Karma Lingpa (1326–1386) was the tertön (revealer) of the Bardo Thodol, the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead.^[1] Tradition holds that he was a reincarnation of Chokro Lü Gyeltsen,^{[note 1][2]} a disciple of Padmasambhava.

The neutrality of this article is disputed. (February 2015)

Karma Lingpa was born in southeast Tibet as the eldest son of Nyida Sanggyé,^{[note 2]} a great Vajrayana practitioner. At an early age, Karma Lingpa engaged in esoteric practices and achieved many siddhi.

When he was fifteen years old,^[3] 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"^[4] (zab-chos zhi khro dgongs pa rang grol, also known as kar-gling zhi-khro^[3]), which includes the two texts of bar-do thos-grol, the so-called "Tibetan Book of the Dead".^[1]

According to Chogyam Trungpa, Karma Lingpa was a Nyingma teacher, but all of his students belonged to the Kagyu school. His teachings were transmitted in the Surmang monasteries of the Trungpa-lineage, and from there also spread to the Nyingma school.^[5]

The bar-do thos-grol was translated into English by Kazi Dawa Samdup (1868-1922), and edited and published by W.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.^[1][6]

Another text from the "Profound Dharma of Self-Liberation" is "Self-Liberation through seeing with naked awareness" (rigpa ngo-sprod^{[note 3]}), which gives an introduction, or pointing-out instruction (ngo-spro), into rigpa, the state of presence and awareness.^[7]