by Rebecca Hazell The Buddha is well known in popular culture. He is seen as wise, benign, friendly, and peaceful. You can find commercialized representations of him in images ranging from good luck Ho Tai figures to garden statues of him sitting and typing on a laptop. Imagine what a ruckus would ensue if Jesus

We have excerpted the chapter “Samsara” from An Ocean of Blessings: Heart Teachings of Drubwang Penor Rinpoche here. This inspiring work is the first available collection of teachings by one of the most well-known Nyingmapa masters of the twentieth century, His Holiness Penor Rinpoche. To order the full book, click here. Everyone in this world wants perfect comfort

See also our Reader Guide to Milarepa. Who is Milarepa? Milarepa, the famous Tibetan yogi, lives on through his joyous, instructional songs and poetry. Both the new translation of The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, from Christopher Stagg, and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s exploration of his life in Milarepa: Lessons from the Life & Songs of

In this excerpt, Milarepa is visited by eight goddesses who arrive in the form of pigeons to hide themselves “from people with negativity.” The goddesses perform magic that reveals their bodily forms, and request that Milarepa come to the divine world to teach them the dharma. Milarepa explains the fleeting pleasures of both the divine

In this chapter from The Life and Visions of Yeshé Tsogyal, Acharya Judith Simmer-Brown explains some of the travails Yeshé Tsogyal went through, including a contested betrothal and a journey through hell, to become the mother of the buddhas, accomplished in faith, courage, and kindness. To order the full book, click here. by Acharya Judith Simmer-Brown In 1959,

One of the commonalities of the many traditions within Buddhism is the centrality of the messages in the Buddha’s very first teaching in Sarnath, shortly after attaining enlightenment in Bodhgaya. Prior to that, however, still in Bodhgaya, he initiated his first male disciples, the merchant traders Trapusa and Bhallika who had kindly offered him his

Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Taye A Guide for Readers Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Taye (1813–1900) was a versatile and prolific scholar and one of the most outstanding writers and teachers of his time in Tibet. He was a pivotal figure in eastern Tibet’s nonsectarian movement and made major contributions to education, politics, and medicine. Jump to: Books

Image from http://www.rigpashedra.org/   His Holiness the Dalai Lama has often said that Tibetan Buddhism is none other than the Buddhism of India in the tradition of Nalanda, the great center of Buddhist learning that was located in present-day Bihar, India. Many of the greatest masters and scholars in Indian Buddhism resided-and often presided-at this

The Nalanda Tradition This entry to the Great Masters series kicks off a series within a series that looks at the great Buddhist center of learning at Nalanda in India and what are known as the Seventeen Panditas of Nalanda, a grouping conceived by His Holiness the Dalai Lama as they are the core group

From Butön's History of Buddhism in India and Its Spread to Tibet Four hundred years after the Buddha passed away, in the southern country of Vidarbha, there lived a prosperous Brahmin who was childless. In a dream, gods foretold that if he invited one hundred Brahmins to a religious festival, a son would be born