Awesome Ones’ Assembly (Palchen Düpa), the Heart Practice of the Awareness-Holders

Today on the 10th day of the lunar calendar, we are pleased to announce the publication of the Awesome Ones’ Assembly or Palchen Düpa practice of Jigme Lingpa’s Longchen Nyingtik cycle of revelations. The Palchen Düpa is the main yidam practice of this cycle and centers around the Kagye deities, who are unique to the Nyingma tradition and are considered to be of the utmost importance; they are at the heart of the Nyingma tradition.

Despite the importance of the Kagye deities in the Nyingma tradition, it seems this is the first publication of an elaborate sādhana practice related to these deities in the English language (we stand to be corrected).

The text itself says:

Homage to the Heruka Awesome One! In future times, during the final five hundred years, gyadré and elemental spirits will suddenly gather at the borders, and samaya-corrupting spirits will assemble in the central regions. They will enter the hearts of practitioners and incite them to negative actions. They will enter the hearts of ordinary people and increase their negative habits…

…In those future times it will not be possible to subdue such obstacles by ordinary methods. The means to remove them will be the powerful deities who appear outwardly as bodhisattvas, inwardly as awareness-holders, and secretly as the blazing and ferocious wrathful deities. All the bliss-gone ones are included within the eight sādhana classes, which in turn are all included in this practice of the Awesome Ones’ Assembly; there is no doubt that they will subdue misleading guides! Keep this practice extremely secret, practice it by yourself, and for the benefit of beings and the teachings, arouse courage! Samaya!

And

སྟོང་གསུམ་མི་མཇེད་རྡོ་རྗེ་ཐེག་པའི་ཞིང་༔

In the vajrayāna pure realm of this three-thousand-fold universe,

འཕུར་འགྲོའི་བསྟན་པ་འབྱུང་གནས་ཨོ་རྒྱན་ཡུལ༔

The teachings of the sky-farers originated in Uḍḍiyāna

གངས་རིའི་ཁྲོད་དུ་འབོད་པ་ཁྲི་སྲོང་རྗེའི༔

And were brought to the snowy mountains of Tibet by the kindness of King Trisong;

ཐུགས་བསྐྱེད་བསྟན་པ་མཐའ་རྒྱས་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཤོག༔

For his teachings to spread far and wide, may all be auspicious!

Palchen Düpa

© Deorali Choten Gonpa.

Finally, the text concludes with the following:

This treasure originates from the secret scrolls of the ḍākinīs,who are the masters of the mind direct transmission of the buddhas and the sign transmission of the vidyādharas, and who are the source of blessings. It does not contradict the tantras of ground, path and fruition either in words or meaning. For gaining accomplishment, it is undeceiving. It is my, Padma’s, extraordinary teaching. May it become the Naturally Arisen Vajra’s glory!

The full text can be viewed here on Lotsawa House.

Restricted Text Warning: Vajrayāna Buddhism places restrictions on the reading and practice of certain texts, which are intended only for those who have received the requisite empowerments, transmissions and instructions. If you are unsure as to whether you are entitled to read or practice a particular text please consult a qualified lineage-holder.

PS. we have heard that the Nalanda Translation Committee had once, several decades ago, produced a draft translation of this text, but we have been unable to acquire it thus far.