Practicing the Great Perfection

Shechen Gyaltsap is a renowned master of the Great Perfection, or Dzogchen, the pinnacle of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. He was the teacher of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and is therefore a wellspring of the wisdom and accomplishments of the present generation of teachers. Though he left behind a substantial collection of writings, little of it has been translated and made available to an English readership. His works translated here for the first time are essential instructions for those who practice, or aspire to practice, the teachings of the Great Perfection. Written with a clear simplicity that belies their profundity, these teachings give practical and pointed advice on how to meditate on the nature of mind, self-arisen primordial wisdom, and how to sustain this practice in daily life. They begin with an extensive reflection on the problem of self-clinging and the analytical meditation designed to uproot it, and proceed to more specific instructions for the mind practice itself, at all times insisting on the fundamental, indispensable attitudes of renunciation and bodhichitta—the determination to awaken for the benefit of all beings.