Throughout this year, 2021, we are emphasising the Four Great Preliminary Guides at KMC Fraser Valley. These are essential practices for making progress in our meditation practice.

Inner realisations do not arise magically from the earth, nor do they fall from the sky.  Gaining deep experience of meditation depends upon certain inner conditions, which we can create by engaging in the preliminary practices.

Geshe Kelsang Gyatso
The New Eight Steps to Happiness

The more conscientiously we practice the preliminaries, the more easily we will gain insights and realizations from our meditation practice. The function of the preliminaries is to purify the negativity in our mind; to enrich our mind with positive energy, or merit; and to activate the positive potentials in our mind by receiving the empowering blessings of the holy beings.

The Four Great Preliminary Guides are

1. going for refuge and generating bodhichitta
2. engaging in purification practice
3. accumulating merit through the practice of the mandala offering
4. training in Guru yoga

The four preliminaries are like the four wheels of the car. If any of the wheels is missing, the car will not be able to function; and, in the same way, if any of the four preliminaries is missing, we will not be able to make progress in our spiritual practice, in particular the practice of Mahamudra. Mahamudra is a powerful and swift vehicle that takes us to enlightenment in this one short life.

For more information on Mahamudra and on the preliminary guides see The Oral Instructions of Mahamudra and The New Eight Steps to Happiness, both by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche.