Seven Treasuries


The Seven Treasuries, are a collection of seven works, some with auto-commentaries, by the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Longchenpa . They constitute his most influential scholarly output and together provide a systematic overview of exoteric and esoteric topics from the point of view of the Nyingma school's Dzogchen tradition.

Texts

The Seven Treasuries are:
  • The Wish Fulfilling Treasury has a long prose commentary, the White Lotus. This text mainly deals with classic Buddhist topics common to all schools of Tibetan Buddhism and could be classified as a Lamrim type work according to Germano.
  • The Treasury of Pith Instructions, a short text which consists of advice for meditative contemplation and which only deals in passing with Dzogchen topics.
  • The Treasury of Philosophical Systems, a work of the "tenets" genre which gives a systematic and doxographic account of the various Buddhist philosophical views. Longchenpa uses the nine yanas schema in this work to discuss the various Buddhist philosophies, and naturally places Dzogchen at the pinnacle.
  • The Treasury of Word and Meaning, a shorter overview of Dzogchen thought and practice which follows the outline of the "eleven vajra topics".
  • The Treasury of the Supreme Vehicle, a large commentary on all topics of the Dzogchen tradition found in the Seventeen Tantras which provide a wide ranging and systematic account of Dzogchen that goes into much more detail than the Tsik Dön Dzö.
  • The Treasury of the Dharmadhatu, a poem with a prose commentary called the Treasure Trove of Scriptural Transmissions. This is a free ranging poetic work which discusses Dzogchen topics in much less comprehensive manner. According to Germano this can be seen as "a hymn to the mind of enlightenment."
  • The Treasury of the Natural State, a poem with its prose commentary, the Desum Nyingpo.'' This work mainly discusses the four samayas or commitments of Dzogchen.
According to Germano, the Tsik Dön Dzö and the Tekchok Dzö together constitute:
Longchenpa's main scholastic work on the Great Perfection tradition, and can be understood as a "commentary" on The Seventeen Tantras which attempts to provide a tightly ordered comprehensive account of the entire range of philosophical and contemplative issues found in the classical Great Perfection tradition...It should also be noted that both works are among Longchenpa's most difficult, especially in terms of their often lengthy citations of obscure versified texts. As such, these are prose texts that lack the intense beauty of some of Longchenpa's other poetic works...yet compensate for it in their structural precision, wide-ranging span, and dramatic force as they journey through the entire history of the universe, from the pre-origination primordial state of the universe or Being in itself, through involution, evolution, and the spiritual path, on up to the final culmination of the universe's self-exploration.
Germano outlines the traditional way these texts are studied as follows:
According to Khenpo Jikphun , the natural teaching order of The Seven Treasuries is to begin with YZD, which extensively teaches the lower Buddhist and non-Buddhist tenet systems in classical India as well as the exoteric cosmological background; second is GTD, which deals with a similar range of teachings, as well as including a brief treatment of the higher ends of the spiritual path ; third is MND, which teaches the exoteric mental training along with some aspects of the Great Perfection; fourth and fifth are CBD and NLD, whose teachings focus on Breakthrough contemplation, the former on its view, and the latter on its commitments; sixth is TDD which teaches the Great Perfection's own spiritual tenet system including the practice of Direct Transcendence, and limits itself to the essentials of this most profound of teachings; and seventh is TCD, which rounds out TDD's treatment to provide a more exhaustive analysis including related peripheral topics.

English translations

First treasury

  • Second treasury

  • Third treasury

  • Fourth treasury

  • Sixth treasury

  • Seventh treasury

  • Editions

  • Gangtok, Sikkim: Dodrup Chen Rinpoche, c. 1968. .
  • Gangtok, Sikkim: Lama Dawa & Sherab Gyaltsen, 1983. Reprod. from prints from the Sde-dge blocks belonging to Lopon Sonam Sangpo.
  • Gangtok, Sikkim, 1986. Reprint of Dodrup Chen Rinpoche ed.
  • Lumbini : Lumbini Internat. Research Inst., 2000. The oldest block print of Klong-chen Rab-'byams-pa's Theg mchog mdzod : facsimile edition of early Tibetan block prints ; with an introduction / by Franz-Karl Ehrhard.
  • Dege