Research Institute

Our research institute has been percolating behind the scenes, for many years, while also producing books, practice texts, and other material to support learning and practice in our community and beyond. 

In the summer of 2024, we  took time to reflect on what the Institute has accomplished so far, and, most especially, to look forwards to what, given appropriate resources, it could offer interested communities in the future.

We want to take this opportunity to share with you, our community, the large vision that we have for our Research Institute  , and we feel it is now time to share both its history and vision.  Moving forward, we see an ongoing negotiation between our vision, our financial support, and setting operational priorities accordingly. 

RESEARCH INSTITUTE 

Our Research Institute is dedicated to providing the highest quality translations and contemporary commentary relevant to the understanding and practice of the living Dzogchen tradition. At the same time, from within their experience as modern practitioners, our institute fellows will produce materials attractive, useful, and practicable for a wider audience. In effect our scholar-practitioners will be code switchers, adept at moving back and forth between a variety of worlds. They will translate the insights of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition into the language of academic scholarship, and the insights of academic scholarship into the language of Tibetan Buddhist practitioners. They will thereby produce educational materials for the broadest possible audience.

Our research institute has already produced: 

• Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse, by Lama Rigzin, a presentation on the Ngondro traditions of the Longchen Nyingthig, including Adzom Paylo Rinpoche’s abridged version of Jigme Lingpa’s Ngondro, together with chantable English translations of both.

• Strand of Jewels, Dzogchen Teachings of Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche, translated by Lama Rigzin. 

• Being Human and a Buddha Too, by Lama Rigzin, includes Adzom Paylo Rinpoche’s own commentary on Longchenpa’s Seven Dzogchen Mind Trainings.

• Lamplight on Your Path. A translation of Adzom Drukpa’s personally oriented commentary on Jigme Lingpa’s Ngondro. This translation by Lama Rigzin, Elizabeth Napper, Ph.D., and Lama Tenzin Samphel was requested of Lama Rigzin by Adzom Paylo Rinpoche and is in the final stage of preparation for publication by Wisdom in 2025.
• Forthcoming: Yeshe Tsogyal, Commentary, by Lama Rigzin, a scholarly and practical commentary requested of Lama Rigzin by Adzom Paylo Rinpoche.
• Forthcoming:  The Collected Treasure Sadhanas of Adzom Paylo Rinpoche, Compilation of sadhanas with chantable English as well as word-by-word and long-line translations, organized, and edited by Lama Rigzin with Dr. Mark Yurewicz and others.
• Forthcoming: Longchenpa’s Commentary on The All Creating Majesty Tantra, with commentary by Lama Tenzin Samphel, translated by Lama Rigzin, Nathaniel Rich and Tibetan consultants.  
• Forthcoming: Mipham’s Abiding, Movement, Awareness. Commentary by Lama Tenzin Samphel, translated by Lama Rigzin and Lama Namgyal Dorje in collaboration with Lama Tenzin, as well as Nathaniel Rich and other consultants.

New! House of Adzom Series, Wisdom

• Lamplight on your Path: A Personal Guide to Dzogchen’s Foundational Practices (third book in Wisdom’s House of Adzom Series), translated by Anne Klein, Elizabeth Napper, Lama Tenzin Samphel (In Press, forthcoming from Wisdom, Fall, 2025).This is the first publication of a major work by Adzom Drukpa, the House of Adzom series was initiated at Lama Rigzin Drolma’s  suggestion with the publication of its first volume, Being Human and a Buddha Too. 
• Live Narratives of Adzom Drukpa*in progress by Professor Learned Foote, translation and discussion of Adzom Drukpa’s autobiography, including attention to his relation to gendered social norms, and the biography of him by his eminent son, and in that life brother of Adzom Paylo Rinpoche. Gyurme Dorje.  Projected Date 2028  
• Letters from Gyurme Dorje to Lady Practitioners, * an epistolary narrative of Gyurme Dorje who continued his father’s legacy and whose reincarnation today, Gyalse Gyurme Dorje of Bhutan and the ritual master of Sherchin Monastery, is actively teaching in Bhutan, Nepal, and in the West. Projected date 2027   

• White and Red: Contemplative Conversations with Yeshe Tsogyal. * A deep and also broad reflection on Yeshe Tsogyal, the central dakini of Jigme Lingpa’s Heart Essence tradition, specifically a reflection, at his request, on the contemplative richness of Adzom Paylo Rinpoche’s Dakini Ngondro, centered on Yeshe Tsogyal, and her import as the radiant red Great Bliss Queen. Anne C. Klein, Lama Rigzin Drolma. Projected 2026-7  

*These titles subject to change

As mentioned initially, our ultimate goal at our Research Institute is to coalesce scholarly and publicly accessible writing of the finest caliber. We note that right now academic scholars write for the academic universe and design courses for undergraduate and graduate students. We simply do not have institutions where scholar-practitioners from within the tradition are doing that work for the interested Buddhist public, writing books and teaching people from within the tradition. 

Unique Perspective: Modern and Humanitarian Concerns 

We are passionate about creating, perhaps for the first time, the equivalent of credal Christian academics, who are engaged in scholarship while creating material for the broader public from the perspective and in service of the tradition. Such scholars in that tradition lead with their commitment, and their work is in service of those sincerely drawn to the tradition. We desperately need this in our tradition if we hope for it to thrive on modern ground.

Three concerns within our purview, for the present and future are, the role of women, the oppression of gender minorities, and the climate change crises. With respect to the first two, the subjugation of women and sexual minorities is a world-wide phenomenon that takes different forms in emerging and first world contexts. The undue polarizing of male-female roles, the failure to accept non-heterosexual love and intimacy, or well-being for all genders, and the like, is a reflection of the consternation with which certain racial, religious, or geographical groups regard those whom they see as “other.”  “Othering” in all its forms, from coarse to the very subtle is in Buddhist thought and practice a powerful obstacle to human and social flourishing. The tradition provides us with many reasoned, practical, and compassionate ways of responding to this crisis. 

With respect to the second, we know that climate change will produce enormous challenges due to meteorologically compelled migration. A new world order that tempers “othering” with the kind of cooperative sharing that promotes benefit and optimal flourishing for  all is a vital topic for consideration. 

The voices of Jigme Lingpa, Adzom Drukpa, bring a tradition’s voice to the table, at the very moment when that voice is significantly threatened. These icons of the tradition and others in it that we will work with have much to offer about the enormous possibilities of the feminine, and how “othering” is ultimately a core source of all human suffering. 

Our Institute authors’ work has been and will be broad in scope and significant portions of it will address these concerns. Along with being oriented toward the academy in producing first-class translations with best practices and according to academic standards, we will also create a body of work, helpful and relevant to an ever-widening audience. In particular, we have in mind careful selections from the virtually untranslated corpus of Jigme Lingpa and Adzom Drukpa, based on suggestions and requests from Adzom Paylo Rinpoche. The historic, cultural, and literary significance of these choices is enormous. Adzom Drukpa, in Lamplight tells us that Jigme Lingpa’s Heart Essence, Vast Expanse is “like a bowl holding the distilled essence of practical instructions for the entirety of the transmissions of Dzogchen of the Early Translation period (from 7th to late 10th centuries] practical instructions combined into a single stream.

Distinctive Focus on 20ths century Tibet and Import for Humanitarian Concerns: Adzom Drukpa was a key figure in bringing Jigme Lingpa’s Heart Essence Vast Expanse in early 20tn century Tibet, and one of the very great masters of his generation.  From Jigme Lingpa and others Adzom Drukpa inherited the politically and socially crucial principle of maintaining an open heart toward all traditions, a profound contrast to the intra-sectarian rivalry that sometimes led to warfare in Tibet. (Adzom Drukpa himself was kidnapped by a warlord who held him for three years before he risked his life escaping over icy terrain in winter.)  As Prof. Marc-Henri Deroche has pointed out, the non-sectarian (ris med) tradition is a profoundly socio–political expression of Dzogchen’s exoteric and esoteric understandings of equanimity, and this principle clearly has a place in modern discourses. We see its emergence as a theme across Dawn Mountain’s curriculum as well as Institute publications relevant to wider humanitarian concerns for a peace that is going to be crucial for our survival on this planet in the coming decades and beyond. 

This dual focus on high quality and dissemination into the public is truly revolutionary. It does not yet exist in the contemporary West. Most attempts at this do not survive because support does not exist for it. When we receive the support,  appropriate to the task, we will build a first-class Institute supporting the endeavor to plant the lineage in the West and the modern world all over, for contemporary and future practitioners. We will creatively bridge the gap between the academic world and the Buddhist public. On more than one occasion, eminent female scholar-practitioners have mentioned that Lama Rigzin Drolma has been a model for them in pursuing their academic careers while holding a practitioner’s perspective, including, of course, benefitting the many. This is the model for our fellows.

Acting Director

Nathaniel Rich

Nathaniel is a research editor and member of the translation team at 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha. He studied philosophy and history as an undergraduate before receiving his Master’s and Ph.D. in religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His academic research has focused on the intellectual and institutional history of Nyingma traditions in Tibet. He is actively involved with Dawn Mountain Tibetan Buddhist Temple an in-house teacher and board member, and is the acting executive director of the Dawn Mountain Research Institute. He first met Lama Rigzin and Lama Namgyal when he was an undergraduate. It was their inspiration and encouragement that drove him to learn Tibetan, pursue graduate degrees, and then work in whatever way he could to support the transmission of the Dharma in the modern world. He remains committed to emulating as best he can their example as scholar-practitioners, helping to ensure that the next generation has access to authentic and culturally relevant sources of the Dharma just as his mentors have ensured for him.