This 74 page booklet gives a clear and concise overview of how to do basic sitting meditation. The author Thrangu Rinpoche has spent the last 40 years teaching meditation and other Buddhist topics to both Western and asian students. The process of developing good meditation is to begin with Shamatha meditation which is to settle the mind and to gradually train it it so that we can rest without becoming overly distracted by thoughts and emotions. The second step to developing good meditation is developing Vipashyana in which we learn how to look directly at our mind and see its true nature. When we are able to do this, we can begin to diminish our disturbing emotions and thoughts and our anxieties. Both of these meditations can be done anywhere and without a special setting, implements, or empowerments. Rinpoche explains meditation in a simple, non-technical language based on a meditation tradition that is over 1,000-year-old and has produced many enlightened individuals. Tranquility and Insight  is a 170 page book by Thrangu Rinpoche available on this website that gives extensive descriptions of Shamatha and Vipashyana. This book includes a discussion of the purpose of these meditations, their different levels of practice, the obstacles and antidotes to these obstacles that can arise, and the accomplishments that can come out of of each practice. As a result this book is a careful study of the mind from the point of view of actual meditation practice. ... more info

Death and Reincarnation in Tibetan Buddhism Inbetween Bodies by Tanya Zivkowic The book looks closely at previously unexamined figures whose history is relevant to a better understanding of how Tibetan culture navigates its own under- standing of reincarnation, the veneration of relics and different social roles of different types of practitioners. It analyses both the minutiae of everyday interre- lations between lamas and their devotees, specifically noted in ritual performances and the enactment of lived tradition, and the sacred hagiographical conventions that underpin local knowledge.

Rainbow Body and Resurrection: Spritual Attainment, the Dissolution of the Material body and the case of Khenpo Acho by Francis Tiso. The Rainbow body in which the body of a high practitioner dissolves into space at death is the highest spiritual achievment.   “Francis Tiso has written an astonishing work of broad and deep scholarship that blends a personal spiritual journey, erudition, and on-the-ground interviews with witnesses of the rainbow body to reveal a conversation that began long ago in Central Asia about postmortem transformations of the body in a variety of religious traditions. He has delved deeply into esoteric texts and carefully reviewed recent scholarship to present a detailed history and explanation of practices leading to the attainment of the rainbow body as well as the doctrine of the resurrection in Christianity. General readers and scholars alike will find much of interest in [this book].” —SERINITY YOUNG

The Tibetan Book of the Dea d: Libertation through understanding in the between translated by Robert Thurman This is another translation of the Bardo Thodol and Thurman uses some unusual words in his translation such as the word "in the between" for bardo.     

THE LARGER SUKHAVATIVYUHA SUTRA or The Sutra on the Buddha of Eternal Life Thrangu Rinpoche in his Journey of the Mind describes how one of the important ways to go to a pure land right after death and basically skip the bardo is to do the Amitabha practice. This is the English text of this Amitabha text called the larger Sukhavativyuha Sutra.

Selections from The Bonpo Book of the Dead translated by John Reynolds The Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thodol) is not just a tibetan Buddhist teaching, but it was also a Bonpo teaching. The Bonpo Tibetan sect predates Padmasambhava and there for had a similar text to his before he came to Tibet. This 94 page text presents a great deal of information and translations of this Bonpo lineage of the bardo.

The Mirror of Mindfulness by Natsok Rangdrol This is the main book that Thrangu Rinpoche used as an outline for his major teaching on the Bardo. T H E MOST LEARNED TSELE PEMA LEGDRUB was the body-emanation of the great translator Vairochana, and he attained the pinnacle of learning and accomplishment of the masters of the Land of Snow. Also known as Kongpo Gotsang Natsok Rangdrol, he was unmatched in his three qualities ofscholarship, virtue, and noble-mindedness. Among the five volumes of his collected works, I con- sidered that this explanation of the bardos would benefit everyone interested in the dharma. The words are clear and easy to understand, and lengthy scholarly expositions are not emphasized. This text, easy to comprehend and containing all the key points and very direct instructions, results from following the oral advice of a qualified master. In order to help the foreigners who are presently inter- ested in the dharma to gain true confidence, I, old Dilgo Khyentse, encouraged my disciple Erik Perna Kunsang to translate this book into English. Therefore, may everyone trust in this.      -- Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Dream Yoga and Practice of Natural Light by Namkai Norbu Rinpoche This book is a fairly comprehensive book on dream yoga with a good review of  dream yoga by Michael Katz and then Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche's extensive teaching on dream yoga as a  Buddhist practice.

The world-renowned Tibetan Book ofthe Dead has its origin in the esoteric disciplines of the 'Great Perfection' which represent the highest system of meditation in the Tibetan religious tradition. These texts — which date back to the pre- Buddhist Bonpo era — include The Great Secret Union of the Sun and Moon and The Doctrine of the Six Lights. According to these esoteric writings all aspects of the after-death experience — vivid lights, sounds, imagery — arc reflections of one's own mind, and it is important to recognise that such appearances are essentially illusory. In this way we can liberate ourselves from the causal chain of birth, death and rebirth, and achieve transcendence from the world of form.  

This is Thrangu Rinpoche's latest book which includes three of Thrangu Rinpoche's teachings on the Bardo.  The Bardo is the interval between when we die and when we are reborn. For ordinary persons the experience in the bardo is a very frightening with uncontrolled streams of visions, sounds that are louder than thunder, and frightening deities and visions. For the unprepared mind these could lead to a very undesirable rebirth. In this book Thrangu Rinpoche describes that when we are alive, we can prepare for this experience of dying and why this will be very beneficial to us. Rinpoche describes activities that we can do in our daily life and also our sleep and outside of our meditation to prepare for the Bardo. If we are meditators, Rinpoche describes and explains the meditations that are specifically beneficial for the Bardo experience. Rinpoche also describes the nine stages of death at we go through and what we and companions helping us can do to help us in the dying process. He then describes the visions and sounds of the bardo and how to deal with our fear and how to make correct choices in the Bardo. This book is a very lucid, comprehensive, and practical explanation of the bardo. It contains extensive appendices and some color pictures to help anyone interested in navigating the bardo. This book of over 200 pages has a list price of $19.95 and is available for $ 9.95 as a book and $ 1.25 as a PDF.