page_title: Dzogchen
section_title: The Pith traditions
hierarchical_section_title: Dzogchen / Origins and history / Historical origins and development / The Renaissance period (11th–14th century) / The Pith traditions
caption_attribution_description: English: Nyangrel Nyima Ozer, 1124- 1192, Tibetan Terton
context_page_description: Dzogchen, also known as atiyoga, is a tradition of teachings in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism aimed at discovering and continuing in the natural primordial state of sentient beings. One's primordial ground is said to have the qualities of purity, spontaneity and compassion. The goal of Dzogchen is knowledge of this basis, this knowledge is called rigpa. There are numerous spiritual practices taught in the various Dzogchen systems for awakening rigpa. Dzogchen developed in the Tibetan Empire period and the Era of Fragmentation and continues to be practiced today both in Tibet and around the world. It is a central teaching of the Yundrung Bon tradition as well as in the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. In these traditions, Dzogchen is the highest and most definitive path of the nine vehicles to liberation. Dzogchen is also practiced in other Tibetan Buddhist schools, such as the Kagyu and the Gelug school.
context_section_description: There were also other Dzogchen traditions, such as the "pith" (ti) traditions (such as the Crown Pith, and Ultra Pith) which were contemporary with the development of the Seminal Heart canon. Some of these represented a re-assertion of earlier Dzogchen trends which were somewhat critical of the Seminal Heart systems.
  One of the most important of these conservative voices of the 12th century, Nyangrel Nyima Özer (Nyang ral nyi ma 'od zer, 1136–1204), developed his "Crown Pith" (spyi ti) to reassert the older traditions in a new form. According to Germano, this figure is "one of the main architects of the Padmasambhava mythos". Another important figure of the Crown Pith tradition is Guru Chowang (1212-1270). Crown Pith tantras such as the Tantra of the Luminous Expanse, claim to be the "Peak of the Nine Vehicles". As noted by Germano, a common motif of these works is that Crown Pith is superior to the Great Perfection or Transcendence Yoga, sometimes even stating that Crown Pith is a 10th Vehicle. This indicates that Nyima Özer was critical of other Dzogchen trends of his time.
  These writings, which were also presented as revelations from Padmasambhava, are marked by a relative absence of Yogini Tantra influence, and transcend the prescriptions of specific practices, as well as the rhetoric of violence, sexuality and transgression. Germano notes that "instead of the blood and violence of later Tantra, we find lyrical and elegant verses on light and darkness, purity and pollution, freedom and bondage, illusion and reality, plurality and unity, embodiment and mind." According to Germano, in Crown Pith texts "the subordinated Transcendent Pith Great Perfection (ati dzokchen) is consistently associated more with the side of manifestation and vision and is described as retaining a degree of exertion, conceptuality, and focus on appearances, while the Crown Pith is presented as an uncompromising non-duality zeroed in on original purity (kadak).
caption: Nyangrel Nyima Ozer, 11th century terton of the Crown Pith cycle.[46]
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