The third volume of the Collected Works of the modern Tibetan master Khangsar Tenpa'i Wangchuk, this is the first published translation of a commentary on the 14th-century master Longchenpa's Precious Treasury of the Dharmadhatu, a verse text on the direct practices to realize the nature of mind taught within the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism.

Among the great works of the omniscient Longchenpa, The Treasury of the Dharmadhatu, one of Longchenpa's (1308-1363) Seven Treasuries is particularly revered among Tibetan poetic and scholastic works on Dzogchen meditation. The text expounds the intrinsic nature of the mind--awareness, the vast expanse of the dharmadhatu--as the basis and medium of the endless and unlimited display of phenomenal existence, of both mundane samsara and exalted nirvana. The teachers are laid out according to the approach of trekcho, the practice that "cuts through" the tough deposit of conceptual fabrication and habitual tendencies, accumulated from beginningless time, which obscures the original, unimpaired, and ever-present purity of the mind's nature, the sugatagarbha.

Khangsar Tenpa'i Wangchuk's modern commentary brings to life the fine points of the text as a meditation manual. Completed in 1996, it is the first extensive and detailed commentary ever to be produced on Longchenpa's root text, with the exception of the author's own autocommentary. In contrast with the general "meaning commentary" composed by Longchenpa himself, which explains the sense of the root text in broad strokes, supporting it with many scriptural citations, Tenpa'i Wangchuk's is a "word-commentary" in which both the words and syntax of the root text are elucidated, thereby giving clear guidance and insight into the intentions of the author. Both root text and commentary are said to reflect the realizations of the lineage holders of the tradition and present a clear picture of the perfection of the Buddhist path.

The Precious Treasury of the Dharmadhatu: Khangsar Tenpai Wangchuk's Collected Works, Longchenpa and Khangsar Wangchuk, Shambhala Publications, Hardcover, 792 pages, $69.95

Longchen Rabjam (1308-1363) is Tibet's most famous master of the Dzogchen tradition. He was a prolific scholar, poet, and accomplished spiritual practitioner. He authored hundreds of seminal texts that make up the core of Nyingma traditional instructions.

Khangsar Khenpo Tenpa'i Wangchuk (1938-2014) Born in Golok, Tibet, Khangsar Khenpo began his Buddhist study at eight years old, became a monk at fourteen, and began teaching at fifteen. A Nyingma practitioner, Khangsar Khenpo was both a terton, or treasure revealer, and a scholar of the rigourous scholastic curriculum of the Geluk tradition. During the later years of the Cultural Revolution, he was sentenced to twelve years in prison, where he continued his dedicated practice alongside other great masters, from whom he received pith instructions and transmissions. In the later part of his life, he focused on teaching, writing commentaries on seminal texts, and restoring and enlarging monasteries in his home villages of Khangsar Taklung and Panak in the region of Golok.