This splendid volume gathers the collective wisdom of three of the greatest masters of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism—Zurchung Sherab Trakpa (1014–1074), Shechen Gyaltsap Rinpoche (1871–1926), and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (1910–1991). The focal point is Zurchung Sherab Trakpa’s work “Eighty Chapters of Personal Advice,” which consists of nearly 580 maxims distilled from his own experience and deep study of the Buddha Dharma. These pithy statements, based on orally transmitted teachings, cover the entire approach of Dzogchen—from faith and discipline to concentration and the flowering of wisdom.

Many of Zurchungpa’s highly condensed sayings are intelligible only thanks to Shechen Gyaltsap Rinpoche’s remarkable annotations, and they are further illuminated by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, who was as famous for his spiritual attainment as for his profound learning and great compassion. Dilgo Rinpoche says this about Zurchungpa’s work: “. . . if we practice in accordance with the meaning of this, his final testament, it will greatly help us in the future. The way to do so is gradually, day after day, to reflect and meditate one by one on each of the pieces of advice in this series he has given us. Then they will be like flowers, which emerge as shoots in spring and grow day after day, finally coming into full bloom in summer” (p. 12).

It is impossible to read this work with an open mind and heart without being deeply affected by the realized wisdom found on its pages. If we do not yet possess the deep trust, or faith, that makes our encounter with the Dharma fruitful, this book has all the qualities necessary to ripen our mind to the point where it can readily “mingle” with the Dharma, as Dilgo Rinpoche put it.

Copyright ©2007 by Georg Feuerstein. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in any form requires prior permission from Traditional Yoga Studies.

The Nyingma Order of Tibetan Buddhism is well known for its literature of “hidden treasures” (terma), which are usually precious spiritual teachings that have been concealed by great adepts during the seventh to ninth centuries A.D., notably by Guru Padmasambhava, and that are then rediscovered by treasure finders or revealers (ling-pa).

The Nyingmapas regard Sangye Lama (eleventh century) as the first treasure revealer, but the terma movement came into its own with Nyangral Nyima Özer a century later, and it is still in motion today, though treasure finders are becoming more and more rare.

Because the Tibetans turned what in India was still an open-ended revealed literature into a fixed canon, it was not long before the authenticity of the tradition of hidden treasures came to be called into question. The author very ably and with commendable clarity reviews the traditional concerns and polemics surrounding the terma institution.

This work contains Doctor’s English translations of several significant texts relating to the terma tradition. Included are the great Ju Mipham’s (1846-1912) discussion of the criteria for determining the authenticity of termas, Chokgyur Dechen Lingpa’s (1829-1870) survey of the Tibetan treasure literature along with Khenpo Rinchen Namgyal commentary on his master’s deliberations.

This book offers a most lucid exposition of this rather complex and relatively obscure subject.

Copyright ©2006 by Georg Feuerstein. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in any form requires prior permission from Traditional Yoga Studies.

Mind training is at the core of Tibetan Buddhism, and meditation is a principal practice in attaining a focused and peaceful mind. “Until we are able to actually understand our minds,” writes Nyingma meditation master Lama Tarthang Tulku, “we remain strangers to ourselves, unconscious of our true potential.” He compares the mind to a versatile artist, but his versatility is typically spent in “creating confusion, delusion, and suffering.” Yet, when duly disciplines, the mind is capable of creating “great order and surpassing beauty.” For over three decades, Tarthang Tulku and his students have amply demonstrated the latter capacity through their publishing activities, artistic creations, and other noteworthy efforts in bringing the Dharma to the West.

The author explains meditative awareness as being similar to “completely open space.” As he puts it:

This space is neither outside the body nor inside the mind. It is not mental or physical, and yet, at the same time, it is a deep, integrated sense of stillness, openness, and balance—which is the experience of meditation itself. (p. 12)

The materials are organized into four chapters as follows: Understanding Meditation (principles, theoy, and aims); Attitudes for Meditation (preparatory measures such as opening the heart, accepting change, balancing the emotions, seeing through self-image, practicing patience, letting go of attachment, transcending the illusion of now); Approaches to Meditation (instructions on proper meditation posture, breath, mantra, mindfulness, relaxation, sensory awareness, dream work, employment of a mandala, visualization); Teaching and Enlightenment (finding a teacher, being a student, enlightenment).

Tibetan Meditation is brimful of practical advice. It combines clear and simple instructions with edifying stories and beautiful artwork and design. It is impossible not to be inspired by its straightforward but important message.

Copyright ©2006 by Georg Feuerstein. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in any form requires prior permission from Traditional Yoga Studies.

Tibet’s tragic story is by now well known. Since the invasion of this Himalayan country by the Communist Chinese in 1949, the Buddhist heritage of the Tibetans has found its way into the hearts of thousands of Westerners. Don Farber is one of those who has made ample room in his heart and life for the people and culture of Tibet. This well-known author and photographer, who is married to a Tibetan woman, was introduced to Buddhism in the 1970s. His photographs have graced the pages of many periodicals as well as the walls of various museums.

Tibetan Buddhist Life is a lavishly and artfully produced coffee-table book with over 200 telling images, which deserves to be read and contemplated rather than merely browsed in. The illustrations, consisting mostly of Farber’s own photographs but also including representations of traditional imagery and historical photographs, beautifully complement the text.

Apart from introducing with great sensitivity the spirituality and culture of Tibet, past and present, Farber also tells in simple terms the story of Tibetan Buddhism and its followers in the Himalayan countries and India. The reader will get a sense of the struggles and triumphs of the Tibetan diaspora. One of Farber’s favorite subjects is the fascinating figure of Tibet’s spiritual and secular leader, H.H. the Dalai Lama, a “simple monk” who happens to be venerated as an embodiment of the godlike Buddha Avalokiteshvara.

Many pages capture in image and text some of the great spiritual masters of modern Tibetan Buddhism, such as the Karmapa, Kalu Rimpoche, Sakya Trizin, Ganden Tri Rimpoche, and Garchen Rimpoche. The reader is also introduced to Tibet’s monasteries, which at one time numbered over 6,000, of which only 50 or so have escaped destruction at the hands of the Chinese. The monastic life for monks and nuns, sacred art, music, and dance, and not least Tibetan Buddhist spiritual practice form a substantial portion of Farber’s work.

This richly textured volume offers a portrait of Tibet and Tibetans that is both informative and enchanting. It also gives one a strong sense that Tibet’s cultural heritage deserves to be protected and preserved. It has already been a great stimulus of spiritual revival in the Western hemisphere and, hopefully, will continue to be a significant catalyst in the transformative struggles of our postmodern world.

Copyright ©2006 by Georg Feuerstein. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in any form requires prior permission from Traditional Yoga Studies.

Like Michelle Spuler’sDevelopments in Australian Buddhism (reviewed by me separately), this volume is part of RoutledgeCurzon’sCritical Studies in Buddhism Series. Here the focus is on the reception of Buddhism in Great Britain, which, according to a 2001 census, is the home of c. 150,000 Buddhists. It is not known, however, how many of these are ethnic Buddhists and how many converts. In any case, percentagewise this is a lot less than the figures given for Buddhism in Australia. This is somewhat surprising considering the long-lived popularity of Sir Edwin Arnold’s biography of the Buddha, The Light of Asia, first published in 1879 and the fact of Buddhism’s slightly longer history in Britain over Australia.

The first Englishman to become an ordained Buddhist monk was Allan Bennett (alias Ananda Metteya) in 1898. Nine years later, the Buddhist Society of Great Britain and Ireland was founded, which was superseded in 1924 by Christmas Humphreys’s very successful London Buddhist Society. In the late 1950s, Tibetan Buddhism arrived and from the 1970s on became slowly more prominent. The most numerous Buddhist organization, however, is that of Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, founded by Bhikshu Sangharakshita, whose name has become associated with a widely publicized sexual scandal.

This monograph is based on the author’s doctoral work on the forms of British Buddhism in the 1990s and focuses on the Tibetan and Japanese (Zen) versions of Buddhism, which are relatively small and until his investigations had been neglected areas of research. For the former, the very active New Kadampa Tradition (NKT )under the guidance of the controversial Lama Geshe Khelsang Gyatso is the most representative. In number of members and influence, it has replaced all other Tibetan Buddhist schools in that country. For the latter, the Soto Zen-based Order of Buddhist Contemplatives (OBC), which was founded by Rev. Jiyu-Kennett (died 1996), is the most prominent and successful organization.

Buddhism in Britain has recruited mostly from the educated section of society and has undeniably influenced British culture, though it is uncertain to what degree. In turn, British culture has impacted on Buddhism, and David Kay sides with the view expressed by other researchers that British Buddhism is a co-creative product. Its adherents not merely accepted Buddhism but in some ways created it in the context of their own cultural lives. He notes, however, that Tibetan Buddhism in Britain has largely resisted modernizing forces.

Kay’s treatment of the NKT is well informed, and he even goes at length into the serious controversy over the protector-deity Dorje Shugden, which caused a falling-out between the Dalai Lama and Geshe Khelsang Gyatso. The Geshe follows a strict Gelugpa orientation and has criticized the tendency among many Gelugpa lamas teaching Westerners to make compromises. He rejects, among other things, the Dalai Lama’s and other prominent Tibetan Buddhist leaders’ nonsectarian (rime) approach. Politics, sadly, has always played a major role within Tibetan Buddhism, and the author’s detailed discussion of the NKT vis-à-vis the Gelugpa establishment makes it all too clear that the political spirit is alive and kicking.

In the OBC, Kay’s second focal point, political issues revolved mainly around the legitimacy of the transmission to Western students in the eyes of some of the Eastern authorities of Soto Zen. This is a recurrent problem with the transplantation of Buddhism to the Western hemisphere. British-born Jiyu-Kennett had studied Zen in the East and found much support from traditional authorities until she started to pass the teachings on to her fellow-Westerners mainly in Britain and the United States. Understandably, she spent a considerable amount of time struggling with defining the nature of Dharma transmission.

The visionary Jiyu-Kennett believed that Westerners should value their own culture and not attempt to “ orientalize” their relationship to the Buddhist teachings. She did, however, criticize the Western tendency to over-intellectualize and fired some sharp arrows in the direction of other British Buddhist practitioners and organizations, which did not particularly endear her to some people. In adapting Eastern Zen for her Western students, she may have been unconsciously influenced by her own Western upbringing. Kay, however, rejects the speculation that Jiyu-Kennett’s form of Zen was some sort of crypto-Protestantism. In general, his discussion of her and the organization she created is sensitive and insightful.

Apart from the detailed portrayals of the history and teachings of the NKT and OBC organizations, this book also provides a critical review of sociological scholarship on Buddhism thus far. Kay’s is a fine academic study.

Copyright ©2006 by Georg Feuerstein. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in any form requires prior permission from Traditional Yoga Studies.

This book consists of edited talks given by the author on that most popular of Tibetan yogi-hermits, Milarepa. The editors characterize this work as “not a thoroughly researched study of the text under examination [i.e., Milarepa’s famous songs], but more of a leisurely stroll around it” (x). Being a poet himself, it is natural that Shankarakshita should have felt drawn to Milarepa’s spontaneous outpourings.

While we cannot be sure whether Milarepa composed all the songs attributed to him, they all reflect great yogic wisdom—the kind of wisdom that is truly timeless and speaks to anyone who is eager to scale the Himalayas of his or her own mind.

In the author’s skillful hands, the message in the One Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa assume a lively immediacy, and his retelling of old stories inevitably draws the reader into the rarified spiritual atmosphere that must have been Milarepa’s constant environment.

Like Milarepa in the eleventh century, Sangharakshita has gone his own way. Today he is the spiritual leader of the ecumenical Western Buddhist Order, which he founded in 1968 and which now has some 1400 members in twenty countries. The order is embedded in the larger Friends of the Western Buddhist Order movement, which, among other things, is responsible for publishing Sangharakshita’s work.

Copyright ©2006 by Georg Feuerstein. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in any form requires prior permission from Traditional Yoga Studies.

This superb publication, which was in the making for thirty years, is the product of the combined effort of a whole team of Tibetan and Western experts. The intrinsic difficulties of understanding and then translating this important Mahāyāna scripture can be readily appreciated, as can the team’s admirable dedication to the project.

The originator of the root text, the Mahāyāna-Sūtra-Alamkāra (“Ornament of the Discourses of the Great Vehicle”), was the transcendental (or celestial) bodhisattva Maitreyanātha, the future Buddha. He impressed the teachings found in this scripture directly on the mind of the great adept Asanga (4th century A.D.), who acted as Maitreya’s scribe. In his introduction, Robert Thurman makes it clear that rejecting the traditional ascription of this foundational work to a celestial being would be merely a matter of “prejudice, a bit of modernist, materialist, secularist ideology” (p. xvii). I have to agree.

In his Prologue to Maitreya’s teachings, Asanga states that his divine guru’s exposition of the teachings of the Mahāyāna-Sūtras, which is itself Dharma, “gives the utmost joy” “like good news read in a letter.” Indeed, the Alamkāra contains, as Chapter 1 seeks to establish, authentic Buddhist teachings; Mahāyāna is perfectly valid and based on Gautama the Buddha’s teachings. As Vasubandhu, Asanga’s brother, observes in his commentary: “Therefore one should not fear [ Mahāyāna].”

There are 21 chapters in all, and they cover a wide range of topics culled from the Mahāyāna discourses—from going for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha to the idea of enlightenment, spiritual type ( gotra, which is quirkily rendered as “gene”), the “great enthusiasm” for enlightenment, the nature of enlightenment, spiritual practice, the bodhisattva’s extraordinary powers, the six “perfections” (here called “transcendences”) of a bodhisattva, the signs of spiritual maturity, teaching the Dharma, precepts, liberating action, and worship.

The teachings are pristine, succinct, and eminently applicable. The English translation is a marvel of lucidity. All too often scriptures of this kind remain a sealed book even after they have been translated, because the translator chose to use a highly technical language. Thus the present work is extremely user friendly despite its specialized content. Both dedicated Buddhist practitioners and professionals in the fields of Buddhism, the history of religions, comparative religion, ethics, philosophy, and related areas of inquiry will find this translation reliable and most helpful. It sets a great example for other similar efforts to make Buddhist teachings accessible to Westerners.

Copyright ©2006 by Georg Feuerstein. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in any form requires prior permission from Traditional Yoga Studies.

The nineteenth-century Tibetan Buddhist adept and scholar Jamgön Kongtrul (1813–1899) achieved fame not only as a learned and saintly champion of the nonsectarian ( rimé) movement within Tibetan Buddhism but also as a savant of encyclopedic knowledge. His 10-volume Treasury of Knowledge is reckoned among the greatest works to be produced in Tibet. It was at the instigation of the Kagyu master Kalu Rinpoche (1905–1989) that his scholarly students began the massive undertaking of translating Jamgön Kongtrul’s work into English.

Kalu Rinpoche asked for the rendering to be faithful to the original, literal, and at the same time accessible. While the Tibetan language does not always permit a literal translation and accuracy can be achieved only to the extent that the subject matter is fully comprehended, the translators can be said to have strived hard to make their rendition accessible. The translation represents the combined effort, under the able guidance of Bokar Rinpoche, of a number of translators and expert consultants, and therefore can claim to be as accurate as one can hope for in the case of a difficult and highly condensed text such as The Treasury of Knowledge.

Myriad Worlds, the opening volume of this multi-volume series, provides a suitable context for what is to follow. It focuses on the cosmological models of Hinayana, Mahayana, Kalacakra and Dzog-chen. Jamgön Kongtrul’s discussion of the structure of space and time furnished him with an opportunity to also introduce basic concepts of the Buddhist path, and his systematic treatment makes otherwise complicated notions very accessible.

Book Five, the second volume to be issued in the projected series, is widely regarded as the core of The Treasury of Knowledge. It focuses on the comprehensive ethics of Tibetan Buddhism organized into four chapters: the qualities of a spiritual teacher and student; the vows of personal liberation (the Hinayana perspective); the vows of liberating all beings (the Mahayana perspective), and the vows of “Secret Mantra” (the Vajrayana or Tantric perspective). Both the Tibetan original and the English translation are exemplary in their lucidity, which makes Jamgön Kongtrul’s work an incredible resource for all serious students of Tibetan Buddhism.

The third volume, issued in 2005, constitutes only the fourth chapter of Book Six of The Treasury of Knowledge, in which Jamgön Kongtrul discusses the nature of Tantra and its diverse levels and systems. Included is a treatment of the nature of body and mind, the causal (karmic) continuum, initiation, the path, and its results. Jamgön Kongtrul also addresses types of Tantric scriptures and methods for interpreting them.

All three volumes published thus far include competent and helpful introductions and notes, which will prove valuable tools at various levels of study. Both the translation committee and Snow Lion Publications deserve high praise for the work done up till now.

Copyright ©2006 by Georg Feuerstein. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in any form requires prior permission from Traditional Yoga Studies.

This general introduction to Tibet and Tibetans is grounded in the latest scholarly research but very much has the nonspecialist reader in mind. Ever since the Dalai Lama’s flight from Tibet in 1959, Tibet’s cultures and religions (note the plural) have claimed the attention of many Westerners. Yet, despite or possibly because of the overwhelming amount of information available, Tibet and Tibetans are not widely understood.

Kapstein, who is a professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Chicago, has produced a finely textured work that can correct prevailing misconceptions and introduce the reader to the amazing complexity of what he calls the “Tibetan civilizational sphere.” His focus is on Tibet’s cultural history, commencing with prehistory, which is known primarily from early legends and Paleolithic archaeological artifacts (some dating back to c. 30,000 B.C.).

The country emerged into history as late as the closing quarter of the sixth century B.C. Imperialism made its appearance with the famous ruler Songtsen Gampo (c. 605-650 A.D.), during whose reign the Tibetan script was created as well as other cultural innovations were introduced. Significantly, it was also during this era that Tibet and China came first into military conflict.

While Buddhism appears to have come to Tibet through Songtsen Gampo’s and also his successors’ marriages to Chinese princesses, later traditions often credit him with having been the first staunch support of Buddhism in his country. This role really belongs to King Tri Songdetsen (742-c.797 A.D.), who ordered the construction of Samye, the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet. He is said to have invited Shantarakshita and Padmasambhava, two highly esteemed teachers and adepts of Indian Buddhism.

After Tri Songdetsen, the Tibetan empire continued to expand for a short time and then disintegrated gradually, punctuated by a series of uprisings, in the ninth century. A certain cultural renaissance occurred toward the end of the tenth century (coinciding with the arrival of the renowned Buddhist master Atisha), but political fragmentation remained a problem until the late thirteenth century.

Kapstein admirable disentangles for us, as much as this is possible from the source materials, the rather tangled history of Tibet, especially its political connection with the Chinese civilization. He also sheds important light on the equally tangled history of the various Tibetan Buddhist orders whose conflicts seem to have been mostly politically rather than doctrinally motivated. His explanations are helpful in understanding some of the intricate issues associated with the institution of the hitherto fourteen Dalai Lamas.

All this will be found quite sobering by those who indulge in a romanticized version of Tibet as a Shangri-la. Buddhism has failed to root out rivalry, political intrigue, corruption, murder, and even armed conflict. Kapstein spends considerable space on the history of the Dalai Lamas without whom we cannot possibly understand the history of Tibet, as it has unfolded in the period after the fifteenth century.

In the twentieth century, two events proved singularly fateful for Tibet. The first was the isolated rule of the thirteenth Dalai Lama and his death in 1933, which left the country highly vulnerable at a most critical time. The second was the foundation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, which then sought to assert its control over Tibet, leading in 1959 to a mass exodus of 100,000 Tibetans led by H. H. the fourteenth Dalai Lama and the subsequent slaughter or brutal suppression of those who chose to remain behind in their homeland.

Tibet’s culture and society have received a terrible blow from the Chinese Communist regime. Tibetans in Tibet continue to suffer, and many expatriates either miss their homeland and their old ways or are struggling to come to terms with their expatriate existence in India and elsewhere in the world. The Tibetans helps us better understand the historical and cultural forces that have shaped Tibet’s destiny.

Copyright ©2006 by Georg Feuerstein. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in any form requires prior permission from Traditional Yoga Studies.

Although Padmasambhava (eighth century A.D.) is revered as a second buddha, almost nothing reliable is known about him. His Tantric works also have been rarely mentioned by the Tibetans themselves, probably because they were deemed too subversive. The late Prof. Guenther, who had made a lifelong study of Padmasambhava and his Nyingma lineage, begins his monograph by reviewing the scant information about the “precious teacher” (guru rimpoche) that is available, and then proceeds to delineate Padmasambhava’s original, holistic, and visionary philosophy of liberation. As the author notes, “Padmasambhava has revealed himself as an ‘exception’ personage whose vision and evolutionary thinking were far ahead of his time and have remained unparalleled through the history of Buddhist thought” (p. 38).

Utilizing a phenomenological-hermeneutical approach, as was his custom, Guenther page after page seeks to unravel Padmasambhava’s Gnostic thought for the comprehension of Western readers, who are steeped in Aristotelian categories. As always, Guenther is not easy to follow, and sometimes his terminology gets in the way of comprehension. His insights about the teachings of the second buddha, however, are truly seminal.

After a detailed examination of Padmasambhava’s cosmology, as a tripartite system springing from mystical experiences, Guenther goes on to discuss—in a 54-page chapter—the adept’s Gnostic involutionary schema: the path home to Wholeness. This process consists in a deconstruction of the empirical, finite mind, whereupon the Whole lights up. In Padmasambhava’s mystical language (and in Guenther’s rendering):

Through the dissipation (dissolution) of representational thinking’s constructs, )the experiencer) immerses himself in immortality’s elixir (that is the whole’s) giving birth to thoughts/meanings;

When the phenomenal disspates (dissolves) into its legitimate dwelling, (the experiencer) immerses himself in immortality’s elixir (that is the whole’s) dimensionality of meaning; and

When (the experiencer’s) ontic foundation dissipates (dissolves) into its legitimate dwelling, (the experiencer) immerses himself in (the whole’s) energy.

Padmasambhava’s writings are riddled with Gnostic metaphors, which demonstrates that he was undoubtedly influenced by Sethian and Valentinian Gnosticism, though equally unquestionably his philosophical edifice was very much his own original creation.

In the concluding 75-page chapter, which is the most obscure, Guenther inquires into the symbolism of Padmasambhava’s “luminous language of being.” Central to this language is the concept of the “Little Man of Light” (khye’u-chung), the Anthropos, who is commissioned by his divine parents to retrieve the precious jewel of “real being,” which then allows him to find his way back to his real home, the Whole. The consideration revolves around the originary Light (mkha’) and the dharma-kaya (chos-sku), as well as the ecstatic leap into Wholeness, in the context of Padmasambhava’s sweeping anthropocosmology.

In his epilogue, Guenther brilliantly summarizes his findings. “As a visionary thinker of the highest order,” writes the author, “he is one who knows and speaks from experience and, for this reason alone, he is a striking example of individuality” (p. 205). “In conclusion we may say that Padmasambhava’s importance lies in the fact that he is first and foremost a process-oriented thinker, maybe even the first in recorded history.”

Copyright ©2006 by Georg Feuerstein. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in any form requires prior permission from Traditional Yoga Studies.