Tibetan Yoga: Somatic Practice in Vajraya Na Buddhism and Dzogchen

Ian A.
Baker
Chapter 8:
Tibetan Yoga: Somatic Practice in Vajrayāna Buddhism and
Dzogchen*
1. Vajrayāna Buddhism
Tibet’s Vajrayāna form of Buddhism is widely known for its monastic culture of
esoteric ritual and scriptural debate. It is less well known for its Hatha Yoga-
˙
related1 practices that, due to their perceived potential for misapplication, are
transmitted guardedly even within the tradition despite their foundational role in
Vajrayāna’s earliest and arguably most dynamic systems of meditation.2 This
chapter explores the developmental history of “forceful” Hatha Yoga-related
˙
yoga and somatic practice3 within Tibetan Buddhism as a whole while focusing
* This article is indebted to early reviews by Geoffrey Samuel, Mark Singleton, and James
Mallinson. While predominantly textually based, it owes much to ethnographic research
within the living traditions of Vajrayāna Buddhism and Dzogchen in India, Nepal, Tibet, and
Bhutan and oral instruction by Dudjom Jigdral Yeshe Dorje, Chatral Sangye Dorje, Dilgo
Khyentse Rinpoche, Dungtse Thinley Norbu, Bhakha Tulku Pema Tenzin, Yongdzin Tenzin
Namdak, H. H. Sakya Trizin, H. H. the Dalai Lama, Kunzang Dorje Rinpoche, Lam Nyingku
Kunzang Wangdi, Tulku Tenzin Rabgye, and Tshewang Sitar Rinpoche.
1 Hatha Yoga is used in this essay to refer to “forceful” physically-based yogic practices that
˙
developed in medieval India within the context of Buddhist and Hindu tantra. As shown below,
the term first appears in the eighth-century Guhyasamājatantra and in a tenth-century
commentary to the Kālacakratantra but, in current usage, Hatha Yoga is most often associated
with “modern postural yoga”, precedents for which are explored ˙ in this essay. It should be
clarified, however, that the somatic techniques of Vajrayāna and Tibetan Buddhism do not
necessarily reflect any direct influence from Hatha Yoga traditions in India until the twelfth
century with the dissemination in Tibet of the ˙Amrtasiddhi, Hatha Yoga’s reputed “source
text” based on bodily postures (mudrā-s) and breathing˙ techniques ˙ that, as revealed by James
Mallinson, profoundly influenced the later development of the Hatha Yoga tradition.
˙
2 Yoga, in the Tibetan and Vajrayāna tradition, ultimately refers to a culminating transformation
of consciousness, and not simply to the physical and breath-based practices through which
liberating existential insight is achieved. Nonetheless, this essay focuses specifically on the little
known Hatha Yoga-like practices in Tibetan Buddhism that constitute a deeply embodied form
˙
of philosophical self-inquiry.
3 Derived from the Greek word soma, “the living organism in its wholeness”, somatic practice
refers to sensory–motor awareness based physical movement combined with conscious pro-
prioception and breathing techniques that promote a unified experience of mind and body.
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338 Ian A. Baker
on its little-known applications within Dzogchen (rdzogs chen), Vajrayāna’s

coalescent “Great Perfection” cycle of practices upheld as revealing the innately
liberated nature of human consciousness and the physical body. Although
commonly taught today as a purely mental discipline, Dzogchen’s “heart es-
sence” (snying thig) transmission emphasises physically demanding preparatory
exercises and prescribed postures (stabs, Skt. āsana) that push physiology – and
thereby consciousness – beyond habitual limits.4 Tibetan treatises describing the
therapeutic and transformative benefits of such yogic exercises appear in the
twelfth century in the “Turquoise Heart Essence”5 and in the highly influential
writings of Phagmo Drupa6 while previously hidden wall paintings in Lhasa’s
Lukhang temple illustrate yogic practices linking visualisation, breath, physical
mudrā-s, and sequential movements centuries before accounts of sequenced
postural (vinyāsa) yoga in India.7
The word somatic also refers to “the body as subjectively perceived from within” which is a core
aspect of tantric yoga in both its Hindu and Buddhist renditions as a means for transcending
conceptuality and thereby transforming subjective experience of the mind and its perceptions.
4 See p. 365ff. for descriptions of physically demanding yogic practices in the “Continuity of
Sound” (sgra thal ’gyur) and other foundational eleventh-century Dzogchen texts.
5 See pp. 342 and 348ff. for an account of the Yuthok Nyingthik (gYu thog snying thig), or
“Turquoise Heart Essence”.
6 See p. 347 for an account of the “The Path of Fruition’s Thirty-two Auspicious Actions” (Lam
’bras kyi ’phrin las sum bcu so gnyis), “The Path of Fruition’s Five-Branch Yoga” (Lam ’bras kyi
yan lag lnga sbyong), and “Supplementary Verses on the Path of Method” (Thabs lam tshigs
bcad ma’i lhan thabs) compiled by Phagmo Drupa Dorje Gyalpo (phag mo gru pa rdo rje rgyal
po) (1110–1170).
7 See p. 358f. for the Lukhang murals and their contents. While contemporary scholarship has
yet to determine the first occurrence of sequenced yoga postures specifically linking breath
and movement, its fitness-oriented applications within Indian yoga are widely held to have
originated in the early twentieth century as a result of transnational and colonial-era influ-
ences. However, the Lukhang murals and Pema Lingpa’s “treasure text” (gter ma) on which
they are based indicate an earlier genesis of sequenced movements, albeit within a parallel
yogic tradition. Modern postural yoga differs significantly in its greater inclusion of standing
postures and the substitution of extended “connected breaths” in place of “vase breaths”
(kumbhakaprānāyāma) and “root lock” (mūladharabandha) held throughout series of dy-
namic movements. ˙ Internally retained breaths combined with prescribed movements are part
of the purportedly ancient Kriyā Yoga, or “yoga of action” system revived by Shyama Charan
Lahiri (1828–1895) in the middle of the nineteenth century and further popularised by Para-
mahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) from 1917 onward as well as by Swami Satyananda Saraswati
from 1963 until his death in 2009. Philipp A. Maas (personal communication) points out that
the term kriyāyoga appears several times in the Pātañjalayogaśāstra and is also found in the
Pañcārthabhāsya, Kaundinya’s commentary on the Pāśupatasūtra. It is not clear, however, in
˙
these early references ˙˙
whether or not Kriyā Yoga was originally practised with internally held
breaths (kumbhaka). The full development of modern postural yoga is first associated with
Tirumalai Krishnamacharya (1888–1989) and his followers. Krishnamacharya attributed his
system of Astāṅga Vinyāsa Yoga to an obscure fourteenth-century text, the “Yoga Kuruntha”,
˙˙
the transmission of which he ostensibly received from his guru, Sri Ramamohana Brahma-
chari, while residing for over seven years in a cave near Tibet’s Mount Kailash. For a com-

Tibetan Yoga: Somatic Practice in Vajrayāna Buddhism and Dzogchen 339
Buddhist practices of physical cultivation developed within the larger context

of Indian Tantrism, in particular with the emergence of the yoginı̄tantra class of
Buddhist Tantras between the eighth and tenth centuries. The crowning textual
achievement of Buddhism’s Vajrayāna, or “Adamantine Way”, the Yoginı̄ Tan-
tras share common features with Tantric Śaivism and are based on imaginal
identification with ecstatic, multi-limbed deities ornamented with human bones
and signifying self-transcendent bliss and insight. The Yoginı̄, or “Mother”
Tantras emphasise conscious realisation of the bliss–emptiness (bde stong ye
shes) underlying all existence. They are contrasted with earlier “Father” Tantras
that invoke more pacific, royally attired Buddhas such as Guhyasamāja (gsang ba
’dus pa) associated with “illusory body” (sgyu lus) practices for attaining the light
body of a Buddha. Tibetans classified the “Mother” (ma rgyud) and “Father”
(pha rgyud) Tantras together as “Unexcelled Yoga Tantra” (bla ma med pa’i
rgyud, Skt. anuttarayogatantra), sometimes adding a third “Non-Dual Tantra”
(gnyis med rgyud) category when both aspects are combined. As a whole, the
Anuttarayoga Tantras or Yoganiruttara Tantras, as originally known in Sanskrit,
involve methods for transforming sensual pleasure into enlightened awareness
through techniques focused on dissolving vital winds (prānavāyu) into the
˙
body’s central channel (susumnā). In Tibetan rNying ma, or “Old School” pre-
˙
sentations of the Indian Tantras, the Anuttarayoga Tantras correspond to Ma-
hāyoga, or “Great Yoga”, to which the successive catagories of Anuyoga, “Sub-
sequent Yoga”, and Atiyoga, “Supreme Yoga” (also called Dzogchen, or “Great
Perfection”) were added later.8
Transforming early Buddhism’s ascetic disposition into dynamic engagement
with sensory existence, Vajrayāna expanded Buddhism’s influence and applic-
ability beyond its monastic institutions. As the eighth-century Buddhist He-
vajratantra famously proclaims, “One must rise by that by which one falls … By
whatever binds the world, by that it must be freed.”9 Central to this endeavor was
a revalorisation of the body as an essential vehicle, rather than an obstacle, to
spiritual enlightenment.
The term hathayoga first appears in the eighth century in the eighteenth
˙
chapter of the “Secret Assembly Tantra” (Guhyasamājatantra, Tib. gSang ’dus
prehensive account of this subject in light of Krishnamacharya’s legacy see Singleton 2010. See
also Jason Birch’s chapter in the present volume which demonstrates that dynamic non-seated
systems of āsana-based Hatha Yoga developed extensively in India from the sixteenth century
onward, although previously ˙ undocumented.
8 For comprehensive accounts of the origins and development of the Hindu and Buddhist
tantras and their social and institutional contexts, see Samuel 2008 and Davidson 2002 and
2005. For a clear exposition of the Yoginı̄ Tantras’ debt to Śaivite sources, see Mayer 1998 and
Sanderson 2009.
9 See Farrow & Menon 1992: 173. The Hevajratantra further indicates that “the one who knows
the nature of poison dispels the poison utilizing the poison itself.”

340 Ian A. Baker
rtsa rgyud) where it is presented as a “forceful” means for inducing noetic visions
(darśana) as well as for “awakening” (bodhi) and attaining “perfection of
knowing” ( jñānasiddhi).10 The word “forceful” recurs in the tenth-century Kā-
lacakratantra, or “Wheel of Time Tantra”, in the form of hathena (“forcefully”)
˙
and is elaborated in Pundarı̄ka’s 966 CE commentary on the Kālacakra entitled
˙˙
“[Treatise of] Stainless Light” (Vimalaprabhā) which defines Hatha Yoga as a
˙
means for drawing the body’s vital essences into its central channel (madhya-
nādı̄) and thereby entering unaltering present-moment (aksaraksana)
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
awareness.11 Encyclopedic in its scope, the Kālacakra outlines an expedient
method for attaining Nirvāna within the context of embodied existence (sam-
˙ ˙
sāra) and is the culminating expression of the Yoginı̄ Tantras. It correlates cycles
of human gestation and birth with the yogic cultivation of an “indestructible and
unchanging body” (vajrakāya, Tib. rdo rje’i lus) of subtle channels, winds, and
seminal essences (nādı̄, prānavāyu, bindu, Tib. rtsa, rlung, thig le) during re-
˙ ˙
curring states of waking, dreaming, sleeping, and sexual arousal, based on a
system of sixfold Vajra Yoga (rdo rje’i rnal ’byor).12
10 See Birch 2011: 535.

11 Jason Birch (ibid.) translates as follows from the Vimalaprabhā: “Now the hathayoga is
explained. Here, when the unchanging moment does not take place because the vital ˙ breath is
unrestrained, [in spite of] the image having been seen by means of withdrawal and so on, then
[the yogin] – after having made the vital breath flow in the central channel violently through
the […] exercise of sound – can realize the unchanging moment through nonvibration by
arresting the bindu of the bodhicitta in the vajra-gem placed in the lotus of the wisdom. This is
the hathayoga.” See also Mallinson (2011: 771) who describes a similar sexio-yogic technique
in the ˙ circa thirteenth-century Dattātreyayogaśāstra that is the first Indic text to refer to
Hatha Yoga by name. The Dattātreyayogaśāstra describes Hatha Yoga in the context of
˙
restraining the body’s seminal essences (bindu) within the central ˙ channel (madhyanādı̄)
(Mallinson 2016: 111). Mallinson also indicates that, within the later Goraksa tradition, Hat˙ha
Yoga first appears by name in the Yogabı̄ja, which is also the first instance ˙ of ha and t˙ha
referring to the body’s solar and lunar currents and yoga as their union (Mallinson 2011: 772). ˙
As a further developed system of psychophysical purification (satkarma), expansion of vital
energy (prānāyāma), and physical cultivation through exercises˙ and˙ postures (āsana), Hatha
˙
Yoga is more commonly associated with later texts such as the mid-fifteenth century Ha- ˙
thayogapradı̄pikā by Svāmi Svātmārāma and the Śivasamhitā as well as the more extensive
˙seventeenth-century compilation Gherandasamhitā. All but the latter outline eight successive
˙ ˙ CE
stages modeled on Patañjali’s fourth-century ˙ or earlier Pātañjalayogaśāstra, the structure
of which has been widely noted to resemble Gautama Buddha’s enumeration of an Eightfold
Path leading to the existential freedom of Nirvāna (see, for example, Larson 2012: 80). While
Hatha Yoga has been viewed by many as a pragmatic ˙ distillation of highly ritualised and
˙
exclusive forms of tantric yoga, as presented in the Hathayogapradı̄pikā, Birch (2011),
Mallinson (2011, 2014), and Singleton (2015) have revealed ˙ a more complex development.
12 The sixfold Vajra Yoga (rdo rje’i rnal ’byor) is also central to the earlier Guhyasamājatantra
and involves psychophysical techniques for attaining realisation through control of vital
winds (prānavāyu), elaborating on earlier Hindu–Buddhist presentations of sixfold yoga
(sadaṅgayoga)˙ such as found in the Maitrāyanı̄yopanisad which is ascribed to anywhere from
˙ ˙
the third century BCE to the fourth century ˙ CE. Mallinson
˙ notes, however, that certain

2. Tsa Uma: The Axis of Awareness
As explicated in the “Stainless Light” commentary, the methods of the Kāla-

cakratantra focus on concentrating vital breath (prānavāyu) in the body’s central
˙
channel (madhyanādı̄, Tib. rtsa dbu ma) and cultivating seminal essence (bindu,
13 ˙
Tib. thig le) to engender the blissful adamantine body of a Buddha within an
immanent metaphysical anatomy. The practice of Kālacakra was purportedly
disseminated at the Buddhist university of Nalanda by the Kashmiri pandit and
mahāsiddha Nāropadā (1016–1100)14 but, in keeping with its stated purpose of
features of the Maitrāyanı̄yopanisad – the susumnā in particular – do not appear in any other
˙ century
yogic text until the seventh ˙ CE (Mallinson
˙ 2014: 174). The Maitrāyanı̄yopanisad in all
likelihood predates Patañjali’s enumeration of an eight-limbed yoga (ast˙āṅgayoga) ˙ in the
fourth century CE and outlines a path for achieving union with paramātman, ˙˙ or “absolute
being” through expansion of the breath (prānāyāma), sense withdrawal (pratyāhāra), con-
templation (dhyāna), focused attention (dhāran ˙ ā), concentrated inquiry (tarka), and unitary
˙
meditative absorption (samādhi). In the Kālacakratantra, the six stages of this “completion
phase” (sampannakrama, Tib. rdzogs rim) consist sequentially of pratyāhāra, dhyāna, prā-
˙
nāyāma, dhāran ā, anusmrti, and samādhi. In the Kālacakra system, the “yoga of sensory
˙withdrawal (pratyāhara,
˙ ˙ so sor sdud pa)” is practised in total darkness until the devel-
Tib.
opment of non-conceptualised visionary signs; the “yoga of contemplation (dhyāna, Tib.
bsam gtan)” concentrates on these “empty forms” (stong gzugs) stilling the flow of somatic
energies through the body’s lateral channels; the “yoga of breath expansion (prānāyāma, Tib.
srog rtsol)” uses vigorous methods for drawing vital energy into the body’s central ˙ channel
and energetic centers (cakra); the “yoga of focused attention (dhāranā, Tib. ’dzin pa)” merges
the previously cultivated perceptual forms with vital energies to˙ generate indestructible
seminal essences (bindu, Tib. thig le) within the cakra-s; the “yoga of recollection (anusmrti,
Tib. rjes dran)”, during which the body’s subtle essences are fused with the seminal spheres ˙
within the central channel, gives rise to four successive states of meditative bliss; while the
“yoga of unitary absorption (samādhi, Tib. ting nge ’dzin)” is based upon coalescence with the
supreme immutable bliss represented by the enlightened form of Kālacakra in sexual union.
The “yoga of fierce heat (candālı̄, Tib. gtum mo)” on which the later Six Yogas of Nāropa are
based reputedly forms a core ˙ ˙component of the fifth of the six yogas in the Kālacakra system
while, in contemporary practice, the physical movements of ’khrul ’khor are emphasised
during the initial pratyāhāra stage. For more detail on the sixfold yoga within Kālacakra see
Kilty 2004.
13 Bindu (Tib. thig le) has multiple meanings depending on context. Within tantric practice it
customarily refers to the energetic potency of male semen or related hormonal secretions. As
the interface between consciousness and matter within the physical body, thig le can also be
usefully compared with neuropeptides, the amino acid based molecules including endor-
phins that are distributed throughout the body and associated with subjective states of well-
being. Candice Pert (1999) notes that information-bearing neuropeptides are concentrated
on lateral sides of the spinal cord paralleling the energetic currents of the idā and piṅgala
(Tib. kyang ma and ro ma). She also suggests that, as the physiological correlate ˙ of emotion,
“peptide substrate [in the body] may provide the scientific rationale for the powerful healing
effects of consciously controlled breathing patterns” (Pert 1999: 187).
14 Bindu (Tib. thig le) has multiple meanings depending on context. Within tantric practice it
customarily refers to the energetic potency of male semen or related hormonal secretions. As
the interface between consciousness and matter within the physical body, thig le may con-

342 Ian A. Baker
being a means to enlightenment while engaged with worldly life, the Kāla-
cakratantra developed a wide following outside of monastic circles and con-
tinues to this day to be transmitted among both ordained and lay practitioners.
The Kashmiri pandit Somanātha brought the Kālacakra teachings from India
to Tibet in 1064 where they influenced the development of Buddhist practice as
well as Tibet’s emergent medical tradition.15 According to lineage holder Nyida
Chenagtsang, Yuthok Yönten Gönpo (gyu thog yon tan mgon po) (1126–1202)
drew on the Kālacakra’s exposition of the subtle body and tantric physiology in
his revision of the “Four Medical Tantras” (rGyud bzhi) and condensed its ac-
counts of psychophysical yogas in the “Turquoise Heart Essence” (gYu thog
snying thig),16 his spiritual guide for Buddhist medical practitioners. Butön
Rinchen Drup (bu ston rin chen grub) (1290–1364), abbot of Shalu Monastery in
central Tibet, further systematised physical exercises described in the Kāla-
cakratantra into practices with both therapeutic and yogic applications, in-
cluding “wind meditation” (rlung gom) and techniques of “swift walking” (rkang
mgyogs) that purportedly allowed adepts to cover vast distances on foot by
modulating the effects of gravity.17
ceivably be related to neuropeptides, amino acid based molecules, including endorphins,

associated with somatic states of well-being. Neuroscientist Candace Pert notes that in-
formation-bearing neuropeptides are concentrated on the lateral sides of the spinal cord
paralleling the energetic currents of the idā and piṅgala (Tib. kyang ma and ro ma), and, while
unproven, suggests that “peptide substrate ˙ may provide the scientific rationale for the
powerful healing effects of consciously controlled breathing patterns” (Pert 1999: 187).
15 Personal communication Nyida Chenagtsang, September 2014.
16 See Chenagtsang 2013 and p. 348ff.
17 The “body exercises” called Lujong (lus sbyong) and “vital point exercises” called Nejong
(gnas sbyong) that were transmitted by Butön Rinchen Drup reputedly derive from the
Kālacakratantra and were classified as “outer” exercises to be used both by Buddhist prac-
titioners and physicians for maintaining personal health (personal communication Nyida
Chenagtsang, September 2014). Nejong, as transmitted today by Nyida Chenagtsang, consists
of twenty-four sequential exercises each of which is performed with a held “vase” breath (bum
pa can, Skt. kumbhaka) with the intent of balancing the body’s internal energies, unblocking
obstructions in the channels (rtsa, Skt. nādı̄), and pacifying diseases of mind and body
(personal communication Nyida Chenagtsang, ˙ London, September 2014). Tibetan physicians
prescribe specific exercises from the series to their patients in modified forms that omit the
held “vase breath”. Nejong is also undertaken as a preliminary practice to more demanding
Trulkhor (’khrul ’khor) exercises that concentrate the flow of psychophysical energy within
the body’s central channel and lead to vibrant, coalescent states of consciousness and claimed
paranormal abilities (siddhi). Popular accounts of “trance walkers” were reported by Lama
Anagarika Govinda in The Way of the White Clouds, by Alexandra David-Néel in Mystics and
Magicians in Tibet, as well as by Heinrich Harrer, the author of Seven Years in Tibet, in his
personal diaries. The practice was reputedly maintained at Samding and Shalu Monasteries in
Tibet until the depredations of Chinese occupation in 1959. Based on controlling the body’s
internal energy flows through specialised breathing techniques (rlung gom) and yogic locks
(gag, Skt. bandha), “swift walking” was described by Alexandra David-Néel as follows: “The
man did not run. He seemed to lift himself from the ground, proceeding by leaps. It looked as

The most direct source of Indian Hatha Yoga practice in Vajrayāna Buddhism
˙
is a corpus of eleventh to twelfth century texts entitled Amrtasiddhi, or “Per-
˙
fection of the Elixir of Immortality” (Tib. bDud rtsi grub pa). Despite the Amr-
˙
tasiddhi’s explicitly Śaiva orientation, it was disseminated in Tibet from the
18
twelfth until at least the sixteenth century and was incorporated into the Tibetan
canon in 1322 by the celebrated scholar Butön Rinchen Drup (bu ston rin chen
grub).19 The Amrtasiddhi expounds a system of internal yoga focused on uniting
˙
the solar “female” energy (rajas) in the pelvic cavity with the lunar bindu, or
seminal “ambrosia” (amrta), in the cranium towards the attainment of a divi-
˙
nised human condition.20 The Hatha Yoga techniques of “great seal” (mahā-
˙
mudrā), “great lock” (mahābandha), and “great piercing” (mahāvedha) are
described for the first time in the Amrtasiddhi for sequentially opening the
˙
body’s inner energy channels (nādı̄), reversing the natural downward flow of vital
˙
energy and severing the three knots (granthi-s) along the body’s medial axis
(madhyamā).21 In consequence,
the life force flows to all places [and] mind, luminescent by nature, is instantly adorned
[with the qualities] of fruition … Such a yogin is made of everything, composed of all
elements, always dwelling in omniscience … Delighted, he liberates the world.22
The Amrtasiddhi makes no mention of either cakra-s or kundalinı̄, but is clearly

˙ ˙˙
based on principles of tantric yoga whereby elements of a subtle anatomy are
controlled through physical, pneumatic, and mental discipline leading to a
divinised psychophysiological state. At the heart of this process are techniques
for causing the body’s vital essences to infuse its axial core (madhyamā, susumnā,
˙
Tib. rtsa dbu ma) and thereby induce an irrevocable self-transcending shift in
awareness.23 In its perceived transformation and optimisation of physical,
if he had been endowed with the elasticity of a ball and rebounded each time his feet touched
the ground.” See David-Néel 1937: 186.
18 Schaeffer 2002: 520.
19 Schaeffer 2002: 518.
20 Mallinson 2012: 332.
21 Ibid.
22 For a detailed introduction to the Amrtasiddhi corpus and the source of this quotation, see
Schaeffer 2002. For an account of the ˙Hatha Yoga techniques central to the Amrtasiddhi see
Mallinson 2012: 332. In the Amrtasiddhi,˙ the practitioner imaginatively transforms
˙ into the
˙
Hindu deity Śiva who is often presented within Vajrayāna as having been converted into a
Buddha by the bodhisattva Vajrapāni. Within the Trika Śaivism of Kashmir, Śiva is synon-
ymous with “pure consciousness” and ˙ non-dual awareness.
23 The body’s central channel is invoked as the unconditioned self-transcendent core of human
embodiment in both Hindu and Buddhist tantra. Within non-dual traditions of Śaivism, it is
referred to as the “channel of consciousness” (cittanādı̄) and is likened to “a line without
thickness”, symbolizing both infinity and non-duality.˙ Independent of its psychophysical
effects, drawing vital “winds” and “essences” into the body’s central channel metaphorically
describes a process of psychosomatic integration in which nādı̄ can be speculatively under-
˙

344 Ian A. Baker
emotional, and mental processes, the Amrtasiddhi embodies the tantric ideal of
˙
jı̄vanmukti (srog thar), or “living liberation”,24 that lies at the heart of the Vaj-
rayāna Buddhist understanding of yoga, a word translated into the Tibetan
language as Neljor (rnal ’byor), or “union with the natural [unaltering] state”.
3. Trulkhor: Yoga of Breath and Movement
The Amrtasiddhi, or “Perfection of the Elixir of Immortality”, makes the first

˙
known reference to the well-known Hatha Yoga practices of mahāmudrā, ma-
˙
hābandha, and mahāvedha.25 In his autobiography, the Tibetan Shangpa Kagyu
master Nyenton Chökyi Sherap (gnyan ston chos kyi shes rab) (1175–1255)
elaborates on these foundational yogic exercises from the Amrtasiddhi after
˙
reputedly learning them from a teacher from western India who in turn attrib-
uted them to a master named Enadeva.26 Described as a “Miraculous Wheel of
˙
(Yogic Movements for Realizing) Deathlessness” (’chi med kyi ’khrul ’khor), the
physical practices of the Amrtasiddhi were further codified by Nyenton Chökyi
˙
Sherap’s successor, Sangye Tönpa Tsondrü Senge (sangs rgyas ston pa brtson
’grus seng ge) (1213–1285), and were subsequently transmitted within Tibet’s
Shangpa Kagyu suborder.27
Transformative exercises for amplifying innate somatic processes and ex-
panding vitality and awareness within the body’s medial core (susumnā, Tib. rtsa
˙
dbu ma) are referred to in Tibetan as Tsalung Trulkhor (rtsa rlung ’khrul ’khor),
literally “miraculous wheel of channels and winds”, with the Tibetan root word
stood as heuristic structure, prāna as primordial motility, and bindu as innate somatic
creativity. The process culminates ˙ in a unitary awareness in which subconscious somatic
intelligence aligns with conscious experience.
24 The ideal of jı̄vanmukti is referred to in a twelfth-century Amrtasiddhi text compiled by
Avadhūtacandra. See Schaeffer 2002: 521 for further explication of ˙ this concept. As Schaeffer
further points out, Avadhūtacandra’s edition of the Amrtasiddhi promotes an ideal of un-
˙
restricted access markedly distinct from earlier and later tantric lineages based on secrecy and
exclusivity. A similarly open ethos at the origins of Hatha Yoga can be discerned in another
˙
early Hatha Yoga work, the thirteenth-century Dattātreyayogaśāstra, which advocates its
practices˙ irrespective of ethnicity or caste. For more extensive commentary on the Dattā-
treyayogaśāstra and Amrtasiddhi in the context of the historical roots of Hatha Yoga, see
Mallinson forthc. Other˙ examples in early Vajrayāna of yogic exercises being ˙ presented
openly as preliminaries to meditation include Drakpa Gyaltsen’s (grags pa rgyal mtshan)
twelfth-century “Miraculous Channel Wheel of the Thirty-Two Auspicious Actions” dis-
cussed on p. 350f. Drakpa Gyaltsen specifically indicates in his colophon that the movements
remove obstacles to spiritual practice and “are suitable for beginners as well as advanced
students” (Davidson 2005: 358).
25 Mallinson forthc.: 6.
26 Schaeffer 2002: 520.
27 Ibid.

’khor referring to a “wheel” (’khor lo) or “cyclical movement” and ’khrul implying
“miraculous”, in the sense that all phenomena, from a Buddhist perspective, lack
true existence while simultaneously “miraculously” appearing. As Trulkhor
practice is integral to the Six Yogas of Nāropa, it is sometimes also translated as
“illusory body movement”, as “illusory body yoga” (sgyu lus kyi rnal ’byor)
provides the context for all six yogas. Trulkhor’s breath-synchronised move-
ments are also commonly referred to as Yantra Yoga (’khrul ’khor gyi rnal ’byor),
with the composite rtsa rlung ’khrul ’khor translating the Sanskrit nādı̄-
˙
vāyuyantra, or “instrument of channels and winds”, and implying a trans-
formative device or technology, in this case, for reconfiguring human
experience.28 The sixteenth-century Tibetan scholar–adept Tāranātha (1575–
1634) described Trulkhor as “esoteric instructions for dissolving the energy-
mind into the central channel and for releasing knots in the channels, primarily
using one’s own body as the method”.29 In his “Eighteen Physical Trainings” (Lus
sbyong bco brgyad pa), Tāranātha consolidated yogic exercises attributed to the
eleventh-century Kashmiri female mahāsiddhā Niguma that were disseminated
in Tibet through the Shangpa Kagyu lineage originating with Khyungpo Naljor
(khyung po rnal ’byor) (c 1050–1140).30 A separate transmission of external yogic
exercises in Tibet is said to have originated with Niguma’s consort, Nāropadā
who, in turn, ostensibly received them from his Bengali teacher Tilopadā (988–
1069). Although earlier Anuttara Yoga (bla na med pa’i rgyud) traditions such as
the Hevajratantra and the Cakrasamvaratantra describe internal yogic practices
˙
connected to nādı̄, prāna, and bindu (Tib. rtsa, rlung, thig le), accounts of as-
˙ ˙
sociated physical exercises and yogic “seals” (mudrā) seem only to have appeared
in later commentaries and redactions rather than in the original root texts.
However, the Hevajratantra makes repeated reference to the importance of
transformational dance for embodying the qualities of the deity and purifying a
specified thirty-two subtle energy channels within the body. “The dance is per-
28 Following Lokesh Chandra, another Sanskritised rendering of Trulkhor is vāyvadhisāra,

derived from the Sanskrit root adhi-sr, “to move, go, run, flow towards something” (personal
˙
communication Karin Preisendanz, January 2017) and attested in Wallace 1998: 69. Trulkhor
is alternatively spelled ’phrul ’khor, which can be interpreted as “magical wheel”, with ref-
erence to the fact that the yogic exercises are to be undertaken while visualizing oneself in the
non-ordinary form of a “hollow”, i. e., insubstantial, tantric deity which, though appearing, is
not held to be intrinsically real and can thus be considered as appearing “magically”. For
further elaboration of the etymology of ’phrul ’khor and ’khrul ’khor see Chaoul 2007a: 286
and Chaoul 2007b: 138.
29 Quoted in Harding 2010: 184.
30 Ibid. Harding’s book includes translations of Niguma’s foundational yogic exercises which
are ascribed both medical and emancipatory effects.

346 Ian A. Baker
formed assuming the postures of the divine Heruka [Hevajra], emanating them
with an impassioned mind within a state of uninterrupted attention.”31
References to external yogic exercises as supports for internal psychophysical
processes can be found in works attributed to both Nāropa and Tilopa, but no
firm dates can be assigned as to when these texts were actually produced. The
“Oral Instruction on the Six Doctrines” (Saddharmopadeśa, Tib. Chos drug gi
˙ ˙
man ngag) ascribed to Tilopa is non-extant in Sanskrit, but said to have been
translated into Tibetan by Nāropa and his Tibetan disciple Marpa Chökyi Lodrö
(mar pa chos kyi blo gros) (1012–1097). The text only became part of the Kagyu
transmission from the fifteenth century onward. Similarly, “Vajra Verses of Oral
Transmission” (Karnatantravajrapāda, Tib. sNyan brgyud rdo rje’i tshig rkang),
˙
with a colophon attributing it to Nāropa, is also non-extant in Sanskrit, but
widely held to have been translated into Tibetan by Marpa Chökyi Lodrö.32
However, it only appears as a transmitted text from the time of Rechungpa (ras
chung pa) (1083/1084–1161), a century later.33 The verses make passing reference
to six “root” Trulkhor with thirty-nine “branches”, suggesting that, as with Ti-
lopa’s “Oral Instructions”, the transmission of Trulkhor within the Kagyu lineage
was not primarily based on texts, but on oral transmission and physical dem-
onstrations to select initiates.
31 Farrow & Menon 1992: 209. The Hevajratantra further states that the dance movements
“reveal the adamantine nature of the Buddhas, Yoginı̄s, and Mother Goddesses … The
protection of the assembly and oneself is by means of such song and dance” (p. 230). Further
references to dance in the Hevajratantra include the following stanzas: “When joy arises if the
yogin dances for the sake of liberation, then let him dance the vajra postures [of Hevajra] with
fullest attention” (p. 64); “The yogin must always sing and dance” (p. 65). Although no firm
dates can be established for when they first became part of the tradition, the ritual dance
movements of Newar caryānrtya associated with the Cakrasamvaratantra can also be con-
sidered a form of Trulkhor in˙their intended purpose of embodying ˙ the qualities of Vajrayāna
deities. As Cakrasamvara’s consort is the tantric meditational deity Vajravārāhı̄, several
movements of caryānr ˙ tya involve direct emulations of her visualised form, including the
raising to one’s lips of ˙an imagined skull cup brimming with ambrosial nectar. In all forms of
caryānrtya consecrated dancers embody the qualities of specific Vajrayāna deities with the
express˙ intention of benefitting all living beings. A similar conception is central to the Tibetan
ritual dances known as Cham (’cham) which, prior to the thirteenth century, were performed
only within an assembly of consecrated initiates. Correlations can also be seen in the ritual
dance movements of tāndava as transmitted within Kashmiri Śaivism.
32 Kragh 2011: 135. See ˙also ˙ dnz.tsadra.org for details concerning “Cakrasamvara’s Oral
Transmission of Miraculous Yogic Movements for Fierce Heat and the Path of Skillful
Means” (bDe mchog snyan brgyud kyi gtum mo dang thabs lam gyi ’khrul ’khor) attributed to
Marpa Chökyi Lodrö (mar pa chos kyi blo gros).
33 Kragh 2011: 138. See also the anonymously authored gTum mo’i ’khrul ’khor bco brgyad pa in
the gDams ngag rin po che’i mdzod, Vol. 7 ( ja), 537–541, fols. 19a4 to 21a2. New Delhi: Shechen
Publications, 1999, listed at dnz.tsadra.org and connected with the oral transmission of
Rechungpa (ras chung snyan brgyud).

The earliest datable descriptions of external yogic exercises in Tibetan Bud-

dhism may be those of Phagmo Drupa Dorje Gyalpo (phag mo gru pa rdo rje
rgyal po) (1110–1170) who compiled “The Path of Fruition’s Thirty-two Auspi-
cious Actions” (Lam ’bras kyi ’phrin las sum bcu so gnyis), using Sanskrit and
pseudo-Sanskrit names to describe sequential movements.34 Phagmo Drupa also
wrote “The Path of Fruition’s Five-Branch Yoga” (Lam ’bras kyi yan lag lnga
sbyong), which consists of basic instructions for loosening the neck, head, hands
and legs, as well as a manual entitled “Supplementary Verses on the Path of
Method” (Thabs lam tshigs bcad ma’i lhan thabs) which describes six physical
exercises35 for removing obstacles and preparing the body for advanced internal
yogas based on drawing psychosomatic “winds” into the body’s central channel.
All traditions of Tsalung Trulkhor extol their remedial healing benefits while
emphasizing their more profound transformative effects on the body and mind,
including the reputed attainment of supranormal powers (siddhi).36 Trulkhor is
further distinguished from the medically-oriented exercises of Lujong (lus
sbyong) and Nejong (gnas sbyong)37 that Butön Rinchen Drup derived from the
Kālacakratantra in its emphasis on sequentially performed movements with the
breath held in a “vase” below the navel (bum pa can, Skt. kumbhaka) while
visualizing oneself in the form of one or another non-material tantric deity, in
accordance with the practice’s line of transmission. As a method of self-con-
secration combining the Development Phase (utpattikrama, Tib. skye rim) and
Completion Phase (sampannakrama, Tib. rdzogs rim) of Vajrayāna practice,
˙
Trulkhor is traditionally undertaken in strict secrecy with prescribed garments
that symbolise interconnected psychophysical energies.38 Vigorous and, at times,
acrobatic movements combined with expanded breath and associated visual-
34 Wang-Toutain 2009: 29.

35 Ibid.
36 The attainment of supernal powers associated with yogic cultivation is rarely an admitted or
admired goal within Vajrayāna Buddhism, although provisionally useful worldly siddhi-s
such as clairvoyance, invisibility, and control of natural phenomena are claimed to this day to
arise spontaneously as a result of dedicated practice. Vajrayāna’s more transcendent goal,
however, remains the mahāsiddhi of transforming egotism, greed, and aggression into em-
pathic wisdom and unconditional compassion (thugs rje chen po, Skt. mahākarunā). At-
taining this awakened disposition in the most expedient manner possible is viewed ˙ as the
essential intent of Śākyamuni Buddha’s Eightfold Path to Nirvāna. Dynamic, physically-
based yogic practices thus infuse the expansive “path of method” ˙ (thabs lam) central to
Vajrayāna Buddhism.
37 See n. 17. Trulkhor is further distinguished from Lujong in its tripartite purpose of clearing
the body’s subtle energy system, drawing seminal essence (bindu, Tib. thig le) into the central
channel, and distributing it throughout the psychophysical organism to prepare it for internal
tantric practices such as Fierce Heat (candālı̄, Tib. gtum mo).
˙ ˙ wear short pleated kilts called ang rak, the colors
38 Practitioners of Tsalung Trulkhor typically
of which symbolise the elemental energies of space, air, fire, and water.

348 Ian A. Baker
isations direct neurobiological energies into the body’s central channel (sus-
˙
umnā, Tib. rtsa dbu ma), quelling obscuring mental activity and arousing the
blissful “fierce heat” of Tumo (gtum mo, Skt. candālı̄) that facilitates yogic at-
˙˙
tainment during recurring cycles of wakefulness, sleep, sexual activity, and
39
dream.
Trulkhor practices in Tibet’s indigenous pre-Buddhist tradition of Bön first
appear in the Bön Mother Tantra (Ma rgyud) in a chapter entitled “Elemental
Essences” (Byung ba’i thig le) that outlines five foundational exercises for bal-
ancing the body’s fundamental constituents.40 The practices of the Bön Mother
Tantra are traditionally credited with a long line of oral transmission, but the fact
that they only appeared in written form from the eleventh century makes it
difficult to determine to what degree they evolved independently of Buddhist
influence. Similarly, the “Great Perfection Oral Transmission of Zhang Zhung:
Instructions on the Miraculous Wheel of Yogic Movements” (rDzogs pa chen po
zhang zhung snyan rgyud las ’khrul khor man ngag) with its own tradition of
Trulkhor practices also dates, in written form, to the late eleventh or early twelfth
century,41 thus making it difficult to assess Bön’s possible influence on the de-
velopment of Trulkhor within Tibetan Buddhism. An extensive commentary on
the “Great Perfection Oral Transmission of Zhang Zhung” entitled “Profound
Treasury of Space Revealing the Miraculous Wheel of Channels and Winds”
(Byang zab nam mkha’ mdzod chen las snyan rgyud rtsa rlung ’phrul ’khor) was
written by a Bön scholar and meditation master named Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen
(shar rdza bkra shis rgyal mtshan) (1859–1934). The text elucidates the role of
Tsalung Trulkhor in Bön in supporting recognition of the mind’s essential nature
within the context of Dzogchen.
Within the Nyingma (rNying ma) tradition, the earliest transmission of Vaj-
rayāna Buddhism to Tibet, the first textual evidence of Tsalung Trulkhor prac-
39 The unification of the body’s energetic poles through the merging of agni, as “divine fire”,
and soma, as “cosmic nectar”, through the medium of psychophysiological “winds” (vāyu) in
a subjectively experienced “central channel” is arguably the common goal and praxis of yoga
in both Vajrayāna Buddhism and Tantric Śaivism, an ideal prefigured in ancient Vedic fire
rituals (agnihotra) and embodied in Vajrayāna rites that customarily begin with the ritual
invocation of fire, wind, and water through the resonant seed-syllables (bı̄ja) ram yam kham.
40 These practices are extensively explained in Wangyal 2011.
41 See Chaoul 2007b: 141 and Chaoul 2006: 29. Traditional accounts maintain that the Zhang
zhung snyan rgyud first appeared in written form in the eighth century, but Chaoul points out
that its later chapter on Trulkhor lists lineage holders who only lived in the last quarter of the
eleventh century. Lopon Tenzin Namdak (slob dpon bstan ’dzin rnam dag), Bön’s leading
contemporary exponent, maintains that Trulkhor was taught in Bön prior to the eighth
century as an oral teaching. Unlike Buddhism, Bön does not ascribe an Indic source for its
Tsalung Trulkhor practices, but maintains that they originated in Tibet and were transmitted
through the lineage of the Zhang zhung snyan rgyud. For the Bön presentation of Dzogchen,
see Namdak & Reynolds 2006 and Namdak & Dixey 2002.

tices appears in the “Turquoise Heart Essence” (gYu thog snying thig), a “subtle
pure vision” (zab mo dag snang) compiled by Sumtön Yeshe Zung (sum ston ye
shes gzungs) beginning in 1157 based on original writings and teachings of
Yuthok Yönten Gönpo (g.yu thog yon tan mgon po) (1126–1202), the Tibetan
physician and yogic adept credited with the compilation of the earlier “Four
Medical Tantras” (rGyud bzhi) which consolidate Tibetan medicine’s approach
to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease. The Yuthok Nyingthik was
reputedly compiled after Yuthok’s second of five trips to India where he pre-
sumably received direct instructions from Indian tantric masters. The “Tur-
quoise Heart Essence” outlines the process of spiritual development to be un-
dertaken by non-monastic practitioners, condensing the core elements of Vaj-
rayāna Buddhism into forty root texts, the twentieth of which describes a
sequence of eighteen Trulkhor exercises for refining the body’s subtle energy
channels in preparation for practices of Fierce Heat (gtum mo, Skt. candālı̄) and
˙˙
the yoga of sexual union (sbyor ba, las kyi phyag rgya, Skt. karmamudrā). As
expounded in the Yuthok Nyingthik, the latter practices lead, in turn, to the
realisation of Mahāmudrā and Dzogchen and the ultimate attainment of a de-
materialised body of rainbow light (’ja’ lus). The Yuthok Nyingthik’s concise
treatise on Trulkhor entitled “The Root Text of the Miraculous Movements for
Supreme Mastery which Clear the Darkness of Suffering” is supplemented with a
longer commentary written by Nyi Da Dragpa (nyi zla grags pa), as requested by
Drangsong Sönam (drang srong bsod nams), entitled “A Concise Synopsis of the
Supreme Accomplishment of the Profound Path of the Miraculous Wheel of
Yogic Movements that Clear the Darkness of Suffering” (Bla sgrub sdug bsngal
mun sel gyi zab lam ’khrul ’khor zhin bris) and elucidates the therapeutic and
yogic applications of the Trulkhor teachings of the “Turquoise Heart Essence”.42
The first two of the eighteen exercises are said to clear obscuring karmic imprints
from the subtle anatomy of the body, while the following five assist in generating
the transformative heat of Tumo. The subsequent eleven exercises directly pre-
pare the body for the yoga of sexual union, held by non-monastic traditions
within both Nyingma and Kagyu to be the most efficacious means for achieving
the supreme realisation of Dzogchen or Mahāmudrā, as prefigured in early
Vajrayāna works such as the Guhyasamājatantra.43 The exposition of an eight-
42 See Chenagtsang 2013 and Naldjorpa 2014 for further details on the transmission and content
of the “Turquoise Heart Essence”.
43 In its later monastic contexts in Tibet, the tantric axiom “without Karmamudrā (i. e., the yoga
of sexual union) there is no Mahāmudrā [supreme attainment]” – attributed varyingly to both
Saraha and Tilopa – was interpreted symbolically and celibate monks and nuns practised
instead with visualised “wisdom consorts” called ye shes kyi phyag rgya (Skt. jñānamudrā), in
order to generate “four joys” (dga ’ba bzhi, Skt. caturānanda) of coalescent emptiness and
bliss. The Four Joys are partly tantric reformulations of the Four Jhānas of Theravāda

350 Ian A. Baker
een-set Trulkhor in the “Turquoise Heart Essence” is roughly contemporary with

Phagmo Drupa’s description of sets of six and thirty-two yogic exercises and,
taken together, can provisionally be considered the earliest datable evidence of
Hatha Yoga-like practices within Tibetan Buddhism.44
˙
Although Indian Yoganiruttara, or Yoginı̄ Tantras such as the Hevajra and
Cakrasamvara date to the eighth century or earlier, these systems only rose to
˙
prominence in Tibet during the second wave of Buddhist transmission from the
late tenth century onward. As with the Kālacakratantra that was introduced in
Tibet in 1064, the root texts of the Hevajra and Cakrasamvara do not describe
˙
sequenced yogic exercises, although the Hevajratantra does advocate trans-
45
formational dance movements. The Hevajratantra was translated from Sanskrit
into Tibetan from 1041 until 1046 by Drokmi Sakya Yeshe (’brog mi shakya ye
shes) (993–1072) in collaboration with the Indian master Gayādhara who is also
said to have introduced the associated Lamdre (lam ’bras), or “Path of Fruition”
cycle of teachings connected with the ninth-century mahāsiddha Virūpa. Al-
though the Hevajra root tantra does not describe external yogic exercises, the
Lamdre teachings associated with Virūpa do.46 Phagmo Drupa Dorje Gyalpo’s
Buddhism which are held to lead to a “state of perfect equanimity and awareness” (upek-
khāsatiparisuddhi) without reliance on an actual or imagined consort.
44 This does not take into account the possible earlier dates of Bön Trulkhor. Furthermore,
Robert Mayer has pointed out (personal communication, November 2014) that no mention
can be found of Tsalung Trulkhor practices in the Nyingma and proto-Nyingma texts from
the Dunhuang caves that were sealed in the early eleventh century. He notes that the only
complete tantric scriptural texts to survive at Dunhuang are the Thabs kyi zhags pa padma
’phreng (“The Noble Lotus Garland of Methods”) and the Guhyasamājatantra and that only
passing reference is made to other important Nyingma Tantras such as the “Secret Nucleus”
(Guhyagarbhatantra, Tib. gSang ba snying po) and the Śaivite derived eighth- to ninth-
century “Supreme Blissful Union with All Buddhas through the Net of the Sky Dancers”
(Sarvabuddhasamāyogadākinı̄jālasamvara, Tib. dPal sangs rgyas thams cad dang mnyam par
˙ ma bde ba’i
sbyor ba mkha’ ’gro ma sgyu ˙ mchog). Sexual union practices are described in these
pre-eleventh century works, but not in the context of nādı̄, prāna and bindu (Tib. rtsa, rlung,
thig le) or Tsalung Trulkhor. See Mayer & Cantwell 2012: ˙ 84ff.˙
45 See n. 31 above.
46 See Wang-Toutain 2009: 28. There is no mention of Trulkhor practice in the Hevajra root
tantra, only a name list of thirty-two energy channels (nādı̄) (see Farrow & Menon 1992: 13).
The occurrence of Trulkhor within the Hevajra Lamdre (lam ˙ ’bras) thus seems to be a later
development, either attributable to Virūpa, as Sakya tradition maintains, or possibly influ-
enced by the propagation of the Kālacakratantra during roughly the same time period.
However, the Lamdre cycle was introduced in Tibet twenty-three years before Somanātha
brought the Kālacakra teachings in 1064, thus making Lamdre one of the most fertile areas for
further research in regard to the development of physical yoga within Vajrayāna and Tibet.
For further information on the cycles of Trulkhor within Lamdre, see the lam ’bras slob bshad
collection edited by Jamyang Loter Wangpo (’jam dbyangs blo gter dbang po) (1847 – c 1914)
and listed in the Lam ’bras catalogue of Lama Choedak Yuthok (available at http://www.
sacred-texts.com/bud/tib/sakya-la.htm). The Trulkhor texts associated with Lamdre are also
catalogued at the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center (TBRC) as item W23649, Vol. 20, pp. 205–

early works on Lamdre Trulkhor were elaborated later on in the twelfth century
by Drakpa Gyaltsen (grags pa rgyal mtshan) (1147–1216) as the “Miraculous
Channel Wheel of Thirty-two Auspicious Actions” (’Phrin las sum cu rtsa gnyis
kyi ’khrul ’khor), and he included them in his extensive “Yellow Book” (Pod ser)
as the last of four texts for removing obstacles (gegs sel) on the Path of Fruition.47
Drakpa Gyaltsen described the medical benefits of the various exercises as well as
their supporting function within the Completion Phase (sampannakrama, Tib.
˙
rdzogs rim) of the Hevajratanta and the Cakrasamvaratantra.48 Like Phagmo
˙
Drupa before him, he assigned Sanskrit-derived names to the various yogic
movements49 (see, e. g., Figure 1) and emphasised their importance in cultivating
the yogic power of Fierce Heat (gtum mo) and other Completion Phase practices.
He also advocated practising the set of thirty-two exercises once in a forward
direction, once in reverse, and once in random order to make a prescribed set of
ninety-six movements.50 As Drakpa Gyaltsen assures his audience at the end of
his “Yellow Book”: “If one trains oneself [in the yogic exercises] as much as one
can, one will achieve Buddhahood.”51
Phagmo Drupa’s initial elaboration of yogic exercises also influenced
Tsongkhapa Lobzang Drakpa (tsong kha pa blo bzang grags pa) (1357–1419), the
founding figure of the reformed Gelug order of Tibetan Buddhism. In his “Book
of Three Certainties: A Treatise on the Phases of Training by Means of the
Profound Path of Nāropa’s Six Yogas” (Zab lam nāro’i chos drug gi sgo nas ’khrid
pa’i rim pa yid chos gsum ldan) and in “A Brief Treatise for Practicing the Phases
of Meditation in Nāropa’s Six Yogas, Compiled from the Teachings of Jey Rin-
poche by Sem Chenpo Kunzangpa” (Nā ro’i chos drug gi dmigs rim lag tu len tshul
bsdus pa rje’i gsungs bzhin sems dpa’ chen po kun bzang pas bkod pa) Tsongkhapa
267. The text, in English translation, is given as “The Profound Phases of the Path of En-
lightenment of Veins, Channels, Yantra and Blazing and Blissful Heat of Candālı̄ Yoga” (rTsa
rlung ’khrul ’khor zab lam byang chub sgrub pa’i rim pa bklags chog ma dang ˙ ˙ gtum mo’i bde
drod rab ’bar ma gnyis).
47 See Stearns 2001: 26–34. The sequence of thirty-two Trulkhor exercises in Lamdre is sig-
nificant in its reference to the thirty-two subtle energy pathways listed in the Hevajra root-
tantra as well as to the thirty-two nādı̄ that reputedly radiate from the eight petals of the heart
cakra. ˙
48 Wang-Toutain 2009: 29. The Tibetan title of Drakpa Gyaltsen’s work is given as Kyai rdo rje’i
rnal ’byor las rtsa rlung.
49 See Stearns 2001: 31 and Wang-Toutain 2009: 29. The names of Drakpa Gyaltsen’s Trulkhor
movements use, at times, semi-corrupted Sanskrit words to refer to animals such as lion
(rendered as singala instead of simha), goose (hamsa), peacock (mayūra), and tortoise
˙
(kūrma), but also to auspicious objects ˙
such as vajra-s, wheels, and immortality vases
(kumbha), as well as to mahāsiddha-s such as Jālandhara and Caurāṅgı̄, who were also
prominent Nāth adepts (Wang-Toutain 2009: 33).
50 Wang-Toutain 2009: 32.
51 Quoted ibid. Drakpa Gyaltsen further claims that practising the thirty-two exercises will result
in acquiring the thirty-two major body characteristics (laksana) of a Buddha (p. 46).
˙ ˙

352 Ian A. Baker
Figure 1: The Position of the Peacock described by Drakpa Gyaltsen as presented in a Qing
Dynasty manuscript.
describes in detail six preliminary physical exercises based on Phagmo Drupa’s

twelfth-century accounts.52 Jey Sherab Gyatso (rje shes rab rgya mtsho) (1803–
1875), in his commentary to the “Book of Three Certainties”, remarks that even
though there are an impressive variety of exercises, “there seems to be no great
advantage in doing more than the six recommended by Phagmo Drupa [as taught
by Tsongkhapa] for accomplishing the inner heat [gtum mo] yogas.”53 Further
indicating Phagmo Drupa’s enduring influence, Muchen Konchok Gyaltsen
(mus chen dkon mchog rgyal mtshan) (1388–1471) included a chapter entitled
52 See Mullin 1997: 58–60 and 107–109. As is customary with Trulkhor, each movement is
performed while visualizing oneself as a luminously transparent tantric deity. The first ex-
ercise, “filling the body like a vase”, consists of expanding the breath in the lower abdomen
with a held “vase” breath. The second exercise, “circling like a wheel”, involves churning the
solar plexus while the third exercise, “hooking like a hook”, involves stretching the arms and
snapping the elbows against the rib cage to drive the lateral “winds” into the central channel.
The fourth exercise, “the mudrā of vajra binding”, draws vital energy down through the
crown of the head while the fifth, “heaving like a dog”, involves kneeling on the ground with
the hands extended in front and the spine horizontal and forcibly expelling the air from the
lungs. In the final exercise, the practitioner shakes the head and body, flexes the joints, pulls
on the fingers to release stagnant “winds”, and rubs the hands together. Textual analysis
suggests that these six “proto-yantra-s” were a later addition to the Six Yogas of Nāropa
practice and not originally taught by Tilopa, Nāropa, or even Marpa, but this does not take
into account the possibility of a well-developed oral tradition outside of written texts.
53 Quoted in Mullin 1997: 58. Jey Sherab Gyatso further notes that “when stability in these
practices is achieved, one will experience a sense of subtle joy that pervades the body” (p. 59).

“Thirty-two Auspicious Yogic Movements” (rNal ’byor gyi phrin las sum cu rtsa
gnyis) in his “Little Red Volume” (Pu sti dmar chung), based on a prior book of
oral instructions (zhal shes) by Lama Dampa Sönam Gyaltsen Pelsangpo (bla ma
dam pa bsod nams rgyal mtshan) (1312–1375) which is almost identical to
Phagmo Drupa’s “The Path of Fruition’s Thirty-Two Auspicious Actions” (Lam
’bras kyi ’phrin las sum bcu so gnyis).54
Over subsequent centuries Tsalung Trulkhor continued to evolve within all
schools of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as within Bön. Its most celebrated exem-
plar, however, remains the mountain-dwelling yogi poet Jetsun Milarepa (rje
btsun mi la ras pa) (1052 – c 1135) who reputedly reached enlightenment through
his committed practice of Fierce Heat (gtum mo, Skt. candālı̄) in conjunction
˙˙
with Trulkhor exercises to keep his energy channels open and supple.55 Although
not named as such, the physiological “seals” and associated breathing methods
used in the cultivation of Fierce Heat are an elaborated practice of the Hatha
˙
Yoga method of mahābandha in which the mūladharabandha, or “root lock” at
the perineal floor, and uddiyānabandha in the abdominal cavity move the “il-
˙˙
luminating fire” upward through the body’s axial channel while the application
of jālandharabandha at the throat facilitates the downward flow of “nectar” from
the cranium.56 Fierce Heat in turn, is the foundation of six psychophysical yogas
(rnal ’byor drug) undertaken during recurring phases of waking, sleeping,
dreaming, and sexual activity as well as in preparation for death.57 These “Six
54 See Wang-Toutain 2009: 29.

55 Although there is no direct evidence of the specific yogic exercises that Milarepa practised in
conjunction with his practice of Fierce Heat, the Kagyu tradition, or “orally transmitted
lineage”, for which he was the seminal figure, continues to transmit a set of six exercises to
release blockages in the nādı̄-s and improve the flow of prāna during the practice of Tumo
˙
(gtum mo). These yogic exercises are also practised in support˙of the subsequent Six Doctrines
of Nāropa (nā ro’i chos drug) in order to prevent obstructions in the channels during yogas of
sexual union and more subtle practices undertaken during states of dreaming, sleeping, and
dying.
56 As noted by Wang-Toutain (2009: 35), Drakpa Gyaltsen refers to bandha-s and mudrā-s in the
context of his twelfth-century “Thirty-two Actions of the Miraculous Wheel of Channels”
(’Phrin las sum bcu rtsa gnyis ’khrul ’khor).
57 Distinct from the roughly contemporary Sixfold Vajra Yoga of the Kālacakratantra and
analogous systems within Hevajra Lamdre, the Six Doctrines of Nāropa (nā ro’i chos drug)
originate with the Bengali mahāsiddha Tilopadā (988–1069) and distill the core Completion
phase (sampannakrama, Tib. rdzogs rim) practices of India’s principal Buddhist Tantras into
˙
an algorithm for awakening dormant capacities of mind and body and cultivating lucid
awareness within normally autonomic states of consciousness. Tilopa’s original introductory
text on these six interconnected practices refers to them as six dharma-s (saddharmopadeśa,
Tib. chos drug gi man ngag), but they are commonly referred to as a system ˙ ˙ of “yoga” (rnal
’byor) for unifying consciousness with the total expanse of reality (dharmadhātu, Tib. chos kyi
dbyings) during states of waking, dreaming, sleeping, sexual union, and death. Tilopa pres-
ents the Six Yogas as the pith essence of the most prominent Buddhist Tantras, leading to an
expanded experience of reality culminating in the liberating realisation of mahāmudrā,

354 Ian A. Baker
Yogas of Nāropa” (nā ro’i chos drug) subsequently became the basis of Tibet’s
Kagyu (bKa’ brgyud), or “orally transmitted lineage”.58 Trulkhor practice within
the Kagyu school subsequently diversified from the sets of six and thirty-two
yogic exercises advocated by Phagmo Drupa to over one hundred and eight
within the Drigung Kagyu (’bri gung bka’ brgyud) suborder.59 These longer and
interpreted to derive etymologically from rā, “to bestow”, and mud, meaning “bliss”. Al-
though variant presentations exist, the series commonly begins with Illusory Body Yoga (sgyu
lus, Skt. māyākāya) through which the practitioner recognises his/her body and mind as
transmutable constructions of consciousness. Tilopa describes this yoga as deriving from the
Guhyasamājatantra. The second yoga, the Yoga of Fierce Heat (gtum mo, Skt. candālı̄), on
˙˙
which all of the subsequent yogas are based, correlates with Śaivite practices for arousing the
primordial energy of kundalinı̄ and first appears, in Buddhist tradition, in the Hevajra and
Cakrasamvaratantra-s. The ˙ ˙ auxiliary Yoga of Sexual Union (las kyi phyag rgya, Skt. kar-
mamudrā) ˙ in which the practitioner engages sexually with a partner, either real or visualised,
is said to derive from the Guhyasamājatantra while the subsequent Yoga of Radiant Light (’od
gsal, Skt. prabhāsvara) is based on a synthesis of the Guhyasamāja- and Cakrasamvara-
tantra-s. The Yoga of Conscious Dreaming (rmi lam, Skt. svapnadarśana) was further ˙said by
Tilopa to derive from the Mahāmāyātantra while the Yoga of Liminality (bar do, Skt. an-
tarābhava) that prepares the practitioner for a posited postmortem experience develops out
of the Guhyasamājatantra. The Yoga of Transference (’pho ba, Skt. samkrānti), in which
consciousness is projected beyond the bar do at the time of death into ˙ one or another
Buddhafield, is said to originate both from the Guhyasamājatantra as well as from the
Catuspı̄thatantra. A similar, but more condensed exposition of the Six Yogas attributed to
˙ ˙ consort is entitled “The Six Yogas of Niguma” (Ni gu chos drug) and, after its
Nāropa’s
transmission to the Indian yogini Sukhasiddhi and her Tibetan disciple Khyungpo Naljor
(khyung po rnal ’byor) became the basis of the Shangpa Kagyu (shangs pa bka’ brgyud) school
of Tibetan Buddhism. Within the Nyingma tradition, the Six Yogas are referred to as the “Six
Yogas of the Completion Phase” (rdzogs rim chos drug) and are considered as revealed
teachings of Padmasambhava. These and other versions of the Six Yoga doctrine, such as
those found in the Kālacakra and Yuthok Nyingthik, customarily begin with cycles of physical
exercises for amplifying and directing the flow of subtle energy into the body’s central
channel to enhance the practice of more internal yogic techniques.
58 The Shangpa Kagyu lineage originating with Khyungpo Naljor is based on an analogous
system of Six Yogas associated with Nāropa’s consort Niguma. The Six Yoga doctrine was also
transmitted separately by Marpa Chökyi Lodrö in a condensed form known as “mixing and
transference” (’se ’pho) in connection with the Hevajratantra. Marpa transmitted these
practices to Ngok Chokdor and they subsequently became known as the Ngok Transmission,
or Mar rngog bka’ brgyud. According to Marpa scholar Cécile Ducher the ’se ’pho texts make
no specific mention of Trulkhor although several other texts in Marpa’s collected works
(gsung ’bum) do; see Ducher 2014. As Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Tayé (’jam mgon kong sprul
blo gros mtha’ yas) (1813–1899) points out, the “mixing and transference” instructions are
based on a core verse attributed to Nāropa: “Mixing refers to awakening through meditation
and transference to awakening without meditation.” Kongtrul further explicates that inner
heat and illusory body practices are used for awakening through meditation while trans-
ference of consciousness beyond the body (’pho ba) and sexual union with a consort (las kyi
phyag rgya, Skt. karmamudrā) are used for awakening without meditation. See Harding 2007:
150.
59 Trulkhor practice in Drigung Kagyu is based primarily on “Cakrasamvara’s Oral Trans-
mission of the Miraculous Wheel of Channels and Winds” (bDe mchog snyan ˙ rgyud kyi rtsa

more complex systems were also periodically simplified, emphasizing five core
movements combined with “vase” breaths (kumbhaka, Tib. bum pa chen), vis-
ualisation, and internal neuro-muscular “seals” (mudrā-s, Tib. gag) for harmo-
nizing the body’s five elemental winds (rtsa ba rlung lnga).60
4. Nyingthik: Heart Essence of Tibetan Yoga
Tsalung Trulkhor and versions of the six associated yogas (sbyor drug) developed
within all schools of Tibetan Buddhism as advanced Completion Phase (rdzogs
rim, Skt. sampannakrama) practices in monastic settings as well as among non-
˙
celibate male and female yogins (sngags pa). Within Tibet’s Nyingma order,
Tsalung Trulkhor and the “Six Yogas of the Completion Phase” (rdzogs rim chos
drug) closely paralleled analogous practices in the Tantras and commentaries of
the “new” (gsar ma) translation schools, but were expediently presented as re-
vealed “treasure texts” (gter ma) attributed to Nyingma’s iconic eighth-century
patron saint Padmasambhava. The imaginal anatomy of winds and channels and
the practices based on them were presented differently, however, in light of the
Nyingma school’s emphasis on the Dzogchen, or Atiyoga view of “self-liberation”
(rang grol) which is held to supersede all effort-based Development and Com-
pletion Phase approaches. In Nyingma’s division of the highest Vajrayāna
teachings into Mahāyoga (rnal ’byor chen po), Anuyoga (rjes su rnal ’byor), and
Atiyoga (shin tu rnal ’byor), practices connected with the psychophysical chan-
nels, winds, and vital essences (rtsa, rlung, thig le, Skt. nādı̄, vāyu, bindu) are
˙
rlung ’khrul ’khor) and texts such as “The All-Illuminating Mirror: Oral Instructions on the
Miraculous Wheel of Yogic Movements for Training the Body to Progress in the Practice of
Fierce Heat from among the Six Yogas of Nāropa” (Nā ro’i chos drug las gtum mo’i bogs ’don
lus sbyong ’phrul ’khor gyi zhal khrid kun gsal me long) (oral communication, Choeze Rin-
poche, Lhasa, July 2010). Drigung Kagyu also includes a cycle of thirty-seven Trulkhor re-
vealed by the Second Karmapa, Karma Pakshi (1204/1206–1283) (karma pakshi’i so bdun)
(oral communication, Ani Rigsang, Terdrom, Tibet, August 2014). The Drigung Kagyu order
was founded by Jikten Gonpo Rinchen Pel (’jig rten mgon po rin chen dpal) (1143–1217),
Phagmo Drupa’s principal disciple.
60 Oral communication, Tshewang Sitar Rinpoche, Bumthang, Bhutan, May 2013. Each of the
body’s five elemental winds (rtsa ba rlung lnga) supports a specific function. The “life-
supporting wind” (srog ’dzin rlung) located in the brain regulates swallowing, inhalation, and
mental attention. The “upward-moving wind” (gyen rgyu rlung) in the chest and thorax
regulates somatic energy, speech, memory, and related functions. The “all-pervading wind”
(khyab byed rlung) in the heart controls all motor activities of the body. The “fire-accom-
panying wind” (me mnyam gnas rlung) in the stomach and abdomen area regulates digestion
and metabolism. The “downward-clearing wind” (thur sel rlung) located in the rectum,
bowels, and perineal region regulates excretion, urine, semen, menstrual blood, and uterine
contractions during labour. For further elaboration of the Five Winds, see also Wangyal 2002:
76–110.

356 Ian A. Baker
categorised as Anuyoga, “subsequent yoga”. When such techniques are used in

support of the direct realisation of one’s intrinsically awakened Buddha nature,
the conjoined approach is often referred to with the Sanskrit-derived term “Ati
Anu” (shin tu rjes su), or “supreme subsequent”, representing a synthesis of
Atiyoga and Anuyoga methods.61
Although no descriptions of Trulkhor can be found in original texts associated
with Tibet’s oldest Vajrayāna lineage, early Nyingma masters such as Rongzom
Chökyi Zangpo (rong zom chos kyi bzang po) (1012–1088) and Nyang Ral Nyima
Özer (nyang ral nyi ma ’od zer) (1124–1192) were closely associated with early
“New School” proponents such as Smrtijñānakı̄rti and Padampa Sangye (pha
˙
dam pa sangs rgyas) and are likely to have received transmissions from them of
Tsalung Trulkhor, thus gradually introducing practices of breath and movement
into the Nyingma corpus. This new material was introduced into the Nyingma
tradition through the expedient means of revealed “treasure texts” (gter ma),
“mind treasures” (dgongs gter), and “pure visions” (dag snang) that allowed
Trulkhor to be recontextualised within Dzogchen’s view of self-existing en-
lightenment. However, none of the earliest Nyingma treasure texts such as the
Seventeen Dzogchen Tantras (rDzogs chen rgyud bcu bdun) revealed by Neten
61 Personal communication, Chatral Sangye Dorje, Yolmo, Nepal, August 1987. Vajrayāna
Buddhist practice customarily consists of a Development Phase (bskyed rim) based on mantra
recitation and visualisation followed by a Completion Phase (rdzogs rim) focused on the
body’s metaphysical anatomy of channels, winds, and essences. Dzogchen differs in its ap-
proach by “taking the goal as the path” and fusing Development and Completion Phase
practices into unitary awareness (rig pa) of their ultimate inseparability. Dzogchen practices
thus work directly with physiology and optical phenomena to reveal reality as an unfolding
heuristic and creative process. Dzogchen is presented in Tibet’s Nyingma school as the
culmination of nine successive vehicles for transcending afflictive fluctuations of con-
sciousness and uniting with all-encompassing awareness. The first two vehicles refer to the
Hı̄nayāna stages of Śrāvakayāna and Pratyekabuddhayāna that lead to the solitary realisation
of the arhat, as promoted within Theravāda Buddhism. The third vehicle, the Bodhi-
sattvayāna, introduces the Mahāyāna, or greater vehicle, and cultivates enlightenment not
just for oneself, but for all beings. The fourth, fifth, and sixth vehicles are the so-called Outer
Tantras of Kriyātantra, Caryātantra, and Yogatantra, all of which are part of Vajrayāna, the
third turning of the wheel of doctrine, but remain dualistic in their orientation. The three
Inner Tantras (nang rgyud sde gsum) were transmitted to those deemed of higher capacity and
consist of Mahāyoga (rnal ’byor chen po), which emphasises the Development Phase (bskyed
rim) of imaginal perception, Anuyoga (rjes su rnal ’byor) which cultivates co-emergent bliss
and emptiness through Completion Phase (rdzogs rim) practices based on a meta-anatomy of
channels, winds and essences, and Atiyoga (shin tu rnal ’byor), the resultant non-dual di-
mension of Dzogchen with its liberating view of primordial, self-existing perfection. The three
Inner Tantras of the Nyingma further correlate with the Unsurpassed Yogatantras (Anut-
tarayogatantra) of the Kagyu, Sakya, and Geluk lineages, all of which culminate in the non-
dual (advaita) view of reality as expressed in Essence Mahāmudra (ngo bo’i phyag rgya chen
po) which is often presented as being identical to Dzogchen in terms of view, but differing in
its method.

Dangma Lhungyal (gnas brtan ldang ma lhun rgyal) in the eleventh century make
any reference to prescribed sequences of transformative physical exercises.62 In
keeping with Dzogchen’s non-gradualist approach to yogic practice, the
Nyingma treasure texts advocate in their place spontaneous and unchoreo-
graphed physical practices that, from a Dzogchen point of view, preempt the
codified regimens of Trulkhor. The fully embodied practices of Korde Rushen
(’khor ’das ru shan) that facilitate realisation of the unbound altruistic mind of
enlightenment (byang chub kyi sems) are described in detail in the following
section of this chapter.
The clear absence of Trulkhor practices in early Nyingma “treasure teachings”
(gter chos) is further evident from an examination of the “Heart Essence of
Vimalamitra” (Vi ma snying thig), a three-volume compilation attributed to the
eighth-century Indian master Vimalamitra, but revealed by his followers from
the late tenth or early eleventh century until the middle of the twelfth century.63
The two-volume “Heart Essence of the Sky Dancers” (mKha’ ’gro snying thig)
attributed to Padmasambhava and revealed by Tsultrim Dorje (tshul khrims rdo
rje) (1291–1315/1317) in the early fourteenth century also omits any mention of
Trulkhor practices. Yet, like the Vima Nyingthik before it, it does describe body
mandala practices of channels, winds, and vital essences (rtsa rlung thig le) based
˙˙
on yogas of sexual union.64
Apart from the cycle of eighteen yogic exercises described in the twelfth-
century Yuthok Nyingthik, Trulkhor seems to have formally entered into the
Nyingma corpus through the literary work of the fourteenth-century Dzogchen
master Longchen Rabjampa Drimé Özer (klong chen rab ’byams pa dri med ’od
zer) (1308–1364). Longchenpa synthesised earlier Nyingma treasure texts in his
composite Nyingthik Yabshi (sNying thig ya bzhi) that quotes widely from the
Seventeen Dzogchen Tantras, but makes no mention of Trulkhor within its
multiple volumes. It is in Longchenpa’s “Wishfulfilling Treasury” (Yid bzhin
mdzod) – later catalogued as one of his “Seven Treasuries” (mDzod bdun) – that
the first evidence occurs of Trulkhor practice in the Nyingma tradition sub-
sequent to the “Turquoise Heart Essence”.65 The “Wishfulfilling Treasury” elu-
cidates Buddhist cosmology and philosophical systems, but its final chapter,
62 Chögyal Namkhai Norbu (personal communication, Glass House Mountains, Australia,

March 2012) maintains that the descriptions of spontaneous physical movements in the root
text of the Seventeen Tantras, the Dra thal gyur (sGra thal ’gyur), represent a form of Trul-
khor.
63 See Germano & Gyatso 2000: 244. The “Seventeen Dzogchen Tantras” date to the same time
period and also describe body-based practices, although more synoptically than the Vima
Nyingthik.
64 Ibid. See also the chapter by James Mallinson in the present volume.
65 Personal communication, Tshewang Sitar Rinpoche, Bumthang, Bhutan, April 2013.

358 Ian A. Baker
“The Fruition that is the Culmination of Meditation”, describes twenty Trulkhor

exercises that include internal bodily massage (sku mnye) and sequenced
stretches in support of the Dzogchen contemplative technique of Kadag Trekchö
(ka dag khregs chod), or “cutting through [discursive mental activity] to pri-
mordial purity”. Unlike the preceding forms of Trulkhor presented within Ti-
betan Buddhism, Longchenpa’s rendition is not based on visualizing oneself as a
tantric deity, but on vibrant awareness (rig pa, Skt. vidyā)66 of one’s innate
Buddha Nature (tathāgatagarbha).67
Having established a clear precedent, subsequent revealed treasure texts
connected to the Dzogchen Nyingthik, or “Heart Essence of Great Perfection”
transmission, largely all include cycles of Trulkhor. For example, in 1366, two
years after Longchenpa’s death, Rigdzin Godemchen (rig ’dzin rgod ldem can)
(1337–1408) revealed his highly influential “Northern Treasure” (Byang gter)
with a Trulkhor cycle called Phag mo’i zab rgya rtsa rlung, based on the medi-
tational deity Vajravārāhı̄. These teachings were expanded upon by the treasure
revealer Tenyi Lingpa (bstan gnyis gling pa) (1480–1535) whose writings elabo-
rated on the movement of energy through the channels during sexual union and
the discipline of vajrolı̄, in which sexual fluids are circulated through the body’s
yogic anatomy.68
Longchenpa’s ostensible fifteenth-century Bhutanese reincarnation, Orgyen
Pema Lingpa (orgyan padma gling pa) (1450–1521), further clarified the “Ati
66 Rig pa is also rendered as “primordial awareness” and is experientially related to the spon-
taneous “recognition” (pratyabhijñā) of the nature of mind central to non-dual Kashmiri
Śaivism.
67 In most Nyingthik, or “heart essence” systems of Trulkhor, there is no visualisation of oneself
as a tantric diety because all divine forms arise from primary seed-syllables (as “vibrations”)
in the luminous expanse of the heart which is the ultimate deity (oral communication, Chatral
Sangye Dorje Rinpoche, Pharping, Nepal, September 1992). The Trulkhor exercises described
in chapter twenty-two of Longchenpa’s Yid bzhin mdzod are less elaborate than later
Nyingthik renditions for which they form the basis. The movements include interlocking the
fingers against the chest and stretching them outward (no. 3), twisting the shoulders down to
the hands and knees (no. 4), pushing outward from the chest with the hands held as fists
(no. 5), twisting the body with the arms crossed and the hands on the shoulders (no. 6),
drawing the hands along the arms as if shooting a bow (no. 8), pushing the fists outward as if
against a mountain (no. 9), bending forward and backward (no. 10), joining the little fingers
of the hands and forming a mudrā on the top of the head (no. 11), etc. For further details see
the final volume of the Yid bzhin mdzod (p. 1579 in the edition published by Dodrupchen
Rinpoche).
68 Tenyi Lingpa’s elaboration of Rigdzin Godemchen’s Trulkhor, as first revealed in the Gongpa
Zangthal (dGongs pa bzang thal) – the highest Dzogchen teachings of the Northern Treasure
lineage – reputedly consists of twelve preparatory exercises, thirteen principle movements,
and twelve concluding movements (oral communication, Kunzang Dorje Rinpoche, Phar-
ping, Nepal, July 1985 and correspondence with Malcolm Smith, November 2016). For an
incisive, comprehensive account of the yogic technique of vajrolı̄, in which sexual fluids are
drawn up the urethra, see the chapter by James Mallinson in the present volume.

Anu” practices of the “Heart Essence” tradition in his revealed treasure text
“Compendium of All-Embracing Great Perfection” (rDzogs chen kun bzang
dgongs ’dus), a chapter of which entitled “Secret Key to the Channels and Winds”
(rTsa rlung gsang ba’i lde mig) describes a sequence of twenty-three Trulkhor
exercises within the context of Dzogchen’s visionary practice of “Leaping over
the Skull” (thod rgal).69 The practices are performed with the breath held in a
“vase” (bum pa can, Skt. kumbhaka), in combination with mūladharabandha,
and are described as “clearing hindrances” (gegs sel) to contemplative practice
while also ensuring optimal health. The practices were eventually illustrated on
the walls of the Sixth Dalai Lama’s private meditation chamber in the Lukhang
temple in Lhasa in the late seventeenth century (see Figure 2).70
Following Pema Lingpa’s revelation, further cycles of Trulkhor emerged in the
Nyingma tradition in “The Universal Embodiment of the Precious Ones” (dKon
mchog spyi ’dus), a treasure text revealed by Rigdzin Jatson Nyingpo (rig ’dzin ’ja’
tshon snying po) (1585–1656), as well as within the approximately con-
temporaneous “Accomplishing the Life-Force of the Wisdom Holders” (Rig ’dzin
srog sgrub) revealed by Lhatsun Namkha Jigme (lha btsun nam mkha’i ’jigs med)
(1597–1650/1653).71 The trend continued with the revelation of the “Sky Teach-
ing” (gNam chos) by Namchö Mingyur Dorje (gnam chos mi ’gyur rdo rje) (1645–
1667) that contains a Trulkhor cycle with over sixty movements based on the
Buddhist deity Vajrakı̄laya (rdo rje phur pa rtsa rlung ’khrul ’khor).72
Trulkhor’s place within the Nyingma “heart essence” tradition became even
more firmly established with the visionary treasure revelation of Jigme Lingpa
(’jigs med gling pa) (1730–1798) whose “Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse”
(Klong chen snying thig) includes the “Miraculous Wheel of Wisdom Holders”
69 The “Compendium of All-Embracing Great Perfection” is one of three texts revealed by Pema
Lingpa that elucidate the Great Perfection (rdzogs chen) and the only one that describes
practices of Trulkhor. For a full inventory of Pema Lingpa’s revealed treasures, see Harding
2003: 142–144. Pema Lingpa’s system of Trulkhor expands on the simpler exercises described
by Longchenpa in his “Wishfulfilling Treasury”, in which there are neither forceful “drops”
(’beb) (see n. 75) nor the “adamantine wave” (rdo rje rba rlabs; rdo rje rlabs chu) practice of
pressing on the carotid arteries at the neck to induce intensified states of awareness (see
Figure 4). For a full translation of Pema Lingpa’s “Secret Key to the Channels and Winds”, see
Baker 2012, 2017a and 2017b.
70 For an extensive account of how Pema Lingpa’s text came to be illustrated on the walls of the
Sixth Dalai Lama’s meditation chamber in the late seventeenth century under the direction of
Tibet’s political regent Desi Sangye Gyatso (sde srid sangs rgyas rgya mtsho) (1653–1705), see
Baker 2017b.
71 Oral communication, Kunzang Dorje Rinpoche, Pharping, Nepal, May 1985.
72 Oral communication, Lama Tashi Tenzin, Thimphu, Bhutan, July 2014. According to Lama
Tashi, this cycle concludes with bkra shis ’beb ’khor, or “auspicious circle of drops”, in which
the adept performs a clockwise series of yogic “drops” and also jumps while in lotus posture
from one padded yogic seat (’beb den) to another. See also n. 75.

360 Ian A. Baker
Figure 2: Mural in the Sixth Dalai Lama’s private meditation chamber illustrating a sequence of
twenty-three yogic movements revealed by Orgyen Pema Lingpa.
(Rig ’dzin ’khrul ’khor), a Trulkhor cycle of twenty-one movements elaborating

on Longchenpa’s yogic exercises in his “Wishfulfilling Treasury”, the Yid bzhin
mdzod. The Rigdzin Trulkhor practices consist of five initial exercises for clearing
the body’s elemental winds followed by eight movements that embody the
qualities of eight Indian “wisdom holders” (vidyādhara, Tib. rgya gar rig ’dzin
brgyad), acclaimed as enlightened contemporaries of Padmasambhava.73 These
and subsequent exercises in the series include symbolic gestures and vestiges of
ritual dance together with forceful movements reminiscent of Chinese systems of
wei gong and Yang-style taijiquan.74 As in other later transmissions of Trulkhor,
the series also includes intermittent controlled “drops” (’beb) of increasing
complexity that purportedly direct the body’s subtle energies into the central
channel to promote expanded states of awareness (see Figures 3 and 5). The most
demanding, and potentially injurious, “drops” involve leaping into the air from a
standing position and landing cross-legged on the ground in the lotus posture
with the breath held in a “vase” in the lower abdomen.75 Other forceful methods
73 Personal communication, Tulku Tenzin Rabgye, Lobesa, Bhutan, October 2013. The eight
Vidyadhāras are Vimalamitra, Hūmkāra, Mañjuśrı̄mitra, Nāgārjuna, Prabhāhasti, Dhana-
˙
samskrta, Guhyacandra, and Śāntigarbha. Sometimes Padmasambhava is added as a ninth, or
˙ ˙ of the eight in place of Prabhāhasti.
as part
74 Personal observation. See also Mroz 2013.
75 ’beb, or forceful “drops”, are categorised as “small” (’beb chung), “medium” (bar ’beb), “big”
(’beb chen), and “adamantine” (rdor ’beb), during which the legs are crossed in the vajra

for altering consciousness within the context of Tsalung Trulkhor include a

technique called the “adamantine wave” (rdo rje rba rlabs, rdo rje rlabs chu), in
reference to the pulsations of blood in the medial cranial artery when a practi-
tioner, or spiritual preceptor, presses on the carotid arteries at the sides of the
neck to induce a thought-free state of bliss and emptiness (de stong). The
“adamantine wave” is one of twenty-one methods for pointing out the noetic
state of primordial awareness (rig pa) described in Orgyen Pema Lingpa’s “In-
troductory Commentary to the Pearl Garland of Introductions [to the Nature of
Mind] in Six Sections” (Ngo sprod kyi bu yig ngo sprod mu tig phreng ba le’u drug
pa) (see Figure 4).
Figure 3: Tshewang Sitar Rinpoche performing an “adamantine cross-legged drop” in the Gaden
Lhakhang, Ura, Bhutan.
Some subsequent “Heart Essence” treasure works such as the exclusively

Dzogchen oriented Chetsün Nyingthik (lCe btsun snying thig) revealed by Jam-
yang Khentse Wangpo (’jam dbyangs mkhyen brtse’i dbang po) (1820–1892)
make no mention of Trulkhor, whereas the roughly contemporary “All-Perfect
Heart Essence” (Kun bzang thugs thig) revealed by Chokyur Dechen Lingpa
(mchog gyur bde chen gling pa) (1829–1870) contains a Trulkhor series con-
nected with the tantric deity Acala (mi gyo ba), the “Immovable One”, that is
posture in mid air (rdo rje dkyil dkrungs ’beb). There are also kyang ’beb in which the body is
extended and one drops on one’s side, chu ’beb which are performed after first spinning in a
circle, and “ornamental” gyen ’beb performed at the end of a Trulkhor series. It’s likely that
’beb evolved from originally gentler Hatha Yoga practices such as mahāvedhamudrā which is
central to Trulkhor practice in the Amr˙tasiddhi and Yuthog Nyingtik. Mahāvedha, the “great
piercer”, is normally performed with˙the legs crossed in padmāsana, or lotus posture, the
palms pressed against the ground, and the throat pulled upward in jālandharamudrā while
holding the breath below the navel and successively dropping the backs of the thighs and
buttocks on the ground to cause prānavāyu to leave the two side channels (idā and piṅgalā)
and enter the susumnā, or central ˙channel. James Mallinson notes, however, ˙ that mahā-
˙
vedhamudrā as practised in the Amrtasiddhi differs from the later Hatha Yoga version and
˙ ˙
does not involve dropping onto the thighs and buttocks but sitting on the heels of the feet,
which are joined and pointing downwards (personal communication, Vienna, September
2013). A similar exercise called tādanakriyā, or “beating action”, is performed in Kriyā Yoga
with the eyes concentrated at the˙point between the eyebrows in śāmbhavı̄mudrā.

362 Ian A. Baker
Figure 4: An illustration of the “adamantine wave” practice in the Lukhang temple, Lhasa.
Figure 5: Tshewang Sitar Rinpoche performing an “adamantine cross-legged drop” in the Gaden
Lhakhang, Ura, Bhutan.

practised within both Nyingma and Karma Kagyu traditions.76 The later “mind
treasure” (dgongs gter) “Heart Essence of the Sky Dancers”, the Khandro
Thukthik (mKha’ ’gro’i thugs thig) revealed by Dudjom Jikdral Yeshe Dorje (bdud
’joms ’jigs bral ye shes rdo rje) (1904–1987) in 1928, contains a Trulkhor cycle of
sixteen movements that is widely practised today both in the Himalayan world
and beyond and held to have been influenced by the Phag mo zab rgya revelation
of Rigdzin Godemchen.77 Similarly, the “Profound Instructions of Vajravārāhı̄”
(Phag mo’i zab khrid) revealed by Kunzang Dechen Lingpa (kun bzang bde chen
gling pa) (1928–2006), based on prior teachings of Rigdzin Godemchen and Tenyi
Lingpa, contains an extensive Trulkhor cycle with elaborate “drops”.78
The most globally recognised contemporary form of Trulkhor is the revealed
teaching of Tibetan scholar and Dzogchen master Chögyal Namkhai Norbu that
he calls “Yantra Yoga”, based on his 1976 commentary to a Trulkhor text entitled
“Miraculous Wheel of Yogic Movements Uniting Sun and Moon” (’Khrul ’khor
nyi zla kha sbyor) that was reputedly composed in the eighth century by the
Tibetan translator Vairocana (vai ro tsa na), a contemporary of Padmasambhava.
According to Namkhai Norbu, Vairocana’s original text is part of a larger col-
lection known as the “Oral Transmission of Vairo” (Vai ro snyan brgyud) 79 and
describes seventy-five breath-sequenced yogic movements, many of which are
well known within later systems of Hatha Yoga. According to Namkhai Norbu’s
˙
commentary, “A Stainless Mirror of Jewels” (Dri med nor bu’i me long) which
was published in 2008 as Yantra Yoga: The Tibetan Yoga of Movement,80 Vairo-
cana is said to have received these yogic practices directly from Padmasambhava
who, in turn, is said to have learned them from a Nepalese mahāsiddha named
Hūmkāra who himself reputedly learned them from Śrı̄simha, an early Dzogchen
˙ ˙
lineage holder who lived for a considerable period at the sacred mountain Wutai
Shan in western China where similar Taoist-Chan Buddhist methods of what is
now called qigong were transmitted from before the eighth century.81 The close
parallels of the “Miraculous Wheel of Yogic Movements Uniting Sun and Moon”
76 Oral communication, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, Nagi Gompa, Nepal, May 1987.
77 Oral communication, Lama Nyingku Kunzang Wangdi, Bhutan, October 2011.
78 In practice, however, Kunsang Dechen Lingpa simplified the Trulkhor exercises revealed by
Rigdzin Godemchen and Tenyi Lingpa as he recognised that they could be harmful if not
begun at an early age (oral communication, Karma Lhatrul Rinpoche, Bangkok, January
2014).
79 The “Oral Transmission of Vairo” is part of Vairocana’s collected works (vai ro rgyud ’bum)
which were compiled in the twelfth century, thus making it speculative to date the “Mirac-
ulous Wheel Uniting Sun and Moon” to the eighth century. The text invites further in-
dependent investigation for understanding the origins and evolution of postural yoga
practices in India and Tibet.
80 Clemente & Lukianowicz 2008.
81 Personal communication, Vivienne Lo, London, September 2011.

364 Ian A. Baker
with Indian Hatha Yoga and its potential links with Chinese systems of dao yin
˙
and qigong invite further comparative research and may eventually indicate
greater transcultural origins for Tibet’s Trulkhor practices than has so far been
supposed. Namkhai Norbu’s commentary elaborates Vairocana’s system of poses
and breathing practices into one hundred and eight interconnected movements
adapted to a contemporary western context, giving further evidence of the
heuristic nature of the Tsalung Trulkhor system which, like Hatha Yoga, con-
˙
tinues to evolve through its interactions and exchanges with analogous practices
and increasing global knowledge and awareness of biophysical processes.82
5. Korde Rushen: Yoga of Spontaneous Presence
The physically embodied practices of Tsalung Trulkhor were a core component

of the Vajrayāna forms of Buddhism that developed in Tibet from the eleventh
century onward and, as the revealed treasure texts in the Nyingma tradition
clearly indicate, Tsalung Trulkhor has been a supporting element in the trans-
mission of Dzogchen, or Atiyoga, as well. Dzogchen is also referred to as “Su-
preme Yoga” (shin tu rnal ’byor, Skt. atiyoga) and, within the Nyingma tradition
represents the culmination of the Development Phase (utpattikrama, Tib. bskyed
rim), otherwise called mahāyoga, and the Completion Phase (sampannakrama,
Tib. rdzogs rim), otherwise called anuyoga, of Vajrayāna Buddhism.83 Dzogchen
differs from Vajrayāna as a whole in its view of Buddha Nature (tathāgatagarbha,
Tib. de bzhin gshegs pa’i snying po) as an innately present wakefulness rather than
an indwelling potential that needs to be deliberately cultivated in order to attain
freedom from Samsāra. Dzogchen thus characteristically “takes the end as the
˙
means” and dispenses with more gradual methods for realizing Buddhahood
(buddhatva, Tib. sangs rgyas nyid). Although practices based on the body’s
“inner mandala” (nang pa’i dkyil ’khor) of subtle energy channels are included in
˙˙
Dzogchen, such disciplines are traditionally viewed either as methods for re-
moving psychophysical obstacles (gegs sel) or for intensifying realisation of the
mind’s “natural state” (gnas lug). Ultimately, however, the “illusory body
movements” of Tsalung Trulkhor, when practised from a Dzogchen perspective,
are considered to be direct expressions of enlightenment (samyaksambodhi)
˙
rather than specific means for attaining it.84
82 Like other purely Dzogchen-oriented Trulkhor systems, Chögyal Namkhai Norbu’s Yantra
Yoga does not involve Anuttarayogatantra methods of deity visualisation, but envisions the
body as a luminous network of energy channels. Unlike most earlier forms of Trulkhor,
Yantra Yoga does not include forceful “drops”.
83 See n. 59.
84 Personal communication, Tulku Tenzin Rabgye, Lobesa, Bhutan, October 2013. From another

Dzogchen is presented within Tibetan tradition as “beyond all mental con-

cepts and free of both attachment and letting go; the essence of transcendent
insight and the coalescence of meditation and non-meditation; perfected
awareness free of all grasping.”85 While the unitary consciousness of Dzogchen
can be directly realised without modifying the body or altering the mind in any
way, its formal practice nonetheless traditionally begins with demanding phys-
ical exercises and culminates with prescribed postures and associated breathing
techniques for entraining consciousness towards an incisive realisation of the
primordial non-dual unity (gnyis su med pa) of enlightened awareness.86 As
Rigdzin Jigme Lingpa (rig ’dzin ’jigs med gling pa) (1730–1798) wrote in “Su-
preme Mastery of Wisdom Awareness” (Ye shes bla ma), one of the most revered
manuals (khrid yig) on Dzogchen practice: “Unless the vitally important body is
compliant and energy flowing freely, the pure light of consciousness will remain
obscured. So take this physical practice to heart!”87
Initiation in Dzogchen formally entails “empowerment into the dynamic
energy of awareness” (rig pa’i rtsal dbang). To accomplish this experientially,
practitioners traditionally undertake rigorous foundational practices called
Korde Rushen (’khor ’das ru shan) to differentiate Samsāra (Tib. ’khor ba), or
˙
bounded consciousness (sems), from the spontaneous self-liberating awareness
(sems nyid) of Nirvāna (Tib. mya ngan ’das). The “Continuity of Sound” (sGra
˙
thal ’gyur),88 the root text of Dzogchen’s esoteric “instruction cycle” (man ngag
perspective, Dzogchen considers Trulkhor exercises to be contrived means appropriate only

in less direct approaches to enlightenment. As the fourteenth-century Dzogchen master
Longchenpa writes in canto 31 of his “Precious Treasury of Natural Perfection” (gNas lugs rin
po che’i mdzod): “Exhausting exercises involving struggle and strain are of short-lived benefit,
like a sand castle built by a child.” As he further explicates: “We strive in meditation because
we desire excellence, but any striving precludes attainment … remaining constantly at ease in
uncontrived spontaneity … non-action is revealed as supreme activity” (see Dowman 2014:
23).
85 From “Nyingthik, the Innermost Essence” (Yang gsang bla na med pa’i snying thig) by
Rigdzin Jigme Lingpa (rig ’dzin ’jigs med gling pa), quoted in Trungpa 1972: 21.
86 The transpersonal modes of consciousness cultivated in Vajrayāna Buddhism and Dzogchen
are subjects of contemporary neuroscientific research, leading to new linguistic and con-
ceptual formulations. Some of these initiatives correlate specific meditative states with par-
asympathetic dominance in the brain’s frontal cortex and concomitant activation of a bio-
logically based mode of consciousness in which slow wave patterns originating in the limbic
system project into the frontal parts of the brain, thereby inducing increased hemispheric
synchronisation and more integral states of awareness. See, for example, Winkelman 1997:
393–394.
87 This translation and subsequent ones from the Yeshe Lama (Ye shes bla ma) are partially
adapted from Chönam & Khandro 2009 and Dowman 2014, but are more indebted to Dungtse
Thinley Norbu Rinpoche’s oral commentary in Kathmandu in July 1987.
88 The “Continuity of Sound Tantra” is associated with the eighth-century Indian Dzogchen
master Vimalamitra and is the basis of the “Seventeen Tantras of the Innermost Lumines-
cence” (Yang gsang ’od gsal gyi rgyud bcu bdun) which provide the collective literary foun-

366 Ian A. Baker
sde, Skt. upadeśavarga), counsels accordingly: “Perform bodily yantras [Trul-

khor] while twisting and turning and alternately while prone and moving. Stretch
and bend the limbs and push the body beyond its accustomed limits. Physically
act out the behavior of the six kinds of elemental beings.”89 As Rigdzin Jigme
Lingpa reiterates in his eighteenth-century “Supreme Mastery of Wisdom
Awareness”: “Then, run and jump, twist and turn, stretch and bend and, in brief,
move your body in whatever way comes to mind – beyond purpose or design.”90
He further clarifies that “[f]inally you will be physically, energetically, and
mentally exhausted and thus totally relaxed.” Within this unbounded unitary
sphere beyond the binary operations of thought, “all spontaneous actions of
body, speech, and mind arise as the unity of Samsāra and Nirvāna, and thus as
˙ ˙
unobstructed Buddha-Body, Buddha-Speech, and Buddha-Mind.”91
Customarily undertaken in solitary wilderness settings, the practices of Korde
Rushen are divided into Outer, Inner, Secret, and Ultimately Secret methods for
distinguishing the contents of consciousness from wakeful awareness itself until
they arise indivisibly as having “one taste” (ro gcig, Skt. ekarasa). In Outer Korde
Rushen, mind and body are pushed to unaccustomed extremes by acting out
imaginary existences as animals, hell beings, demi-gods, or whatever the mind
conceives, leading to the spontaneous recognition of the self-created, and thus
mutable, nature of conditioned existence. When the capacity for physical and
imaginative expression is exhausted, the practitioner enters a natural state of ease
(rnal du dbab pa) in a posture corresponding to an open-eyed “corpse pose”
(śavāsana) in Hatha Yoga. The thought-free mental state is identified as the
˙
“primal purity” (ka dag) of the mind’s essential and abiding nature rather than its
transient, and potentially deceptive, expressions.92
dation for the esoteric “instruction cycle” of Dzogchen teachings known as the Dzogchen
Nyingthik, or “Heart Essence of Great Perfection”.
89 Dowman 2014: 11. Besides the physical body, the exercises of Outer Korde Rushen engage the
voice through “chattering non-sensically or speaking in the tongues of [imagined] mythic
beings”, and the mind by consciously evoking positive and negative thoughts that ultimately
resolve into uncontrived, non-dual awareness (see ibid.).
90 Ibid. A Dzogchen treatise entitled “Flight of the Garuda” by Shabkar Tsokdruk Rangdrol
(zhabs dkar tshogs drug rang grol) (1781–1851) further˙instructs: “With the conviction that
Samsāra and Nirvāna are of one taste … walk, sit, run and jump, talk and laugh, cry and sing.
˙
Alternately subdued˙ and agitated, act like a madman … Beyond desire you are like a celestial
eagle soaring through space … free from the outset like bright clouds in the sky” (quoted in
Baker & Laird 2011: 115).
91 Translation based on Dowman 2014: 12. Gyatrul Rinpoche further clarifies this essential point
in his commentary to “Spacious Mind of Freedom” by Karma Chagmé Rinpoche (karma
chags med) (1613–1678): “If you wish to stabilize the mind, first subdue the body with the
adhisāras [yantra yoga] … although you are ostensibly working with the body, you are
indirectly subduing and stabilizing the mind” (see Wallace 1998: 69).
92 Although many Dzogchen treasure texts and commentaries elucidate the practices of Korde

The subsequent Inner Korde Rushen practices build on the cathartic

dramatisations of Outer Rushen and focus inwardly on six numinous seed-
syllables along the body’s central channel and on the soles of the feet associated
with inhibiting subconscious imprints.93 The practitioner clears each point in
turn by visualizing white, red, and blue light issuing from the antidotal seed-
syllables om āh hūm as consciousness shifts from identification with the body’s
˙ ˙ ˙
materiality to direct experience of its bioluminescence (nang gsal).94 As with
Outer Rushen, practice sessions alternate with motionless phases of concept-free
awareness in which thoughts subside within the luminous expanse of primordial
awareness (rig pa).
Outer and Inner Korde Rushen’s clearing of physical and psychosomatic
obstructions prepare the bodymind for the practices of Secret Rushen, which are
divided into three progressive stages of Body, Voice, and Mind. The Body phase
begins with a highly strenuous isometric balancing posture – the “position of the
vajra” (rdo rje’i ’dug stang). Standing with the heels together and knees bent and
stretched out to the sides, the practitioner pulls his or her chin towards the larynx,
lengthens the spine, and places their palms together above the crown of the head
while visualizing themselves as an indestructible blazing blue vajra (see Figure 6).
Observing the flow of energy and sensation within the body while pushing
through barriers of exhaustion, pain, and perceived futility, the practitioner
maintains the position until his or her legs collapse and then continues in a
modified posture while sitting on the ground until capable of resuming the
standing posture.95 At the end of the session one utters the seed-syllable phat and
˙
lies down on the ground in a state of unconditioned concept-free awareness “like
a corpse in a charnel ground”. When thoughts arise, one repeats the process in
Rushen, the summary presented here draws substantially from oral instructions given in July
1987 in Kathmandu by Dilgo Khentse Rinpoche and Dhungtse Thinley Norbu Rinpoche.
93 The precise instructions for Korde Rushen practices vary between different Dzogchen line-
ages. In some, the “Purification of the Six Lokas” as described here is performed prior to the
Outer Rushen described above. As with all aspects of Dzogchen, the key point is never
technique but the end result: integrating awareness of the mind’s innermost non-dual nature
within all circumstances and experience. Generally, in Inner Rushen the seed-syllables ah su
nri tri pre du correlate with the forehead, throat, heart, navel, base of the trunk, and soles of
the feet.
94 Bioluminescence within humans has been associated with photon emission resulting from
metabolic processes in which highly reactive free radicals produced through cell respiration
interact with free-floating lipid proteins. The thus aroused molecules can react with chemicals
called fluorophores to emit “biophotons” and thus produce a subjective experience of illu-
mination.
95 The development of increased mental and physical capacities by pushing through habitual
limits recalls the biological phenomenon of hormesis whereby beneficial effects such as
increased strength and resilience, growth, and longevity can result from deliberate and
systematic exposure to therapeutic stress.

368 Ian A. Baker
continuing cycles of effort and repose until the tenacious illusion of an abiding
self yields to an all-pervasive, endorphin amplified awareness. As Jigme Lingpa
explains in “Supreme Mastery of Wisdom Awareness”, “exhausting the physical
body exhausts the discursive tendencies of the mind” and leads ultimately to
realisation of the mind’s essential nature.96
Figure 6: A Bhutanese manuscript illustrating the “secret” phase of Korde Rushen as described in
the “Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse”.
The intensity of the Dzogchen vajra position alters the flow of psychosomatic
energies and encourages the emergence of adaptive mental and physical ca-
pacities as the mind progressively disengages from non-productive adventitious
forms of consciousness and recovers its innate dimension of bliss, lucidity, and
non-conceptual awareness. Secret Korde Rushen then continues with voice
practices involving sound and vibration97 that culminate with visualisations and
intonations of the alpha seed-syllable āh to enter into direct experience of the
˙
96 See Dowman 2014: 15.

97 In the Voice Phase of Secret Rushen the practitioner visualises and intones a blue seed-
syllable hūm that multiplies until small hūm-s imaginatively fill the entire universe. The
˙ sounds of hūm then fill one’s entire
syllables and ˙ body propelling it imaginatively through
˙ razors, dissolving all outer appearances and, turning inward,
space. The hūm-s then act like
˙
all semblance of one’s physical body. At the end of the session one again lies down as in the
practice of the Body Phase and remains in vivid open presence. When thoughts arise one
begins the practice anew, using the primal energy represented by the seed-syllable hūm to
alter habitual perceptions and attachments to consensual appearance. ˙

pure potentiality, or “emptiness” (stong pa nyid, Skt. śūnyatā) that underlies

perception and represents the ultimate Nature of Mind. Dissolving all appear-
ances into effulgent light, the practitioner remains in a unified state of luminous
cognition, or relativity, beyond conventional conceptions of time and space.
The following Ultimately Secret (yang gsang) Phase of Korde Rushen dy-
namically unifies body, voice, and mind “in order to free what has been stabi-
lized”. In a fully embodied enactment of the Deity Yoga (lha’i rnal ’byor) asso-
ciated with Vajrayāna’s Development Phase (bskyed rim), the practitioner
manifests as a wrathful tantric deity, representing the creative volatility of sen-
sation, thought, and emotion. As the texts prescribe, the practitioner stands with
hands formed into horned mudrā-s while pivoting from left to right with heels
rooted in the earth. With eyes rolling in the sky, loud thought-subduing laughter
is emitted from the core of one’s being, filling all of space with the syllables and
sounds of ha and hi. As in all of the Korde Rushen practices that proceed
Dzogchen’s more widely known and practised contemplative techniques of
“cutting through” (khregs chod) and “leaping over the skull” (thod rgal), the body
is used to its fullest capacity to facilitate lucid, all-pervading awareness and
freedom within all experience. As Longchenpa warns, however, no ultimate re-
lease can be obtained through deliberate, purpose driven action: “When every-
thing is impermanent and bound to perish, how can a tight mesh of flesh, energy,
and consciousness reach out to touch its indestructible core?”98 He argues that all
contrived yogas serve only to estrange us from the supreme state of being: “If we
aspire to the ultimate state we should cast aside all childish games that fetter and
exhaust body, speech, and mind … and realize the uncontrived unity of every
experience.”99 From a Dzogchen point of view, the forceful actions of Tsalung
Trulkhor are thus only useful in so far as they support the direct and ultimately
effortless experience and perception of the self-effacing effulgence at the heart of
every moment.100 It is to this self-perfected and spontaneous yoga of illuminated
vision that the practices of Korde Rushen and the “Miraculous Wheel of
Channels and Winds” ultimately yield.
98 Translation from canto 19 of Longchenpa’s “Precious Treasury of Natural Perfection” (gNas

lugs mdzod), based on Barron 1998: 106 and Dowman 2010: 96.
99 Translation from canto 20 of Longchenpa’s “Precious Treasury of Natural Perfection” (gNas
lugs mdzod), based on Barron 1998: 107 and Dowman 2010: 98.
100 The seventeenth-century Dzogchen master Tsele Natsok Rangdröl (rtse le sna tshogs rang
grol) echoes this view in his statement that for ultimate realisation of the nature of mind
“you must mingle every moment of walking, sitting, eating, lying down [and thinking] with
meditation. It is therefore not necessary to always maintain a specific posture or gaze.” See
Schmidt 1993: 92.

370 Ian A. Baker
6. Tögal: Yoga of Active Perception
Dzogchen concurs with the larger Vajrayāna perspective that Tsalung Trulkhor
practices can improve health and wellbeing and prepare the body for trans-
formative tantric practices such as Fierce Heat (gtum mo, Skt. candālı̄). But the
˙˙
primary function within Dzogchen of all such physical practices is to harmonise
the body’s psychosomatic “winds” (rlung, Skt. vāyu) so that the non-dual nature
of awareness becomes directly manifest through the “heart essence” (snying thig)
contemplative technique of lhun grub thod rgal, literally “leaping over the skull
into a spontaneous state of perfection”, a method involving quiescent body
postures, mudrā-s, subtle breathing techniques, and focused gazes (lta ba, Skt.
drsti).101
˙˙˙
Lhündrup Tögal (lhun grub thod rgal) inverts the foundational yogic practice
of sensory withdrawal (so sor sdud pa, Skt. pratyāhāra) in which sense con-
sciousness is turned resolutely inward and instead extends perception outward,
“leaping over” conventional divisions to unite experientially with a sensuous
field of self-manifesting visions, based initially on entoptic phosphenes and
related phenomena within the eye.102 In “Supreme Mastery of Wisdom Aware-
ness”, Jigme Lingpa points out that the sublime visions of Tögal bear comparison
with the “empty forms” (stong gzugs, Skt. śūnyatābimba) that arise as visual
manifestations of consciousness during the practice of sense withdrawal in Kā-
lacakra. Similarly, the Kālacakratantra (4.195) refers to “garlands of essences”
(thig le’i phreng ba) that appear when gazing into the sky. The fact that the
Kālacakratantra and the Seventeen Dzogchen Tantras seminal to Dzogchen’s
esoteric “instruction cycle” (man ngag sde) both appeared in written form in the
101 Just as Trulkhor and Korde Rushen work on the principle that intentional somatic states
– from fluent postures to spontaneous movements – can influence cognition and affect not
only the contents of consciousness but its primary function, the quiescent body postures and
associated breathing techniques used in Tögal reconfigure visual perception, thereby al-
tering subjective representations and experience of reality. Early Tögal texts, such as those in
the eleventh-century Vima Nyingthik, also describe the use of a psychotropic decoction of
Datura (dha tu ra, Skt. dhattūra) to accelerate the manifestation of visions, the final distillate
to be introduced directly into the eyes using a hollow eagle’s quill. See Baker 2004: 194. Tögal
gazing techniques can also be compared with the well-known Hatha Yoga practice of trātaka
˙
in which the practitioner stares unblinkingly at an external object. ˙
102 From the Greek phos, meaning light, and phainein, to show, phosphenes refer to visual
events that originate within the eye and brain, either spontaneously through prolonged
visual deprivation or intentionally as a result of direct stimulation of the retinal ganglion
cells. A perceptual phenomenon common to all cultures, phosphene patterns are believed by
some researchers to correlate with the geometry of the eye and the visual cortex. Tögal
visions, however, often correlate more directly with entoptic (i. e., “within the eye”) phe-
nomena such as myodesopsia, the perception of gossamer like “floaters” suspended within
the eye’s vitreous humor, as well as leukocytes, or white blood cells, transiting through the
eye’s retinal capillaries and appearing subjectively as self-existing translucent spheres.

eleventh century103 suggests that later Dzogchen doctrines may have been directly
influenced by the Kālacakra’s elucidation of visual forms that are neither wholly
subjective nor wholly objective and, as such, illuminate the perceptual process
itself. The initial visionary appearances associated with Tögal practice are vividly
described by the Dzogchen master Dudjom Lingpa (bdud ’joms gling pa) (1835–
1904) in his “mind treasure” (gong gter) “The Vajra Essence: From the Matrix of
Pure Appearances and Pristine Consciousness, a Tantra on the Self-Originating
Nature of Existence” (Dag snang ye shes drva pa las gnas lugs rang byung gi rgyud
rdo rje’i snying po):
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 … Then as you become 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 ap-
pearance 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.104
Dudjom Lingpa clarifies that, as a result of continued practice, the visions

gradually stabilise and “appear in the forms of lattices and half-lattices, trans-
parent like crystal, radiant like gold, and like necklaces of medium-sized strung
crystals.” Once the beginner’s phase has passed, Dudjom Lingpa continues, “the
visions of the absolute nature become beautiful, clear, and stable, and they take
on various divine forms.”105
The visions of Tögal gradually expand and encompass the “three bodies” (sku
gsum, Skt. trikāya) of Dharmakāya, Sambhogakāya, and Nirmānakāya, referring,
˙
in Dzogchen, to Buddha Nature’s inconceivable totality, luminous clarity, and
spontaneous creativity. The visions arise through applying “key points” of
posture, breath, and awareness associated with each of the three dimensions of
reality. In distinction to the moving yogas of Tsalung Trulkhor, Tögal practice is
performed while maintaining “three-fold motionlessness of body, eyes, and
consciousness”.106 The “Garland of Pearls” (Mu tig rin po che’i phreng ba), one of
103 The Seventeen Dzogchen Tantras are traditionally held to have originated with the semi-
legendary figure of Garab Dorje (dga’ rab rdo rje) and to have been transmitted through the
subsequent Dzogchen masters Mañjuśrı̄mitra, Śrı̄simha, Padmasambhava, Jñānasūtra, and
Vimalamitra. In the eighth century, Vimalamitra’s˙ Tibetan student, Nyangban Tingzin
Zangpo (myang ban ting ’dzin bzang po) was said to have concealed these teachings for
future generations and it is only after their ostensible rediscovery in the eleventh century by
Neten Dangma Lhungyal (gnas brtan ldang ma lhun rgyal) that the Seventeen Tantras
became the basis of Nyingma’s Dzogchen Nyingthik, or “heart essence” tradition.
104 Wallace 2004: 302.
105 Ibid.
106 The earliest textual descriptions of Tögal are found in the Seventeen Dzogchen Tantras and

372 Ian A. Baker
the principal Seventeen Dzogchen Tantras, emphasises the importance of three

body positions (bzhug stang) described as “the postures of lion, elephant, and
sage”, corresponding to the Dharmakāya, Sambhogakāya, and Nirmānakāya,
˙
and by association with emptiness, clarity, and sensation (see Figure 7).107 In the
Dharmakāya posture of a seated lion (chos sku bzhugs stang seng ge lta bu) the
torso is held upright (to allow the free flow of energy) with the soles of the feet
placed together and the hands behind the heels in vajra fists (with the tips of the
thumbs touching the base of the ring finger). The upper body is extended up-
wards with the chin tucked slightly inward (to suppress discursive thought) and
the spine and back of the neck lengthened so as to allow the free flow of vital
energy through the cranial arteries and associated “light channels” connecting
the heart and eyes. With the breath extended outward through gently parted teeth
and lips and the abdomen pulled slightly inward, the eyes are rolled inward (ldog)
and upwards past an imagined protuberance at the crown of the head into the
limitless expanse of inner and outer sky.108 In the Sambhogakāya posture of a
recumbent elephant, one’s knees are drawn towards the chest (to increase met-
abolic heat) with the feet pointing backward and the elbows placed on the ground
with the hands either positioned in front as vajra fists or supporting the chin (to
inhibit coarse energy flow) as the spine elongates and the eyes gaze with soft-
focus (zur) to the sides and ahead into pure visions reflecting the innate activity
of conscious perception. In the Nirmānakāya posture of the sage (rsi), one sits
˙ ˙˙
straight up (to open the channels and release the diaphragm) with the soles of the
feet on the ground (to suppress the water element), one’s knees and ankles
together, and the arms crossed in front with elbows resting on the knees and the
hands optionally tucked into the arm pits. As Jigme Lingpa clarifies in “Supreme
Mastery of Wisdom Awareness”,
pulling the knees against the chest allows fire energy to blaze as luminous awareness.
Slightly retracting the lower abdomen towards the spine inhibits discursive thought
[presumably through the associated stimulation of the vagus nerve and the para-
their primary source, the “Continuity of Sound”. All subsequent accounts of Tögal such as
Jigme Lingpa’s “Supreme Mastery of Wisdom Awareness” quote extensively from the
original Dzogchen Tantras while offering additional commentary.
107 Personal communication, Chögyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche, Kathmandu, December 1993.
108 This gaze associated with the lion posture correlates with śāmbhavı̄mudrā in Hatha Yoga,
˙
which is popularly held to synchronise the two hemispheres of the brain and lead directly to
samādhi. In regard to the three postures as a whole, the “Continuity of Sound” specifies that
“the crucial method is to apply reverted, lowered, and indirect gazes.” As a result, in the lion
posture “you will see with the vajra eye.” In the posture of the recumbent elephant “you will
see with the lotus eye”, and in the posture of the squatting sage “you will see with the dharma
eye” (personal communication Dhungtse Thinley Norbu Rinpoche, Kathmandu, July 1987).

sympathetic nervous system] while … placing the elbows on the knees with the hands in
vajra fists and using them to support the throat equalizes heat and cold.109
In the Sage posture the gaze is directed slightly downward through half-closed
eyes to control the body’s vital energies and still the mind. Jigme Lingpa points
out that there are many other additional postures suitable for Tögal, but that “for
the innumerable heirs of tantra who prefer simplicity, the three described here
are sufficient.”110
Figure 7: The primary Tögal postures of lion, elephant, and sage on a mural of the Lukhang
temple.
In distinction to the nasal breathing that is predominantly used during the

dynamic movements of Trulkhor, Tögal postures are combined with extended
and almost imperceptible exhalations through the mouth, with the lips and teeth
slightly parted and the body in absolute repose.111 Breathing in this way dimin-
ishes the amount of oxygen circulating in the lungs and is held to free con-
sciousness from its conditioned “karmic winds” (las kyi rlung) so as to more
109 See Dowman 2014: 49.

110 Ibid.
111 Exhalation and inhalation in Tögal practice are ideally naturally suspended as in the Hatha
Yoga technique of kevala kumbhaka in which both breathing and mental activity ˙are
spontaneous stilled.

374 Ian A. Baker
effectively reveal the postulated “wisdom wind” (ye shes kyi rlung) in the heart
through which consciousness ultimately transcends the corporeal body. For
while Vajrayāna as a whole brings body, mind, and respiration into a renewed
functional unity, Dzogchen ultimately maintains the supremacy of an integral
awareness transcendent of the physical body. As such, the postures, breathing
methods, and gazes associated with Tögal practice are ultimately designed to
dissolve the physical constituents of the body at the time of death, transforming it
into self-illuminating rainbow light. Central to this emancipating agenda are the
embodied visions and progressive stages of “leaping over the skull” (thod rgal).
Tögal practice relies on reflexive awareness of a unitary dimension tran-
scendent of mental experience (khregs chod). It is also based on sustained
awareness the body’s interactive “channels of light” (’od rtsa) through which the
innate luminescence of heart-consciousness (Skt. citta) is perceived outwardly in
progressive, self-illuminating displays (see Figures 8 and 9). As Padmasambhava
declares in a chapter of the Khandro Nyingthik entitled “The Hidden Oral In-
struction of the Dākinı̄”, other teachings differentiate between channels, energy,
˙
and subtle essences; in the “heart essence” teachings these three are indivisible.112
Padmasambhava goes on to describe the human body as a Buddha Field infused
by luminescent wisdom (’od gsal ye shes, Skt. prabhāsvarajñāna) in the same way
that “oil [pervades] a sesame seed”. The oral instructions further clarify how, in
the practice of Tögal, the body’s elemental constituents manifest as five lights
(’od lnga) and four illuminating lamps (sgron ma bzhi),113 held to be purified and
expanded expressions of Buddhahood (sangs rgyas kyi go ’phang). Through the
specific postures, breathing methods, and gazing techniques of Tögal, the body’s
inner luminescence projects outward into the field of vision as spontaneously
forming mandala-s and optic yantras inseparable from innate enlightenment. As
˙˙
Padmasambhava summarises: “The nature of one’s body is radiant light.”114
Rising from its center is the “great golden kati channel” (ka ti gser gyi rtsa chen)115
which issues from the heart and through which the five lights of one’s essential
nature radiate (gdangs) outward as five-fold wisdom (ye shes lnga) and four
successive visions (snang ba bzhi) leading ultimately to the body’s demateriali-
sation at the time of death into a “rainbow body” (’ja’ lus).
112 See Lipman 2010: 38.

113 The four lamps represent somatic sources of illumination and are most commonly listed as
the “all-encompassing watery eye lamp” (rgyang zhags chu’i sgron ma), the “lamp of empty
essences” (thig le stong pa’i sgron ma), the “lamp of the pristine dimension of awareness”
(dbyings rnam par dag pa’i sgron ma), and the “lamp of naturally originated wisdom” (shes
rab rang byung gi sgron ma).
114 Lipman 2010: 57.
115 For an elaboration of light channels in Dzogchen see Scheidegger 2007.

Figure 8: A practitioner of Tögal contemplates the “vajra chain” on a Lukhang mural.
The Four Visions (snang ba bzhi) integral to Tögal practice occur sequentially
and are said to arise from the heart as visible expressions of the innate dynamism
of unconditioned awareness. They also represent the manifestation of the body’s
channels, winds, and vital essences in their subtler reality as primordial purity,
spontaneous accomplishment, and radiant compassion (ka dag, lhun grub, thugs
rje) that correlate, in turn, with the interconnected triune Bodies of Enlighten-
ment (trikāya). The visionary experiences are said to appear due to the “wind of
luminosity” (’od gsal gyi rlung) that arises from the pristine “awareness wind” (ye
shes kyi rlung) located in the heart. The four successive phases are described as
the Direct Perception of the Ultimate Nature, the Vision of Increasing Experi-
ence, the Perfection of Intrinsic Awareness, and the Dissolution [of Phenomena]
into the Ultimate Nature. Pema Lingpa points out in his fifteenth-century
treasure text “Secret Key to Channels and Winds” (Rtsa rlung gsang ba’i lde mig)
that, as the visions are physiologically based, they only arise by maintaining the
key points of physical posture, “just as the limbs of a snake only become apparent
when it is squeezed”.116 The first vision arises as a result of turning one’s attention
to naturally occurring phenomena within the “watery lamp” of the eye, as de-
116 For a translation of Terton Pema Lingpa’s “Secret Key to the Channels and Winds” see Baker
2012, 2017a and 2017b. Pema Lingpa’s “treasure text” illuminates the fundamental dynamics
of mind and body at the heart of the Dzogchen tradition, specifically the ways in which
primordial unitary awareness (rig pa) arises vibrantly and unconditionally in response to
physiology and perception pushed beyond their accustomed limits in states of waking,
sleeping, dreaming, sexuality, and near-death experiences.

376 Ian A. Baker
scribed above by Dudjom Lingpa. Although the garlands of pearls, gossamer

threads, vajra chains, and transiting orbs that initially appear within one’s field of
vision may have naturalistic explanations as eye “floaters” and magnified red
and white blood cells117 transiting through the retinal capillaries, the entoptic
events nonetheless focus awareness towards normally overlooked phenomeno-
logical processes and illuminate the ways in which a shift in perspective, or
change in the way one views things, can fundamentally alter subjective experi-
ence. Central to this process is what Jigme Lingpa clarifies as “inner spaciousness
shining visibly outward” within a coalescent awareness in which boundaries
between inside and outside no longer obtain. The visions of the innate (lhun gyis
grub pa) radiance of the heart develop as shape-shifting phosphenes and optical
symmetries that gradually manifest anthropomorphically as male and female
Buddhas within spheres of rainbow-colored light. Penultimately they resolve into
four spheres – signifying the photonic essence of the four primary elemental
processes within the human body – surrounding a larger central orb signifying
“space”, or boundless potentiality.118 The central circle dilates through steady
foveal gaze, expanding beyond circumference or periphery as the inherent lu-
minescence of unmodified consciousness. Practised in environments of total
darkness and expansive light, Tögal optimises sensory perception and leads
ultimately to the posited awakening of all-encompassing luminescent and
spontaneously compassionate awareness, or Buddha Mind.119
117 Tantric Buddhist physiology describes the body in terms of polarised red and white essences
(bindu, Tib. thig le) that join at the heart at the moment of death or through tantric yogic
praxis. This principle of complementary is anticipated in verse 60 of the Yogacūdāmani
˙ red˙is
Upanisad: “The bindu is of two types, white and red. The white is śukla (semen) and the
˙
mahārajas (menstrual blood). … The white bindu is the moon; the red is the sun. It is only by
the union of the two that the highest state is attained. When the red bindu, induced by the
power of kundalinı̄ together with the vital air, mixes with the white bindu one becomes
˙ ˙ who realises the harmonious blending of the two bindus alone knows yoga”
divine. The one
(vv. 60–64). Translation adapted from Ayyangar 1938: 288.
118 Comparisons can be made with “Haidinger’s brush”, an entoptic phenomenon in the visual
field correlate of the macula in response to polarised light and associated with the circularly
arranged geometry of foveal cones. The phenomenon appears most readily against the
background of a blue sky and was first described in 1844 by the Austrian physicist Wilhelm
Karl von Haidinger.
119 For further details see Baker 2012 and 2017b, and Baker & Laird 2011. As a practice of
integral presence and recursive perception, Tögal can be considered a form of sāmarasya
– the simultaneous practice of dhāranā (focused attention), dhyāna (contemplative medi-
tation), and samādhi (coalescent unity)˙ – leading to self-transcendent integration with the
spontaneously arising visionary forms. From a Dzogchen perspective, the visionary phe-
nomena are considered autonomous naturally unfolding perceptual processes based on the
non-duality of subtle physiology and somatic awareness, resulting in a subjectively liberated
experience of perception and reality.

7. Conclusion
As this chapter has hoped to emphasise, the word hathayoga first appears in
˙
Vajrayāna Buddhism’s Guhyasamājatantra where it serves as an adjunct practice
120
for facilitating visionary experience. Although the specific method of that
initial Hatha Yoga technique remains obscure, its stated optical intention relates
˙
it with the recursive visionary practices of Tögal.121 More characteristic Hatha
˙
Yoga practices involving physiological mudrā-s were introduced to Tibet through
the Amrtasiddhi while the practice of Fierce Heat (gtum mo) central to Tibetan
˙
Buddhist lineages from the time of Milarepa is based on the intensive application
of the “great seal” (mahābandha) which combinines mūlabandha, uddiyāna-
˙˙ ˙
bandha, and jālandharabandha in conjunction with held “vase” breaths (kum-
bhaka, Tib. bum pa chen) and auxiliary “miraculous movements of the wheel of
channels and winds” (rtsa lung ’khrul ’khor). Although the sequenced move-
ments of Trulkhor predate the development of sequenced postural yoga in India
and may have been directly influenced by indigenous Bön traditions, ritual
dance, and yet unexplored historical connections with Chinese traditions of dao
yin, they share a common soteriological method with Indian Hatha Yoga and
˙
rose to prominence during roughly the same time period, as exemplified in the
murals depicting Pema Lingpa’s mid-fifteenth century Trulkhor cycle entitled
“The Secret Key to the Channels and Winds” (rtsa rlung gsang ba’i lde mig).122
As with Indian Hatha Yoga, the somatic practices of Vajrayāna Buddhism use
˙
dynamic means to harmonise polarised modes of consciousness through the
symbolic medium of the body’s central channel (madhyamā, madhyanādı̄,
˙
susumnā, avadhūti).123 They progress, in Dzogchen, to a reorientation of somatic
˙
and attentional processes and an awakening of the heart’s posited potential as an
organ of recursive perception (see Figure 9). By directing attention to what is
commonly overlooked the mind becomes increasingly aware of normally sub-
conscious processes and thereby develops insight, clarity, and adaptability that
120 See Birch 2011: 535. “Visionary experience”, in this context, can be associated with bringing
conscious attention to subliminal perceptual events normally below the threshold of
awareness. Research may ultimately suggest correspondences between interoceptive per-
ception, i. e., supraliminal perception of autonomic physiological processes, and structural
modifications of the anterior cingulate and, by extension, corresponding alterations of
conscious awareness itself.
121 See also n. 11.
122 See Baker 2012 and 2017b.
123 The central channel can be partly understood in contemporary medical terms in relation to
the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis that regulates the flow of mood-altering hor-
mones within the human body. Tibetan yogic pratices such as Fierce Heat (candālı̄, Tib.
˙˙
gtum mo) cultivate proprioceptive sensation along a bioenergetic current paralleling the
spine and linking the pelvic region with the interior of the brain, thus subjectively uniting
experiential poles of consciousness associated with these distal regions of human anatomy.

378 Ian A. Baker
contribute to an openness of being and expanded experience of human em-

bodiment. Somatic practice as described in Vajrayāna and Dzogchen ultimately
transcends its cultural context and points towards the awakening of collective, if
unrealised, human capacities. Forceful Hatha Yoga-like practices ultimately
˙
matter less in this process of self-transcendence than the expanded conscious-
ness represented by “leaping over the skull” (thod rgal). As a deeply embodied
practice, Tögal literally alters physiological processes through changing the way
they are perceived, intensifying subjective experience of the bodymind as well as
one’s interactions with the external world.124 The liberating reorientation of
consciousness at the heart of Tögal is expressed concisely in the “All Creating
King Tantra” (Kun byed rgyal po’i rgyud, Skt. Kulayarājatantra), one of Dzog-
chen’s earliest texts: “With no need of transformation or purification, pure
presence [within the body] is perfected in itself.”125 Jigme Lingpa elaborates as
follows:
The pith essence of the Great Perfection is to dwell in the natural radiance of all that
occurs, at one with actions, energies, and thoughts and beyond all contrived boundaries
of view and meditation; at ease in the naked clarity of the present moment.126
Outside the tradition of Vajrayāna, the mystically inclined poet William Blake
(1757–1827) who first used the words “doors of perception” captured the essence
of the self-transcendent and liberating vision of Tögal in a resonant line from his
poem “The Mental Traveller”: “The Eye altering alters all.”127 Applying that
perceptual formula to the persistent illusion of an “I” and awakening to trans-
personal dimensions of consciousness absent of cognitive and emotional strife
lies at the heart of somatic practice in both Vajrayāna and Dzogchen, a process
that involves altering, i. e., “making other”, our embodied experience and, in so
doing, promoting alternate forms of awareness that transcend perennially lim-
iting perspectives and preoccupations. In short, seeing through the eyes of the
heart into a world that is forever renewed by our perceptions and consequent
interactions.
124 It echoes, for example, Gregory Bateson’s concept of “creative subjectivity” in which one, in
part, functions as “an artist creating a composite out of inner and outer events” (quoted in
Brockman 1977: 245).
125 See Norbu & Clemente 1999: 146. The Kun byed rgyal po is considered the most important of
the twenty-one texts of the “mind cycle” (sems sde) of Dzogchen, all of which emphasise the
innately pure and expanded consciousness that is inseparable from enlightenment (byang
chub kyi sems). The Kun byed rgyal po elaborates on more concise renditions of self-existing
enlightenment such as found in the earlier six-line root text of “The Cuckoo of Awareness”
(Rig pa’i khu byug).
126 See Dowman 2014: 36.
127 “The Mental Traveller” was never published during Blake’s lifetime, but was included in a
private collection of ten poems without illustrations or corrections.

Figure 9: “Yak eye” on a Lukhang mural highlighting recursive, non-dual vision.
List of Figures
Fig. 1 “Position of the Peacock” (Skt. mayūrāsana) as shown in a Qing Dynasty manu-
script from the Imperial Treasury illustrating the twenty-eighth of a sequence of
thirty-two yogic exercises (’khrul ’khor) from the Hevajra Lamdre (Lam ’bras) as
presented by Drakpa Gyaltsen (grags pa rgyal mtshan). Photograph courtesy of the
Library of the Palace Museum, Beijing, China.
Fig. 2 Late seventeenth-century mural in the Sixth Dalai Lama’s private meditation
chamber in the Lukhang temple, Lhasa, illustrating a sequence of twenty-three yogic
movements (’khrul ’khor) revealed two centuries earlier by Orgyen Pema Lingpa
(orgyan padma gling pa) in his “Secret Key to the Channels and Winds” (rTsa rlung
gsang ba’i lde mig). Photograph by Ian Baker.
Fig. 3 Tshewang Sitar Rinpoche performing an “adamantine cross-legged drop” (rdo rje
dkyil dkrungs ’beb) from the twenty-one movement Rigdzin Trulkhor cycle in the
“Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse” (Klong chen snying thig). Gaden Lhakhang,
Ura, Bhutan, May 2013. Photograph by Ian Baker.
Fig. 4 A Dzogchen master presses on a disciple’s carotid arteries to point out the pri-
mordial unity of emptiness and bliss (bde stong zung ’jug). An illustration of the
“adamantine wave” (rdo rje rba rlabs, rdo rje rlabs chu) practice described in Orgyen
Pema Lingpa’s “Introductory Commentary to the Pearl Garland of Introductions
[to the Nature of Mind] in Six Sections” (Ngo sprod kyi bu yig ngo sprod mu tig
phreng ba le’u drug pa), illustrated on a corner mural in the Lukhang temple, Lhasa.
Photograph by Ian Baker.

380 Ian A. Baker
Fig. 5 Tshewang Sitar Rinpoche performing an “adamantine cross-legged drop” (rdo rje
dkyil dkrungs ’beb) from the twenty-one movement Rigdzin Trulkhor cycle in the
“Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse” (Klong chen snying thig). Gaden Lhakhang,
Ura, Bhutan, May 2013. Photograph by Ian Baker.
Fig. 6 A Bhutanese manuscript illustrating the “secret” phase of Korde Rushen practices
as described in the “Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse” (Klong chen snying thig).
The standing “position of the vajra” is pictured to the left and practices of the voice,
using the seed-syllable hūm, on the right. Photograph courtesy of Pelden Dorji,
˙
Bumthang, Bhutan.
Fig. 7 The primary Tögal postures of lion, elephant, and sage, as illustrated on the western
mural of the Lukhang temple in Lhasa. The seed-syllable āh in the rainbow-en-
˙
circled nimbus symbolises the mind’s primordial “alpha” state. Photograph by Ian
Baker.
Fig. 8 A practitioner of Tögal contemplates the “vajra chain”, manifesting as a “string of
pearls” backlit by the sun. Detail from the northern mural, Lukhang temple, Lhasa.
Photograph by Ian Baker.
Fig. 9 The “yak eye” manifesting within pellucid space highlights the recursive vision
characteristic of Tögal practice. Detail from the northern mural in the upper
chamber of the Lukhang temple in Lhasa. Photograph by Ian Baker.
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Part B.
Globalised Yoga

Chapter 9
Yoga within Viennese Occultism: Carl Kellner and Co.
Karl Baier

388
Contents
1. Occultism: A Neglected Dimension of Viennese Modernity 389
2. Kellner’s Bourgeois Secular World 392
3. Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, and High-degree Freemasonry:

Kellner’s Bourgeois Occult World 394
4. Occult Philosophy of Nature: Hartmann, Vivekananda, and Kellner on

Ether and Life Force, Ākāśa and Prāna 406
˙
5. Kellner’s Encounter with South Asian Yogis and His Essay on Yoga 409
6. Yoga and Ritual Sex within the Inner Occult Circle and the Early O.T.O. 421
7. A Mystical Ascension within the Pleasure Gardens:

The Manuscript “Reincarnation” 427
8. Coda: Herbert Silberer’s Theory of Mysticism 431
References 435


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Ian A.

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on its little-known applications within Dzogchen (rdzogs chen), Vajrayāna’s

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Buddhist practices of physical cultivation developed within the larger context

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10 See Birch 2011: 535.

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2. Tsa Uma: The Axis of Awareness

As explicated in the “Stainless Light” commentary, the methods of the Kāla-

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ceivably be related to neuropeptides, amino acid based molecules, including endorphins,

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The Amrtasiddhi makes no mention of either cakra-s or kundalinı̄, but is clearly

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3. Trulkhor: Yoga of Breath and Movement

The Amrtasiddhi, or “Perfection of the Elixir of Immortality”, makes the first

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28 Following Lokesh Chandra, another Sanskritised rendering of Trulkhor is vāyvadhisāra,

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The earliest datable descriptions of external yogic exercises in Tibetan Bud-

34 Wang-Toutain 2009: 29.

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een-set Trulkhor in the “Turquoise Heart Essence” is roughly contemporary with

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describes in detail six preliminary physical exercises based on Phagmo Drupa’s

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54 See Wang-Toutain 2009: 29.

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4. Nyingthik: Heart Essence of Tibetan Yoga

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categorised as Anuyoga, “subsequent yoga”. When such techniques are used in

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62 Chögyal Namkhai Norbu (personal communication, Glass House Mountains, Australia,

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“The Fruition that is the Culmination of Meditation”, describes twenty Trulkhor

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(Rig ’dzin ’khrul ’khor), a Trulkhor cycle of twenty-one movements elaborating

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for altering consciousness within the context of Tsalung Trulkhor include a

Some subsequent “Heart Essence” treasure works such as the exclusively

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5. Korde Rushen: Yoga of Spontaneous Presence

The physically embodied practices of Tsalung Trulkhor were a core component

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Dzogchen is presented within Tibetan tradition as “beyond all mental con-

perspective, Dzogchen considers Trulkhor exercises to be contrived means appropriate only

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sde, Skt. upadeśavarga), counsels accordingly: “Perform bodily yantras [Trul-

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