For most people ego is the most important thing in the world, so it's imperative to understand its nature. A thorough investigation reveals it to be a mere conceptual idea that exists only as a thought whose nature is constant change.

When ego-clinging is loosened there is a natural openness, freedom, and relaxation that allows love and compassion to arise. As attachment is removed, love and compassion radiate out very easily, without effort.

Using analytic meditation to look closely at ego-clinging is so important because it establishes a foundation upon which there can be proper development. Any progress made without this foundation will eventually collapse. The definitive understanding established by analytic meditation is to not be attached to any aspect of reality. Arriving at the state of awareness that is beyond attachment causes us to perceive everything as being in transit, moving, changing, and only manifesting on a temporary basis. Relaxing in the momentary manifestation of phenomena is meditation. To experience all of samsara in its momentary state makes our mind very strong and courageous, so it can approach any situation fearlessly.

Uprooting Clinging: Commentary on Mipham Rinpoche�s Wheel of Analytic Meditation, Khenpo Palden Sherab Rinpoche, Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche, Dharma Samudra, Paperback, 220 pp, $22.00

Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal was born in Tibet in 1950, and was recognized as a tulku of Khenpo Sherab Khyentse, the head abbot lama of Gochen Monastery in Kham, who was a renowned scholar and practitioner who lived much of his life in retreat. In 1960 Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal and his brother Khenpo Palden Sherab together with their family escaped from Tibet. In India, he studied at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, and received his Bachelor�s Degree from Sanskrit University in 1970. In 1978, H. H. Dudjom Rinpoche appointed him as the khenpo of the Wish-fulfilling Nyingmapa Institute in Boudhanath, Nepal. During the 1980�s Khenpo studied and worked closely with Dudjom Rinpoche in France and at the Yeshe Nyingpo centre in New York. During the 1980's he began orally translating the teachings of his brother, Khenpo Palden Sherab, at various centres in the U.S. In 1988, the brother khenpos founded the Padmasambhava Buddhist Centres, which now have branches in the U.S., India, and Russia.

Khenpo Palden Sherab (1942-2010) was a senior khenpo of the Nyingma tradition. He was born in Gyuphu in the Doshul region of East Tibet. He entered Riwoche Monastery at the age of 12 and completed his studies there just before the Chinese invasion. In exile, in 1967, he was appointed by Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche as the head of the Nyingmapa department at the recently formed Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies at Sarnath. He taught in America and throughout the world together with this brother, Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal.