Experiential Precept Series

The Experiential Precept Series is a very loose rubric that appears to have functioned to embrace new traditions emerging from the late tenth century onwards which diverged in significant ways from older Great Perfection (rdzogs chen) traditions. The two dominant subdivisions (at least in retrospect) are the Four Cycles (skor bzhi) and Three Piths (ti gsum). In contravention of the normative tendencies in Tibetan doxography, these two were not generally ranked hierarchically in relationship to each other, indicating distinct origins and development. In Experiential Precept Series texts we find in general a far greater role granted to death and intermediate process schemes than we do in earlier Great Perfection texts.