Autorentext

Anne Carolyn Klein is a professor and former chair of the Department of Religion at Rice University, where she developed a contemplative studies concentration for graduate students, teaches courses on Buddhism, and reads with students in Tibetan. She is also a lama in the Nyingma tradition and a founding teacher at Dawn Mountain, a center for Tibetan Buddhism, where she teaches a variety of practices and texts, especially recently revealed (gter) practices from Adzom Paylo Rinpoche, whom she met adventitiously in Tibet in 1996 and who named her a Dorje Lopön in 2009.

She has studied and translated in three of Tibet’s five traditions. Her scholarly work encompasses both Tibetan texts and the learned oral commentary on them. Her books include Knowledge and Liberation, on Buddhist distinctions between intellectual knowing and direct experience; Path to the Middle: The Spoken Scholarship of Kensur Yeshey Tupden, on preparing to meet the ultimate; Meeting the Great Bliss Queen, contrasting Buddhist and feminist understandings of self; Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche’s Strand of Jewels, on essential Dzogchen teachings; with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, Unbounded Wholeness, a translation and presentation of a Bön Dzogchen text; and Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse, on the foundational practices and lineage of Jigme Lingpa, with chantable English translations.

In all these endeavors her central theme is the embodied interaction between head and heart on the paths to wholeness, and delight in finding these throughout Buddhist literary and contemplative traditions.

Klappentext

An experiential journey into the heart of Buddhist practice—and companion volume to the beloved Words of My Perfect Teacher—this revered Tibetan practice manual illuminates the practical methods that lead to the wholeness and freedom of the Great Perfection.

Translated here for the first time, Adzom Drukpa’s (1842–1924) Lamplight on Your Path details for readers the unique practices grounding the Dzogchen path to liberation. This path was revealed by Jigme Lingpa (1730–98) as part of his Longchen Nyingthig cycle of teachings and is the basis for both Patrul Rinpoche’s beloved Words of My Perfect Teacher and Adzom Drukpa’s Lamplight. These foundational practices, known as ngondro, offer a way to fundamentally shift one’s heart and mindset, preparing one for the uniquely refined awareness that is both the method and the pinnacle of Dzogchen practice.

In Lamplight, Adzom Drukpa enriches his instruction with personal anecdotes and poetic flourishes that amplify his teachings on these powerful practices. His unique emphases suggest the power that he personally found in the foundational practices, how their inner meaning arose in his mind, and the open-hearted relationship he had with his teachers.

Beautifully rendered from the original Tibetan into clear English by Dr. Anne C. Klein—herself a lama and practitioner within the lineage of Jigme Lingpa and Adzom Drukpa—Lamplight for Your Path offers a fascinating account of a Tibetan master’s own journey in practice and shows how that path is always open to anyone with a heartfelt desire to experience the ever-present liberating awareness of Dzogchen.