How to do ngöndro prostrations, and the strain they can put on the body
Understand the purpose of the full bodily prostration in the ngöndro, and how to adapt it to your body under a teacher’s guidance rather than pushing through pain.
Pourquoi ça marche
Tricycle’s essay describes the bodily prostration as a way to cultivate devotion and to meet resistance: “we learn things about ourselves, cultivate our heart of devotion, and encounter many deep layers of resistance.” In the ngöndro, the body, speech and mind are engaged together, so the bow is meant to carry an intention rather than to serve as exercise. The essay says the body is thrown to the ground, and that the practice brings aches and pains, sweat and discomfort. The tradition pairs prostrations with refuge verses, so the physical act and the verse are one practice.
Comment faire
- Learn the posture from a teacher or an experienced practitioner before you begin; do not learn it from a video alone.
- Start with a short set, and a posture that your body can do without pain, such as a partial bow, as your teacher advises.
- Your teacher shows you the posture and the refuge recitation that goes with it, and you follow their demonstration.
- Rest between bows, and stop at sharp pain, dizziness or any joint that feels wrong, and tell your teacher.
- If you have a knee, back, shoulder, wrist, heart or breathing problem, ask a doctor and your teacher before you begin.
Données probantes
The purpose and bodily description come from Tricycle’s essay on prostration, which says the practice is done with refuge and that the body is thrown to the ground. The essay describes aches and pains but does not list injuries or give technique for protecting the joints. The Lotsawa House refuge material places the physical act inside the ngöndro sequence. (anecdotal)
The sources do not describe injury from prostration. The warning about joints and the advice to rest are practical cautions from general experience, not findings from a study. Prostrations are a physical strain for many people, and a sequence of full bowing can aggravate existing joint or back problems; this is a reason to work with a teacher and a doctor, not to push through.
Sources
- Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, essay “Bowing” on the ngöndro prostrations. Tricycle magazine.
- Jigme Lingpa. Common and Uncommon Ngöndro, trans. Rigpa Translations and Adam Pearcey, lightly modified by Han Kop for the Longchen Nyingtik Project (2026). Lotsawa House.
Erreur fréquente
Treating the prostration as a workout to finish fast. Racing the count, bowing through pain and skipping rest all work against the purpose the essay describes, and they raise the risk of injury.
Pratiquez cela avec IX Coach
Plus de pratiques pour Ngöndro: The Tibetan Preliminary Practices
- Open a ngöndro session with the four verses that turn the mind
Begin each session with one short verse for each of the four thoughts, letting each one turn attention from the day’s concerns toward the purpose of the practice.
- Keep the count: the hundred-thousand accumulation and how it is set
Understand why the inner ngöndro is counted in sets of 100,000 repetitions, how many texts leave the number open, and how to agree a count with your teacher.
- Take refuge and generate bodhicitta in the ngöndro sequence, with instruction
Go for refuge to the Three Jewels and generate the bodhicitta intention as the first of the inner preliminaries, in the way your lineage teacher gives it.
- Vajrasattva purification: recite the hundred-syllable mantra with a teacher’s instruction
Recite the Vajrasattva purification practice that the ngöndro places among the inner preliminaries, in the way your teacher gives it, and then rest in the meditation that follows.
- Offer the world as a maṇḍala: the three bodies of the Buddha
Offer the whole of what you hold, in the form of a maṇḍala, as the ngöndro teaches, and let attachment loosen as you give.
- Guru yoga in the ngöndro: devotion to a teacher, received in a lineage
Learn the guru yoga that closes the inner preliminaries, with devotion to your own lineage teacher, and keep it in proportion to the rest of your life.
Concepts associés
- Lamrim: The Stages of the Path and the Three Scopes
Atiśa’s three scopes and Tsongkhapa’s Great Treatise: a contemplative map from a precious human life to awakening
- Tibetan Buddhism: The Four Schools, Bön, and Where a Beginner Starts
Four schools, one shared ground, and the devotional practices that hold Tibetan Buddhist life together
- Mahāmudrā: Looking Directly at the Nature of the Mind
The Kagyu path of calm, then looking at the mind itself — practised the way the manuals lay it out
- Bodhicitta: The Awakening Mind and How It Is Cultivated
The intention at the heart of Mahāyāna Buddhism, and the classical ways Tibetan teachers train it