Nyingma

[1] The Nyingma school was founded by Padmasambhava[2] as the first translations of Buddhist scriptures from Pali and Sanskrit into Tibetan occurred in the eighth century.

[4] The three primary founding figures of Tibetan Buddhism include Khenpo Shantarakshita, Lopon Padmasambhava, and Chopon Trisong Detsen, collectively referred to as Khen Lo Cho.

For example, Mindrolling Monastery focuses on the revelations of Nyangrel Nyima Özer, while Dorje Drak is based on the Northern Treasures of Rigdzin Gödem.

The Vajrayana or Tantra of the Nyingma school traces its origins to an emanation of Amitaba and of Avalokitesvara, Guru Padmasambhava, whose coming and activities are believed to have been predicted by Buddha Shakyamuni.

Samantabhadra's wisdom and compassion spontaneously radiates myriad teachings, all appropriate to the capacities of different beings and entrusts them to "knowledge holders" (vidyadharas), the chief of which is Dorjé Chörap, who gives them to Vajrasattva and the dakini Légi Wangmoché, who in turn disseminate them among human siddhas.

Padmasambhava is the most famous and revered figure of the early human teachers and there are many legends about him, making it difficult to separate history from myth.

[17] However, this situation would not last: The explosive developments were interrupted in the mid-ninth century as the Empire began to disintegrate, leading to a century-long interim of civil war and decentralization about which we know relatively little.

[17]The early Vajrayana that was transmitted from India to Tibet may be differentiated by the specific term "Mantrayana" (Wylie: sngags kyi theg pa).

"Mantrayana" is the Sanskrit of what became rendered in Tibetan as "Secret Mantra" (Wylie: gsang sngags): this is the self-identifying term employed in the earliest literature.

[18][better source needed] The period of the 9–10th centuries also saw increasing popularity of a new class of texts which would later be classified as the Dzogchen "Mind series" (Semde).

In a series of articles, Flavio Geisshuesler explores the persecution of the proponents of the Nyingma school from multiple perspectives, including trauma studies.

Exploring a series of motifs that are found pervasively throughout the contemplative system, such as the hunting of animals, he argues that the tradition was originally associated with shamanism and the Eurasian cult of the sky-deer.

11th century) and Nyangrel were instrumental in defending the old texts from the critiques of the Sarma translators and in establishing a foundation for the mythology and philosophy of the Nyingma tradition.

[17] Longchen Rabjampa, Drimé Özer (Longchenpa, 1308–1364, possibly 1369) is a central thinker and poet in Nyingma thought and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy.

He is mainly known for his systematized integration and exposition of the major textual cycles such as the Menngagde in his various writings, which by his time had become central texts in the Nyingma tradition.

[29] Another key figure was Karma Lingpa (1326–1386), who wrote down an important work called "Profound Dharma of Self-Liberation through the Intention of the Peaceful and Wrathful Ones" which includes the two texts of the bar-do thos-grol, the "Tibetan Book of the Dead".

Mipham composed authoritative works on both the Sutra and Vajrayana teachings as understood in the Nyingma tradition, writing extensively on Dzogchen and Madhyamaka.

According to Karma Phuntsho, Mipham's work "completely revolutionised rNying ma pa scholasticism in the late nineteenth century, raising its status after many centuries as a comparative intellectual backwater, to arguably the most dynamic and expansive of philosophical traditions in all of Tibetan Buddhism, with an influence and impact far beyond the rNying ma pa themselves.

[36] Following in the footsteps of Mipham, Khenpo Shenga was also an important figure in the revitalization of Nyingma monastic education by establishing the study of exoteric philosophy at Dzogchen Shri Sengha[33] through the use of classic Indian texts, which include the major works of Asanga, Nagarjuna and Aryadeva.

The second form of Dzogchen practice is referred to as "direct approach" (thod rgal) and involves making an effort at recognizing spontaneity through the use of visions or appearances.

[25] With the advent of the transmission of Sarma traditions into Tibet, various proponents of the new systems cast aspersions on the Indic origins of much of the Nyingma esoteric corpus.

As a result, much of the Nyingma esoteric corpus was excluded from the Tengyur, a compilation of texts by Buton Rinchen Drub that became the established canon for the Sarma traditions.

This means that while Nyingma accept the Tengyur scriptures they also include writings that other schools reject as not being authentic for having no Indic sources—though Sanskrit originals of some have been discovered in Nepal.

It is further stated by Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche that, From the time of Guru Padmasambhava and for at least three centuries afterwards, everyone who attained enlightenment in Tibet did so by practicing the kama lineage teachings of the Nyingma School.

Various editions of the Gyubum are extant, but one typical version is the thirty-six Tibetan-language folio volumes published by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche in New Delhi, 1974.

The Rinchen Terdzod (Tibetan: རིན་ཆེན་གཏེར་མཛོད།, Wylie: rin chen gter mdzod) is the most important collection of terma treasure to Nyingmapas today.

This collection[48] is the assemblage of thousands of the most important terma texts from all across Tibet made by Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye, at the behest of Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo in the nineteenth century.

They include: Afterwards, it was unanimously decided that the internal administration would revolve between the head lamas of the six principle Nyingma monasteries – Kathok, Dzogchen, Shechen, Mindrolling, Dorje Drak and Palyul.

The terma tradition had antecedents in India; Nagarjuna, for example, rediscovered the last part of the "Prajnaparamita-Sutra in one hundred thousand verses" in the realm of the Nāgas, where it had been kept since the time of Buddha Shakyamuni.

In the nineteenth century some of the most famous were the Khen Kong Chok Sum referring to Jamyang Khyentse, Jamgon Kongtrul and Chokgyur Lingpa.