Nyingtik Yabzhi Project

This project aims to translate key texts from the crucially important collection of Dzogchen material known as the Nyingtik Yabzhi (snying thig ya bzhi), or Fourfold Heart-Essence – Vima Nyingtik, Lama Yangtik, Khandro Nyingtik, Khandro Yangtik and Zabmo Yangtik.

The thirteen-volume edition of the collection includes two volumes for the Lama Yangtik, four for the Vima Nyingtik, three for the Khandro Yangtik, two for the Khandro Nyingtik, and two for the Zabmo Yangtik. This represents a total of more than 380 individual texts, covering almost every genre of Tibetan literature from history and biography through to poetic songs and ritual manuals.

Dezhung Rinpoche (with assistance from Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche) wrote a useful overview of the collection (and the Longchen Nyingtik) in the early 1960s in reply to a question from E. Gene Smith.

Few texts from this collection have been translated into English to date. Some have appeared in books, but there has been no systematic attempt to translate the whole collection, despite its centrality to the Dzogchen lineage.

The project, which began in September 2023, is funded by the Tsadra Foundation and has Alak Zenkar Rinpoche as its senior advisor.

The initial focus is on the Lama Yangtik section.

Sources

Multiple editions of the Nyingtik Yabzhi are available. This project will rely primarily on the thirteen-volume edition reproduced from the Adzom Drukpa Chögar blocks by Lama Gyurme Drakpa (whose biography is available on The Treasury of Lives), but will also consult other editions, especially the relevant volumes from the Paltsek edition of the writings of Longchen Rabjam published in 2009.

Highlights

The texts published so far as part of the initiative include:

Immaculate Radiance: A Testament

by Longchen Rabjam

One of three final testaments included in the Khandro Yangtik collection, this is the longest and most famous. It includes a series of similes that illustrate the key themes of the general teachings and concludes with Longchenpa's declaration of delight at the prospect of his own death..

Testament Khandro Yangtik

Autobiography

by Longchen Rabjam

As part of his history of the Lama Yangtik lineage, Longchenpa offers a first-hand account of his own early life. The text is brief, but was clearly an important reference for later biographers and historians such as Chödrak Zangpo, Gö Lotsawa Zhönnu Pal, Guru Tashi, Dudjom Rinpoche and Nyoshul Khenpo Jamyang Dorje.

Biography Lama Yangtik

Direct Path to the Primordial: A Concise Liturgy and Visualization for the Preliminary Accumulations of the Mother and Child Cycles of Dzogpachenpo Vima Nyingtik, the Heart-Essence of Vimalamitra

by Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo

This liturgy includes sections on taking refuge, generating bodhicitta, Vajrasattva meditation, maṇḍala offering, and guru yoga. Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo (1820–1892) drew on earlier sources to compose the text while staying at Palpung Monastery.

Vima Nyingtik Ngöndro Restricted

Ocean of Siddhis: The Stages of Guru Service

by Longchen Rabjam

This frequently cited text discusses the guru-disciple relationship in a Dzogchen context—a means of bringing about boundless blessings and realization.

Lama Yangtik Following a Teacher Restricted

The Fully Fledged Garuḍa

by Longchen Rabjam

According to the catalogue of the Zabmo Yangtik, this short text reveals “the ultimate enlightened intent” (don gyi dgongs pa). Herbert V. Guenther believed that it contains "probably the profoundest phenomenological descriptions of experience-as-lived ever written".

Dzogchen Zabmo Yangtik Restricted