Research Catalog

Title

Approaching the great perfection : simultaneous and gradual approaches to Dzogchen practice in Jigme Lingpa's Longchen Nyingtig / Sam van Schaik.

Author

Van Schaik, Sam.

Publication

Boston : Wisdom Publications, c2004.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xvi, 386 p.; 23 cm.

Summary

"Dzogchen, the Great Perfection, is the highest meditative practice of the Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism. Approaching the Great Perfection looks at a seminal figure of this lineage, Jigme Lingpa, an eighteenth-century scholar and meditation master whose cycle of teachings, the Longchen Nyingtig, has been handed down through generations as a complete path to enlightenment. Ten of Jigme Lingpa's texts are presented here, along with extensive analysis by van Schaik of a core tension within Buddhism: Does enlightenment develop gradually, or does it come all at once? Though these two positions are often portrayed by modern scholars as entrenched polemical views, van Schaik explains that both tendencies are present within each of the Tibetan Buddhist schools. He demonstrates how Jigme Lingpa is a great illustration of this balancing act, using the rhetoric of both sides to propel his students along the path of the Great Perfection."--book jacket.

Series Statement

Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism

Uniform Title

Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism.

Subject

Rdzogs-chen

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 367-382) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

ISBN

0861713702 (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2003017897

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library