Lama Yeshe tells us that mahamudra is "the universal reality of emptiness, of nonduality" and its unique characteristic is its emphasis on meditation: "With mahamudra meditation there is no doctrine, no theology, no philosophy, no God, no Buddha. Mahamudra is only experience."
He relies on the First Panchen Lama's well-known Root Text of Genden Mahamudra, which in a few short pages provides the pith instructions for, first, overcoming distraction and resting in meditative stillness on the clarity of one's own mind, and then by using a subtle wisdom, penetrating its ultimate nature, its emptiness.
As always, Lama Yeshe's words are direct, funny, and incredibly encouraging. He gets us to go beyond ego's addiction to a limited sense of self and to taste the lightness and expansiveness of our own true nature.
Mahamudra: How to Discover Our True Nature, Lama Yeshe, Wisdom Publications, Paperback, 176 pp, $16.95
Lama Thubten Yeshe (1935�84) was born in Tibet and educated at the great Sera Monastic University. He fled the Chinese oppression in 1959. In the late 1960s, with his chief disciple Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, he began teaching Buddhism to Westerners at Kopan Monastery, Kathmandu, Nepal. In 1975 they founded the international Buddhist organization the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), which now has more than 160 centers, projects, and services worldwide.
contents
| CONTENTS: Mahamudra: How to
Discover Our True Nature |
|
| Editor's Preface |
vii |
| PART 1. Preparting for
Mahamudra |
|
| 1. Mahamudra is beyond words |
3 |
| 2. The Lineage of Mahamudra |
13 |
| 3. The Preliminary Practices |
19 |
| PART 2. Practicing Mahamudra |
|
| 4. First, bring your mind to
a neutral state |
31 |
| 5. The benefits of Samadhi
are incredible |
39 |
| 6. Before meditating on your
mind, establish what it is |
47 |
| 7. Now meditate on your mind |
53 |
| 8. Before meditating on
Mahamudra, establish what exists and what doesn't |
65 |
| 9. Now, seek the self and
find mahamudra |
73 |
| 10 Finally, realize the
emptiness of all phenomena |
89 |
| 11. A Glimpse of tantric mahamudra |
95 |
| PART 3. Living
with Mahamudra |
|
| 12. Make your human life profound |
103 |
| PART 4. The Root text |
|
| Highway of the conquerors: The
Mahamudra root text of the precious gendun oral tradition by the First
Panchen Lama Losing Chokyi Gyaltsen |
115 |
| Glossary |
137 |
| About the author |
151 |
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