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Over the years Tarchin has presented a great number of meditation practices and themes for contemplation. Many of them can be found in his books and e-books but quite a number are yet unpublished. The contemplations posted here are categorized under five headings. Some practices bridge a number of categories and so they are listed more than once. General or Universal includes practices for healing and non-sectarian unfolding that will hopefully be useful to anyone from any background or tradition. From Various Buddhist Traditions contains practices that use the language and concepts of Buddhist teaching and prepare the ground for increasingly integrated and matured practice. Many of these explorations will be quite accessible to people from different religious backgrounds. Classical Tibetan Sadhanas contain practices inspired from the Tibetan tradition of Tantra but rewritten to provide a bridge to deep ecology and scientific understanding. Mature Practitioners contains explorations for people that have matured in their contemplative practice, have a good ethical foundation, a deepening familiarity with clear, calm, attentive, presence, and could benefit from some pithy hints and reminders of the work at hand. This section reverberates with the view, meditation and action of Mahamudra, Dzogchen and Zen. Inspirational Poems, Prayers and Pujas are not practices as such, but they can serve as seeds for contemplation and profound exploration.
Please feel free to browse any or all of these sections.
When you have found what you are interested in we suggest that you
print a paper copy and then, away from the computer,
in a place that supports contemplative investigation, enjoy your explorations.
General or Universal
Finger Dancing
–an exploration of mindful sensitivity in movement –
Finger dancing is a potentially rich contemplative exploration involving two people that can give one an expanded, non-verbal taste of the sensitivities that are possible in mindfulness practice. It is done in two steps: the first, on your own, and the second, done with a partner.
Download the full practice.
Touching the Earth in Six Prostrations
A profound practice, suitable for everyone integrating body, speech and mind to help expand our sense of the interconnectedness of all life.
Download the full practice.
A more extensive version of this (with 12 prostrations) is found in the section ‘Mature Practitioners’
Lovingkindness Toolbox
19 different methods for cultivating Read the full practice
Loving Kindness at Wangapeka (an ecological approach)
A way of cultivating loving kindness by means of appreciating the different types and categories of living beings that inhabit your daily world. Read the full practice
Integrating Family and Dharma Practice
A project for parents with young children who are grappling with the deep personal questions of how to integrate dharma practice with raising a family. Read the full practice
Touching the Mandala of Now – A Daily Yoga
This is a practice of deep healing and profound presence that couples breathing and sensing with a deepening appreciation for what is going on within us and around us. It was originally written in for a student who wanted a simple practice to help them stay grounded in the ordinary of everyday life. Read the full practice
Working With Difficult States
In Meditation, And In Daily Life
A few basic approaches for working with difficult states, both in meditation and in daily life. Read the full practice
Deep Healing
A guided contemplation, to be read out loud for a community of friends who wish to support the healing of one of their members. It begins, “Sometimes the most wonderful things to do are the simplest. Sitting together with friends. Breathing with the world and feeling our deep connection with all of nature.” Read the full practice
A Four-fold Practice for Living Well
– Stopping, Calming, Resting, Healing –
In Buddhist teaching, it is said that truth, or dharma, is good in the beginning, good in the middle and good at the end. Here is a fundamental dharma practice that I initially learned from Thich Nhat Hanh. I find it inspiring at many levels, from pragmatically useful to profoundly encouraging and affirming. It is definitely good in the beginning, in that it can help us deal with difficulties that crop up in our day to day lives. It is good in the middle in that it can remind us of the central work of awakening even as we engage in an expanding array of dharma practices. It is good right through to the end as it brings us back to the simplicity and straight forwardness of the path, and a life well lived. The practice can be summarized in four words: stopping, calming, resting and healing. Read the full practice
Six Contemplations for Entering the Path of Living Dharma
Here are six themes for contemplation that will reorient you to a life of dharma. Drawing on biology, ecology and holistic science, these could be thought of as modern equivalents of the Tibetan preliminary teachings on the “Four Thoughts to Turn the Mind Towards Dharma. Click here to download the practice in – PDF.
To read a longer essay that introduces these six contemplations, click here
From Various Buddhist Traditions
The Yoga of Eight Offerings
A profound daily practice of offering the best in ourselves to support all that we that value in the world. Read the full practice.
Ceremony for Beginning Anew
“Beginning Anew” is based on a Buddhist ceremony to help us let go of past difficulties and to move forward in a wholesome way. True beginning anew is both liberating and healing. It rests on a willingness to recognize shortcomings, to apologize, to understand and forgive, to let go and to walk on in love and clear seeing. Every moment is potentially a new beginning. Ultimately, non-clinging awareness is the experience of continually beginning anew.
Read the full practice
Vajrasattva’s Hundred Syllable Mantra:
a summation of the path
Vajrasattva represents the primordial state of pure and total presence the essence of body, speech and mind activity of all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. A distinctive aspect of this meditation is the hundred syllable mantra which can be understood in a variety of ways depending on the maturity of the practitioner. In this short essay I’d like to share with you an approach, or perhaps we should call it an explanation/understanding, that arose in the course of my own contemplations. It is not a fresh a translation but is more a modified rendition with poetic license. I am offering it for the benefit of those people already involved with Vajrasattva practice who may appreciate having their understanding of the meditation stretched a bit.
Read the entire 14 page PDF file.
Classical Tibetan Sadhanas
The Sadhana of Mahakarunika – Chenrezi
Prepared by Tarchin in 2012 and further refined in 2020, Chenrezi or Great Continuum Seeing – the union of wisdom and compassion, is probably the most popular and widely practiced meditation in Tibet. H.H. the Dalai Lama is considered by many to be a living embodiment of Chenrezi. This is a short pithy sadhana for realizing wisdom and compassion in the midst of ordinary living. Mahakarunika Chenrezi in PDF
The Sadhana of Buddha Amitabha
Composed by Tarchin in 2006, and revised 2021, Amitabha, the Buddha of boundless light and immeasurable love displays the wisdom of simultaneously understanding the infinite diversity and the profound unity, of all that exists. In essence, Amitabha is the innate bodhicitta or mind of awakening; in expression, the union of clear discernment and boundless loving-kindness. In many schools of Buddhism, Amitabha is especially practiced around the time of death and dying. Download the PDF
The Sadhana of Green Tara
Jetsun Dolma Ariya Tara, in green form, represents the union of wisdom and compassionate activity. In the deepest sense, Tara is the matrix of all life, the womb of becoming, the symbiotic communing of all living beings and life processes. She is the mystery of community-in-action. To realize her essence, is to realize the profound interdependency of all forms of life, and to enter a way of living that embodies great fearlessness, courage, deepening understanding and respect along with a vast array of capabilities for nourishing community in all its forms and manifestations. Download Green Tara in PDF
A Sadhana for Recognising the Natural Way of Abiding Through the Grace of Chenrezi
This is a longer more complex sadhana, for people who are familiar with, and feel at home in, the meditations of Tibetan Buddhism and who also gain inspiration from the knowledges and possibilities of western science. It is a summation of all the major Tibetan forms of practice; preparation meditation, yidam yoga, Madhyamaka, Mahamudra and Dzogchen, presented as one seamless whole. Many people have received teaching on this text from Tarchin. As this is still a work in progress, check here for the latest version. Tarchin is working on a commentary which will eventually be posted on GDT. Read the full practice in downloadable pdf
A Sadhana of Samantabhadra
In western understandings of Tibetan Buddhism the word sadhana is often translated as practice and has become largely associated with specified sequences of prayers, and creative imagination, blended with mantra, ritual, and silent contemplation. This particular sadhana is much broader than that. Think of it as a praxis – an integrative way of living – a subtle hint from one heart to another that when activated, can lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of life and living and what it means to be a compassionate, fully engaged and thoroughly awake human being. Download “A Sadhana of Samantabhadra” in PDF
Mature Practitioners
The Heart Breath of Timeless Living
Pith Instruction: A bare-bones path of awakening for mature practitioners.
Read the full practice
Touching the Earth in Six or Twelve Prostrations
A profound practice integrating body, speech and mind to help expand our sense of the interconnectedness of all life.
Read the full practice
Essential Practice
Essential practice => a way of living that can be fruitfully applied in whatever situation or circumstance we find ourselves in. Read the full Practice
Primordial Middle Way
Profound teaching (dharma) is revealed in the fullness of our living. A pithy summary of the entire path of dharma. Read the full practice.
Naming the Unnameable
A guided contemplation on radical interbeingness – the complex multi-realmed dancing of body, speech and mind; inner and outer; self and other, that together are continuously birthing the living experience of our lives. Read the full practice.
Inspirational
Poems, Prayers and Pujas
Reflections and Prayers: Nurturing a Life of Natural Awakening
A revised (2021) and extended collection of daily contemplations, reflections and meditations in language that will inspire people from a wide range of traditions.
Download Daily Contemplations PDF
Morning Puja
A poem of natural awakening and living dharma. Download Morning Puja pdf here.
A Circle of Blessing
An eco-poem prayer for all life. Download A Circle of Blessing
Silent Prayer
A silent contemplation/practice. Download Silent Prayer
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