Vajrayana / Tibetan Buddhism

Reflect on precious human birth, impermanence, karma, and suffering of samsara. The motivational ground.

Refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha as orienting commitment.

Full-body prostrations, often in sets of hundreds. Body offering as ego dissolution.

Hundred-syllable purification mantra with visualization of light dissolving karmic obscurations.

Symbolic offering of the entire universe. Cultivates generosity and counters grasping.

Devotional practice with the teacher as embodiment of awakening. Heart-to-heart transmission.

Generate detailed visualization of a yidam — face, ornaments, mandala — and inhabit the form.

Recite mantra in coordination with breath while passing beads. Sound as transformation.

On the in-breath take in suffering, on the out-breath send relief. Reverses the usual self-protective pattern.

Mind-training slogans — drive all blames into one, be grateful to everyone — worked in daily life.

Inner heat practice combining breath, visualization, posture. Foundation of the six yogas.

Recognize dreams as dreams while dreaming. Use the night practice to loosen reification.

Practice with the gaps — between thoughts, between sleep and waking, between death and rebirth.

Receive direct introduction to the nature of mind from a qualified teacher.

Complete daily liturgy combining refuge, generation, mantra, dissolution, dedication.