One thousand years ago, Gampopa, the illustrious heart son of Tibet's great yogin Milarepa, essentialized the entire Buddhist path in a concise set of pith instructions that became known as the Four Dharmas of Gampopa. Since that time, this profound teaching has been used by many eminent masters as a vehicle for imparting the key points of Buddhist practice, including, in the fourteenth century, the incomparable Longchenpa, whose brilliant exposition of the Four Dharmas illuminates the culmination of the path from a Dzogchen perspective. "The Light of the Sun" presents a new translation of Longchenpa's "Precious Mala of the Four Dharmas," alongside the original Tibetan text, with the lucid, accessible, and relevant commentary of contemporary Dzogchen master Choegyal Namkhai Norbu.
Born in eastern Tibet in 1938, Choegyal Namkhai Norbu is an internationally known Dzogchen teacher and author as well as an eminent scholar of the history and culture of Tibet. He studied with renowned masters of various Tibetan Buddhist traditions at important monasteries and colleges, demonstrating exceptional capacity to learn and receiving degrees in both philosophy and letters and traditional medicine. In 1960, he emigrated to Italy as a professor of Tibetology, where about a decade later he began to give instructions to a growing following of Western students, initially on Yantra Yoga and subsequently on Dzogchen, the Total Perfection teachings of the Tibetan spiritual traditions. He is the founder of the International Dzogchen Community, created to encourage the teaching and practice of the Dzogchen point of view and meditation methods, and travels worldwide giving teachings and speaking at international conferences. A prolific author of books on Dzogchen, Yantra Yoga, and Tibetan history, medicine, and culture, he also founded ASIA and the Shang Shung Institute, two nonprofit organizations dedicated to supporting the Tibetan people and preserving Tibetan culture.