Tag Archives: Sowa Rigpa Institute

A New Book and Online Course On the Preliminary Practices of the Yuthok Nyingthig

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Greetings! I realized that I did not announce here the publication of the last book I worked on with Dr Nida Chenagtsang for Sky Press or the release of an interview I did connected with the same book, and so I thought that, seeing as Sowa Rigpa Institute is about to launch a twelve-month online course connected with the same publication, now would be a good time to do so!

About four months ago, Sky Press published Dr Nida Chenagtsang’s ‘Foundations of Vajrayana Buddhism: A Guide to Yuthok’s Healing Path’. This 682 page work represents a synthesis of well over a decade of Dr Nida’s teachings on the Ngöndro or foundational, preliminary practices of the Yuthok Nyingthig. The Yuthok Nyingthig (the ‘Heart Teachings of Yuthok’) is a complete system of Vajrayana and Dzogchen teachings which is uniquely connected with Tibetan Medicine or Sowa Rigpa. The system was first transmitted in 1186 by its namesake, Yuthok Yönten Gönpo the Younger, who is revered as an embodiment of Medicine Buddha and as one of Tibet’s most important medical luminaries. ‘Foundations of Vajrayana Buddhism’ is a distillation of Dr Nida’s wealth of experience as a practitioner, teacher, and lineage-holder of the Yuthok Nyingthig. It offers the most comprehensive explanation ever provided in English to-date of Yuthok’s Ngöndro and Outer Guru Yoga meditation practices and it is packed with really essential, practical information and resources for students who would like to start engaging with Yuthok’s foundational teachings either as part of daily practice or in the context of traditional seven-day closed retreats.

Starting from Sunday, March 1st 2026, Sowa Rigpa Institute will be offering a twelve-month online course focused on Yuthok’s Common and Uncommon Ngöndro practices, in honour of the current Fire Horse Year, which, as it happens, is the same element and animal year in which Yuthok the Younger was born and in which he first transmitted the Yuthok Nyingthig. This year-long training will give students the opportunity to work through Dr Nida’s new book with a cohort of fellow students, in tandem with regular instruction from Dr Nida himself and various other teachers (including me!). Classes will be held every Sunday of the year. The course will involve various live online classes across each month: lectures on practice and theory of Yuthok’s Ngöndro or foundational, preliminary meditation training from Dr Nida, guided practice sessions with other experienced teacher-practitioners focused on the specific practices for each month, and a monthly class with me where we will dive into the history, key concepts, and language of Yuthok’s Ngöndro. As part of the course, students will receive access to Dr Nida’s book and will study it individually and in groups, with the help of study guides and other textual and audio-visual resources. The course will follow a similar format to the 100 day Yuthok Nyingthig training which Dr Nida offered online at the start of the COVID pandemic, but we will have considerably more time to really dive into each of Yuthok’s Ngöndro procedures across the course of the Tibetan year.

If you’re interested in possibly joining the course, you can find more information about it here. Our first session, this Sunday, on March 1st 2026, is free to join without registering if you’d like to pop in before making a decision.

Further information about Dr Nida’s book can also be found here.

And if you’re interested in hearing some of my thoughts on the process of working on this book as an editor and translator, and on the Yuthok Nyingthig Ngöndro practices more generally, feel free to check out this recent interview I did with Steve and his flaming beard at the Guru Viking Podcast.

Foundations of Sowa Rigpa: Dr Nida’s New Book on the Root Tantra of Tibetan Medicine

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It’s been a very long time since I last posted, in part because I’ve been working for a good while on a Sky Press publication which is now finally available for purchase, so consider this an announcement! The book in question is called ‘Foundations of Sowa Rigpa’: A Guide to the Root Tantra of Tibetan Medicine’ and it offers a wonderful distillation of Dr Nida’s twenty-five odd years of teaching Tibetan medicine to students from all over the world. The book presents Dr Nida’s extensive commentary on the six chaptersof the first and most foundational ‘Tantra’ (volume or treatise) of the Tibetan medical textbook known as the Gyü Zhi (‘The Four Medical Tantras’). Compiled in the twelfth century CE, this four-volume manual still forms the better part of Sowa Rigpa curricula around the world today. ‘Foundations of Sowa Rigpa’ offers over 600 pages of original commentary, translations, charts and diagrams, and other resources for students. I served as editor and translator for the book, working closely with Dr Nida to condense together hours of oral transcripts and various translations into text that could serve as a companion volume to the Root Tantra and introduction to Sowa Rigpa more generally. In preparing the book, Dr Nida, my colleagues at Sky Press and I aimed to create something that would be useful and accessible to both casual readers and current or future students of Sowa Rigpa. Our goal was to produce a textbook that could support non-Tibetan students in their study of Sowa Rigpa and Tibetan language on the one hand, and provide resources and inspiration for Tibetan and Himalayan Sowa Rigpa students and practitioners who work in cross-cultural contexts and engage with English-speaking students, colleagues, and patients on the other. We hope that the book will help students to understand and internalize the core principles of Tibetan medicine, that it will help them to understand how the individual volumes and sections of the Gyü Zhi relate to one another and to Tibetan and global healing traditions more broadly, and that, above all, it will inspire in readers a profound appreciation and reverence for Sowa Rigpa, and help them to live healthier and happier lives and benefit others as well.

One of the most striking and unique features of this book and Dr Nida’s teaching is the strong emphasis he places on making Sowa Rigpa relevant to individual patients’ and healers’ lives. I’m delighted that we can finally share the book with the world and I am certain it will be of interest and benefit to a wide range of readers. You can see the front and back covers, read the contents list, view a few sample pages, read the Introduction, and read a little about Dr Nida here, on the Sky Press website.

Both the physical and e-book versions of the text will be available for purchase from Monday, February 12th 2024 (Orders made between now and Monday will receive a pre-order discount as well!). Purchase of the e-book includes access to an online mini-course hosted through the Sowa Rigpa Institute as well, which includes printable versions of key diagrams in the book as well as several extra audio-visual resources.

Steve James of the Guru Viking podcast just did a great interview with Dr Nida about the book as well, which is a great listen:


Losar Tashi Delek and much love to you all, and please watch this space for more regular posts in the new Wood Dragon year! I have a bunch of unfinished blog post drafts to share with you on all kinds of topics and I remain deeply grateful for your continued interest and support.