The Heart of Meditation

Discovering Innermost Awareness

By: His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Jeffrey Hopkins - editor/translator

Narrated by: Brian Nishii

Length: 3 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

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 listener 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.

©2016 Dalai Lama Trust (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

Thank you Your Holiness.

May you be blessed with peace. Your efforts to teach me and ask are blossoming.

Vital Study: Heart of Meditation

This is a fairly short yet PROFOUNLY VALUABLE OPUS, yet it is incredibly profound; I dare say, without the slightest hyperbole, this is quite worthy of the most serious, highly rigorous, and absolutely intensive study (plus the Great Works of Wisdom related to it) over an entire lifespan.

It is my humble opinion, this Magnum Opus absolutely should come with a PDF (like Great Courses, which it often includes with its excellent college-level courses, also on Audio.com) which might well contain an extensive Glossary of Terms, several conceptual Flowcharts which would well illustrate the various Paths to achieve the Ultimate Goal, well outlined herein; a Glossary of key words & phrases; explanations of crucial Tibetan words & related concepts. Then lastly, please include in the PDF, a brief English-language Biblography too.

This is a wonderfully wise, detailed and confoundingly complex work to some, which may only be well understood and followed, with at least a fair background in the highly advanced concepts of Tibetan Buddism, herein.

This is not for the deeply uncurious, cowardly, nor the faint of heart! However, that being said, it seems supremely manafest, this Great Work quite obviously requires one's extreme determination and brave focus, inorder to achive the promise of His Holyness' invaluble map, to achieve something which is truly both personally meaningful and what well may be for the serious-minded, a means to have a major impact for the better on the whole of Humanity. Thus, I feel stronly a need for the PDF proposed, to come with this incredibly high -- but profoundly worthwhile spiritual mountain to climb -- over one's lifetime.

I thank H.H. The Dali Lama, for this 🎁 gift! And as a truly great admirer of his, please keep 'em coming!!! (LOL) -- I'm also a huge fan of his wonderfully Wise & most insightful lectures too, which one hopes will always be made available on YouTube; I am unfortunately Bed-bound, so I cannot ever go to see his live, priceless lectures. Nonetheless, it is a dream of mine...

Thank you. May all of you know Love and Happiness, Peace & Joy, wherever you are.

-- MIchæl Hart,
Volant, PA ∙ USA

Insightful

Really enjoyed this audio book. The narrators voice kept me engaged and I learned some good insights on my Buddhist path and meditation motivation.

For beginners and seasoned students

Very good guide book for everyone that want to go deeper in the practice is meditation. It also bring the Buddhist philosophy, but just to help with the practice and not in a doctrinal manner.

Fantastic Depth of insight

Excellent book, everyone word must be understood. There is so much content in every sentence. The wisdom and knowledge is so well explained. Take your time to digest, listen to it several times, let it sink in.

Brilliant but Advanced

A magnificent collection of teachings. The most advanced spoken work on Dzogchen I have had the honor to encounter. It is dense and subtle, by necessity, but like most such works it rewards careful and repeated listenings. Truly a gift!

👍🏽🙏🏽

❤️🙏🏽
Took my practice to a entirely new level of understanding. Thank you thank you thank you

Outstanding Rendition

The Dalai Lama’s words literally come to life through Brian Nishii’s narration.

In this time off tremendous challenge we need words of hope and peace more than ever before.

I will listen to this time and again for the rest of my life.

What a deep book....

If you could sum up The Heart of Meditation in three words, what would they be?

Clear Light Mind

What did you like best about this story?

The insights here are probably hard to understand if you're not already far along the path. If you've come to know if a huge commonality between all the practices, shamata, vipassana, zen, prayer, etc, then this may be the book you're looking for. He talks about the substratum of conciousness, clear light awareness. And a mediation called Dzogchen which discards the various mediation objects in favor of pure awareness. No more pushing thoughts away, just let them be and see them as all other manifestations, waves on the surface of awareness.

oversimplified worldview

The viewpoints expressed by the Dalai Lama presented a remarkably oversimplified worldview that was divorced from reality.