Table Of ContentThe Crystal and the Way of Light
Sutra, Tantra, and Dzogchen
The Crystal and the Way of Light
Sutra, Tantra, and Dzogchen
by
Chogyal Namkhai Norbu
compiled and edited by
John Shane
Contents
Editor's Note to the Snow Lion Edition 9
The Six Vajra Verses 15
1. My Birth, Early Life, and Education; and How I Came to Meet My Principal
Master 19
2. An Introductory Perspective: The Dzogchen Teachings and the Culture of
Tibet 31
3. How My Master Changchub Dorje Showed Me the Real Meaning of Direct
Introduction 35
4. Dzogchen in Relation to the Various Levels of the Buddhist Path 45
5. With My Two Uncles Who Were Dzogchen Masters 63
6. The Base 103
7. The Path 109
8. The Fruit 149
Appendix One 169
A. Garab Done's Three Principles of the Dzogchen Teaching 169
B. Key to the Groups of Three in the Dzogchen Teachings 170
C. Summary of the Three Methods 173
D. Principal Practices of the Three Series 176
Appendix Two: Biographical Sketch of the Author 181
Appendix Three: Commentary to the Plates 187
Notes 193
Other Publications by Chogyal Namkhai Norbu 203
The Dzogchen Community 206
Index 207
Illustrations
Plates
An eighteenth-century crystal polyhedron 20
Garab Dorje and Adzam Drugpa 75
Thangka showing Padmasambhava with his two principal consorts 76
Detail of the above thangka 77
Thangka detail showing Nubchen Sangye Yeshe 77
Thangka detail showing Yeshe Tsogyal entrusting terma to three dakinis and a
Naga 78
Thangka detail showing Mandarava 79
Thangka detail showing one of Padmasambhava's principal female disciples
(probably Kalasiddhi) 79
Thangka detail showing the translator Vairocana and his disciples 80
Thangka detail showing Palgi Yeshe 81
Thangka detail showing a Heruka appearing to Padmasambhava 81
Tibetan thangka showing the great Fifth Dalai Lama (1617-82) 82
Details from the murals in the Fifth Dalai Lama's secret temple, Zongdag
Lukhang 83
A Tibetan monk putting the finishing touches to a statue of the Tibetan yogi poet
Milarepa 86
Detail of a thangka showing Milarepa's principal disciple 86
His Holiness Tendzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama 87
Detail from the Thodgal mural in the Fifth Dalai Lama's secret temple 87
Chogyal Namkhai Norbu practicing 88
Line drawings
The Six Vajra Verses 16
Tibetan letter A 18
Green Tara 22
Shenrab Miwo 39
Garab Dorje 42
Buddha Shakyamuni 46
Padmasambhava 54
Guru Tragpo 55
Simhamuka 57
The Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje (1284-1339) 59
The Fifth Dalai Lama 61
A practitioner of the Chad, practicing in a charnel ground 64
Machig Labdron 66
The Tibetan syllables OM AH HUM 95
The Wheel of Existence 96
The Sanskrit syllables EVAM 121
Guru Amitayus 123
Vairochana, the great translator 126
The great Dzogchen master Jigmed Lingpa (1729-98) 135
The Guardian Ekajati 136
The Guardian Dorje Legba 137
The Guardian Mahakala 138
The Guardian Rahula 139
Changchub Dorje, Chogyal Namkhai Norbu's principal master 144
This book is dedicated to my master, Changchub Dorje, and to my
uncles Ogyen Tendzin and Khyentse Chokyi Wangchug, and to the
benefit of all sentient beings.
-Namkhai Norbu
Editor's Note to the Snow Lion
Edition
When, in 1980, I was first invited to work with Chogyal Namkhai Norbu to
produce a book in English about Dzogchen, it was envisaged that the project
would take about a year. But in the end the project took four years to complete,
and The Crystal and the Way of Light was not, in fact, published until 1986. It is
worth remembering, as Snow Lion Publications is preparing to release a new,
revised and updated edition of The Crystal in the United States, that there were
no books about Dzogchen available for the general Western reader at the time
this book was first published. Furthermore, Chogyal Namkhai Norbu was
practically the only Tibetan lama who was willing, at that time, to teach
Westerners openly about Dzogchen. The extraordinary generosity of his attitude
in relation to what was regarded in many circles as a reserved teaching was
based on his great wisdom and clarity, as he clearly foresaw the enormous
growth of interest in Tibetan Buddhism that would develop in the following
years. He was fully aware that there was great hunger in the hearts of an
increasing number of people for a teaching that they could practice in the midst
of their busy lives in a world that seemed to be turning faster with every passing
year, and he knew from his own experience that Dzogchen was a teaching
ideally suited to their needs.
As it turned out, Rinpoche's intuition of the way things would develop was
extremely accurate, and the interest in authentic spiritual teachings that was
growing so fast in the West lead to The Crystal immediately being a great
success in publishing terms. This surprising success seems particularly
impressive when, with the benefit of hindsight, one considers that Tibet and
Tibetan Buddhism were relatively obscure subjects at that time, and that the
Dzogchen teachings themselves-which are the subject of this book-were not at
all well-known even among those already interested in Buddhism.
Now, of course, as we approach the turn of the century and the beginning of a
new millennium, Tibet is a fashionable cause, and there are many books
available on every aspect of Tibetan Buddhism, including Dzogchen, which is no
longer an obscure subject known only to a few Tibetologists.
But the arrival of other books on the same subject seems not to have
