The Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism began in the eleventh century with such renowned figures as Marpa and Milarepa, and its seminal meditative traditions are Mahamudra and the six Dharmas of Naropa. Mahamudra teachings focus on the cultivation of profound insight into the nature of the mind. The Mahamudra texts in this volume include a lucid work by the celebrated master Tsele Natsok Rangdrol and works by the twelfth-century master Shang Rinpoche, the great Third Karmapa, the Eighth Tai Situ, and Drukpa Pema Karpo. The volume also contains an inspirational work by Gampopa, the Drigung Kagyu root text, The Single Viewpoint, the Sixth Shamarpa's guide to the six Dharmas of Naropa, and finally an overview of tantric practice by Dakpo Tashi Namgyal, author of the famous Moonlight of Mahamudra. The texts in this volume were selected by the preeminent scholar of the Kagyu school, Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche.
"The Library of Tibetan Classics project should be among the top priorities for thinking people in our culture at this time. We stand at a kind of "end of history," in terms of our traditional, unilinear "Western" culture, which has caused us to overdevelop our abilities to control and manipulate the material elements of life, while remaining underdeveloped in our ability to control ourselves. We now urgently need to learn from the resources of all the other great cultures of our world, especially those which developed "spiritual sciences." Tibetan culture is the living matrix of the ancient Indian Buddhist culture that is no longer fully accessible elsewhere. It has been blown out of Tibet itself by the incursion of the Chinese imperium, but its living representatives have spread its positive influence to the far corners of the earth. They daily demonstrate their ability to serve the needs of humanity in these difficult times. Therefore, the systematic translation and publication of the sources from which the Tibetans themselves continue to learn even in the most difficult circumstances, is of the greatest benefit and the utmost necessity for us."
