"His Holiness the Dalai Lama provides intimate details on an advanced meditation practice called Dzogchen using a visionary poem by the 19th-century saint Patrul Rinpoche, author of the Buddhist classic Words of My Perfect Teacher. The Dalai Lama deftly connects how training the mind in compassion for other beings is directly related to--and in fact a prerequisite for--the very pinnacle of Buddhist meditation. He presents his understanding, confirmed again and again over millennia, that the cultivation of both compassion and wisdom is absolutely critical to progress in meditation and goes into great depth on how this can be accomplished. While accessible to a beginner, he leads the reader in very fine detail on how to identify innermost awareness--who we really are--how to maintain contact with this awareness, and how to release oneself from the endless stream of our thoughts to let this awareness, always present, become consistently apparent"-- Provided by publisher
TOC:

• Part One: The Buddhist Path
• 1. My Focus
• 2. Empathy: The Basic Practice
• 3. Meditation: Channeling the Force of Mind
• Identifying the Mind
• Technique
• 4. Knowledge: The Purpose of Concentration
• Begin with Yourself
• Progress to Enlightenment
• Qualities of Buddhahood
• Part Two: Introduction to the Great Completeness
• 5. The Fundamental Principle Common to All Orders of Tibetan Buddhism
• Innermost Awareness Pervades Every Type of Consciousness
• Practicing the Path Right Now
• 6. The Innate Mind of Clear Light
• No Exertion
• The Centrality of the Mind of Clear Light
• Types of Books
• Part Three: Commentary on Patrul Rinpoche's Three Keys Penetrating the Core
• 7. The First Key: Introducing Innermost Awareness
• Relax
• Stop Thinking for a While
• Shock
• 8. The Supreme Way to Rest
• Levels of Consciousness
• The Clear Light within All Consciousnesses
• 9. The All-Good Diamond Mind
• Aiming Your Attention at Space. Identifying Innermost Awareness
• 10. The Second Key: Maintaining Meditation
• No Danger
• Clouds and Sky
• Meeting of Mother and Child
• The Clear Light of Death
• Mother and Child Clear Lights in the Poem
• Remaining in the Experience
• Dealing with Interference
• Inside Meditation and Outside Meditation Are Similar
• Three Types of Release from Conceptions
• 11. The Gradual Way
• The Danger
• Coming to a Decision
• 12. The Third Key: Self-Release
• The Space of Noninvolvement
• The Crucial Difference
• Confidence
• 13. The Uniqueness of the Three Keys
• Altruism
• The Greatness of the Path The Triad of View, Meditation, and Behavior
• The Final Lines of the Poem
• Part Four: The Old and New Translation Schools Compared
• 14. Basic Structures in the Old Translation School of the Great Completeness
• The Two Truths
• Basis, Paths, and Fruits
• A Special Meaning of "Meditation"
• 15. Advice