Lineage

The Nyingma School

In the eighth century, the Indian Tantric master Padmasambhava transmitted the vast and profound teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha to a small group of disciples in Tibet. The set of methods that he taught was aimed at the ultimate development of wisdom and compassion. According to this vision, the inherently pure nature of beings remains intact, despite being obscured by ignorance, neurotic passions and aggressiveness. The realization of this fully awake nature can be achieved in one life. Finding these teachings has been and it is a very rare fortune. Tantric Buddhism in Tibet, called the Vajrayana vehicle or Diamond vehicle, has keep the full force of Padmasambhava’s transmission for centuries, in part due to the geographical isolation of the country. The transmission line has been preserved thanks to the great lineage holders who dedicated their lives for the continuity and protection of this deep knowledge. From the time of the Buddha until now, the human mind is essentially the same. Shakyamuni Buddha is the teacher of our era and his teachings are still relevant today. The Vajrayana transmissions and practices provide clarity, stability and internal luminosity. The realization of Vajrayana meditation does not isolate the practitioner from the world or bring a purely personal salvation, but instead, integrates skillful means and wisdom with an open and unwavering vision of the interconnection of life. Paradoxically, it was through one of the tragedies of history that Tibet began to share with the rest of the world its inexhaustible knowledge about human mind. Due to the Chinese occupation and the annexation of Tibet in 1959, many of the most important teachers of Buddhism fled, as did many thousands of lay people. These teachers carried with them a great spiritual realization, as well as sacred writings, relics and consecrated works of art. At first they went to northern India, Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim. In the following years, they began to receive the westerners who were looking for a spiritual path, a way of living with dignity, courage, love and compassion in this increasingly dangerous and chaotic world. Kyabjé Dudjom Rinpoche Jidrel Yeshe Dorje was one of the great personalities who left Tibet. He was the spiritual incarnation of the Nyingma school, the original Vajrayana transmission in Tibet. In one of his previous incarnations, Rinpoche was Shariputra, a direct disciple of Shakyamuni Buddha, and in another one he was Khye’u Chung Lotsawa, one of Padmasambhava’s main disciples. Widely recognized as a teacher of teachers, Kyabjé Dudjom Rinpoche was a scholar and a prolific author of more than forty volumes which have given new light to the tantric teachings and practices of the Nyingma lineage. He was also a teacher in medicine and traditional sciences. Revered all over the world for his spiritual eminence, deep meditative realization and vast wisdom, Kyabjé Dudjom Rinpoche contributed with his greatness to the establishment of the Nyingma school in Europe and America.

The Dudjom Tersar lineage

The terma tradition is a well-known feature of the Nyingma school. It is the skillful means by which Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche), a powerful and great teacher of meditation, through his yogic powers concealed teachings destined for future generations in the earth, water, fire and air elements, as well as in the space of the Awareness of the mind of his disciples. At the appropriate time, these disciples appear in the world as tertöns or revealers of these teachings, which are known as terma or Dharma treasures. These teachings must be discovered at certain moments in time, when beings need a particular teaching in order to eliminate obstacles, diseases and other adversities. Kyabjé Dudjom Rinpoche, Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje, who was one of those treasure revealers, discovered many teachings for the benefit of beings in times of war, famine and lack of harmony as the world is facing nowadays. The Dudjom Tersar lineage is fresh, alive, direct and without loss of meaning or spiritual strength, since these teachings come directly from Guru Rinpoche to Dudjom Rinpoche. They reach us in a short and direct lineage. Therefore, it is an uncontaminated transmission that does not suffer the degeneration caused by broken samayas. The blessings and achievements are very swift. During his life, Kyabjé Dudjom Rinpoche not only devoted most of his time to propagating and preserving the termas of his predecessor Dudjom Lingpa, but also revealed his own ones. These teaching cycles include K’andro T’uktik, Tsokye T’ugtik, Tröma Nagmo and Putri Repung, among others.