Tibetan Yoga: Principles and Practices

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

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. Baker draws on contemporary scientific research and contemplative and humanitarian traditions to enable the reader to understand these practices. The book includes 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.

Author Bio

Ian A. Baker is a cultural historian and the author of seven books on Tibetan Buddhism and Himalayan art and culture, including The Dalai Lamas Secret Temple and The Tibetan Art of Healing. He was joint curator of the 2016 exhibition Tibets 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 Tibets Tsangpo Gorges.