Meditation Differently

by Herbert Guenther

'Meditation Differently,' presents a translation of an important Tibetan work which contrasts and compares two central traditions of Buddhist meditative practice - the Mahamudra and the rDzogs-chen practice- particularly the sNyingthig version. 

This book offers not only a translation, but also a detailed and critical commentary based on original Tibetan sources.

The commentary offers a hermeneutical and phenomenological study of the key ideas in the understanding of Being and of Experience - utilizing development in modern thinking to bring out the nuances of Buddhist thinking.

A translation and commentary on Pad-madkar-po's definitive work on the four tuning in phases introduces the Mahamudra approach to meditation.

To understand the rDzogs-chen approach, a philosophical introduction to the rDzogs-chen understanding of Being is presented, and shows how this understanding can be compared to the modern philosophy and the development of the scientific study of dynamic processes and cosmology. 

Dr. Guenther's study is a critical and revealing approach to the problem of meditation that is at once true to the subject-matter and relentless in bringing out, in the contemporary context, what is said so comprehensibly and clearly in the original texts.

Contents of the Book:

• Acknowledgements
• Introduction Notes
• Chapter One: The Mahamudra Approach: The Four Tuning-in Phases Notes
• Chapter Two: Padma dkar-po's Definitive Investigation of the Four Tuning-in Phases' Notes
• Chapter Three: The rDzogs-chen Approach: Symmetry Transformations: the Realms of Potentia and Actuality Notes
• Chapter Four: The Gestalt Experience of Being and the Closed System Potential Notes
• Chapter Five: The Empowerments as Psychological Stepping-Stones Notes
• Chapter Six: The Lighting' and the 'Lamps' Notes
• Chapter Seven: rTse-le rGod-tshangs-pa Sna-tshogs Rang-grol's 'The Sun's Life-giving Force'
• Notes
• Literature References
• Index of Technical Terms
• Tibetan Sanskrit Index
• Index of Names and Subjects

About the Authors:

Dr. Guenther is an eminent scholar of both Buddhism and modern thought.

Dr. Herbert V. Guenther is Professor Emeritus of Far Eastern Studies at the University of Saskatchewan. In over 25 books and numerous articles he has communicated in contemporary languages the living spirit of Buddhism as it bears on the perennial problems of human existence. Recently Dr. Guenther has been cited by the Ananta-Jyoti Vidyapitha for his outstanding contributions to Buddhist studies.