Calming the mind with Mingyur Rinpoche

• The Practice of Awareness Meditation w/Mingyur Rinpoche

Is mindfulness just awareness?

7 Simple Mindfulness Exercises & Techniques for Daily Relaxation (Discover Happy Habits)

The difference between Awareness and Mindfulness with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

Why bother? Who needs mindfulness?

(Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche) Find yourself wondering about the differences between awareness and mindfulness? In this teaching, Mingyur Rinpoche explains this question from the traditional Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist perspective by exploring the difference between object-oriented and subject-oriented forms of meditation as ways to connect with [bare] awareness.

Meditate by Letting the Mind Be as It Is – Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

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  Mindfulness in Plain English

  [EDITOR'S NOTE: Mindfulness is wakeful, vigilant, presence of mind in this moment as a watcher rather than as a participant. It is not being sucked in or getting entangled but merely observing, bare awareness, not evaluating, judging, resisting, preferring, averting, but just dispassionately aware, detached but fully awake to what is, whatever it is even as it is constantly changing. Rather than attempting to fix, improve, change, or involve ourselves, we just watch and see what happens as it happens. This, Wisdom Quarterly suggests, is the principal difference between mindfulness and awareness. Mindfulness is "bare awareness," a kind of looking on (watching) that is free of discursive thinking, drifting off, or having distractions pull us away and scatter our attention. It is undivided, keenly interested attention that does not grasp, cling, or prefer but is open to whatever is in this moment, the "eternal now." See: "Mindfulness" defined (Ven. Analayo), Establishing Mindfulness Sutra (podcast), Confronting Racism with Mindfulness, and Youth Sutra, The Buddha's Mindfulness Diet Plan]

#4: Mind stays stationary at point under the nose

🔗 Joy of Living Meditation Program: Learn meditation under the skillful guidance of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche at your own pace. joy.tergar.org

🔗 Vajrayana Online: Study and practice of the Tibetan Buddhism with Mingyur Rinpoche. learning.tergar.org

🔗 Online events, retreats with Mingyur Rinpoche events.tergar.org

🔗 About Tergar Path: tergar.org/programs

• Transforming the Mind with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
• Mindfulness in Plain English: 20th Anniversary Edition (Bhante G or Bhante Gunaratana)
• Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, April 21, 2022; Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Transform the Mind (Yongey Rinpoche)

Transforming an Unwholesome Mind

Alexandra David Neel

(Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche) May 26, 2025: What if our anger, jealousy, and laziness weren’t enemies to fight — but gateways to deeper awareness?

This newly released clip comes from the Buddhist Psychology Immersion course on Vajrayana Online. It is currently exploring teachings on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness: Form (the Body), Feeling, Mind, and Phenomena (Mind Objects).

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche will be teaching on this topic June 6-8 (to be re-streamed June 7-9) events.tergar.org/events/deta...

Unmistaken Child

The Immersion course includes 43 guided meditations and 43 daily life practices, and it’s just one of more than 30 courses available on Vajrayana Online. To join the course now, visit vajrayana.tergar.org 

🔗 Joy of Living Meditation Program: Learn meditation under the skillful guidance of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche at own pace: joy.tergar.org

🔗 Vajrayana Online: Study and practice of the Tibetan Buddhism with Mingyur Rinpoche. learning.tergar.org

(Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche) Advice for a younger generation

🔗Online events, retreats with Mingyur Rinpoche: events.tergar.org

🔗 About Tergar Path: tergar.org/programs

• Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, Tergar.org, May 26, 2025; CC Liu, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Abhidhamma w/ Bhikkhu Bodhi (video)

(Tergar) Back to the Roots: Mapping the Mind through Abhidharma with Bhikkhu Bodhi

Tibetan Yongey Rinpoche (Tergar)

Students of the Dharma, tomorrow (Saturday, May 17th, 2025) instead of Bhikkhu Bodhi's regular class on the AN, the venerable American Theravada Buddhist scholar-monk will be giving an online lecture on the Abhidhamma ("Higher Doctrine") through another Buddhist organization, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche's Tergar:

• Back to the Roots: Mapping the Mind through Abhidharma with Bhikkhu Bodhi
• RSVP FREE: (Disclosure Project) STUDY: Abhidhamma ("Higher Doctrine") with Bhikkhu Bodhi, Saturday, May 17, 2025, 7:00 AM | Meetup

Anthology (Bhikkhu Bodhi)

All regular students are welcome to join this program, which will run from 10:00 am to 11:30 am (ET). Find more details and a registration form here: Tergar Events

Note two options on the registration form: (A) If no translation from English to another language is needed, register to view the lecture through YouTube. (B) If translation into another language is needed, register to view the lecture through Zoom.

With metta, BAUS via Wisdom Quarterly

"Many, fearful of annihilation [extinction] at death, construct belief systems that ascribe to their individual selves, their souls, the prospect of eternal life. A few yearn for a path to liberation but do not know where to find one. It was precisely to offer such a path that the Buddha has appeared in our midst."

- Bhikkhu Bodhi

Details

Ven. Buddhaghosa, the great Buddhist scholar-monk, compiling Theravada Abhidhamma texts

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Manual of Abhidhamma (Bodhi)

Seeking a deeper understanding of your own mind — a map to greater well-being? Join us for a special online webinar with Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi, a renowned Buddhist scholar and teacher of Buddhist philosophy, as he unravels the profound wisdom of the Abhidharma.

Often referred to as “Buddhist psychology,” the Abhidhamma [the “Dhamma in Ultimate Terms" or “Higher Doctrine”] offers a detailed map of consciousness, illuminating the intricate workings of our thoughts, emotions, and perceptions.

In this event, Bhikkhu Bodhi will guide us through the “topography” of consciousness and core principles of the Abhidharma, exploring how this ancient system of analysis can provide valuable insights into the causes of suffering and the path to innate well-being.

By systematically exploring the inner landscape of mind, we can clarify which mental states lead to suffering, which cultivate happiness and well-being at present and in the future, and which ultimately lead to full inner freedom (enlightenment, awakening, bodhi).

This is a unique opportunity to learn from a renowned master teacher and deepen your understanding of these essential teachings.

Why attend?

Wow, so my emotions actually make sense.

Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi is a respected Buddhist monk, scholar, and translator renowned for his clear and insightful teachings on Abhidharma, the system of Buddhist psychology. Bhikkhu Bodhi's teachings emphasize the importance of understanding the mind by systematically guiding us to recognize confusion and discover the reality that leads to profound self-understanding and lasting well-being.

What will we learn?

But consciousness is too big to understand! - Successful meditators understand it.

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In this program, participants will get an overview of the Abhidharma's teachings and learn the classifications of consciousness how to cultivate beneficial mental states

What is included in this program?

Included in this LIVE teaching by Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi is a presentation followed by a Q&A session, during which participants may ask what pertinent questions they like.

Cost?

This webinar is free of charge, so no payment is required.

• Register now!
• Vegan Social Brunch on the Patio, Saturday, May 17, 2025, 11:00 AM | Meetup

Bhikkhu Bodhi

American Bhikkhu Bodhi

Bhikkhu Bodhi is an American-born Buddhist monk from New York City. After completing his PhD in philosophy at Claremont in Los Angeles. He then traveled to Theravada Buddhist Sri Lanka, where he received full ordination in 1973, under the leading Sri Lankan scholar-monk Ven. Balangoda Ananda Maitreya Mahanayaka Thera. From 1984 to 2002, he served as editor for the Buddhist Publication Society in Kandy, where he lived for ten years with the senior German Buddhist monk Ven. Nyanaponika Mahathera at the Forest Hermitage. He currently lives and teaches at Chuang Yen Monastery (BAUS.org) in Carmel, New York. More

• Bhikkhu Bodhi (BAUS.org), Tergar (events.tergar.org); Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: Happiness

The truth of suffering: What actually works?

(Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche) Jan. 16, 2025: How can we replace the habit of trying to fix ourselves with a healthy sense of confidence in our own being? tergar.org/you-are-a-buddha-now

The Vajrayana Buddhist path offers a unique view on our intrinsic purity, or "buddha nature." The principle of buddha nature invites us to explore our experience in a new way, using imaginative practices, to stop attempting to correct what is wrong, and start noticing what has always been right.

Learn more for FREE at tergar.org/you-are-a-buddha-now

🔗 Joy of Living Meditation Program: Learn meditation under the skillful guidance of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche at one's own pace. joy.tergar.org

🔗 Vajrayana Online: Study and practice of Tibetan Buddhism with Mingyur Rinpoche. learning.tergar.org

🔗Online events and retreats with Mingyur Rinpoche events.tergar.org

🔗 About Tergar Path: tergar.org/programs

Monkey Mind w/Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

(A Joyful Mind) Rinpoche is subject of Western research by American professor: Impact on the brain

Understanding the Monkey Mind

This gear measures meditating brain.

(Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche) Tibetan Buddhist teacher Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche discusses how [bare] awareness is central to [Buddhist] meditation. He elaborates on how the recognition of awareness is the very foundation for one’s meditation practice.

Reflection question: What do you do in your daily life that helps you remember to recognize awareness?

• 'Bird brain' is a compliment? Crows perform yet another skill once thought distinctively human

Recognizing Awareness

Who is Ven. Yongey?

This rinpoche is a Tibetan teacher from Nepal and a master of the Karma Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism. He is a star in the West because he is or was neurotic (a worry wart) and is very user-friendly and has written five books on the subject of meditation.

He oversees the Tergar Meditation Community (tergar.org), an international network of Buddhist meditation centers.

Royal family line

Who's Tibet's Guru Rinpoche? Padmasambhava

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche was born in Nepal in 1975 [1] as the youngest of four brothers. His mother, Sönam Chödrön, is a descendant of Tibetan King Songtsen Gampo and King Trisong Deutsen. His brothers are Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, Tsikey Chokling Rinpoche, and Tsoknyi Rinpoche, and his nephews are Phakchok Rinpoche and the reincarnation (tulku) of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, known popularly as Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche.

From the age of nine [1], his father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche [1], taught him Buddhist meditation [1], passing on to him the most essential instructions of the Dzogchen and Mahamudra traditions. More

Join Vajrayana Online, a virtual space with courses and resources to explore Vajrayana (Esoteric) Buddhism with practical guidance from Mingyur Rinpoche with online webinars and recorded teachings. Learn more at learning.tergar.org

• Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche books
• Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, tergar.org, ajoyfulmind.com; CC Liu, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

'Wandering...But Not Lost' (Ven. Yongey)

Wandering...But Not Lost (preview)

Monastery living is very comfortable and safe.

(A Joyful Mind) June 21, 2018: ajoyfulmind.com/wandering In 2011, Tibetan meditation teacher and author Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche left his monastery (lamasery) late at night to go on a "wandering retreat" [just as the historical Buddha taught all monastics to do in the beginning when he set down the practice of the Sangha, the Buddhist "spiritual community" within his Doctrine and Discipline), to let go of colloquialism]. He didn't tell anyone where he was going. He returned 4.5 years later. Visit ajoyfulmind.com to find out more.

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche online (5/18)

Don't say you can't meditate. Everyone can meditate and be mindful. It's as simple as this...

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I wandered a long time before I understood.

In his approach to teaching meditation, Tibetan Buddhist teacher Mingyur Rinpoche integrates traditional Buddhist practice and philosophy with the current scientific understanding of the mind and mental health, making the practices of meditation relevant and accessible to students around the world.

Compassionate Maitreya Buddha

“Compassion is the spontaneous wisdom of the heart. It’s always with us. It always has been and always will be. When it arises in us, we’ve simply learned to see how strong and safe we really are.”

Join Minguyr Rinpoche for a guided meditation and talk on "Awareness and the Natural Arising of Compassion" followed by a 10-minute Q&A session.

Donations for this event are split between Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche and InsightLA. Suggested donation: $35. (No one turned away for lack of funds). This class is donation-based; no one turned away for lack of funds.

Malaika Vaz in Nepal to meet Mingyur Rinpoche

You will be able to meditate.

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche is a Buddhist teacher, best-selling author, and the spiritual leader of the Tergar Sangha worldwide. He possesses a rare ability to present the ancient wisdom of Buddhist Tibet in a fresh, engaging manner. Rinpoche’s teachings weave together his own personal experiences (as a very anxious and inept meditator) with modern scientific research, relating both to the practice of meditation.

• Special Event with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoch
• Saturday, May 18, 2024 9:00-10:00 am (PT)
• ONLINE through Insight Los Angeles

• InsightLA; Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation) (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Insight LA opens in Santa Monica (4/10)

[Online] Introduction to Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction - InsightLA Meditation

Deepening Mindful Self-Compassion (Prerequisite: MSC) - InsightLA Meditation

BuddhaFest is past but lives on at InsightLA.org

Easter (Ishtar) Sunday was an amazing rebirth for Los Angeles-based InsightLA.org. No longer is it limited to Beverly Hills (Benedict Canyon or online). Now it is coming to Santa Monica. It actually already arrived with a series of soft openings.

On sacred Sunday, luminaries Trudy Goodman (founder) and her newish husband Jack Kornfield (who founded Spirit Rock in the Bay Area and co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society on the East Coast) spoke to a packed house of 75+ at the new reopening of the Santa Monica center (1430 Olympic) near the Santa Monica Co-op.

Trudy Goodman is semi-retiring and turning over day-to-day operations to Melissa McKay, who is going all donation-based for group activities in Santa Monica. (Meet and sit with Melissa on April 14).

Join InsightLA for its grand reopening on Wednesday April 10th for meditation Dharma and Community with some of InsightLA’s most senior teachers: LC Tran, Celeste Young, and Christine Wolf.

• This class is a donation-based class.
• No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
• Wed., April 10, 2024, 6:30-8:00 pm
• SMC, 1430 Olympic, Santa Monica

The evening will include a guided meditation, Dharma talk, Q&A, and ending in tea and social time to meet fellow community members and teachers.

Who is this practice group for?

InsightLA drop-in sitting groups are an opportunity for Angelenos to learn more about meditation practice in a welcoming environment.

All practice groups at InsightLA are drop-in and now donation-based. Let’s sit together! Register HERE to join in weekly Wednesday nights meditation practice group.

Where is this event located?

This event takes place in person at the Santa Monica Meditation Center and via Zoom online to the rest of the world.

For those attending in-person, find directions and accessibility information HERE. Please consider carpooling and click Sign Up for ride-share options. Suggested donation: $35

• SIGN UP: Santa Monica Community Dharma Nights (Grand Reopening) - InsightLA Meditation
• Sunday Morning Practice Group with Trudy Goodman (InsightLA Meditation)

RSVP for Sundays Youngish Adults Meditation

There are practice groups for everyone.

(InsightLA Meditation) Need a Sunday sangha ("spiritual community")? Interested in mindfulness meditation with a supportive hybrid in-person/online community of peer practitioners? Join in online via Zoom or in-person in the new Santa Monica Meditation Center. Share the collective wisdom related to sitting meditation practice. SIGN UP: Youngish Adults (20s, 30s, 40s) Practice Group

• Disclosure: Insight LA: Young-ish Adults Sitting Group (20s, 30s, 40s), Sunday, April 7, 2024, 7:00 PM | Meetup
• Valley Nature Center: InsightLA: Youngish Adults
• Pasadena Dharma: InsightLA: Youngish Adults
• Santa Monica Meditation Center, 1430 Olympic Bl.
• InsightLA, P.O. Box 7278, Santa Monica, CA 90406
• InsightLA.org; Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Lion's Roar mag: Heart Sutra, Halloween...

Lionsroar.com, Top Stories, 10/31/23; Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Unlocking the Wisdom of the Heart Sutra

The Heart Sutra is a pithy, powerful text. If one understands it, says Ven. Guan Cheng, one understands the Buddha’s teachings. From the November 2023 issue of Lion’s Roar.

The Great Lessons of Halloween

What do we want to be for Halloween? Who do we want to be in life? Ira Sukrungruang on the costumes we wear.

How to Set Better Boundaries

Guided by Buddhist teachings on the brahmaviharas ("Diving Abidings"), Elizabeth Hernandez-Stomp helps us learn when to say yes and how to say no. [To read this article in Spanish] Para leer este articulo en español: “Cómo establecer mejor nuestros límites”

Share Your Wisdom: Do you practice loving-kindness meditation?
If so, how has it changed your life or practice? Send your answer, location, and a photo of yourself to themoment@lionsroar.com for possible inclusion in Lion’s Roar magazine.

Joseph Goldstein: It’s Not Either-Or

In this conversation with Buddhadharma (the Teachings of the Buddha), the Insight Meditation Society co-founder applies the “harmonized understanding” approach championed in his book One Dharma to the idea of buddhanature. In the end, it’s not about who’s right or wrong about it. It’s about what leads us to less clinging. From the Fall 2023 “Buddhanature” issue of Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Guide.

The 17th Annual Lion’s Roar Online Auction begins November 13, 2023

It’s that time of year again! The 17th annual Lion’s Roar Online Auction, the biggest fundraising event of the year, is starting soon.

Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche completes US tour in New York, Montana, and Colorado

Through September and October, Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche, the spiritual heir and grandson of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, visited the US to offer teachings in New York, Montana, and Colorado.

For subscribers: “Short, Simple, Lovely Meditations” Audio Pack

This audio series available exclusively to Lion’s Roar subscribers is designed to help even the busiest of us find a few brief moments to practice through short but powerful meditations. We can all spare a few minutes to come back to the present moment, and these short, simple, lovely meditations do just that.

AD: Online course, Nectar of the Path: Teachings on the Path of Awakening (tergar.org)

10.31.2023

Science: inside the meditating brain (video)

Big Think, 9/13/18; Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

X-ray of Otzi's brain in skull, Iceman found in situ in Alps, frozen for five thousand years.

The 14th Dalai Lama with Rajneesh Kasturirangan, Geshe Thupten Jinpa, and American neuroscientist Dr. Richard Davidson at the Mind and Life Institute XXVI conference in 2013.

Superhumans: The remarkable brain waves of high-level meditators | Big Think

Meditation science: American Neuroscientist Richard J. Davidson (richardjdavidson.com)

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(Big Think) People [such as Buddhist monastics] who have meditated for thousands of hours exhibit a remarkable difference in their brainwaves.

Psychologist Dr. Daniel Goleman says we can actually see what happens in the heads of those who have achieved "enlightenment," and the results are unprecedented in science.

Author Daniel Goleman (danielgoleman.info)

ABOUT: Dr. Daniel Goleman (info) is an Amherst and Harvard-educated psychologist, lecturer, and science journalist. He has reported on the brain and behavioral sciences for The New York Times for many years. His 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence (Bantam Books) was on The New York Times bestseller list for a year and a half. Dr. Goleman is also the author of Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything. The book argues that new information technologies will create “radical transparency,” allowing us to know the environmental, health, and social consequences of what we buy. As shoppers use point-of-purchase ecological comparisons to guide their purchases, market share will shift to support steady, incremental upgrades in how products are made -- changing everything for the better. His latest book is Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body, which he co-authored with Dr. Richard Davidson, reveals the science of what meditation can really do for us, as well as exactly how to get the most out of it.

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TRANSCRIPT

Edited for clarity by Wisdom Quarterly, 9/16/23

Dr. Richard Davidson, U of Wisconsin

DANIEL GOLEMAN: My co-author of the book Altered Traits is neuroscientist Richard Davidson, whose lab is at the University of Wisconsin.

It’s a very large lab with dedicated scanners. He has about 100 people working there, and he was able to do some remarkable research where he flew Olympic-level meditators, who live in Nepal or India [e.g., Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche] typically, some in France [e.g., Matthieu Ricard].

He flew them over to the lab and put them through a protocol in his brain scanners and did state-of-the-art tests. And the results were just astounding. We found, for example, or he found that their brain waves are really different.

Altered Traits (Dan Goleman, Dick Davidson)

Perhaps the most remarkable findings in the Olympic-level meditators has to do with what’s called a gamma [brain] wave.

All of us get gamma for a very short period when we solve a problem we’ve been grappling with, even if it’s something that’s vexed us for months. We get about a half-second of gamma; it’s the strongest wave on the EEG [electro encephalograph] spectrum.

We get it when we bite into an apple or imagine biting into an apple, and for a brief period, a split-second, inputs from taste, sound, smell, vision, all of that come together in that imagined bite into the apple. But that lasts very short period in an ordinary EEG.

What was stunning was that the Olympic-level meditators, these are people who have done up to 62,000 lifetime hours of meditation, their brainwave shows gamma very strong all the time as a lasting trait just no matter what they’re doing.

It’s not a state effect. It’s not during their meditation alone. But it’s just their everyday state of mind. We actually have no idea what that means experientially.

Science has never seen it before. We also find that in these Olympic-level meditators when we asked them, for example, to do a meditation on compassion, their level of gamma jumps 700 to 800 percent in a few seconds. This has also never been seen by science.

So we have to assume that the special state of consciousness that you see in the highest-level meditators is a lot like something described in the classical meditation literatures centuries ago, which is that there is a state of being which is not like our ordinary state.

Sometimes it’s called liberation, enlightenment, awake, whatever the word may be. We suspect there’s really no vocabulary that captures what that might be.

The people that we’ve talked to in this Olympic-level group say it’s very spacious, and you’re wide open, you’re prepared for whatever may come. We just don’t know.

But we do know it’s quite remarkable. More

• Watch the newest video from Big Think: bigth.ink/NewVideo
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