The tenth volume of the Hundred Thousand Tantras of the Ancient Ones, the Nyingma Gyubum, is devoted to the Universal Ti of the Great Perfection, and is titled The Neck Breaker. The present volume contains the first ten Tantras found in that volume. Students of the Great Perfection with an interest in the teachings that go beyond the Atiyoga: The Yang Ti, the Black Yang Ti, the Single Golden Grain of the Yang Ti, and the sPyi Ti: The Universal Ti, will find The Neck Breaker to be a reliable source on these topics. Seven of the ten Tantras presented in this volume were brought to Tibet by Padmasambhava, who translated them with the help of the Tibetan translator Kawa Paltsek. These Tantras date from the Eighth century of our era, and are here translated into a modern language for the first time.

Neck Breaker: Ten Tantras of the Universal Ti, Christopher Wilkinson, Paperback, 598 pp, $50.00

Christopher Wilkinson began his career in Buddhist literature in 1972 at the age of fifteen, taking refuge vows from his guru Dezhung Rinpoche. In that same year he began formal study of Tibetan language at the University of Washington under Geshe Ngawang Nornang and Turrell Wylie. He then received many instructions from Kalu Rinpoche, completing the traditional practice of five hundred thousand Mahamudra preliminaries. He became a Buddhist monk at the age of eighteen, living in the home of Dezhung Rinpoche while he continued his studies at the University of Washington. He graduated in 1980 with a B.A. degree in Asian Languages and Literature and another B.A. degree in Comparative Religion (College Honors, Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa). After a two year tour of Buddhist pilgrimage sites throughout Asia he worked for five years in refugee resettlement in Seattle, Washington, then proceeded to the University of Calgary for an M.A. in Buddhist Studies where he wrote a groundbreaking thesis on the Yangti transmission of the Great Perfection tradition titled "Clear Meaning: Studies on a Thirteenth Century rDzog chen Tantra." He proceeded to work on a critical edition of the Sanskrit text of the 20,000 line Perfection of Wisdom in Berkeley, California, followed by an intensive study of Burmese language in Hawaii. In 1990 he began three years' service as a visiting professor in English Literature in Sulawesi, Indonesia, exploring the remnants of the ancient Sri Vijaya Empire there. He worked as a research fellow for the Shelly and Donald Rubin Foundation for several years, playing a part in the early development of the famous Rubin Museum of Art. In the years that followed he became a Research Fellow at the Centre de Recherches sur les Civilisations de l'Asie Orientale, Collge de France, and taught at the University of Calgary as an Adjunct Professor for five years. He is currently completing his doctoral dissertation, a study of the Yoginitantra first translated into Tibetan during the Eighth century of our era, at the University of Leiden's Institute for Area Studies.