Dudjom Lingpa was a mystic with great power and wisdom. He was born in 1835 - just before steamships started crossing the Atlantic Ocean - in Golok, in eastern Tibet. His birthplace was a land known for its wild and pure landscapes, its fierce bandits, and its uncompromising and realized Dharma practitioners.
Never recognized as a tulku or reincarnated master, Dudjom Lingpa did not receive formal training in a monastic environment. His education came principally through direct teachings from wisdom teachers encountered in his rich and vivid visionary life. He was a yogi, a lay practitioner and family man with eight sons and four daughters. His life was characterized by material poverty and hardship, intrigue, and unwavering confidence in the tantric teachings. Direct encounters with wisdom deities and fearsome spirits were part of his daily experience.
As a terton or Treasure-revealer, Dudjom Lingpa had the fortune to discover a vast storehouse of sacred teachings. These had been hidden and sealed centuries earlier by the Buddhist master Padmasambhava and his consort Yeshe Tsogyal in Tibet. The spiritual practices and instructions that Dudjom Lingpa revealed – contained within twenty-one volumes and
over 20,000 pages of scripture – form the basis of the Dudjom Tersar lineage. They are unsurpassed in their potency to lay bare the true nature of reality, directly and swiftly, for those who practice them correctly.
During Dudjom Lingpa’s lifetime, a series of events amazed people all over Tibet and brought renown to his Treasure lineage. More than thirteen students manifested the ultimate sign of complete enlightenment: the achievement of a rainbow body. This is the fruition of the path of Dzogchen, Great Perfection, where the physical body dissolves into its pure nature of wisdom light.
Since Dudjom Lingpa himself departed the world in 1904, his spiritual heritage has spread throughout the east and west. Up to the present day, vibrant communities of Dudjom Tersar practitioners committed to awakening continue to demonstrate high levels of spiritual realization among their members. The Dudjom tradition is alive and well, thriving with the warm breath of the dakinis as one of the most important Early Translation Nyingma lineages in the history of Tibetan Buddhism.