Elio Guarisco (August 5, 1954 - November 27, 2020) was an Italian writer, translator, Tibetan Buddhist scholar, and Dzogchen practitioner, member of the International Dzogchen Community.
Guarisco was born in Varese, Italy. After spending his formative years in Como, he went on to study art and receive a Master of Arts before traveling to India to study Buddhism. [1]
In the early 1970s, he studied under the auspices of several Theravada leaders in India including Satya Narayan Goenka. He later studied Buddhist philosophy in a Tibetan monastery in Switzerland for ten years, after which he was invited by Kalu Rinpoche to work as a translator in Sonada, India where he stayed for twenty years. In the meantime he met in Italy his teacher Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, becoming an active member of the Dzogchen community in 1986.
He served as a coordinator of the Ka-ter Translation Project, as well as an instructor of the Santi Maha Sangha program. He was a founding member of the Shang Shung Institute in Italy. [2] During the last years of his life, he also taught the application of meditation to daily life to any who were interested. He taught meditation and contemplation all over the world: including Europe, Russia, China, Australia, the US, Mexico, and Latin America.
Elio Guarisco died in November 2020 of COVID-19 in Como, Italy.
Other works:
Longchen Rabjam Drimé Özer, commonly abbreviated to Longchenpa was a Tibetan scholar-yogi of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. According to tibetologist David Germano, Longchenpa's work led to the dominance of the Longchen Nyingthig lineage of Dzogchen over the other Dzogchen traditions. He is also responsible for the scholastic systematization of Dzogchen thought within the context of the wider Tibetan Vajrayana tradition of philosophy which was highly developed at the time among the Sarma schools. Germano also notes that Longchenpa's work is "generally taken to be the definitive expression of the Great Perfection with its precise terminological distinctions, systematic scope, and integration with the normative Buddhist scholasticism that became dominant in Tibet during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries."
Dzogchen, also known as atiyoga, is a tradition of teachings in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and Bon aimed at discovering and continuing in the ultimate ground of existence. The goal of Dzogchen is knowledge of this basis, this knowledge is called rigpa. There are spiritual practices taught in various Dzogchen systems for awakening rigpa.
Padmasambhava, also known as Guru Rinpoche and the Lotus from Oḍḍiyāna, was a tantric Buddhist Vajra master from medieval India who taught Vajrayana in Tibet. According to some early Tibetan sources like the Testament of Ba, he came to Tibet in the 8th century and helped construct Samye Monastery, the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet. He is thought to have been born in the Swat Valley in modern-day Pakistan, and to have foreseen the arrival of Ngawang Namgyal, the founder of Bhutan. However, little more is known about the actual historical figure other than his ties to Vajrayana and Indian Buddhism.
Bon or Bön, also known as Yungdrung Bon, is the indigenous Tibetan religion which shares many similarities and influences with Tibetan Buddhism. It initially developed in the tenth and eleventh centuries but retains elements from earlier Tibetan religious traditions. Bon is a significant minority religion in Tibet, especially in the east, as well as in the surrounding Himalayan regions.
Marpa Lotsāwa, sometimes known fully as Marpa Chökyi Lodrö or commonly as Marpa the Translator, was a Tibetan Buddhist teacher credited with the transmission of many Vajrayana teachings from India, including the teachings and lineages of Mahamudra. Due to this, the Kagyu lineage, which he founded, is often called Marpa Kagyu in his honour.
Kum Nye and sKu-mNyé are a wide variety of Tibetan religious and medical body practices.
Nyingma, often referred to as Ngangyur, is the oldest of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The Nyingma school is founded on the first lineages and translations of Buddhist scriptures from Sanskrit into Tibetan in the eighth century, during the reign of King Trisong Detsen.
Namkhai Norbu was a Tibetan Buddhist master of Dzogchen and a professor of Tibetan and Mongolian language and literature at Naples Eastern University. He was a leading authority on Tibetan culture, particularly in the fields of history, literature, traditional religions, and Traditional Tibetan medicine, having written numerous books and scholarly articles on these subjects.
Trul khor, in full tsa lung trul khor, also known as yantra yoga, is a Vajrayana discipline which includes pranayama and body postures (asanas). From the perspective of the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist traditions of Dzogchen, the mind is merely vāyu in the body. Thus working with vāyu and the body is paramount, while meditation, on the other hand, is considered contrived and conceptual.
Jigme Lingpa (1730–1798) was a Tibetan tertön of the Nyingma lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. He was the promulgator of the Longchen Nyingthig, the Heart Essence teachings of Longchenpa, from whom, according to tradition, he received a vision in which the teachings were revealed. The Longchen Nyingthik eventually became the most famous and widely practiced cycle of Dzogchen teachings.
The 7th Dzogchen Ponlop is an abbot of Dzogchen Monastery, founder and spiritual director of Nalandabodhi, founder of Nītārtha Institute for Higher Buddhist Studies, a leading Tibetan Buddhist scholar, and a meditation master. He is one of the highest tülkus in the Nyingma lineage and an accomplished Karma Kagyu lineage holder.
Semde (Tibetan: སེམས་སྡེ, Wylie: sems sde; Sanskrit: cittavarga, "mind division", "mind class" or "mind series" is the name of one of three scriptural and lineage divisions within the Dzogchen tradition. The Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism traditionally classifies its Dzogchen teaching into three main divisions: Semde, Longdé and Menngagde.
Patrul Rinpoche (1808–1887) was a teacher and author from the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism.
Bruce Alan Wallace is an American author and expert on Tibetan Buddhism. His books discuss Eastern and Western scientific, philosophical, and contemplative modes of inquiry, often focusing on the relationships between science and Buddhism. He is founder of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies.
Dudjom Lingpa (1835–1904) was a Tibetan meditation master, spiritual teacher and tertön. He stands out from the norm of Tibetan Buddhist teachers in the sense that he had no formal education, nor did he take ordination as a monk or belong to any established Buddhist school or tradition of his time.
The Seventeen Tantras of the Esoteric Instruction Series or the Seventeen Tantras of the Ancients are an important collection of tantras in the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. They comprise the core scriptures of the "esoteric instruction series" (Menngagde) of Dzogchen teachings and are its most authoritative scriptures.
The Reverberation of Sound Tantra, is considered to be the root tantra of the seventeen tantras of the Menngagde class of the Tibetan Buddhist Dzogchen tradition.
The Sheja Dzö or "Treasury of Knowledge" is a voluminous work by Jamgon Kongtrul (1813–1899). It is constituted by a root text in verse "The Encompassment of All Knowledge" and an autocommentary in prose, 'The Infinite Ocean of Knowledge'. The Treasury of Knowledge is widely considered Jamgon Kongtrul's masterpiece, covering the full spectrum of Buddhist history according to the knowledge then current in the Himalayas; the Abhidharma through the lens of Vasubandhu ; the Buddhist philosophy preserved, categorized and developed in the Himalayas; and the many streams of Buddhist sādhanā both exoteric (sutrayana) and esoteric (vajrayana), transmitted to, maintained and developed by the many trans-Himalayan lineages, such as Mahamudra and Dzogchen. The breadth of the Sheja Dzö is encyclopedic and its approach ecumenical. The root text in verse is terse and ostensibly glib approaching telegraphic. Whereas, the tone and register of the commentary is non-sectarian in regards to the many systems of Buddhadharma it enshrines. The Sheja Dzö is the central reference and general auspice work in Rimé movement literature.
Keith Dowman is an English Dzogchen teacher and translator of Tibetan Buddhist texts.
Classes of Tantra in Tibetan Buddhism refers to the categorization of Buddhist tantric scriptures in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism inherited numerous tantras and forms of tantric practice from medieval Indian Buddhist Tantra. There were various ways of categorizing these tantras in India. In Tibet, the Sarma schools categorize tantric scriptures into four classes, while the Nyingma (Ancients) school use six classes of tantra.