Okar Research: 2018

Sunday, November 11, 2018

Skardu

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Rinpungpa's Guidebook (written in 1557 AD) locates Shambhala north of the Kashmir Valley and south of the Wakhan Corridor.....

Rinpungpa, aka: "The Scholar King". A Tibetan prince who was the last of a dynasty of Ministers who ruled Tibet during the 15 and 16th centuries. He was considered one of the finest poets of the Tibetan language. Composed a guidebook to Shambhala in 1557 called "The Knowledge Bearing Messenger" as a letter to his dead father whom he believed to have been reborn in Shambhala. Complex and ornate style derived from the Sanskrit poetry of India.

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"The Kashmir Valley, also known as the Vale of Kashmir, is a valley in the portion of the Kashmir region administered by India. The valley is bounded on the southwest by the Pir Panjal Range and on the northeast by the main Himalayas range. It is approximately 135 km long and 32 km wide, and drained by the Jhelum River.

From: Rinpungpa's Guidebook to Shambhala .... "The Knowledge Bearing Messenger" (1557 AD) ...."Crossing Tibet westward.....to the sacred mountain of Kailas ....from Kailas continue northwest to Ladakh and down through mountains and forest to the Vale of Kashmir..(Kashmir Valley)........ then north, through a maze of treacherous mountains....you will pass safely through and come out in the land of the Paksik, horsemen who wear white turbans......over an 'outer ring' of sky-high ice mountains, down through a vicious desert, into unknown vistas....only to reach a second 'inner ring' of snow mountains. Beyond there, you must choose rightly among high valleys and low cities, having the good sense to know Shambhala when you reach it.........then you will at last, see the cities of Shambhala.....gleaming among ranges of snow mountains like stars on the waves of the Ocean of Milk."

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Skardu (Urdu: سکردو‎, Balti: སྐར་མདོ་་) is a city in Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan, and serves as the capital of Skardu District. Skardu is located in the 6 miles wide by 25 miles long Skardu Valley, at the confluence of the Indus and Shigar Rivers at an altitude of nearly 8,200 feet. The city is an important gateway to the nearby Karakoram Mountain range. The town is located on the Indus river, which separates the Karakoram Range from the Himalayas.

Coordinates: 35°17′25″N....... 75°38′40″E
Pakistan.... Autonomous territory of Gilgit Baltistan....District Skardu
Elevation 2,228 m (7,310 ft)
Population: 500,000

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Gilgit Baltistan......Buddhism came to this part of the country in the late 7th century when most of the masses were practicing bon religion. Before the arrival of Islam, Tibetan Buddhism and Bön were the main religions in Baltistan. Buddhism can be traced back to before the formation of the Tibetan Empire. The region has a number of surviving Buddhist archaeological sites. These include the Manthal Buddha Rock, a rock relief of the Buddha at the edge of the village (near Skardu) and the Sacred Rock of Hunza. Nearby are former sites of Buddhist shelters......Baltistan had Buddhist majority till the 15th century, before the arrival of Islam in this region. Since then most of the people converted to Islam, the presence of Buddhism in this region has now been limited to archeological sites, as the remaining Buddhists of this region moved east to Ladakh where Buddhism is the majority religion.

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Manthal Buddha Rock (Urdu: منٹھل چٹان‎) is a large granite rock on which picture of Buddha has engraved which probably dates back to 8 century. This rock is located in Manthal village of Skardu, in Pakistan. Buddha Rock is one of the most important relics of Buddhism in Skardu. It's about 3 kilometers from Sadpara Road. Sadpara road will lead to Satpara Lake......Before arrival of Islam in the region of Gilgit-Baltistan the majority of the people were Buddhist and they had engraved the Buddha on many rock pieces. This Buddha carving was not known to the world till beginning of 20th century due to its remote location. In 1906 the Scottish traveler Ella Christie wrote a book on her journey to the Western Tibet

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Okar Research was begun in 1979 in order to annotate and deepen my understanding of the Shambhala Terma Texts received by Chogyam Trungpa:
Golden Sun of the Great East....Received as terma in October, 1976.
Letter of the Black Ashe....Received as terma in January, 1978.
Letter of the Golden Key that Fulfills Desire....Received as terma in October, 1978.
Scorpion Seal of the Golden Sun....Received in 1980...A long and a short version exist.

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

November 2018

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Saturday, November 10, 2018

Rinpungpa's Guidebook To Shambhala & the Kashmir Valley

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Click Here to View the Main Index

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Rinpungpa's Guidebook (written in 1557 AD) locates Shambhala north of the Kashmir Valley and south of the Wakhan Corridor.....

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Mount Kailash (also Mount Kailasa; Kangrinboqê or Gang Rinpoche; Tibetan: གངས་རིན་པོ་ཆེ; Chinese: 冈仁波齐峰 (simplified); Chinese: 岡仁波齊峰 (traditional)), is a 6,638 m (21,778 ft) high peak in the Kailash Range (Gangdisê Mountains), which forms part of Transhimalaya in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. The mountain is located near Lake Manasarovar and Lake Rakshastal, close to the source of some of the longest Asian rivers: the Indus, Sutlej, Brahmaputra, and Karnali also known as Ghaghara (a tributary of the Ganges) in India. Mount Kailash is considered to be sacred in four religions: Bon, Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism.

Ladakh ("land of high passes") is a region in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir that currently extends from the Siachen Glacier in the Karakoram range to the main Great Himalayas to the south, inhabited by people of Indo-Aryan and Tibetan descent.It is one of the most sparsely populated regions in Jammu and Kashmir and its culture and history are closely related to that of Tibet. Ladakh is renowned for its remote mountain beauty and culture.

The Kashmir Valley, also known as the Vale of Kashmir, is a valley in the portion of the Kashmir region administered by India. The valley is bounded on the southwest by the Pir Panjal Range and on the northeast by the main Himalayas range. It is approximately 135 km long and 32 km wide, and drained by the Jhelum River.The Kashmir division borders Jammu Division to the south and Ladakh to the east while Line of Control forms its northern and the western border........"In the first half of the 1st millennium, the Kashmir region became an important centre of Hinduism and later of Buddhism; later still, in the ninth century, Kashmir Shaivism arose. In 1339, Shah Mir became the first Muslim ruler of Kashmir, inaugurating the Salatin-i-Kashmir or Swati dynasty.......

Shigar (Urdu: شگر‎) is a district in the Baltistan division of Gilgit–Baltistan in the north of Skardu in northern Pakistan. The Shigar River, bisecting the Shigar valley, falls in the Indus River at Skardu city. The town is a popular site for tourists and trekkers and contains many historical buildings of architectural significance associated with the all communities. The town is inhabited 100% by Balti people of Tibetan descent. Almost 95% people belongs to Shia sect of Islam and the remaining belongs to the Sunni and the Norbakshi sects. It is the gateway to great mountain range of Karakorum.... The valley is very fertile and rich in fruits including apples, cherries, apricots, pears and walnuts.

Lower Kachura Lake (Urdu: لوؤر کچورا جھیل‎), also known as Shangrila Lake(Urdu: شنگریلا جھیل‎) is located in Kachura village 20 minutes from Skardu city (nearly 2,500 m or 8,200 feet) town. The lake is also known as Shangrila lake after a resort built on its bank in 1983....Shangrila Resort Hotel was founded by the late Muhammad Aslam Khan, the first commander of the Northern Scouts of the Pakistan Army.....Shangrila was named after a book titled Lost Horizon by James Hilton.

Two thousand or more Tibetans have made their home in Srinagar. These are Tibetan Muslims. A few Muslim families remain in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa; some live in border hill towns; but most of them have now settled in Indian Kashmir....The community traces its origin to merchants who travelled along the old silk routes. They were Muslim traders from Kashmir and the adjoining area of Ladakh. Four hundred or so years ago, the then Dalai Lama granted them land in the Tibetan capital...After a failed uprising against Chinese Communist rule, the Dalai Lama and thousands of his Buddhist devotees fled across the Himalayas in 1959. Then, Tibet's Muslim community also felt restive. They were seen by some Tibetans as collaborators with the new Chinese rulers. After a lot of diplomatic push-and-pull, in which the Indian government took an interest, Muslims were allowed to leave Tibet...Dalai Lama visits Kashmir, first time in 24 years....

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The Pashtuns (/ˈpʌʃˌtʊnz/, /ˈpɑːʃˌtʊnz/ or /ˈpæʃˌtuːnz/; Pashto: پښتانه‎ Pax̌tānə; singular masculine: پښتون Pax̌tūn, feminine: پښتنه Pax̌tana; also Pukhtuns), historically known as ethnic Afghans (Persian: افغان‎, Afğān)and Pathans (Hindustani: پٹھان, पठान, Paṭhān), are an Iranic ethnic group who mainly live in Pakistan and Afghanistan....Historians have come across references to various ancient peoples called Pakthas (Pactyans) between the 2nd and the 1st millennium BC,who may be their early ancestors. Their history is mostly spread amongst the present-day countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan, centred on their traditional seat of power in that region. ....

Afghanistan possesses a rich linguistic legacy of pre-Islamic scripts, which existed before being displaced by the Arabic alphabet, after the Islamic conquest of Afghanistan. Among these scripts are Sharada, Gandhari, Kharosthi, Bactrian and Brāhmī . For thousands of years, Afghanistan was inhabited by Indo-Vedic people and thus all ancient documents, tracts, monuments and remains are of Hindu origins. Later, Buddhism became the major force in Afghanistan and brought with it its own liturgical languages.........Abundant archeological evidence in the form of inscriptions, numismatics and manuscripts[citation needed] has provided traces of the precursors of the contemporary Languages of Afghanistan such as Pashto, Dari and other Dardic languages.

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

November 2018

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Saturday, November 3, 2018

Waiting To Die

"Spirituality is a particular term which actually means dealing with intuition in the theistic tradition the notion of clinging into a word....a certain act is regarded as displeasing to a divine principle, a certain act is regarded as pleasing for the divine, whatever....in the tradition of non-theism however, it is very direct that the case history are not particularly important...what is actually important is Here and Now ... Now is definitely Now...we try to experience what is available there on the spot...there is no point in thanking that the past did exist that we could have now... this is now... this very moment nothing mystical just simple straightforward and from that nowness however arises a sense of intelligence always that you are constantly interacting with your reality one by one spot by spot constantly we actually experience fantastic precision always but we are threatened by the now so we jump to the past or the future paying attention to the materials that exist in our life all these choices takes place all the time but none of them are regarded as bad or good per se everything we experience are unconditional experience they don't come along as a label saying this is regarded as bad or this is good but we experience them but we do not actually pay heed to them properly we don't actually regard that as we are going somewhere regard that as a hassle waiting to be dead that's a problem that is not trusting your nowness properly but what is actually experienced now posess a lot of powerful things it is so powerful that we can't face it therefore we have to borrow from the past and invite the future all the time and maybe that's why we seek religion maybe that's why we march in the street maybe that's why we complain to society maybe that's why we vote for the presidents it's quite ironical very un(?)ending....."

Chogyam Trungpa

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

November 2018

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Friday, April 6, 2018

Dzogchen Overview

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Dzogchen
the primordial state in Tibetan Buddhism and Bön.
Tibetan: རྫོགས་ཆེན་
Wylie transliteration: rdzogs chen
(rdzogs pa chen po)
pronunciation in IPA: [tsɔktɕʰẽ]
official transcription (PRC): Zogqên
THDL: Dzokchen
other transcriptions: Dzogchen
Chinese name
traditional: 大究竟、
大圓滿、
大成就
simplified: 大究竟、
大圆满、
大成就
Pinyin: dàjiūjìng,
dàyuánmǎn,
dàchéngjiù

According to Tibetan Buddhism and Bön, Dzogchen (Rdzogs chen or Atiyoga) is the natural, primordial state or natural condition, and a body of teachings and meditation practices aimed at realizing that condition. Dzogchen, or "Great Perfection", is a central teaching of the Nyingma school also practiced by adherents of other Tibetan Buddhist sects. According to Dzogchen literature, Dzogchen is the highest and most definitive path to enlightenment.

From the perspective of Dzogchen, the ultimate nature of all sentient beings is said to be pure, all-encompassing, primordial clarity or naturally occurring timeless clarity. This intrinsic clarity has no form of its own and yet is capable of perceiving, experiencing, reflecting, or expressing all form. It does so without being affected by those forms in any ultimate, permanent way. The analogy given by Dzogchen masters is that one's nature is like a mirror which reflects with complete openness but is not affected by the reflections, or like a crystal ball that takes on the colour of the material on which it is placed without itself being changed. The knowledge that ensues from recognizing this mirror-like clarity (which cannot be found by searching nor identified) is what Dzogchenpas refer to as rigpa.

There is a fairly wide consensus among lamas of both the Nyingma and Sarma schools that the end state of dzogchen and mahamudra are the same. The Madhyamaka teachings on emptiness are fundamental to and thoroughly compatible with Dzogchen practices. Essence Mahamudra is viewed as being the same as Dzogchen, except the former doesn't include thödgal.

The word Dzogchen has been translated variously as Great Perfection, Great Completeness, Total Completeness, and Supercompleteness. These terms also convey the idea that our nature has many qualities that make it perfect. These include indestructibility, incorruptible purity, non-discriminating openness, flawless clarity, profound simplicity, all-pervading presence and equality within all beings (i.e., the quality, quantity and functionality of this awareness is exactly the same in every being in the universe). It is said that the impressive personal qualities of the fully enlightened Buddha are derived from the fact that he was fully aligned with this already-existing primordial nature. Descriptions of a buddha as omniscient and omnipresent refer to their ultimate nature. The Tibetan term dzogchen is sometimes said to be a rendering of the Sanskrit term mahāsandhi, and is also used to render the Sanskrit term ati yoga (primordial yoga).

A homonymous term dzogchen designates a practice and also a body of teachings aimed at helping an individual to recognize the Dzogchen state, to become sure about it, and to develop the capacity to maintain the state continually.

In his work on Jamgon Ju Mipham Gyatso's Beacon of Certainty: Illuminating the View of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection, John Pettit clarifies the various usages and implications of the term Dzogchen that are often conflated:

"Great Perfection" variously indicates the texts (āgama, lung) and oral instructions (upadeśa, man ngag) that indicate the nature of enlightened wisdom (rdzogs chen gyi gzhung dang man ngag), the verbal conventions of those texts (rdzogs chen gyi chos skad), the yogis who meditate according to those texts and instructions (rdzogs chen gyi rnal 'byor pa), a famous monastery where the Great Perfection was practiced by monks and yogis (rdzogs chen dgon sde), and the philosophical system (siddhānta, grub mtha') or vision (darśana, lta ba) of the Great Perfection.

Maha Ati
Maha Ati is a term coined by Chögyam Trungpa, a master of the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism. He generally preferred to introduce Sanskrit rather than Tibetan terms to his students, and felt "Maha Ati" was the closest equivalent for "Dzogpa Chenpo," although he acknowledged it was an unorthodox choice. The coinage does not follow the sandhi rules which would be rendered as mahāti. This serves as an indication of its pedigree as a calque.

The Dzogchen teachings are the highest of the nine yana, (Tibetan theg pa, vehicle) of the Nyingma (Wylie: rnying ma) school of Tibetan Buddhism and the Tibetan Bön (Wylie: bon) tradition. Many lamas, particularly of the Nyingma and Kagyu schools, regard them as the most profound teachings altogether.

The instructions that point to the Dzogchen state are sometimes described as a set of "inner" or "heart" (Wylie: snying thig) teachings. Tibetan Buddhist ascetics consider that the state pointed to by these teachings is very difficult to describe, and can only be discovered through the esoteric transmission and pointing-out instruction by an authentic Vajra Master.

Although Dzogchen cannot be separated from the Buddhist or Bön tradition, very often teachers emphasize the non religious character of Dzogchen. However, the Buddhist or Bön traditional framework is never negated. Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche says that, as our primordial nature, Dzogchen has existed since the beginning of time and is pointed to by various masters throughout the Universe.

According to one Nyingma tradition, the first master of the Buddhist Dzogchen lineage in our world was Garab Dorje (Wylie: dga' rab rdo rje, Sanskrit *prahevajra) from Uddiyana (Wylie:. o rgyan).

Indian originators
According to Garab Dorje, Dzogchen is said to have been passed down as listed following. Often, practitioners are said to have lived for hundreds of years, and there are inconsistencies in the lifespan dates given, making it impossible to construct a sensible timeline.

Prahevajra (Tib. Garab Dorje, Wylie: dga' rab rdo rje) 184 BCE to 57 CE
Mañjuśrīmitra (Tib. Jampal Shenyen, Wylie: 'jam dpal bshes gnyen) 2nd century BCE (elder contemporary of Prahevajra)
Śrī Siṃha (Tib. Palgyi Senge, Wylie: dpal gyi senge) 3rd century CE (500 years before Vimalamitra)
Padmasambhava (Tib. Pema Jungne or Guru Rinpoche) fl. mid-8th CE
Vimalamitra (Tib. Drime Shenyen, Wylie: dri med bshes gnyen) fl. late 8th CE
Vairotsana (Tib. Nampar Nangdze Lotsawa, Wylie: rnam par snang mdzad lo tsa ba ) fl. late 8th CE.

Tibet
Padmasambhava (Tib. Pema Jugne or Guru Rinpoche, Wylie: padma 'byung gnas, gu ru rin po che) is considered the source of the Buddhist Dzogchen teachings in Tibet (Tib. bod), which are the heart of the Nyingma (Wylie: rnying ma) tradition, with which they are primarily associated. Dzogchen has also been practiced in the Kagyu (Wylie: bka' brgyud) lineage, beginning with Milarepa (Wylie: mi la ras pa) and most notably by the Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje (Wylie:. rang byung rdo rje). The Fifth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth (present) Dalai Lamas (Wylie: ta la'i bla ma) are also noted Dzogchen masters, although their adoption of the practice of Dzogchen has been a source of controversy among more conservative members of the Gelug (Wylie: dge lugs) tradition.

In the Bön religion, three separate Dzogchen traditions are attested and continue to be practiced: A-tri (Wylie: a khrid), Dzogchen (Wylie: rdzogs chen, here referring narrowly to the specific lineage within the Bön tradition), and Shang Shung Nyen Gyu (Wylie: zhang zhung snyan rgyud). All are traced back to the founder of Bön, Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche (Wylie: ston pa gshen rab mi bo che).

Concepts

The essence of the Dzogchen teaching is the direct transmission of knowledge from master to disciple. Garab Dorje epitomized the Dzogchen teaching in three principles, known as the Three Statements of Garab Dorje (Tsik Sum Né Dek):

Direct introduction to one's own nature (Tib. ngo rang thog tu sprod pa)
Not remaining in doubt concerning this unique state (Tib. thag gcig thog tu bcad pa)
Continuing to remain in this state (Tib. gdeng grol thog tu bca' pa)
In accordance with these three statements, Garab Dorje's direct disciple Manjushrimitra (Tib. 'jam dpal bshes gnyen) classified all the Dzogchen teachings transmitted by his master into three series:

Semde (Wylie: sems sde; Skt: cittavarga), the series of Mind, that focuses on the introduction to one's own primordial state;
Longde (Wylie: klong sde; Skt: abhyantaravarga), the series of Space, that focuses on developing the capacity to gain familiarity with the state and remove doubts; and
Menngagde (Wylie: man ngag sde, Skt: upadeshavarga), the series of secret Oral Instructions, focusing on the practices in which one engages after gaining confidence in knowledge of the state.

Tulku Urgyen explains what is meant by "gaining confidence in liberation": "The third analogy of the liberation of thoughts is described as being like a thief entering an empty house. This is called stability or perfection in training. A thief entering an empty house does not gain anything, and the house does not lose anything. All thought activity is naturally liberated without any harm or benefit whatsoever. This is the meaning of gaining confidence in liberation."

The Dzogchen teachings focus on three terms: View, Meditation, and Action. To see directly the absolute state of our mind is the View; the way of stabilizing that View and making it an unbroken experience is Meditation; and integrating that View into our daily life is what is meant by Action.

This open awareness of Dzogchen, or rigpa (also comparable to the Buddha nature), is said to lie at the heart of all things and indeed of all Dzogchen practice and is nothing less than "... primordial wisdom's recognition of itself as unbounded wholeness... the incorruptible mindnature."This reflexive awareness of Enlightenment is said to be inherent within all beings, but not to be attainable by thought.Chogyal Namkhai Norbu points out that Dzogchen "refers to the true primordial state of every individual and not to any transcendent reality."In discussing the Nyingma text, the Kunjed Gyalpo Tantra (kunjed gyalpo = 'the all-creating king', synoymous with Samantabhadra Buddha), Namkhai Norbu explains that Kunjed Gyalpo is in fact "beyond" the dualism inherent in the notion of an 'individual'. He writes:

The transmission of knowledge comes from the state of rigpa that has never been stained and has never been hindered. This is Adibuddha, or "primordial Buddha", Kunjed Gyalpo... The state of Kunjed Gyalpo is knowledge, and in knowledge there is not even the concept of "one and two", otherwise we have already entered into dualism. Also, the concept of "individual" presupposes dualistic vision. But Samantabhadra is beyond all this...

Klein and Wangyal comment on the ultimate "one taste" and dynamic stillness of the Dzogchen state:

... cause and effect, sentient beings and Buddhas, subjects and objects, path and goal are ultimately revealed to be of one taste: movement from one to the other is no movement at all, really, but a dynamic stillness.

There can be found within Dzogchen a sense of Reality as limitless wholeness, a multiplicity which is yet all of one "taste", which is a borderless wholeness. According to Lopon Tenzin Namdak, it is unconditioned and permanent, changeless, not originated from causes and conditions, blissful, and the base or support of numerous exalted qualities. "It is at once base, path, and fruit". "That reality, unbounded wholeness, is naturally complete." Also: "...the essence and base of self-arisen wisdom is the allbase, that primordial open awareness is the base, and that recognition of this base is not separate from the primordial wisdom itself. ...that open awareness is itself authentic and its authenticity is a function of it being aware of, or recognizing itself as, the base. ...The reflexively self-aware primordial wisdom is itself open awareness (rigpa), inalienably one with unbounded wholeness."

Opposing views
The views of the Dzogchen school are not endorsed by all Tibetan Buddhists. In fact, Bonpo Lopon Tenzin Namdak contrasts his own view that primordial wisdom does not arise from causes with that of Tsongkhapa, who states that without consciousness, there is no understanding. Some critics claim that the views of the Dzogchen school of philosophy conflict with those of Madhyamaka and to the views of other prominent Buddhist thinkers such as the logician Dharmakirti. However, Longchenpa and Mipham argue that the views of the Dzogchen school are in fact in accord with the view of Madhyamaka. Dzogchen meditative techniques are, however, consistent with Madhyamaka.

Three aspects of energy

Ananda Chakra
Sentient beings have their energy manifested in three aspects:

"dang" (Wylie: gDangs)
"rolpa" (Wylie: Rol-pa)
'"tsal" (Wylie: rTsal)
Energy of an individual on the dang level is essentially infinite and formless.

Many practices of thödgal and yangthig work on the basis of functioning of the rolpa aspect of individual's energy. It is also the original source of the sambhogakaya deities visualized in Buddhist tantric transformational practices and of manifestations of 100 peaceful and wrathful deities in bardo and Zhitro practices.

Tsal is the manifestation of the energy of the individual him or herself, as apparently an "external" world.[31] The mind of a sentient being is also tsal energy when it is "contaminated" by the karmic "winds" (Tibetan: rlung).

letter A gDangs Trekchö Kadag Dharmakaya
Thigle Rolpa Thögal Lhungrub Sambhogakaya
**** rTsal Yermed Thugs rje Nirmanakaya

External world versus continuum
According to Dzogchen teachings, energy of an individual is essentially totally formless and free from any duality. However, karmic traces, contained in the storehouse consciousness of the individual's mindstream (Sanskrit: citta santana; Tibetan: sems rgyud) give rise to two kinds of forms:

forms that the individual experiences as his or her body, voice and mind and
forms that the individual experiences as an external environment.
It is maintained that there is nothing external or separate from the individual. What appears as a world of apparently external phenomena, is the energy of the individual him/her self. Everything that manifests in the individual's field of experience is a continuum (Sanskrit: santana; Tibetan: rgyud). This is the Great Perfection that is discovered in the Dzogchen practice.

Causality and interdependent origination

In Dzogchen teachings the interdependent origination and any kind of causality is considered illusory: "(One says), 'All these (configurations of events and meanings) come about and disappear according to dependent origination.' But, like a burnt seed, since a nonexistent (result) does not come about from a nonexistent (cause), cause and effect do not exist.

Being obsessed with entities, one's experiencing itself [Wylie: sems, Sanskrit: citta], which discriminates each cause and effect, appears as if it were cause and condition.
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This corresponds to the assertion in the Heart Sutra (Sanskrit: Prajñāpāramitā Hridaya Sūtra), that there is no karma, no law of cause and effect. The assertion was made by bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara in a teaching for the great arhat Shariputra, given before multitude of beings, on request of Buddha Shakyamuni. After the teaching Buddha Shakyamuni greatly praised the wisdom of Avalokiteshvara's words and the beings present rejoiced.

Guardians
All teachings have energies that have special relationships with them. These energies are guardians of the teachings. The energies are iconographically depicted as they were perceived by yogis who had contact with them. The dharmapalas most associated with Dzogchen are Ekajati (Wylie: e ka dza ti), Dorje Legpa (Wylie: rdo rje legs pa) and Za Rahula (Wylie: gza' ra hu la) in the Nyingma and Sidpa Gyalmo in the Bön tradition. The iconographic forms were shaped by perceptions and also by the culture of those who saw the original manifestation and by the development of the tradition. However the guardians are not merely symbols as the pictures show actual beings.

Well-being and health
Dzogchen teachings maintain that the quality of people's lives is best when the internal classical elements are balanced.The body is healthy when the elements are balanced. They see the best way to balance the elements as abiding in the natural state.

Practice

Up to and including tregchöd (see below), Dzogchen meditative practices are parallel to and often identical with those of essence Mahamudra.

Preliminaries

Although many lamas require their students to complete the conventional tantric ngondro before starting Dzogchen practice, there is also a series of preliminary practices unique to Dzogchen. These include the Korday Rushan exercises (Tibetan: འཁོར་འདས་རུ་ཤན, Wylie: 'khor 'das ru shan) "differentiating saṃsāra and nirvāṇa," which are described in such texts as the Yeshe Lama (Tib. ཡེ་ཤེས་བླ་མ་, Wyl. ye shes bla ma). Rushan involves "going to a solitary spot and acting out whatever comes to your mind." The Dzogchen preliminaries also include a series of exercises known as Semdzin (sems dzin). Semdzin literally means "to hold the mind" or "to fix mind."Semdzins are found in all three series of Dzogchen (Semde, Longde and Mennagde), but the twenty-one semdzins found in the latter are common; Longchenpa divides them into three series of seven. According to Longchenpa as reported by Reynolds, "the first group enables the practitioner to find him- or herself in a calm state, and thus the exercises are similar to the practice of Shamatha . . the exercises in the second group enable the practitioner to discover the relationship between body and mind. And those in the third group enable one to discover the nature of one's own condition." Exercises in the first category include "fixating on a white Tibetan letter A on the tip of one's nose. Linking the letter with one's breathing, it goes out into space with each exhalation and returns to the tip of the nose with each inhalation. This fixation inhibits the arising of extraneous thoughts . . . however, the second exercise in the same category involves the sounding of the syllable PHAT! which instantly shatters one's thoughts and attachments. Symbolically, the two parts of the syllable indicate the two aspects of enlightenment, that is, PHA signifies Means (thabs) and TA signifies Wisdom (shes rab)."

Tregchöd and thödgal
After the indispensable preliminary of rushan, one remains in the knowledge of tregchöd and practices thödgal (also sometimes spelled thogal). These are the main instructions presented in the Menngagde series (Oral Instruction Series) of the Dzogchen teachings.

In both the Bön and Buddhist Dzogchen traditions, sky gazing is considered to be an important part of tregchöd.

Thödgal represents more a fruition than a practice itself. There are methods prepared in the event of a psychotic break to bring the practitioner back to sanity.

In contrast to other kinds of tantric practices, there is no intentional visualization; rather, imagery appears spontaneously using secondary conditions such as darkness or light. Eventually a practitioner has experiences which are viewed as knowing the subtle energies of one's being. These have the qualities of earth, water, fire, air and space (see Classical element). Throughout the retreat, a practitioner is believed to be approaching an experience which is entirely unconditioned.

Thödgal relies on esoteric anatomy including the avadhuti (also known as the center channel or sushumna in Hindu parlance) and heart chakra. Along with the fact that Dzogchen is based on a class of literature called the tantras, this indicates why Dzogchen is considered a tantric system as opposed to sutra systems such as Zen. This is not to say that Dzogchen is a part of general Vajrayana. Vajrayana is a path of transformation. Dzogchen, an independent vehicle in its own right, is a path of self-liberation.

Rigpa and rainbow body

Tibetan letter "A" inside a thigle. The A represents kadag while the thigle represents lhun grub.
Rigpa has three wisdoms, two of which are kadag and lhun grub. Kadag (primordial purity) is the Dzogchen view of emptiness. Lhun grub (natural formation) is the Dzogchen view of dependent origination. Throughout Mahayana, emptiness and dependent origination are two sides of the same coin. Kadag deals with tregchöd. The lhun grub aspect has to do with esoteric practices, such as (but not limited to) Thödgal, that self-liberate the dependently originated human body into the Sambhogakāya (rainbow body phenomenon). The symbol of Dzogchen is a Tibetan A wrapped in a thigle. The A represents kadag while the thigle represents lhun grub. The third wisdom, thugs rje (compassion), is the inseparability of the previous two wisdoms.

In Dzogchen, a fundamental point of practice is to distinguish rigpa from sems (mind). The distinguishing of rigpa and sems from each other is emphasized by Jigme Lingpa and goes back to the seventeen tantras.[citation needed]

The ultimate fruition of the thodgal practices is a body of pure light, called a rainbow body (Wylie 'ja' lus, pronounced Jalü.) If the four visions of thogal are not completed before death, then at death, from the point of view of an external observer, the following happens: the corpse does not start to decompose, but starts to shrink until it disappears. Usually fingernails, toenails and hair are left behind (see e.g. Togden Urgyen Tendzin, Ayu Khandro, Changchub Dorje.) The attainment of the rainbow body is typically accompanied by the appearance of lights and rainbows.

Some exceptional practitioners such as Padmasambhava and Vimalamitra are held to have realized a higher type of rainbow body without dying. Having completed the four visions before death, the individual focuses on the lights that surround the fingers. His or her physical body self-liberates into a nonmaterial body of light (a Sambhogakāya) with the ability to exist and abide wherever and whenever as pointed by one's compassion.

Dzogchenpa samaya
Capriles (2003: p. 180) openly quotes Chögyal Namkhai Norbu in the subtle but very important distinction of the activity of meditation from the effortless abiding of Dzogchen contemplation:

Chögyal Namkhai Norbu relates that once someone asked the famous Dzogchen Master, Yungtön Dorje Pel, what his practice consisted of, and he replied with the negative “mepa” or “there isn’t.” Then his startled questioner asked again, “Then you don’t meditate?,” to which the Master replied, “And when am I ever distracted?” This is the essence of samaya in Dzogchen teaching: not to meditate or to practice something with the mind and yet never to be distracted, for one remains uninterruptedly in the self-perfection of the single state of rigpa or Truth.
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In this denotation, dzogchen is a verb, and denotes the perfect process in the grammatical sense or alternately an infinitive verb, wherein the great continuum of 'one taste' (Wylie: ro gcig) or as Capriles renders it "single state" is the effortless 'contemplating' or abiding in the view of non-distraction from rigpa.

Apperception

'Apperception' (Sanskrit: svasaṃvedana/svasaṃvitti; Wylie: rang rig) is understood variously in different yana, buddhist schools, and practice lineages. These cosmetic differences are resolved in the practice of 'meditative trance' (Wylie: 'jog pa). For it is in the direct experience and associated literatures of the deep contemplative traditions of Himalayan Buddhism (Tibetan Buddhism, Nepalese Buddhism, Bhutanese Buddhism, etc.) and Bon, particularly Dzogchen and Mahamudra, that apperception is key, e.g. dark retreat (Tibetan: mun mtshams).

In the language of Zhangzhung, 'rang rig' (Wylie) is 'nges de shin'where 'shin' equates to 'shes pa'. The Zhangzhung lexical item 'shin' is found in many compounds (Martin, 2004: p. 158) where it means: 'to know' and 'knowledge' to both nominal and verbal/process oriented lexical items.

Pettit (1999: p. 129) holds that 'apperception' (Wylie: rang rig) is key to Mipham's (1846–1912) system of epistemology and hermeneutics discussed in the DRG and in Mipham's Commentary to the Ninth Chapter of the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra.

Graham Coleman and Thupten Jinpa (2005: p. 480) contrast the 'svasaṃvedana' of Dignāga and Dharmakīrti with that of Dzogchen:

According to Indian Buddhist epistemology, and particularly in the writings of the great logicians Dignāga and Dharmakīrti, the term svasaṃvedana refers to the apperceptive or reflexive faculty of consciousness, for which reason it is sometimes rendered as 'reflexive awareness' or 'apperceptive awareness'. However, in the view of the Great Perfection (rdzog-pa chen-po) and in the context of the present work [The Tibetan Book of the Dead], the same term refers to the fundamental innate mind in its natural state of spontaneity and purity, beyond the alternating states of motion and rest and the subject-object dichotomy. It is therefore rendered here as 'intrinsic awareness'. As such, intrinsic awareness gives the meditator access to pristine cognition or the buddha-mind itself, and it stands in direct contrast to fundamental ignorance (avidyā), which is the primary cause of rebirth in cyclic existence (saṃsāra). The direct introduction to intrinsic awareness is a distinctive teaching within the Nyingma school.... This practice is a central component of the Esoteric Instruction Class (upadeśa) of Atiyoga, where it is known as Cutting through Resistance (khregs-chod).
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Texts

Dzogchen instructions are found in some Mahayoga texts, as it may simply have been the associated completion stage practice. However, the majority of the Dzogchen corpus comprises the "18" Semde tantra texts, the Longde tantras, and the Menngagde termas.

Samten Migdrön (Tib. bsam gtan mig sgron) is a Tibetan text of historical importance for the historical relationship of Dzogchen and Zen as well identifying the view of its author, Nubchen Sangye Yeshe.

Seventeen Tantras of Dzogchen Upadesha-varga.

These Seventeen Tantra amongst other Dzogchen texts are included in the various divergences and holdings of the numerous extant Nyingma Gyubum editions.

Reality vs dreams

See also: Lucid dreaming
Mipham Rinpoche has said:

The real sky is (knowing) that samsara and nirvana are merely an illusory display.
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According to contemporary teacher Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, in Dzogchen the perceived reality is considered to be unreal. All appearances perceived during the whole life of an individual through all senses, including sounds, smells, tastes and tactile sensations in their totality are like a big dream. It is claimed that on careful examination the dream of life and regular nightly dreams are not very different, and that in their essential nature there is no difference between them.

The non-essential difference between our dreaming state and our ordinary waking experience is that the latter is more concrete and linked with our attachment; the dreaming is slightly detached.

Also according to this teaching, there is a correspondence between the states of sleep and dream and our experiences when we die. After experiences in an intermediate state (bardo) an individual comes out of it, a new karmic illusion is created and another existence begins. This is how transmigration happens.

One aim of dream practice is to realize during a dream that one is dreaming. One can then dream with lucidity and do all sorts of things, such as go to different places, talk to people, fly and so forth. It is also possible to do different yogic practices while dreaming (usually such yogic practices one does in waking state). In this way the yogi can have a very strong experience and with this comes understanding of the dream-like nature of daily life. This is very relevant to diminishing attachments, because they are based on strong beliefs that life's perceptions and objects are real and, as a consequence, important. If one really understands what Buddha Shakyamuni meant when he said that everything is unreal or of the nature of shunyata, then one can diminish attachments and tensions.

The teacher gives advice, that the realization that the life is only a big dream can help us finally liberate ourselves from the chains of emotions, attachments, and ego and then we have the possibility of ultimately becoming enlightened.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzogchen

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Okar Research is an informal online review of published materials exploring the history, myths, legends, languages, geography, terms, practices, teachers and teachings of the ancient Central Asian 'Kingdom of Shambhala'.

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John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

November 2018

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Garab Dorje: Practice Of The White A

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"Anniversary of Garab Dorje

First of all, we are sitting comfortably. We do the purification
breathings, which you know already. Otherwise you can learn
how we do it from older practitioners, and also you can learn the
Tun practice so that you already know it.

Then we pronounce A and at that moment we do a visualization
of the white A in a circle of five colors called a thigle.
It represents our primordial potentiality and we visualize it at
the center of our bodies. Then we imagine lights radiating one
by one from this white A and thigle, first blue, then green, then
white, then red, and then yellow, representing the five elements.

Then we combine our visualization with the mantra OM EHO
SHUDDHE SHUDDHE, and so on, which you can read and
learn from the Tun Book. So there is a visualization that you can
learn from the book, and you can also learn from older practioners how you do this purification. First you learn and do this
purification. When you finish the purification, sound A again and
do a visualization of the presence of the white A in the thigle at
the center of your body. Lights radiate from this A and with these
infinite lights we communicate to all enlightened beings, particularly
teachers who are related to the Dzogchen transmission.

Above all, in this moment we are working with the transmission,
so with that light we communicate to the teacher.

The teacher manifests like Guru Garab Dorje. His aspect
is very young, he is white and reddish color, transparent like
a crystal, and his right hand is pointing at you, which means
direct transmission. His left hand is on the left knee in a relaxed
position. This means that at the same time he is in the state of
contemplation. You do this visualization in front of you and consider
that the manifestation has the form of Garab Dorje, but in
the real sense it is the teacher. The teacher is manifesting and
now he gives you the transmission. So your visualization is very
much alive. With this presence, first of all you start with Refuge
and Bodhicitta. In the Tun, the formula is very brief: NAMO
GURU BHYA, NAMO DEVA BHYA, NAMO DH KKINI
BHYA. We use these words and learn what is the real sense of
Refuge and Bodhicitta.

First of all you do this and then you do the invocation of Guru
Garab Dorje; the verses start with NAMO N̑ OVO QOSGUI GYILKÒR
NAS GADĂG LÁMA GÁRAB JÉ... You should learn
this invocation because when we do this practice with the transmission
we will sing this melody, so before you receive it you
should learn it. There are many older practitioners who know it
already, so we do this invocation precisely while we give transmission
and you receive transmission. You can learn the melody
and way of singing and so on.

After this invocation we pronounce A again, and at that moment
you imagine that from a white A in a thigle at the heart of the teacher Garab Dorje infinite lights radiate to all the universe;
the enlightened beings and particularly the rigdzins, realized beings
of the Dzogchen teaching in all the universe, receive this
communication. After that we pronounce A again, and from the
body, speech, mind of all these realized beings, their wisdoms
and empowerments come as infinite lights of different colors,
and these lights dissolve in a center of the white A and thigle of
Guru Garab Dorje. Guru Garab Dorje receives all these lights,
and this means that Guru Garab Dorje is the unified wisdom of
all the universal realized beings. After that, we sound A again,
and at that moment we imagine Guru Garab Dorje with a white
A and thigle dissolves in light and that light comes down and
dissolves at our forehead.

At our forehead there is a kind of
a triangle, at the center of which is a
three-colored circle called a gakhyil
turning from the border to the center
counterclockwise. The gakhyil represents
the potentiality of body, speech,
and mind. The gakhyil turns at our
forehead. You can visualize this triangle
like the central channel, bluish
outside and reddish inside, representing
light inside. This triangle is the
base of a pyramid with sides pointing
inside, meeting at the head chakra and
the central channel.

Guru Garab Dorje and our primordial state unified manifest
at the center of this turning gakhyil in the form of a tiny, luminous
white A, representing our real potentiality. Maintaining this
clarity we relax and remain in that state.
After a while we do trondu. Trondu means that when we
sound A, from the white A at the forehead representing the state
of unification with the Guru and oneself, infinite lights radiate
in all directions and call or activate all enlightened beings and
their wisdoms. Then we sound A again and receive infinite lights
from all the enlightened beings. We dissolve these lights at our
forehead, in the white A and thigle and gakhyil, and spread them
in our body through all the channels and chakras. Our chakras or
channels wake up and at the same time we purify all obstacles,
negativities, and negative karmas. All of our karmic body at the
material level dissolves into its real nature of five-colored lights,
and we are being in that state. We sound another A and from that
moment we are no longer working with visualization, thinking,
or judging, but are only being in that presence. In particular, we
notice who is doing this visualization, who is being in this white
A at the center of the gakhyil. We are not looking at something
in a dualistic way; we are being in that state, and that is instant
presence and our real condition.

Now we relax and remain in that state.

When you relax in the clarity of that presence, at that moment,
the teacher suddenly shouts a very strong PHAT, and when
teacher shouts PHAT you have a kind of small shock, but at that
moment you have no concepts. It cuts through all your thoughts
and confusions. At that moment you are in instant presence. You
notice that instant presence: it is the state of your teacher and the
state of Guru Garab Dorje. It is also the real state of your primordial
state – there is no difference.

So we relax in that state and integrate all aspects of body,
speech and mind and all of our conceptions of subject and object.
Everything integrates in the sound of the Song of the Vajra;
we sing the Song of the Vajra and everything integrates into
that state and we continue. This is what we do when we receive
the transmission: we receive the transmission, we receive the
knowledge of instant presence, and we notice at the end who is
being in that state of instant presence. At the end when we have
finished, we dedicate merits and empower this dedication with
the mantra OM DHARE DHARE BHANDHARE SV H …
You can find this dedication in the Tun Book. This is how we do
the practice.

http://www.shangshunginstitute.net/webcast/files/guruyoga%20119-123.pdf

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Click Here to view the Okar Research Index

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John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

November 2018

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White A Thigle & the Primordial State

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"A-khrid.....The first cycle here of Dzogchen teachings is called A-khrid (pronounced A-tri), that is, the teachings that guide one (khrid) to the Primordial State (A). The white Tibetan letter A is the symbol of Shunyata and of primordial wisdom."

Thigle (Tibetan) or Bindu (Sanskrit):...Luminous sphere of 5 colors of the rainbow representing the principle of the potentiality of all visions whether pure or impure, seeds of light, bodhicitta, sphere of rainbow light, luminous sphere, thig le

"Thigle – Literally means “drops” and is traditionally used to describe ‘spheres of rainbow light’ which is the ground substance reality. ..In traditional Buddhism it is sometimes understood to be a very specific form or shape. However, from a Buddha Brats perspective it is the actual visual experience of the true nature of the universe experienced as particles of light which are seen as spinning or moving dots or wheels, both large and small. It can also sometimes be observed as squiggles or moving shafts of light.... More precisely its ‘nature’ can be described as Dakini (sky dancer) because of the way it constantly moves around. Its ‘form’ can be described as that of Daka (sky flower) when one sees the specific form that the light particles take. This gives one a direct experience of Dakini and Daka as moving, dancing light.

tigle (tib: thig le; skrt: bindu) Tigle has multiple meanings depending on context. Although usually translated as "drop" or "seminal point," in the context of the dream and sleep yogas the tigle refers to a luminous sphere of light representing a quality of consciousness and used as a focus in meditation practice.

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John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

November 2018

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The Nine Purification Breaths

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· Sit with legs crossed, spine straight, chest open, chin slightly drawn in to lengthen the back of your neck.
· Visualize the three channels of light in your body: the white right channel, the blue central channel, and the left red channel

. Clearing the White Right Channel:
i. Press your right ring finger to your right nostril and inhale slowly and deeply. Imagine the breath follows the path of the red channel all the way to the junction.
ii. Hold the breath slightly as you switch the finger to press the left nostril.
iii. Following the pathway of the white right channel, exhale slowly and gently at first and more forcefully at the end of the exhalation. Feel your anger release with the exhalation and instantly dissolve into space.
· Repeat the exercise three times, feeling the increasing openness in the white right channel.

Clearing the Red Left Channel:
i. Press your left ring finger to your left nostril and inhale slowly and deeply. Imagine the breath follows the path of the white channel all the way to the junction.
ii. Hold the breath slightly as you switch the finger to press the right nostril.
iii. Following the pathway of the left red channel, exhale slowly and gently at first and more forcefully at the end of the exhalation. Feel the energy of attachment release with the exhalation and instantly dissolve into space.
· Repeat the exercise three times, feeling the increasing openness in the red left channel.

Clearing the Blue Central Channel:
i. Breathe in slowly and deeply through both nostrils. Imagine the breath follows the path of both side channels.
ii. Bring the breath to the junction and hold the breath slightly.
iii. Following the pathway of the blue central channel, exhale slowly and gently at first. At the end of the exhalation pull slightly in with your diaphragm and breathe out more forcefully. Imagine that you expel the energies of self-doubt and lack of confidence through the crown of your head, where they instantly dissolve into space.
· Repeat the exercise three times, feeling the increasing openness in the blue central channel.
· Resting: Feel all three channels as being more open and clear.

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A simple breathing practice by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche….in that moment, rather than criticizing and judging the second thought that lacks confidence, simply be aware of it. Host that thought in the stillness, silence, and spaciousness. Then, take a deep breath, and as you breathe out, release that thought. It’s like seeing junk mail in your inbox and pressing the delete button; breathing out is like pressing "delete." Right after the exhalation, you will discover a new space within you. That new space is a source of confidence that you can then cultivate….prana, in the practice of the Nine Breathings of Purification

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John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

November 2018

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THODGYAL. Thodgal (thod rgal)

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thod-rgal / Thodgal - passing over the summit (the development of vision practice in the Dzogchen Upadesha)

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"The term Thodgal (thod rgal....Sanskrit: vyuthtkrantaka)...literally means "direct" (thod-rgal du) in the sense of an immediate and instantaneous transition from one location to another, where there is no intervening interval of time. Thus some would translate it as 'leap over'...but it is much more immediate than leaping about. Also, when we say 'vision' (snang-ha) we are not talking about visualization( (dmigs-pa) which, for example is used in Tantra. Visualization is a process which involves the working of the mind. However with Trkchod we have moved into a dimension beyond the mind and with Thodgal, one continues in this direction. Rather than visualizations created by mind we are talking about an integration with vision, with whatever arises spontaneously to vision while the practiiioner is in the state of contemplation. Therefore, the master of contemplation through the practice of Thekchod is an immediate prerequisite to the practice of Thodgal...Otherwise there is the danger of becoming caught up in one's visions, becoming distracted by them and believing them to be an objective reality. It is precisely this attachment to one's impure karmic visions that got the individual caught up in samsara in the first place.......John Myrdhin Reynolds....'The Oral Traditions From Zhang-Zhung'....Page 33

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Taught by Lopon Tenzin Namdak, .....Devon retreat, May 1991 .....

In the Dzogchen Upadesha teachings we have the practices of Thegchod and Thodgal. Thegchod means we enter into and continue in the state of contemplation (rig pa), the Natural State (gnas lugs). Thodgal means that while in the state of contemplation the potentiality of the Natural State (rig pa 1 rtsal) has the occasion to manifest spontaneously as vision. The medium for the manifesting of this potentiality is either sunlight total darkness or the open space of the sky.
The ultimate result of this Thodgal practice is the attaining of the Rainbow Body or Talu (ja lus).
Indeed Thodgal does possess a method for dissolving the impure physical body at the time of death or even before and then the Rainbow Body of Light manifests. But this is not a process of transforming an impure physical body into a pure Sambhogakaya. The method Proper to Dzogchen is not the path of transformation as is the case with the Tantras but the path of self liberation. So the procedure in Tantra and in Thodgal is quite different. To effect a transformation in vision and in energy Tantra employs visualization in terms of Kyerim and Dzogrim practice. We visualize ourselves in a Sambhogakaya form whether this be a peaceful or a wrathful manifestation. But in Dzogchen there is nothing to be visualized and nothing to be transformed. The visions which arise during the course of Thodgal are not visualizations. Visualization represents the work of the mind; visualizations are created by the mind. But Dzogchen is a state beyond the mind. So these visions which arise in Thodgal are not created by the mind or by unconscious karma but they are a manifestation of what is already primordially present in the Natural State. The vision is not something created by causes but it is Lhundrub (Ihun grub) or spontaneously perfected. Since the Sambhogakaya is already fully inherent in the Natural State it simply manifests. Dzogchen alone discloses our real nature;
To realize the Rainbow Body means that we have practiced Thodgal and not some other method. The visions that arise are not specifically created but appear spontaneously (Ihun grub) in the presence of secondary causes such as sunlight, total darkness, and the clear open sky. They arise spontaneously from the Natural State; no Kyerim or Dzogrim practices must be done first as preparation. All that is required is the capacity to remain with stability in the Natural State. This is called stable Thegchod. Then the Thodgal visions come automatically whether in sunlight or total darkness or in the empty sky. Gradually all the pure visions of the deities arise and these visions develop by way of four stages (snang ba bzhi) until completion. Then they all dissolve into the Natural State. Our personal reality of pure and impure vision (snang ba) dissolves into Reality (bon nyid) which is the Natural State. At the same time that our visions dissolve our physical body also dissolves because it is just one manifestation of our impure karmic vision. Our normal everyday impure vision has the same source as the Thodgal pure vision - and now both equally dissolve into their source the Natural State. There is a single Base, the Natural State, but there are two Paths - impure karmic vision and pure vision, and two Fruits or results - Samsara and Nirvana. Returning to the ultimate source then the potentiality of the Natural State manifests as a Rainbow Body, the real Rupakaya.

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Excerpt from Golden Letters: The Three Statements of Garab Dorje

With regard to the Das-rjes, in each case the master in question attained the Body of Light at the time of his death, when he dissolved his physical body into the dimension of the space of the sky.

1. Tshig gsum gnad du brdreg-pa, "The Three statements That Strike the Essential Points, " of Prahevajra or Garab Dorje(dGa'-rad rdorje)

2. sGom nyams drug-pa,"The Six Meditation Experiences," of Manjushrimitra ('Jam dpal bshes-gnyen)

3. gZer-bu bdun-pa, "The Seven Important Points," of Shrisimha (dPal gyi seng-ge mgon-po)

4. bZhags-thabs bzhi, "The Four Methods for Remaining in Contemplation," of Jnanasutra (Ye-shes mdo)

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From Tenzin Wangyal "This second part with its practices is very similar to the practice of Togal Even though it is not Togal it uses those methods. The means for stabilizing the mind in the experience is through the threefold training or three methods. Before you train the actual development of visions and experiences through the Dzogchen Togal practice you have to make absolutely sure that your pure awareness in the state of contemplation is a hundred per cent stable in the experience of Dzogchen Tregcho. You know that you first have to stay in pure Dzogchen contemplation perfectly without any movements or any visions at all, then Togal will be effective in integrating experiences in this very state of pure awareness or non-dual contemplation. For this development or for the purpose of gaining stability in the contemplation there is a series of three practice methods and special circumstances to be applied consecutively. These methods are related and produce gradual development; first you train in the dark, then you gaze into the sky and finally you look at the sun.

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Before one can practice Thodgal, one must first purify the twofold obscurations and master the state of contemplation throught Trekchod practice, a releasing or a cutting through of all one's tensions and rigidities. If one does not first perfect Thekchod as an absolutely necessary prerequisite, then the Thodgal practice will be little better than watching a cinema show. Although one practices Thodgal not in the state of ordinary consciousness but in the state of contemplation, there is nevertheless the ever-present danger that one will become attached to the visions that arise.

Excerpt from: The Golden Letters : The Three Statements of Garab Dorje, the First Teacher of Dzogchen, Together With a Commentary Garab Dorje, John Myrdhin Reynolds (Translator)

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The Heart Drops of Dharmakaya teachings were composed by Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen, a Tibetan master who upon his death in 1935 achieved the rainbow body, in which his physical body dissolved into light. Shardza Rinpoche was one of the most influential Bon teachers of his time; his works are used as textbooks in many Tibetan monasteries.

Thod rgal meditation postures... the 3 postures (lion elephant, rishi) in Heart Drops of Dharmakaya. ... going with the Dzogchen Serzhün and the Bonpo Khandro Nyingthik....(Khandro Nyingtik (Wyl. mkha' 'gro snying thig) 'The Heart Essence of the Dakinis' — one of the 'Four Sections of Nyingtik' (Nyingtik Yabshyi). ...

The Khandro Nyingtik cycle itself consists of the Twelve ‘mother’ and ‘child’ Tantras of the Takdrol Gyü, the ‘Three Last Testaments of the Buddha’, and other teachings amounting to a total of sixty-five different categories. When the pith instructions are given according to the Khandro Nyingtik, it is these Twelve Tantras of the Takdrol Gyü and Three Last Testaments which are quoted as references

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John Hopkins.....New Mexico....October 2013
Email: okarresearch@gmail.com

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Dudjom Lingpa (1835-1904) : Thodgal Instructions

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Dudjom Lingpa (Tib. བདུད་འཇོམས་གླིང་པ་, Wyl. bdud 'joms gling pa) aka Chakong Tertön (Tib. ལྕགས་སྐོང་གཏེར་སྟོན, Wyl. lcags skong gter ston) (1835-1904) — a great Nyingma master and tertön whose revelations fill twenty volumes.

Now as for the stages of the main practice, at first you determine the ground by way of the Breakthrough, then the initial moment of impure consciousness emerges in the aspect of an object, a subsequent conceptualization fastens onto it, and delusion sets in. Now, in contrast, in the Leap-over, the initial moment of consciousness is transformed into an appearance of clear light, and by experiencing the very nature of consciousness, all impure appearances dissolve into the absolute nature and vanish. Knowing how that occurs is the indispensable, sublime point of the Leap-over, so recognize it!

If you do not recognize this vital point, however much you meditate, you will go astray on the path of dualistic grasping, and you will not progress along the grounds and paths of liberation. Thus, once you have truly realized the manner in which the whole of samsara and nirvana is none other than your own appearances, finally all mental states and appearances of the impure cycle of existence will forcefully be transformed into displays of the clear light, reality itself. So this is the practical guidance on the great transference. By truly recognizing the entrance to this path with the wisdom of realizing identitylessness, originally pure reality-itself, beyond mental investigation, the absolute nature free of conceptual elaboration, will be experienced with the eye of expansive wisdom. Unlike nebulous, obscure meditations and intellectual fabrications, with the eye of wisdom you directly see the precious, spontaneously present absolute nature, the reality-itself of the expanse of clear light.

To practice these instructions, at the outset you must firm up your posture, for if this is not done, the absolute nature, bindus, and the vital energies will be dispersed in all the channels and elements of the body, and they will not manifest. As an analogy, if a snake is not squeezed, its limbs will not become evident, but if it is, they appear. The posture is accordingly of tremendous importance.

First, the lion's posture is as follows. Join the soles of your feet in front of you. Plant your vajra-fists on the ground between your legs, and look up into the sky. That is the dharmakaya posture and gaze. For the sambhogakaya posture, plant your knees and elbows on the ground and support your cheeks with your palms. Point the soles of your feet outward, and gaze directly in front of you. However, if appearances of the clear light do not manifest, alternately run your gaze to the left and right and up and down. Rest your gaze wherever those appearances are most clear. For the nirmanakaya posture plant the soles of your feet on the ground, press your chest against your knees and clasp your knees with both hands while interlacing your fingers. Straighten your spine, and gaze downwards.

Here is the significance of those postures. With the dharmakaya posture, the soles of the feet are joined in order to constrain the afflictive vital energies in their own place. The vajra-fists are placed on the ground to cut off the pathways of the afflictions. The gaze is directed upwards to open the vision of primordial wisdom. With the sambhogakaya posture, pointing the soles outward causes the vital energies to flow easily. Pressing your knees against your chest balances the heat and cold elements of the body. Pointing your knees and elbows at the ground blocks the impure apertures. Supporting your cheeks with your palms balances bliss and emptiness. By directing your gaze straight in front of you, primordial wisdom settles in its own luminosity. With the nirmanakaya posture, the soles of your feet press on the air mandala in order to suppress the power of the karmic vital energies. By pressing together the fire mandala of the thighs and the fire mandala of the belly, the impure vital energies of samsara are extinguished right where they are. By pressing together the water mandala of the knees and the fire mandala of the palms, the heat and cold elements of the body are balanced. By pressing together the fire mandala of the palms and the fire mandala of the armpits, cold disorders are dispelled. By pressing together the water mandala of the backs of the hands and the water mandala of the throat, heat disorders are dispelled. By gazing downwards, the eye of omniscience is opened. Even if you look straight ahead or turn your gaze upwards, the eye of omniscience is still opened, so there is no difference. You may direct your gaze wherever you find the greatest clarity.

Moreover, it is not necessary to use all three postures. Rather, you may stay in any of the postures that facilitates the arising of the clear light and that you find comfortable and suitable. If you like variety, you may shift from one posture to the other and from time to time apply yourself to other spiritual practices. If you want nothing complicated, strive in meditation continuously throughout the day and night. Those who can meditate only during the day and not through the night should constantly practice throughout the day. The practice is to have three special sessions during the night and to intermittently train in the dying process. (1)

The important thing for the senses is that you look with eyes partially open and that you do not suddenly open them wide, for that will dull your vision, and it will prevent the appearances of the clear light from manifesting; so do not rigidly fix your gaze. The important thing for the vital energies is that you practice breathing gently through your mouth through a little opening between your lips and teeth; and pause for a moment with the breath exhaled. As for the object of your gaze, in the beginning for about one month, during the daytime direct your gaze one cubit(2) from the sun; then the [practice during the] night will clear away any problems of heat increasing in the eyes due to the sun.(3) In order to achieve stability in the clear light, gaze at the moon in the same way.

At night if you gaze at a flame, by looking above it with your eyes half open, at first you will see nothing more than something like an orange bale of hay. After awhile, the absolute nature will appear and bindus will arise in the form of quivering lines. Finally, beautiful, limpid visions of the absolute nature and bindus will appear clearly and extensively. Remain with your body unmoving like a corpse in a charnel ground; keep your voice silent, avoiding all articulation; and do not exhale through your nose but slowly breathe through your mouth without impeding or forcing it. That is the reliance upon the crucial point of letting the channels and vital energies be, without retention or manipulation. Remain without moving from the state in which consciousness experientially emerges as the clear light, without the mind being modified in any way. Wherever you are, by keeping the body straight, all the channels and vital energies will be straight, and once the mind has dissolved into empty awareness, you will be stabilized in that state.

The explanation of the channels and bindus of the path according to this yana is called Ati-anu, so you should come to know them correctly. The mouth is the aperture through which coarse, impure mental afflictions, vital energies, and mental states manifest, and the nose is the subtle aperture for subtle afflictions, vital energies, and mental states. Here is the way they move. In the lungs, channels having the width of a straw of wheat are filled with that which is called the exhaled and inhaled breaths. If they increase, heat disorders arise, if they decrease, cold disorders occur, and if the breath flows smoothly, there is a balance of the heat and cold elements of the body. In one day, there are 21,600 breaths, which are like mounts for mental ideation. Therefore, even though there are profound methods for forcefully constraining the vital energies and mind by retaining and manipulating the channels and breath, they may be enormously obstructive and misleading.

The six kinds of lamps(4) of the ground of the nature of existence are the avenues by which primordial wisdom arises, and the eyes are the evident apertures of primordial wisdom. The ears are the hidden apertures of subtle primordial wisdom, and they are the pathways by which consciousness apprehends appearances, so you train in their sounds. Through the evident apertures of primordial wisdom, you train in the clear light that illuminates the darkness. Dream appearances are the avenues to the manifestation of stainless vision, and by familiarizing yourself with the clear light, emanation, and transformation, the appearances in the transitional process of becoming can be emanated and transformed. From that you can emanate a pristine nirmanakaya buddha-field and accustom yourself to transforming the appearances of the intermediate state.

Here in order to experience the visions of the embodiments and primordial wisdoms there are three kinds of lamps of the vessel. The quintessence of the body is the citta lamp of the flesh at the heart, the inside of which is soft white. This is called the lamp of the channels, the quintessence of the channels, and hollow crystal kati channel. It is a single channel, one-eighth the width of a hair of a horse's tail, with two branches that penetrate inside the heart like the horns of a wild ox. They curve around the back of the ears and come to the pupils of the eyes. Their root is the heart, their trunk is the channels, and their fruit is the eyes.

The quintessence of the apertures is called the fluid Lasso lamp. That consists of three kinds of lamps of the vessel. Although the three kinds of lamps of the vessel are given three names, in reality they refer to the same thing, like a root, trunk, and fruit. Thus, in the context of the path, they are simply called the fluid lasso lamp.

As for the three kinds of lamps of the vital essence, the lamp of the pristine absolute nature is the quintessence of the five outer elements. The transformation of impurities into the five-colored lights of the empty essential nature of the quintessence is called the absolute nature, and because of the purification of the reification of impurities, it is called pristine. The element appearing as space, transformed into the quintessence, is blue and light blue. The element appearing as water, transformed into the quintessence, is white and gray. The element appearing as fire, transformed into the quintessence, is red and brown. The element appearing as earth, transformed into the quintessence, is yellow, pale yellow, and dark yellow. The element of air, transformed into the quintessence, appears as green, tan, and light green.

At first, in whatever color the impure visions appear, when they are transformed into the absolute nature, they still appear in that same color. As for the visions of the absolute nature, at first they are of the nature of such things as the sun, moon, and a flame, bearing all five colors, filled with rainbow patterns of the absolute nature, like brilliant brocade. This rainbow weave arises as horizontal images. Beginners may achieve stability in this by gazing for a month at the sun and a crystal during the daytime, at the moon during the nighttime, and by gazing at a flame while indoors. At the beginning, shimmering images arise, after awhile they become more stable, and finally they remain motionless. At that time, look at a clear window, dispense with the flaws of enjoying or not enjoying the beauty or lack of beauty of the light images. Then a whitish blue emerges which is not that of the external sky, but know that it is important to rest in a state without attraction or aversion to its qualities.

To transform the five inner elements into quintessences, the element of the quintessence of the mind is transformed into blue and it appears as such; the element of the quintessence of the blood transforms into the color white and appears as such; the element of the quintessence of the flesh transforms into the color yellow and appears as such; the element of the quintessence of warmth transforms into the color red and appears as such; and the element of the quintessence of the breath transforms into the color green, and appears as such.

As for the lamp of the empty bindu, the five quintessences appear in circular forms, so they are called bindus. Although they are spherical, without corners, in your vision they appear like concentric circles due to throwing a stone in a pond. The interior of the so-called hollow crystal kati channel is filled with the lights of the five quintessences, and a form of an indestructible bindu is present in that space. By gazing at that with the eye of wisdom, the interior of that channel becomes evident and arises in the form of outer appearances. Without grasping onto them, your own channels will illuminate themselves. If you grasp onto the visions of the absolute nature as being external and onto awareness as being internal, you will fall into the error of dualistic grasping.

In the domain of that pristine, absolute nature, the lusters of awareness called vajra-strands appear like moving, floating threads of gold. That is the initial phase. After awhile they appear like pearls threaded on a string, and finally they emerge in the form of full and half-lattices. They are the basis from which the two kinds of lamps of vital essence arise, called the lamp of self-arisen wisdom and the self-knowing sugatagarbha.

The four lamps of the path of appearances are the fluid lasso lamp, the lamp of the pristine absolute nature, the lamp of the empty bindu, and the lamp of self-arisen wisdom. The four lamps of the contemplative path are combined in one. Know that synthesizing them, then applying yourself to practice is of the utmost importance. If you practice in that way, unlike the mentally constructed, vague meditation as in the Breakthrough--the reality-itself of the clear light will directly appear to your senses, so they are called the direct visions of reality-itself. This is not like meditating on substantial, human- like deities that are strenuously conjured up by the mind, as in the stage of generation. This alone is the practical instruction for achieving stability in the great experiential displays of the embodiments and primordial wisdoms, thereby liberating the actual three embodiments within yourself. This is superior to the ordinary kinds of transference involving the three recognitions, (5) a path by which you visualize shapes and colors and propel yourself aloft, as it were. This has the distinction of the great transference by which you transform all appearances and mental states of samsara and nirvana into the absolute nature of reality-itself.

Due to continuously practicing single-pointedly in that way, the potency of the vase empowerment strikes the materiality of your body, so that you have no wish to move your body; due to the potency of the secret empowerment permeating your speech patterns, you have no wish to speak; and due to the potency of the wisdom empowerment striking your mental continuum, your attention remains wherever you place it. This is real quiescence that is devoid of signs. Thus, since all coarse and subtle ideation is calmed in the ocean of the original ground, it is quiescent; and since awareness remains without fluctuation in its own state, it is still.(6)

By transforming appearances and mental states into displays of the embodiments and primordial wisdoms, there is an exceptional vision of the clear-light appearances of reality-itself, so this is called insight.

From the impure state of samsara, since you truly know the reality-itself of the Breakthrough, the nature of existence of suchness, you see the truth of reality-itself. Due to achieving a great, unprecedented vision of reality-itself, this is the Very Joyful [ground]. With the first visions of the Leap-over, you come to the confidence of never returning to samsara, so you implicitly achieve the first ground of the sutra path. On the mantra path, all delusive appearances and mental states come to maturation in the nature of the clear light, reality-itself; ignorance is transformed into awareness, and you implicitly achieve the ground in which awareness holds its own ground. At this time, even if you die and are interrupted [in your practice], you will be reborn as a tulku, and you will have embarked on the path of liberation. The outer signs are that the appearances of the absolute nature are majestic and stable, as if the curtain on them had been opened; and bindus appear, ranging from the size of fish eyes to thumb rings.

This is the way the experiential visions progress. Initially, vital energy fills you inside from your heart up to your throat, or various sorts of illnesses or disagreeable pains may occur. Randomly moving throughout the exterior and interior of your body, staying in no one place for long, these disturbances arise due to the potency of the vital energy of primordial wisdom striking the ascending wind. After awhile, they increase and your throat may become sore and blocked so that food is obstructed and coughed out. You may lose your appetite, have trouble breathing, and lose your voice. Then they increase yet further, and disturbances arise due to the potency of the vital energy of primordial wisdom striking the life-sustaining wind. Then you may experience mood swings from joy to sorrow and from desire to hatred. Due to the potency of the vital energy of primordial wisdom striking the descending wind, when the disturbances increase, urine and excrement are blocked and cannot be excreted, and when the disturbances subside, they are expelled constantly. Due to the potency of the vital energy of primordial wisdom striking the pervasive wind, when those disturbances increase, the body becomes swollen, and when they decrease, all the flesh of your body withers as if it were becoming a corpse. Due to the potency of the vital energy of primordial wisdom striking the fire accompanying wind, when the disturbances increase, sweat emerges from the body and great heat arises; and when they subside, you get goose bumps, your complexion deteriorates, and you shiver with cold.

Finally, all the winds combine and enter the channels and elements of the body, and sharp pains arise in all the channels. Movements of the winds permeate your whole body, inside and outside, giving rise to various illnesses such as combined heat and cold disorders. The body becomes swollen, boils and sores appear, dire illnesses arise, medications and divinations go awry, bad omens appear, and individual channels and joints become painful. Gout, rheumatoid arthritis, and lymph disorders may arise, and you may become lame, blind, deaf, or mute, and may pass out. Know that various random kinds of pains may arise in the body.

You may engage in various kinds of behavior, acting coquettishly or shamelessly, like someone afflicted with a disease. In short, know fully well that due to the functions of the channels, winds, and elements, these bodily pains will not be the same for everyone, so there is no one criterion for recognizing them.

As for your speech, you may find yourself singing various songs and melodies, babbling, speaking offensively, having your behavior not conform to your speech, not living in accord with your words and acting contrary to them, and speaking uncontrollably as if your words were uttered by an insane person. Such speech is nonsensical and random, So recognize this!

Like the noises made by a madman, your mind may ramble aimlessly, without being able to remedy or alter it in any way. Due to the disorders in your heart and life force channel, at times you may weep, groan, sigh, exhale forcefully, or constantly want to be on the move, without being able to remain in one place. Your environment may seem so miserable that you do not want to stay where you are, and you may constantly experience a wide range of confused emotions. So recognize this! You may have various sorts of visions of gods and demons or random sensations of hunger, thirst, heat, cold, and so on. These are the outer signs of the appearances of the clear light.

At the beginning stage, remain motionlessly with your face completely covered, and bindus from the size of the dots on dice up to the size of thumb rings will appear. At times, the visions of the absolute nature, together with the bindus, will not be evident, but the luster of awareness will appear in forms called vajra-strands. At times the bindus of the absolute nature will not arise, then they will fluctuate in size, and they will become unclear, no matter how much you try. On occasion, the visions of the absolute nature will repeatedly appear in the expanse of clear light in spherical forms of five-colored lights. Those are the criteria of familiarity with the practice.

At this time, even if your life comes to an end, you will go straight to a nirmanakaya buddha-field, with no intermediate state. By gaining greater familiarity with this practice, the visions of the absolute nature will appear resplendently like loosely woven cloth, and they will appear in the sky in the form of dangling lattices and half-lattices. In the midst of the visions of the absolute nature, all sorts of images may appear, such as stupas, lotuses, white conches, wheels, vajras, jewels, swastikas, swords, spear-tips, images like stacks of books, and various forms of letters and animals. Whatever appears, those are visions of the absolute nature, so know that it is important not to mistake them for bindus. Bindus will appear in round shapes, gradually growing from the size of thumb rings to the size of cups and on to the size of round shields.

At the beginning stage, the lights of awareness, called vajra-strands, no broader than a hair's width, radiant like the sheen of gold, appear to move to and fro, never at rest, like hairs moving in the breeze. Even as they stabilize a little bit, they become clear and lustrous, temporarily wavy, and they slow down somewhat, appearing like deer running across a mountainside. Then as you become somewhat more accustomed to the practice, they appear like strung pearls, and they slowly circle around the peripheries of the bindus of the absolute nature, like bees circling flowers. Their clear and lustrous appearance is an indication of the manifestation of awareness. Their fine, wavy shapes indicate liberation due to the channels, and their moving to and fro indicates liberation due to the vital energies. Due to the qualities of purifying the bindus, the presence of bindus on curves [of the strands] indicates that one will be liberated. By the power of meditation, they appear in the forms of lattices and half-lattices, transparent like crystal, radiant like gold, and like necklaces of medium-sized strung crystals. The criterion of having thoroughly familiarized oneself with the practice is that they appear indeterminately, but they remain stable, without moving or vibrating. In this case, the name of the cause is also given to the result, and that is the vajra-strand luster of awareness. They are the luster of awareness, so they gradually become as stable as awareness itself. They are not the real, self-arisen lamps of awareness and wisdom.

Once the beginner's phase has passed, the visions of the absolute nature become beautiful, clear, and stable, and they take on various divine forms. Although they may increase and decrease, before a single inner sign has arisen, the appearances of such outer signs are premature, like a dzaki flower that blooms out of season. So that does not constitute progress in terms of experiential realization. Even when the inner signs occur, the outer bindus of the absolute nature may become indistinct. That happens to some people who have a dominant water element, and the elements of their channels are such that the development of their experiential realizations proceed like a slow foot race. If that is mistakenly identified as progress in meditative experience and as reaching consummate awareness, even if visions occur that would seemingly indicate the extinction into reality-itself, in fact one has in no way gone beyond ordinary consciousness. Indeed, one is proceeding in the opposite direction, contrary to the tantras, so this is an enormous error. It is important to know this.

Even if muddled outer signs and vivid images are present, recognize the importance of the emergence of the inner signs. Although experiential visions may appear to your inner consciousness, if the outer signs are unclear, that indicates that you will not be able to gaze at the clear light for sustained periods, and there will be obstacles. Know this as well. When experiential visions homogeneously arise inwardly, the visions of the Breakthrough are aroused, causing the meditative experiences of the Leap-over to be disrupted. However, when the visions have not matured into the clear light, the potency of the clear light has not been perfected. If they stop, the visions of light will not develop, and that indicates that the eye of primordial wisdom has not entered the eye of wisdom.(7) Therefore, you should constantly strive in the practice.

When encountering that situation, some people develop their minds with meditative experiences, then travel to many regions and finally succumb to adversities. Consequently, they get stuck there and do not achieve liberation. Some people encounter images of the bodies, speech, and minds of buddhas which are actually apparitions of maras, gods, and demons--and due to visions from the power [of progress in meditative experience], words of Dharma appear to them as written letters, and they are consumed by the desire to write them down. Out of lust, they consort with women, and consequently claim to be treasure-revealers. There are many such people who bring ruin to themselves and others. Due to extrasensory perception and visions in dreams, some people perceive good and bad things in themselves and others, and they leave such things as hand-prints in rock and other objects. Signs may manifest due to the apparitions of gods and demons, causing them to declare themselves to be siddhas. They then take a consort and take control of those around them. Laying the foundations for prestige and great deeds, they spend their whole lives in constant, relentless striving. Those who spend their lives tricking others with magic rituals to dispel obstacles and wander around begging and seeking wealth without satiation are possessed by maras and demons. Even if they become renunciates and gurus with great followings, they are deludedly involved in the eight mundane concerns and the negative conduct of maras.

Some people take meditative experiences to be illnesses and regard conducive circumstances as demonic. When they receive medical treatment and perform rituals, they become confused by all kinds of divinations and diagnoses, and they become overwhelmed by speculations. Upon noting bad dreams and evil omens, fantasies arise even more forcefully, and those outer manifestations are apparitions of gods and demons. Any of the 404 kinds of illnesses in the body, including disorders of the wind, bile, phlegm, and combinations of them, are inner manifestations as bodily pain. If you regard them as being truly existent, you fall into error, and you will either die or deludedly fall under the influence of objective adversities.

Some people go through various kinds of unbearable miseries and ecstatic experiences, all of them arising as secret manifestations called joys and sorrows. If you cling to them and reify them, you will stray into error, and you will not attain liberation. Due to misery and discomfort and pain in the life force in the heart, people sigh and feel like weeping, and everything they see and feel seems to be of the nature of suffering. Then they restlessly yearn to escape somewhere where there will be no human intruders, and when they come to such a place of solitude, they yearn for companionship and moving around. Overcome by desires and cravings, they find they cannot remain in solitude, and they scramble after anything that will bring them pleasure. That is falling into error, so recognize this!

Frightened by suffering, your body, speech, and mind become agitated, impelling you to become active, and that is a great mistake. Some people become depressed at the miserable pain in the life force in their hearts, and out of despair when they wander from one village to another, this seems to help. Then when they come around to their own homeland and so on, before many days have passed, uneasiness arises again just as it did before, and they wish to be on the move again. Such people wind up squandering their whole lives.

Some people's minds are filled with doubt and vacillation, doubting that they can ever come to certainty , and they waste their lives by repeatedly traveling to many lands. Some are carried away by viewing their teacher's counsel as being wrong, and they fall into false views. Others take their own meditative practice to be harmful, and they constantly feel regret and wonder what to do. They think that if they were to go to some other famous spiritual teacher, that might help. Nowadays there is not a single spiritual teacher who is well versed in the nature of this path, the manner in which meditative experiences arise, and so forth. Thus, fearing that their reputation will decline, they cannot admit they do not know and are not familiar with those things. Some of them teach things that are their own mental fabrications, then tell others that their meditation is wrong. Others say, "Your guru doesn't know how to teach, so you have been proceeding on a false path. Do this instead..." Teaching that their own level of instruction is all you need, they heap praise upon it. There are a great many who pompously declare that they can transfer their realization to others, saying, "I shall grant you my realization, our minds will merge, and you will simultaneously perfect all grounds and paths." If that were possible, the buddhas would have transferred their state of realization to sentient beings, and samsara would already be empty. Specifically, if the minds of all the buddhas' sravaka and pratyekabuddha disciples received the buddhas' realizations by having their minds merged with the buddhas', why would they be drawn far beyond the Hinayana? Do not place credence in pretentious assertions about transferring one's realization.

Some people think they have no craving for the eight mundane concerns. Others who have not developed their minds in the slightest become obsessed with various visions they experience. Those spiritually blind people never critically examine the way they wander about in delusion, then claim they have reached the state of the extinction into reality-itself and think their own delusions have vanished. Accomplished scholars scorn such attitudes and demolish them with their weapons of scriptural authority and logic. So individuals who enter this path should be careful in this regard.

Even if you succeed in other Dharma practices, you will not achieve the highest state of liberation in this very lifetime. Consequently, maras will not be jealous or angry, so they will not create obstacles for you. If you do come to the culmination of this path, you may achieve liberation in one lifetime and with one body. In this case the might of the terrifying Lord of Maras is dredged up, the maras are aroused to jealousy and aggression toward those advancing towards the state of spiritual awakening, and they are sent out to create obstacles. They then create problems and manifest objective apparitions to lead people astray.

By practicing single-pointedly, without succumbing to such obstacles, the appearances of light increase, and as soon as you settle in meditative equipoise, all appearances become totally pervaded by light and bindus, with no intervals between them. Ordinary phenomena that appear due to looking at impure phenomena with the eyes, are seen with the eyes of the flesh. The appearances of the absolute nature, of bindus, or of [vajra-] strands arise simply by attending to the visions of light. They are derivative of the manifestation of wisdom, so they are said to be seen with the eye of wisdom. During meditative equipoise, the displays of the absolute nature and of bindus increase, stabilize, and become continuous, and they are said to be illuminated by the eye of primordial wisdom.

The consciousness that manifests the visions of the clear light during the initial phase is called the eye of wisdom. Wherever the eye of primordial wisdom, free of dust, is directed, it illuminates whatever it sees until the visions of the absolute nature, the bindus, clear light, and divine embodiments are seen. Then due to the sharp pinnacle of primordial wisdom, free of fluctuations in the clarity of the eye of wisdom, all appearance, both while in meditative equipoise and otherwise, transform into displays of light and rainbow bindus with ever increasing clarity. In the end, appearances of earth and rock vanish and dissolve into continuous, omnipresent displays of visions of light. That is the criterion for have acquainted oneself with this practice. Impurities have been transformed into the vital core, and the vital core has been transformed into the five lights, and they become manifest. That is the criterion for perfecting the power of progress in meditative experience. At this juncture, the larger bindus cover the sky and earth, while the smaller ones variously appear as small as grains of mustard, and they appear in aggregates of five. Within the visions of the absolute nature appear the doors, roof, Dharma wheel, crowning parasol, strings of bells, and silk hangings of a palace.

Individuals who embark on such a profound, swift path, who have the fortune of combining their karma and prayers, will experience the spherical images of the first phase even at the time of death. At that time, they will expire in the nature of nirmanakayas. Finally, once the power [of their progress] has been perfected and nothing appears other than the fivefold aggregates of bindus, they will be liberated as sambhogakayas, without experiencing the intermediate state.

To present this in terms of the grounds and paths, when you come to the state called progress in meditative experience on the path of the Leap-Over, that is identified with the fifth ground of the sutra path called Difficult to Practice. These meditative experiences are unbearably painful, and under their influence one experiences craving and confusion. Therefore, when one comes to this stage, since it is very difficult to follow the path to its culmination, this is called Difficult to Practice. On the mantra path all the appearances of birth and death in samsara are cut off, and one does not perish. This is the achievement of the state of a vidyadhara who has mastery over life itself.

Then the appearances of reaching consummate awareness, in which awareness matures into its vital essence, are as follows. The upper portions of the divine embodiments appear in the midst of all the fivefold aggregates of bindus, while the lower portions of their bodies appear in forms of clouds of light. One half of their bodies appears as if it were separated. At that time, by practicing continuously, eventually entire divine embodiments will appear. The white, solitary embodiment, replete with the ornaments of a sambhogakaya is Vairocana; the blue embodiment is Vajrasattva; the yellow embodiment is Ratnasambhava; the red embodiment is Amitabha; and the green embodiment is Amoghasiddhi. By continuing in constant practice, the embodiments eventually appear in the form of male and female deities in union; and they arise together with their entourages of the four male and female bodhisattvas.

As a result of further, continuous practice, assemblies of the five buddha classes appear in spacious, vast palaces, beautifully adorned with all manner of ornaments, clothed in various silks, blazing with rays of light, and adorned with bindus and minute spheres. By familiarizing oneself with that more and more, volcanic mansions appear that are inwardly constructed of three tiers of skulls, while outwardly appearing as palaces. In their midst are mandalas of ferocious blood-drinkers. The deities and consorts are embraced in union, and single male deities appear dressed in fresh elephant skins, tied with belts of human skin, with lower garments of tiger skins, each bearing weapons. They appear in all sizes from the larger ones as vast as the sky, and the smaller ones as tiny as peas. The entire universe appears to be filled and totally pervaded with rainbow light and blazing fire. Objects as small as the head of a pin are filled and illuminated with divine embodiments with all their ornaments. That marks the perfection of the potency of reaching consummate awareness.

The mark of one's speech at this point is that one's voice is soothing and enchanting, like songs sung by the children of kumbhandhas. In addition, various words of Dharma, legends, and knowledge of linguistics, poetry, and composition naturally emerge. Appearances arise as symbols and as scriptures, and the meaning of all oral transmissions and practical instructions flows forth like the current of a river. Words of melodious songs and so on inspire others' perceptions of the world, and their minds are blessed.

The bodily signs are that your body vividly appears as mudras of the five buddha-classes, like the appearance of a reflection in a space of limpidity and luminosity, like a mirror-image. The body appears as a variety of reflections, as light as cotton, with no sense of materiality. As an indication that bodily parasites have been released into the clear light, it becomes free of lice and nits. White hair turns dark, bright white new teeth grow in, and your muscles become youthfully strong, and wrinkles clear away. The perceptions of others shift simply by laying eyes on you, and they experience faith and reverence. With the blazing forth of the warmth of primordial wisdom, all thoughts of clothing are discarded, there is no longer any sense of being cold, and you experience continual blissful warmth. Casting off all thoughts of food, you can live for months and years on the food of samadhi, the power of bliss and emptiness. In each pore of your body are displayed unimaginable kinds of abodes of sentient beings as well as buddha-fields. That indicates the achievement of mastery of miraculous emanations. With your mastery of incarnation and emanation, you manifest an inconceivable number of emanations in an unimaginable range of abodes of sentient beings, and in a single instant you guide an inconceivable number of sentient beings. You manifest an inconceivable number of emanations in an unimaginable number of buddha-fieds, where you make myriads of offerings, receive empowerments, and open up an inconceivable number of avenues of samadhi. Such transformations are displayed in your own and others' fields of experience, and you send forth and disclose unimaginable emanations and miraculous displays. Due to your pristine perception, appearances arise as displays of buddha-fields, and due to the pristine purity of the mind-itself, the universe arises as a display of divine embodiments. Due to the pristine purity of your voice, sounds arise as wheels of Dharma. Pure appearances pervasively arise as displays of those three pristine purities, without even a speck of impure appearances.

Once the union has been mastered, the many avenues of the impure cycle of existence are purified, and can be united with the great bliss of the absolute nature. Once liberation has been mastered, simply by focusing your awareness you can bring to a state of liberation even someone who has committed the five deeds of immediate retribution. Once you reach mastery over the elements, you can transform all things into gold, silver, and so on; and phenomena are mastered such that you can transform water into fire, fire into water, and so forth. Once you have mastered the ayatanas(8) of the five generic emblems, you can transform your body into the five elements, have your body take on the shape of other creatures, and manifest yourself in various emanated forms. Once you have mastered all stages of birth, dying, and aging, when you want to transcend the three worlds, you will become awakened in the absolute nature of the dharmakaya, Samantabhadra. This occasion is called awakening in the great openness above, without reliance upon any of the virtues, vices, causes, or effects of all your lifetimes. Without reliance upon the qualities of your karma or the appearances of the intermediate state, all mental states and appearance naturally awaken by themselves, like the dawn breaking in the sky, and there is no death.

Reaching the state of consummate awareness on the path of the Great Perfection means that you implicitly attain what is called the eighth ground on the sutra path, and you also implicitly achieve the state of what is called a Mahamudra vidyadhara on the path of generation.

Moreover, due to the inconceivable differences among people's metabolisms and faculties, there is a corresponding, inconceivable array of meditative experiences. Thus, they are not uniform and there are no definite criteria for them. The foregoing descriptions are simply metaphorical and symbolic. You must examine this with awareness and ascertain that all appearances are of the nature of meditative experience. So recognize this!

O Vidyavajra, by practicing in that way, enthusiastic, courageous individuals do not need to be concerned with such issues as the acuity of their faculties, the quality of their karma, or their age, as is the case on other paths. They are said to be of superior faculties solely due to their enthusiasm and courage. Therefore, when those who integrate Dharma with their lives, without becoming frustrated in their meditative practice, experience the outer and inner appearances of reaching consummate awareness, without confusing one for the other, all phenomena will appear only as lustrous light, and no ordinary appearances will ever arise again.

Finally, like a full moon, the appearances of all embodiments and bindus gradually decrease in number. From your brain(9) a white mass of light, like a billowing cloud emerges in the space in front of you. In its midst appears an aggregate of five bindus, in the center of which appears Vairocana with his consort, adorned with sambhogakaya ornaments, and surrounded by four similar deities in union. Above, below, and all around those divine embodiments, vajra strands arise in the forms of dangling lattices and half-lattices, like rosaries of clear crystals. Then blankets of light, white like the moon, emerge from the hearts of those embodiments and penetrate down into the point between your eyebrows. For seven or five days those blankets of light appear as ornamental bindus stacked up like upside-down conch bowls. Finally, they dissolve into the point between your eyebrows, transforming your body into a mass of light. You thereby receive the immutable body-vajra empowerment.

At this point, even if you die, with no intermediate state, you will experience the central buddha-field called Ghanavyuha and achieve stability. There the entire ground is composed of precious crystals. It is so vast and all-pervasively immense that it rivals the dimensions of space itself. Its surface is smooth and even, like the face of a mirror. When you step down, it gives way, and when you lift up, it rebounds. As the soles of your feet touch the surface of the ground, the primordial wisdom of bliss and emptiness blazes forth. Clouds of delicious aromas spread forth from hills covered with medicinal plants, and the whole ground is completely covered with brilliant lotuses of various colors. The sky is criss-crossed with lattice patterns of rainbow-colored light, and forms of rainbow canopies, parasols, victory banners, and pennants appear in it. It is surrounded all around by a great moat of water bearing the eight excellent qualities, and on its shores are pebbles of various precious substances, turquoise meadows, and golden sand. All around inside them are immense, majestic, lightly filled forests of wish-fulfilling trees. In the groves around its ponds are flocks of birds that are emanations of buddhas, white like the color of conch, yellow like gold, red like coral, green like emerald, and blue like lapis-lazuli, as well as other colors such as black, tan, and variegated. Their beautiful forms are pleasing to behold, and their lovely voices proclaim words of the sublime Dharma, as they circle around the ocean and alight on the wish-fulfilling trees. In the rivers are innumerable, lovely, enchantingly beautiful goddesses emanated by daughters of the devas, nagas, gandharvas, and kinnaras, who are constantly making clouds of offerings and rendering service.

In the center of that buddha-field is a square palace with doors on each of its four sides, produced by the natural appearance of primordial wisdom. Its east side is composed of crystal, its south side is composed of gold, its west side is composed of ruby, and its north side is composed of emerald. Its roof is of lapis lazuli, and its exterior and interior are spacious and luminous. Its whole floor inside is made of precious rainbow crystals. When the light of the sun and moon streams through its windows, the floor becomes covered with rainbow light and bindus. Jewel lattices and half-lattices hang from its walls, and parasols, victory banners, pennants, and silk ribbons flutter in the wind, giving rise to words of the sublime Dharma, which are heard by herds of lovely deer. This vast, spacious palace is beautifully adorned with thresholds, Dharma wheels, and top ornaments of the sun and moon. It is exquisitely designed and is replete with all ornaments.

In its center, adorned with rainbows and a mass of light is a broad, high, jeweled throne supported by eight lions. On its lotus, sun, and moon seat is the Bhagavan Vairocana, adorned with all the sambhogakaya ornaments, of the nature of the purified aggregate of form, the embodiment of the primordial wisdom of the absolute nature of reality. He is surrounded by an immeasurable assembly of bodhisattvas on the tenth ground, and he is constantly turning the wheel of Dharma. Recognize the importance of occasionally bringing that buddha-field to mind even while you are still on the path.

O Vidyavajra, when you who are following this path finally go beyond that stage, red-colored light emerges from your throat spreading into the sky in front of you. In the midst of that light a fivefold aggregate of bindus arises, in the center of which appears Amitabha with his consort surrounded by the four male and female bodhisattvas. Between them are red vajra-strands in patterns of lattices and half-lattices, like rubies strung together. From the hearts of those divine embodiments rays of red light appear which strike your throat in the form of a string of bindus, like inverted ruby bowls, and stack there. They appear to dissolve into your throat for twenty-one, seven, or five days. You thereby receive the secret vajra empowerment of unceasing speech, and you achieve confidence.

At this time, there is a discontinuity, a shift of appearances, and in an instant the entire ground, vast and spacious, is composed of rubies. When you step down, it gives way, and when you lift up, it rebounds. The whole ground is completely covered with brilliant lotuses with blossoms of various colors. The whole environment in all directions is completely surrounded by inconceivable buddha-fields. There are naturally arising ambrosial ponds with jewel pebbles, golden sands, turquoise meadows, wish-fulfilling trees, ambrosial springs, rainbow canopies, and various parasols, victory banners, and pennants. Unimaginable offering goddesses are constantly making offerings and rendering service, and in the center of all this is a palace composed of rubies. Its inner walls are white on the east, yellow on the south, red on the west, and green on the north. Its roof is blue and blazes with blue light, and it is adorned with all ornaments and fine attributes. In its center, is a lotus, sun, and moon seat upon a jeweled throne supported by eight peacocks. On it sits the Bhagavan Amitabha, red in color, adorned with all the sambhogakaya ornaments and garments, of the nature of the purified aggregate of recognition, the embodiment of the primordial wisdom of discernment. He is turning the wheel of Dharma for an immeasurable congregation of bodhisattvas on the tenth ground. You are instantly transported into their midst, you stabilize there, and achieve confidence in this state.

Then when you move beyond that point, blue light emerges from your heart into the space in front of you like a billowing cloud, and in its midst arises a five-fold aggregate of vast, spacious blue bindus. In their center is the principal deity Aksobhya with his consort surrounded by the four male and female bodhisattvas. Adorned with all manner of ornaments, lattices and half- lattices of blue vajra-strands arise in the spaces between them like garlands of vairata. From the hearts of those divine embodiments blue light billows forth, penetrating down into your own heart, where bindus stack up in a column like inverted lapis-lazuli bowls. They appear to dissolve into your heart for ten days or longer. You thereby receive the wisdom-gnosis empowerment of the undeluded enlightened mind, and you achieve confidence.

Even if there is an interruption at this time, with no intermediate state, your appearances will shift, and you will experience the southern buddha-field of Abhirati, as vast as the absolute nature itself. Its surface is smooth and limpid, like the face of a mirror. Its color is blue like lapis-lazuli and it is criss-crossed with lattice patterns of rainbow light. Verdant hills of medicinal plants are beautifully adorned with various flowers, wish-fulfilling trees, lakes of water bearing the eight fine attributes, golden sands, turquoise meadows, jewel pebbles, and unimaginable goddesses making offerings, singing praise, and rendering service.

In the midst of the sky and intervening space adorned with all manner of lovely ornaments is a square palace with four doors. Its exterior is blue in color like lapis-lazuli and blazes with light. Its interior is radiant and luminous with the colors of the five primordial wisdoms. In its center is a jeweled throne supported by eight elephants. Upon it is a lotus, sun, and moon seat on which sits the dark blue Bhagavan Aksobhya, adorned with all the sambhogakaya ornaments, of the nature of the purified aggregate of consciousness, the embodiment of mirror like primordial wisdom. One hand touches the earth, while the other is in the mudra of meditative equipoise. Around him is assembled an innumerable Sangha of bodhisattvas, who are listening to the Dharma from the Teacher while bowing their heads in respect. As your appearances shift to this, you will attain liberation.

When you move beyond that point, yellow light emerges from your navel into the space in front of you like a billowing cloud. Immediately, the whole ground becomes luminous with yellow light like the color of gold, and all other phenomena arise as displays of yellow light. In the midst of that mass of light a five-fold aggregate of large bindus arises like a round shield, and in its center is Ratnasambhava with his consort, surrounded by the four male and female bodhisattvas. Lattices and half-lattices of blue vajra-strands arise in the spaces between them like garlands of amber. From the hearts of those divine embodiments yellow light billows forth, penetrating down into your own navel. In that continuum of light bindus appear to stack up in a column like inverted golden bowls for five or seven days; and finally, they dissolve into you. You thereby receive the primordial wisdom vajra empowerment, free of signs and words, in which all excellent qualities are perfected. E

ven if there is an interruption at this time, with no intermediate state, your appearances will shift, and you will experience the precious buddha- field of Srimat, as vast as the absolute nature itself, in which the whole ground is like the color of refined gold. Its surface is smooth and even. It is filled with grassy hills of medicinal plants blanketed with various flowers, ambrosial ponds, purifying springs, and a myriad of clouds of offerings of such things as wish fulfilling trees. In its center is a palace emanated by primordial wisdom. Its exterior is like the color of precious gold, and its interior bears the colors of the four kinds of activities from the natural potency of the five primordial wisdoms. In its center is a jeweled throne supported by eight supreme horses. Upon it is a lotus, sun, and moon seat on which sits the Bhagavan Ratnasambhava, whose body is adorned with the signs and symbols of enlightenment and with all the sambhogakaya ornaments, of the nature of the purified aggregate of feeling, the embodiment of the primordial wisdom of equality. He is surrounded by an immeasurable Sangha of bodhisattvas to whom he is constantly revealing the Dharma. With the emergence of these appearances, you will achieve liberation.

When you move beyond that point, your body appears as five lights, and from it emerges a mass of dark green light into the space in front of you. In its midst appears a five-fold aggregate of five-colored bindus of light, like a rhinoceros-skin shield. In it is the principal deity Amoghasiddhi with his consort, surrounded by the four male and female bodhisattvas. The images of their bodies are limpid, they are replete with all manner of ornaments, and blaze with a magnificent mass of light. Everywhere above and below them vajra-strands appear in the forms of lattices and half-lattices, like turquoise garlands. As for the upward and downward extensions, from the hearts of those divine embodiments green light billows forth, like the color of emerald, penetrating your genital region. In that continuum of light bindus appear to form in a column like inverted turquoise bowls for ten days or so; and when they are complete, they appear to dissolve into you. You thereby receive an empowerment that grants you mastery over the spontaneously present divine embodiments and displays of primordial wisdom.

At this time, even if your appearances shift, you will experience the buddha-field of Karmaprapurana, in which the whole ground blazes like the color of emerald. The entire environment is replete with all manner of ornaments and fine characteristics, and in its center is a palace, bearing all wonderful qualities. Its exterior is green like the color of emerald, and its interior is of the clear, luminous colors of the four kinds of activities from the natural potency of the five primordial wisdoms. In its center is a jeweled throne supported by eight pheasants. Upon it is a lotus, sun, and moon seat on which sits the Bhagavan Amoghasiddhi, whose body, green in color, is adorned with all the sambhogakaya ornaments, of the nature of the purified aggregate of compositional factors, the embodiment of the primordial wisdom of accomplishment. He is surrounded by an immeasurable assembly of bodhisattvas on the tenth ground for whom he is constantly turning the wheel of Dharma. As your appearances shift to this, you will achieve liberation.

When you receive the vajra-empowerment of spontaneous, original perfection and you go beyond the final purification of the visions of meditative experience, all the mandalas of the blood-drinking deities in the skull mansions appear to you. Rising up into the sky above, you let out a terrifying roar and appear to dance in various ways, causing all realms of the universe to tremble and shake, the great earth quakes with a great roar. Consequently, the entire animate and inanimate universe dissolves into the nature of light, and, with a wave of your hand, your own body disappears into the realm of light.

At this time, you will achieve the four great confidences of fearlessness. What are those four? Due to arriving at the ground of your own being, the dharmakaya, the nature of the original protector, the primordial buddha, even if you have a vision of buddhas filling the whole of space, you achieve the great confidence in which there is not the slightest bit of faith or reverence for them. By coming to spiritual awakening within yourself, in which you can be neither benefited or harmed by any other causes or effects, you achieve the great confidence in which there are no hopes for the ripening of effects from their causes. By coming to the ground of your own being, which is originally free of birth, cessation, and abiding, even if you are surrounded by a thousand assassins bent on murdering you, you achieve the great confidence that is devoid of even the slightest trace of fear. By experiencing the state of the originally pure, primordial protector, and coming to the state that is originally free of delusion, you achieve the great confidence in which there is no anxiety concerning samsara or the miserable states of existence.

Then the appearances of the absolute nature, the bindus, the divine embodiments, and the buddha-fields gradually vanish like the full moon waning to the point that it disappears into the moonless sky. Finally, awareness is awakened as the ground, and you come to the nature of the dharmakaya. The fundamental root of self-grasping is destroyed, and the mind of grasping is extinguished. The ray of dualistic grasping is severed, thereby extinguishing apprehended objects. Conceptualization involving dualistic appearances is extinguished, so you expand into the even, pervasive nature of the equal purity of samsara and nirvana. Your body becomes like a corpse left on a charnel ground, so no fear arises even if you are surrounded by a thousand assassins. Your speech becomes like an echo, reverberating back all the sounds of others. Like a rainbow dissolving into the sky, your mind expands into reality-itself, free of conceptual elaboration, a great, all-pervasive state beyond all dimensions.

O Vidyavajra, an individual who has extinguished the appearances of all phenomena into the absolute nature of reality-itself has far exceeded the tenth ground of the sutra path known as the Cloud of Dharma. Such a one has implicitly reached the supreme ground of a spontaneously present vidyadhara on the mantra path. Still the most subtle of latent cognitive obscurations arise, and like the illumination from a flash of lightning in the sky, on occasion your body appears, for just the duration of a hand-wave, as a body of light in an expanse of light. Recognize that appearances and the mind occassionally separate, and speech and words of Dharma are sometimes uttered as they were previously. When this phase is completed from ten days to ten months, the most subtle of cognitive obscurations vanish into the absolute nature. This perfects the power of primordial wisdom of knowing reality as it is, and you gain mastery of the originally pure ground, the primordial dharmakaya. By perfecting the power of the primordial wisdom of seeing the full range of reality, you gain mastery over the spontaneously present divine embodiments and the displays of primordial wisdom. As the originally pure youthful vase body, you are transformed into a totally perfected buddha, and you become all-pervasive.

Those having superior faculties are liberated as a great transference embodiment, extending infinitely into the all-pervasive dharmakaya, like water merging with water, or space merging with space. Those having medium faculties attain buddhahood as a great rainbow body, like a rainbow vanishing into the sky. When the ground clear light arises, for those having inferior faculties the colors of the rainbow spread forth from the absolute nature, and their material bodies decrease in size until finally they vanish as rainbow bodies, leaving not even a trace of their aggregates behind. That is called the small rainbow body. When the ground clear light arises, the material bodies of some people decrease in size for up to seven days, then finally only the residue of their hair and nails is left behind. The dissolution of the body into minute particles is called the small transference. For those of superior faculties this dissolution of the body into minute particles may occur even during the Breakthrough.

O Vidyavajra and the rest of you assembled disciples, listen and consider this.  These are the superior qualities of the spontaneously present youthful vase body.  The obscurations of ignorance are dispelled in the absolute nature; ascending to the dharmakaya, beyond the total-ground, lustrous primordial wisdom manifests, and it transcends lustrous clarity.  The primordial wisdom of seeing the full range of reality manifests, and primordial wisdom transcends the mind.  Natural spiritual awakening within yourself surpasses traveling to buddha-fields.  Free of all the extremes of conceptual elaboration, it transcends causality of dependent origination. Imbued with the eight freedoms,(10) it transcends all actions and their effects.  The absolute nature and primordial wisdom are equally pervasive, transcending mundane existence.  Perfectly complete buddhahood, imbued with nine surpassing greatnesses is praised by all the jinas."

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NOTES

(1). This refers to the preceding practice of imagining the dying process as a preparation to the main practice of the Leap-over.

(2). To protect your eyes, it may be better to direct the gaze about six feet away from the sun.

(3). Although the daytime practice of gazing near the sun may impair one's vision, it is said that the nighttime practice of gazing at the moon may actually enhance one's vision. Most important is that one carefully examine whether one's practice is damaging one's eyesight and to alter the practice if that occurs.

(4). The use of the term lamp (Tib. sgron me) is, of course, a metaphor, for the essential nature of these lamps is luminosity.

(5). The three recognitions (Tib. 'du shes gsum) are recognizing the channels as the path, one's own consciousness as the traveler on the path, and a buddha-field as one's destination.

(6). This sentence gives an etymology of the Tibetan term zhi gnas (Skt. samatha), translated here as meditative quiescence.

(7). The eye of wisdom sees appearances of the absolute nature, of bindus, and vajra-strands that arise simply by attending to visions of light, whereas during meditative equipoise the eye of primordial wisdom sees the displays of the absolute nature and of bindus as they increase, stabilize, and become continuous.

(8). These ayatanas presumably refer to the five 'signs,' (Tib. mtshan ma, Skt. nimitta) that eventually arise due to meditating on the generic emblems of the five elements of earth, water, fire, air, and space. These practices are discussed in B. Alan Wallace, The Bridge of Quiescence: Experiencing Tibetan Buddhist Meditation (Chicago: Open Court, 1998) in the chapter "Quiescence in Theravada Buddhism."

(9). The Tibetan term here (dung khang) literally means "conch abode," but it refers to the brain.

(10). (1) The freedom of the formed observation of form, (2) the freedom of the formless observation of form, (3) the freedom of beauty, (4) the freedom of limitless space, (5) the freedom of limitless consciousness, (6) the freedom of nothingness, (7) the freedom of the peak of mundane existence, and (8) the freedom of cessation. (Tsepak Rigzin, Tibetan-English Dictionary of Buddhist Terminology (Dharamsala, India: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1986) p. 236.

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John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

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November 2018

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Skardu

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Rinpungpa's Guidebook To Shambhala & the Kashmir Valley

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Waiting To Die

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Dzogchen Overview

Garab Dorje: Practice Of The White A

White A Thigle & the Primordial State

The Nine Purification Breaths

THODGYAL. Thodgal (thod rgal)

Dudjom Lingpa (1835-1904) : Thodgal Instructions