The Enlightened Experience: Collected Teachings, Volume 2
Description
This is the second of a two volume collection drawn from teachings given by Lama Thubten Yeshe in the 1970s and 1980s, when he traveled the world extensively along with Lama Zopa Rinpoche and taught at many courses, seminars and public talks. Lama Yeshe was a pioneer in bringing the Dharma to Westerners and the teachings in this book demonstrate his understanding of the Western psyche and his ability to express profound truths in simple terms.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche has described Lama Yeshe as a great, hidden yogi, with high attainments that weren't shown to others. As well as showing the path to enlightenment to his students, Lama was like a parent, giving advice and happiness. Rinpoche said, "Lama's particular skill was to know exactly what was needed right at that particular time, so even with just a smile or a few words he made others happy and gave them hope."
In this volume, Lama Yeshe discusses a range of topics including refuge, impermanence, the death process, karma and emptiness. The book includes several excerpts from a commentary on the tantric deity yoga practice of Manjushri and a poignant last letter to Lama's close friend Geshe Jampa Wangdu, written when Lama was seriously ill.
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Person
Lama Thubten Yeshe was born in Tibet in 1935. At the age of six, he entered the great Sera Monastic University, Lhasa, where he studied until 1959, when the Chinese invasion of Tibet forced him into exile in India. Lama Yeshe continued to study and meditate in India until 1967, when, with his chief disciple, Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, he went to Nepal. Two years later he established Kopan Monastery, near Kathmandu, Nepal, in order to teach Buddhism to Westerners.
In 1974, the Lamas began making annual teaching tours to the West, and as a result of these travels a worldwide network of Buddhist teaching and meditation centers - the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) - began to develop.
In 1984, after an intense decade of imparting a wide variety of incredible teachings and establishing one FPMT activity after another, at the age of forty-nine, Lama Yeshe passed away. He was reborn as Ösel Hita Torres in Spain in 1985, recognized as the incarnation of Lama Yeshe by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 1986, and, as the monk Lama Tenzin Osel Rinpoche, began studying for his geshe degree in 1992 at the reconstituted Sera Monastery in South India. Lama's remarkable story is told in Vicki Mackenzie's book, Reincarnation: The Boy Lama (Wisdom Publications, 1996). Other teachings have been published by Wisdom Books, including Wisdom Energy; Introduction to Tantra; The Tantric Path of Purification (Becoming Vajrasattva) and more.
Thousands of pages of Lama's teachings have been made available as transcripts, books and audio by the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive, and most are freely available through the Archive's website at LamaYeshe.com.
