Spiritual Biography of Marpa (PDF)

Buddhism was introduced into Tibet quite late in the 8th century by Padmasambhava which lead to the rise of the Nyingma school. Many centuries later in the 11th century, just before the destruction of Buddhist universities in the Moslem invasion of India, Marpa undertook the incredibly difficult and dangerous journey of going from Tibet to India to collect the teachings from a number of teachers including Naropa.

In this book Thrangu Rinpoche tells of how Marpa went to India three times to receive the complete teachings and practices of the Vajrayana. Rinpoche shows how he related to his teachers, what these teachings were, how he practiced them, and how he brought them back and spread them throughout Tibet. Marpa had many obstacles on his journeys. He was a householder with a wife and eight children. These caused many obstacles, yet because he wanted to benefit all sentient beings and great faith and devotion, he was able to translate these teachings from Sanskrit into Tibetan and pass them on to his student Milarepa who helped establish the Kagyu lineage.

This book of 133 pages was published by Namo Buddha Publications and Zhyisil Ghatsal Publications of New Zealand combined two teachings by Thrangu Rinpoche one in England and one in the US which includes extensive notes, a glossary, a glossary of Tibetan, a bibliography, and index.