Online Dharma: Practicing Mahamudra with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

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Online Dharma: Practicing Mahamudra with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

By Craig C Lewis
September 1, 2023

The Tergar Meditation Community, founded by the revered Dharma teacher and master of the Karma Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, has announced that Mingyur Rinpoche will lead an online retreat titled “Tilopa’s Song of Realization: Practicing Mahamudra” from 10–13 November.

“In this retreat, our focus will be the seventh topic of The Ganges Mahamudra root text by enlightened Indian master Tilopa—the manner of practicing Mahamudra,” Tergar said in an announcement shared with BDG. “Using Tilopa’s root verses as the basis, Mingyur Rinpoche will guide us through the meaning of these profound instructions and teach us how to apply them in our own lives, not only in formal practice but also in our everyday life.”

The four-day program will feature live teachings, Q&A, and practice sessions with Mingyur Rinpoche, as well as teaching sessions with Lama Trinley, Q&A sessions with Tergar Guides, and group meditation. Topics covered will include: how to practice Mahamudra using the root verses of The Ganges Mahamudra; how to use these teachings in your meditation practice; and how to apply the teachings in everyday life.

“If you wish to deepen your understanding and practice of Mahamudra, Tilopa’s The Ganges Mahamudra teachings are essential for this tradition and are deeply experiential,” Tergar explained. “This is a unique opportunity to receive instructions on these profound verses from Mingyur Rinpoche, one of the greatest living meditation masters of Mahamudra of our time.”

Prerequisites for participation in the retreat:

• To have attended a Tergar Path of Liberation Level 2 retreat with Mingyur Rinpoche or Khenpo Kunga.

Or

• To have received ngondro transmission and nature of mind pointing out from a qualified lineage holder, and to have had at least five years of regular meditation practice.

Tilopa (988–1069) was an Indian mahasiddha, or great tantric adept, who is known in Tibet as the originator of the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and the teacher of the mahasiddha Naropa (1016–1100). Tilopa was an accomplished meditator with a profound understanding of the nature of mind, and was a key figure in the development of many core tantric practices.

It is beyond being an object of conceptual focus, And the mind’s nature is lucidity. There is no path to be traversed and yet, in that way, you enter the path of buddhahood. (Tilopa)

Click here for full retreat details and to register

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. Image courtesy of Tergar International

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, the founder of the Tergar Meditation Community, which has centers and practice groups across the world, is a renowned Dharma teacher and best-selling author whose books include: The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret & Science of Happiness (2007); Joyful Wisdom: Embracing Change and Finding Freedom (2009); and Turning Confusion into Clarity: A Guide to the Foundation Practices of Tibetan Buddhism (2014).

Born in 1975 in the Himalayan border region between Tibet and Nepal, Mingyur Rinpoche received extensive training in Tibetan Buddhist meditative and philosophical traditions from his father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (1920–96), considered one of the greatest modern Dzogchen masters, and subsequently at Sherab Ling Monastery in northern India. After just two years, at the age of 13, Mingyur Rinpoche entered a three-year meditation retreat and then completed a second immediately afterward, serving as retreat master. At 23, Rinpoche received full monastic ordination.

Mingyur Rinpoche famously undertook a four-year solitary wandering retreat through the Himalaya from 2011–15. In recounting how he came to terms with the realities of his ambition to practice in the manner of a wandering yogi, Rinpoche revealed that he confronted many personal and spiritual challenges—including, at one point, his own mortality. Rinpoche has described the years he spent wandering in the Himalaya as “one of the best periods of my life.”*

The habit of thinking that things exist “out there” in the world or “in here” is hard to give up, though. It means letting go of all the illusions you cherish, and recognizing that everything you project, everything you think of as “other,” is in fact a spontaneous expression of your own mind. (Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, 101)

* Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche Returns from Four-year Wilderness Retreat (BDG) and Y ongey Mingyur Rinpoche Releases Video Offering Insights Following His Retreat (BDG)

References

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. 2007. The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret & Science of Happiness. New York City: Harmony.

Craig C Lewis

Craig Lewis grew up in a transplanted Scottish family in southern England before setting off against all advice to seek light and wisdom in far-off places, rather than staying put and looking within. After repeated encounters with the Buddhadharma as a journalist in Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and across Asia, he eventually found refuge as senior editor at BDG, where he reports and writes on the diversity of contemporary manifestations of the Dharma. Craig is also a keen mountain trekker and photographer, finding particular inspiration in the peoples, cultures, and Buddhist expressions of the Himalaya. In his column for BDG, “Chasing Light,” Craig seeks to document encounters, experiences, and epiphanies resulting from his own tentative and faltering path toward liberation. Contact: [email protected]

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