Showing results by narrator "Robert Thurman" in All Categories

The so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead has been renowned for centuries as a cornerstone of Buddhist wisdom and religious thought. More recently, it has become highly influential in the Western world for its psychological insights into the processes of death and dying - and what they can teach us about the ways we live our lives. It has also been found to be helpful in the grieving process by people who have recently lost their loved ones. This authoritative translation preserves the form and spirit of the original and was prepared especially for Western audiences.

Robert Thurman, the preeminent scholar and interpreter of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy for the modern world, leads us on a joyful exploration into the nature of reality through Buddha's threefold curriculum of "super-education".

Tibetans call their cherished tradition of Buddhism a "wish-fulfilling jewel tree" for its power to generate bliss and enlightenment within all who absorb its teachings. This path to enlightenment, it is taught, requires more than a sitting meditation practice alone. With The Jewel Tree of Tibet, honored scholar and teacher Robert Thurman brings these insights to you as they were meant to be transmitted, through the spoken word.

Robert Thurman illuminates the Tibetan Book of the Dead with up-to-date insights for modern audiences. For centuries, this text has been read aloud to the dying, who Buddhist masters say are capable of hearing up to three days after clinical death, as a guide through the tumultuous and often terrifying process of dissolution. Now, in Liberation Upon Hearing in the Between, Professor Robert Thurman demystifies this esoteric teaching and reveals the Tibetan view of dying.

When people and circumstances upset us, how do we deal with them? Often, we feel victimized. We become hurt, angry, and defensive. We end up seeing others as enemies, and when things don’t go our way, we become enemies to ourselves. But what if we could move past this pain, anger, and defensiveness? Inspired by Buddhist philosophy, this book introduces us to the four kinds of enemies we encounter in life.

In this fascinating dialogue between Robert Thurman, Ph.D., and Deepak Chopra, M.D., many concepts relating to compassion, enlightenment, and Buddhism are examined in depth. This discussion will educate and entertain you, and also inspire you to break out of the hypnosis of cultural conditioning to find your own path to enlightenment.

Spiritual disciplines often seem remote from the realities of our daily lives. Yet there is a Mahayana Scripture which presents a model of enlightened practice in the midst of urban living, the Vimalakirti Sutra. This teaches a non-dualistic wisdom and reconciliation of dichotomies. It challenges ordinariness and reveals systematic and effective ways of tapping higher potentials while upholding one's usual responsibilities and enriching long-term relationships.

Robert Thurman's Basic Buddhism is a collective series of five lectures he has given on Buddhism. In these lectures, Thurman patiently takes apart each jewel of Buddhism: The Buddha as the teacher of enlightenment, the Dharma as the teaching, or enlightenment itself, and the Sangha as the historical and current community of learners seeking to become Buddhas.

In Waking Up, Volume 5, Sounds True publisher and founder Tami Simon speaks with six teachers about their personal understandings of spiritual awakening—how it takes place, what changes (and what doesn't), and how their experiences can inspire and inform our own realizations.

This Classic Course explores the unfolding of the genius and wisdom in each of us in the quest for the liberating insight into selflessness. In the context of our modern quest for a new vision of reality, Robert Thurman discusses the deepest issues of reality and non-reality, transcendent and the relative. Dr. Thurman's brilliant dissertation on the masterful works by the illuminated Lama, Tsong Khapa (1357-1419), on The Buddhist Theory of Relativity makes this an astounding must-have set of recordings.

This classic course was recorded in the mid 1980's as we neared the end of the second Christian Millennium; many prophetic voices were being raised to speak of revelation and other apocalyptic visions. Some western mystics even mentioned the future Buddha, Maitreya, in connection with a returning Christ or Christ impulse. What do the Buddhists, themselves, say about the end of the world as we know it? What is Buddhist apocalyptic? This workshop examines these questions with full rigor.

Robert Thurman discusses modernity as part of a series on different aspects of Tibet and Tibetan history.

In Making the World We Want, you will hear a very different Thurman as he speaks candidly on what he considers the most urgent issue of our time: how Buddhism is now poised to revolutionize the entire course of humanity. In this passionate, incisive, and often hilarious joyride of the mind and spirit, Thurman explores mindful communities as "enlightenment factories" and how they have sparked "inner" revolutions throughout history.

First in a series of three classic courses delivered by Thurman years ago in NYC, he begins this segment with the subject of the profound.

Robert Thurman discusses compassion. The Buddha taught that to realize enlightenment, a person must have both wisdom and loving kindness. That is to say, one must understand the nature of the suffering from which we wish to free others, and experience deep intimacy and empathy with other beings. It is the foundation of human life in Buddha's view.

Robert Thurman examines one of the most sacred texts of Mahayana Buddhism, The Vimalakirti-nirdesha Sutra. To any Buddhist practitioner, particularly those of Vajrayana Buddhism and Zen, this sutra is of the utmost importance. Unlike most sutras, its central figure is not a Buddha, but an ordinary man, who, in his mastery of the doctrine and religious practice, personifies the ideal lay believer, assuring commoners that they can reach levels of spiritual attainment comparable to those accessible to monks.