About
Andrey Kostyrko is a student of Mingyur Rinpoche in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Based in Russia, he has practiced since 2016 after reading The Joy of Living and attending a workshop with Rinpoche. He joined the Joy of Living program through Tergar and has facilitated community practices and gatherings with Tergar Russia since 2019.
Teaching focus
Kostyrko's core teaching draws on shamatha, analytical meditation, deity practice. The frame is the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition with its layered approach to sutra and tantra, but the language stays plain. Kostyrko doesn't lecture from height. The talks tend to think alongside whatever's actually present in the room. Recurring themes include bodhicitta, emptiness, and tonglen. None of those get presented as abstract ideas. They're worked into the body, into ethics, into how a practitioner shows up in family life or at work, so that the dharma stops feeling like a separate compartment. There's a steady invitation in the talks to keep practice human-sized. Sit when you can, return when you've drifted, and trust that small consistent attention does more over the years than dramatic breakthroughs. Format-wise, Kostyrko teaches in in-person, group, and the tone moves easily between guided sittings, dharma talks, and Q&A. Questions tend to get answered the way they were asked, without being reframed into something cleaner. That alone tells you a lot about how the room feels.
Background
Andrey Kostyrko is a student of Mingyur Rinpoche in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Based in Russia, he has practiced since 2016 after reading The Joy of Living and attending a workshop with Rinpoche. He joined the Joy of Living program through Tergar and has facilitated community practices and gatherings with Tergar Russia since 2019. Since 2016, Andrey has been a student of Mingyur Rinpoche. He was inspired to study and practice meditation after readingThe Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happinessand attending a workshop with Rinpoche. He joined the Joy of Living program and credits the support of the Tergar Russia community as instrumental to his progress. Believing in the power of shared practice, he has facilitated Tergar community practices and gatherings since 2019. Kostyrko's teaching home is Tergar, where the practice community shapes the rhythm of retreats, sittings, and dharma talks. That work sits within the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition with its layered approach to sutra and tantra, and the recurring concerns of Kostyrko's teaching, ethical foundation, steady attention, and the slow softening of habitual reactivity, echo the older texts without sounding distant from a 21st-century practitioner's life. What stands out across Kostyrko's talks isn't a single technique but a steadying tone. Practice is treated as something built slowly, in ordinary life, with care. There's room for the difficulties practitioners actually bring into the room, grief, restlessness, the body's complaints, family obligations, and the encouragement is consistent without being pushy.
Lineage
Kostyrko teaches within the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition with its layered approach to sutra and tantra. Source notes mention training with Tergar Russia. Current affiliations include Tergar. The lineage shows up less in titles than in the way Kostyrko talks about practice, with steady reference to the older Buddhist vocabulary while keeping the door open for people who've never read a sutra. Whether that framing lands as monastic or lay depends on the specific talk, but the consistent thread is care for the form without letting the form become the point.
What to expect
Sitting with Kostyrko, you can expect grounded instruction in shamatha, with space to ask questions and bring whatever's actually showing up in your practice. Group settings have a community feel without becoming social. People sit, listen, and check in. The teaching voice is steady. Kostyrko won't push you past your edge, and there's a clear preference for slow, sustainable practice over breakthrough chasing. Bring a notebook if you like, or don't. Either way, you'll be met where you are.
