Tibetan Buddhist master Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, one of the most creative and innovative lamas teaching today, throws down the gauntlet to the Buddhist world, challenging common misconceptions, stereotypes, and fantasies. With wit and irony, Khysentse urges readers to move beyond the superficial trappings of Buddhism - beyond the romance with beads, incense, or exotic robes - straight to the heart of what the Buddha taught.

Devotion to one's teacher is the lifeblood of the Vajrayana path. Because the guru can and will use whatever means it takes to wake us up, this relationship may require us to drop our most deeply held beliefs and expectations. Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse addresses some of the most misunderstood aspects of this powerful relationship and gives practical advice on making the most of this precious opportunity for transformation.

The Words of My Perfect Teacher is the classic commentary on the preliminary practices of the Longchen Nyingtig—one of the best-known cycles of teachings and a spiritual treasure of the Nyingmapa school—the oldest Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Patrul Rinpoche makes the technicalities of his subject accessible through a wealth of stories, quotations, and references to everyday life. His style of mixing broad colloquialisms, stringent irony, and poetry has all the life and atmosphere of an oral teaching.

The text called the “Seven-Line Prayer” is said to contain the most sacred and important teachings of the Nyingma school and is recited daily by many Tibetan Buddhists. White Lotus unlocks the secret of the prayer and explains its meaning on many levels. The author, Jamgön Mipham, was a celebrated nineteenth-century scholar who was known for his prolific, lucid, and original writings on many subjects, including science, medicine, and philosophy—in addition to Tibetan Buddhist practice and theory.

The occasion was a big birthday. And it inspired two close friends to get together in Dharamsala for a talk about something very important to them. The friends were His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The subject was joy. Both winners of the Nobel Prize, both great spiritual masters and moral leaders of our time, they are also known for being among the most infectiously happy people on the planet.

By offering detailed instruction and friendly, inspiring advice for those embarking on the Tibetan Buddhist foundation practices, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche provides gentle yet thorough commentary, companionship, and inspiration for committing to the Vajrayana path.

Old Path White Clouds presents the life and teachings of Gautama Buddha. Drawn directly from 24 Pali, Sanskrit, and Chinese sources, and retold by Thich Nhat Hanh in his inimitably beautiful style, this book traces the Buddha's life slowly and gently over the course of 80 years, partly through the eyes of Svasti, the buffalo boy, and partly through the eyes of the Buddha himself. Old Path White Clouds is destined to become a classic of religious literature.

Counsels from My Heart is one of the few volumes of teachings by Dudjom Rinpoche, a legendary meditation master of the Nyingma lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, to become available in English. It features talks to students presented in Dudjom Rinpoche's characteristically incisive and direct style, bringing the timeless heart-counsels of this great teacher vividly to life.

Colorful stories about and profound teachings of Patrul Rinpoche, one of the most impactful teachers and thinkers in the Tibetan tradition from the 19th century.

With sections on daily practice, relationships, physical practices, mindful eating, and practicing with children, Happiness is a comprehensive guide to living our daily lives with full awareness, whether we are working, eating, parenting, driving, walking, or simply sitting and breathing.

At 36 years old, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche was a rising star within his generation of Tibetan masters and the respected abbot of three monasteries. Then one night, telling no one, he slipped out of his monastery in India with the intention of spending the next four years on a wandering retreat, following the ancient practice of holy mendicants. His goal was to throw off his titles and roles in order to explore the deepest aspects of his being.

In The Four Agreements, don Miguel Ruiz reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, the The Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love.

Ricard has selected and translated some of the most profound and inspiring teachings from across these traditions. The selected teachings are taken from the sources of the traditions, including the Buddha himself, Nagarjuna, Guru Rinpoche, Atisha, Shantideva, and Asanga; from great masters of the past, including Thogme Zangpo, the Fifth Dalai Lama, Milarepa, Longchenpa, and Sakya Pandita; and from contemporary masters, including the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and Mingyur Rinpoche.

What if you could cultivate the mind of a bodhisattva -- one who has dedicated one's life to the benefit of others? According to Pema Chödrön, best-selling author and American-born Buddhist nun, you can. On Bodhisattva Mind, she examines sheshin, or "guarding alertness", and the other qualities of mind we need to develop on the path to enlightenment.

What would be the practical implications of caring more about others than about yourself? This is the radical theme of this extraordinary set of instructions, a training manual composed in the fourteenth century by the Buddhist hermit Ngulchu Thogme, here explained in detail by one of the great Tibetan Buddhist masters of the twentieth century, Dilgo Khyentse. In the Mahayana tradition, those who have the courage to undertake the profound change of attitude required to develop true compassion are called bodhisattvas.

Tibetan Buddhist master Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, one of the most creative and innovative lamas teaching today, throws down the gauntlet to the Buddhist world, challenging common misconceptions, stereotypes, and fantasies. With wit and irony, Khysentse urges readers to move beyond the superficial trappings of Buddhism - beyond the romance with beads, incense, or exotic robes - straight to the heart of what the Buddha taught.

No matter how rich, well-connected, famous, intelligent, talented and compassionate a person may be, no one can avoid death. Yet how many of us believe death will happen to us? Or wonder what dying will be like? Or imagine what comes after death? Death is certain and inescapable, so wouldn’t it be sensible to at least inform ourselves about an event that we have no choice but to experience? In Living Is Dying, Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse presents us with everything we need to face death calmly and confidently.

Lojong is the Tibetan Buddhist practice that involves working with short phrases (called "slogans") as a way of generating bodhichitta, the heart and mind of enlightened compassion. Though the practice is more than a millennium old, it has become popular in the West in only the last 20 years or so - and it has become very popular indeed because it's a practice that one can fit very well into an ordinary life, and because it works.

Devotion to one's teacher is the lifeblood of the Vajrayana path. Because the guru can and will use whatever means it takes to wake us up, this relationship may require us to drop our most deeply held beliefs and expectations. Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse addresses some of the most misunderstood aspects of this powerful relationship and gives practical advice on making the most of this precious opportunity for transformation.

Being-Time thoroughly explores Dogen's teaching on how we practice as Buddhas by understanding the relationship between being and time as it is—and as we perceive it to be. Using Dogen's Shobogenzo Uji (The True Dharma Eye, Being-Time), Shinshu Roberts offers a twofold analysis of this teaching: the meaning of the text and practice with the text, giving examples how we apply Dogen's complex teaching to our daily lives.

This is the first book to offer the great master's incisive wisdom in short selections taken from the whole range of his voluminous works. The pithy and powerful readings, arranged according to theme, provide a perfect introduction to Dogen - and inspire spiritual practice in people of all traditions.

At 36 years old, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche was a rising star within his generation of Tibetan masters and the respected abbot of three monasteries. Then one night, telling no one, he slipped out of his monastery in India with the intention of spending the next four years on a wandering retreat, following the ancient practice of holy mendicants. His goal was to throw off his titles and roles in order to explore the deepest aspects of his being.

Thubten Chodron’s illuminating explication of Togmay Zangpo’s revered text, The Thirty-Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas, doesn’t just explain its profound meaning; in dozens of passages she lets her students and colleagues share first-person stories of the ways that its teachings have changed their lives. Some bear witness to dramatic transformations.

This landmark collection is the definitive introduction to the Buddha's teachings - in his own words. The American scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi, whose voluminous translations have won widespread acclaim, here presents selected discourses of the Buddha from the Pali Canon, the earliest record of what the Buddha taught. Divided into 10 thematic chapters, In the Buddha's Words reveals the full scope of the Buddha's discourses, from family life and marriage to renunciation and the path of insight.

In this volume, Traleg Kyabgon offers a fresh translation of the slogans as well as in-depth new commentary of each. After living among and teaching Westerners for over 20 years, his approach is uniquely insightful into the ways that the slogans could be misunderstood or misinterpreted within our culture. Here, he presents a refreshing and clarifying view, which seeks to correct points of confusion.

According to the Buddha, no one can attain basic sanity or enlightenment without practicing meditation. The teachings given here on the outlook and technique of meditation provide the foundation that every practitioner needs to awaken as the Buddha did. Trungpa teaches us to let go of the urge to make meditation serve our ambition; thus we can relax into openness.

The Buddhist saint Nāgārjuna, who lived in South India in approximately the second century CE, is undoubtedly the most important, influential, and widely studied Mahāyāna Buddhist philosopher. His greatest philosophical work, the Mūlamadhyamikakārikā - read and studied by philosophers in all major Buddhist schools of Tibet, China, Japan, and Korea - is one of the most influential works in the history of Indian philosophy. Now, in The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, Jay L. Garfield provides a clear translation of Nāgārjuna's seminal work.

The Perfection of Wisdom tradition is fundamental to all Mahayana Buddhist traditions, and its two most popular books are translated here from Sanskrit: the Diamond Sutra and the Heart Sutra. They are translated into plain English with separate notes to explain their meaning.

When I imagine speaking to a person who for the first time opens the pages of this book, I think of telling that person something like this: “You are about to read an authentic and incredibly lucid account of what it is like to live in this world as an awakened being while simultaneously functioning as a personality with all of the usual habits and peculiarities of an individual self.” Robert’s way of describing his understanding of the human existence from the point of view of an awakened personality is a revelation. His book is a fresh look at the questions that occur to anyone who ...

In these chapters, the Karmapa shares his vision for bringing social action into daily life, on a scale we can realistically manage through the choices we make every day - what to buy, what to eat, and how to relate honestly and bravely with our friends and family and coworkers. His fresh and encouraging perspective shows us that we have the strength to live with kindness in the midst of the many challenges we face as socially and environmentally conscious beings.