A complex topic is here made crystal clear through the heartfelt teaching of one of the great Tibetan Buddhist masters of the twentieth century. With Pure Appearance Dilgo Khyenste Rinpoche offers an overview of Tibetan tantric practice that explains its concepts, clarifies its terminology, and shows how its myriad pieces fit together, including an extensive teaching on the bardos, or "between states"-essential for those new to the topic and a source of illumination for longtime students.
Vajrayana methods for realizing the true nature of the mind take the resultant state of buddhahood as the path, or what is to be practiced. Pure Appearance focuses on the generation and completion stages of tantra that work with the pure form aspect of enlightenment. In this short but densely packed teaching Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche explains the structure of the tantric path and how its stages are put into practice, in terms that apply generally across the spectrum of deity practices. He emphasizes the distinctive features of the Nyingma approach but frequently correlates them with their counterparts in the New Translation traditions.

Pure Appearance: Development & Completion Stages in Vajrayana Practice , Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Translated from the Tibetan by Ani Jinba Palmo, Shambhala Publications, Paperback, 118 pp, $19.95

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (1910-1991) was a highly accomplished meditation master, scholar, and poet, and a principal holder of the Nyingma lineage. His extraordinary depth of realization enabled him to be, for all who met him, a fountain of loving-kindness, wisdom, and compassion. A dedicated exponent of the nonsectarian Rime movement, Khyentse Rinpoche was respected by all schools of Tibetan Buddhism and taught many eminent teachers, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He tirelessly worked to preserve and propagate the Buddhist teachings through giving transmissions and instructions to thousands of people across the world, publishing important texts, and building monasteries and stupas.