Tag Archives: Yuthok the Younger

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.

‘The Man with the Turquoise Roof’: Spirits as Patients and how the Father of Tibetan Medicine got his Name

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The statue of Yuthok the Younger at Yuthok Ling temple at Pure Land Farms, Topanga.

The Tibetan physician and tantric yogi Yuthok Yönten Gönpo is one of the most important figures in the history of Tibetan medicine or Sowa Rigpa, ‘The Science of Healing’ (Yuthok is pronounced a bit like the English words ‘you’ tock’. The th represents aspiration rather than a dipthong, so you should use a breathy tah sound as in the English word ‘top’, rather than a th sound like in ‘thought’ or ‘these’!). Born in or around 1126 in Western Tibet, Yuthok is one of Sowa Rigpa’s chief systematizers. He is widely regarded as the author of the Gyü Zhi or ‘Four Medical Tantras’, the four-volume Tibetan-language medical textbook which still holds pride of place in Tibetan medical curricula today. Yuthok’s influence on the history of Tibetan medicine is pervasive, so pervasive that there are two of him. Two key figures in Sowa Rigpa history share the name Yuthok Yönten Gönpo. The eleventh century Yuthok pictured above is referred to as Yuthok Sarma or ‘Yuthok the Younger’. Yuthok Nyingma or ‘Yuthok the Elder’, on the other hand, refers to a different hereditary doctor from the eighth century, who is said to be the biological ancestor of Yuthok the Younger. Yuthok the Younger is also understood to be Yuthok the Elder’s reincarnation. There is a close connection between these two figures and their life-stories often blur considerably. Both Yuthok the Younger and Elder are celebrated for their accomplishments in medicine and meditation. Both are remembered as having been consummate ngak-men or ‘tantric yogi-doctors’: individuals equally trained in medical science and tantric yoga and ritual. The biographies of both Yuthoks are hagiographies – in both his younger and older incarnation, Yuthok appears as both a highly-skilled physician and as a highly realized siddha, a tantric saint or adept capable of reading minds and performing miracles. Both Yuthoks are said to have achieved the ‘Rainbow Body’, to have dissolved into light upon their death.

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