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Mind in Comfort and Ease: The Vision of Enlightenment in the Great Perfection
In September 2000, at the invitation of Sogyal Rinpoche, the Dalai Lama visited the south of France to give what would be one of his most extensive and vital Buddhist teachings. Entitled “The Path to Enlightenment,” it drew over 10,000 attendees from 21 different countries. This beautiful book allows everyone to have access to this inspiring presentation and to share the full richness and subtlety of the Dalai Lama's presentation. In the teachings, His Holiness sets out the key principles of Buddhism, showing how the mind can be transformed to overcome suffering through love, compassion, and a true understanding of the nature of reality. Illustrating his brilliant overview of the path with his own personal experiences and advice on how to integrate practice into daily life, the Dalai Lama gracefully brings Buddhist teachings, especially those of Dzogchen, to life.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published May 18, 2007
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158 people want to read
About the author
Dalai Lama XIV
1,554 books6,211 followersJetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (born Lhamo Döndrub), the 14th Dalai Lama, is a practicing member of the Gelug School of Tibetan Buddhism and is influential as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the world's most famous Buddhist monk, and the leader of the exiled Tibetan government in India.
Tenzin Gyatso was the fifth of sixteen children born to a farming family. He was proclaimed the tulku (an Enlightened lama who has consciously decided to take rebirth) of the 13th Dalai Lama at the age of two.
On 17 November 1950, at the age of 15, he was enthroned as Tibet's ruler. Thus he became Tibet's most important political ruler just one month after the People's Republic of China's invasion of Tibet on 7 October 1950. In 1954, he went to Beijing to attempt peace talks with Mao Zedong and other leaders of the PRC. These talks ultimately failed.
After a failed uprising and the collapse of the Tibetan resistance movement in 1959, the Dalai Lama left for India, where he was active in establishing the Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan Government in Exile) and in seeking to preserve Tibetan culture and education among the thousands of refugees who accompanied him.
Tenzin Gyatso is a charismatic figure and noted public speaker. This Dalai Lama is the first to travel to the West. There, he has helped to spread Buddhism and to promote the concepts of universal responsibility, secular ethics, and religious harmony.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, honorary Canadian citizenship in 2006, and the United States Congressional Gold Medal on 17 October 2007.
Tenzin Gyatso was the fifth of sixteen children born to a farming family. He was proclaimed the tulku (an Enlightened lama who has consciously decided to take rebirth) of the 13th Dalai Lama at the age of two.
On 17 November 1950, at the age of 15, he was enthroned as Tibet's ruler. Thus he became Tibet's most important political ruler just one month after the People's Republic of China's invasion of Tibet on 7 October 1950. In 1954, he went to Beijing to attempt peace talks with Mao Zedong and other leaders of the PRC. These talks ultimately failed.
After a failed uprising and the collapse of the Tibetan resistance movement in 1959, the Dalai Lama left for India, where he was active in establishing the Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan Government in Exile) and in seeking to preserve Tibetan culture and education among the thousands of refugees who accompanied him.
Tenzin Gyatso is a charismatic figure and noted public speaker. This Dalai Lama is the first to travel to the West. There, he has helped to spread Buddhism and to promote the concepts of universal responsibility, secular ethics, and religious harmony.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, honorary Canadian citizenship in 2006, and the United States Congressional Gold Medal on 17 October 2007.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 28, 2018
Gratitude 🙏🙏🙏🙏
June 6, 2013
The Vision of Enlightenment in the Great Perfection
Sometimes it takes effort to become effortlessness. It takes practice to be simple, easy, and natural. We meditate so that we can be calm the rest of the time, relaxed yet focused. The Dalai Lama is slow, methodical, and cautious when teaching the tradition. He advises us not to skip the preliminary steps, and to read deeply. So that, in the end, as the Dzogchen master Longchen Rabjam describes:
“Then a state of awareness arises, which is utterly inexpressible,
Space-like, and beyond the ordinary mind.
This is the clear light great perfection of bliss and emptiness,
The nature of reality, radiant and inconceivable....
“By meditating on this day and night for several days,
Your dreams will cease and you will see everything, inside and outside,
Pervaded by the appearance of five-colored lights and
The light of the moon, blazing fire, fireflies, stars, and so on....
"And you rest with your body and mind deeply relaxed.
In that moment the stream of your thoughts ceases,
And you remain in a state that is inexpressible by speech or thought.
An experience arises that cannot be objectified and that is beyond the realm of ordinary thought....
"Final resolution entails lying on your back, breathing gently with the mind at ease.
Not thinking of anything at all or clinging to anything whatsoever,
Rest in the natural state, free from any conceptual elaboration,
And you will achieve the great bliss of enlightenment without any hindrance."
Sometimes it takes effort to become effortlessness. It takes practice to be simple, easy, and natural. We meditate so that we can be calm the rest of the time, relaxed yet focused. The Dalai Lama is slow, methodical, and cautious when teaching the tradition. He advises us not to skip the preliminary steps, and to read deeply. So that, in the end, as the Dzogchen master Longchen Rabjam describes:
“Then a state of awareness arises, which is utterly inexpressible,
Space-like, and beyond the ordinary mind.
This is the clear light great perfection of bliss and emptiness,
The nature of reality, radiant and inconceivable....
“By meditating on this day and night for several days,
Your dreams will cease and you will see everything, inside and outside,
Pervaded by the appearance of five-colored lights and
The light of the moon, blazing fire, fireflies, stars, and so on....
"And you rest with your body and mind deeply relaxed.
In that moment the stream of your thoughts ceases,
And you remain in a state that is inexpressible by speech or thought.
An experience arises that cannot be objectified and that is beyond the realm of ordinary thought....
"Final resolution entails lying on your back, breathing gently with the mind at ease.
Not thinking of anything at all or clinging to anything whatsoever,
Rest in the natural state, free from any conceptual elaboration,
And you will achieve the great bliss of enlightenment without any hindrance."
August 16, 2012
John Kabat-Zinn says, "One of the absolute best and richest books on meditation practice that I have ever read, offered by His Holiness with remarkable precision and clarity, and with astonishing humility and candor, This book has it all."
The inside flyleaf says, "Here, in a teaching of outstanding completeness and clarity ... "
I am not sure about the clarity part. His Holiness and be rather dense at times and this book is one of those times. This is not an easy read, or at least it wasn't for me. I have said previously I have difficulty with Tibetan authors and perhaps I should just give up on them for a while.
This was indeed a good book but The Dalai Lama's writing style of piling illustration on illustration and coming at the same thought repeatedly from different angles makes for tedious reading.
The inside flyleaf says, "Here, in a teaching of outstanding completeness and clarity ... "
I am not sure about the clarity part. His Holiness and be rather dense at times and this book is one of those times. This is not an easy read, or at least it wasn't for me. I have said previously I have difficulty with Tibetan authors and perhaps I should just give up on them for a while.
This was indeed a good book but The Dalai Lama's writing style of piling illustration on illustration and coming at the same thought repeatedly from different angles makes for tedious reading.
August 18, 2008
Great spiritual reading and insights for believe of all faiths and beliefs
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February 20, 2015I tried. I gave up. I guess I'm not enlightened enough to understand all these convoluted philosophies.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews