Report December 2024: Rigdzin Düpa Jinsek

This month we published one major new translation, Jigme Lingpa’s fire offering (jinsek) Flames of Wisdom: A Fire Offering for the Peaceful Vidyādhara Practice, arranged by the Fourth Dodrupchen Rinpoche specifically for the Rigdzin Düpa practice. We have also updated and revised the fire offering for the Yumka Dechen Gyalmo practice.

Agni, the god of fire, drawn by Nick Dudka.
From Martin Boord, A Blaze of Fire in the Dark.

In compiling the fire offering for pacifying activity, Jigme Lingpa based himself on the fire offering for Nyangral Nyima Özer's Kagyé Deshek Düpa, and composed it so that it can be used both for the peaceful and wrathful vidyādhara practices, such as the Gathering of Vidyādharas (Rigdzin Düpa) and the Gathering of Awesome Ones (Palchen Düpa). To aid practitioners, we have chosen to first translate the arrangement by the Fourth Dodrupchen Rinpoche specifically for the Rigdzin Düpa practice, since this arrangement is much easier to perform.

With the research on fire offerings that we had done during the translation process, we have also been able to update and revise The Treasury of the Four Activities: A Fire Offering for the Female Awareness-Holder (Rigdzin Yumka) Practice. This fire offering for Yuma Dechen Gyalmo, the main ḍākinī practice of Longchen Nyingtik, can be adapted to any of the four activities: pacifying, enriching, magnetizing or wrathful subjugation. It is much simpler as compared to the somewhat elaborate Flames of Wisdom, and its style seems to be more in accord with the anuyoga and atiyoga style of the Yumka practice itself. Furthermore, Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo has written notes on how to adjust this fire offering for the practices of the Gathering of Vidyādharas (Rigdzin Düpa) and the Natural Liberation of Suffering (Dukngal Rangdrol), which we will translate soon.

Peaceful hearth, based on Jamgön Kongtrul’s generic fire offering for the four activities.
From the Rinchen Terdzo produced by Shechen, 2018. Image drawn by Kongchog Lhadrepa.