Mountain Dharma: Alchemy of Realization: Dudjom Rinpoche's Ritro

Mountain Dharma: Alchemy of Realization is a presentation of the personal and intimate advice of the late and great Dzogchen Master Dudjom Rinpoche to a group of students bent on meditation retreat. Ever masterful, Dudjom Rinpoche, whose life and work provided a brilliant example of a Tibetan rigzin's full awareness, tells a group of yogis how to use an extended period of seclusion in a mountain hermitage to recognize the nature of mind in the Dzogchen tradition. In this instruction, he is down to earth and eminently practical. But also in a short but seminal exposition of the Dzogchen view, he delivers the nature of mind as if pointing at it in front of us. Dudjom Rinpoche places himself amongst the great masters of the Tibetan language and great yogis of the Dzogchen tradition, along with Longchenpa and Jigme Lingpa, in this classical exposition of Dzogchen. It is important to note that as Keith Dowman mentions in his preface, this brilliant text of Dudjom Rinpoche Jigtral Yeshe Dorje (1904 – 1987) is cast in the mold where Dzogchen is inseparable from the Vajrayana of the Ngajur Nyingma tradition. Here Dzogchen is bound up with Tibetan Buddhism, which carries it and forms a basis for its practice.As an introduction to the text, Keith Dowman adds recollections of his interaction with his Guru as a preface to a eulogy contributed by Sogyal Rinpoche, which adds immeasurably to the background of the text.
About the Author
Keith Dowman is a translator and teacher of Dzogchen, the quintessence of Buddhism. A student of the great Dzogchen lamas Dudjom Rinpoche and Kanjur Rinpoche, he lived in Benares, India, and Kathmandu, Nepal, for 50 years. His translations include Longchenpa’s Natural Perfection, Spaciousness and Maya Yoga. As Chogyal Namkhai Norbu remarked, "In communion with many great masters he [Keith Dowman] has fortuitously absorbed the realization of Dzogchen."