In this excerpt from a recent teaching at Frog Lotus Yoga in North Adams, Massachusetts, Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche explains how happiness depends on our minds, not external circumstances. By working with our minds through meditation we discover happiness that we can take with us everywhere we go. Rinpoche also explains how this type of inner happiness is an attractive quality and the key to building connections and community.

Click here to learn more about Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche’s upcoming retreat at SMC.

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Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche is a meditation master in the Nyingma lineage of the Buddhist tradition. He studied for ten years at Larung Gar in Serta, eastern Tibet, with his teacher, Jigmed Phuntsok Rinpoche, who is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest Dzogchen meditation masters of the twentieth century. Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and is the founder and spiritual director of Pristine Mind Foundation (www.pristinemind.org). He travels throughout the United States and around the world teaching a broad range of audiences, including those at universities, tech companies and yoga studios, how they can improve their lives through meditation. Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche is the author of Our Pristine Mind: A Practical Guide to Unconditional Happiness forthcoming from Shambhala Publications Spring 2016.