Available until now only in limited editions, "Venerable Father" has become an underground classic among Buddhists, especially those practicing the Thai tradition. It details the joys and struggles of Paul Breiter's years with Ajahn Chah, who was perhaps Thailand s best-known and most-loved Buddhist master. Breiter describes Ajahn Chah as a figure who is at once human yet extraordinary, an orthodox yet unconventional teacher whose remarkable skill, patience, and compassion in training disciples flowed naturally from his deep and joyous realization of the truth. Breiter also explains, quite vividly, the life of a Westerner in a Thai forest monastery and the unique spiritual lessons to be learned there. PAUL BREITER ordained in the Theravada Buddhist tradition in Thailand in 1970 and soon thereafter met Ajahn Chah. He became one of Ajahn Chah's favorite disciples and his translator, and stayed with him until disrobing in 1977. Since then, he has maintained close ties to Ajahn Chah's lineage while studying Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, and he has continued to translate Ajahn Chah's teachings, which appear in "Still Forest Pool: The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chaa" (with Jack Kornfield) and "Being Dharma: The Essence of the Buddha s Teachings."

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Mahamudra and Dzogchen are perhaps the most profound teachings within all of Tibetan Buddhism. The experience of "Mahamudra, or "great symbol," is an overwhelming sense of extraordinary clarity, totally open and nondualistic. "Dzogchen, or "great perfection," is the ultimate teaching according to the Nyingma tradition and also represents the pinnacle of spiritual development. These are the two paths that provide practitioners with the most skillful means to experience the fully awakened state and directly taste the reality of our mind and environment. And yet these concepts are notoriously difficult to grasp and challenging to explain. In "Wild Awakening, Tibetan Buddhist master Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche presents these esoteric teachings in a style that reveals their surprising simplicity and great practical value, emphasizing that we can all experience our world more directly, with responsibility, freedom, and confidence. With a straightforward approach and informal style, he presents these essential teachings in a way that even those very new to Tibetan Buddhism can understand.

This short gem of a book shows how distorted perceptions and disturbing emotions--arising from our misunderstanding of reality--can be completely uprooted, resulting in freedom from suffering.

The "golden yoke" of Buddhist Tibet was the last medieval legal system still in existence in the middle of the twentieth century. This book reconstructs that system as a series of layered narratives from the memories of people who participated in the daily operation of law in the houses and courtyards the offices and courts of Tibet prior to 1959. The practice of law in this unique legal world, which lacked most of our familiar sign posts, ranged from the fantastic use of oracles in the search for evidence to the more mundane presentation of cases in court. Buddhism and law, two topics rarely intertwined in Western consciousness, are at the center of this work. The Tibetan legal system was based on Buddhist philosophy and reflected Buddhist thought in legal practice and decision making. For Tibetans, law is a cosmology, a kaleidoscopic patterning of relations which is constantly changing, recycling, and re-forming even as it integrates the universe and the individual into a timeless mandalic whole. "The Golden Yoke" causes us to rethink American legal culture. It argues that in the United States, legal matters are segregated into a separate space with rigidly defined categories. The legal cosmology of Buddhist Tibet brings into question both this autonomous framework and most of the presumptions we have about the very nature of law from precedent and "res judicata" to rule formation and closure.

These fascinating discussions between 11th century court ladies and the great master Padmasambhava, available for the first time in English, weave intriguing issues of gender into Buddhist teachings. The women's doubts and hesitations are masterfully resolved in these impassioned exchanges. The wonderful material in this book is part of a terma (treasure) revealed by Pema Lingpa (1450-1521), the greatest terton (treasure-revealer) of the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. The pithy collection is rounded out by Pema Lingpa's astonishing life story..

The teaching on "Parting from the Four Attachments" is universally regarded as one of the jewels of Tibetan Buddhism. Rinpoche leads the reader through a detailed and lucid exploration of the nature of mind, pointing out inevitable pitfalls in spiritual practice and showing how they can be avoided.

The Dalai Lama is both the living conscience of the Tibetan people and an internationally respected human rights symbol. His high-profile appearances and books have fueled the surging popularity of Buddhism in the United States and throughout the West. This new, up-to-date biography provides insight into the curious and winning personality of the Dalai Lama as a boy and his wisdom as a man. The Buddhist spiritual worlds and the Dalai Lama's rarified role are engagingly and evenly presented.

The Dalai Lama's story is revealed from his early family life to his experiences in the world, his education as the 14th incarnation of the Lama, his exile in India, and his current struggles to help Tibet regain its independence from China. Especially helpful is the clear historical overview of the Tibetan crisis after the Chinese invasion. A timeline and glossary also supplement the text. Though the book is written especially for high school students doing reports, it will also be of immense interest to general readers.

"Essential Practice" is an accessible and authoritative portrait of a bodhisattva's view, meditation, and conduct by one of the foremost masters of the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism and the tutor of H.H. the Seventeenth Karmapa. Teaching on Kamalashila's treatises outlining the stages of meditation, Thrangu Rinpoche explains the need for compassion and the way to develop it, the necessity for a bodhisattva's vast and durable altruism, as well as the means to generate, stabilize, and fortify it and the elements key to the meditative practices of calm abiding and insight. An engaging element of "Essential Practice" is the lively interaction of Thrangu Rinpoche with students and members of the faculty of Naropa University as he unfolds the text for them.
With exceptional generosity, Thrangu Rinpoche took delight in fielding basic and knotty questions that were put to him by relative newcomers and relatively seasoned practitioner/scholars. This record of a masterful teacher's instructions will help students old and new to determine what is essential to the practice of Buddhism and thereby bring the Buddha's teachings into their own experience. "Essential Practice" presents an incomparable wisdom on the methodology and means of meditation, as well as the ways in which to bring oneself to the transcendence of selfless behavior.

Unlike most books by the Dalai Lama which are edited compilations of talks that he has given, this book consists of two texts that he himself wrote and two that he chose--all especially aimed at helping Western readers become better grounded in Buddhism. He wrote "The Buddhism of Tibet" and "The Key to the Middle Way" sections to explain the principal topics and central practices of Buddhism. There are four sections to this compilation:
- "The Buddhism of Tibet" by the Dalai Lama: In this excellent introduction, the Dalai Lama explains the principal topics and central practices of Buddhism.
- "The Key to the Middle Way" by the Dalai Lama: The Dalai Lama leads the student to the discovery of the true meaning of emptiness. With acute precision, he presents many insights into the nature of"emptiness.
- "The Precious Garland" by Nagarjuna: Originally written for a king, this text is famous for its descriptions of the bodhisattva path of compassion and for its clear, concise analysis of the"Buddha's teachings on emptiness. It describes how to find happiness by cultivating virtues of body speech and mind and how to amass the stores of merit and wisdom required for enlightenment.
- "The Song of the Four Mindfulnesses" by the Seventh Dalai Lama Kaysang Gyatso: This short poem contains all the essentials of sutra and tantra. It is to be used as a basis for meditations on mindfulness of"the guru altruism deity yoga and emptiness.

Writing in the language of the new sciences, Herbert Guenther traces the evolution of Buddhist views on cognition and points to their relevance in the contemporary world. The history of Buddhist thought is a unique example of the interplay between reductionism and creativity, between conservatism and innovation, and it is the author's purpose to examine the interaction between these complementary movements. Of decisive importance in this context is the idea of "mind," which Buddhism recognized early on as a process rather than a thing. This recognition marked the transition from structure-oriented thinking to a vigorous process-oriented thinking, which climaxed in the holistic movement known as rDzogs-chen. Based on original texts in the Pali, Tibetan, and Sanskrit languages, the book develops the Buddhist ideas out of the context in which they originated.

The story of one man's unexpected pilgrimage from Buddhism to Catholicism.There are Christians who, in mid-life decide to abandon their Christian faith and become Buddhists. Paul Williams did the opposite. After twenty years spent practising and teaching Tibetan Buddhism in Britain, scholar and broadcaster Paul Williams astonished his family and friends in 1999 by converting to Roman Catholicism. Williams explains why he joined a Church that many Buddhists and others might regard as a repressed and outdated way of life and belief. He argues that being a Catholic in the modern world is no less rational than being a Buddhist, and may in many respects, be more so.

The 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.

"The Essence of Jung's Psychology and Tibetan Buddhism" cuts to the heart of two very different yet remarkably similar traditions. The author touches on many of their major ideas: the collective unconscious and karma, archetypes and deities, the analyst and the spiritual friend, and mandalas. Within Tibetan Buddhism she focuses on tantra and relates its emphasis on spiritual transformation, also a major concern of Jung. This expanded edition includes new material on the integration of the two traditions, and the importance of these paths of the heart in today's unsteady world.

Imbued with a friendly tone and pithy wisdom, this handsome handbook to approaching life "in a better way" includes six of His Holiness The Dalai Lama's most accessible and inspirational public lectures. Following each talk are the original question-and-answer sessions in which His Holiness opens himself up to his listeners and-now-to readers everywhere. His characteristically candid guidance on living fully and responsibly, especially at the start of a new millennium, focuses on specific themes that range from religious tolerance to compassion and nonviolence. The book also includes a practical and highly readable introduction to Buddhism and The Dalai Lama's own spiritual heritage, written by the renowned Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche.

With the intimate freshness of a personal teaching, this book presents the main practices of the Mahayana Buddhist path. It details the attitudes cultivated in meditation--ranging from turning away from cyclic existence to developing love and compassion for all beings, to understanding the profound view of emptiness.

This book is the first book length study of its subject, and also includes a reprint of a previous paper by Williams on the reflexive nature of awareness, as well as the relevant Tibetan texts from Mi pham. The book will be of interest to all students of India and Tibetan Madhyamaka, as well as associated areas of Buddhist thought such as Yogacara and the philosophy of Dharmakirti.

This is the story of a determined woman who overcame great obstacles in order to achieve religious freedom. Born in eastern Tibet, Jamyang Sakya married into the powerful Sakya family, spiritual advisers of Kublai Khan and for years rulers of much of Central Asia. Her engaging personal story evokes a rich vision of Tibet's traditional culture, customs, and religious practices.

Jamyang Sakya tells of being the only girl in a monastic private school, of dreams and divinations interpreted by high lamas, of long pilgrimages to sacred Buddhist sites, and of her life as a high lady of Sakya. Her narrative reveals a multifaceted picture, from the intricacies of managing a palace household to the political takeover by the Chinese Communists, who destroyed much of Tibet's religious heritage. It climaxes with the Sakya family's harrowing walk through the Himalayas to freedom, during which they were hotly pursued by the Chinese. After a year in India, they emigrated to the United States, one of the first Tibetan families to do so.

Today Jamyang Sakya lives in Seattle, Washington.

King Gesar, renowned throughout Tibet and Central Asia, represents the ideal warrior--the principle of all-victorious confidence. As the central force of sanity, he conquers all his enemies, the evil forces of the four directions, who turn people's minds away from the true teachings of Buddhism. These enemies graphically represent the different manifestations of cowardly mind. As Chogyam Trungpa explains in the Foreword: "When we talk here about conquering our enemy, it is important to understand that we are not talking about aggression. The genuine warrior does not become resentful or arrogant . . . It is absolutely necessary for the warrior to subjugate his own ambition to conquer at the same time that he is subjugating his other more obvious enemies. Thus the idea of warriorship altogether is that by facing all our enemies fearlessly, with gentleness and intelligence, we can develop ourselves thereby attaining self-realization." The legends of Gesar usually take weeks for a bard to recount. Filled with magic, adventure, and the triumphs of this great warrior-king, the stories will delight all--young and old alike.

Buddhism 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. "

Nature is a topic in many Indian and Tibetan philosophical texts, although its meaning varies considerably in both Hindu and Buddhist scriptures. The discussion of nature pursued in this book begins with Nagarjuna (first century), founder of the Middle Way School, who refuted a fabricated nature in his "Treatise on the Middle." In that seminal text, he puts forth the three basic criteria for nature: it must be something that is non-fabricated, independent, and immutable.
This book presents Dzong-ka-ba's discussion of the overly narrow object in his "Great Exposition" and relates that discussion to Nagarjuna's verses in "Treatise on the Middle." When combined with an understanding of an overly broad object to be negated, this topic brings the Middle Way practitioner to a precise identification of the nonexistent object-of-negation nature as being a thing's establishment by way of its own entity.
This book also presents Dzong-ka-ba's more mainstream commentary on the subject in the Ocean of Reasoning sections, which are translated in Part Two. It also describes Dzong-ka-ba's strong reaction to the positive and independent nature asserted by Tibet's greatest synthesist, Dol-bo Shay-rap-gyel-tsen (fourteenth century).

Chogyam Trungpa--meditation master, scholar, and artist--was identified at the age of only thirteen months as a major "tulku," or reincarnation of an enlightened teacher. As the eleventh in the teaching lineage known as the Trungpa tulkus, he underwent a period of intensive training in mediation, philosophy, and fine arts, receiving full ordination as a monk in 1958 at the age of eighteen. The following year, the Chinese Communists invaded Tibet, and the young Trungpa spent many harrowing months trekking over the Himalayas, narrowly escaping capture. Trungpa's account of his experiences as a young monk, his duties as the abbot and spiritual head of a great monastery, and his moving relationships with his teachers offers a rare and intimate glimpse into the life of a Tibetan lama. The memoir concludes with his daring escape from Tibet to India. In an epilogue, he describes his emigration to the West, where he encountered many people eager to learn about the ancient wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism.