Synopses & Reviews
Wellsprings of the Great Perfection presents the primary sources explaining how the Dzogchen teachings came into this world, who received them and through whom they passed. It is an impressive collection of original translations from a vast number of classical Tibetan documents, including songs of realization by the early masters of the lineage.
The Dzogchen teachings of the Greatest Secret, also known as the Great Perfection, are the words of the compassionate Buddha, and among the causal and resultant vehicles, they are of the type that employ the fruition as the path, Wellsprings of the Great Perfection describes the origin, and gives both short and detailed historical accounts and teachings.
I see a profound importance in studying, reflecting upon and practicing the authentic statements and explanations of the Dzogchen lineage masters- especially for people who aspire to realize the Great Perfection- the Through cut of primordial purity, the view of Trekchö. I therefore request readers to keep these scriptures in the center of their hearts.”
- Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, author of Present Fresh Wakefulness
The ultimate origin and absolute teachings of Dzogchen inscribed in this most sacred text and whispered by the greatest adepts of its lineage are finally available in this volume. Every serious student Dzogchen must study and enshrine it in their heart.”
- Tulku Thondup, author of The Healing Power of Mind
Synopsis
For centuries, Dzogchen, often translated as the "Great Perfection," was a secretly transmitted teaching, unknown outside Tibetan culture.
Wellsprings of the Great Perfection explains how the Dzogchen teachings came into the world, who received them, and through whom they passed.
This impressive collection of translations, many of which have never before appeared in English, is drawn from a vast number of original classical Tibetan sources and includes selections of realization songs by early masters of the lineage. The book describes the early Dzogchen masters's lives and what they taught, with particular emphasis on events that took place before the teachings were transmitted to Tibet. Enhanced by specially commissioned line drawings by Ngawang Zangpo, a notable living Tibetan artist, as well as by rare samples of the mystical symbolic script of the dakinis or female embodiments of enlightenment, the book is both a fascinating historical document and a source of sacred knowledge and inspiration.
About the Author
Erik Pema Kunsang, also known as Erik Hein Schmidt, is known as one of the world's most gifted interpreters of Tibetan into English—although Danish was his first language. Traveling to Nepal from his native Denmark at twenty years old, he has studied with or translated for more than sixty Tibetan masters. He is the compiler of a voluminous 3,000-page Tibetan dictionary for spiritual terms (The Rangjung Yeshe Tibetan-English Dictionary of Buddhist Culture), used by other Tibetan translators as an authoritative reference and now available online at www.dharmadictionary.net.