Spaciousness: The Radical Dzogchen of the Vajra-Heart: Longchenpa's Treasury of the Dharmadhatu

This is basically the same book printed under the same title a year previously with a different publisher and different cover. A “Page of Unbounded Restriction” at the front is new and should be read. Aside from that changes are almost imperceptible, but it seems worthwhile repeating the accolades given the previous edition since this is one of those must reads in the Buddhist pantheon. So here for the repeating are the previous comments:“Longchenpa’s Treasury of the Dharmadhatu has been translated before, but never with more poetic genius. It’s unfortunate that there isn’t a “Look Inside” capacity for this book to gain the flavor of the writing. So here’s a taste:“Just as all sunlight is considered the nature of the sun, So all experience is the nature of the luminous mind. Identify the spaciousness of the support and location of whatever arises, Including the entire impure, delusory universe, manifest or potential, And everything is suffused by baseless mind and released in the now. Reality is thus defined as the vast space of the matrix of the now, Beyond delusion and nondelusion, beyond nominal meaning.” Canto 6 at page 55, new edition 73.You get the idea. Combine that with a brilliant commentary and you have a book well worth adding to your Buddhist library. There is a caveat: This is not a beginner’s book, or even for someone with a moderate background, although you might just read it for its poetry charm. This book is for the serious student / practitioner of Buddhism, one who also has a basic understanding of “The Radical Dzogchen of the Vajra-Heart”. This is the apex of Buddhist teachings. Having said that, there are some who will because of their karma quickly understand this teaching. Not so for most of us. This is the kind of book which can be read, put down, immediately picked up again and re-read with as much gain and enthusiasm as the previous time. It’s like listening to great music.There are thirteen cantos with an introduction to each. Go slowly. Read each and then reflect on it, meditate on it, perhaps even re-read it before going on to the next. You will be well rewarded for your effort.”

Preface to this revised edition: “I have taken the opportunity afforded by publication in America to edit the text again. Passing time has brought new insight and new word preferences. I have also edited out some phrases and sentiments that caused offence to believers in the suppositional buddhist approaches. We have changed the cover picture and increased the size of the font throughout. In all, this revised edition constitutes an upgrade.” — Keith Dowman, 2014I recommend this be read along with two other books by the author — “Maya Yoga: Longchenpa’s Finding Comfort and Ease in Enchantment” and “Natural Perfection: Longchenpa’s Radical Dzogchen.” While they can be read in any order, they definitely compliment each other. Along with B. Alan Wallace and John Myrdhin Reynolds, I’ve found Keith Dowman’s translations and commentaries to be top of the line. For anyone interested in my recommended books (Dzogchen and other spiritual gems), please click on my Amazon reviewer name: PW108.Additionally, for erudite, thoughtful, and well-written analysis of many Dzogchen tomes, I recommend to everyone here that they avail themselves of the comments from the Amazon reviewers going by the names, “Book Drawn” and “applewood.” Given the many wonderful reviews of theirs that assisted me with my purchases, anyone looking into these types of spiritual texts would do well to read their posts. My thanks to both these fine gentlemen!

How does one put into words what is essentially ineffable. As long as we are "at play" in the human drama it seems we are often compelled to at least try to express in some way what has become a feeling/experience that clearly transcends all that we can know intellectually; the art of words, that can only point to what is. Who then is to say what is real and what is false? By way of the heart the soul simply knows. The warrior instinct must manifest through what we refer to as the heart so that knowledge and experience become one in the totality of the Now. I experience sacred tears by way of texts such as this; overwhelmed by emotion at times; perhaps more my own personal signal that I still have much more to experience/healing by way of the heart, and also to whatever extent there is the realization of the human race in total, indeed, has the need of so much more growth it seems, in order to overcome the "poisons" and their opposite, by neither attachment nor aversion. May all beings achieve enlightenment. Thanks Keith Dowman for the work that you do.

As I read in another review: "For those who are reaching the far end of Dzogchen". Do you have the ears to listen to this music? Does deep insight into yourself ( and not-self ) made you open and intuitive enough do let yourself be infected by this non-vision? Of course for a race (humans) that is bound to the image and bound to the image of the other about you (social) and furthermore a culture that is bound by achievement and competition it is not easy to ease yourself back into the original intelligent simplicity, that you still are, at some level!I do not know anything so radical as the seven treasures of Lonchenpa (To my knowledge not all of them have been translated). And I love the commentary of Keith Dowman. It's not simple but never falls into intelectualizing. We are lucky to have been given access to that kind of insight!P.S. I just read another excellent commentary of Longchenpa with the title "THE GREAT CHARIOT A commentary on Great Perfection: The Nature of Mind, Easer of Weariness".

explica con una gran simpleza un elemento fundamental y funcional del Dzogchen

In describing Longchen Rabjam’s Precious Treasury Of The Dharmadhatu, Dowman writes in his introduction, ‘Each of the cantos reflects an aspect of the central reality; the cantos’ titles are all synonyms of the reality that is the ineffable sun… Each stanza is complete in itself, like each moment of pure presence in the now. While each stanza has a distinct cast providing a slightly different angle on the nature of mind, all the stanzas are the same.’ And so it is with this translation: it is exactly the same as the last one, and so the same reasons for purchasing it pertain again: its reiteration. Or you could just read the Barron translation again. Or one syllable of it over and over. And why not. Except this is equally scrumptious, a dessert at the beginning again. The soufflé of the ineffable. [Always rising. Don't take it out of the oven!!! Hahahaaa!]There are forms in the Dowman translation that are not in the Barron, and vice-versa, but both these texts arise from the original and, I trust and am guessing [I can’t read Tibetan], are not different from it. Both texts arise from the original and in consultation with that ground, of Kuntuzangpo, which I understand is quite explicit and in good condition.Comparisons are superfluous, as if we were comparing different rides at Alton Towers; the measured and the crazy but not being certain of which was which. Dowman’s Canto Ten is ecstatic, Canto 12 gathers speed though is going nowhere. You put the needle on the anthracite and crank it as you like. Both texts are big hearted and sumptuous in their different ways and have different flavours [as if!!!! ha ha ha haaaah, dong!]yeah, good stuff, now...What KD provides that the RB translation doesn’t is a commentary, carrying the tradition into English. Longchen Rabjam’s own commentary on The Precious Treasury is also available from the Padma Translation Committee, but it is expensive currently. KD, of course, has studied this text also, in Tibetan. So, as in traditional Buddhist commentarial practice, Dowman is eclectic, both adding and repeating and building and rebuilding from the ground up. Here, as in other commentaries I have mentioned in other reviews, Dowman’s prose is lapidary and well situated. Like a diamond cutter, he provides extra facets to the diamond at the same time as polishing and breathing on those already provided.This text, as everything, provides immediate access to the pervasive expanse of the guru and is the guru, the Dharmadhatu, hence its title; its medium is unmediated transmission in which there can be no intervention in purity and in which the description is not separate from that which it describes. The adept translator provides that access, on equal terms, opening doors in the West. If you don’t want to go immediately bonkers, go steady with this liminality.

dieses Buch auf englisch richtet sich an praktizierende des Dzogchen um die Tiefe des Seins zu "erspüren".Ohne gutes Englisch ist das allerdings nicht möglich. Keith Dowman ist nicht unumstritten in seinen Übersetzungen aber (wie ich finde) sehr zum Punkt.

For people trying to deepen their connection coming from a Nonduality perspective there are lots of "how to process" books but not so many that can be convincingly used from a devotional expanding point of view. This book manages to open up the reader to what is after all ineffable therefore almost impossible. This honest translation grasps this point and is a proper tonic for the soul. Like "The Cloud of Unknowing" the historical mystics did not mess about and Keith Dowman's translation does not either. Love this book absolutely amazing.

It MORE than met my expectations. A fantastic, illuminating book! Dowman is a bit wacky at times, but basically his work is very sound & thought-provoking. Highly recommended to those interested in primordial Truth, & the evolution of religious belief.