While there's not a ton of overlap with eG's main practices, I found Rob Preece's "Preparing for Tantra: Creating the Psychological Ground for Practice", "The Psychology of Buddhist Tantra", and "Tasting the Essence of Tantra: Buddhist Meditation for Contemporary Western Life" to be great introductions to Vajrayana - explaining key concepts, practices and aspects of view in a way that would have been super helpful to me at the beginning of my Vajra path and which was still illuminating and clarifying many years in.
Pairing these with McLeod's book (which provides a lot more phenomenological detail as seen from within the practices themselves) and many of the others you've listed has become my go-to syllabus of recommendations for folks who I encounter who are curious about Vajrayana/tantric practice.
What a great list to come across — thanks for writing it. I've been wanting to find more ways into understanding and taking part in Evolving Ground, after participating in a weekend workshop with Charlie in the fall and reading Opening Awareness. It's helpful to have a list that puts these works in context.
For what it's worth, I prefer *The Power of Focusing* to Gendlin's *Focusing*; Weiser Cornell articulates the technique with a clarity that Gendlin lacked. If you want another book to consider, Robert Kegan's *Immunity to Change* is a beautiful complement to *Existential Kink*. They're honing in on the same idea from very different lenses.
While there's not a ton of overlap with eG's main practices, I found Rob Preece's "Preparing for Tantra: Creating the Psychological Ground for Practice", "The Psychology of Buddhist Tantra", and "Tasting the Essence of Tantra: Buddhist Meditation for Contemporary Western Life" to be great introductions to Vajrayana - explaining key concepts, practices and aspects of view in a way that would have been super helpful to me at the beginning of my Vajra path and which was still illuminating and clarifying many years in.
Pairing these with McLeod's book (which provides a lot more phenomenological detail as seen from within the practices themselves) and many of the others you've listed has become my go-to syllabus of recommendations for folks who I encounter who are curious about Vajrayana/tantric practice.
Great list Andrew. Also a fellow eG member would be cool to join your in person meditation group one day.
We'd love to have you!
What a great list to come across — thanks for writing it. I've been wanting to find more ways into understanding and taking part in Evolving Ground, after participating in a weekend workshop with Charlie in the fall and reading Opening Awareness. It's helpful to have a list that puts these works in context.
For what it's worth, I prefer *The Power of Focusing* to Gendlin's *Focusing*; Weiser Cornell articulates the technique with a clarity that Gendlin lacked. If you want another book to consider, Robert Kegan's *Immunity to Change* is a beautiful complement to *Existential Kink*. They're honing in on the same idea from very different lenses.