I am looking for instructions and coaching in the Clear Light practice (part of the six yogas of Naropa).
Can anyone recommend straight-forward written instructions on this and/or someone who would be willing to do online coaching with me?
I can appreciate this is an advanced practice, and that this would typically be taught, in person, in a retreat environment.
I have Multiple Myeloma and my immune system is quite weak, so flying to group retreats is less viable now, not to mention the time of COVID we are currently living in.
I’ve got quite a bit of training in Mahamudra and Dzogchen, as well as various physical and subtle body practices in both Tibetan and Taoist systems. I’m hoping that with some coaching that I be able to approach this practice. I have a very serious medical condition, and there is no time to lose at this point!
Hi @mriramos111 - I’ll run this by @Andrew and see if he has any advice to share. Perhaps some other members in the Club will also have some advice. Wishing you well
Hi Marie, you can refer to my chapters on the Clear Light Mind in Dreams of Light for starters. You can explore the nuances of sleep yoga, as described in the chapter on it in my book Dream Yoga. To get specific training in the Six Yogas, you would need to jump through all the hoops; do all the preliminary work, get the lung for the practice text, etc. That’s not so simple. But the spirit of the practice can be done by working with Mahamudra and Dzochen, or any other formless level of practice.
Another approach is to dive deep into bardo yoga, especially the teachings related to the Luminous Bardo of Dharmata. I’ll be offering an entire week on this topic this coming spring – no date set yet. Wishing you the best.
Hi! I know that so many people here are super fluent and skilled Tibetan Buddhist practices (which I’m not too familiar with yet but very interested in). That being said, for anyone dealing with health issues, I would HIGHLY recommend checking out Dr. Joe Dispenza (Dr. Joe along with Andrew are my go to’s right now). He has a boatload of science based teachings and people are healing from all kinds of seemingly impossible conditions like terminal cancer, MS, Parkinson’s and so many other more benign conditions because of the epigenetic changes that they are creating by applying his teachings.
Specifically, right now with what you have going on, I would recommend getting the first Blessing of the Energy Centers Meditation (start there as there are 4 of them), because if a chakra (he likes to call them energy center) is incoherent, then incoherent energy is going out into your body. So, this mediation is going to help you create coherent energy in your chakras.
I would also recommend getting Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, both the book and the meditations that go with it.
Also, go to his website drjoedispenza.com, then click on ‘resources’ and then ‘testimonials’ and then ‘heal self’. There are soooo many testimonials of people healing and you can derive inspiration and hope from them. I love a testimonial by a woman named Sansan, she was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis (an eye condition), Graves’ disease, and other conditions and healed herself by applying Dr. Joe’s work. I LOVE watching the testimonials because it opens the mind to what is possible.
Lastly, look up heart brain coherence on youtube (I love Gregg Braden’s explanation) and you’ll learn what it is and how to create it for yourself (the Heartmath Institute has been studying this for 40 yrs).
There is a new meditation called Synchronizing Your Energy to Health but if you aren’t accustomed to sensing where your 1st chakra is, where your pineal gland is, and accustomed to practicing convergent and divergent focus, it might be too big a leap start with. If you’re really feeling his work, purchase the online intensive/progressive workshop. Lastly, there is a ton of stuff on youtube that you can watch. Hope this helps and that it’s not repetitive of things that you already know.
Great recommendations. Where might they be found? I didn’t see them on my first look at the website. I think there is a typo in the URL in your post. This is the correct address. Thanks for the cogent writeup that motivates me to try these resources. Downloaded the audiobook you recommend Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself with my monthly Audible credit. Looking forward to learning more about self-healing through his practices
Have you consider consulting with a Tibetan Master like Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche, from the Nygnma Tradition. Look into the Padmasambhava Buddhist Center (padmasambhava. org). Hope you you get to realized the clear light in this life time…
Thanks Vanessa for taking the time respond to my post. I’ll check out his site.
I do have a good Integrative MD that I’m working with (in addition to the fine doctors at UCSF in San Francisco). So I’m blessed in many ways and am now in year 7 with this blood disease.
One thing worth remembering: there is ONLY the clear-light. That means right here right now. Some of the above practices can facilitate this recognition because they work to lessen the display that usually distracts us. But the clear light is all there is. Really. Look up, that’s the clear light. Observe a thought, that’s the clear light. Another way to say this, there is only nirvana. Samsara is born from partial recognition, or often no recognition, of this truth. In one of the most frequently repeated lines of The Tibetan Book of the Dead: “Recognition and Liberation are simultaneous.” You only have to open the aperture of your heart and mind, and recognize what is always already right here. It’s hiding in plain sight.
@Sujata My feeling is that any Dzogchen Teachings like the Fivefold Teachings of Dawa Gyaltsen and similar Heart Essence Instructions need to be transmitted by a qualified Dzogchen Teacher otherwise there is great chance to intelectualize the meaning and miss it alltogether.
@cloudragon yes, agreed, it is a beautiful daily practice. And it guides oneself to experiencing clear light.
And also, as his heart essence teaching, it encompasses — in a beautiful five line nutshell — the essence of his realization of a lifetime of meditation, which culminated in him taking rainbow body. He passed it on in a mouth-to-ear transmission to Taphiritsa, his student and 25th master of the Zhang Zhung Snyan grud transmission lineage, one of the three main dzogchen lineages in the Yungdrung Bön tradition. For those who like to read more, this is a great book by H.E. Lopon Tenzin Namdak on the subject. Masters of Zhang Zhung
Thank you Andrew.
re: ‘open the aperture of your heart and mind’ … yes, and the aperture of ‘the body’.
Speaking of which, wow, great interview with scholar/mystic Fr Francis Tiso! Not the kind of conversation you hear every day. Remarkable.
“Remember the Clear Light, the pure, clear white light from which everything in the universe comes, to which everything in the universe returns, the original nature of your own mind. The natural state of the universe unmanifest. Let go into the Clear Light. Trust. Merge with it. It is home.”
