Crystal Mirror 4: Bringing the Teachings Alive: The Buddhist Heritage of Tibet

Nyingma Psychology Series #7

by Tarthang Tulku

Bringing the Teachings Alive focuses on the history, lineages, and practices of Buddhism in Tibet. Published to encourage understanding of the Vajrayana and of the Nyingma lineage that transmits it, this volume includes accounts of the Great Guru and his twenty-five disciples. Lama Govinda contributed two essays, one on pilgrims and monasteries in the Himalayas and the other surveying East-West differences in view. It includes numerous articles by Tarthang Tulku to help bring the teachings alive. It also provides readers with a non-technical overview of Tibet's early history and culture and familiarizes them with the meaning and significance of lineage.

Genres: Buddhism, Philosophy

356 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche (དར་ཐན་སྤྲུལ་སྐུ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ dar-than sprul-sku rin-po-che) is a Tibetan teacher ("lama") in the Nyingma ("old translation") tradition. Having received a complete Buddhist education in pre-diaspora Tibet, he taught philosophy at Sanskrit University in India from 1962 to 1968, and emigrated to America in 1969, where he settled in Berkeley, CA. He is often credited as having introduced the Tibetan medicine practice of Kum Nye (སྐུ་མཉེ sku mnye་, "subtle-body massage") to the West.

In 1963, he founded Dharma Publishing in Varanasi, India, moving it to California in 1971. The main purpose of the publishing house is to preserve and distribute Tibetan Buddhist teachings and to bring these teachings to the West.

Neither Rinpoche nor Tulku are surnames; the former is an honorific applied to respected teachers meaning "Precious One," while the latter is a title given to those who have be recognized an the reincarnation of a previous lama.