A practical guide to meditation based on scientific research and ancient Buddhist practices.

In this modern digital age, many of us feel overwhelmed, panicked and exhausted. The practice of meditation is an antidote to that frenzied feeling.

Using scientific research to explain the benefits of ancient practices, this book gives readers an empirically sound and time-proven set of mental exercises that will allow the reader to overcome destructive emotions and patterns of behaviour, and bring inner peace and focus to their lives.

Practical and accessible, faithful to enduring traditions yet innovatively modern, these easy-to-follow techniques will benefit both experienced mediators and novices alike, and explain the wonders of meditation in a way never seen before.

Tsoknyi Rinpoche is a reincarnate lama educated in the Tibetan Buddhist
tradition. He has been teaching students from around the world since 1990.
"Being carefree, you can fit in anywhere. If you're not carefree you keep
on bumping up against things. Your life becomes so narrow, so tight; it
gets very claustrophobic. Carefree means being wide open from within,
not constricted. Carefree doesn't mean careless. It is not that you don't
care about others, not that you don't have compassion or are unfriendly.
Carefree is being really simple, from the inside. Dignity is not conceit
but rather what shines forth from this carefree confidence."
--Tsoknyi Rinpoche
Tsoknyi Rinpoche's teaching style embodies a vividness that is a play
between himself and his audience. His immediateness includes gestures
and examples that entice us to understanding. Through guided meditations
he offers direct participation as a delightful enhancement to our
practice. Simple, straightforward and profound, Carefree Dignity is a
book that captivates our intellect while enriching our awareness.

The collection of teachings presented in As It Is, Volume II, is selected from talks given by the Tibetan meditation master, Kyabje Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche between 1994 and 1995. The emphasis in Volume I was on the development stage practice and in Volume II primarily on the completion stage. However, to make such divisions is merely for the convenience of the editors. In the reality of Rinpoche's teaching method, no such separations exist.

Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche was someone with extra¬ordinary experience and realization, a fact known throughout the world. It is evident to everyone that he was unlike anyone else when it came to pointing out the nature of mind, and making sure that people both recognized it and had some actual experience.
--Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche

Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche was an incredible master, both learned and ac¬complished. The great masters of this time -- the 16th Karmapa, Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche -- all venerated him as one of their root gurus and a jewel in their crown or¬nament. He was someone who achieved the final realization of the Great Perfection.
--Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche
The difference between buddhas and sentient beings is that sentient beings are busy fabricating. Our self-existing wakefulness is being altered and contrived and as long as it continues to be so, that long we will wander in samsara. Instead, we need to recognize the nature of mind. Here I am explaining this to give you the idea, of how it is. The next step is for you to experience; intellectual understanding is not enough. You need to actually taste it and realize it. Train till it becomes uninterrupted.
--Kyabje Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

Fearless Simplicity is about training in the awakened state of mind, the atmosphere within which all difficulties naturally dissolve. Here, the gifted Tibetan meditation master and author of Carefree Dignity, Drubwang Tsoknyi Rinpoche, in his exceptional and skillful teaching style, guides us through the methods to be at ease with our surroundings and ourselves. He shows us how to de¬velop confidence and be in harmony with every situation as the basis for true compassion and intelligence.
As confidence grows stronger, you find yourself turning into a real warrior -- a compassionate bodhisattva warrior. The true bodhi¬sattva spirit grows out of this personal sense of freedom. With this sense of security and freedom, you begin to direct your attention to the needs of others. The compassion expands. This is my point about inner simplicity as the basis for living fearlessly in a complex world. We are now open and spacious and from within that sense of fearless simplicity, you can accommodate all phenomena. You can naturally care for others unpretentiously; no one is a threat any longer.
-- Drubwang Tsoknyi Rinpoche

'Rinpoche is a powerful and eloquent link between the great yogi practitioners of old Tibet and our bewildering 21st century' - from the Foreword by Richard Gere Tsoknyi Rinpoche's story is an unusual one: as a rebellious young man, he fled a monastery to marry and raise a family, then returned to Nepal and has since become a preeminent Tibetan Buddhist teacher. As a married man raising two daughters, Tsoknyi Rinpoche has interesting views on how to balance a life dedicated to Buddhist practice with the demands of a husband and father. In addition, he has a keen interest in the ongoing dialogue between Eastern philosophy and Western research, especially in neuroscience. His writing reflects this awareness of the Western psyche while also imparting the earliest tenets of Buddhism. OPEN HEART, OPEN MIND offers Rinpoche's extraordinary history as an example of how to lead a compassionate life, regardless of status, tradition or circumstances. Accessible and relevant to every variety of reader, this is an illuminating guide from a man who truly is a bridge between ancient wisdom and the modern mind.

Adeu Rinpoche's story is not about the horrors he endured under the Communist takeover of Tibet--he himself notes that many other people underwent much worse hardships, not to mention all those that died--but rather the way in which he told his tale. While describing what happened to him and many others, how he survived and finally his release from prison he spoke in a straightforward, dignified manner without any resentment, anger or sadness. He never added mental anguish on top of an already untenable experience. He viewed what happened to him as a ripening of his own individual karma, he accepted responsibility for the abuse he suffered; in fact, he repeatedly stated that each person suffered according to their own karma, as he said, "I felt that whatever befalls you is a ripening of the specific karma that you created in the past."
Adeu Rinpoche took the trauma and suffering as an opportunity not only to accept the vicissitudes of life without bitterness but also to transcend the unjust treatment by not harboring ill-will against the perpetrators, instead developing compassion for them. In the end he turned suffering into happiness, for even while imprisoned he was able to meet many great masters, receive teachings from them and even do some serious practice. It is truly inspiring that people exist in our world with such profound realization and accomplishment--they are examples to us all.
This tale together with wonderful teachings presents a compassionate and wise face to the hardship Adeu Rinpoche and so many others endured and triumphed over. It is a banquet of realization, pith instructions and dignity.