Being Guru Rinpoche: A Commentary On Nuden Dorje's Terma Vidyadhara Guru Sadhana

Book Summary

Being Guru Rinpoche is a translation of a Tibetan ritual text in the Nyingmapa tradition, with commentary. The original is a 'terma' or hidden treasure of Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava), discovered in the nineteenth century by Nuden Dorje, revealed publicly by Chhimed Rigdzin Rinpoche in the early 1980s. The transformative process of tantric meditation is illustrated here through the interplay of a traditional ritual text with a modern commentary. This profound method evokes not just an improvement in one's personal qualities but also a fundamental shift in the way one experiences oneself in the world with others. Through symbolic and actual identification with the pure form of Guru Rinpoche, also known as Padmasambhava, we are freed from the hooks of our familiar assumptions and habitual activities. Just as a holiday can take us out of ourselves and lets us see our lives with fresh eyes, so the practice which this book presents, offers us an opportunity to look at ourselves anew, revealing the infinite in the ordinary. The commentary provides background information contextualizing the practice in relation to Indian culture, Buddhist philosophy and the complexity of modern culture. It shows how the profundity of the Buddhist view is brought into lived experience through opening to the drama of aesthetic engagement. Three stages of guided meditation are covered. The preliminaries prepare us by linking us with the lineage of practitioners stretching back over a thousand years.The main section describes the development of the mandala of eight forms of Guru Rinpoche as a means of transforming static defensive identity into a responsive flow of emergent possibilities.Being'reborn' as the deity one experiences the arising and passing of forms within the open space of emptiness which is our true nature.With this primordial spaciousness experienced though divine forms in the mandala we recognize that our own everyday existence has this very same nature. The concluding section deals with the stabilization of this wisdom as compassionate being in the world.

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