Dukngal Rangdrol

The sādhana of the Natural Liberation of Suffering or Dukngal Rangdrol was the very first sādhana of the Longchen Nyingtik to be revealed. In the year of 1758 during his vision of the revelation of the Longchen Nyingtik, Jigme Lingpa flew to the Boudha Stupa and was given a casket by a wisdom ḍākinī. When he opened it, there were five scrolls. One of them contained the Natural Liberation of Suffering practice. As the Jigme Lingpa writes in the colophon of the sādhana:

“The time for revelation came in the Earth Tiger year (1758), when I had a vision of the Great Compassionate One, and the ḍākinī of the space of wisdom entrusted me, in the vast expanse of the illusory net, with the scrolls of the symbolic script of the radiant expanse. I wrote it down without concealing anything of the signs and meaning.”

Avalokiteśvara, Natural Liberation of Suffering.
courtesy of Dodrupchen Monastery

After his vision, Jigme Lingpa wrote a beautiful prayer called The Vision. One of the verses reads:

“All of us living through this dark age of decay,
Are tortured with no break by karma’s unbearable misery.
And as I wander through saṃsāra, one life upon another,
It’s to you I pray, Avalokiteśvara: look on me with your compassion,
And bless me to become a bodhisattva, just like you!”
— The Vision: A Prayer to Ārya Avalokiteśvara
 

Practice Texts

Tantric text warning
Readers are reminded that according to Vajrayāna Buddhist tradition there are restrictions and commitments concerning tantra. Practitioners who are not sure if they should read translations in this section are advised to consult the authorities of their lineage. The responsibility for reading these texts or for sharing them with others—and hence the consequences—lies in the hands of readers.

First Jigme Lingpa revealed the main sādhana of the Great Compassionate One, Natural Liberation of Suffering. Then, inspired by his vision, he composed the famous prayer to Avalokiteśvara called The Vision. Jigme Lingpa says in the colophon:

“At dawn on the tenth day of the tenth month of the Earth Tiger year (1758), when Longchen Namkhé Naljor actually saw the exalted Lord of the World in a vision, and the symbolic signs appeared of the Tukjé Chenpo Dukngal Rangdrol, he composed this prayer. Geo! Geo! Geo! ”

He also revealed the wrathful form of the deity, A Sādhana of Hayagrīva’s Assembly. At the end of the text Jigme Lingpa says:

“Based on this practice, which is easy, convenient and imbued with great blessing, the Emperor sounded the horse’s neigh throughout the three thousand-fold universe. Therefore, this important teaching on Hayagrīva is renowned as the tradition of the King.”

It is unclear when exactly this practice was revealed, but it must have been a bit later, since the text says one should “carry out the concluding rituals …by adapting the words of the Vidyādhara Assembly text”, and so it must have been after revelation of the Rigdzin Düpa. Then on someone’s request he composed a Self-Initiation.

After Jigme Lingpa, it was his principle disciples the First Dodrupchen, Jigme Trinle Özer, who composed the Feast-Offering for the Secret Practice of the Great Compassionate One including a Confession and Fulfilment. He also composed a practice to guide the dead or Nedren, The Excellent Path to Perfect Liberation: A Guidance Practice (Nedren), the empowerment manual and a Detailed Visualization of the Great Compassionate One’s Retinue. Regarding the latter, Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo composed a nearly identical text with the same purpose, The Visualization of the Four Goddesses of the Great Compassionate One. Khyentse Wangpo then also composed the Lineage Prayer.

Much later the Fourth Dodrupchen Rinpoche, Tupten Trinlé Pal Zangpo, arranged the Nedren practice for easy of use (translation forthcoming) and also added a practice for Consecrating the Vase. Also in fairly recent times, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche composed a Daily Sādhana on the request of Matthieu Ricard’s mother.

Commentaries

Jigme Lingpa himself is the author of two commentaries. The first is a treasure revelation called The Visionary Instructions that Lay Bare the Pith Instructions that concerns the more advanced aspects of the accomplishment phase and the making of pills that liberate on taste. The second is A Commentary on the Difficult Points and is a word by word commentary on the Dukngal Rangdrol sādhana (up to the mantra recitation) written on request.

In the nineteenth century Khenpo Pema Vajra wrote the most comprehensive commentary for the Dukngal Rangdrol, the Ornament of the Vidyādharas’ Wisdom: A Recitation Manual for the Great Compassionate One. This text provides a detailed explanation of how to do a retreat on Avalokiteśvara according to the Longchen Nyingtik. The manual explains how beginners should practise the approach phase and, drawing on Jigme Lingpa's own commentary The Visionary Instructions, how more advanced practitioners can practice the approach and accomplishment phases in union. The text concludes with an overview of how the path is brought to fruition. His student Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo wrote a very concise text for the same purpose, i.e. instructions how to do the retreat: Recitation Manual for the Natural Liberation of Suffering.

Receiving a reading transmission (lung) is a general prerequisite for any tantric text. The reading transmission for the commentary by Khenpo Pema Vajra, however, is either extremely rare or no longer extant. However, Khenchen Pema Sherab observes that since it accords with the concise commentary by Khyentse Wangpo, which is itself found among the core texts of the Longchen Nyingtik (Nyingtik Tsapö) and for which the reading transmission still exists, this commentary can be regarded as a further clarification of that, one that is especially helpful for understanding how to practise in retreat. Thus if one has the reading transmission for the short commentary by Khyentse Wangpo, it would be admissible to consult the longer commentary by Khenpo Pema Vajra.

Practice Texts

Lineage Prayers

Daily Practice

Guidance of the death (Nedren)

Empowerment texts

  • First Dodrupchen, Jigme Trinle Özer, Boundless White Light: The Empowerment for the Secret Practice of the Great Compassionate One, the Natural Liberation of Suffering, from the Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse , (ཀློང་ཆེན་སྙིང་གི་ཐིག་ལེ་ལས། གསང་སྒྲུབ་ཐུགས་རྗེ་ཆེན་པོ་སྡུག་བསྔལ་རང་གྲོལ་གྱི་དབང་ཆོག་འོད་དཀར་མཐའ་ཡས)

  • Empowerment for the Pills Which Liberate on Taste Connected with the Empowerment of the Natural Liberation of Suffering Practice of the Great Compassionate One (ཐུགས་རྗེ་ཆེན་པོ་སྡུག་བསྔལ་རང་གྲོལ་གྱི་དབང་དང་འབྲེལ་བར་མྱོང་གྲོལ་རིལ་བུའི་དབང་བསྐུར་བར་འདོད) (The colophon says: ‘Extracted from the empowerment ritual for the concise innermost practice of the Great Compassionate One, a profound treasure revealed by Guru Chökyi Wangchuk.’)

Commentaries

Further Reading

Footnotes

1] The term pratri, pronounced tratri by Tibetans, comes from the sanskrit term prasenā, which is a kind of (mirror) divination. William A. McGrath comments on the term in has article Tantric Divination and Empirical Diagnosis: A Genealogy of Channel Prasenā Rituals in the Tibetan Medical Tradition: "Throughout English-language secondary literature, Tibetan-language instructions for prasenā have generally been described as some kind of “mirror divination.” Such an understanding is by no means incorrect but, as we shall see in the case of channel prasenā divination below, the divine revelation of past, present, and future events through prasenā divination can come through the medium of not only mirrors, but also thumbnails, butter lamps, young children, and even the palpation of the channels. Prasenā refers to a mode of inquiry, a ritual process through which a practitioner may communicate with the divine, either directly by means of spontaneous visions and voices, or indirectly by means of a prepubescent ritual assistant. In both direct and indirect forms of prasenā divination, the revelation of past, present, and future actions (karma) is described as a form of extrasensory knowledge or a visionary sign that usually requires further interpretation." Here however, we have understood the term to indicate that the present text has been revealed to Jigme Lingpa in a vision. Therefore we have rendered the term pratri here as visionary (pra) instructions (tri).