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The Importance of Longchenpa ~ ~ The Importance of Longchenpa ~ Cortland Dahl Hi, this is Cort. Thanks for joining me. In this section, we are going to hear about one of the single most important figures in the entirety of Tibetan Buddhism and, in particular, in the Dzogchen lineage, one of the figures that really, perhaps more than any other master, has been responsible for shaping the trajectory of this tradition over time. I am speaking, of course, of Longchenpa. Now, I must say, I am probably more excited to record this intro than any other I have ever recorded because Longchenpa for me personally has been such an incredible source of inspiration. I oftentimes say that my dream retirement plan is to have a small retreat cabin and a pile of writings of Longchenpa and just to have the time and space to completely immerse myself in his mind, his writings, and his world. He is really such an incredibly profound thinker and had such obvious realization of the Dzogchen teachings. Here, in this introduction, I thought I would say a little about the broader context for Longchenpa, for his works, and why he is so important in this lineage. The first thing that you will probably hear a bit about is actually the line of rebirths that preceded Longchenpa's incarnation. Actually, this goes back to the time of Padmasambhava, or Guru Rinpoche. As you might have heard in the previous sections — hopefully you have had some time to read about Padmasambhava and the transmission of Buddhism to Tibet — he had a very close relationship with Yeshe Tsogyal and the king, Trisong Detsen. The three of them were kind of a trio and were really at the core of initiating what is now known as the “Nyingma lineage.” The king had children, and, in particular, he had one daughter named princess Pema Sel. And there is a really interesting story that is really the beginning of Longchenpa and his lineage. As the story goes, the king, Yeshe Tsogyal, and Guru Rinpoche were at a complex of caves a few days away from Lhasa, in central Tibet. And it was there that the king and Yeshe Tsogyal were requesting teachings. Yeshe Tsogyal in 1 | DZOGCHEN | LINEAGE ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ her capacity was documenting these teachings. She, of course, would go on to be one of the great Dzogchen masters herself, and she transmitted these teachings and became a great teacher in her own right. In any case, they were there in this very isolated location, and the king's daughter, princess Pema Sel, was there and was a very young girl at the time. And, at a certain point, she gets bitten by a bee and ends up having an allergic reaction and passing away. And what then transpires is one of these uniquely mystical Tibetan stories where it is said that Padmasambhava revived her. He essentially brought her back to life because he saw that she had some karmic link with the Dzogchen teachings, and before she passed away he wanted to transmit these special teachings to her. So she was revived, and Padmasambhava then went on to transmit to her one of the most important Dzogchen lineages. This is a lineage that is commonly known as the “Khandro Nyingtik,” “The Heart Essence of the Dakinis.” And in this case, the dakini is princess Pema Sel — this is the heart essence that was entrusted to princess Pema Sel. He gave her all of these Dzogchen teachings that are encapsulated in this lineage, and then he made all sorts of prophecies that she would continue to be reborn in future generations and would eventually rediscover these teachings and would then transmit them and ensure that they would be propagated throughout Tibet. So Yeshe Tsogyal was, of course, receiving these as well, and she documented all of this. She wrote these teachings down in dakini script, this coded language, and, subsequently, the teachings were hidden away in some distant location. And it was not until generations later and there was a whole line of reincarnations that princess Pema Sel was reborn as a treasure revealer named Tertön Pema Ledreltsal. That figure, that tertön who rediscovered these teachings of the Khandro Nyingtik, was the immediate predecessor to Longchenpa. Pema Ledreltsal passed away and was then reborn as Longchenpa, which means that Longchenpa is the reincarnation of princess Pema Sel — going all the way back to that moment of dying, being revived, and receiving these profound teachings on the Khandro Nyingtik. So he has quite an interesting life story if you consider that succession of lives over time. And it is his connection to these Nyingtik teachings, 2 | DZOGCHEN | LINEAGE ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ these heart essence teachings, that are really, perhaps more than anything else he did, the crux of his life and his work. Longchenpa actually wrote on a tremendously vast amount of topics. He really wrote on just about everything you can imagine within the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, not just on the Dzogchen teachings. But he did something incredibly important for the Dzogchen lineage. What he did was codify two of the most central Dzogchen lineages that had been transmitted. One of them was the one I just mentioned, the Khandro Nyingtik, the Heart Essence of the Dakinis. That is the Dzogchen lineage that was transmitted from India to Tibet by Padmasambhava. The other lineage, which if you have not already heard about you certainly will, is the lineage that was transmitted to Tibet from Vimalamitra. Those Dzogchen teachings are encapsulated in a lineage that is commonly referred to as the “Vima Nyingtik”, “The Heart Essence of Vima,” or “The Heart Essence of Vimalamitra.” Those two lineages were brought together by Longchenpa. He compiled all of the important texts, both the root texts and the commentarial literature from each of those traditions, and in addition to that he wrote his own voluminous commentaries on every conceivable aspect of Dzogchen practice and, in particular, these Nyingtik or heart essence teachings. So you have the Khandro Nyingtik and the Vima Nyingtik, and then you have Longchenpa's own commentaries on those two lineages. All of that he combined into one huge collection of Dzogchen literature that is called the “Nyingtik Yabshi,” — The Fourfold Heart Essence. Again, these four parts are ​ ​ Guru Rinpoche's, or Padmasambhava's, lineage, Vimalamitra's lineage, and then Longchenpa's commentaries on those two. So you have these four parts. To this day, that collection is the single most comprehensive and important collection when it comes to the practice of the Great ​ Perfection. There is really nothing else than even remotely approaches the depth, the profundity, and the comprehensiveness of this collection, so it continues really to be the source of the entire tradition. In addition to that, he also wrote a collection called The Seven ​ Treasuries, the Dzö Dün, that really lay out the entire Dzogchen ​ ​ ​ tradition from a more scholarly perspective. This includes texts like 3 | DZOGCHEN | LINEAGE ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ The Treasury of the Basic Space of Phenomena, The Treasury of Key ​ ​ Instructions, and The Treasury of the Supreme Vehicle — all of these ​ ​ incredibly systematic, comprehensive presentations of the Dzogchen path and, you might say, the theoretical underpinnings for Dzogchen practice. If you look at those two side by side — The Seven Treasuries and The ​ ​ Fourfold Heart Essence — there is nothing in the entirety of Tibetan Buddhism that really even comes close to capturing in such depth and profundity the entirety of Dzogchen thought and practice. His teachings are thought to be so profound that in many cases nobody will even write a commentary on them. That is saying quite a bit because Tibetans write commentaries on everything, so this is actually not common at all. The fact that they hold these teachings in such reverence is really completely unique. Basically, I think what you could say is that they view Longchenpa, even though he was 700 years ago, as really having written the final word on Dzogchen. Nobody is really going to top that. There is really no need to write any commentaries on that because it is as clear and comprehensive as anybody could hope to ever get it. He was an incredibly realized Dzogchen master, a vastly prolific author, and a great systematizer of the teachings, but he also managed to capture the essence of the experiential side of the lineage. All of this is captured in this figure of Longchenpa. If you are interested in Dzogchen, there is really no better place to look than the writings of Longchenpa. And luckily we are starting to get some of this in translation now. The Seven Treasuries have been ​ translated as well as some of the teachings. I myself translated a lot of his teachings on the Khandro Nyingtik. So there are some of these teachings available, and I would really encourage you to seek them out. Some of them might be a little bit difficult to access, but they are well worth the effort. There is nothing more profound and precious for a Dzogchen practitioner than connecting with the wisdom mind of Longchenpa. So explore this for yourself. As you are continuing to learn about all of these practices and teachings, keep Longchenpa in mind and see if you 4 | DZOGCHEN | LINEAGE ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ can carve out some time to explore what he means for the Dzogchen lineage. Good luck with your study and practice. 5 | DZOGCHEN | LINEAGE ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​.
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