Ngöndro (Ngondro): The Tibetan Preliminary Practices

By Tim Yu, Founder & Editor · Published 21 October 2026

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Ngöndro (also spelled ngondro; Tibetan sngon ‘gro, literally “to go before”) is the course of preliminary practices with which many Tibetan Buddhist lineages prepare a student for tantric practice. It joins four contemplations, on human birth, impermanence, karma and the suffering of saṃsāra, with practices such as refuge, bodhicitta, Vajrasattva purification, maṇḍala offering and guru yoga. Each lineage sets its own list, liturgy and count, and a student takes it up under a teacher.

This page describes what ngöndro is, where its texts come from and how the schools differ. It is not a manual, and it gives no method: the lineages themselves say these practices are received from a teacher. For the wider setting, see Tibetan Buddhism and our guide to Buddhist meditation.

What does ngöndro mean?

The word is usually translated “preliminary practices.” The translator Alexander Berzin reports that his teacher Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche always stressed that this is not really the flavour of the word: it literally means “to go before,” but its main connotation, Berzin writes, is “preparation.” A Drikung Kagyu centre’s introduction glosses it as “something that precedes.”

Ngöndro has two stages, and the schools name them differently. Berzin explains that the Nyingma tradition speaks of “external” and “internal” ngöndro, while other Tibetan traditions speak of “common” and “uncommon.” “Common” means shared with both sutra and tantra practice; “uncommon” means preparation specifically for tantra. Berzin adds that several of the uncommon practices, refuge and bodhicitta among them, are themselves shared with the sutra path.

The common preliminaries: four thoughts that turn the mind

In the Longchen Nyingtik, a Nyingma cycle, the root liturgy arranged by the First Dodrupchen, Jigme Trinle Özer, gives its opening contemplations the heading “The Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind from Saṃsāra.” Its four headings, in order, are:

1. Free and well-favoured human birth.
2. Impermanence: see embracing impermanence.
3. Karma: cause and effect: see karma in Buddhism.
4. The suffering of saṃsāra: see saṃsāra.

Jamgön Kongtrul’s commentary on the Karma Kagyu preliminaries, The Torch of True Meaning, has the same four as its “Four Ordinary Preliminaries,” in the same order: the precious human life, impermanence, karmic cause and effect, and the defects of saṃsāra.

In the Sakya school, the Forty-Second Sakya Trizin’s ngöndro guide, The Fundamental Practices (Wisdom, 2025), also gives the four thoughts as its common preliminaries, beginning, in its publisher’s synopsis, with the shortcomings of saṃsāra. Berzin notes that in the Gelug school the shared preliminaries are basically the lamrim, the graded-stages teachings, and that the Sakya school also presents “the separation from the four clingings.” A Sakya text on that theme is Jetsün Drakpa Gyaltsen’s verse Instruction on Parting from the Four Attachments: its colophon says it was composed at Sakya monastery, and it unfolds a four-line root teaching over four sections. Lotsawa House files it under mind training, which has its own page, lojong. Berzin’s own view is that these are different ways of structuring the same sutra material.

The nineteenth-century master Nyala Pema Dündul (1816–1872), whom Lotsawa House calls “the great siddha of Nyarong,” wrote a short verse text, at his students’ repeated request, on the signs that the common preliminaries have taken hold:

Another of his signs is close attention to actions and their effects, “adopting virtue and abandoning non-virtue.”

The uncommon preliminaries, lineage by lineage

Which practices count as the uncommon preliminaries depends on whose ngöndro you mean. The sources differ on the number, the order and even the contents:

So the Longchen Nyingtik adds a Chöd accumulation that the Kagyu lists above lack (the history of Chöd is on our Machig Labdrön page). Drikung makes bodhicitta a fifth practice of its own because, its introduction says, the lineage “places so much emphasis on the development of bodhicitta.” The Gelug list includes the offering of water bowls and a verse to Tsongkhapa. Palyul’s curriculum ends with phowa, the transference of consciousness at death, which is practised under a teacher and has its own page.

What the texts say each practice is for

The texts state what each is for:

• Refuge. The commitment to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha (see refuge and how to take refuge). In several lineages it is done with full-length prostrations; our prostration page covers Patrul’s account of the bow that goes with it.
• Bodhicitta. The wish to awaken for the sake of all beings (see bodhicitta). Jigme Lingpa’s own liturgy includes “The Ritual for the Bodhisattva Vow” in its common section, and the vows are covered on bodhisattva vows.
• Vajrasattva. Kongtrul’s chapter title calls the hundred-syllable mantra the one “that Purifies Misdeeds and Obscurations.” Patrul gives his reason (see below). Vajrasattva as a meditational deity is covered under visualization meditation.
• Maṇḍala offering. Kongtrul’s title: the offerings “Which Perfect the Two Accumulations.” The Drikung introduction describes the maṇḍala here as “a model of the ordinary universe,” offered as a gift to all enlightened beings. For maṇḍalas more widely, see Buddhist mandala.
• Guru yoga. Kongtrul: “Guru Yoga, Which Brings Blessings Swiftly.” Patrul calls it “a practice for arousing the wisdom of realization in the mind.” On the teacher at its centre, see lama.

Patrul Rinpoche, the nineteenth-century Nyingma master, explains what the Vajrasattva practice is for:

The next sentence of the guide begins the method itself, which belongs to the teacher who gives it.

How many repetitions?

One hundred thousand of each is one count among several, and each belongs to a particular lineage or teacher:

• 100,000: Berzin, for each of the nine Gelug practices; the Palyul Retreat Center, for each section at Namdroling.
• 111,111: the Drikung Kagyu introduction, for each of its five. The same document also speaks of “one hundred thousand prostrations.” Diamond Way’s magazine Buddhism Today, introducing a question-and-answer session given by Hannah Nydahl, also gives 111,111.
• 100,000, 108,000 or 130,000: Berzin’s range across the schools.
• No total: Patrul’s Brief Guide and the Longchen Nyingtik root liturgy, read in full, state none.

Berzin adds that each Nyingma treasure (terma) tradition “has its own set of ngondro practices,” and that teachers also “can modify the standard ngondros and design individual practices for specific students.” His classic Kagyu example is Milarepa: as a ngöndro, Marpa “didn’t say, ‘Do 100,000 of this and 100,000 of that,’” but had him build stone towers. Berzin’s Gelug example runs the other way: in the tradition’s account, Tsongkhapa did a four-year retreat with eight disciples, each completing 35 sets of 100,000 prostrations and 18 sets of 100,000 maṇḍala offerings. Both are the traditions’ own stories, not verified history.

Berzin’s warning is that counting can turn mechanical. The main safeguard, he says, is “having the proper motivation,” which for him means refuge and bodhicitta. Speaking personally, he thinks it ultimately “makes no difference” which type of preliminary practices one does, but adds that the specific one “makes a close bond for you with a specific lineage.”

The texts behind ngöndro

Nyingma, Longchen Nyingtik. Himalayan Art Resources records that these uncommon preliminaries were taught by Jigme Lingpa (1730–1798) and “later explained in detail” by Patrul Rinpoche in The Words of My Perfect Teacher (Tibetan Kunzang Lama’i Shelung). Its publisher calls that book “the classic commentary on the preliminary practices of the Longchen Nyingtig.” The English translation is by the Padmakara Translation Group; Yale University Press published its edition in 2010. Jigme Lingpa’s own liturgy, The Common and Uncommon Preliminary Practices, and Patrul’s short Brief Guide are both translated on Lotsawa House.

Karma Kagyu. The practice text is the Ninth Karmapa Wangchuk Dorje’s The Chariot that Travels the Noble Path, now in a new edition by the Seventeenth Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje (one of two lamas recognised as the Seventeenth Karmapa; the other is Thaye Dorje). Jamgön Kongtrul’s instruction manual on the Mahamudra preliminaries has been translated as The Torch of Certainty (Shambhala, 1977) and again as The Torch of True Meaning (Khenpo David Karma Choephel, KTD, 2015). In his foreword Ogyen Trinley Dorje says anyone who wishes to practise the Kagyu ngöndro “should first read this text carefully.”

Other texts. Dudjom Rinpoche’s A Torch Lighting the Way to Freedom (Padmakara, Shambhala, 2011) is a full commentary. Its publisher reports his teaching that realisation of the Great Perfection “depends entirely” on the preliminaries. Shorter forms exist too. Shabkar composed a Concise Preliminaries. For international students who want to complete the preliminaries “in the context of busy work lives,” Ogyen Trinley Dorje compiled a condensed practice text, Brief Recitations for the Four Preliminary Practices, and taught it at Bodhgaya in 2006; the teaching is published as Ngondro for Our Current Day.

Who does ngöndro, and when?

Where ngöndro falls in a life differs by school. Berzin writes that in many Tibetan traditions teachers have new students do ngöndro from the start, while in the Gelug school it is done “along the way, not as a start,” to enhance both sutra and tantra practice. He adds: “When done properly, however, both methods are equally effective.”

In some traditions, Berzin says, a three-year retreat opens with ngöndro done once more. One centre’s record shows ngöndro inside such a retreat. At Dhagpo Kundreul Ling in France, whose retreat centre was established in Auvergne after the Sixteenth Karmapa advised Dhagpo Kagyu Ling to build one, twenty retreatants entered the first three-year retreat on 17 March 1984. Their first year covered “the preliminaries, Lojong, shine, and lhaktong.”

The Palyul Retreat Center, a Nyingma centre, describes two paces. At Namdroling, Palyul’s main monastery in South India, it says monks generally spend a full month learning the practices and then a six-month retreat completing them. The Center itself teaches ngöndro as a four-week first-year retreat that students must complete before its later courses. It also suggests spreading the practices over several years, giving a four-year division as one possible way, and calls this “usually the best way for those of us following a busy lay life in Western countries.” In June 2025 Kagyu Samye Ling in Scotland announced a one-year ngöndro retreat from 11 November 2025, open to committed Karma Kagyu practitioners. Berzin’s observation from 2012 is that doing ngöndro as a group retreat “is not a traditional method, but one developed particularly for Westerners”; for retreat in general, see Buddhist retreat.

What follows ngöndro is set by the lineage. Kongtrul’s manual moves from the preliminaries to its “Instructions on the Main Practice,” the Mahamudra of its title, and the Palyul Retreat Center treats ngöndro as the prerequisite for its Tsa Lung Tummo and Dzogchen classes.

Is ngöndro universal, then? Publishers say so: Yale’s copy calls The Words of My Perfect Teacher an introduction to practices “common to all Tibetan Buddhist traditions.” The publisher’s synopsis for The Torch of Certainty says all Vajrayana practitioners “must complete” them. Berzin’s account is more varied. The Gelug school places ngöndro differently, teachers assign some practices or other ones, and Milarepa did tower-building instead. The fair summary is that ngöndro is widespread among the Tibetan schools, but its form, count and timing are set by lineage and teacher. The Bön tradition has a ngöndro of its own as well: Ligmincha International describes it as “a set of nine practices,” and says Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche recommends it for dedicated practitioners “who feel a strong connection to the Bön lineage.”

Why a teacher, and what this page leaves out

Several sources tie ngöndro, or parts of it, to a teacher’s transmission and guidance. The Karma Kagyu text’s publisher states that the practice “should be done only by people who have received the appropriate empowerment, transmission, and instruction” from a qualified guru. Ogyen Trinley Dorje’s condensed commentary does not include guru yoga, which, on his advice, should be done only with one’s own guru’s blessing and instructions. Lotsawa House, which publishes many ngöndro texts openly, labels others Restricted. On those it prints a notice that certain Vajrayāna texts are “intended only for those who have received the requisite empowerments, transmissions and instructions,” and it advises readers who are unsure to “consult a qualified lineage-holder.”

Not every centre states the same entry condition. The Palyul page names no empowerment for its first-year retreat, and Samye Ling asked applicants which teachings and empowerments they had received, and from whom. The general Tibetan framework of empowerment, reading transmission and instruction is set out under visualization meditation. For finding a teacher in a lineage, see how to find a Buddhist teacher.

This page therefore stops at naming the practices and their stated purposes: no visualisations, liturgy, mantra wording or session rules.

Preliminary, or the whole path?

Several teachers resist the idea that the preliminaries are something to finish and leave behind. The Palyul Retreat Center calls ngöndro “a complete practice” that “contains all that is needed to attain complete enlightenment,” and also the prerequisite for its later courses. Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse subtitled his book on it A Guide to the So-Called Preliminary Practices. The Drikung introduction reports that Lord Jigten Sumgön proclaimed that “the Ngöndro is even more important than the higher practices.” Berzin points out that each full tantric sadhana contains a preparatory section with prostration, maṇḍala offering, Vajrasattva and guru yoga, which shows, he says, that these practices are needed “throughout the path.”

These views come from different lineages and sit together without contradiction: each treats the preliminaries as more than a gate passed once. For the schools behind them, see the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism; for the compassion practices that sit alongside, see lojong and tonglen.