
Dive deep into perseverance, one of the core practices of the bodhisattvas, with beloved teacher Lama Zopa Rinpoche as a guide.
Awakening depends on fortitude;
because, without fortitude there is no merit,
as there is no movement without wind.
—Shantideva, Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life
Perseverance, or virya, is also translated as “energy,” “fortitude,” or “vigor.” One of the six perfections, or paramitas, it is one of the trainings of the bodhisattvas and a deeply necessary quality for the Buddhist path. But it’s far from the kind of head-down, stubborn determination the name could imply; instead, it’s joyful energy that enables us to practice.
Rinpoche’s commentary is structured around the fifth and seventh chapters of the beloved Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life by the eighth-century philosopher-poet Shantideva. Interweaving his teaching with Shantideva’s verses, Rinpoche elucidates this prerequisite for enlightenment, explaining what it is and how to cultivate it: guard your mind, gather virtue, work for others—and find incredible joy in these things.
“When we have perseverance, we will have no obstacles, which means obstacles to any happiness, especially to ultimate happiness, the freedom from the oceans of samsaric suffering, and most importantly to peerless happiness, the state of the omniscience that is enlightenment.”
—Lama Zopa Rinpoche
The Wisdom Culture Series, published under the guidance of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, features translations of key works by masters of the Geluk tradition. Also available in the series are Tsongkhapa’s Middle-Length Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, The Power of Mantra, andThe Swift Path.
Nāgārjuna’s Precious Garland
This elegant and precise rendering of Nāgārjuna’s work is certain to become the touchstone translation of this celebrated Buddhist text.
In this profound work of five hundred verses, we encounter a presentation of Buddhism that integrates both the worldly and the transcendent. The clear and sagacious advice laid out on every page serves as a road map to one’s highest goal—whether that goal is a better life, here called the Dharma of ascendance, or the ultimate one of spiritual freedom, the Dharma of the highest good. The verses, written for an unnamed ruler, touch on questions of statecraft, but their broader themes speak to us today because they tackle the difficulty of integrating one’s spiritual journey with the social and political demands of daily life.
Nāgārjuna was an Indian Buddhist teacher, probably of the second century CE, who was renowned for his astute articulation of the philosophy of the Middle Way (Madhyamaka). His thoroughgoing critique of all forms of essentialism became a touchstone for Mahāyāna Buddhism in India, Tibet, and throughout East Asia, and his importance for the development of the Mahāyāna tradition can scarcely be exaggerated.
The translators here first rendered Nāgārjuna’s letter for the Dalai Lama’s teachings on the work in Los Angeles in 1997. While that commemorative edition was translated from the Tibetan, the present volume prioritizes the surviving Sanskrit verses along with the only known Indian commentary, by the eleventh-century scholar Ajitamitra. This is the first complete translation in English of the Precious Garland that takes the Indian text and commentary as its primary authorities. In addition, they provide rigorous working editions of the Sanskrit and Tibetan verses they translate.
Learn more about the Classics of Indian Buddhism series.
Saraha’s Spontaneous Songs
“Completely abandon thought and no-thought, and abide in the natural way of a small child.” —Saraha
To find liberation and realize the true nature of reality, the Indian Buddhist master Saraha says we must leave behind any conceptual assessment of reality, since no model of it has ever been known to withstand critical analysis. Saraha’s spontaneous songs, or dohās, represent the Buddhist art of expressing the inexpressible. The most important collection of Saraha’s songs is the Dohākoṣa, the Treasury of Spontaneous Songs, better known in Tibet as the Songs for the People, and the Tibetan mahāmudrā tradition, especially within the Kagyü school, has done the most to preserve the lineage of Saraha’s instructions to the present day.
But Saraha was also widely cited in Indian sources starting around the eleventh century, and one Indic commentary, by the Newar scholar Advayavajra, still exists in Sanskrit. In addition, we have independent root texts of Saraha’s songs in the vernacular Apabhraṃśa in which they were recorded. These Indian texts, together with their Tibetan translations, are here presented in masterful new critical editions, along with the Tibetan translation of the commentary no longer extant in Sanskrit by Mokṣākaragupta. Finally, both commentaries are rendered in elegant English, and the authors offer a brisk but comprehensive introduction.
Saraha’s Spontaneous Songs provides the reader with everything needed for a serious study of one of the most important works in the Indian Buddhist canon.
Learn more about the Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism series.
Ocean of Attainments
This commentary on Guhyasamāja tantra is the seminal guide to deity yoga and tantric visualization for the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism.
The Guhyasamāja Tantra, called the king of all tantras, is revered in Tibet, especially by the Geluk school. Ocean of Attainments, a commentary on Guhyasamāja practice, was composed by Khedrup Jé Gelek Palsang (1385–1438), a key disciple of the Geluk school founder, Tsongkhapa Losang Drakpa. It explores the creation stage, a quintessential Buddhist tantric meditation that together with the completion stage comprises the path of unexcelled tantra.
In the creation stage, meditators visualize themselves as buddhas at the center of the celestial maṇḍala, surrounded in all directions by male and female buddhas, bodhisattvas, and other enlightened beings. Yet creation-stage practice is not merely visualization but deity yoga—indivisibly uniting the meditation on emptiness with the visualization of the maṇḍala. The creation stage uses the conceptualization in visualization to overcome conceptualization, thereby creating a nonconceptual and nonerroneous direct perception. Such a mind, profound and vast, can bring about a transformation that stops saṃsāric suffering. How can visions generated as mental constructs not be erroneous? To the awakened eye, the buddhas and other beings who dwell in the maṇḍala are “reality,” and in a sense they are more than real.
While the previously published Essence of the Ocean of Attainments is a concise exposition on the practice of the Guhyasamaja sadhana, Ocean of Attainments is far more detailed, providing extensive scriptural citations, clear explanation of the body maṇḍala, arguments on points of contention, reference to other tantric systems, and critiques of misinterpretations. With its extensive and clear introduction, this volume is a vital contribution to the growing body of scholarship on Guhyasamāja and on Buddhist tantra in general.
Learn more about the Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism series.
Footprints on the Journey
This personal diary that the renowned Dzogchen master Khenpo Sodargye kept for one year gives serious Dharma practitioners a lifetime of inspiring, wise guidance for practicing right conduct on the path. The backdrop is the Tibetan plateau, from which Khenpo invites us to see the world—from native people to a spider, from vast galaxies to a water droplet—as he does, with candor and humor, and with a Dzogchen master’s sharp analysis. He shares with us his perceptions of this world, describing his ups and downs in a way that we can relate to and be inspired by, even if we do not have the fortitude to stand up to the oppression of crustaceans or to ransom yaks from the slaughterhouse. Spontaneous and lively, the entries play out the vicissitudes of his life throughout a challenging year, tracking the passage of his thoughts and actions, leaving footprints for whoever is able to follow.
Other books by Khenpo Sodargye include What Makes You So Busy?, Tales for Transforming Adversity, and The Diamond Cutter Sutra.
Buddha’s Words for Tough Times
Twenty translations from the vast corpus of Buddhist literature come alive in this full-color anthology of ancient wisdom for turbulent times, as a master scholar uncovers their sources and significance.
Change and loss have always been part of the human condition, but in today’s world, the pace and intensity of uncertainty has reached new extremes. The Buddha observed the truth of impermanence more than 2,500 years ago and diagnosed the source of the anxiety it engenders so incisively that his prescription still resonates and heals here and now.
In Buddha’s Words for Tough Times, Peter Skilling, one of the world’s foremost authorities on Buddhist scripture, brings the reader face to face with the wealth of Buddhist literature, from a teaching in a single word, to a seminal collection of verses on impermanence, to narrations of the Buddha’s teaching journeys across the Gangetic Plain. Translating from sources in Tibetan, Sanskrit, and Pāli, he uncovers the complex history of the vast writings of the Buddhist canons, and his skill in revealing the meaning of twenty gems from within those riches brings them alive for English readers. We could have no better guide for this exploration, an exploration whose value is more urgent than ever.
The Illusory Body and Mind
H. E. Kalu Rinpoche possesses a remarkable ability to convey the true power and possibility of the Dharma.
In this new online course, he delves deep into Vajrayana practice as he shares the teachings of numerous pioneers of the Shangpa school of Tibetan Buddhism, including Niguma, Sukhasiddhi, Tangtong Gyalpo, Taranatha, and Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye.
You’ll be guided through an introduction to two key completion stage practices from among Niguma’s six yogas—the illusory body and mind and bardo (intermediate state) practices.
The course provides a precious opportunity to receive some of the most profound teachings of Buddhism as they’re illuminated and explained by a remarkable teacher.
H. E. Kalu Rinpoche masterfully brings together his deep knowledge of Dharma and his clear, compassionate understanding of modern life and the challenges on the path to liberation.
The course explores:
• bardo practice
• deity yoga
• the nature of mind
• practicing with the challenges of everyday life
• the illusory body and mind meditation
• and much more.
This is a truly rare opportunity and we hope you’ll join us!
Tuition: $297 USD
After enrolling, check your email for a welcome email with instructions on how to take the course. When you enroll in any Wisdom Academy course, you agree to our terms of use. Enrolled students have lifetime access to course materials. Wisdom is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Your tuition supports the creation of more courses like this one. Thank you! For more about our terms, please see the Wisdom Academy FAQ.
Encountering the Mind’s Natural Luminosity
Discover how to intuitively recognize your mind’s essential character under the guidance of renowned teacher Lama Alan Wallace.
In Encountering the Mind’s Natural Luminosity, you’ll learn a unique mode of knowing that gives you access to this vital intuition. This mode presents a different path from both experiential scientific exploration and inference supported by reason.
Scroll down to learn more, or click below to save your seat today. You’ll enjoy ongoing access to course materials. The course starts on June 14, 2024; please scroll down for the full schedule.
Tuition: $247 USD
Terms: Students are not required to take The Dharma of Well-Being Part 1 and Part 2 before engaging with Part 3, but it is recommended. After enrolling, check your email for a welcome email with instructions on how to take the course. When you enroll in any Wisdom Academy course, you agree to our terms of use. Enrolled students have lifetime access to course materials. Wisdom is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Your tuition supports the creation of more courses like this one. Thank you! For more about our terms, please see the Wisdom Academy FAQ.
The Jhanas
Experience new levels of joy, calm, and clarity with this revised and enhanced edition of the bestselling Focused and Fearless.
The Pāli word jhāna literally means “to meditate.” It also refers to a traditional series of states of absorption, each deeper than the last, in which the mind is undistracted by sensation, thoughts, or moods. Shaila Catherine’s friendly, wise approach, blended with contemporary examples and pragmatic “how to” instructions that anyone can try, will show meditators (and non-meditators) how to attain these extraordinary states with relative ease.
But jhāna practice is about much more than just meditation or concentration; it offers a complete path toward bliss, fearlessness, and true awakening. From the introduction:
Jhānas are states of happiness that can radically transform the heart, reshape the mind, imbue consciousness with enduring joy and ease, and provide an inner resource of tranquility that surpasses any conceivable sensory pleasure. Jhānas are states of deep rest, healing rejuvenation, and profound comfort that create a stable platform for transformative insight. In this approach to jhāna, we use the calming aspects of concentration to support the investigative aspects of insight meditation. The fruit of concentration is freedom of heart and mind.
This new edition of the meditation classic clarifies crucial points and offers twenty-one additional exercises, making this a great book for both those new to jhāna practice and those looking to deepen their practice.
Bearing the Unbearable
In this journaling book, grief expert Joanne Cacciatore provides support and guidance, as writing prompts, for anyone experiencing traumatic loss and grief. This beautifully designed book offers 52 writing prompts for exploring grief and journaling about those whom we’ve lost. Writing about those we’ve lost can be part of a contemplative practice, alone or with therapists, family, friends, or with a grief support group. However you use this journal and its writing prompts, please take the time to write from the heart, really be with each prompt, dive deeply—and do so with a spirit of love and compassion for all beings, including yourself.
A Note from Dr. Jo:
This journal is an invitation. A passage. An open heart. Use the prompts throughout for deep contemplation. Write your experiences, feelings, memories of your beloved. Know that, wherever you are, you are not alone in this. We grievers, we rememberers, walk the same road, some ahead and some behind. But we walk together. Let this journal be the invisible thread that weaves together our hearts and souls and minds as we endure one more day—together, never alone. Let this journal be a space in which you remember and grieve and explore.
You can also explore Dr. Jo’s books, Bearing the Unbearable and Grieving is Loving, her Cards for Bearing the Unbearable, as well her Wisdom Academy course, Bearing the Unbearable.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: Dorje Drolö and the Power of the Mind (#183)
This episode of the Wisdom Podcast, recorded live as a Wisdom Dharma Chat features special guest, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. Born in the Himalayan border regions between Tibet and Nepal, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche is a rising star among the new generation of Tibetan Buddhist teachers. His candid, often humorous accounts of his personal difficulties have endeared him to audiences around the world.
During this Wisdom Dharma Chat host, Daniel Aitken, and Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche discuss:
- Dorje Drolö, a Buddhist practice meant specifically for use during difficult times in human history;
- Rinpoche’s upcoming teachings in Nepal this June;
- the imaginative power of the mind;
- wrathful deities; and
- much more!
Remember to subscribe to the Wisdom Podcast for more great conversations on Buddhism, meditation, and mindfulness. And please give us a 5-star rating in Apple Podcasts if you enjoy our show—it’s a great support to us and helps other people find the podcast. Thank you!
Abiding in Emptiness
Before the growth of the Mahāyānā and the Perfection of Wisdom, the Buddha gave his own teachings, to his attendant Ānanda, on the importance of emptiness (Pāli suññatā, Sanskrit śūnyatā) in formal meditation and everyday practice. In this volume, renowned scholar-monk Bhikkhu Anālayo explores these teachings and shows us how to integrate them into our lives.
Bhikkhu Anālayo draws from instructions found in the Greater and the Smaller Discourses on Emptiness (the Mahāsuññatasutta and the Cūḷasuññatasutta). In each chapter, he provides a translation of a pertinent excerpt from the discourses, follows this with clear and precise explanations of the text, and concludes by offering instructions for practice.
Step by step, beginning with daily life and concluding with Nirvana, Bhikkhu Anālayo unpacks the Buddha’s teachings on the foundational teaching of emptiness.
Nāgārjuna’s Precious Garland
This elegant and precise rendering of Nāgārjuna’s work is certain to become the touchstone translation of this celebrated Buddhist text.
In this profound work of five hundred verses, we encounter a presentation of Buddhism that integrates both the worldly and the transcendent. The clear and sagacious advice laid out on every page serves as a road map to one’s highest goal—whether that goal is a better life, here called the Dharma of ascendance, or the ultimate one of spiritual freedom, the Dharma of the highest good. The verses, written for an unnamed ruler, touch on questions of statecraft, but their broader themes speak to us today because they tackle the difficulty of integrating one’s spiritual journey with the social and political demands of daily life.
Nāgārjuna was an Indian Buddhist teacher, probably of the second century CE, who was renowned for his astute articulation of the philosophy of the Middle Way (Madhyamaka). His thoroughgoing critique of all forms of essentialism became a touchstone for Mahāyāna Buddhism in India, Tibet, and throughout East Asia, and his importance for the development of the Mahāyāna tradition can scarcely be exaggerated.
The translators here first rendered Nāgārjuna’s letter for the Dalai Lama’s teachings on the work in Los Angeles in 1997. While that commemorative edition was translated from the Tibetan, the present volume prioritizes the surviving Sanskrit verses along with the only known Indian commentary, by the eleventh-century scholar Ajitamitra. This is the first complete translation in English of the Precious Garland that takes the Indian text and commentary as its primary authorities. In addition, they provide rigorous working editions of the Sanskrit and Tibetan verses they translate.
Learn more about the Classics of Indian Buddhism series.
Making Sense of Mind Only
This survey of the Yogācāra school of Indian Buddhism makes its key texts and ideas accessible and relevant through engaging, contemporary examples. It interprets Yogācāra Buddhism as a coherent system of ideas and practices in relation to the path to liberation.
Mahāyāna Buddhism arose in classical India and flourished in China, Tibet, Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. While one of its major Indian schools, the Middle Way (Madhyamaka) focuses on the concept of emptiness—that all phenomena lack their own essence—the Yoga Practitioners school (Yogācāra) focuses on the cognitive processes whereby we impute such essences. Through everyday examples and analogues in cognitive science, author William Waldron makes Yogācāra’s core teachings—the three turnings of the Dharma-wheel, the three-nature theory, the store-house consciousness, and the idea of mere perception—accessible to a general audience. Countering the common view of Yogācāra as a form of idealism, he treats Yogācāra Buddhism as a coherent system of ideas and practices on its own terms, with dependent arising its guiding principle. He first examines early Buddhist texts that show how our affective and cognitive processes shape the way objects and worlds appear to us, and how we erroneously grasp onto them as essentially real—perpetuating the engrained habits that bind us to saṃsāra. After analyzing the early Madhyamaka critique of essences, he then examines how Yogācāra texts, such as the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra and Stages of Yogic Practice, build upon these earlier ideas to argue that our constructive processes also occur unconsciously. Not only are we collectively, yet mostly unknowingly, constructing our shared realities—our cultural worlds—they are also mediated through the store-house consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna)—functioning as a kind of “cultural unconscious.” Next, Vasubandhu’s Twenty Verses argues that we can learn to recognize such objects and worlds as “mere perceptions” (vijñāpti-mātra) and thereby abandon our enchantment with the products of our own cognitive processes. The author walks us through the Mahāyāna path to this transformation as gracefully laid out in Maitreya’s Distinguishing Phenomena from their Ultimate Nature. Finally, he considers how Yogācāra perspectives inspire us to rethink religion in our scientific and pluralistic age.
Meditation in the Theravada Abhidhamma
Acclaimed scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi guides us expertly through the study of meditation in the Theravada tradition. In ten lessons based on the Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma (Abhidhammattha Sangaha), he examines chapter 9, “The Compendium of Meditation Subjects.” This important chapter can be considered the culmination of the entire Abhidhamma system as it offers a framework for the practice of meditation leading to realization—a concise overview of the whole path explained in detail in the Visuddhimagga, or Path of Purification, by the great fifth-century scholar Buddhaghosa. In his signature lucid style, Bhikkhu Bodhi explores two aspects of classical Buddhist meditation: samatha (serenity) and vipassanā (insight), aimed respectively at samādhi (concentration) and the realization of the paths and fruits. You’ll come away with a clear understanding of the entire terrain of Buddhist meditation, from beginning to end.
This course is available as a free offering to all Free, Plus, and All-Access members of the Wisdom Experience. We hope you enjoy this as a sample of the courses that are available to you in Wisdom Academy. Click here to join!
Inside Vasubandhu’s Yogacara
In this down-to-earth book, Ben Connelly sure-handedly guides us through the intricacies of Yogacara and the richness of the “Thirty Verses.” Dedicating a chapter of the book to each line of the poem, he lets us thoroughly lose ourselves in its depths. His warm and wise voice unpacks and contextualizes its wisdom, showing us how we can apply its ancient insights to our own modern lives, to create a life of engaged peace, harmony, compassion, and joy.
In fourth-century India one of the great geniuses of Buddhism, Vasubandhu, sought to reconcile the diverse ideas and forms of Buddhism practiced at the time and demonstrate how they could be effectively integrated into a single system. This was the Yogacara movement, and it continues to have great influence in modern Tibetan and Zen Buddhism. “Thirty Verses on Consciousness Only,” or “Trimshika,” is the most concise, comprehensive, and accessible work by this revered figure.
Vasubandhu’s “Thirty Verses” lay out a path of practice that integrates the most powerful of Buddhism’s psychological and mystical possibilities: Early Buddhism’s practices for shedding afflictive emotional habit and the Mahayana emphasis on shedding divisive concepts, the path of individual liberation and the path of freeing all beings, the path to nirvana and the path of enlightenment as the very ground of being right now. Although Yogacara has a reputation for being extremely complex, the “Thirty Verses” distills the principles of these traditions to their most practical forms, and this book follows that sense of focus; it goes to the heart of the matter—how do we alleviate suffering through shedding our emotional knots and our sense of alienation?
This is a great introduction to a philosophy, a master, and a work whose influence reverberates throughout modern Buddhism.
Saraha’s Spontaneous Songs
“Completely abandon thought and no-thought, and abide in the natural way of a small child.” —Saraha
To find liberation and realize the true nature of reality, the Indian Buddhist master Saraha says we must leave behind any conceptual assessment of reality, since no model of it has ever been known to withstand critical analysis. Saraha’s spontaneous songs, or dohās, represent the Buddhist art of expressing the inexpressible. The most important collection of Saraha’s songs is the Dohākoṣa, the Treasury of Spontaneous Songs, better known in Tibet as the Songs for the People, and the Tibetan mahāmudrā tradition, especially within the Kagyü school, has done the most to preserve the lineage of Saraha’s instructions to the present day.
But Saraha was also widely cited in Indian sources starting around the eleventh century, and one Indic commentary, by the Newar scholar Advayavajra, still exists in Sanskrit. In addition, we have independent root texts of Saraha’s songs in the vernacular Apabhraṃśa in which they were recorded. These Indian texts, together with their Tibetan translations, are here presented in masterful new critical editions, along with the Tibetan translation of the commentary no longer extant in Sanskrit by Mokṣākaragupta. Finally, both commentaries are rendered in elegant English, and the authors offer a brisk but comprehensive introduction.
Saraha’s Spontaneous Songs provides the reader with everything needed for a serious study of one of the most important works in the Indian Buddhist canon.
Learn more about the Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism series.
Tibetan Yoga, Part 2
In the second course from beloved Tibetan yoga teacher Dr. Alejandro Chaoul, explore the magical movements of the Aural Transmission of Zhang Zhung at a more profound level. You’ll learn the important breathing practices and unlock the power of the pervasive breath.
This course will focus specifically on the pervasive breath (khyab lung) which Sharzda Rinpoche, a 19th-century Dzogchen master in the Bon tradition, calls the “principal breath.” While other breath practices are related to specific parts of the body, this breath pervades throughout as a “mandalic breath.”
The course begins July 12, 2024, but you can take the course at your own pace as enrolled students have ongoing access.
Right now you can save $50 if you enroll in this course before June 3, 2024. Just use the code TY2EB at checkout.
Full tuition: $297
Your tuition: $247
After enrolling, check your email for a welcome email with instructions on how to take the course. When you enroll in any Wisdom Academy course, you agree to our terms of use. Enrolled students have lifetime access to course materials. Wisdom is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Your tuition supports the creation of more courses like this one. Thank you! For more about our terms, please see the Wisdom Academy FAQ.
The Illusory Body and Mind
H. E. Kalu Rinpoche possesses a remarkable ability to convey the true power and possibility of the Dharma.
In this new online course, he delves deep into Vajrayana practice as he shares the teachings of numerous pioneers of the Shangpa school of Tibetan Buddhism, including Niguma, Sukhasiddhi, Tangtong Gyalpo, Taranatha, and Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye.
You’ll be guided through an introduction to two key completion stage practices from among Niguma’s six yogas—the illusory body and mind and bardo (intermediate state) practices.
The course provides a precious opportunity to receive some of the most profound teachings of Buddhism as they’re illuminated and explained by a remarkable teacher.
H. E. Kalu Rinpoche masterfully brings together his deep knowledge of Dharma and his clear, compassionate understanding of modern life and the challenges on the path to liberation.
The course explores:
• bardo practice
• deity yoga
• the nature of mind
• practicing with the challenges of everyday life
• the illusory body and mind meditation
• and much more.
This is a truly rare opportunity and we hope you’ll join us!
Tuition: $297 USD
After enrolling, check your email for a welcome email with instructions on how to take the course. When you enroll in any Wisdom Academy course, you agree to our terms of use. Enrolled students have lifetime access to course materials. Wisdom is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Your tuition supports the creation of more courses like this one. Thank you! For more about our terms, please see the Wisdom Academy FAQ.
Wisdom Dharma Chat – Alejandro Chaoul September 2023
DR. ALEJANDRO CHAOUL
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2023, AT 7:00 PM EDT
Join us and our special guest, Dr. Alejandro Chaoul, on Wednesday, September 13, at 7:00 PM EDT for a special episode of Wisdom Dharma Chats filmed in New York City with a live studio audience. During this Wisdom Dharma Chat host Daniel Aitken and Alejandro will discuss his upcoming Wisdom Academy course Tibetan Yoga, Part 2, and much more.
Register below to join us on Zoom.
Tickets for the in-person audience are available for a small fee of $5.00, the proceeds of which go entirely to Alejandro. To attend this Wisdom Dharma Chat in person, reserve your ticket here. Seats are limited. Please only reserve a ticket if you plan on attending in person. The event will take place at 132 Perry St., New York, NY, 10014.
Alejandro Chaoul
Dr. Alejandro Chaoul completed the seven-year training at Ligmincha International and received his PhD in Tibetan Religions from Rice University. He has studied Tibetan yoga for thirty years with the Bön tradition’s greatest masters, including the late H. H. Lungtok Tenpai Nyima, Yongdzin Tenzin Namdak, and Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, having trained in Triten Norbutse Monastery in Nepal and Menri Monastery in India. He is the founding director of the Mind, Body, Spirit Institute at The Jung Center of Houston. He is the author of Tibetan Yoga: Magical Movements of Body, Breath, and Mind, Chöd Practice in the Bon Tradition, and Tibetan Yoga for Health and Well-Being, and the instructor for the Wisdom Academy course Tibetan Yoga.
How the Mind Works
Enroll in Thupten Jinpa’s first Wisdom Academy course, Tsongkhapa’s Madhyamaka, before May 20, 2024 with code TMHMW and get How the Mind Works at 50% off.
In Tsongkhapa’s Madhyamaka, discover the Middle Way teachings of Tsongkhapa and gain a profound and practical new understanding of emptiness. Learn more about this course here. Enroll in both courses now and enjoy them at your own pace.
1. Click the button below to add Tsongkhapa’s Madhyamaka to your cart
2. Apply the code
3. How the Mind Works will be added at a 50% discount
4. Complete checkout
Full Tuition for 2-Course Bundle: $794 USD
Your Tuition with code TMHMW: $595.50
After enrolling, check your email for welcome emails with further instructions. When you enroll in any Wisdom Academy course, you agree to our terms of use. Enrolled students have lifetime access to course materials. Wisdom is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Your tuition supports the creation of more courses like this one. Thank you! For more about our terms, please see the Wisdom Academy FAQ.
If you’ve ever wished for teachings on Buddhist psychology that are accessible and yet capture richness and depth, including insights applicable to everyday life, this course is for you.
Explore the great landscape of the mind through Buddhist psychology in this extraordinary course. Your guide is Thupten Jinpa, renowned scholar, translator for His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and one of the world’s leading experts on Buddhism.
This is a precious opportunity to explore your mental and emotional life in depth with one of the world’s leading experts on Buddhism.
As you deepen your understanding of how your mind works, you’ll find out how to develop greater continuity between meditation and daily life.
This course is in self-study mode, so you can learn at your own pace. Read on for more information or click the button below to save your seat today.
When you enroll in this course you agree to our terms of use. Enrolled students have lifetime access to course materials. Wisdom is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Your tuition supports the creation of more courses like this one. Thank you! For more about our terms, please see the Wisdom Academy FAQ.
Encountering the Mind’s Natural Luminosity
Discover how to intuitively recognize your mind’s essential character under the guidance of renowned teacher Lama Alan Wallace.
In Encountering the Mind’s Natural Luminosity, you’ll learn a unique mode of knowing that gives you access to this vital intuition. This mode presents a different path from both experiential scientific exploration and inference supported by reason.
Scroll down to learn more, or click below to save your seat today. You’ll enjoy ongoing access to course materials. The course starts on June 14, 2024; please scroll down for the full schedule.