Study, Contemplation And Meditations Inspired By Excerpts Taken From Mind Training: The Great Collection

Study, Contemplation and meditations inspired by excerpts taken from Mind Training: The Great Collection, compiled by Shönu Gyalchok (ca. fourteenth-fifteenth centuries) and Könchok Gyaltsen (I388-1469) ASIN: B00J8ZZSX2

Compiled in the fifteenth century, Mind Training: The Great Collection (Thegpa chenpo blo sbyong rgya rtsa) represents the earliest anthology of a special genre of Tibetan spiritual literature known simply as “mind training” or lojong in Tibetan. Mind training tradition is revered for its pragmatic and down-to-earth advice, especially the teachings on “transforming adversities into favorable opportunities.”

This volume contains forty-three individual texts, including the most important works of the mind training cycle, such as Serlingpa’s Levelingout All Conceptions, Atisa’s Bodhisattva’s jewel Garland, Langri Thangpa’s Eight verses on Mind Training, and Chekawa’s Seven-Point Mind Train- ing, together with the earliest commentaries on these seminal texts as well as other independent works. These texts expound the systematic cultivation of such altruistic thoughts and emotions as compassion, love, forbearance, and perseverance. Central to this discipline are the diverse practices for combating our habitual self-centeredness and the afflictive emotions and way of being that arise from it.

In addition to this, we will study and practice the meditation on the Buddha Shakyamuni composed by the late Kunzig Shamar Rinpoche.