Longchen Nyingthig encompasses a few tantras and many sadhanas accompanied by instructions, commentaries, and supplementary texts, in two (or three) root volumes (rTsa Pod). They were discovered by Jigme Lingpa as a mind treasure. In addition to the two root volumes, the cycle includes the phurpa Gyuluk on Vajrakila in one volume, which is recognized as both a mind treasure discovery and a compilation of tantras. The main Longchen Nyingthig teachings are classified into two categories. They are the original tantras of Nyingthig and the tantric sadhanas and teachings.

The original Nyingthig tantras are the continuum of the absolute nature (Dharmakaya) arisen as the teachings for Jigme Lingpa himself or for his previous incarnations and to which he awakened. While practicing in seclusion for three years at Samye Chimphu, Jigme Lingpa studied the writing of Longchen Rabjam and prayed devotedly, seeing him as a Buddha. He had three pure visions of Longchen Rabjam and received the blessing of his body, speech, and mind. During the third vision, Longchen Rabjam said three times, "May realization of the meaning be communicated to you, and many the transmission of the words be completely accomplished." Thereupon Jigme Lingpa realized the nature of Dzongpa Chenpo(maha sandhi) free from mental analysis and received the absolute transmission(Don br Gyude), and the sacred original tantras of Nyingthig arose in him. These original tantras arose in him as the unified essence of all the three modes of transmission- namely mind, indication, and oral transmissions of the three Buddha bodies and the masters of all the Dzongpa Chenpo lineage, including Guru Rinpoche, Vimalamitra, and Longchen Rabjam.

The tantric sadhanas and teachings of Longchen Nyingthig are the teachings that came to Jigme Lingpa through Guru Rinpoche as a ter(treasure).

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While Guru Rinpoche was visiting Tibet, on the second floor of the main temple of Samye Monastery he conferred the Longchen Nyingthig teachings on King Trisong Detsen. khandro Yeshey Tsogyal, and vairochana. Then he entrusted the teachings to them through the means of the naturally arisen dakini, the wisdom, the feminine principle of the three bodies of the buddha. he gave prophetic empowerments by saying that these teachings would be discovered by Jigme Lingpa, an incarnation (tulku) of Trisong Detsen. Yeshey Tsogyal arranged the teachings in symbolic scripts of unforgetting memory on the yellow scrolls of naturally arisen five colors. With aspiration empowerments, they concealed the teachings in the casket of luminous heart treasure(or mind treasure) of the disciples. they entrusted the concealed teachings to the dakinis, the ultimate sphere wisdoms, for the preservation until the right time came to awaken the teachings from the luminous intrinsic nature of the mind of the discoverer.