“Warm and accessible, yet profound and insightful. Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche offers compelling advice for our times. This book is a treasure of timeless wisdom that today is needed more than ever.”

—Cher

“My friend and teacher Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche is a seasoned and authentic Dzogchen master. He has written a book that throws a lifeline to all of us struggling in the sea of ignorance, desire, and hatred. As he says, ‘Dharma is not a hobby,’ but it is a very serious business indeed. Dharma can save us from the ocean of forgetfulness so that we may remember who we really are: beings of light, love, and wisdom. Complete liberation is possible if we do the work and guaranteed if we follow our teacher’s advice. Rinpoche takes us through the stages of Buddhist practice leading to the joy and freedom of the Great Perfection, Dzogchen. Rinpoche emphasizes the necessity of embracing the truths of impermanence and dependent origination as the sources of our future enlightenment. This is a truly inspiring book for all practitioners.”

—Richard Gere

“Here we learn how to truly appreciate all of life—in full sadness and full happiness—with the simple recipe of being calm, kind, and aware, and full of joy in everything.”

—Piet Hut, professor of astrophysics and head of the program in Interdisciplinary Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

“Different traditions differ in how they understand and use the term mindfulness, yet they agree on the nondual nature of mind and the need for authentic instruction and practice. As venerable Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche describes in this elegant, succinct, and extremely useful primer on essential Dharma as a way of being, there are many different methods in the universe of meditation, but in the end—and from the beginning—those that are authentic and trustworthy serve one purpose, and that is realized, embodied wakefulness.”

—Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Full Catastrophe Living and Meditation Is Not What You Think