Background
Karma Lingpa was embodied in southeast Tibet as the eldest son of Nyida Sanggyé, the great Vajrayana practitioner.
revealer of the Bardo Thodol Tertön
Karma Lingpa was embodied in southeast Tibet as the eldest son of Nyida Sanggyé, the great Vajrayana practitioner.
He was the tertön (revealer) of the Bardo Thodol, the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead. When he was fifteen years old, he discovered several terma texts on top of Mount Gampodar, including a collection of teachings entitled "Profound Dharma of Self-Liberation through the Intention of the Peaceful and Wrathful Ones" (zab-chos zhi khro dgongs pa rang grol, also known as kar-gling zhi-khro), which includes the two texts of bar-do thos-grol, the so-called "Tibetan Book of the Dead". The bar-do thos-grol was translated by Kazi Dawa Samdup (1868-1922), and edited and published by West.Y. Evans-Wenz.
This translation became widely known and popular as "the Tibetan Book of the Dead", but contains many mistakes in translation and interpretation.
Another text from the "Profound Dharma of Self-Liberation" is "Self-Liberation through seeing with naked awareness" (rigpa ngo-sprod), which gives an introduction, or pointing-out instruction (ngo-spro), into rigpa, the state of presence and awareness.