Last year I had the opportunity to ask Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche some questions about meditation, while he was visiting the Lerab Ling retreat centre in southern France

Andy Fraser: These days we have all kinds of ideas about meditation. We see it everywhere, on television, in adverts, on YouTube and so on. Could you tell us very simply what meditation really is?

Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche: Meditation is a process of getting to know yourself, or a process of getting to know your own mind. The great meditation masters from Tibet often defined meditation as becoming familiar with your own mind and its nature.

This is what meditation really is.

Here is the entire video, 111 minutes worth, of Sogyal Rinpoche's public teaching at AWAKE 2012 in Amsterdam.

Watch Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche talking about meditation and the importance of knowing and working with our mind.
An eminent and distinguished scholar, teacher and philosopher, and fully ordained Buddhist monk, Rinpoche is widely known as an ardent follower of Mahatma Gandhi, and a life-long campaigner for non-violence. Samdhong Rinpoche was the Prime Minister of the Tibetan Government in exile from 2001 - 2011.

By popular request, here is the entire video, 111 minutes worth,  of Sogyal Rinpoche's teaching at AWAKE 2012 in Amsterdam. It's great, don't miss it. And if you were there, see it again.

Elizabeth explains how we can understand reality just by wrestling with basic questions that we all have: "What is the basis of suffering? What causes happiness?"

Here is a 90 minute skype interview with Vincent Horn, co-founder of Buddhist Geeks. The Buddhist Geeks podcasts are wildly popular and all kinds of unusual topics are covered through interviews of Buddhist meditators, teachers, scholars and all kinds of other fascinating people.
You find some more information in 2 previous posts:

In this 2 minute skype video, Elizabeth explains to Erric how we can understand reality just by wrestling with basic questions that we all have: "What is the basis of suffering? What causes happiness?"

There’s a standard American joke that goes, “A man walks into a bar…” and proceeds to have a short story ending with a punch-line. To get this post started right, I’ll finish the joke:

Recently, I spent almost 90 minutes on skype speaking with Vincent Horn, co-founder of Buddhist Geeks. The Buddhist Geeks podcasts are wildly popular and all kinds of unusual topics are covered through interviews of Buddhist meditators, teachers, scholars and all kinds of other fascinating people. So, I asked Vincent if we could turn the tables and have him be the subject of an interview. He readily agreed.