Klong Chen Rab 'Byams Pa (Longchenpa)
KLONG CHEN RAB 'BYAMS PA (LONGCHENPA). Longchenpa (1308–1363) is perhaps the most important philosophical author in the history of the Rnying ma (Nyingma) school of Tibetan Buddhism and one of the great figures in fourteenth-century Tibet, a time of larger-than-life authors and systematizations of sectarian traditions. His renown stems from his huge literary corpus, and three distinctive facets of it. Firstly, he is renowned as the systematizer of the Nyingma tradition of the Great Perfection (Rdzogs chen [Dzogchen]), which he expounded in a series of brilliant texts that balanced architectonic structure, aphoristic poetry, and philosophical nuance and precision. While his writings span the earliest phases of Great Perfection literature, he above all else focused on the eleventh- and twelfth-century Seminal Heart (Snying thig [Nyingthink]) revelations and their highly distinctive reinterpretation of the Great Perfection. Longchenpa articulated a deeply systematic approach to Seminal Heart to create one of the most powerful statements of philosophical Vajrayāna. His writings systematize doctrines and contemplative practices into a structured and integrated whole, while simultaneously definitively defining key terminology with innovative nuance. In large part due to the influence of his corpus, the Seminal Heart came to be the dominant tradition of the Great Perfection right into the present.
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