Fear and Fearlessness
Pema Chödrön
Full audio program at soundstrue.com. Companion text "When Things Fall Apart" (Shambhala, 1997).
Source: Sounds True
Pema Chödrön's hallmark Sounds True teaching on groundlessness — the practice of staying with the basic discomfort of being alive rather than fleeing into the ten thousand habits of avoidance. Chödrön works the lojong slogans, the practice of tonglen, and the contemplative method she calls 'staying with the rough spots.' For thirty years this has been the most influential single teaching by an American-trained female Vajrayana teacher in print or audio. (TPS includes Pema Chödrön with a clear sidebar acknowledging the Shambhala history and her January 2020 resignation.)
The hallmark American Vajrayana teaching on groundlessness — the most influential single audio program by a senior Western female teacher.
The sangha responds.
More foundational talks from Vajrayana.
Pointing Out Instruction
Nagi Gompa, Early 1990s
Recorded at Nagi Gompa, the hermitage above Kathmandu where Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche received students for the last decades of his life. This is the foundational document of the Mahamudra–Dzogchen unification that defined the Chokling Tersar lineage in the modern era — the lineage that, through Tulku Urgyen's sons (Chökyi Nyima, Tsoknyi, Mingyur, and Phakchok's father), has become arguably the single most influential Tibetan teaching transmission in the contemporary world. The pointing-out is direct, plain, and absolutely uncompromising. The voice is unmistakable.
Mahamudra and Mahasandhi
Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche — eldest son of Tulku Urgyen, abbot of Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling at Boudhanath, and founder of the Rangjung Yeshe Institute — gives the doctrinal heart of his father's lineage in his own voice. The talks lay out the unification of Mahamudra (the New Translation school's culminating practice) and Mahasandhi/Dzogchen (the Old Translation school's), as transmitted through the Chokling Tersar. For students of the Boudhanath lineage and TPS's Lumbini-anchored Vajrayana audience, this is the central living transmission.
Essence Love, Well-Being, and Okayness
Festival of Faiths 2018
Tsoknyi Rinpoche — second son of Tulku Urgyen and one of the most accessible Vajrayana voices in the West — gives the signature teaching that has become the centerpiece of his Pundarika Foundation curriculum. 'Essence love' is the irreducible warmth at the base of every healthy mind; 'well-being' is its felt expression; 'okayness' is the ground from which contemplative practice can actually proceed. Without it, Tsoknyi argues, every advanced practice eventually collapses. With it, all of them flower.