Tharpa Publications
Open-knowledge reference entry
Tharpa Publications (Sanskrit for "liberation"; pronounced "Tar-pa") is the publishing arm of the New Kadampa Tradition, a Buddhist new religious movement. Since 1988, it has solely published the work of its founder, Kelsang Gyatso. Tharpa Publications is a non-profit corporation founded in 1985 at the Manjushri Institute, with bases in Ulverston, UK and New York City.
The New Kadampa Tradition exclusively uses the texts authored by Geshe Gyatso and published by Tharpa. These include Buddhist meditation books such as The New Meditation Handbook, books on the Buddhist way of life such as Universal Compassion, books on Buddhist philosophy and psychology such as Heart of Wisdom, and books on Buddhist Tantra. The press has affiliates in Brazil, the USA, Spain, Mexico, France, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong and South Africa.
Kelsang Gyatso
To date, Tharpa has published 22 of his books, covering the entire range of Buddha Shakyamuni's Sutra and Tantra teachings in English. Kelsang Gyatso's books aim to make Buddhist texts accessible for Western audiences, and include titles such as How to Solve Our Human Problems, Universal Compassion and Mahamudra Tantra.
Stephen Batchelor says that Kelsang Gyatso's books are written with "considerable clarity." David Braizer says that Kelsang writes "excellent" books that are "an important contribution to Western understanding of Buddhism and its traditions".
D. Cozort says that Guide to Dakini Land and Essence of Vajrayana are "the most detailed and revealing commentary on specific tantric practices yet to be published in a Western language", but generally criticizes Gyatso's emphasis on "only one voice and one point of view" in New Kadampa Tradition training materials.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tharpa Publications” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.