During October of 2024, we released a Wisdom Podcast episode every Friday in celebration of the release of the collector’s edition of Blazing Splendor. These episodes featured special guests intimately connected to the volume and Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. Read on to discover more about each episode and its guests before diving in and listening to each.
Blazing Splendor | A Wisdom Podcast Series #1
Marcia Binder Schmidt: Meeting Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (#194)
Published October 4, 2024
In the first episode of this celebratory series of episodes, Wisdom Podcast host Daniel Aitken is joined by Marcia Binder Schmidt, one of the editors of Blazing Splendor and a student of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. During this episode, she and Daniel discuss:
• how she began to practice Tibetan Buddhism;
• her impactful first meeting with Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche;
• how the book Blazing Splendor came to be;
• her involvement in preserving Rinpoche’s teachings through books; and
• so much more.
Blazing Splendor | A Wisdom Podcast Series #2
Erik Pema Kunsang: Timeless Teachings with Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (#195)
Published October 11, 2024
In this second episode of our celebratory Blazing Splendor Wisdom Podcast Series host Daniel Aitken is joined by Erik Pema Kunsang. Enjoy hearing Erik share profound experiences with Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche in “Timeless Teachings with Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche,” including a story he’s never shared before.
During this episode, Daniel and Erik discuss:
• how Rinpoche led him to the realization of the mind’s true nature;
• Rinpoche’s unique teaching methods;
• his diverse skills and humility;
• the enduring influence Rinpoche has had on Erik and countless others; and
• so much more.
Blazing Splendor | A Wisdom Podcast Series #3
Tsoknyi Rinpoche: Insights from My Father and Teacher, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (#196)
Published
Welcome to the third episode of our celebratory Blazing Splendor Wisdom Podcast series! This episode was recorded earlier this year as a live Wisdom Dharma Chat where host Daniel Aitken was joined by special guest, Tsoknyi Rinpoche. During this episode, Rinpoche shares deep insights from his father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche’s teachings, along with personal anecdotes in celebration of the release of the collector’s edition of Blazing Splendor.
You’ll hear Daniel and Rinpoche discuss:
• Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche’s dual role in Rinpoche’s life as parent and teacher;
• Rinpoche’s handshake method, and his unique style of teaching;
• the most valuable teaching and advice that Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche gave to Rinpoche; and
• much more!
Blazing Splendor | A Wisdom Podcast Series #4
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche: Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche’s Legacy (#197)
Published
In this, the fourth and final episode of our celebratory series, Wisdom Podcast host Daniel Aitken is joined by special guest Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche! Listen as Rinpoche guides you on a journey throughout his life, beginning with his early memories of his father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, the impact his father had on him and his own teaching, all the way to his father’s passing. This episode is also available as a special video podcast. You’ll hear Rinpoche:
• share memories from his childhood in Kathmandu and the Himalayas;
• discuss his initiation into meditation by his father to help manage his panic attacks;
• his father’s teaching style and how it changed as he got older;
• Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche’s tukdam;
• the influence that his father had on him, his own practice, and teachings; and;
• so much more.
About Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche & Blazing Splendor
Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (1920–1996) is recognized as one of the greatest twentieth-century masters of Tibetan Buddhism and one of the first to bring the essential teachings of Buddhism beyond Tibet. Born into an illustrious family, he took as the core of his own practice the indivisibility of the three great traditions: the Dzogchen view of primordial purity and perfection, the Mahamudra view of mental nondoing, and the Middle Way view of holding no mental constructs. After fleeing Tibet shortly before the Dalai Lama, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche devoted the rest of his life to trying to keep the spirit of the classical Tibetan spiritual system alive. Blazing Splendor is a translation of the name he was given by the head of the Kagyu order of Tibetan Buddhism, the name referring to the qualities of a realized master. He was a teacher without peer, who transformed the lives of those who came to him from the world over, among them Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Tara Bennett-Goleman, and Lama Surya Das.
“Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche was among Tibetan Buddhism’s greatest teachers of the twentieth century. His memoir, Blazing Splendor, invites us to join him as he looks back over a life that put him at the center of an unparalleled spiritual abundance. Through his unblinking eyes we meet remarkable contemplative adepts. And through the lens of his awakened awareness, we see the world from a fresh, eye-opening perspective. It is a sweeping account that shares with readers a world where miracles, mystery, and deep insight are the order of the day—a world as reflected through the open, lucid quality of Tulku Urgyen’s mind.”—from the foreword by Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence
An insightful memoir illuminating the profound experiences and magical world of a Tibetan Buddhist master.
Blazing Splendor is a rare and profound gift: an intimate view into the world of one of the most celebrated and influential meditation masters of the last century. In these memoirs, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (1920–1996) recounts with incredible lucidity and humility his unique spiritual and familial heritage, his training in Tibetan Buddhism, and remarkable encounters with some of the most renowned masters of Tibet. This wide-reaching narrative stretches across generations to provide insight into the lived experience of contemplative adepts and into life before and after the Cultural Revolution, which left Tibet changed forever.
Born the great-grandson of the seminal terma-revealer Chokgyur Lingpa and a holder of both Nyingma and Kagyu lineages, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche tells us of his unique family legacy, in which each generation has been saturated with spiritual accomplishments. He tells of how he, in time, became responsible for learning and then transmitting this lineage of Buddhist teachings, which continues today in the flourishing activities of his surviving sons Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, and Tsoknyi Rinpoche. Blazing Splendor is a window into the life of a Mahamudra and Dzogchen master that illuminates the transmission of sacred teachings in a modern world—a world we inhabit too, where the miraculous and the mundane exist side by side.
This special, revised edition of the modern classic includes a handsome slipcase and features new images and color illustrations.
“Reading Blazing Splendor, I am transported back to my childhood at Nagi Gompa, where my father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, shared these captivating stories of our family lineage and the remarkable beings that traversed his extraordinary life. The way these stories emanated from him speaks to the very essence of Dzogchen—heart wide open, ordinary and natural with a clarity unobstructed by details of place and time. As a child, I had no idea of the incredible impact and inspiration these living stories would have on my own life and the potential they could set alight in others. These profound teachings, hidden in plain sight, and offered with such warm-hearted generosity, make clear his unceasing devotion to his own teachers, and radiate the wisdom of the nine yanas.”—Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
“Devotion is the core and essence of the precious Vajrayana path. If you want to hear and feel that devotion expressed in the clearest, most inspiring, and most eloquent possible way, you can’t do better than read these wonderful memoirs of the great Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. Not only did he himself embody that devotion, but his personal stories introduce us intimately to some of the past century’s greatest living masters. This is truly a must-read for Vajrayana practitioners.”—Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche