Tsoknyi Rinpoche

For over three decades, Tsoknyi Rinpoche has been teaching students worldwide about the innermost nature of mind in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and more recently, how to be a healthy human being with his course, Fully Being. Born into a family respected for its spiritual accomplishments, he was identified while still a small child as the third Tsoknyi Rinpoche and given the special education and upbringing of a tulku, or reincarnate lama. His teachers include some of the most renowned masters of Tibet. Widely recognized as an outstanding meditation teacher, he is the author of many books:  Open Heart Open Mind, Carefree Dignity, Fearless Simplicity, Why We Meditate, Ground Path Fruition, How Mindfulness Works and Solid Ground. Tsoknyi Rinpoche teaches and provides spiritual guidance to nuns and monks at more than 50 retreat centers in Tibet, India, and Nepal. His current humanitarian project is completing a school for more than 200 impoverished young girls in Nepal with Western and traditional Buddhist educational curriculums.

His fresh insights into the western psyche have enabled him to teach and write in a way that touches our most profound awareness, using metaphors, stories, and images that point directly to our everyday experience. His warmth, humor, and compassionate attention greatly enrich and enliven his teaching.

Rinpoche is one of those rare teachers whose lighthearted yet illuminating style appeals to beginners and advanced practitioners alike. He is truly a bridge between ancient wisdom and the modern mind. He has a keen interest in the ongoing dialogue between western research, especially in neuroscience, and Buddhist practitioners and scholars.

Tsoknyi Rinpoche’s activity contributes to preserving the Buddha Dharma in the East while nurturing its growth in the West. In this sense, he is a bridge between two worlds.

 

We cannot solidify an illusion, it`s not its nature. The basic quality of illusion is bewilderment. Illusion becomes immediately more workable when we acknowledge it simply as an illusion.

 

Whatever helps Bodhicitta to arise is good. A frame of mind that is gentle and at peace is good. A spiritual practitioner should become softer and softer from the inside. If we instead notice that our practice seems to be making us harder, that we are becoming tighter inside, then we should take a break. Take a holiday from Buddhism. Go to the beach in Thailand and Goa and sleep.