Approaching the Great Perfection: simultaneous and gradual methods of Dzogchen practice in the Longchen Nyingtig

Researcher and scholar Sam van Schaik introduces the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, looking closely at its practice of Dzogchen — and one of Dzogchen's seminal figures, Jigme Lingpa — to make an extensive analysis of a core tension within Buddhism: does enlightenment develop gradually, or does it come all at once?

PRAISE
"Works by one of the most celebrated figures of the Nyingma school, Jigme Lingpa, are the subject of a thorough analysis by Sam van Schaik in APPROACHING THE GREAT PERFECTION. An important work for its breadth and attention to detail, it contains translations of ten texts from the widely practiced treasure cycle called the Longchen Nyingtig, as well as a survey of Nyingma history and Jigme Lingpa's corpus. It also includes a sustained examination of the tensions between simultaneous and gradual approaches to realization as reconciled in the combination of revelatory and ordinary writings found in the Longchen Nyingtig. Van Schaik's lucid explanation of the issues and technical vocabulary in the 'seminal heart', or nyingtig, teachings provide the reader with an essential framework for tackling the extensive primary source material found in this work."
—Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly

"A clear and methodical study of Jigme Lingpa's Treasure and Great Perfection teachings. The book serves also as a lucid introduction to Nyingma philosophy and practice, as well their relation to other trends in Buddhist thought and meditation."
—Janet Gyatso, Harvard University

"A stimulating contribution to the study of simultaneist and gradualist approaches in Buddhism by way of important new translations and lucid commentary. His insights into the philosophical content of Tibetan tantric literature, as well as into the boundaries between revelation and composition, illuminate the most significant tantric cycle in the Nyingma tradition of the last three centuries."
—David Germano, University of Virginia

" Translated here are all but one of the texts comprising the Dzogchen Longchen Nyingtig cycle composed by or revealed to Jigme Lingpa, in his time (the late 18th century) the most authoritative commentator on these practices since Longchenpa, and very firmly in the latter's distinctive Seminal Heart tradition. More than just a critical edition of these fascinating and definitive texts, van Schaik's introduction and analysis are quite substantive, teasing out the deep hermeneutical tensions in these works and by extension, the Great Perfection literature as a whole while highlighting Lingpa's skillful strategies for balancing the language of immanence found in thetreasure texts with his overarching concern to portray enlightenment as a gradual process.
Spanning dazzlingly poetry and partisan apologetics, this book presents a wealth of information on treasure texts, the relationship between the Dzogchen, Tantra, and the highest teachings of other Tibetan lineages, and the challenges of integrating the immediacy of experience with established philosophical tradition. Both Lingpa and van Schaik are to be credited with formidable accomplishments, impressive in scope and depth. "
—Altar magazine (Review by Joel Bordeaux)