According to the encyclopaedic Tibetan dictionary Bod rgya tshig mdzod chen mo, rdzogs chen is a religious term of the Rnyingma school, i.e., of the old, or authentic Buddhism of Tibet. A leading Western writer on the subject, Herbert Guenther says rdzogs chen "is the name given to that spiritual tradition in Buddhism that emphasizes a holistic approach and rejects all partial perspectives as but local and temporal fluctuations within the atemporally abiding, non-localizable mystery that is Being as such."
The present book is an English translation of rdor sems thugs kyi sgrub pa'i khrid yig
rab gsal snang ba. This is an explanation of the complete rdzogs chen meditation practice: being Lo chen Dharma - sri's guide through a Cter bdag gling pa treasure text, a text first taught by the second Buddha Padma-sambhava to his inner circle of thirty extraordinary women with wisdom. The text is explained in Tibetan by Khamtul Rinpoche and presented in English by Gareth Sparham.
The text is an integrated presentation of the entire Buddhist religious practice. It is complete in encompassing the vast diversity of preliminary and fundamental Buddhist practice and complete, as well in including in its presentation of Buddhism the esoteric practices that convey one to the inexpressible transcendental profoundity, the clear and blissful sphere of the ultimate.The practices taught come together in the person's mind, as it were, to lead to breakthrough or a jump into transcendental experience. That is to say, to transcend its own activity and reach into' its own primordial nature. |
