Report January 2023
This month we have published one new translation, wrote several blogs—primarily reporting on our ongoing investigation of yet another new edition of the Longchen Nyingtik Core Texts, and updated our website. In December, we published another liturgy of the Takhyung Barwa cycle.
We added A Liturgy for Transference: Enlightenment Without Meditation, from The Heart-Essence of the Vast Expanse, arranged by the late Fourth Dodrupchen Rinpoche, Tupten Trinlé Palzangpo. This arrangement integrates the Longchen Nyingtik's practice of transference, or phowa, with elements from the same tradition's preliminary practices. The text was first compiled for the sake of new retreatants at Serdrang Monastery in Nepal. As the root text says:
“The path of the clear light Great Perfection
Is the natural freedom of the dharmakāya, beyond objective.
Someone who captures this stronghold
Is beyond that which is transferred and the act of transference.
Yet for those who prefer elaborate means of attaining nirvāṇa,
The ‘Transference: Enlightenment without Meditation’ is taught.”
In December we added The Blazing Majesty of Blessings: An Activity Manual for the Lama Drakpo Takhyung Barwa, by Namkha Tsewang Chokdrup. There are several arrangements for the Takhyung Barwa practice, but this appears to be the earliest. Its compiler, Namkha Tsewang Chokdrup, mentions that he was the object of Jigme Lingpa's own prayers of aspiration and that he received signs of accomplishment related to this deity.
We had the great fortune to pay our respects to the Kudung of the late Dodrupchen Rinpoche, and we posted some photos here. Then, with the help of a kind donor, we got our hands on a new collection of texts of the Longchen Nyingtik. We started analyzing this enormous collection in our blog in part 1 and part 3 (parts 2 and 4 are upcoming)
Finally, we updated our resources page with books such as:
Dodrupchen Rinpoche, Liberation from Samsara: Oral Instructions on the Preliminary Practices of Longchen Nyingthig
Anam Thubten, The Citadel of Awareness: A Commentary on Jigme Lingpa's Dzogchen Aspiration Prayer (Dharmata Foundation: 2021)
Anam Thubten , Into the Haunted Ground: A Guide to Cutting the Root of Suffering (Shambhala: 2022)