In the concise yet comprehensive practice manual entitled The Illumination of Primordial Consciousness, the great twentieth-century Tibetan Nyingma master Dudjom Rinpoche lays out a sequential path to spiritual freedom according to the teachings of the Great Perfection (Dzokchen): First, we refine our awareness by training in meditative quiescence (shamatha) and then proceed to the cultivation of contemplative insight (vipashyana), by which our mind's basic nature of luminosity and emptiness is revealed. Then, having recognized that the ordinary, deluded mind is actually without any intrinsic essence, we are primed to cut through this conditioned mind into unborn, timeless pristine awareness, which has never been contaminated by mental afflictions or other obscurations. Finally, we realize that our own awareness has never been other than the dharmakaya, the mind of a buddha, and perfect enlightenment is realized spontaneously and effortlessly.

In this book, beloved teacher and renowned scholar Lama B. Alan Wallace shares insights gained over years of study, providing a line-by-line explanation interspersed with background teachings from revered Dzokchen scriptures written by Padmasambhava, Dudjom Lingpa, and others. Also included are a set of fifteen guided meditations given by Lama Alan, along with links to audio tracks of Lama Alan giving the instructions himself. Through the practices he describes, the mystery of the mind--its origin and what happens to it at death-is thus illuminated through one's own meditative experience.