Vimalamitra

Vimalamitra

Vimalamitra (Skt.; Tib. དྲི་མེད་བཤེས་གཉེན་, Drimé Shenyen; Wyl. dri med bshes gnyen) aka Mahavajra — one of the most learned Indian Buddhist masters. He went to Tibet in the ninth century, where he taught extensively, and composed and translated numerous Sanskrit texts. The quintessence of his teaching is known as the Vima Nyingtik, one of the Heart-essence teachings of the Great Perfection.

Vimalamitra spent thirteen years in Tibet, and then, promising to return to Tibet every hundred years as an emanation to further the Clear Light teaching of Dzogpachenpo, he left for the Wutai Shan mountain in China. There he remains, in the rainbow body, the ‘Body of Great Transference’, and there he will remain until all of the 1002 buddhas of this Fortunate Aeon have appeared. When they have all done so, he will once again go to Vajrasana in India, where he will manifest the state of complete and perfect enlightenment.

Further Reading

• Ācārya Malcolm Smith (translator), Buddhahood in This Life: The Great Commentary by Vimalamitra (Wisdom Publications, 2016)
• Dudjom Rinpoche, The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, Its Fundamentals and History, trans. and ed. Gyurme Dorje (Boston: Wisdom, 1991), vol.1 pp.497-501.
• Nyoshul Khenpo, A Marvelous Garland of Rare Gems: Biographies of Masters of Awareness in the Dzogchen Lineage (Junction City: Padma Publications, 2005), pages 78-82.
• Tulku Thondup, Masters of Meditation and Miracles, edited by Harold Talbott, Boston: Shambhala, 1996, pp.68-73

Internal Links

• Vima Nyingtik

External Links

• TBRC profile
• Biography at Treasury of Lives
• Vimalamitra Series