Report of the Year 2023
As 2023 comes to an end it is time to give a brief overview of our work this year. This year we have published 21 new translations and made many improvements to the website.
Highlights of the year
One of our favourite new publications this year is the first ever translation into English of a concise auto-biography of Jigme Lingpa: Adornment of Dohā: A Factual Account of the Life and Liberation of the Dzogchenpa Rangjung Dorje. This outer autobiography in verse was likely composed in 1786 at the request of the Sakya throne-holder, Jamgön Wangdü Nyingpo (1763–1809).
Another one of our favourites for this year is the Survey of the Fourfold Heart-Essence (Nyingtik Yabzhi) and the Heart-Essence of the Vast Expanse (Longchen Nyingtik), by Dezhung Rinpoche and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.
We have published another one of the main sadhanas of the Longchen Nyingtik: Siṃhamukhā, Lion-Faced Ḍākinī, The Secret Female Practice, and completed the Sealed Quintessence or Tikle Gyachen with the publication of the feast offering written by Khyentse Wangpo: Music Sprung from Clouds of Merit.
Finally, we have published several texts for the Longchen Nyingtik phowa, that include two liturgies (one by the Fourth Dodrupchen Rinpoche, A Liturgy for Transference: Enlightenment Without Meditation, and one arrangement by Adzom Drukpa), Jigme Lingpa’s Transferring the Consciousness of the Deceased and Khyentse Wangpo’s Supplementary Instructions for the Transference Practice.
Also, we added several new pages on our website that provide an introduction and complete overview of each of the sadhanas and major genres of the Longchen Nyingtik.
Behind the scenes
We are working on two major texts at the moment. Firstly, we continue our work on the Ratik commentary on Yumka Dechen Gyalmo, Illuminating the Meaning of Tantra, A Commentary on the Practice Text of the Ḍākinī Queen of Great Bliss, written by Ratön Ngawang Tendzin Dorje (a direct disciple of Jigme Lingpa). We hope to finish revising this text somewhere in the following year.
Secondly, we are pleased that recently we received a Light of Dharma Grant from the Terton Sogyal Foundation to translate a fundamental text by the late Fourth Dodrupchen Rinpoche, The Way of the Realized Vidyādharas: Instructions on the Stages of the Practice of the Approach and Accomplishment of the Guru, Yidam Deity and Ḍākinī of the Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse. This text, unique in its kind, is basically a running order on how to practise in retreat all the sadhanas of the Longchen Nyingtik. The text also includes practical advice such as how to set up one’s shrine, chöpöning, and how to play the bell. It spells out very precisely the running order of each retreat session during the preliminary day, the approach and accomplishment phases, receiving the siddhis, and so on.
With thanks to
First of all our thanks go out to all our supporters on Patreon and anyone else who supported the project! This year we would like to express special thanks Rabjam Rinpoche for his continued guidance and to Tulku Rigdzin Pema Rinpoche and Khenpo Sonam Tsewang for their unending willingness to clarify our questions. Our thanks also goes out to our editor Barry Cohen, and to Sean Price and Adam Pearcey for their continuous support and valuable editing, and anyone else we forgot to thank!
We need your help!
Are you a practitioner of or aspire to practice the Longchen Nyingtik? We need your help to continue our translations and effort to publish the entire cycle of the Longchen Nyingtik into English, available for free online! Support us here. If everyone supports us with just a few euros a month, we’ll have enough funds to continue our work.
Meeting with Rabjam Rinpoche, France, May 2023
Best wishes for 2024
from the Longchen Nyingtik Project
Han Kop and the team