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Penetrating Wisdom: The Aspiration of Samantabhadra

by The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

Penetrating Wisdom cover The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche's latest book, Penetrating Wisdom, provides a penetrating insight into the Buddhist paths of Dzogchen and Tantra by the head of Nalanda West, an innovative meditation master who is both authoritative on traditional schools of Tibetan meditation and schooled in contemporary culture of the West.

With deep compassion, sharp observations, and arresting metaphors, The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche explicates "The Aspiration of Samantabhadra" for both new and experienced practitioners. This Dzogchen prayer explores the different manifestations of rigpa, our basic awareness in daily life, and constitutes a set of instructions for refining the path of practice. Given as a series of talks in Germany and the United States, Penetrating Wisdom includes the text of the prayer, Rinpoche's always-lively commentary, and lucid answers to questions posed by his students.

Basing his talks on this most famous explication of the Buddhist view of the origin of the sacred universe, a proclamation in the Buddhist tantras of the Buddha Samantabhadra, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche illuminates the philosophy and meditation practices of Dzogchen, the highest and most profound teaching of all of Tibetan Buddhism. With precision that does not intimidate the uninitiated, Rinpoche explains the basic nature of our very own mind--complete enlightenment--and how we may go about making this nature of mind manifest through making profound aspirations and through relying on the skillful methods of the Vajrayana, Tibetan Buddhism's "indestructible" path of insight.

While the author is a traditionally trained master in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, he has won great appreciation in the West for his humor, familiarity with Western culture, and his unique talent for using examples that are drawn directly from Western metropolitan lifestyles. The readers are served with the most profound ancient wisdom of the highest order at the same time that they are entertained and intrigued by the humor and colloquial street smarts of a master who, in every sentence, brings together the best of East and West. Since these teachings were originally given in English, the book gives an intimate connection to the feeling the author evokes in person.

"One of the most brilliant Tibetan Buddhist teachers of his generation."--Sogyal Rinpoche (author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying)

Available from Snow Lion Publications

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