Ngöndro

The Tibetan term Ngöndro (Wylie: sngon 'gro,Sanskrit: pūrvaka) refers to the preliminary, preparatory or foundational practices or disciplines (Sanskrit: sādhanā) common to all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism and also to Bon. They precede the Generation stage and Completion stage.

The term ngöndro literally denotes meanings in the range of "something that goes before, something which precedes." The preliminary practices establish the foundation for the more advanced and rarefied Vajrayana sādhanā which are held to engender realization and the embodiment of Dzogchen, Heruka and Mahamudra.

Nevertheless, Vajrayana masters are careful to point out that "foundational" does not mean "lesser", that the practice of Ngöndro is a complete and sufficient practice of the spiritual path, and that it can take the practitioner all the way to full enlightenment.

In addition to what is generally denoted by the term ngöndro, preparatory practices may also be prescribed for senior and advanced sadhana, e.g.: "differentiating saṃsāra and nirvāṇa" (Wylie: 'khor 'das ru shan) is the preparatory practice of Kadag Khregschod or "cutting through to primordial purity."

The use of the practices of Vajrasattva, Mandala offering and Guru Yoga as preliminaries to the practice of anuttarayogatantra sadhanas was well established in India. In Tibet, the tradition came to include prostration practice and the accumulation of large numbers of each practice.

In general the preliminary practices are divided into two sections or kinds: the first are the common or ordinary kind of preliminary practices, and the second are the special or extraordinary kind of preliminaries.

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