The Five Wisdoms

The Five Wisdoms are traditional Tibetan Buddhist teachings
relevant to these challenging times

Created by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and senior students in 1972, the Five Wisdoms teachings, also known as the Five Buddha Families, are based on the Tantric approach to working with our body or physicality, speech or expression, and mind. Trungpa Rinpoche was the first to bring these esoteric teachings into human psychology and personality—a move that reflects his genius for making profound wisdom accessible to everyday practitioners. Though they have a strong Tantric flavor, these teachings are available to people of all levels.

The Five Wisdoms offer a psycho-spiritual understanding of the energies present in both our outer, phenomenal world and our inner, psychological realm. They illuminate who we are, revealing patterns in our personality, emotions, and relationships. These teachings are both inner-personal and inter-personal, giving us insight into our energetic makeup and the particular ways we perceive and interact with our world. We discover that we are all multi-dimensional, with many facets to our personality.

Our unique way of perceiving and interacting with the world yields enormous insight into our patterns: what we think, feel, say, and do. This approach fosters personal authenticity, skillful communication, creative thinking, and effective action. We come to know and appreciate the unique gifts of our personality, which point us toward our life purpose and a life full of creativity and passion.

The Five Wisdoms are a system of human dynamics that categorizes people as having five basic qualities, though ultimately there are infinite permutations. They reveal both our inherent wisdom and confusion: each energy has a sane or enlightened aspect as well as a confused or neurotic aspect. With some parts of ourselves we have confidence and shine. With other parts we feel stuck, perpetually falling on our face. Still other parts we habitually hide. By learning to recognize and transform neurosis into wisdom, we develop communication with all our energies. At their best, they are simply presence, clarity, richness, passion, and action.

The Five Wisdoms practice is based on traditional teachings of the subtle body, working with energy channels and chakras. Practitioners maintain each of five postures either with colored glasses or in specifically designed rooms, evoking one of the five wisdom energies. This practice works through direct experience of the basic elements of our existence: our body, emotions, thoughts, psychology, and the spiritual dimension. The postures tune us directly into our different psychophysical styles and cultivate personal integration.

The energies reveal ourselves to ourselves: we clearly see and experience how we embody and manifest them in either a sane or neurotic way. Gradually, we open up and embrace these energies in ourselves and our world with the gentleness, kindness, and unconditional friendliness of maitri (a Sanskrit term pronounced "my tree"). This warmth helps us transform the frozen energy of self-centeredness into the flowing creativity of compassionate wisdom. The Five Wisdoms are a vehicle for self-discovery and a tool for working with others in everyday life, both personally and professionally.

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche on the Five Wisdoms

"The enlightened expression of yourself is in accord with your inherent nature...Working with the buddha families we discover that we already have certain qualities. According to the tantric perspective, we cannot ignore them and we cannot reject them and try to be something else. We should work with our neuroses, relate to them and experience them properly. They are the only potential we have, and when we begin to work with them, we see that we can use them as stepping stones."

The Five Wisdoms Institute offers trainings internationally.
Inspired by Naropa University, Contemplative Psychotherapy, and Authentic Leadership,
our trainings are proven to enhance self-awareness, communication, and effectiveness.