Longchen Nyingthig Preliminaries "The Excellent Path to Omniscience": Dzogchen Texts, Commentaries, and Prayers - Paperback

by Tony Duff (Author)

This book provides a complete set of the resources needed for doing the preliminary practices of innermost unsurpassed Dzogchen according to the Longchen Nyingthig tradition. It begins with the actual liturgy for the practice, written by the first Dodrupchen, one of the heart disciples of Jigmey Lingpa. It continues with four major commentaries that explain the theory and the practice in great detail. Then it adds three different prayers by Padmsambhava and Jigmey Lingpa to make a rich set of resources needed for understanding and doing the practice. Extensive footnotes, glossary, and so on are included.

The commentaries add great value to the book, making it of interest not only to those doing this specific practice, but to everyone wanting to know more about Dzogchen.

The first commentary is the most popular Tibetan commentary, written by the first Khyentse, Khyentse Wangpo. The second and third commentaries are by a great Longchen Nyingthig master who lived in East Tibet in the 20th century, Yukhog Chadralwa. He was known for having heard an enormous amount of teaching from various masters and having practised it to completion. His writings are filled with oral instructions obtained from various Longchen Nyingthig lineage holders, giving the reader access to the tradition in ways not normally possible. One of his commentaries gives very clear presentations of important but little known aspects of the theory behind the liturgy for doing the preliminaries. Both commentaries also contain high-level instructions on the practice of Dzogchen in general, which makes the book of interest to everyone interested in the Dzogchen teachings. This is the first time Yukhog Chadralwa's commentaries have appeared in English.

The final commentary is by the translator and author of the book who was encouraged by his lineage gurus to write a major commentary in English. This commentary clarifies the unique terminology of the Dzogchen system and also the meaning of the liturgy in a straightforward but precise way. It clarifies several very difficult points of the liturgy, which have not been well understood to date. The commentary is based on extensive oral instructions that the author received from a variety of lineage gurus during his stays in Tibet.

All in all, this book provides everything needed by someone wanted to do this particular Dzogchen preliminary practice in a way not seen so far in English and also provides extensive teachings on the main practice of Dzogchen.