In Tibetan Buddhism, Mahamudra represents a perfected level of meditative realization: it is the inseparable union of wisdom and compassion, of emptiness and skillful means. These eighty-four masters, some historical, some archetypal, accomplished this practice in India where they lived between the eighth and twelfth centuries. Leading unconventional lives, the siddhas include some of the greatest Buddhist teachers; Tilopa, Naropa, and Marpa among them. Through many years of study, Keith Dowman has collected and translated their songs of realization and the legends about them. In consultation...

Yeshe Tsogyel, consort of Guru Padmasambhava, is the most famous of the enlightened women of Tibet. Women have a special place in tantra, but except for Sky Dancer there are few writings that present the spiritual practices and evolution of female aspirants. Here women are in an eminent position, and a path of practice is given for present-day initiates to emulate. Keith Dowman has added a commentary on the path of inner tantra, woman and the dakini, and the Nyingma lineages.

The Divine Madman is the secret biography of one of Tibet's best-loved saints, the buddha Drukpa Kunley. Drukpa Kunley was a "nyomba," a crazy yogi who taught through outrageous behavior and ribald humor, through symbolic action, songs and poetry. Using people's emotion, neuroses and sexuality, as a tantric yogi through skillfull means and crazy wisdom he awakened their buddha-nature. He belonged to the lineage of Tilo, Naro, Marpa and Milarepa and taught the same profound Mahamudra yoga, but his most secret teaching was radical Dzogchen, Tibet's existential yoga. He wandered as a tantric...

This famous seminal text of radical Dzogchen provides a profound yet simple poetic statement of how it is to immerse oneself in the matrix of the now and recognize buddha. It is the personal statement of a peerless yogin-adept. Certainly the magic of his poetry impresses us that way and surely this Treasury of the Dharmadhatu, the Choyingdzo, reveals the consummation of Dzogchen. In it we are assured that over and above all the yogas and dhyanas of Hindustan, all the ritual and magic of Tibet and all the quasi religious new-age therapies of the West there exists a simple, timeless manner of...

Maya Yoga is the title of Keith Dowman's translation of Finding Comfort and Ease in Enchantment composed by the inimitable Longchen Rabjampa. In the Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism this text is considered second to none in its power to evoke the nature of the nondual reality of the Dzogchen view. With poetic mastery Longchenpa provides the precepts that can instantly illuminate the buddha-reality that is our ordinary everyday experience. He asserts that we are presently under the spell of magical illusion and that by recognizing it, we are instantaneously released from a conceptual cage...

Here is the great Yeshe Lama, the most renowned, comprehensive and the most efficacious of the Dzogchen manuals. It is a sourcebook for Dzogchen Breakthrough/Leapover precepts. Certainly, the Yeshe Lama lives up to its reputation. It is still the crown jewel of the latter-day Dzogchen lineages. It is at the apex of the Longchen Nyingtik corpus of literature, presenting the essential Dzogchen yogas in pith instruction. The Longchen Nyingtik is based firmly in Longchen Rabjampa's vision, a massive, vast and profound Dzogchen vision written down as the Seven Treasuries, which in turn were based...

Este famoso texto seminal del Dzogchen radical presenta una declaracion poetica profunda, aunque simple, acerca del modo de zambullirse en la matriz del ahora, de permitir la presencia pura y reconocer al buda. Es una declaracion personal de un yogui-adepto, que claramente atraveso las agonias de la transfiguracion. Sin duda alguna, la magia de su poesia nos deja esta impresion y este Tesoro del Dharmadhatu, el Choyingdzo, es una revelacion personal de la consumacion del Dzogchen. En el se nos asegura que por sobre todos los yogas y dhyanas del Indostan, toda la magia y rituales del Tibet, y...

The Nyingma Icons The sacred art of Tibet is best known through its painted scrolls, or tankas. Each tanka describes a contemplative vision arisen in meditation containing images of lamas, buddha-deities, dakinis and protectors. The ninety-four line-drawings that comprise The Nyingma Icons delineate the graphic basis of these tankas, incorporating the principal images of the Nyingma pantheon. This collection of buddhas in The Nyingma Icons was chosen by His Holiness the late Dudjom Rinpoche to illustrate his encyclopedic work The History of the Nyingma Dharma (Dudjom Rinpoche, The Nyingma...

Guru Pema is Padmasambhava, the wandering tantric yogin from Orgyen who became Tibet's Great Guru. To his disciples he was the Lotus Born and, later, to his followers, he became Guru Rimpoche, the precious guru-buddha who resides in our heart center. Identical to the nature of mind, he emanates tulkus to demonstrate Dzogchen, the Great Perfection. In this ground-breaking work Keith Dowman brings the guru-myths and the means of invoking Guru Pema together with an analysis provides immediate contemporary meaning. Some readers will consider the mythic truths revealed in the lives of Guru...