The Copper-Colored Mountain
By Jigme Lingpa
Translated by Georgios T. Halkias
Translated by Christina Partsalaki
See also our Reader's Guide to Jigme Lingpa as well as our home page for the Longchen Nyingtik tradition
The Copper-Colored Mountain is the pure land of Padmasambhava, the Indian master who brought Buddhism to Tibet. One way in which Buddhist practitioners may be reborn in this pure land is by making aspiration prayers. This work includes a translation of one of the most famous of these aspiration prayers, composed by Jigme Lingpa, and the authors’ verse-by-verse analysis of it. Drawing on both traditional commentaries and contemporary scholarly texts, the authors show how Jigme Lingpa encodes many features of Tibetan Buddhist tantric practice in these verses, and thus they provide a feast of meaning for tantric practitioners.
"I am very encouraged that, even in this day and age, not only is the name ‘Copper-Colored Mountain’ still uttered, but Professor Halkias and Christina Partsalaki have now put great effort into presenting a wide range of explanations of its meaning. . . . I am confident that just mentioning the name ‘Copper-Colored Mountain’ will plant the seed of actually experiencing it, if not now, then definitely in the future." —from the foreword by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse
"I’m delighted to see Padmsambhava’s pure land presented by Georgios T. Halkias and Christina Partsalaki with academic rigor, philosophical acumen, and reverence for this sacred topic. This book is a fine example of the compatibility of intellectual objectivity and spiritual insight, as it sheds a clear light on the depth of Mahayana Buddhist concepts of pure lands in general and the Copper-Colored Mountain in particular." —B. Alan Wallace, founder and director of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies
"The authors are sensitive in their reading of the verses, balancing a scholarly perspective with an interpretative angle that explicates the significance of each stanza for contemplative practice." —Buddhadharma