Discover a meditation master's "kungfu of the mind."

• The view is the wisdom of being empty
• Meditation is luminosity without fixation
• Conduct is a continual flow free of attachment
• Fruition is nakedness bare of any stain

This is the first stanza of Milarepa's Ultimate View, Meditation, Conduct, and Fruition: pith instructions originally sang to the great yogi Rechungpa, Milarepa's disciple. These teachings are Milarepa's direct offering to his disciple of his own profound realization, gained after many years of dedicated practice. Karl Brunnholzl, acclaimed translator and senior teacher at the Nalandabodhi community of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, calls this hard-earned understanding "kungfu": "Gong means 'skillful work,' 'hard training,' or 'endeavor,' and fu means 'time spent...' The term refers to Milarepa's diligent and skillful training in the techniques to realize the nature of his mind and benefit countless sentient beings."

Ultimate View, Meditation, Conduct, and Fruition is a work of remarkable depth and clarity. In just five verses, Milarepa gives incisive instructions for progressing and for avoiding pitfalls in the stages of practice:

• View: the basis or ground from which the proper meditation, conduct, and fruition of mahamudra can arise
• Meditation: the training in or the familiarization with that view
• Conduct: the natural outflow of having familiarized with the view in meditation
• Fruition: the final outcome of having fully assimilated and realized the view, whose essence is not different from it

Milarepa dedicates one verse to each stage, and Karl dedicates one chapter to each verse, weaving in wisdom from other Milarepa songs, comments by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyatso, and from Karl's own insight. Readers can thus fully immerse themselves in each point of Milarepa's extraordinary teaching.
Milarepa's Kungfu: Mahamudra in His Songs of Realization, Karl Brunnholzl, Wisdom Publications, Hardcover, 128 pp, $21.95

Karl Brunnholzl, MD, PhD, was originally trained as a physician. He received his systematic training in Tibetan language and Buddhist philosophy and practice at the Marpa Institute for Translators, founded by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, as well as the Nitartha Institute, founded by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. Since 1989 he has been a translator and interpreter from Tibetan and English. Karlis is a senior teacher and translator in the Nalandabodhi community of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, as well as at the Nitartha Institute. He lives in Munich and is the author and translator of numerous texts, including A Lullaby to Awaken the Heart: The Aspiration Prayer of Samantabhadra and Its Tibetan Commentaries and Luminous Melodies: Essential Dohas of Indian Mahamudra.

CONTENTS: Milarepa's Kungfu
Mind-Bending Songs: Foreword by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche			vii
Preface			xi
Introduction			1
	Milarepa: From Mass Murderer to Buddha		1
	The Setting of This Song		2
1.	The Synopsis of View, Meditation, Conduct, and Fruition		5
	View--The Outlook of Open and Spacious Luminosity		5
	Meditation--Sustaining the View		7
	Conduct--Meditation in Action		8
	Fruition--Buddha Nature Undressed		9
2.	The View Is Not a Theory but an Experience		11
	Don't Look at the Finger, Look at the Moon		14
	No Self, No Problem		17
		What Is My Mind without Me?	19
		Mind Is on Its Own	23
		Do We Find Our Mind?	26
		Letting Go of Everything	28
		Relinquishing the Taste of Letting Go	28
	Appearance and Emptiness: Why Can't They Just Get Along		33
		Waking Up from Our Own Dream	38
		Confused Mind's Tantrums and Luminous Mind's Dance	40
3.	Meditation: Awareness in Both Stillness and Movement		49
	Thoughts Ask, Experience Answers		54
	Life Is a Dream		57
		Beyond Sessions and Breaks	60
		A Fish Leaping Out of the Water	62
	The Ice Sculptures of Our Thoughts		64
	Concept Fails the Flame		66
	Meditation as Undoing Our "Doing-Mind"		68
	Dissolving Into the Dharmakaya		72
		Rest Like a Child, the Ocean, a Flame, a Corpse, and a Mountain	74
		Let Illusion-Like Experiences Fly	77
4.	Conduct: Beyond Dos and Don'ts		83
	Crazy Wisdom		84
	If We Let It Be, Mind Needs No Fix		89
5.	Fruition: Nothing to Gain, Nothing to Lose		95
	The House and the Snake		96
	Nothing to Be Removed or to Be Added		99
	Appendix: Milarepa's Ultimate View, Meditation, Conduct, and Fruition		105
	Notes		107
	Bibliography		109
	About the Author		111