Your Mind Is Your Teacher: Self-Awakening through Contemplative Meditation
This concise handbook of Tibetan Buddhist teachings, designed for Western students, is centered on a sitting practice called Contemplative Meditation. This practice can be used as a way to change troublesome habits, even by someone with little knowledge of Buddhism. Although the teachings are based it on a nineteenth-century text by Lama Mipham, they are presented in a non-scholarly way, with examples drawn from modern life and everyday experience. In particular, the author addresses the unique attitudes and questions of twenty-first-century Westerners who are exploring Buddhism.

The practice taught in the book consists of a reflection on four subjects, known as the Four Seals of the Buddha's teaching: multiplicity, impermanence, suffering, and emptiness. Khenpo Gawang Rinpoche explains how to investigate each of these topics in a way that helps you recognize your innate wisdom mind, which is your ultimate teacher. Once you learn how to examine your own mind and your life with this method, you will start to look at everything differently. By helping to dissolve negative thoughts and habits, the practice can increase your focus, confidence, self-esteem, and happiness.

Along with exercises and questions, short readings, a glossary, and checklists for study, this book provides a complete handbook, with simple instructions for additional practices:

   • the Ninefold Exhalation, a breathing method for expelling stale air before meditation
   • visualization of buddhas and great teachers to inspire practice
   •  the practice of bodhichitta, or generating love and compassion for all beings
   • the seven-branch offering, seven devotional thoughts to strengthen efforts
   • dedication of merit—the positive energy from the meditation—for the benefit of all beings

Finally, the appendix gives translations of two short readings: The Wheel of Analytical Meditation by Lama Mipham, which is the source of this book's teaching, and the Heart Sutra, a famous brief teaching on emptiness, along with a traditional commentary.
"1113247145"
Your Mind Is Your Teacher: Self-Awakening through Contemplative Meditation
This concise handbook of Tibetan Buddhist teachings, designed for Western students, is centered on a sitting practice called Contemplative Meditation. This practice can be used as a way to change troublesome habits, even by someone with little knowledge of Buddhism. Although the teachings are based it on a nineteenth-century text by Lama Mipham, they are presented in a non-scholarly way, with examples drawn from modern life and everyday experience. In particular, the author addresses the unique attitudes and questions of twenty-first-century Westerners who are exploring Buddhism.

The practice taught in the book consists of a reflection on four subjects, known as the Four Seals of the Buddha's teaching: multiplicity, impermanence, suffering, and emptiness. Khenpo Gawang Rinpoche explains how to investigate each of these topics in a way that helps you recognize your innate wisdom mind, which is your ultimate teacher. Once you learn how to examine your own mind and your life with this method, you will start to look at everything differently. By helping to dissolve negative thoughts and habits, the practice can increase your focus, confidence, self-esteem, and happiness.

Along with exercises and questions, short readings, a glossary, and checklists for study, this book provides a complete handbook, with simple instructions for additional practices:

   • the Ninefold Exhalation, a breathing method for expelling stale air before meditation
   • visualization of buddhas and great teachers to inspire practice
   •  the practice of bodhichitta, or generating love and compassion for all beings
   • the seven-branch offering, seven devotional thoughts to strengthen efforts
   • dedication of merit—the positive energy from the meditation—for the benefit of all beings

Finally, the appendix gives translations of two short readings: The Wheel of Analytical Meditation by Lama Mipham, which is the source of this book's teaching, and the Heart Sutra, a famous brief teaching on emptiness, along with a traditional commentary.
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Your Mind Is Your Teacher: Self-Awakening through Contemplative Meditation

Your Mind Is Your Teacher: Self-Awakening through Contemplative Meditation

Your Mind Is Your Teacher: Self-Awakening through Contemplative Meditation

Your Mind Is Your Teacher: Self-Awakening through Contemplative Meditation

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Overview

This concise handbook of Tibetan Buddhist teachings, designed for Western students, is centered on a sitting practice called Contemplative Meditation. This practice can be used as a way to change troublesome habits, even by someone with little knowledge of Buddhism. Although the teachings are based it on a nineteenth-century text by Lama Mipham, they are presented in a non-scholarly way, with examples drawn from modern life and everyday experience. In particular, the author addresses the unique attitudes and questions of twenty-first-century Westerners who are exploring Buddhism.

The practice taught in the book consists of a reflection on four subjects, known as the Four Seals of the Buddha's teaching: multiplicity, impermanence, suffering, and emptiness. Khenpo Gawang Rinpoche explains how to investigate each of these topics in a way that helps you recognize your innate wisdom mind, which is your ultimate teacher. Once you learn how to examine your own mind and your life with this method, you will start to look at everything differently. By helping to dissolve negative thoughts and habits, the practice can increase your focus, confidence, self-esteem, and happiness.

Along with exercises and questions, short readings, a glossary, and checklists for study, this book provides a complete handbook, with simple instructions for additional practices:

   • the Ninefold Exhalation, a breathing method for expelling stale air before meditation
   • visualization of buddhas and great teachers to inspire practice
   •  the practice of bodhichitta, or generating love and compassion for all beings
   • the seven-branch offering, seven devotional thoughts to strengthen efforts
   • dedication of merit—the positive energy from the meditation—for the benefit of all beings

Finally, the appendix gives translations of two short readings: The Wheel of Analytical Meditation by Lama Mipham, which is the source of this book's teaching, and the Heart Sutra, a famous brief teaching on emptiness, along with a traditional commentary.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781590309971
Publisher: Shambhala
Publication date: 07/02/2013
Pages: 240
Product dimensions: 5.68(w) x 8.28(h) x 0.66(d)

About the Author

Khenpo Gawang Rinpoche is the founder and spiritual director of Pema Karpo Meditation Center in Memphis, Tennessee. Having completed twenty-seven years as a monk, twelve years of teaching experience, and nine years of study at the Buddhist University of Namdroling Monastery in South India, he holds a Khenpo degree, the Buddhist equivalent of a PhD. Gawang Rinpoche came to the United States in 2004 at the invitation of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche and Shambhala International. He proudly became an American citizen in 2012.

Table of Contents

About This Book vii

Introduction: From Tibet to Tennessee 1

Part 1 Contemplative Meditation

1 Happiness Is in Your Hands 11

2 The Thinker's Guide to Enlightenment 19

Part 2 Preliminary Steps

3 Precious Human Birth 33

4 Visualization 41

5 Seven Ways to Accumulate Merit 47

6 Bodhichitta, the Awakened Heart 57

Part 3 The Four Seals of the Dharma

7 The Seal of Impermanence 71

8 The Seal of Multiplicity 79

9 The Seal of Suffering 109

10 The Seal of Emptiness 125

Part 4 Contemplating the Four Seals

11 Preparing for Practice 133

12 The Four Contemplations 141

Contemplation of Impermanence 143

Contemplation of Multiplicity 144

Contemplation of Suffering 150

Contemplation of Emptiness 152

Conclusion 157

Part 5 Readings

The Heart Sutra 163

The Wheel of Analytical Meditation 207

Glossary 217

Biographical Notes 225

Shakyamuni Buddha 225

Jamgon Mipham Rinpoche 227

Acknowledgments 229

About Pema Karpo Meditation Center 230

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