Longchen Nyingtik Ngöndro

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Field of Merit from the Longchen Nyingtik Ngöndro

Longchen Nyingtik Ngöndro (Tib. ཀློང་ཆེན་སྙིང་ཐིག་སྔོན་འགྲོ།, Wyl. klong chen snying thig sngon 'gro) — the root verses of the Longchen Nyingtik Ngöndro are mostly taken from the original terma of Longchen Nyingtik (‘the Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse’) revealed by Jikmé Lingpa (1730-1798), and are therefore the vajra words of Guru Rinpoche himself. This profound and poetic revelation was then arranged and expanded by Jikmé Lingpa’s direct disciple, the First Dodrupchen, Jikmé Trinlé Özer (1745-1821), into its present form. Although we usually refer to this series of practices simply as the Longchen Nyingtik Ngöndro, its full title is ‘The Preliminary Practice of the Dzogchen Longchen Nyingtik: The Excellent Path to Omniscience’.[1]

Outline

The Common or Outer Preliminaries

  • Blessing the Speech
  • Invoking the Lama
  • Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind from Samsara
    • Free and Well-Favoured Human Birth
    • Impermanence
    • Karma: Cause and Effect
    • The Suffering of Samsara
  • Invoking the Lama's Compassion to Avoid Pitfalls on the Path

The Uncommon or Inner Preliminaries

Translations of the Root Text

  • Tulku Thondup, in The Dzogchen Innermost Essence Preliminary Practice (Dharamsala: LTWA, 1982)
  • Rigpa Translations, in A Guide to the Practice of Ngöndro (Lodeve: The Tertön Sogyal Trust, 2007). The root text was translated mostly in 1981 by Sogyal Rinpoche and Patrick Gaffney.
The Excellent Path to Omniscience: The Dzogchen Preliminary Practice of Longchen Nyingtik
  • Cortland Dahl, in Entrance to the Great Perfection: A Guide to the Dzogchen Preliminary Practices compiled, translated, and introduced by Cortland Dahl (Ithaca: Snow Lion, 2009)
  • Anne C. Klein, Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse: A Story of Transmission (Snow Lion Publications, 2009).
  • Colophon: This arrangement of the practices to be recited for the Dzogchen Longchen Nyingtik Ngöndro, The Excellent Path to Omniscience, was written by the tantric yogin Jikme Trinle Özer, who was nurtured by the kindness of the vidyādhara Jikme Lingpa as well as many other holy teachers, and attained a firm conviction in the samaya vow. Through this merit, may followers of this lineage actually see the master as a buddha in person, and may this cause Samantabhadra’s original face, their own self-cognizant rigpa, to become fully evident to them, so they become of ceaseless benefit for limitless living beings. Sarvada Maṅgalaṃ!

Commentaries

Contemporary Commentaries

  • Tulku Thondup, Enlightened Journey—Buddhist Practice as Daily Life, Boston & London, Shambhala, 1995.
  • Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche, Tantric Practice in Nyingma, trans. & ed. by Jeffrey Hopkins, co-edited by Anne Klein, Snow Lion, 1986.
  • Tulku Thondup, The Dzogchen Innermost Essence Preliminary Practice, LTWA, 1982.
  • Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, Not for Happiness: A Guide to the So-Called Preliminary Practices, Boston & London: Shambhala, 2012.)

Notes

  1. ༄༅། །རྫོགས་པ་ཆེན་པོ་ཀློང་ཆེན་སྙིང་ཏིག་གི་སྔོན་འགྲོའི་ངག་འདོན་ཁྲིགས་སུ་བསྡེབས་པ་རྣམ་མཁྱེན་ལམ་བཟང་བྱ་བ་བཞུགས་སོ། །, rdzogs pa chen po klong chen snying thig gi sngon 'gro'i ngag 'don khrigs su bsdebs pa rnam mkhyen lam bzang

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