Dzogchen

treederwright

Ok im trying to read Kindly Bent to Ease Us, I like the language Longchenpa uses but its kinda tough. Does any one know of clarifying literature or commentaries to this trilogy or have expereince reading or working with this text?

shenpennangwa

treederwright wrote: »

Ok im trying to read Kindly Bent to Ease Us, I like the language Longchenpa uses but its kinda tough. Does any one know of clarifying literature or commentaries to this trilogy or have expereince reading or working with this text?

Longchenpa can be pretty challenging.
There are some really good basic Dzogchen books by Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche.
They are called:
As it is part 1
and
As it is part 2

naljorpa108

The difficulty of Longchenpa's writing is compounded by the way that H. V. Guenther attempts to translate it into the terminology of post-Heideggerian phenomenology. There is a website called the Guenthesaurus which was created to cross reference Guenther's way of translating various Dzogchen terms with the way that has become more standard with subsequent translators.

There is an autocommentary (that is, one written by Longchenpa himself) of the first part of the trilogy called The Great Chariot, that is available in the form of a giant .rtf file here.

There is a book of a teaching the Dalai Lama gave on the second part of the trilogy, which also contains a translation of the root text. It is called Mind in Comfort and Ease: The Vision of Enlightenment in the Great Perfection there is an extract of it here.

I'm not aware of a non-Guenther source for the third part, however Tarthang Tulku's The Practice of Dzogchen, has short excerpts from various parts of the trilogy and a surprisingly lengthy bibliography of Longchenpa's various writings related to the trilogy.

Also I would highly recommend the volumes of Longchenpa's seven treasuries which are available from Padma Publishing.

shenpennangwa

naljorpa108 wrote: »

There is a book of a teaching the Dalai Lama gave on the second part of the trilogy, which also contains a translation of the root text. It is called Mind in Comfort and Ease: The Vision of Enlightenment in the Great Perfection there is an extract of it here.

I'm not aware of a non-Guenther source for the third part, however Tarthang Tulku's The Practice of Dzogchen, has short excerpts from various parts of the trilogy and a surprisingly lengthy bibliography of Longchenpa's various writings related to the trilogy.

Also I would highly recommend the volumes of Longchenpa's seven treasuries which are available from Padma Publishing.

Theses are all excellent suggestions.
The Padma Publishing translations are quite good and Mind in Comfort and Ease is an excellent book that covers a lot of ground.