May 6, 2011

The Cuckoo of Awareness



"The Cuckoo of Awareness" (Rig pa'i Khu Byug), together with a commentary, is found among the Dunhuang manuscripts at the British Library. The root text is also the first in a list of five early Dzogchen translations attributed to Vairocana, a contemporary of Padmasambhava (eighth century C.E.). Numerous translations of the root text are already available, but I have not seen any others of the Dunhuang commentary apart from that in Samten Karmay's "The Great Perfection", (Brill, 1988). At least the first section of the commentary was possibly written by Vairocana himself. A modern, and very helpful commentary on the text is included in Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche's "Dzogchen, the self-perfected state" (Snow Lion, 1996). 

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