Armidale Community Buddhist Centre

What Is a Treasure?
According to the Nyingma School, the Treasures are most often comprised of spiritual instructions concealed by enlightened beings for the purpose of discovery at a later predestined time when their message will invigorate the Buddhist teaching and deepen spiritual understanding. Central to this process is the figure of the Treasure revealer (gter ston) - the person who acts as a medium for the re-emergence of this inspired material into the human world. Accordingly, beginning in the eleventh century and continuing into the present, the Nyingma School identifies a large number of Treasure revealers and grants authoritative status to their discoveries.
The idea that religious truth lies concealed within the world of phenomena awaiting discovery by spiritually gifted people is by no means a concept exclusive to the Nyingma School or Tibetan Buddhism as a whole. Throughout Buddhist literature there are numerous descriptions of teachings being inherently present in the phenomenal world ready to be perceived by individuals possessing inspired levels of consciousness and, accordingly, spiritual revelations have surfaced on numerous occasions throughout the course of Buddhist history. -from Tibetan Treasure Literature: Revelation, Tradition, and Accomplishment in Visionary Buddhism by Andreas Doctor, published by Snow Lion Publicatio