agapetos reviewed Essentials of Mahamudra by Thrangu Rinpoche
None
5 stars
The best book on Buddhist meditation I’ve read.
I don’t make this claim lightly. Over the past twenty years I’ve read and studied many traditional and modern texts on Eastern spirituality and meditation – both Hindu and Buddhist, but this book blew me away in terms of clarity, depth, and pragmatism.
Essentials of Mahamudra is a commentary on Tashi Namgyal’s famous mahamudra manual Moonlight of Mahamudra, and Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche does a great job at working out and explaining the original text in great detail, while adopting the teaching to modern times without loosing any authenticity. The book is replete with Buddhist philosophy of emptiness and nature of mind, but the recurrent theme is union of philosophy with experiential wisdom through the practice of meditation.
While Essentials of Mahamudra can be of benefit to non-Buddhists and beginner level meditators, I think both, the original text and Thrangu’s commentary, …
The best book on Buddhist meditation I’ve read.
I don’t make this claim lightly. Over the past twenty years I’ve read and studied many traditional and modern texts on Eastern spirituality and meditation – both Hindu and Buddhist, but this book blew me away in terms of clarity, depth, and pragmatism.
Essentials of Mahamudra is a commentary on Tashi Namgyal’s famous mahamudra manual Moonlight of Mahamudra, and Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche does a great job at working out and explaining the original text in great detail, while adopting the teaching to modern times without loosing any authenticity. The book is replete with Buddhist philosophy of emptiness and nature of mind, but the recurrent theme is union of philosophy with experiential wisdom through the practice of meditation.
While Essentials of Mahamudra can be of benefit to non-Buddhists and beginner level meditators, I think both, the original text and Thrangu’s commentary, are primarily aimed at serious mahamudra practitioners willing to study and practice both texts in depth repeatedly.