Highest Wisdom

A Guidebook to the Stages of the Path of the Primal Guardian According to Longchen Nyingthig by Jigmey Lingpa

The text here by Jigmey Lingpa is commonly known by its abbreviated Tibetan name, Triyig Yeshe Lama orGuidebook Called “Highest Wisdom”.  It is the central text in the Longchen Nyingthig tradition of Great Completion or Dzogchen, and is used to explain the highest practices of the system.


The author, Lama Tony Duff, has spent much time at Dzogchen Monastery, East Tibet, receiving the complete transmissions of the Longchen Nyingthing system.  He made and verified this translation during attendance at a number of extended teaching retreats on the text.  Thus, the translation bears the blessings of one of the greatest living holders of the Longchen Nyingthig lineage, Padma Kalzang Rinpoche.  The blessings are conveyed to those outside of Tibet through the author, who is one of the very few translators capable of receiving, understanding, and practising teachings in the purely Tibetan environment found in the depths of Tibet.  These blessings are beautified with the ornaments of practical knowledge passed on to the author by the many yogins and khenpos steeped in the tradition, his close friends who live permanently in mountain retreats at the monastery.  Tibetan lamas who know the Longchen Nyingthig teaching and who can speak English sufficiently well to judge the matter say that it is by far the best translation available in English.

It has to be said that this Guidebook Called “Highest Wisdom” is sealed and locked.  The reason for this is that the text is a summation of the key points for practice found in theSeventeen Tantras, the tantras which are the very root of Great Completion.  Those tantras explicitly warn that one must have the necessary empowerments, and so on, before beginning to be instructed in and read about these teachings.  This is not a meaningless requirement; there is great danger in reading this material without first having the necessary empowerments and related instructions.  Therefore, there is a mandate by the lineage that this text is only to be read after having received the Rigpa Liveliness Empowerment (Tib. rigpa’i tsal wang) or by those who are about to receive it during a session of teaching on the text.