Photo by Helen A. Vink. A short drop-in practice from Tsoknyi Rinpoche. Relax deeply. Don’t hold onto anything. Completely let go of thinking and judging mind while gently maintaining the clarity and knowing aspects of mind. Now raise your arms to shoulder height, pause, and let them drop suddenly to your knees. As you drop your arms, breathe out forcefully. Then say, [...]
Two Truths—Indivisible
When we enter the path, we are working at the level of relative truth, and with practice we may gain insight into the absolute. But we don’t enter the final stage of practice, says Tsoknyi Rinpoche, until we realize these truths were never separate. The art and beauty of practicing dharma becomes more and more subtle and profound as we learn the dance of the relative and [...]
The More Carefree You Are, the Better Your Dharma Practice
We practice in order to liberate ourselves, but we can make ourselves crazy in the process. Tsoknyi Rinpoche teaches us how to temper our expectations and experience more contentment. It’s actually fine to be happy and carefree. The more carefree you are from deep within, the better your dharma practice is. Carefree means being wide open from within, not constricted. [...]
Be part of the first Shambhala Sun Community Retreat at Omega
The Shambhala Sun is pleased to invite you to its first-ever community retreat, featuring leading teachers in the Insight, Zen, and Tibetan traditions guiding you in meditation and mindfulness practices designed to help you wake up and embrace life: Waking Up In Every Moment, August 26-30 Sylvia Boorstein, Melissa Myozen Blacker, Tsoknyi Rinpoche. A Shambhala Sun Community [...]
Tsoknyi Rinpoche talks about bodhicitta and “California dharma practice”
James Gritz recently returned from India, where he was filming a documentary on the 17th Karmapa, Orgyen Trinley Dorje, and the events surrounding the Kagyu Monlam and the 900-year celebration of the first Karmapa. On his blog the filmmaker shares an interview he did with Tsoknyi Rinpoche during his time there . Gritz had asked him to tell the story of his own experience of [...]
The Compassionate Attitude of Bodhichitta
The most important thing in spiritual practice, says Tsoknyi Rinpoche, is motivation. And the most powerful motivation is the wish to free all beings from suffering. Whether our dharma practice will progress in the right direction depends on our attitude, our intention, our motivation. Motivation is extremely important: it is what everything stands or falls with. This is [...]
To Enter the Vajrayana Start at the Beginning
"It doesn't make sense to grab at the highest teachings and reject the rest," says Tsoknyi Rinpoche. "It is the kindness of the buddhas to provide us with a complete path, and the preliminary practices are part of that path." All great teachers of the past have taught the identical message: "Gather the accumulations, purify the obscurations, and receive the blessings of a [...]