Overview for Looking Directly at Mind: The Moonlight of Mahamudra
Mahamudra is the principle meditation of the Kagyu Lineagu. This is a meditation of practitioners, not scholars or logicians. Briefly, it involves looking directly into the mind to understand the true nature of reality. Mahamudra meditation is particularly appropriate for modern students because this meditation does not require taking monastic ordination or doing extensive retreats. This form of meditation has come down to us from the mahasiddhas of India who were carpenters, university professors, kings, fishermen, and common laborers. They practiced this meditation while having families and engaging in their daily and were able to reach enlightenment with this meditation. Thrangu Rinpoche is one of the foremost practitioners of mahamudra meditation and has spent the last 40 years teaching Dharma. He has transmitted the teachings of Mahamudra to the Tibetan lamas at Rumtek monastery and also to Western students around the world. Not only is Thrangu Rinpoche a practitioner of these teachings, but he is also recognized as one of the greatest living scholars of the mahamudra tradition. Thrangu Rinpoche used Tashi Namgual's The Moonlight of Mahamudra as a guide for this teaching. The choice of this book was actually that of His Holiness, the Sixteenth Karmapa. Thrangu Ringpoche gave five sets of teachings on this vast text to help clarify it for his students at five yearly Mahamudra Retreats at Big Bear in California. For the first time all five teachings have been condensed into one book with a complete glossary, notes, bibliography, and index. Any student wanting to understand these profound teachings will find that they are described in detail and that Thrangu Rinpoche's commentary is extraodinarily clear.
Thrangu Rinpoche (Author)
Thrangu Rinpoche has been recognized as one of the foremost teachers of Buddhism alive today. He has had a thorough training in Buddhist studies and has done extensive meditation practice in his native Tibet and then in exile in India. For the last twenty years he has been sharing this knowledge with Buddhist practitioners in the West. He is known for giving very comprehensive presentations and for making difficult subjects clear for the beginner and advanced practitioner a like.
Geshe Lharampa (Author)
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Jules Levinson (Translator)
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Bagchee
