"After Shechen Gyaltsap's death, many claimed that his relics had the power to protect them from all external dangers. His wealth of realization overflowed into literary composition, and he is said to have left four or five volumes of writings. These unfortunately were never properly assembled and published, and were eventually lost. It is said that even in the time when Khyentse Rinpoche was still in Tibet, only one short collection of songs of realization and practice instructions had survived; and perhaps by now these too have vanished into oblivion. The texts quoted by Shechen Gyaltsap in the present book may therefore be the only surviving compositions of that great Dzogchen yogi"--