From now through Saturday, my book
PRONAOS: Reflections on the Preliminary Practices of Buddhist Tantra From a Western Perspective is available for free on Amazon Kindle. If you've been waiting for a good opportunity to check it out, now is the time!
"This book is a wonderful, wonderful gift that offers profound inspiration and advice for dharma practitioners or anyone interested spiritual growth in general. Drawing parallels at each stage with Western spiritual and mythological traditions, Greg Kaminsky distills the preliminary considerations and practices of Buddhist Tantra in an immediate and relatable way. Regardless of what we bring to the table, our age, stage in life, or past baggage, Kaminsky implores us to begin again – starting simply with our desire to be better people, and our desire to help other beings – and to connect with the confidence that we possess the capacity for enlightened wisdom and compassion even if we aren’t feeling it right now. From this point Kaminsky guides us through the foundational considerations of Buddhist view – Four Noble Truths, Six Perfections, Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind to Dharma – with fresh insight, offering practical and approachable ways for us to consider their presence (or absence) in our lives and to be changed by them. I love his description of Patience as “calmly abiding in circumstances we intrinsically don’t prefer, find irritating, annoying, frustrating, and typically make us react with anger, aversion and complete self-concern.” – Wow. That about sums it up for the patience-challenged! Kaminsky then walks through each of the 4 preliminary Ngondro practices weaving teachings from his Lama, Traktung Khepa, corollaries from Western traditions, and his honest human experience of starting out daunted by 111,111 repetitions of each and the growth in view, faith and discipline needed to approach them one day at a time – building from a handful of prostrations a day to 500 and more. With this direct experience of then completing the practices, Kaminsky testifies to their life-changing effect and how we too can experience this. Coming full circle, Kaminsky finishes to book inviting us to start where we are and take up the way: “It’s time to undertake the Great Work, create the Philosopher’s Stone, find the Holy Grail, and rebuild the Temple of Solomon. So, let us begin.”. Indeed." - Amazon reviewer
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08X3WMHND?ref_=cm_sw_r_apann_ts_JKW5515A6CWWWZR1C6MY
