The lineage of the reincarnated line of Dalai Lamas has held primary spiritual authority and, until recently, temporal power in Tibet since the beginning of the fifteenth century. The translations in this book represent a curated set of their writings specifically on tantra, the advanced path of Tibetan Buddhism in which practitioners use a variety of methods and techniques to directly overcome delusion and conflicting emotions. If one has the proper training in sutra and tantra, it is said that the path to enlightenment can be traversed swiftly. Glenn H. Mullin, one of the foremost translators of the Dalai Lamas, has selected key texts from eight of the Dalai Lamas that clearly elucidate the proper understanding and context of the tantric system in this lineage.
Glenn Mullin is the author of over thirty books on Tibetan Buddhism, many of which have been translated into a dozen foreign languages. His earlier titles focus on the lives and works of the early Dalai Lamas. Other titles of his elucidate practice traditions such as Lam Rim, Lojong, the Six Yogas of Naropa, Kalachakra, and so forth. He has been an international teacher of Tantric Buddhist meditation for the past twenty-five years.
Glenn lived in Dharamsala, India, for some fifteen years. There he studied under twenty-five of the greatest masters of Tibet, including the Dalai Lama and his two main gurus.
In 1986 Glenn formed The Mystical Arts of Tibet Inc., which brought Tibetan monks to North America to perform sacred temple music and dance and create sacred sand mandalas. These were the first “Lama Tours” in America, and several of them visited a hundred or so cities in its year on the road.
In 1995 Glenn was asked to curate an exhibition of the sacred art of the Dalai Lamas for an Atlanta museum, in honor of the 1996 Summer Olympics there. Later he curated a further half dozen Tibetan Buddhist art exhibitions for other museums across the US. He has also worked on four Tibet-based films and six television projects.
Glenn now divides his time between writing, teaching, and leading pilgrimages to the power places of Tibet.
Praise
"It is nearly thirty years since Glenn H. Mullin first arrived in Dharamsala and began to take an interest in the works of the Dalai Lamas. I admire the persistence with which he has pursued this interest and have sometimes wondered if he has not found out more about them than even I know. Many people have told me that he reveals an ability in his books to make things Tibetan accessible and easily understood to ordinary readers." —H.H. the Dalai Lama