How to Perform Tibetan Buddhist Meditation

Tibetan Buddhism offers a great variety of ways to meditate. Generally, Shambhala and Diamond Way offer practices that Westerners find less foreign. The Rainbow Light Meditation is one of the simpler forms of Tibetan Buddhist meditation.

Things You'll Need

• Tibetan Buddhist Teacher
• Comfortable, cotton clothing
• Comfortable, straight-backed chair

Instructions

Tibetan Buddhist Meditation

1. 

   Practice Rainbow Light meditation. Although most Tibetan Buddhists being each day's mediation with Guru Yoga, it is allowed to begin with a simpler Rainbow Light practice.

2. 

   Sit upright in a comfortable chair. Place feet flat on the floor. Sit with a relaxed posture. Pull chin lightly in toward your chest.

3. 

   Rest your right hand on your left hand, palms up, thumb tips just touching.

4. 

   Begin to bring your mind to calmness. Attend to the ceaseless air as you breathe in and out through your nose. Let all thought fall away without judgment. Distractions from within and from without come and go. Let them do just that.

5. 

   As you gain distance from all distractions, including emotions that trouble or cause any form of attachment, know that this is the sure path to helping others, to Buddhahood.

6. 

   Notice that a very small light of rainbow colors is seated at your heart level. Experience the light as it gradually grows and fills your entire body and being. All obstacles, physical and otherwise, dissolve into the Rainbow Light.

7. 

   Radiate the Rainbow Light from your being into every direction, toward every being. As the radiance encounters everything, all obstacles dissolve. The world is radiant and joyful, a place of limitless expansion and potential. Radiate as long as it feels right to do so.

8. 

   Ending the practice, the Rainbow Light radiates back to you from the world. Feel your body shine and then dissolve, with nothing remaining but pure awareness. No form, no end.

9. 

   Experience the world reappear, energy now radiates. Your body and the world is full of the possibilities to help other beings. Wish that this perfection you realize will benefit others, removing all suffering, bringing complete joy.

Tips & Warnings

• Find a Shambhala or Diamond Way center near you. The Three Jewels of Buddhism are the Buddha, the Dharma (religious duty) and the Sangha (practice with others)

• Remember, though, that Buddhism in any form, is rooted in foreign cultures

• Proceed with open eyes and mind

Resources

• Tibetan Buddhism for Western Students
• Meditation in Tibetan Buddhism
• A View on Buddhism
• Buddhism Today Magazine
• Rainbow Light Meditation