The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation

This volume, the fourth of Dr. Evans-Wentz’s noted Tibetan series, contains teachings of paramount importance from illustrious gurus of Tibet and India. Unknown to the Western world until its first publication in 1954, The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation expounds the quintes-sence of the Supreme Path, the Mahayana, and reveals the yogic method of attaining Enlight-enment by means of knowing the One Mind, the cosmic All-Consciousness, without recourse to the postures, breathing, and other techniques commonly associated with lower yogas. In a thirty-five page commentary, Dr. C. G. Jung, the eminent psychoanalyst, discusses differences in Eastern and Western modes of thought, and equates the “collective unconscious” with the Buddhist Enlightened Mind. 

The original text of this yoga belongs to the Bardo ThÖdol series of treatises concerning various methods of attaining transcendence. The whole series is part of the Tantric school of the Mahayana. This particular work is attributed to Padma-Sambhava who, by invitation of a Tibetan king, journeyed from India to Tibet in the eighth century. An account of this great guru’s life and secret doctrines precedes the text itself. The last part of the volume presents the testamentary teachings of Guru Phadampa Sangay, translated by the late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup, who also translated the other books in the series. (jacket)