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THE SNOW LION NEWSLETTER
THE EIGHTH SITUPA ON THE THIRD KARMAPA'S MAHAMUDRA PRAYER
Here, in one compact volume, are all of the stages
of instruction on the path of mahamudra. Included are concise and complete
formal instructions on the ground, path and fruition of this penetrating
practice. This vast and profound commentary originates with the Eighth Situpa, a
remarkable scholar and practitioner who is considered the most accomplished of
all the Situ emanations.
The Third Gyalwa Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje, was a central figure in both the
Kagyu and Nyingtik traditions of Tibet. He was a highly renowned practitioner of
mahamudra and secret mantra.
"Lama Sherab Dorje offers us an accurate and highly readable translation of
this masterwork of Kagyu Buddhism...a text that deserves to be studied in
depth."-- Matthew Kapstein
Lama Sherab Dorje is a translator, interpreter and teacher in Canada and the
United States.
(A previous edition of this book was titled Mahamudra Teachings of the
Supreme Siddhas .)
All students of the Kagyu traditions of Tibetan Buddhism are familiar with
Karmapa III Rangjung Dorje's beautiful prayer, known in brief simply as the
Aspiration of Mahamudra, and recited daily in countless Tibetan temples,
retreats and homes. The depth of the significance this short litany holds for
those practicing within the tradition first became clear to me some twenty years
ago, when I had the good fortune to read, under the guidance of the late Kalu
Rinpoche, the great commentary that Situ Panchen composed to explain Rangjung
Dorje's words. Hearing the actual phrases once spoken by Rangjung Dorje and Situ
Panchen expounded by perhaps the greatest contemporary representative of the
Mahamudra approach to meditation came with the force of a revelation, pointing
the way to a transition from treating Mahamudra as an object of study, to the
possibility of comprehending it as the very texture of experience, defying all
prospects of objectification.
In the present volume Lama Sherab Dorje offers us an accurate and highly
readable translation of this masterwork of Kagyu Buddhism, a work that is sure
to be read with profit both by those who wish to learn something about the
system of Mahamudra, and by those practicing within the tradition. The latter,
in particular, will find here a text that deserves to be studied in depth,
until, in the words of the tradition, the intentions of the author have become
fully integrated with one's own meditations.
Matthew Kapstein
Department of Religion
Columbia
University
July 1994
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