Daily Practices

In the Tibetan tradition there exists a genre of texts called gyun-kyer (rgyun khyer), which literally means ‘continuous practice’, but which we translate as daily practice. Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo says in his daily practice of Palchen Düpa:

“The first practice is a daily practice for beginners who have not yet done the approach and accomplishment [on retreat]. For those who have completed the approach and accomplishment, and have attained clarity and stability in the generation phase of the main practice, it would be excellent if they were to follow the approach of the body maṇḍala.”
— The Single Mudrā, A Daily Practice for the Awesome Ones’ Assembly (Palchen Düpa), the Heart Practice of the Awareness-Holders

Thus one can say that, in general, there are two aims for these daily practices:

  • For beginners who need a simple practice and do not yet understand full-fledged sadhanas, or who do not have the time to practice more elaborate sadhanas.

  • For experienced practitioners who have already completd retreats on a certain deity and are continuing the practice in daily life, and who no longer need the longer sadhanas, which they have presumably internalized.

Furthermore, sometimes these very concise texts are also used in elaborate drupchen practices, for example during the Tukdrub Barche Kunsel drupchen of the Chokling Tersar.

Here we have collected all the daily sadhanas of the Longchen Nyingtik in one place. Although not strictly speaking a gyun-kyer, we have also added the concise ngöndro by Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, which is sometimes referred to as the “short Longchen Nyingtik Ngöndro”.

 

Tantric text warning

Readers are reminded that according to Vajrayāna Buddhist tradition there are restrictions and commitments concerning tantra. Practitioners who are not sure if they should read translations in this section are advised to consult the authorities of their lineage. The responsibility for reading these texts or for sharing them with others—and hence the consequences—lies in the hands of readers.

Texts

Ngöndro

Rigdzin Düpa

Dukngal Rangdrol

  • Rigdzin Lodrö Samdrub, A Daily Sādhana for the Great Compassionate One, the Natural Liberation of Suffering (ཐུགས་རྗེ་ཆེན་པོ་སྡུག་བསྔལ་རང་གྲོལ་གྱི་རྒྱུན་འཁྱེར། རིག་འཛིན་བློ་གྲོས་བསམ་འགྲུབ།)

  • Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, The Refined Essence of Compassion: A Daily Sādhana for the Natural Liberation of Suffering, the Secret Practice of the Great Compassionate One (གསང་སྒྲུབ་ཐུགས་རྗེ་ཆེན་པོ་སྡུག་བསྔལ་རང་གྲོལ་ཀྱི་རྒྱུན་ཁྱེར་ཐུགས་རྗེའི་ཡང་ཞུན་)

Palchen Düpa

  • Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, The Single Mudrā: A Daily Practice for the Awesome Ones’ Assembly (Palchen Düpa), the Heart Practice of the Awareness-Holders (རིག་འཛིན་ཐུགས་སྒྲུབ་དཔལ་ཆེན་འདུས་པའི་རྒྱུན་ཁྱེར་ཕྱག་རྒྱ་གཅིག་པ་)

  • Dorje Düdul, Secret Instructions, A Daily Practice for the Awesome Mahottara Heruka དཔལ་ཆེན་ཆེ་མཆོག་ཧེ་རུ་ཀའི་རྒྱུན་འཁྱེར་གབ་པའི་ཡིག་ཆུང་། (རྡོ་རྗེ་བདུད་འདུལ)

Hayagrīva

Vajrakīlaya

  • Dorje Düdul, An Easy to Practice Activity Manual for the Awesome Vajrakīlaya: Overpowering the Forces of Māra (དཔལ་ཆེན་རྡོ་རྗེ་ཕུར་པ་བདུད་དཔུང་ཟིལ་གནོན་གྱི་འཕྲིན་ལས་བྱང་བུ་ཤིན་ཏུ་འཁྱེར་བདེ་རུ་བཀོད་པ།

  • Khenpo Ngakchung, A Concise Daily Practice of Vajrakīlaya (ཕུར་པའི་རྒྱུན་ཁྱེར་བསྡུས་པ།)

Takhyung Barwa

  • Chatral Rinpoche, The Condensed Essence: A Daily Practice of the Wrathful Guru Takhyung Barwa (བླ་མ་དྲག་པོ་རྟ་ཁྱུང་འབར་བའི་རྒྱུན་ཁྱེར་སྙིང་པོ་དྲིལ་བ)

  • Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche, A Concise Daily Practice of the Wrathful Lama Takhyung Barwa

    • English translation: A Concise Daily Practice of the Wrathful Lama Takhyung Barwa, translated under the directions of Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche by Richard Barron.

Yumka Dechen Gyalmo

Zhitro