The Royal Seal of Mahamudra, Volume One A Guidebook for the Realization of Coemergence

An unusually detailed, clear, and complete instruction manual for the meditation practice of Mahamudra, by a renowned eighteenth-century Tibetan master in the Drukpa Kagyu lineage.

This guidebook for cultivating the meditative practices of stability and insight—the first major work from the Drukpa Kagyu lineage to become available in English—stands out among works of its kind as one of the clearest and most comprehensive presentations of coemergence, or mahamudra. In it, the eighteenth-century Tibetan master Ngawang Kunga Tenzin, the Third Khamtrul Rinpoche, details a step-by-step program of spiritual exercises that bring the meditator directly to clear realization of the fully perfect, ever-present, nondual nature of mind.

Beginning with the close relationship between phenomena and mind and the immense benefits of meditating on the nature of mind, the Third Khamtrul Rinpoche offers careful instructions on the four yogas of mahamudra together with advice on how to recognize genuine progress and how to remove obstacles that arise during meditation. Characteristic of the Drukpa Kagyu approach is that he presents explanations—even to those in the earliest stages of training—that are grounded in insight into the nature of mind, demonstrating how all experience, thoughts, and perceptions may be used as the path to enlightenment.

The Third Khamtrul Rinpoche (1680–1729), a great Tibetan visionary, meditation master, artist, civic leader, and polymath whose collected works fill seventeen volumes, was widely recognized for his teachings and writings on mahamudra systems of meditation. He was responsible for the founding of Khampagar Monastery in eastern Tibet.

Gerardo Abboud was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. After a short career in engineering, he spent fourteen years studying Buddhism in India and Nepal. Since 1986 he has been president of the Dongyuling Center, Argentina, which offers free teachings on Buddhist theory and practice. He has been the main translator for Drubwang Tsoknyi Rinpoche since 2000 and has been serving as His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s interpreter in Latin America since 1992.