Tibetan Yoga: Principles and Practices

A visual presentation of the origins, principles and practices of Tibetan yoga

Tibetan yoga is the hidden treasure at the heart of the Tibetan Tantric Buddhist tradition: a spiritual and physical practice in pursuit of an expanded experience of the human body and its energetic and cognitive potential.

Ian A. Baker progressively introduces the core principles and practices of Tibetan yoga in this pioneering overview. In addition to meditations, visualizations and practices for the breath and body, these include elements rather less familiar to yoga initiates in the West, including sexual yoga; dream yoga or lucid dreaming; and yoga practices enhanced by psychoactive plant or mineral substances. Such techniques facilitate the individual’s journey towards transcendence of the human self and suffering, and ultimately to Buddhist enlightenment.

Baker draws on contemporary scientific research and contemplative and humanitarian traditions to enable the reader to understand these practices. Tibetan Yoga includes contemporary ethnographic photography and works of Himalayan art that have never been published before, as well as illustrations of yogic practice and theory from historical books of instruction. It will appeal to students and practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as anyone interested in mind–body medicine, Tantric art and the ethnography and cultural traditions of the Himalayas.

Contents List

Foreword by His Holiness the 17th Karmapa Ogyen Thinley Dorje • Foreword by the venerable Bhakha Tulku Pema Rigdzin Rinpoche • Introduction • I. Outer, Inner, Secret: Yoga in Indo-Tibetan tradition • II. Elemental Wisdom: Varieties of meditative experience • III. Immaculate Perception: Freeing the Imagination • IV. Enlightened Anatomy: The yoga of channels, winds, and essences • V. Flowing Wholeness: The yoga of integral movement • VI. Incandescence: The yoga of unbound fire • VII. Numinous Passion: The alchemy of desire • VIII. Noetic Light: The infinite brightness of being • IX. Dreamtime: The yoga of lucid sleep • X. Exit Strategies: The yoga of transcending death • XI. Liminality: Navigating transitional states • XII. Potent Solutions: The yoga of entheogens and elixirs • XIII. Primal Radiance: The yoga of innate perfection

About the Author

Ian A. Baker is a cultural historian and the author of seven books on Tibetan Buddhism and Himalayan art and culture, including The Dalai Lama’s Secret Temple and The Tibetan Art of Healing. He was joint curator of the 2016 exhibition ‘Tibet’s Secret Temple: Body, Mind and Meditation in Tantric Buddhism’ at the Wellcome Collection, London. He leads travel seminars in Tibet and Bhutan and was named by the National Geographic Society as one of the seven ‘Explorers for the Millennium’ for his groundbreaking field research in Tibet’s Tsangpo Gorges.