The Great Jewel Blossom Tantra offers us a comprehensive vision into the totality of our own enlightened experience. It presents us with a reality in which the feminine principle of enlightenment, the All Good Mother, is the embodiment of the Dharma, the Dharmakaya. It offers us insights into the many kinds of delusions that may distract us from full realization, along with addressing the activities of demons. It presents us with a vision of the Mahayana in which the Great Vehicle is in fact the Great Perfection, and offers detailed insights into the Nine Vehicles. It is astounding. We are not given the name of any translator or author of this Tantra. Our best clue for dating the text is the fact that the Tibetans who compiled The Hundred Thousand Tantras of the Ancients (Nyingma Gyubum) thought it appropriate to include this Tantra in the fifth volume, surrounded by works that are attributed to Vairochana, who was active in the Eighth Century of our era. We can be sure that the compilers of the Nyingma Gyubum considered the Jewel Blossom Tantra to belong to the oldest group of the early translations into Tibetan. This translation was completed during the lock down for the corona virus. There have been many forest fires recently, and the sky is full with a think dark smoke. In the chapter on Merits, this Tantra extolls the many benefits that it brings. I feel sure that there is some blessing in this text that will be of benefit to the world as we go through this time of great changes.

The Great Jewel Blossom Tantra: Wisdom of the Great Perfection, Christopher Wilkinson, Independently Published, Paperback, 291 pp, $30.00

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 Yangtik 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 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, College de France, and taught at the University of Calgary as an Adjunct Professor for five years. He has published many volumes of translations, and continues at this effort.

CONTENTS: The Great Jewel Blossom Tantra
Acknowledgments		xi
Introduction		xiii
The Great Jewel Blossom Tantra
1	The Perfect Store that Is the Basic Scene	3
2	Teaching the True Nature of the All Good One	7
3	Teaching the True Nature of the All Good Mother	17
4	Presenting Vajrasattva's Way of Being	23
5	The Three Bodies Are Perfected in the Body of Our Delusions	27
6	Arising from Our Base	31
7	Our Bodies and Our Wisdom	35
8	The True Nature of the mahayana	41
9	The Fields for the Three Bodies	45
10	We Depend on a Cause for Our Tainted Heaps to Realize the Body of Wisdom	49
11	Teaching the Four Shared Tastes of the Mahayana	53
12	Revealing the Faces of Our Body and Our Wisdom	59
13	Teaching the Rites of Yoga	63
14	Teachings on Rewards in the Three Kinds of Bardos	67
15	Teaching that Wisdom Will Arise in the Bardo of Our Existence	71
16	Presenting the Dharmakaya	75
17	Teachings on Self-Originating Wisdom	77
18	Determining the Basis for Our Delusions	79
19	Delusion in Summary	83
20	The Root Basis of Our Delusion	85
21	Teachings on the Delusions that Are in Our Contents	89
22	The Differing Bases for Our Delusion	93
23	Teachings on the Families that Come from Delusion	97
24	The Delusional Eternity of the Forders	101
25	The Forder's Delusions of Nihilism	105
26	The Delusions of the Stomach People among the Forders	107
27	The Auditors Who Advocate Particularities	111
28	The Delusions of the Auditors	115
29	The Auditors' Delusions Are Self-Evident	117
30	Delusions in the Views of the Private Victors	121
31	The Delusions of the Mind Only View	125
32	Delusions in the Views of the Bodhisattvas	129
33	The Delusional Vision in the View that a Bodhisattva Is Just an Illusion	131
34	The Delusional Visions of the Kriya	133
35	The Delusional Visions of Yoga	135
36	The Delusions of the Upaya	137
37	The Delusions of the Mahayoga	139
38	The Delusional Visions of the Anuyoga	141
39	Teaching the View of the Atiyoga	143
40	Teachings on the Visions that Are the Habitual Patterns of the Six Classes of living Things	147
41	The Delusional Vision of the Bardo	151
42	The Delusional Vision of God	155
43	The Dharmakaya Obstructs Itself	157
44	How the Teachings Came to Be	161
45	Our Minds Hold onto Our Minds	163
46	The Method for Settling Our Minds into a Body and a Wisdom	167
47	Our Wisdom Is Gradually Clarified Concerning the Three Kinds of Bardo	171
48	Settling Our Minds on the Sambhogakaya	175
49	In Our Bodies and Wisdom There Are No Stages or Paths to Traverse	177
50	A Definitive Teaching on Empowerment	181
51	The Six Perfections Are Not to Be Practiced as Austerities as the Perfections Are Perfected in Ourselves	183
52	The Uncompounded Arises in a Mind that Is Not Compounded	187
53	Outer and Inner Awareness	191
54	Teachings for When Demons Are on the Rise	193
55	Prophecies for the People of the Mahayana	197
56	Teaching the Ten Vajra Words	201
57	Indications of Warmth	203
58	Teachings on the Merits of this Vehicle	207
59	Escape from the Pit of Samsara	211
60	Teaching that All Dharmas Arise from Ourselves	213
61	Bequest and Rejoice	217
	Tibetan Manuscript	221