"Düdjom Lingpa’s Visions of the Great Perfections"

2016
Author(s):
Düdjom Lingpa
Translator(s):
B. Alan Wallace
Dudjom Lingpa's Visions of the Great Perfection

Runner-up for 2017 Shantarakshita Award for Excellence in Translation from the Tsadra Foundation

From the preeminent Tibetan scholar B. Alan Wallace comes the much-anticipated Dudjom Lingpa’s Visions of the Great Perfection. 

This limited-edition set includes elegant clothbound editions of all three volumes, beautifully presented in a slipcase.

Düdjom Lingpa (1835–1904) was one of the foremost tantric masters of nineteenth-century Tibet. This new series includes Düdjom Lingpa’s five visionary teachings on the Great Perfection (Dzogchen), the pinnacle of practice in Tibet’s oldest Buddhist school, along with three essential commentaries. The teachings in this series have inspired generations of Tibetans.

Volume 1 contains four works, beginning with The Sharp Vajra of Conscious Awareness Tantra, considered the root distillation of Düdjom Lingpa’s wisdom. Unpacking these quintessential verses is the Essence of Clear Meaning, a definitive commentary based on Düdjom Lingpa’s oral teachings recorded by his disciple Pema Tashi. In The Foolish Dharma of an Idiot Clothed in Mud and Feathers, Düdjom Lingpa narrates the essential Dharma teachings from the perspective of an old man rejecting superficial appearances. Finally, The Enlightened View of Samantabhadra is a masterful exposition of the Great Perfection revealed as a dialogue between wisdom beings who bestow a treasury of pith instructions and specific advice for practitioners.

Volume 2 includes Düdjom Lingpa’s most widely taught work, Buddhism Without Meditation, and two complementary works by his charismatic female disciple, Sera Khandro, who is accomplished and well loved in her own right. Her Garland for the Delight of the Fortunate spells out the implications of the root text’s highly condensed verses.

Volume 3 contains Düdjom Lingpa’s magisterial Vajra Essence, his most extended meditation on the path of Great Perfection, in many senses a commentary on all his other Dzogchen works.