Rob Preece Books

The preliminary practices of Tantra aren't a hurdle to be gotten through in order to get somewhere else; they're an extraordinarily rich collection of practices which have much to offer as a means of cultivating and maturing the practitioner's psychological ground. They can enable experiences to unfold, and they can clear the way when there seem to be problems or hindrances practitioners are struggling with. In Preparing for Tantra, Preece draws on his experience as a Tantric Buddhist practitioner, meditation teacher, and psychotherapist to explain how to make the preliminary practices psychologically meaningful and spiritually transformative. He examines each of the practices with an eye to revealing how they may be used to heal and transform psychological trauma and offers practical suggestions for integrating them into daily life—as well as ensuring that practitioners are prepared psychologically, emotionally, and energetically to start out safely on the tantric path. Preparing for Tantra is an accessible guidebook for engaging in ngondro, the preliminary practices that are done before engaging in a long tantric retreat. These practices are also powerful tools for purifying negativities and alleviating guilt, healing difficult experiences, and enriching our minds with goodness so that we will be able to progress in our Dharma practice and gain realizations of the path.

Lama Chöpa serves as a central practice of guru devotion within the Gelugpa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, revered for its significance and popularity. Compiled by the first Panchen Lama, it reflects the teachings of Je Tsongkhapa, the Gelugpa founder. This text became integral to the spiritual life of monks in Tibet and Mongolia, with many memorizing and reciting it daily, both individually and in group settings. Its widespread use underscores its importance in fostering devotion and connection within the tradition.

When circumstances are challenging how do we react? This book offers methods to help us develop greater inner strength and openness to life by changing the habit of what Rob Preece calls "self-preoccupation"—the tendency to act from a narrow perspective dominated by insecurity and isolation. When we learn to look outside this mentality and truly cherish others as well as ourselves, we create a happier, relaxed mind and more fulfilling relationships, as well as realizing our life's purpose in a meaningful way. A long-time Buddhist practitioner and psychotherapist, Preece shares traditional meditations and practices for awakening the mind and heart, including tonglen, but he also offers a Jungian perspective on these and his own sense—cultivated during many years experience—of the ways in which Westerners may need to re-see these practices to benefit most from them. Preece's insightful fusion of East and West will help readers tap inner resources of compassion and integrity in order to flourish in times of uncertainty, and ultimately generate the altruistic aspiration to realize the awakened mind for the benefit of all living beings. Preece offers meditation practices at the end of many chapters to help the reader digest and integrate the book's information.

This book masterfully clarifies the nature of tantric practice. In contrast to the approaches of conventional religion, tantra does not attempt to soothe the turmoil of existence with consoling promises of heaven and salvation. The tantric practitioner chooses to confront the bewildering and chaotic forces of fear, aggression, desire, and pride, and to work with them in such a way that they are channeled into creative expression, loving relationships, and wisely engaged forms of life. In order to make the processes of tantra psychologically intelligible for a contemporary reader, Rob Preece makes judicious use of the work of modern psychotherapy, forging a compelling link between a Western tradition that hearkens back to the alchemical traditions of our own past and the comparably alchemical strategies of Tibetan Buddhist tantric practices. In keeping with the pragmatic and therapeutic aims of both psychotherapy and Buddhist meditation, The Psychology of Buddhist Tantra never loses sight of the central importance of applying these ideas to the concrete realities of day-to-day life. By illuminating the richly symbolic language of tantra through the intermediate language of psychology, The Psychology of Buddhist Tantra points to the transformative nature of tantric practices.

If you have been practicing Buddhism for a while, why do you still have so many problems? And how do you balance the sometimes different needs of spiritual and psychological perspectives? Rob Preece draws on his personal experience—over two decades as a psychotherapist and many years as a meditation teacher—to explore and map the psychological influences on our struggle to awaken. For psychological and spiritual health, acceptance of imperfection is key. Wisdom does not always come as a flash of inspiration but from the slow, often painful, workings of experience. As we detach from our ideals of perfection and develop our acceptance of imperfection, our love and compassion can grow in ways that are both psychologically and spiritually healthy. The Wisdom of Imperfection delves into this journey of individuation in Buddhist life, articulating the psychological processes beneath the traditional path of the Bodhisattva.

In a galaxy where Earth has retreated to a small sphere around Sol, and massive corporations rule the outer stars, just about anything can be bought or sold, including teenage girls. Kari Lorne lived a boring life in a broken-down lab on a run-down planetoid until the Security Corporation decided to eliminate the competition and pick up some slaves. Told by her mother to help her sister, Kari vows to find where she was taken and set her free... but she's got problems of her own... including being converted to a vampire, with a price on her head. Fast-paced space action in a dystopic world where Kari must use every bit of her intelligence, her martial arts training and her leadership skills to survive.

A psychologist and longtime practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism shows how emotions relate to spiritual practice--that our feeling life is truly at the heart of our awakening. The realm of emotion is one of those areas where Buddhism and Western psychology are often thought to be at odds: Are emotions to be valued, examined, worked with as signs leading us to deeper self-knowledge? Or are they something to be ignored and avoided as soon as we recognize them? Rob Preece feels that neither of those extremes is correct. He charts a path through the emotions as they relate to Buddhist practice, showing that though emotions are indeed "skandhas" (elements that make up the illusory self) according to the Buddhist teaching, there is a good deal to be learned from these skandhas, and paying attention to their content contributes not only to psychological health but to deep insight into the nature of reality. He draws on his own experiences with emotions and meditation, through both his training in Tibetan Buddhism and psychotherapy, to show how working with emotions can be a complement to meditation practice.

Am Beginn unseres Weges erleben wir das Fühlen als Teil unseres Alltags. Auf dem Weg ist unser Gefühlsleben das wichtigste Material zur Transformation. Beim Erwachen zu unserer innewohnenden Natur ist Fühlen genauso anwesend, ist aber durch eine radikale Transformation gegangen. Unsere Fähigkeit zu fühlen ist das Herz unserer Erleuchtung, transformiert in eine strahlende Qualität glückseliger Weisheit, die von den universellen Qualitäten von Liebe, Mitgefühl, Freude und Gelassenheit durchdrungen ist.

Anglický psychoterapeut a učitel meditace Rob Preece v této jedinečné knize zkoumá způsoby, jimiž naše individuální psychologie ovlivňuje vlastní snahu o probuzení. Čerpá přitom ze své osmnáctileté terapeutické praxe i bohatých zkušeností s výukou meditace. Za klíčový faktor duchovního i psychologického zdraví považuje přijetí vlastní nedokonalosti. Ptáte se sami sebe, proč máte pořád tolik problémů, ačkoli se už delší dobu věnujete buddhismu anebo jiné duchovní praxi? Máte pocit, že se vám nedaří udržovat rovnováhu mezi svými duchovními a psychologickými potřebami? Láska a soucit se rodí z našeho porozumění vlastní omylnosti, nikoli z ideálů dokonalosti. Také moudrost nepřichází vždy jako náhlý záblesk inspirace, nýbrž jako výsledek mnohaletých zkušeností, mnohdy bolestných. Moudrost nedokonalosti se zabývá cestou individuace v životě buddhisty a zkoumá psychologický proces probíhající pod povrchem tradiční stezky bódhisattvy. Kniha reaguje na dosud neuspokojenou poptávku mezi buddhisty, ale určitě zaujme i nebuddhisticky orientované čtenáře zajímající se o jungovskou psychologii. Přeložil Petr Lisý. Edice Mangalam. „Moudrost nedokonalosti představuje příkladnou rovnováhu mezi závazkem k buddhistické praxi a porozuměním hlubinným skutečnostem naší psychiky. Kniha je určena každému, kdo chce pochopit, proč stále sabotuje to, co má nejraději.“ Stephen Batchelor 2. vyd. červen 2017.