Natural Perfection: Longchenpa's Radical Dzogchen [Paperback]

Longchen Rabjam (Author), Keith Dowman (Translator), Chogyal Namkhai Norbu (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 20, 2010

Dzogchen or the Great Perfection is the apex of Tibetan Buddhism, and Longchen Rabjam is recognized as the pre-eminent master of Dzogchen and one of Tibet's greatest writers and sages. His Treasury of Reality encompasses and optimizes the radical precepts of Dzogchen and is a shining example of why people continue to turn to the traditions of Tibet for spiritual and personal transformation. Transcending the Tibetan context, Longchen Rabjam’s book is a manual of practical wisdom for all people of all times, cultures, and traditions. Dzogchen teaches the natural perfection of all experience, phenomena, and life, just as it is, with no need to alter or fabricate complex ideas or philosophical views. This discipline of spiritual transcendence provides the key not only to our inner enlightenment but to the health and survival of our planet.

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Wisdom Publications (April 20, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 086171640X
• ISBN-13: 978-0861716401
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #71,882 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful text, amazing translation, April 2, 2010

By 

applewood (everywhere and nowhere) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Natural Perfection: Longchenpa's Radical Dzogchen (Paperback)

(Note this review is copied in part from the one I did for: Old Man Basking in the Sun: Longchen Rabjampa's Treasury of Natural Perfection - which is an earlier printing of this book. I have not seen this new edition, but from information available it appears to be simply a reprint without changes. This is a classic and profound text, and I love Dowman's "radical dzogchen" translation style...)

Obviously this text is not for everyone. But if you're looking for a powerful dose of Longchenpa (Tibet's preeminent dzogchen master), I wholeheartedly recommend this book and Dowman's translation.

I prefer not to compare this to Padma Publishing/Richard Barron's translation (1st text of Longchenpa's Seven Treasures - Precious Treasury of the Way of Abiding). I am familiar with several works of their Seven Treasures series which while always authoritative, are also perhaps a bit stiff (and too careful). This translation is anything but stiff, it is fluid and free, playful and evocative. It is a poetic text, poetically rendered.

Generally, the text is clearly organized with the complete 28 page text coming first (Treasury of Natural Perfection), then the 220 page auto-commentary making up the rest of the book (end notes, appendices and a dzogchen glossary follow). The root text is magical (beyond thought or concepts), and the commentary section is organized into 4 parts for each stanza - Longchenpa's text, then his auto-commentary, then some lineage quotes to back his statements up, and finally a few comments of explanation from the translator. Here is an abbreviated example of this process from pages 68-70;

Root Text-
"During the empty enchantment of dream
ignorant babes are entranced,
while the wise, disillusioned, are undeceived;
those unaware of the truth of absence,
clinging to their identity, wander in circles,
while the wise yogin, fully present,
aware of the zing of reality
convinced of the absence of that very moment,
is liberated in the non-contingent reality-matrix."

Auto-commentary -
"Enchanted by the play of illusion, children who do not know their own minds are bewitched. They take the show to be real and become attached to it, enwrapped in their imagination. Old people, on the other hand, who know the story, cannot get caught by such fascination...." (Longchenpa)

Supporting text -
"In nonduality, object and mind are released as one; whatever emerges out of unitary sameness is a unitary field; all created qualities are the existential ground; everything whatsoever, liberated without deliberate action, is a matrix of total freedom" (Garab Dorje)

Translators comments -
"The matrix is the spaciousness of timeless freedom. It is a point-instant free of all time and space; identical to nothing yet it contains or subsumes all times and spaces..... Ambitious people fixated on a goal tend to fear this matrix...." (Dowman)

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Natural Perfection: Longchenpa's Radical Dzogchen, October 16, 2010

By 

Whitney Pinneo (Broomfield, CO, US) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Natural Perfection: Longchenpa's Radical Dzogchen (Paperback)

A must read for anyone interested in the experiential knowing of our phenomenal world, and of ourselves. If your into the science of meditation, this rigorous translation of Longchenpa's will connect every day life with the deepest understanding of how our minds work, and how we live with ourselves and others.Natural Perfection: Longchenpa's Radical Dzogchen

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Longchenpa's Natural Perfection-, October 10, 2011

By 

Carol Verde (CA, usa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Natural Perfection: Longchenpa's Radical Dzogchen (Paperback)

After forty years of experience translating Dzogchen texts by the side of exceptional scholars in Tibet and Nepal, Keith Dowman has developed a rich vocabulary with an exquisite style which is a powerful and refined tool for the expression of the nonduality of the Great Perfection. He was the first of the new wave of Dzogchen translators to come out of the sixties, and the first to be published (Ornaments of Illumination, Kalimpong, 1969) and he set a standard which has not yet been overtaken. In this translation of one of the most demanding Dzogchen expositions of Longchen Rabjampa (Natural Perfection, a re-edition of Old Man Basking in the Sun, Vajra Publishing, Kathmandu, Nepal), with evocative poetry Keith Dowman creates a consummate link between the wisdom of the Himalayas and that of the western world, presenting a work which proves to be a faithful and powerful transmission of Longchenpa's teaching and at the same time accessible to readers who have not been exposed to the Tibetan language. Old Man Basking in the Sun invites us to read it over and over again and I think we should definitely consider it a headpiece book. I'm grateful for this particular English version of such an important pillar of the Dzogchen teaching and I look forward with pleasure to the next work of this author.

Natural Perfection: Longchenpa's Radical Dzogchen