Longchen Rabjam (Longchenpa)

Longchen Rabjam (1308 to 1364), usually called Longchenpa, is widely acknowledged as the greatest exponent of Dzogchen, the “Great Perfection”, in Tibetan history. He is also known by the name Drimé Özer.

He was born in the Dra valley of south-central Tibet and took novice ordination as a boy at Samye. He studied with more than twenty masters, among them the Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje, and the Sakya teacher Lama Dampa Sönam Gyaltsen. At nineteen he entered the monastic college of Sangphu Neuthok. He later left it, disillusioned by the conduct of some of the scholars there, and chose the solitude of the mountains.

In his twenties he met Rigdzin Kumārādza, who became his root guru. Kumārādza kept moving from valley to valley with his students, and Longchenpa went with them for two years, living in hardship and receiving all of Kumārādza’s Nyingtik transmissions. After several years in retreat he began to attract students of his own. The hermitage of Gangri Thökar, south of Lhasa, was one of his main residences and the place where he wrote much of his work.

Political conflict with Tibet’s new ruler, Tai Situ Jangchub Gyaltsen, later sent him into exile in Bhutan. There he founded Tharpaling in Bumthang and several other hermitages, and fathered a son, Drakpa Özer, who became a holder of the Nyingtik lineage. After some years his patrons negotiated his return to Tibet.

Sources speak of more than two hundred works, many of them lost. The best known are the Seven Treasuries, which Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche describes as explaining the seventeen main Dzogchen tantras and all nine vehicles, and the Trilogy of Finding Comfort and Ease, on the nature of mind, meditation and illusion. He also wrote the “Yangtik” commentaries on the Vima Nyingtik and Khandro Nyingtik cycles, and short pieces such as Thirty Pieces of Advice from the Heart.

His influence runs through later Nyingma practice. In the 18th century Jikmé Lingpa had visions of Longchenpa that inspired him to reveal the Longchen Nyingtik cycle, now one of the most widely practised Nyingma traditions.