• Complain

Jes Bertelsen - Essence of Mind: An Approach to Dzogchen

Here you can read online Jes Bertelsen - Essence of Mind: An Approach to Dzogchen full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. City: Berkeley, California, year: 2013, publisher: North Atlantic Books, genre: Religion. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

No cover
  • Book:
    Essence of Mind: An Approach to Dzogchen
  • Author:
  • Publisher:
    North Atlantic Books
  • Genre:
  • Year:
    2013
  • City:
    Berkeley, California
  • Rating:
    4 / 5
  • Favourites:
    Add to favourites
  • Your mark:
    • 80
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

Essence of Mind: An Approach to Dzogchen: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Essence of Mind: An Approach to Dzogchen" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

This handbook to spirituality gathers together Danish meditation teacher Jes Bertelsens advice on training the mind through wordless prayer and meditation to realize the essence of consciousness. Bertelsen has been teaching philosophy and meditation since the early 1970s; in 1989, he met the Tibetan lama Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, who authorized Jes Bertelsen to teach Dzogchen, and to do so using his own judgment as to the most appropriate way to assimilate these teachings into Western culture. Bertelsens teachings are based on an experiential investigation of the nature of consciousness, using comparative analysis of Eastern and Western spiritual teachings and consciousness practices on a foundation of modern psychological, philosophical, and scientific approaches.Essence of Mind outlines the authors experience and approach to Dzogchen, the natural primordial state of human consciousness that is timeless, pure, and untouched by suffering. The book is divided into three parts. The first part describes different methods for pointing out the essence of consciousness and the techniques related to them. The second part seeks to outline the key principles of a training system suited to Western students that can lead to realization. The final section outlines the significance of continuous exercises, and describes the way spiritual practice slowly permeates daily life, dreams, sleep, and eventually death. Through the mind-training process, the practitioner approaches an almost ecstatic state of completion, a luminous, blissful wakefulness in which the consciousness is also fully relaxed, not clinging to bliss or desiring ecstasy, but transparent and open.Bertelsen emphasizes that while more advanced forms of spiritual training can only take place in a face-to-face, deeply engaged mutual process between teacher and student, books are useful as sources of inspiration, in particular to help review ones insights and refresh ones practice. Essence of Mind systematizes the experiences that occur along the spiritual path and helps students to refine, correct, and clarify their efforts; it is the authors hope that many students in the West will be able to benefit from his comparative approach to Dzogchen.

Jes Bertelsen: author's other books


Who wrote Essence of Mind: An Approach to Dzogchen? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

Essence of Mind: An Approach to Dzogchen — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Essence of Mind: An Approach to Dzogchen" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make
eISBN 978-1-58394-632-9 Copyright 1994 2013 by Jes Bertelsen Translation by - photo 1

eISBN: 978-1-58394-632-9

Copyright 1994, 2013 by Jes Bertelsen. Translation by Marianne Bentzen, 2013. Original Danish edition, Nuets himmel, published by Borgens Forlag, Mosedalvej 15, DK-2500 Copenhagen Valby, Denmark. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

Published by
North Atlantic Books
P.O. Box 12327
Berkeley, California 94712
Cover photo by Jens-Erik Risom
Cover design by Susan Quasha

Essence of Mind: An Approach to Dzogchen is sponsored by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences, a nonprofit educational corporation whose goals are to develop an educational and cross-cultural perspective linking various scientific, social, and artistic fields; to nurture a holistic view of arts, sciences, humanities, and healing; and to publish and distribute literature on the relationship of mind, body, and nature.

North Atlantic Books publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, call 800-733-3000 or visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com.

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the publisher upon request.

v3.1

Let your rigpa be vast as the open sky.

T ULKU U RGYEN TO THE AUTHOR

Contents
Essence of Mind An Approach to Dzogchen - image 2
Foreword
Essence of Mind An Approach to Dzogchen - image 3
Jes Bertelsen and Dzogchen
Picture 4

J es Bertelsen, DPhil, has, since 1982, dedicated himself fully to the study, practice, and teaching of meditation and spiritual development. In the same year, together with Hanne Kizach and a group of students, he established Vkstcenteret for arbejde, udvikling og meditation (the Center for Work, Growth, and Meditation), a thriving spiritual community that he continues to guide today.

In 1989, during a vacation in Nepal, Jes Bertelsen was introduced to Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. This encounter proved to be of crucial significance to Bertelsens life and work. From that first visit until Tulku Urgyens passing in 1996, Bertelsen visited Nepal regularly to receive further instructions, transmissions, and empowerments. Importantly, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche not only authorized him to teach all aspects of Dzogchen but also instructed him to present Dzogchen in a way that was suitable for his own culture and time. Jes Bertelsens life project is to realize this vision, and to add his voice to those of other teachers striving to establish authentic wisdom traditions in contemporary societies.

One of Jes Bertelsens concerns has been to promote a scientific and undogmatic approach to the study and practice of spiritual training systems and of Dzogchen in particular. He insists that it is not only possible but also necessary to distill the essential, universally valid aspects of spiritual training systems from their cultural and historical framings. To support that goal, Bertelsen and a group of his students have been active participants in collaborative projects with researchers at Aarhus University, not only serving as subjects for neuroscientific measurements, but also taking an active part in the development of experiments, data analysis, and the publication of results.

Jes Bertelsen teaches a few four-day courses each year, introducing students to Dzogchen. In addition, advanced training is offered to qualified students at Vkstcenterets retreat facility in the north of Jutland, beautifully situated overlooking the Lim-fjord, including longer retreats (one to six months most commonly, individual as well as group retreats). Bertelsen himself spends more than half of every year there, much of it on retreat, writing, and guiding individual students.

Since 1974, Jes Bertelsen has published twenty-four books covering a wide range of topics related to spiritual development, meditation, and Dzogchen. Beginning with Bevidsthedens inderste (The Heart of Consciousness, 1999), his books have primarily been concerned with Dzogchen, presented in a uniquely direct and accessible manner for contemporary Western audiences. Retrospectively, he considers that six of his books published between 1983 and 2008 form a single series dealing specifically with consciousness and its development through spiritual training.

The present book, Essence of Mind, is one of these. It can be seen as an open introduction to Jes Bertelsens perspective on the path from ordinary mind to the nondual, enlightened essence. The text discusses training in meditation and wordless prayer, in a language familiar to most Western readers. This distinguishes it from his subsequent books that deal more explicitly with Dzogchen. Through its undogmatic, open approach, based on the authors own experience, the text sheds light on foundational meditation practices that can uncover the source of consciousness: the essence of mind.

A more extensive biography and description of Jes Bertelsens vision for a contemporary spirituality can be found in the appendix, which is based on a series of interviews with the author.

M ARTIJN VAN B EEK AND J ENS -E RIK R ISOM

June, 2013

Preface
Essence of Mind An Approach to Dzogchen - image 5

T he following text is about the use of mind trainingthat is, wordless prayer and meditationto realize the nature and essence of consciousness. This is a practical handbook of spirituality.

The subject matter is divided into three main sections. The first section describes different methods for discovering the essence of consciousness and the techniques related to them. The second part seeks to describe the key principles of a training system that can lead to realization. The final section outlines the significance of continuous exercises, and more generally describes the way spiritual practice slowly permeates daily life, dreams, sleep, and death.

This book is not about self-development or psychotherapy or ego formation. Not because these three subjects are not extremely importantquite the opposite. In our culture today, psychotherapy and self-development practices offer central tools for increasing our capacity for mature personal processing. From the vantage point of many years experience of working with many different people, I am convinced that the tools of psychotherapy and self-development are important. They promote proper self-care, help people come to terms with unfinished and traumatic life experiences, and reclaim projected qualities or feelings such as power, anger, sexuality, and the development of creative expression. It is a prerequisite for a secure and sober process of spiritual training that these areas have been thoroughly developed and are consistently tended and balanced.

The emphasis of this book, however, is on the dimension of spirituality itself.

The original title of the English translation was Vast as the Sky, a poetic description of the presence and openness of the realized state of transdual consciousness.

Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Essence of Mind: An Approach to Dzogchen»

Look at similar books to Essence of Mind: An Approach to Dzogchen. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «Essence of Mind: An Approach to Dzogchen»

Discussion, reviews of the book Essence of Mind: An Approach to Dzogchen and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.