Additional information
by Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (Author), Marcia Binder Schmidt (Translator), Erik Pema Kunsang (Translator)
An insightful memoir illuminating the profound experiences and magical world of a Tibetan Buddhist master.
"Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche was among Tibetan Buddhism's greatest teachers of the twentieth century. His memoir, Blazing Splendor, invites us to join him as he looks back over a life that put him at the center of an unparalleled spiritual abundance. Through his unblinking eyes we meet remarkable contemplative adepts. And through the lens of his awakened awareness, we see the world from a fresh, eye-opening perspective. It is a sweeping account that shares with readers a world where miracles, mystery, and deep insight are the order of the day--a world as reflected through the open, lucid quality of Tulku Urgyen's mind."--from the foreword by Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence Blazing Splendor is a rare and profound gift: an intimate view into the world of one of the most celebrated and influential meditation masters of the last century. In these memoirs, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (1920-96) recounts with incredible lucidity and humility his unique spiritual and familial heritage, his training in Tibetan Buddhism, and remarkable encounters with some of the most renowned masters of Tibet. This wide-reaching narrative stretches across generations to provide insight into the lived experience of contemplative adepts and into life before and after the Cultural Revolution, which left Tibet changed forever. Born the great-grandson of the seminal terma-revealer Chokgyur Lingpa and a holder of both Nyingma and Kagyu lineages, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche tells us of his unique family legacy, in which each generation has been saturated with spiritual accomplishments. He tells of how he, in time, became responsible for learning and then transmitting this lineage of Buddhist teachings, which continues today in the flourishing activities of his surviving sons Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, and Tsoknyi Rinpoche. Blazing Splendor is a window into the life of a Mahamudra and Dzogchen master that illuminates the transmission of sacred teachings in a modern world--a world we inhabit too, where the miraculous and the mundane exist side by side. This special, revised edition of the modern classic includes new images and color illustrations.
Author Biography
Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (1920-96) is recognized as one of the greatest twentieth-century masters of Tibetan Buddhism and one of the first to bring the essential teachings of Buddhism beyond Tibet. Born into an illustrious family, he took as the core of his own practice the indivisibility of the three great traditions: the Dzogchen view of primordial purity and perfection, the Mahamudra view of mental nondoing, and the Middle Way view of holding no mental constructs. After fleeing Tibet shortly before the Dalai Lama, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche devoted the rest of his life to trying to keep the spirit of the classical Tibetan spiritual system alive. Blazing Splendor is a translation of the name he was given by the head of the Kagyu order of Tibetan Buddhism, the name referring to the qualities of a realized master. He was a teacher without peer, who transformed the lives of those who came to him from the world over, among them Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Tara Bennett-Goleman, and Lama Surya Das.
Marcia Binder Schmidt, who lives in Kathmandu, Nepal, and the U.S., was a long-time, close attendant to Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. Previous publications include the compilation Dzogchen Essentials, a comprehensive and accessible collection of essential Dzogchen instructions that combine study and practice. Erik Pema Kunsang, who lives in Kathmandu, Nepal, is one of the world's most gifted English interpreters of Tibetan. Since first traveling to Nepal from his native Denmark at the age of twenty, he has studied with and translated for more than sixty Tibetan masters. He is the compiler of a 3,000-page Tibetan dictionary of spiritual terms, "The Rangjung Yeshe Tibetan-English Dictionary of Buddhist Culture."
