Mahayana Mind-Training
The mahayana
mind-training tradition is
an important part of Tibetan Buddhism. The practices from this
tradition use a combination of scriptural citation and logical
reasoning to move one from a limited, narrow and self-cherishing mind
to a boundless, open and altruistic mind.
Foundational Practices of the Vajrayana
Especially
emphasized in the Kagyu
tradition are the so-called preliminary practices (
sngon 'dro) that should be
established as the foundation all other vajrayana practices. In
particular, Kyobpa Jigten Sumgön asserted in
The Single Intention that "Whereas
others consider the higher practices to be profound, we assert that the
preliminaries are the truly profound." There are many different ways of
delineating the preliminary practices (and some traditions include more
practices than others) but they are generally divided into the ordinary
preliminaries and the extraordinary preliminaries. According to the
Drigung Kagyu tradition:
