Although tantra practice is extremely advanced, many Westerners receive tantra empowerments without proper preparation and begin tantra practice without deep understanding. Most, at first, see only the surface features of tantra, such as its emphasis on ritual, its profusion...

Message of His Holiness the Dalai Lama requested by “The Call to Unite”

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama’s Avalokiteshvara deity yoga practice focuses on the development and practice of compassion.

Introduction As a general introduction to our discussion of sensitivity, we can examine the problem of gaining balance and how to not go to the extreme of either being insensitive or overly sensitive. This refers to the effect our behavior has on others and on ourselves in the...

Method Three Derived from the Karma Kagyu Mahamudra Tradition We’ve introduced two methods for dealing with quieting the mind. The first was the method of letting go and the second was the method of writing on water. The third method is one which is suggested by the Karma...

Method One of Quieting the Mind: Letting Go Let’s try the exercise once more with a photograph of a woman and a man.  We will start by again focusing on the breath, quieting down by focusing on the breath, looking down at the floor or with eyes closed, depending on how...

Guru-yoga is done with visualizations, where we imagine that our own qualities of body, speech, and mind become joined with the good qualities of our spiritual teacher and uplifted by them.

Everyday practice of praise and prostration, sutra recitation, and dedication.

A concise lam-rim text on how renunciation, bodhichitta and a correct view of voidness (emptiness) are the three pathways of mind essential for reaching enlightenment through either the sutra or tantra vehicles of practice.

There are three types of karmic aftermath. The first is karmic force or karmic potential. These terms are two different ways of referring to the same thing. There are two types and they’re usually translated as “merit” (bsod-nams) and “sin” (sdig-pa) or something like that,...