esposito zogchen in china

Images of Tibetin the 19th and 20th Centuries

Volume II

Études thématiques 22

Images of Tibetin the 19th and 20th Centuries

Volume II

Edited by Monica ESPOSITO

École française d’Extrême-Orient

2008

Images of Tibet in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Textes réunis et présentés par Monica Esposito, Paris : École française d’Extrême-Orient, collection « Études théma tiques », 22, vol. II, 2008. 428 p. ; 27,5 ╳ 18,5 cm.Notes en bas de page. Index. Illustrations. Résumés en anglais et en français.

ISBN : 9782855396743ISSN : 1269-8067

Mots-clés : Reception of Buddhism, Tibet, Japan, China, West, Sino-Tibetan relations, Orientalism, Tibetology, Esoteric Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhist Art, Anthropology of Religion, History of Ideas

Réalisation : KOBAYASHI Tsuneyoshi

© 2008, École française d’Extrême-Orient.22, avenue du Président Wilson, 75116 Paris, Francehttp://www.efeo.fr/

VOLUME I

CONTENTS

x List of illustrations

xiii Introduction by Monica ESPOSITO

xxi Conventions

xxii Map of Tibet

WEST

5-60 Urs APP

The Tibet of the Philosophers: Kant, Hegel, and Schopenhauer

63-96 Isrun ENGELHARDT The Nazis of Tibet: A Twentieth Century Myth

99-111 Elena DE ROSSI FILIBECK Tibet: The “Ancient Island” of Giuseppe Tucci

113-147 Lionel OBADIA Esprit(s) du Tibet – Le bouddhisme tibétain en France : topographies paradoxales, territorialisation et économie de l’imaginaire tibétophile

149-176 Hartmut WALRAVENS

Some Notes on Early Tibetan Studies in Europe

179-198 Donald S. LOPEZ, Jr. Tibetology in the United States of America: A Brief History

JAPAN

203-222 OKUYAMA Naoji The Tibet Fever among Japanese Buddhists of the Meiji Era translated by Rolf Giebel

225-242 ONODA ShunzØ The Meiji Suppression of Buddhism and Its Impact on the Spirit of Exploration and Academism of Buddhist Monks translated by Monica Esposito

245-262 FUKUDA YØichi The Philosophical Reception of Tibetan Buddhism in Japan translated by Rolf Giebel

CHINA – Part 1

267-300 SHEN Weirong & WANG Liping Background Books and a Book’s Background: Images of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism in Chinese Literature

303-327 Gray TUTTLE

Tibet as the Source of Messianic Teachings to Save Republican China

329-356 Ester BIANCHI

Protecting Beijing: The Tibetan Image of Yamåntaka- Vajrabhairava in Late Imperial and Republican China

359-385 Françoise WANG-TOUTAIN

Comment Asa∫ga rencontra Maitreya : contact entre bouddhisme chinois et tibétain au XXe siècle

387-427 CHEN Bing The Tantric Revival and Its Reception in Modern China translated by Monica Esposito

VOLUME II

CONTENTS

CHINA – Part 2

433-471 LUO Tongbing The Reformist Monk Taixu and the Controversy about Exoteric and Esoteric Buddhism in Republican China

473-548 Monica ESPOSITO rDzogs chen in China: From Chan to “Tibetan Tantrism” in Fahai Lama’s (1920-1991) Footsteps

551-577 Henry C. H. SHIU Tibetan Buddhism in Hong Kong: The Polarity of Two Trends of Practice

579-609 YAO Lixiang The Development and Evolution of Tibetan Buddhism in Taiwan translated by Liu Jingguo

611-681 CHEN Qingying and WANG Xiangyun Tibetology in China: A Survey

TIBET

687-704 Erberto LO BUE

Tibetan Aesthetics versus Western Aesthetics in the Appreciation of Religious Art

707-724 Karénina KOLLMAR-PAULENZ

Uncivilized Nomads and Buddhist Clerics: Tibetan Images of the Mongols in the 19th and 20th Centuries

727-745 Patricia BERGER

Reincarnation in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction: The Career of the Narthang Panchen Lama Portraits

747-779 Antonio TERRONE Tibetan Buddhism beyond the Monastery: Revelation and Identity in rNying ma Communities of Present-day Kham

781-796 Sabina RAGAINI

Life and Teachings of Tashi Dorje: A Dzogchen Tulku in 20th Century Kham

799-815 Matthew T. KAPSTEIN

“Tibetan Tibetology”? Sketches of an Emerging Discipline

817-856 Index of Proper Names

858-859 List of Contributors

rDzogs chen in China: From Chan to “Tibetan Tantrism” in Fahai Lama’s (1920-1991) foot-steps

In Southeast China, on the slopes of the Southern Celestial-Eye Mountains (Nan Tianmu-shan—Zhejiang), there is a Chinese monastery founded by a Sino-Tibetan master known as Fahai Lama (1920-1991). After having received Chan Buddhist teachings from the monk Huiding, Fa-hai Lama was initiated by the sprul sku Gangs dkar rin po che (1893-1957) into the bKa’ brgyud and rNying ma traditions. In 1961, he withdrew into a cave located in the Southern Celestial-Eye Mountains where he devoted himself to rDzogs chen (Great Perfection) practices. This extraordi-nary contact point for modern Sino-Tibetan Buddhism provides the setting for our presentation and comparison of some religious practices and views of rDzogs chen and Chinese Buddhism. These data are presented on the basis of Chinese texts and manuscripts belonging to Fahai Lama. They concern mostly oral teachings about Tibetan Great Perfection conferred on Fahai Lama by Gangs dkar rin po che. The manuscripts presented here for the first time, are a precious tool for showing how rDzogs chen texts were translated and interpreted during the 1930s and 40s in Chi-na and how Tibetan rDzogs chen views and practices were perceived by the Chinese. Finally, this contribution provides the first annotated list of Sino-Tibetan rDzogs chen texts and manuscripts.

Le rDzogs chen en Chine : du Chan au « Tantrisme tibétain » sur les traces de Lama Fahai (1920-1991)

Sur le versant sud des montagnes de l’Œil Céleste (Nan Tianmushan), au sud-est de la Chine (Lin’an, Zhejiang), se trouve un monastère fondé par un maître sino-tibétain connu sous le nom de Lama Fahai (1920-1991). Après avoir reçu les enseignements du bouddhisme Chan d’un moine nommé Huiding, Lama Fahai fut initié par le sprul sku Gangs dkar rin po che (1893-1957) aux traditions bKa’ brgyud et rNying ma. En 1961, il se retira dans une grotte sur les flancs du Nan Tianmushan pour se consacrer à la pratique tibétaine du rDzogs chen ou de la Grande Perfection. Ce sanctuaire, dans lequel une rencontre extraordinaire entre le bouddhisme chinois et tibé-tain eut lieu vers la fin du XXe siècle, constitue le cadre de cette étude pour présenter et comparer les points de vue et les pratiques de ces deux grandes traditions religieuses. Cette présentation se fonde, en grande partie, sur des manuscrits recueillant les enseignements oraux donnés par Gangs dkar rin po che à Lama Fahai. Ces manuscrits sont un outil précieux pour montrer comment les textes du rDzogs chen furent transmis pour la première fois en Chine pendant les années 1930 et 1940, et comment ils furent perçus et interprétés par les chinois vers la fin du siècle dernier. Cette étude se termine en dressant pour la première fois une liste annotée d’ouvrages et de manuscrits

rDzogs chen traduits du tibétain en chinois.

RDZOGS CHEN IN CHINA

FROM CHAN TO “TIBETAN TANTRISM” IN FAHAI LAMA’S (1920-1991) FOOTSTEPS

Monica ESPOSITO*

I t was a beautiful November day in 1988. One of my friends and I decided to take a bus at 9:00 a.m. from Hangzhou 杭州 to Lin’an 臨安 (Zhejiang prov-ince). We arrived at the Lin’an bus station after two hours and intended to

continue to Yuhuangping 玉皇坪 where there was reported to be a Buddhist monas-tery of a so-called Fahai Lama 法海喇嘛. After a short interrogation at the office of the People’s government (Renmin Zhengfu 人民政府), a policeman drove us to the house of the only declared Buddhist believer in Lin’an at that time: the wife of the Chinese medicine maker. She was delighted to meet Westerners who seemed to be Buddhist devotees. She appeared even more captivated by the strong and muscu-lar body of my Italian friend. Turning to him, she said: “You must be hungry, aren’t you? Let’s have lunch first. We will go buy some food for the temple later.”

After the vegetarian lunch, which was hardly enjoyed by my well-built friend, we went to the market to buy some fruit, vegetables, and heavy bags of potatoes. I was wondering how we could reach the monastery with all this stuff. When I saw my new Chinese friend—Miss Yang—buy some big pumpkins, I thought that a tractor was certainly waiting for us. But the look on the face of my friend, loaded with two huge bags on his back, seemed to indicate that he had no such hope.

We began our ascent from the village of Guifangqiao 桂芳橋村 around 3:30 in the afternoon. Miss Yang and I were talking in a friendly way, carrying some light bags of fruit and vegetables. My friend, under the weight of the huge bags of pota-toes and pumpkins, followed some steps behind us. As we were climbing Miss Yang told me how some years ago she had met the lama, that her husband and sons disap-proved of her visits to the lama’s temple, and that they disliked the small Buddhist altar she had erected in the corner of the terrace at their house. But above all they did not like her religious beliefs. She turned proudly to me saying she did not feel ashamed, but people in Lin’an viewed unfavorably the establishment of this mon-astery of young nuns with an elderly lama who was said to have come from Tibet.

* I am grateful to Urs App, Anne-Marie Blondeau, Shen Weirong, Donatella Rossi, and Phyllis Brooks for their comments and suggestions.

Images of Tibet in the 19 th and 20 th Centuries Paris, EFEO, coll. « Études thématiques » (22.2), 2008, p. 473-548

474 Monica Esposito

Some of them even insinuated that the lama was teaching sexual techniques and practicing them with his young nuns. After having said this to me she whispered in my ear: “I think it is a bit strange: Fahai Lama is very different from the monks I usually meet on my pilgrimages. He likes joking and often makes sexual jokes. He has magical powers … he can also cure diseases!” Turning back to her normal voice she added, ”What matters is that there is finally a Buddhist temple in our vicini-ty where I can go whenever I like to make offerings.” She gave a cheerful look at my friend who was breathing heavily under his load.

After a short rest, we continued the second part of our climb. The closer we got, the more my curiosity about such a secluded place inhabited by a lama, maybe Tibetan, and his young nuns was growing. One and a half hours later we finally reached the gentle peak of the Southern Celestial-Eye Mountains (Nan Tianmushan 南天目山). The lama was standing in the late afternoon light waiting for us. With a smile he invit-ed us to enter the hall of the monastery under construction. Shortly afterwards, much to his regret, my Italian friend was relegated to a small building site at the foot of the monastery where some workers and male disciples of the lama were lodging.

Soon I found myself seated in cross-legged on the lama’s bed, wrapped in a mosquito net and listening to his teachings. I was not at all certain that I was under-standing what the lama was telling me. For a moment my thoughts focused on the small knot of flesh at the crown of his head wondering if it was a sign of his practical attainment or an ordinary cyst. The room was rather dark. There was only a small table with a bench and the bed where I was sitting. After a while a nun came in and left some small bowls with rice and vegetables on a simple table. After the meal, the lama took his leave of me and I ended up in the hall where Miss Yang was busily chatting with the young nuns. She introduced me to them and said, “Everything is ready. We are going to receive the initiation tonight.”

That is what happened and that very night I decided to extend my sojourn at Fahai Lama’s monastery. The present article is based on my field research and on materials and interviews collected between 1988-1991 and 1994-1996. On the basis of these data, I will discuss the reception of Tibetan Buddhism at this Chinese monastery through the story of its founder Fahai Lama who represents, as far as I know, a unique example of integration and accommodation of the most esoteric Tibetan teachings of rDzogs chen or Great Perfection (Ch. Dayuanman 大圓滿) in a Chinese monastic setting. The presentation includes the foundation story of Fahai Lama’s nunnery and a description of its daily life as well as Fahai Lama’s views on Chan and Tantrism with a special focus on his rDzogs chen or Great Perfection transmission.1

1 A first draft of parts of this article, in particular the biography of Fahai Lama and his teachings on thod rgal, were presented in “A Sino-Tibetan Tradition in China in the Southern Celestial-Eye Mountains: A First Comparison between Great Perfection (rDzogs chen) and Taoist Techniques of Light” (paper presented at the Conference on “Tantra and Daoism: The Globalization of Religion and Its Experience,” Boston University, April 19-22, 2002). See also Monica Esposito, “Una tradizione di rDzogs-chen in Cina. Una nota sul Monastero delle Montagne dell’Occhio Celeste,” Asiatica Venetiana 3 (1998): 221-224.

rDzogs chen in China 475

A Short Biography of Fahai Lama

Very little is known about that lama whom I met standing in his red garments in the late afternoon light [Fig. 1]. Even the origin of his name, Fahai Lama, remains a mystery. He has not written about his life but in November 1984 he dictated some information to one of his disciples.2 All bio-graphical data we have stem from conversa-tions with his disciples. After his death such information was collected and published in a free booklet (printed in two thousand cop-ies) entitled Mian huai Fahai shangshi 緬懷法海

上師 or In Memory of Guru Fahai. According to this booklet, Fahai Lama (1920-1991) was born in Qinghai 青海 (Tib. A mdo) into a very poor family, probably from a Tibetan moth-er and a Chinese father. According to some of his disciples his father was a Chinese transla-tor of Tibetan.3 At age six he was sent to the dGe lugs pa (Ch. huangjiao 黃教) monastery at Ta’ersi 塔爾寺 (Tib. sKu ’bum) to guard sheep. When he was nine years old he took the novi-tiate vows under the guidance of Anjia huofo 安嘉活佛 (Tib. Am skya sprul sku?).4 Around the age of thirteen he left Ta’ersi and took the road for the south-east along with a Chinese monk called Xindao 心道 (i.e., Li Anxiang 李安詳, 1905-1968).5 Once he arrived in Fujian

2 This is a manuscript on the life of Huiding 慧定, Fahai Lama’s Chan master (see note 6), and titled Xiandai gaoseng Huiding fashi chengjiu zhuan 現代高僧慧定法師成就傳 [Biography of the realized master Huiding, a contemporary eminent monk]. It was recorded by Xiaoyin 小音 at the dictation of Fahai Lama on November, 6, 1984. In the summer of 1991, during my last sojourn at the monastery when I asked Fahai Lama to tell me more about his life, he gave me a copy of this manuscript. The last chapter on the views of Fahai Lama on Chan and Tantrism is reproduced in Appendix 1 and partially translated in the sections below. My thanks to Rev. Folian 佛蓮 for shar-ing with me the majority of Fahai Lama’s manuscripts and documents. See also Appendix 2.

3 “Shangshi Fahai Lama shengping jianshu” 上師法海喇嘛生平簡述 [Résumé on the life of the Guru Fahai Lama], recorded by Foci jushi 佛慈居士 on the oral transmission of Dong Jingbiao 董景標, in Mianhuai Fahai shangshi [In memory of Guru Fahai] (Hong Kong, 1995): 16-17, here 16; and “Jingang shangshi Fahai Lama shengqian” 金剛上師法海喇嘛生前 [Life of the Tantric Guru Fahai Lama], orally transmitted by the monk Folai 佛來, revised by the monk Fodao 佛道, recorded by Folian 佛蓮, in Mianhuai Fahai shangshi, 18-20, here 18.

4 The name of this master is only recorded by Fori 佛日 (i.e., Chen Bing 陳兵), “Mianhuai Fahai shangshi” [In memory of Guru Fahai], in Mianhuai Fahai shangshi, 6-15. This article was previously published in the review Fayin 法音 103 (1993.3): 11-16 and available at http://www.plm.org.hk/qikan/fayin/gindex.htm. See also the contribution by Chen Bing on pp. 406-407.

5 The name of the monk who brought Fahai Lama to China was originally given in Fori

Fig. 1: Fahai Lama at Qianfo chansi. (Photo offered by Fahai Lama to the author, August 1991)

476 Monica Esposito

he went to Gushan 鼓山 and joined its Buddhist Institute (Foxueyuan 佛學院) where he met the Chan master Huiding 慧定, a disciple of the famous master Xuyun 虛雲 (1840-1959).6 Huiding gave him the Dharma name ( fa ming 法名) Miaokong 妙空 and appointed him as one of his assistant secretaries [Fig. 2].7 He was then respon-sible for recording Huiding’s commentaries on Buddhist sutras, and at the age of nine teen he followed his master to Jiangxi to spread the Dharma.8 Some years later Fahai became abbot of the Yuantongsi 圓通寺 (in the Nanhai xinggong 南海行宮 of Nanchang 南昌, Jiangxi province) and, with the help of lay devotees he established in Nanchang a Buddhist Association with Huiding as president and himself as vice-president. Both of them were in charge of a review called Juewu 覺悟.9 It was around that time that the bKa’ brgyud (Ch. baijiao 白教) sprul sku (Ch. huofo 活佛) Gangs dkar rin po che (1893-1957; see Fig. 3), known in Chinese as Gongga Shangshi 貢噶上師 or Gongga Hutukutu (Khutukhtu) 貢噶呼圖克圖, came to Nanchang to lecture on Tibetan Buddhism.10 Fahai felt a profound affinity with this Tibetan master, and after

(i.e., Chen Bing, “Mianhuai Fahai shangshi,” 10) as Daoxing 道行. According to Chen Bing the name Daoxing is a mistake for Xindao; see the contribution by Chen Bing on p. 407 note 79. Chen Bing also recalls that Fahai told him that he left Ta’ersi because he was not satisfied with dGe lug pa’s interests (cravings) and decided to search for another path of liberation elsewhere (see Fori, “Mianhuai Fahai shangshi,” 10).

6 Huiding was born in the Anle 安樂 prefecture (Hubei 湖北). When he was 7 years old, he became monk. At 14 years old, he was ordained by Jingyue 淨月 at the Zhanghuasi 章華寺 of Yichang 宜昌 (Hubei). Later, he went to Jiangxi 江西 at the Gaomingsi 高明寺. Afterwards he reached Fujian and, at the Yongquansi 涌泉寺 of Gushan, he received Chan teachings from Xuyun (Xiandai gaoseng Huiding fashi chengjiiu zhuan, 1-27). For a biography on Xuyun see Charles Luk and Richard Hunn, Empty Cloud, the Autobiography of the Chinese Zen Master Xu-yun (Longmead: Element Books 1988). According to some disciples Fahai Lama, after hav-ing realized Chan’s three barriers (on this term see note 143), received the seal (yinzheng 印證) from Huiding and Xuyun (see Fori, “Mianhuai Fahai shangshi,” 10). He withdrew for three years with his master Huiding at Gushan, and before leaving Fujian he devoted himself to the seven meditation practices (dachanqi 打禪七) at Mount Xuefeng 雪峰. See “Shangshi Fahai Lama shengping jianshu,” 16.

7 “Shangshi Fahai Lama shengping jianshu,” 16. On the transmission of the Dharma names see Holmes Welch, “Dharma scroll and the successions of abbots in Chinese mon-asteries,” T’oung pao 50 (1963): 93-149, here 136-140, and The Practice of Chinese Buddhism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967): 279-281. According to Fori (“Mianhuai Fahai shangshi,” 10), the Dharma name Miaokong belongs to the Yunmen tradition 雲門宗 and corresponds to the same generation of masters like Foyuan 佛源 and Jinghui 凈慧.

8 See “Shangshi Fahai Lama shengping jianshu,” 16.9 “Shangshi Fahai Lama shengping jianshu,” 16-17

10 Gangs dkar rin po che, Karma bshad sprul chos kyi seng ge, the fifth incarnation of the sprul sku from ’Bo Gangs dkar monastery [Fig. 4] was a famous Tibetan master who often came to China for transmitting Tibetan teachings. According to the biography written by his disciple Mi nyag mgon po (’Bo Gangs dkar sprul sku’i rnam thar dad pa’i pad dkar, Beijing: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1997), Gangs dkar rin po che came to China three times. The first time, from 1936 to 1939, he visited many places, and it seems that he passed through Nanchang before returning to his monastery in 1939. The second time was in 1946-49, and the third time in 1953-55. More on this master in Carmen Meinert, “Gangs dkar rin po che between Tibet and China,” in Buddhism Between Tibet and China, ed. Matthew T. Kapstein (Boston: Wisdom Publications 2008). The


a while he left Nanchang in order to visit his monastery11 on Mount Gangs dkar in the region of Mi nyag (today’s Liuba 六巴 district of Xikang 西康 [Tib. Khams]; see

contemporary Tibetan master, Namkhai Norbu (b. 1938) met him when he was invited to China in 1954. He heard from Gangs dkar rin po che many explanations on the sixfold yogas of Nåropa, Mahåmudrå, the dKon mchog spyi ’dus, as well as Tibetan medicine; see Namkhai Norbu, The Cycle of Day and Night, trans. & ed. John M. Reynolds (New York: Station Hill Press, 1987): 95-100, here 98. It is worthy of attention that Namkhai Norbu gives for Gangs dkar rin po che the dates 1903-1956. On the works transmitted by Gangs dkar rin po che in China, see Appendix 2. For a biography on Gangs dkar rin po che see also the contribution by Chen Bing on p. 400, and Chen Jifu 陳濟博, et al. Fujiao guangjue chanshi Xikang Gongka hutuketu benzhuan 輔教廣覺禪師

西康貢噶呼圖克圖本傳 (extracts of which are available at http://fo.usard.com/Gongge.html and http://www.nuona.com/nuona/Article_Show.asp?ArticleID=187). See also note 11.

11 According to “Shangshi Fahai Lama shengping jianshu” (p. 16), Fahai Lama was 29 years old when he went to see Gangs dkar rin po che. According to “Jingang shangshi Fahai Lama” (p. 18), he was 26 years old. Fori [Chen Bing] (“Mianhuai Fahai shangshi,” 10) originally mentioned that it was in the 40s that Fahai Lama went to see Gangs dkar rin po che, but in his contribution to this volume (p. 337 and note 81) he asked me to revise it to 1949. This date is sup-ported by the Chinese biography on Gangs dkar rin po che by Wang Desheng 王德生 (available at http://nanshi.shixiu.net/download/). According to the biography of Huiding (Xiandai gaoseng Huiding fashi, 27; Appendix 1, [1]), Fahai said that he was at that time more or less twenty years old (法海喇嘛二十岁上下去貢嘎山学密宗，…) . Thus I follow the dates that seem in agreement with Fahai Lama’s own record as well as with the life of Gangs dkar rin po che who visited China for the first time during 1936-39 (and Nanchang in 1939). See also note 10. The date 1949 may refer to the second time Fahai Lama was said to go to see Gangs dkar rin po che (see below).

Fig. 2: Miaokong, the young Fahai Lama. (Photo offered by Fahai Lama to the author, November 1988)

Fig. 3: Gangs dkar rin po che. (Source: Yangdui 仰兌, Hong Kong/Tai-bei: Tantrayana Publications, 1981-1985, vol. 3)

478 Monica Esposito

Fig. 4).12 Fahai was introduced by Gangs dkar rin po che to bKa’ brgyud and rNying ma (Ch. hongjiao 紅教) esoteric practices before withdrawing into a cave on Mount Gangs dkar.13 Very little is known about the time he spent there. In an interview I conducted in 1994 with Mi nyag mgon po, a disciple of Gangs dkar rin po che and author of his biography, he told me that he had some memories of a Chinese monk called Miaokong (i.e., Fahai Lama).14 The fact that Mi nyag mgon po remembered him under the name of Miaokong indicates that at that time he was not yet known as Fahai Lama. It is difficult to know when, how, and from whom he received this name. What is interesting is that the choice of such a name seems to point to an harmoniza-

12 In September 1994 when Jean-Luc Achard and I visited Gangs dkar monastery in the framework of a research mission supported by CNRS European project, we realized that there were in reality two monasteries named Gangs dkar: the more ancient is located east at the summit of Mount Gangs dkar (7,556 meters) while the second one, at its foot, named in Chinese Gonggasi 貢噶寺, was built during the Ming (1368-1643); see Zhou Xiyin 周錫銀 et al. (eds.), Zangchuan fojiao siyuan ziliao xuanbian 藏傳佛教寺院資料選編 [Selected materials of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries] (Chengdu: Sichuansheng minzu shiwu weiyuanhui, 1989): 29. The monastery at the foot [Fig. 4] was the official center of Gangs dkar rin po che’s tradition. It is in its lha khang that the mummy of Gangs dkar rin po che is still kept. According to Mi nyag mgon po, the site at the summit of Mount Gangs dkar was abandoned at the beginning of the 20th century. It was mainly used for spiritual retreats but it also served for festivals and dance performances at least until 1950.

13 Fori (“Mianhuai Fahai shangshi,” 12) tells that Fahai Lama used to speak freely of his past faults and delusions. Once he told him that when he was in a cave on Mount Gangs dkar, while everybody was taking only two meals for a day and did not fall asleep in the night, he was the only one who was taking three meals for a day and fall asleep in the night.

14 I am indebted to Heather Stoddard for having introduced me to Mi nyag mgon po and for her help in translating parts of this interview. See also the previous notes 10 and 12.

Fig. 4: Gangs dkar monastery, Mi nyag region [Khams]. (Photo by M. Esposito, September 1994)

tion of Chan and Tantrism since, as is well known, Fahai was traditionally regarded as one of the leading disciples of the Sixth Chan Patriarch Huineng,15 and Lama (Tib. bla ma, Skt. guru) stands for the spiritual master, the holder of a Tantric lineage who has the authority to transmit and initiate into the esoteric tradition of the tantra.

According to Mi nyag mgon po, Miaokong did not talk a lot and was very devoted to practice. He took notes on everything Gangs dkar rin po che said. As he could not speak Tibetan, people translated for him. However, he could talk to and understand Gangs dkar rin po che because the latter could speak Chinese. For practice, Gangs dkar rin po che taught him in Chinese. He transmitted to him the Mahåmudrå; the yoga of the channels, energies and luminous spheres (Tib. rtsa rlung thig le); and rDzogs chen along with the transmission of the Ye shes bla ma.16 It is unknown how long Fahai Lama was able to stay at the monastery because in the seventh month of 1950 the Chinese occupying army arrived. Mi nyag mgon po was no longer there at that time and he did not know when Fahai Lama left.

According to some Fahai Lama’s disciples, Fahai Lama stayed at Gangs dkar around five years (from 1940s to 1945) before going to Shanghai where he worked at a medical institute located in the area of Ningbeilu 寧北路 and Henan zhong-lu 河南中路. This was the time when Chinese traditional medicine and the so-called qigong 氣功 (practice/manipulation of breath-vital energy) began to be promoted by the government; Fahai Lama was known there as an expert in both qigong and acu-puncture. Under the guise of a physician he could transmit Buddhist teachings dur-ing the fondation years of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).17 At the beginning of the 50s Fahai Lama decided to return to Khams. But after arriving in Chengdu he learned that the Tibetan region had been occupied by the Red Army and that Gangs dkar rin po che had been indicted and put under house arrest. He was thus obliged to make his way back to Shanghai.18 In 1961 he withdrew into the Southern

15 John McRae, “The Ox-Head School of Chinese Ch’an Buddhism: From Early Ch’an to the Golden Age,” in Studies in Ch’an and Hua-yen, eds. Robert M. Gimello and Peter N. Gregory (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1983): 169-252, here 189-191.

16 More on this transmission below. For the Ye shes bla ma see also note 52 and Appendix 2, texts n° 2, 15 and 18.

17 “Jingang shangshi Fahai Lama shengqian,” 19. Fahai Lama’s medical ability seems also to have been improved thanks to therapeutic methods he received from his Tibetan master Gangs dkar rin po che (see note 10). For a presentation of qigong and its link with Chinese tradi-tional medicine and Chinese government see David Palmer, La fièvre du qigong (Paris: Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 2005, now also available in English as Qigong Fever: Body Science and Utopia in China, New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), and below. It seems that when Fahai Lama withdrew to the Southern Celestial-Eye Mountains he used to cure local people and was known as doctor La (La yisheng 拉醫生). See Fori, “Mianhuai Fahai shangshi,” 10.

18 “Shangshi Fahai Lama shengping jiangshu,” 16. One may assume that this refers to a short visit Fahai Lama made in 1949 with a group of Chinese monks as described by Wang Desheng (see note 11). Mi nyag mgon po in his interview seems to remember this visit as he added that Chinese monks including Miaokong (i.e., Fahai Lama) could not stay longer than 1950. At that time Gangs dkar rin po che was put under house arrest. For a concise descrip-tion of events in Tibet during the Chinese Communist invasion see Melvyn C. Goldstein and


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Celestial-Eye Mountains (Nan tianmushan 南天目山).19 During a long retreat that lasted until the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Fahai practiced in a cave on the mountain-peak named Taijidong 太極洞 (Great Ultimate cave) that had ear-lier been occupied by the Daoist Yang Yuanhe 楊圓和.20 During this time his Chan master Huiding was with him. It was in front of this cave that Fahai eventually decided to establish his own monastery [Fig. 5 and Figs. 6-7].

The Foundation of Qianfo chansi, the Thousand Buddhas Monastery

Fahai recalled that one day during his long retreat when he was absorbed in med-itation, he had a vision of Vajrayogin¥ (Tib. rDo rje rnal ’byor ma)21 who revealed to him that the Southern Celestial-Eye Mountains (Nan Tianmushan) were a sanctuary

M. Kapstein (eds.), Buddhism in Contemporary Tibet (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), in particular the “Introduction” by Goldstein, 1-14.

19 Xiandai gaoseng Huiding fashi, 27; see Appendix 1. In the “Shangshi Fahai Lama sheng-ping jianshu” (p. 16), it is said that in 1958 Fahai Lama withdrew into the Southern Celestial-Eye Mountains (Nan Tianmushan), and that in 1964 he decided to settle there.

20 On the connection between Fahai Lama, the Daoist Yang Yuanhe, and the qigong, see Monica Esposito, Il qigong, la nuova scuola taoista delle cinque respirazioni (Padua: Muzzio, 1995): 70-71, and 138 note 3.

21 Vajrayogin¥ is associated with the cycle of Hevajra and is the doublet of Vajravåråh¥ (Ch. Jingang haimu 金剛亥母, Tib. rDor je phag mo). She has red and yellow forms. For an icon-ographic description of both, see Therèse Malmann, Introduction à l’iconographie du tantrisme bouddhique (Paris: Librairie d’Amerique et d’Orient A. Maisonneuve, 1975): 431-433. For a Chinese representation see below p. 525, Fig. 20.

Fig. 5: Qianfo chansi 千佛禪寺, the Thousand Buddhas Monastery. (Photo by M. Esposito, January 1989)


Fig. 6: Taijidong 太極洞, the Great Ultimate cave. (Photo by M. Esposito, April 1996)

Fig. 7: Fahai Lama and his disciples in front of Taijidong. (Source: Mianhuai Fahai shangshi 緬懷法海上師)

482 Monica Esposito

empowered by her and thus particularly propitious for Great Perfection practices.22 For that reason Fahai Lama told his disciples, he mainly devoted himself to rDzogs chen during his retreat there. Furthermore he learned from Vajrayogin¥’s revela-tion that the site of Southern Celestial-Eye Mountains was an ideal place for women’s practices related to the development of Great Perfection visions.23

When the Chinese government changed its religious affairs policy and allowed the rebuilding of temples and monasteries, the Southern Celestial-Eye Mountain range was, in spite of its Daoist background, officially recognized as a Buddhist sanctuary.24 From 1976 on, this site began to be visited by Buddhist lay devotees and monks who had heard about Fahai Lama’s achievements. Since the majority of visitors happened to be nuns, Fahai Lama decided to build a nunnery in accor-dance with Vajrayogin¥’s prophecy and thus to transmit his teachings particular-ly to women. Hence, the Qianfo chansi 千佛禪寺 or Thousand Buddhas Monastery was established as the first center of Sino-Tibetan practices for nuns, though Fahai Lama also planned to erect monastic buildings for monks at a later time. In fact he planned to build a large monastic community for thousands of nuns and monks with a Meditation Hall (chantang 禪堂), a Buddha Recitation Hall (nianfo tang 念佛堂) and a Tantric Shrine (mizong dian 密宗殿) in order to practice the three traditions of Chan, Pure Land, and Tantrism together. He also wished “to provide hospitali-ty and support for old retired people.” 25 Unfortunately this big project could not be achieved. In 1991, after Fahai Lama’s death, the community of nuns dispersed. The monastery is nowadays guarded by an old monk and some lay devotees who take care of the commemorative stupa built to preserve Fahai Lama’s relics and hope for tourism to pick up.

How did Fahai Lama organize life in his “Sino-Tibetan monastery”? What kind of Tibetan Tantric teachings was he conveying? How were these teachings harmo-nized with Chinese Buddhism?

Daily Life at the Thousand Buddhas Monastery

During my stay at Fahai Lama’s monastery the nuns woke up at 3:30 in the morning. At 4:00 the morning chanting service (zaoke 早課) began. A very light breakfast consisting of rice congee and pickles was served in the main hall on the

22 “Shangshi Fahai Lama shengping jianshu,” 16. 23 On these practices, see below.24 From 1979 there was a change in government policy towards religion and on this new

wave of liberation Chinese monasteries began to be restored. For a study on a Chinese mon-astery of dGe lugs tradition in Sichuan and the life of a nun called Longlian (1909-2006), who also passed through Chinese Cultural Revolution, see Ester Bianchi, The Iron Statue Monastery (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2001).

25 See Fori, “Mianhuai Fahai shangshi,” 10-11. It seems that this refers to the project of establishing a qigong sanatorium for old retired cadres (ganbu). The Chinese government via Lin’an local authorities was involved in this project which took shape during the 80s and 90s within the so-called qigong fever outbreak. See also below; more on this phenomenon in D. Palmer’s La fièvre du qigong.

ground floor which was used as combined refectory, place of transmission of teach-ings and study, service hall, etc. After this first meal of the day, every nun was free to return to her room and dedicate herself to daily tasks until 9:00 a.m. The majority of nuns practiced koutou 叩頭 or prostrations on wooden boards in a relatively large common room at the second floor [Fig. 8]. Others sat in meditation or practiced the sixfold yoga of Nåropa (Ch. liu chengjiu fa 六成就法, Tib. Nå ro chos drug; see Fig. 9). In the main hall on the ground floor a small group of nuns gathered to practice the so-called Vajra-boxing ( jingang quan 金剛拳), a simple qigong exercise. In a standing position with the feet open in line with the shoulders, they concentrated on the cin-nabar field (dantian 丹田) below the navel before raising their hands to chest height. Waving their hands forward, backward, left, and right, they visualized the heart as an opening lotus. Others in the same hall were studying or copying sacred texts.

At 9:00 a.m. the recitation of texts began in the main hall, and after that, Fahai Lama taught Buddhist sutras (i.e., xianjiao 顯教 or exoteric teachings) until lunch time, i.e., 11:30. After the vegetarian meal, the nuns were again free if they were not assigned to menial work that day. The afternoon was often dedicated to the study of the texts and to copying manuscripts that the lama had transmitted.

Around 4:00 p.m., a second session of reciting sacred scriptures began, fol-lowed by the evening chanting service (wanke 晚課) at 5:00. A frugal meal com-posed mainly of plain rice took place at 6:00 p.m. After that the nuns had a little free time before assembling in the main hall to listen to Fahai Lama’s esoteric teachings

Fig. 8: Nuns practicing koutou 叩頭 at Qianfo chansi. (Photo by M. Esposito, August 1989)


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known under the generic appellation of mizong 密宗.26 These consisted of initiation ceremonies, Tantric empowerments and transmissions on Vajrayogin¥, commen-taries on the sixfold yoga of Nåropa, on Mahåmudrå (Ch. Dashouyin 大手印), and finally on rDzogs chen or Great Perfection (Ch. Dayuanman 大圓滿). These teach-ings were often scheduled between 9:00 and 11:00 p.m. but sometimes they could last until midnight. Their duration was completely dependent on Fahai Lama’s dis-position that day. [Fig. 10]

The monastic life was thus apparently following the rules of a normal Chinese Buddhist monastery, but with two exceptions. Firstly, a strong emphasis was given to psycho-physiological practices like yoga, qigong, and koutou. Secondly, Buddhist teachings were clearly divided into xianjiao or exoteric teachings, which were taught during the day (often including Fahai Lama’s favorite sutras: Lotus Sutra and Flower Adornment Sutra [Avataμsaka-s¨tra]), and mijiao or esoteric teachings taught at night. These so-called esoteric teachings mainly involved, as mentioned above, Tibetan Tantric teachings. For nuns, monks and lays devotees at Qianfo chansi, Tantrism

26 Chinese masters refer to all kinds of Tibetan practices under the appellation of mizong. This term refers both to Tantric or esoteric Buddhist teachings of the Far-East and to the spe-cific “Esoteric Teaching” (mijiao) which was flourishing at the Tang court in a climate far from Tibetan influence. See Michel Strickmann, Mantras et mandarins (Paris: Gallimard, 1996): 32, 70, and Tachikawa Musashi 立川武藏 and Yoritomi Motohiro 頼富本宏 (eds.), Ch¨goku mikkyØ 中国密教 [Chinese esoteric Buddhism] (Tokyo: Shunkansha, 1999). See also the contributions by Chen Bing and Luo Tongbing. For a critical view on this term, see the Appendix 1 entitled “On Esoteric Buddhism,” in Robert Sharf, Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2002): 263-278.

Fig. 9: Rev. Folian 佛蓮 practicing the sixfold yoga of Nåropa at Qianfo chansi. (Photo by M. Esposito, August 1989)

was synonymous with Tibetan esoteric practices. Generally mizong referred to prac-tices focusing on visualization, on the circulation of qi and its subtle channels like, for instance, the yoga of Nåropa, the koutou, but also the qigong exercise of the Vajra-boxing.27 At the summit a more complex and esoteric system, known to them as Dayuanman (rDzogs chen), was taught by Fahai Lama only on special occasions and was regarded as the core of his Tibetan Tantric tradition.

Before presenting Fahai Lama’s transmission of rDzogs chen, which was unique to Qianfo chansi, it is important to discuss how Fahai Lama sought to reconcile Tantrism and the esoteric teachings he received from his Tibetan master Gangs dkar rin po che with Chan and Mahayana Buddhism in general, and how he explained this to his Chinese community. Being first of all a disciple of the Chinese Chan mas-ter Huiding, the challenge of harmonizing Chan and Tantrism was part of his experi-ence. The only written trace of Fahai Lama’s view of this problem is in a fragmentary biography dedicated to his master Huiding and entitled Xiandai gaoseng Huiding fashi chengjiu zhuan 現代高僧慧定法師成就傳 (Biography of the realized master Huiding, a

27 It seems that this view of amalgamating Tibetan Buddhism under the generic term of mizong—view which is still very common in today’s China and Taiwan—was not shared by all Chinese Buddhist masters. According to Françoise Wang-Toutain (“Quand les maîtres chinois s’éveillent au bouddhisme tibétain,” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 87.2, 2000: 707-727, here 725), when Qing Buddhist masters like Dayong, Fazun, Nenghai and their friends began to show interest in Tibetan Buddhism (in particular dGe lugs pa), they regarded it not only from the point of view of esoteric practices but also as a philosophical system which had conserved the original Indian teaching. On these dGe lugs pa Chinese masters see also the contributions by Françoise Wang-Toutain, Chen Bing, Luo Tongbing, and Onoda ShunzØ.


Fig. 10: Fahai Lama’s teaching session at Qianfo chansi. (Photo by M. Esposito, November 1988)

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contemporary eminent monk). It was recorded by his disciple Xiaoyin 小音 at the dic-tation of Fahai Lama on November, 6, 1984. As Chinese Buddhist master of 20th-cen-tury China, Fahai Lama explains in very simple words what, according to him, the essence of Tantric teachings consists of. Due to its importance, I summarize in the following sections the content of this document in form of a free translation of some of its passages related to this topic and included in its last chapter 5. The original Chinese manuscript has been reproduced in Appendix 1. Paragraphs numbers have been inserted in square brackets to facilitate orientation in the original Chinese text.28

How to Reconcile Chan with Tantrism29

Let us go back [1] to 1961 when Fahai Lama, already back in China from the Tibetan regions, withdrew to Yuhuangping, into the Great Ultimate cave (Taijidong) of the Southern Celestial-Eye Mountains (Nan Tianmushan) with his Chan mas-ter Huiding. One day Fahai Lama, knowing that his master Huiding could not yet understand why, after having received Chan teachings from him, he still wanted to go to Tibet and study Tantrism with Gangs dkar rin po che, said to Huiding: “Why did you, after Chan realization, want to listen to Huayan teachings?” 30

Huiding did not answer but for Fahai Lama it was clear that Huiding did not regard mizong as a Buddhist teaching worth studying. Huiding was familiar with the path of accumulation of merits in Mahayana Buddhism but he knew little about the esoteric path. For that reason Fahai Lama tried to explain to him that, though Chan and Tantrism were different in their views and practices, both were worthy of study. [2] Chan focuses on mind: the mind is the Buddha and there is no Buddha beyond the mind. This is why Chan is defined as “enlightening the mind to see your origi-nal nature” (mingxin jianxing 明心見性), and “seeing your nature to become Buddha” ( jianxing chengfo 見性成佛). By contrast, the esoteric path emphasizes the importance of the body as the medium to realize the truth and can be thus defined by “becoming Buddha in this body” ( jishen chengfo 即身成佛).31 If Mahayana-ordained monks and nuns can devote themselves to practice only once they cut off the source of delusion and Chan meditation can be seen like the means to cut off such sources—like remov-ing a stone which does not allow the grass to grow—Tantrism make use of delusions and see them as the marvelous activity of nirvana. The body is the abode of all truth and it is there that the mind resides too. To understand this, one has to know and experience the body and its psycho-physiological structure.

28 Xiandai gaoseng Huiding fashi, 27-36. On this material see also note 2 and Appendix 1.29 For this section see Appendix 1, [1-8].30 This refers to an episode in the life of Huiding. He was asked by master Xuyun why

after having obtained the enlightenment he still wanted to listen to the Huayan jing 華嚴經 or Flower Adornment Sutra (Avataμsaka-s¨tra). Huiding answered Xuyun that the reason was that one should continue to study Buddhism (Xiandai gaoseng Huiding fashi, 19-20).

31 The core of the esoteric path is in fact underlined by this expression that forms the ti-tle of the important work by K¨kai 空海, the Sokushin-jØbutsu-gi 即身成仏義. See the annotat-ed translation of this work by Hisao Inagaki, K¨kai’s Principle of Attaining Buddhahood with the Present Body (Kyoto: Ryukoku University, 1975).


Fahai Lama introduced his master Huiding to [4] the system of the seventy-two thousand channels,32 [5] the circulation of prana or qi 氣 in Chinese, and [6] the role of white and red bindu (Ch. mingdian 明點, luminous spheres).33 If Chan via its meditation works on the mind to cut off the source of delusion, [8] Tantrism via its yogic techniques works on channels, prana, and bindu (Ch. mai 脈, qi 氣, ming-dian 明點, Tib. rtsa, rlung, thig le) because they are the source of delusion as vehi-cles of consciousness. [5] Channels, prana, and bindu make possible everything from the movement of the limbs to the movement of the mind.34 [7] Tranquil and agi-tated minds are manifestations of these three. Channels, prana and bindu are at the source of human suffering in this world and of the manifestation of samsara with its six realms; but at the same time, if they are cultivated they produce bodhicitta, the enlightened mind. They are the source of delusion and the source of liberation.

[4] Among the channels, the most important is the central channel （Ch. zhong-mai 中脈) that runs from the genitals to the crown of the head. Parallel to it there are the left (Ch. zuomai 左脈) and right channels (Ch. youmai 右脈) which wrap around it creating constrictions. At these points of constriction there is also a net-work of smaller channels that prevent the prana or qi from circulating smoothly. It is then important to open the channels and make the qi circulate smoothly without obstructions because in [8] Tantrism one has to cultivate both the path of no inter-ruption (Ch. wujian dao 無間道, Tib. bar chad med [pa’i] lam) and the path of libera-tion (Ch. jietuo dao 解脫道, Tib. rnam grol lam).35

This was the first explanation of Tantrism that Fahai Lama conveyed to his mas-ter Huiding but it did not seem to produce any effects on him nor stimulate any cu-riosity in him.

32 In general, Hindu and Buddhist tantras agree as to the total number of the chan-nels, i.e., seventy-two thousand, but there are also other systems and numbers. See for in-stance, S.B. Dasgupta, An Introduction to Tantric Buddhism (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1950): 169-174, and Tara Michaël, “Nadi,” in Dictionnaire de l’ésotérisme, ed. Jean Servier (Paris: Presse Universitaire de France, 1998): 907-911.

33 The red bindu refer to blood and belong to the right channel; they have the function of heating the body. The white bindu consist of saliva and body fluids; they reside in the left chan-nel and have the function of producing spiritual bliss. When they enter the central channel they can bring perfection (chengjiu 成就). See Xiandai gaoseng Huiding fashi, 28, Appendix 1, [6].

34 The text goes into more detail explaining the five basic breaths (wugen benqi 五根本气) and the five motility breaths (wuzhi fenqi 五支分气). See Xiandai gaoseng Huiding fashi, 28-29, Appendix 1. The aim of Fahai Lama was to make Huiding understand the Tantric concept of body-mind in general terms (Xiandai gaoseng Huiding fashi, 28, Appendix 1, [5]). A specific sys-tem of “visionary anatomy” will be presented below in the context of the Great Perfection or rDzogs chen transmission.

35 See Xiandai gaoseng Huiding fashi, 29, Appendix 1, [8]. The path of liberation ( jietuo dao) is one of the graduated paths of practice which appears in various Yogåcåra texts. By follow-ing upon the instantaneous or uninterrupted path (wujian dao) one gains, after the path of ini-tiation of practices, the determination to destroy the afflictions and one is instantly liberat-ed from the latter; see Charles Muller (ed.), Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, at http://www.bud-dhism-dict.net.

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From Mantra Recitation to Tantric Initiation36

[9] Master Huiding, who had for decades never changed his Chan affiliation, did not show much understanding of Tantrism and thought that Tantrism was just something related to the recitation of mantras. [10] Fahai Lama told Huiding that Tantrism consisted of something more than reciting mantras and included a variety of principles and doctrines. Having heard this, Huiding asked Fahai Lama to explain them to him. Fahai Lama felt quite uncomfortable about such a request. How could it be possible that Huiding, who had a full understanding of Chan, still did not know that esoteric teachings, as the innermost spiritual experience beyond verbalization and conceptualization could not be explained; and could be transmitted only via initi-ation? When Fahai told Huiding this, the latter reacted by saying: “Please forgive me. Go ahead with your Tantric studies and I with my Chan practice. We still have many things to do together.”

[11] Although Huiding was apparently satisfied with this, Fahai Lama felt that Huiding still had doubts; he could not yet understand why his own disciple Fahai Lama continued to study Tantrism and why he continued to pursue something that was not “orthodox.” At the same time, Huiding probably also felt a kind of pity for his disciple who, after having realized Chan, abandoned it to study Tantrism. In contrast, from Fahai Lama’s viewpoint, there was no contradiction in his choice: it was clear to him that both Chan and Tantrism were necessary, and he felt that the moment was nigh to make Huiding understand it once and for all.

[12] Two days later Fahai knocked at the door of Huiding with a new strategy in mind. “Do you want to listen to Tantrist teachings or not?”—he asked Huiding.

“It does not matter if I want or not because I should be initiated in order to lis-ten; or can you explain it to me simply?”—Huiding replied.

This time Fahai said straightforwardly: “As I am your disciple, thanks to mak-ing offerings [to the protectors], I can explain some Tantric principles to you. This is one of the precepts of Tantrism.”

Delighted to hear this, Huiding urged Fahai Lama to do what he proposed. [13] Thus Fahai Lama transmitted to Huiding the method of the recitation and visual-ization of the sixteen syllable mantra of Vairocana. He told Huiding how to make the syllables circulate in the body from the navel, the point where the three impor-tant channels join, and then up to the chest, the throat and the space between the eyes. And to repeat this 1,000 times.

Huiding practiced it for seven days and very soon experienced the forgetting of subject and object, the emptiness of the body: all sounds and all things around him became the sound of Vairocana’s mantra. [14] Astonished by such quick results he went to see Fahai Lama and said to him: “Do you have something else to teach me?”

This time Fahai Lama felt embarrassed and unprepared and said to him: “I trans-mitted to you a little by making offerings, but I cannot continue without initiation.”

36 This section summarizes the content of Xiandai gaoseng Huiding fashi, 29-32, Appendix 1, [9-17].


To Fahai Lama’s surprise Huiding spontaneously answered: “Please confer the initiation to me.”

37 [17] That evening, in the guise of Gangs dkar rin po che, Fahai Lama conferred the initiation onto his Chan master Huiding. From that time on he transmitted Tantric teachings to his master Huiding every day.

Entering the Path of Liberation: Tantric Commitments, the Three Powers and their Resonance38

[18] First of all, in order to obtain realization, one has to observe Tantric com-mitments, which can be summarized simply as: 1. After the initiation, one has to practice according to the received teachings; 2. One must not break one’s commit-ments (samaya) and must believe in one’s own guru;39 if one has doubts, one has to repent and clarify them; 3. One has to realize one’s nature and understand what Tantrism and its esoteric teachings mean, what the practices are, and that one can realize them. This third point is the most important.

[20] Huiding practiced every day according to these precepts in the hall of Qian-fo chansi that was being built while he received Fahai Lama’s Tantric teachings. Af-ter having experimented the so-called path of no interruption (wujian dao), Huiding was taught about the path of liberation ( jietuo dao). When one enters this path one comes to be in resonance with three kinds of powers: the power of the innate nature of the universe ( fajie zixing li 法界自性力), the mysterious and majestic power of the divine mantras (mimi shenzhou weishen li 秘密神咒威神力), and the empowerment of all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas (zhufo pusa de jiabei li 諸佛菩薩的加被力).

[21] The power of the innate nature of the universe is the power of the spontane-ous nature of Samantabhadra which is present in everybody, though some realize this and others not. In ordinary beings who do not recognize this their consciousness is obscured as in a dream. In this state one is under the power of doubts, ignorance, at-tachment, and anger that in turn give birth to delusion, suffering, confusion, and evil actions. In contrast, those who realize the power of this nature are no longer con-fused and can use the supreme, perfect wisdom of emptiness, the perfection of in-sight (boruo boluomixin 般若波羅蜜心), and the mind of cognition-insight (zhihui xin 智慧心) to transform delusion into enlightenment. The cognition-zhi 智 has the func-tion of observing; and insight-hui 慧 has the function of making decisions. Thus the power of cognition-insight can clearly distinguish good from evil, cut off the evil and cultivate the good, transform the contaminated and corrupted seeds into uncontami-nated and luminous seeds, and transform the ordinary into the saintly.

37 This episode may recall the agreement of the Buddhist reformist monk Taixu 太虛 (1890-1947) to be initiated by the Panchen Lama as a sign of recognizing Tantrism as a self-standing teaching with its own rules and precepts. On this see the contribution by Luo Tongbing in this volume (p. 456).

38 For this section, see Xiandai gaoseng Huiding fashi, 32-36, Appendix 1, [18-28].39 The initiation or guanding 灌頂 includes the transmission of Tantric commitments or

precepts (Skt. samaya ßila, Ch. sanmeiye jie 三昧耶戒). On the content of these esoteric precepts in K¨kai’s tradition, see Ry¨ichi Abé, The Weaving of Mantra (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999): 43-44, 53-55.

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[22] The mysterious and majestic power of the divine mantras is the power of transforming discursiveness into wisdom. Heretics can recite mantras; but even though mantras belong to the power of the innate nature of the universe, they do not have the power of transforming discursiveness into wisdom. On the contrary, when Buddhist disciples recite the mantras received by their gurus, wisdom con-denses into light, and through daily recitation, they can cut off all karmic traces of evil and attain enlightenment.40

[23] The empowerment of all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas is the power of compas-sion. Buddhas and Bodhisattvas empower all beings with an enlightened view and wisdom so that when they recite mantras via the yoga practice they can receive an immmensurable empowerment and be in resonance (ganying li 感應力) with all their activities of body, mind, and speech. With the support of all Bodhisattvas, the mys-terious and majestic power can manifest itself and can change into the power of the innate nature of the universe.

[24] By the actualization of these three powers the so-called phenomenon of “Buddha entering me and I entering Buddha” (Ch. ruwo woru 入我我入, Jap. ny¨ga ga’ny¨) manifests.41 The three secrets (Ch. sanmi 三密, i.e., body, speech, and mind) of the Tathågata enter me and my three activities (sanye 三業) of body, speech and mind enter the Tathågata. The experience of such correspondence can be experi-enced by the practice of visualization of radiant letters of different colors according to the corresponding chakras or wheels.

[25] After this explanation, Fahai Lama finally transmitted to Huiding the meth-od of visualization and recitation of the four seed-syllables (Skt. b¥jas) in the four wheels related to the four elements. [26] He continued explaining Tantrism to Huiding for a whole month. Huiding practiced every day what Fahai Lama trans-mitted to him; he opened the channels and experienced different states in the four wheels (navel, chest, throat, and space between the eyes). The luminous and colored syllables circulated fast and without interruption in the wheels while his body was no more there, except for the sound of his recitation.

[27] After having realized the meaning of this esoteric path Huiding contin-ued to progress in his practice. Then he experienced a brand-new state: He had just entered in absorption when he heard a very clear whoosh! The sound was dis-

40 It is interesting to compare Fahai Lama’s explanations with Taixu’s view about the power of mantras described by Luo Tongbing in this volume (pp. 446-448).

41 According to Yoshito S. Hakeda (K¨kai Major Works, New York: Columbia University Press, 1972, 98), this is the essence of K¨kai’s esoteric Buddhist meditation which consists in “imitating.” This imitation is technically called the practice of “entering self into Self so that the Self enters into the self (ny¨ga ga’ny¨). The self is the individual existence and the Self, Mahåvairocana. … The climax is reached when the subject, while performing the acts of imi-tating, loses the awareness that he is imitating–the subject is transformed into the object, and the separation between the subject and object disappears.” See also the opinion by Minoru Kiyota (Shingon Buddhism: Theory and Practice, Los Angeles: Buddhist Book International, 1978, 136-137) who regards it as the symbolical interpretation of the Mahayana theory of nir-vana and samsara systematized by K¨kai in the theory of “instant Buddhahood–I-in-Buddha and Buddha-in-me.”


tinct and wonderful. At the same time a bright moon appeared in front of his chest. The white light pierced him and at the same time the sound grew faint. The rays changed into a strand that reached his pupils and went up to the TuΣita heavens (doushuo tian 兜率天) and the inner palace of Maitreya. From that time on, whenev-er he meditated he visited Maitreya, offered homage to him, and sent offerings of food and perfumes in the form of a beautiful goddess (tiannu 天女). [28] Such vision-ary states lasted one month until the entire body of Huiding was permeated with divine nectar (Ch. ganlu shui 甘露水, Skt. am®ta), a result of his having received the initiation from all the assemblies of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in this pure land. After that, Fahai transmitted the sådhana of the White Tårå and, finally, the Great Perfection (rDzogs chen) teachings to Huiding.

The Chinese rDzogs chen Transmission of Fahai Lama

The biography of Huiding stops just when rDzogs chen teachings begin. The passages translated above are a simple presentation of Fahai Lama’s views on esoter-ic teachings. As we know, even today the definition of Tantrism and its teachings is still a source of disagreement not only among Buddhists but also among scholars.42 Against the widespread opinion among Chinese Buddhists that Tantrism (including Tibetan Tantric Buddhism) is a heretical path, Fahai Lama explained via well-known formulas that it is a vehicle of enlightenment at the same level as Chan, and that it has its own doctrine and precepts. In reviewing the few doctrinal points he present-ed to his master Huiding, Fahai Lama relied on Japanese esoteric Buddhist terminolo-gy mixed with his own interpretation of Tibetan esoteric teachings.43 In contrast with Chan, Fahai Lama’s emphasis lies on the body (the system of channels, prana or qi cir-culation) and techniques related to visualization, divine blessings, communion with deities, recitation of mantras, etc. While summarizing esoteric precepts for Huiding, Fahai Lama explained that understanding the nature of mind and the meaning of esoteric teachings and their practice is the most important thing in the transmis-sion of Tantric commitments. Understanding is not just reasoning and analyzing, but

42 The difficulty the Chinese Buddhist community had in accepting Tantrism after a wave of “Tibet enchantment” is well testified, for instance, in the life of the monk Taixu and the changes in his views on esoteric Buddhism, and in particular on Tibetan Buddhism, dur-ing his career as a Buddhist reformer; see the contribution by Luo Tongbing in this volume. Today China is still dealing with this problem, a problem which has clear connotations of Tibetan and Chinese identity; see the contribution by Chen Bing in the first volume, in par-ticular the section titled “Difficulties and Problems of the Reception of Tantrism in the PRC.” More on how Tibetan Buddhism is today perceived and assimilated in Taiwan and Hong Kong can be found in the contributions by Yao Lixiang and Henry Shiu in this volume. See also the negative view on Tibetan Buddhism by Japanese scholars like Yamaguchi and Matsumoto as described by Fukuda YØichi in the first volume.

43 On the problem of reliance on Japanese esoteric Buddhist terminology in the earlier Chinese translations of Tibetan Buddhist texts, see also Gray Tuttle, “Translating Buddhism from Tibetan to Chinese in early 20th Century China (1931-1951),” in Buddhism Between Tibet and China, ed. M. Kapstein (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2008).

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requires transmission. Tantric initiation stands at the center: the confrontation of the innate nature of Samantabhadra and its resulting power of resonance—the experience of non-duality which animates visionary activity. It is only after such a full experience that the Chan master Huiding, having been regenerated by the blissful visions of his Maitreya, is seen as ready to receive rDzogs chen instruction.

According to Fahai Lama the transmission of rDzogs chen forms the core of the highest and ultimate Tantric vehicle. On the other hand, in his attempt at reconcil-ing Tantrism and Chan, he also claimed that the supreme esoteric rDzogs chen can be aligned with the overcoming of the last barrier in Chan.44 Realizing non-duality is at the center of both Chan and Tantrism, but their practice and achievements are different and depend on the disposition and nature of every disciple. The opportu-nity to study both traditions was unique to Fahai Lama and his Chinese community, but this was not possible without compromises and adjustments. A clear difficulty for Fahai Lama was to teach his nuns Tibetan doctrines that seemed far beyond the poor Chinese Buddhist education they received before entering Qianfo chansi. Tibet was still remote and exotic for those disciples who could write and read only in Chinese. It was a real challenge for Fahai Lama to elaborate, under the political and religious pressure of the Chinese government and official Buddhist associations, a non-sectar-ian discourse integrating Tibetan and Chinese teachings and to render Tibetan con-cepts and practices views more accessible to Chinese understanding.45 This involved for him the practical necessity of translating and explaining texts of an unfamiliar tradition with terms and vocabulary familiar to the Chinese. One cannot ignore that rDzogs chen was a brand-new discovery in early 20th-century China; rDzogs chen texts were translated for the first time from Tibetan into Chinese during the 1930s and 1940s. As we are going to see, terminology was not yet established and often var-ies depending on the particular translator. This reminds us of a similar process in

44 On the meaning of the last barrier in Chan see below, note 143. On the comparison between Chan and rDzogs chen see below. See also the contribution by Chen Bing in the first volume (p. 413). It is interesting to notice that there are different views on the relation between Chan and rDzogs chen in Tibetan studies. See for instance the view of Kenneth K. Tanaka and Raymond E. Robertson (“A Ch’an Texts from Tun-huang: Implications for Ch’an Influence on Tibetan Buddhism,” in Tibetan Buddhism Reason and Revelation, eds. Steven D. Goodman and Ronald M. Davidson, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992, 57-78) supported by Jean-Luc Achard (L’essence perlée du secret, Turnout: Brépols, 1999, 62-64), and the view of Samten G. Karmay (The Great Perfection (rDzogs chen): A Philosophical and Meditative Teaching of Tibetan Buddhism, Leiden: Brill, 1988) supported by David Germano (“Architecture and Absence in the Secret Tantric History of the Great Perfection (rdzogs chen),” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 17.2, 1994: 203-335, here 216-217). With regard to rDzogs chen and Tantrism, Germano emphasizes in his study the strong relation of rDzogs chen with the Tantric tradition while Achard tries to dissociate rDzogs chen from the Tantric vehicles.

45 On other accommodating views about Tibetan doctrines and Chinese culture see the contributions by Chen Bing and Wang-Toutain in the first volume. It is interesting to notice how the reformist monk Taixu tried to assimilate Tibetan Buddhist teachings in his dream of reforming Chinese Buddhism, as shown in the contribution of Luo Tongbing in this volume and below.


China when the first Buddhist sutras were translated; but in Fahai Lama’s case the difficulties were smaller as the scope was limited to the rDzogs chen tradition.46

rDzogs chen is a Tibetan term corresponding to the Sanskrit Mahåsandhi and is usually translated as Great Perfection. In Chinese it has been translated as Dayuan-man 大圓滿. This expression refers to the teaching, which is seen as complete and per-fect in itself, but more particularly it characterizes the individual’s inherent Buddha-nature, which is synonymous with the nature of the mind. It is the primordial state of the individual, pure from the beginning and spontaneously self-perfected. In the following, I will outline Fahai Lama’s rDzogs chen explanations as recorded in his Chinese manuscripts, which are here presented and translated for the first time.47 Although they are rather technical, these Chinese materials allow a preliminary sur-vey of Chinese Great Perfection terminology. As they are the fruit of oral communi-cations they are a precious tool for showing how such Tibetan teachings were under-stood and portrayed in recent times in China proper.48 Since such materials have never been presented in English, I will include a fair amount here (pp. 496-519). Readers less interested in the specific content of Fahai Lama’s teachings in his trans-mitted texts, can turn to the final section (pp. 519-526). I have chosen to discuss ter-minological issues mostly in the notes in order to leave more space to the presentation and content description of these new materials. A more strict comparison between Tibetan rDzogs chen texts and Chinese translations still needs to be done and this presentation is only a first step.

The transmission of Fahai Lama focuses on yang ti (yangdi). Yang ti is the Tibetan term for one of the three divisions of the Great Perfection Section of Esoteric Precepts or Section of Secret Instructions (Tib. man ngag sde, Ch. koujue bu 口訣

部), i.e., A ti (Ch. adi 阿的/低), sPyi ti (Ch. jiedi 借的) and Yang ti.49 This subdivision is

46 On the role played by Chinese translations of Tibetan works see also Tuttle, “Translating Buddhism from Tibetan to Chinese in early 20th Century China.”

47 See the list of Chinese rDzogs chen texts in Appendix 2.48 For the assimilation of dGe lugs teachings in China see F. Wang-Toutain, “Quand les

maîtres chinois s’éveillent au bouddhisme tibétain”; E. Bianchi, The Iron Statue Monastery and her study titled “The ‘Chinese lama’ Nenghai (1886-1967), Doctrinal Tradition and Teaching Strategies of a Gelukpa Master in Republican China,” in Buddhism Between Tibet and China, ed. M. Kapstein (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2008).

49 For a historical study on the Great Perfection in Tibet see Samten Karmay, The Great Perfection (rDzogs chen). On the systematization of the Great Perfection into three sections (sems sde, klong sde and man ngag sde) and the history of their transmission see George Roerich, The Blue Annals (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1979): 167-203; Eva Dargyay, The Rise of Esoteric Buddhism in Tibet (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1979): 16-59; and Tulku Thondup, Buddha Mind (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1989): 47-88. On the different classification systems of the Section of Esoteric Precepts see J.-L. Achard, L’essence perlée du secret, 54-61 and 55, note 6. See also D. Germano, “The Funerary Transformation of the Great Perfection (Rdzogs chen),” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 1 (2005): 1-54. For a clear presentation of the rDzog chen view and its teachings by a contemporaneous master see the works by Namkhai Norbu and in particular The Crystal and the Way of Light: Sutra, Tantra, and Dzogchen, ed. John Shane (New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986). For a presentation of the Great Perfection view in Bon po tradition see Donatella Rossi, The Philosophical View of the Great Perfection in the Tibetan Bon

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also used in the cycle of transmissions conferred by Gangs dkar rin po che and then adopted by Fahai Lama. The Tibetan term yang ti is translated in different ways into Chinese: yangdi 仰的 or yangdui 仰兌 (following the Tibetan phonetics), xinsui 心髓 (lit. the marrow of heart, the innermost heart), or xinzhongxin 心中心 (the heart of the heart/quintessence). At the same time yang ti is often confused in Chinese with the term snying thig (Ch. ningdi 寧的, ningti 寧體, or xinyao 心要, heart essence, quintes-sence) and yang tig.50 The oral “Yang ti transmission” that Fahai Lama received from Gangs dkar rin po che is mainly based on three Tibetan texts: (1) Ye shes bla ma by ’Jigs med gling pa (1729/30-1798) included in his Klong chen snying thig; (2) the Yang ti trans-mission according to Gangs dkar rin po che’s oral instructions (among which fig-ures that of the Yang ti nag po); and (3) the Karma snying thig by the third Karma pa Rang byung rdo rje (1284-1334) included in the Bi ma snying thig.51 This transmis-sion has been recorded in the Da yuan man guanding jiang lu quanji 大圓滿灌頂講錄全集 (Complete collection of the explicative commentaries on Great Perfection ini tiations) with some explications in Fahai Lama’s own hand under the title Da yuanman guan-

Religion (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1999) and for its practices see Lopon Tenzin Namdak, Heart Drops of Dharmakaya – Dzogchen Practice of the Bön Tradition (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1993).

50 More on the history and content of the snying thig system in D. Germano, “Architecture and Absence in the Secret Tantric History of the Great Perfection (rdzogs chen),” 267-ff; and Herbert Guenther, Meditation Differently, Phenomenological-psychological Aspects of Tibetan Buddhist (Mahåmudrå and sNying-thig) Practices from Original Tibetan Sources (Delhi: Motilal Barnasidass, 1992). For a brief introduction to this system see also the contribution by Antonio Terrone in this volume, especially on p. 772 note 54.

51 On the Klong chen snying thig see Steven Goodman, The Klong-Chen snying-thig: An Eighteenth Century Tibetan Revelation (PhD diss., University of Saskatchewan, 1983), and “Rig-’dzin ’Jigs-med gling-pa and the kLong-Chen sNying-thig,” in Tibetan Buddhism: Reasons and Revelation, eds. S. Goodman and R. Davidson (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992): 133-146. See also Sam van Schaik, Approaching the Great Perfection: Simultaneous and Gradual Approaches to Dzogchen Practice in Jigme Lingpa’s Longchen Nyingtig (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004). On the structure of the Bi ma snying thig see Achard, L’essence perlée, 94-96. According to Achard (L’essence perlée, 65 note 13) the Kar ma snying thig has been included in the Bi ma snying thig under the title Nyams len lag khrigs ma’i khrid ngo mtshar can. See also Qiu Ling 邱陵 (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman xinsui tan’ao 藏密大圓满心髓探奥 [Exploration of the quintessence of the Tibetan Tantric Great Perfection] (Beijing: Meitan gongye, 1993): 12-13. As for the trans-mission of the Yang ti nag po, Fahai Lama received the transmission from Gangs dkar rin po che according to the Tibetan text rDzogs chen yang ti nag po gser gyi gcig pa’i khrid yig mdor bsdud pa ’od gsal lam ’jug by Kong sprul Yon tan rgya mtsho (1813-1899), a “standard” exegesis of the cy-cle revealed by Dung mtsho ras pa under the Chinese title Dayuanman zuisheng xinzhongxin yin-dao lüeyao 大圓滿勝心中心引導略要 [Instructions on the quintessential teachings of the Great Perfection yang ti], as well as from rDzogs pa chen po yang ti nag po mun khrid bklags pas don grub by Kun bzang nges don dbang po (fl. 1798), under the Chinese title Dayuanman fajie xinzhongxin heiguan yindao wei du jike chengjiu shiye 大圓滿法界心中心黑關引導惟讀即可成就事業 [Instructions on the retreat in darkness of yang ti in the domain of the Great Perfection, the simple reading of which allows accomplishment of one’s pursuit], among which figures Dung mtsho ras pas’s Yang ti nag po’i shog dril skor gsum. See also Dayuanman zuisheng xinzhongxin yangdui kemu 大圓滿

勝心中心仰兌科目 [Yang ti instructions on the quintessential teachings of the Great Perfection], and Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangyi 大圓滿心中心講義 [Commentary on the Great Perfection yang ti]. More on these texts in Appendix 2.

ding yiji quanji Fahai Lama 大圓滿灌頂義記

全集法海喇嘛 (Complete collection of expli-cative notes on Great Perfection initiations by Fahai Lama) [Fig. 11]. This text, from now on abbreviated as Dayuanman guan ding, is one of the main sources in this article for the presentation of Fahai Lama’s trans-mission of rDzogs chen. As this text con-stantly refers to the Ye shes bla ma under the abbreviated Chinese title of Shenghui 勝慧 or Victorious Wisdom (for Dayuanman shen-ghui benjue xinyao xiuzheng cidi 大圓滿勝慧

本覺心要修證次第), I will use the Chinese translation of this well-known Tibetan text for additional explanations, along with other related Chinese translations and recorded notes on tape and video.52

According to the traditional man ngag sde (Ch. koubu 口部) division adopted in rDzogs chen, the Great Perfection practic-es are divided into:53

(1) The extraordinary or special preli-minaries (Ch. bugong jiaxing 不共加行, tebie jiaxing 特別加行, jiaxing 加行 or qianxing 前行, Tib. khyad par gyi sngon ’gro or simply sngon ’gro)54 better known under the Tibetan expression ’khor ’das ru shan dbye ba or Disjunction of samsara and nirvana (Ch. xiu-xian liao lunhui niepan 修現了輪迴涅盤);55 and

52 It is not a surprise that the Ye shes bla ma, one of the most favored works among pres-ent day practitioners, is also highly esteemed by the Chinese. As far as I know there are at least two Chinese translations of this text: Dayuanman guangda xinyao benjue cidi (Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 ed., Dayuanman 大圓滿, Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui, 1987, 368-487), and Dayuanman shenghui benjue xinyao xiuzheng cidi 大圓滿勝慧本覺心要修證次第, abbr. Dayuan shenghui (Fahai Lama’s manuscript also found in Wu Jialiang ed., Dayuanman, 542-672). See Appendix 2 be-low. For a short presentation of the structure of the Ye shes bla ma see S. van Schaik, Approaching the Great Perfection: Simultaneous and Gradual Approaches to Dzogchen Practice in Jigme Lingpa’s Longchen Nyingtig, 311-312. Rev. Folian, the closest disciple of Fahai Lama, recorded Fahai Lama’s teachings and gave them to me at the end of the rDzogs chen instruction sessions while I recorded some teachings on my video-camera.

53 See Tulku Thondup, Buddha Mind, 67-76.54 According to the order and the terminology given in Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangyi,

and Dayuanman guanding, two texts that were transmitted by Gangs dkar rin po che to Fahai Lama. For other terminologies and explanations of preliminaries and their terminology see Appendix 2 (n° 14-15), and note 55.

55 The Chinese term jiaxing 加行 translates both the Tibetan sbyor ba (yoga, union, prac-tice, application) and sbyor lam (Ch. jiaxing dao 加行道, path of union or accumulation). It is used here for sngon ’gro (preliminaries). In the Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangyi, the expression


Fig. 11: Dayuanman guanding yiji quanji Fahai lama 大圓滿灌頂講錄全集 [Complete collection of the ex-plicative commentaries on Great Perfection initiations]. (Photo by M. Esposito, April 1996)

496 Monica Esposito

(2) khregs chod or Instantaneous Breakthrough or Cut off(3) thod rgal or Instantaneous Transcending or Going Beyond

Leaving aside the preliminaries, I will now focus on the explanations given by Fahai Lama on khregs chod and thod rgal. Before beginning these instructions, Fahai Lama handed to his disciples the Chinese translation of dGa’ rab rdo rje’s testament Tshig gsum gnad brdeg or Three lines that hit on the key points (Ch. Jisong niede 基松聶

德) to be studied and copied down.56 After that, he gave a general introduction to khregs chod by comparing it with Chan for the emphasis given to the confrontation with the nature of mind—“the original face”—, and to thod rgal by putting it in rela-tion with the practices on qi.

The Instantaneous Breakthrough View

Fahai Lama’s instructions on khregs chod begin with an explanation of the mean-ing of the Tibetan word, which is rendered in Chinese texts as dunduan 頓斷, liduan 立斷, or more often left in Chinese phonetics as qieque 且却, cheque 徹却, zhique 止却. According to the Dayuanman guanding (13b), Fahai Lama explains:

The meaning of qieque [khregs chod] is “instantaneous cut-off” (dunduan 頓斷) also called “desire for enlightenment.” For those who have realized it, the body returns to emptiness, becoming invisible.

按且却意為頓斷，又名欲悟。修成者，身體歸空不見。

For Fahai Lama the abyssal space of the body-mind characterizes khregs chod while the experience of the transformation of the flesh-body into rainbow light as de-scribed in the same text (13b) refers to thod rgal:

The meaning of tuoga 妥噶 [thod rgal] is “instantaneous transcending” (dun-chao 頓超). For those who have realized it, the flesh body is transformed into rainbow light, becoming an indestructible diamond body.

按妥噶意為頓超。修成就者，肉身化虹光，成金剛不壞身。

“extraordinary preliminaries” (bugong jiaxing 不共加行) refers to (a) the cultivation and actual-ization of samsara and nirvana; (b) Main Practice (Ch. zhengxing 正行, Tib. dngos gzhi) which includes khregs chod and thod rgal. In Dayuanman guanding the expression of special preliminar-ies (tebie jiaxing 特別加行) refers to: (a) the preliminaries of cultivation and realization of sam-sara and nirvana (xiu xianliao shengsi niepan jiaxing 修現了生死涅盤加行); (b) the cultivation of body, speech, and mind according to the instruction of the “luminous essence of the nature of mind” (yi zixin mingti yindao xiu shen kou yi jiaxing 依自心明體修身口意加行); (c) the meth-od of cultivating ease (xiu anxi fa 修安息法). For the expression qianxing 前行, which is closer to the Tibetan term sngon ’gro, and for other texts transmitted by Gangs dkar rin po che, see also Qiu Ling (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman, 131-161; and Yogi Chen, The Essential Teachings of the Adi Buddha Part I & 2, Chenian Booklets no. 85 (http://yogichen.org/chenian/bk84.html) & 85 (http://yogichen.org/chenian/bk85.html). For the preliminary practices and their related texts see Appendix 2 (n° 14-15).

56 On this text see Appendix 2 (n° 3).


In order to introduce the meaning of khregs chod and thod rgal in the context of the Great Perfection, Fahai Lama on the basis of the Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangyi 大圓滿心中心講義 (Commentary on the Great Perfection yang ti, 11a) says:

The quintessence of the Great Perfection lies in its “view” [Ch. jian, Tib. lta ba] and “meditation” [Ch. xiu, Tib. sgom pa].57 In its specific terminology, pri-mordially purity [Ch. benjing, Tib. ka dag] “khregs chod” is “the view,” sponta-neously accomplishment [Ch. renyun, Tib. lhun grub] “thod rgal” is “the medi-tation.”

大圓滿之精要即在于「見修」，他的術語本淨「且却」為「見」，任運「妥噶」為「修」。

Leaving for later the “meditative path” of thod rgal, Fahai Lama emphasizes the importance of understanding first of all the “view” of khregs chod and its Chinese rendering as dunduan 頓斷 or liduan 立斷. While the term dun 頓 in dunduan (or li 立 in liduan for like 立刻, liji 立即) “sudden, instantaneous” has already been well explored and often contrasted with the term jian “gradual,”58 the term duan 斷 “to break, to cut off,” deserves our attention:59

It is like cutting down a tree; once its root is cut, there is no more need to prune its branches.

此如砍樹，將樹根砍斷，不必再砍枝。60

After this cutting of the source of all delusions, the immensity of the space of mind opens up. The opening up of this “instantaneous breakthrough view” points directly to the experience of the nature of mind which, in the words of Gangs dkar rin po che, is:

Tranquil like water without waves and firm like a mountain, the mind is nat-urally at ease in a broad and calm space where not even the tiniest deluded thought arises. If the practicioner does not think of past or future merits or demerits whatsoever, he will achieve the realization.

此心猶如無波之水，堅固之山，在寬坦任運上安住，不起絲毫妄念。無論過去、未

來功罪，概不着想，便能證得。61

57 The Chinese term xiu 修 translates the various meaning of sgom pa as practice, train-ing, cultivation (in meditation).

58 Paul Demiéville, “Le miroir spirituel,” Sinologica, 1.2 (1947): 112-137. For an inter-esting study of this term in Chinese and Western sources see Urs App, “‘Dun’: A Chinese Concept as a Key to ‘Mysticism’ in East and West,” The Eastern Buddhist 26. 2 (1993): 31-72.

59 In Chinese translation the meaning of the Tibetan term khregs (old spelling for mkhregs pa) “hard, solid, stiff” does not seem to be taken in consideration. Instead, one finds the empha-sis on the instant, the instant of a thought, the immediacy (Tib. khregs gir as thad kar “straightfor-wardly, directly, with immediacy”) in which the act of cutting through (Tib. chod, Ch. duan) takes place. For an analysis of this term in Tibetan sources and Western translations see D. Germano, Poetic thought, the intelligent Universe, and the mystery of self: The Tantric synthesis of rDzogs Chen in fourteenth century Tibet (PhD diss., The University of Wisconsin, 1992): 842-844.

60 Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangyi in Fahai Lama’s manuscript, 63b. See also a slightly modified version of this passage quoted in Qiu Ling (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman, 60.

61 Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangyi in Fahai Lama’s manuscript, 63a-b. See also Qiu Ling (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman, 60.

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This “instantaneous breakthrough view” has the power to confront the prac-titioner with the nature of mind, i.e., Samantabhadra’s wisdom which is beyond grasping, controlling, or following any thoughts; it is the power of leaving every-thing as it is. Gangs dkar rin po che explains that the thoughts which arise in the mind are merely like the reflections in a mirror, while the mirror itself having the capacity of reflecting is like the nature of mind:

Every thought is essential (the awareness-mirror of the luminous essence of the mind [i.e., rig pa]) because in its genuine essence thought is nothing other than meditation (the twin streams of ßamatha and vipaßyanå). If the practitioner during his meditation reflects every thought as a mirror, he cannot be distract-ed even for an instant. The wisdom of original awareness [Ch. benjue zhihui, Tib. rig pa’i ye shes, lit. wisdom of rig pa] is primordially complete without need of grasping; it is spontaneously luminous and all-pervading. There is nothing which can be obtained through contemplation, can be brought through prac-tice and can be seen through conceptualization and discrimination. That is the wisdom of Samantabhadra62 which is originally pure; that is the quintessence of cheque practice [khregs chod].

念頭念頭很要緊（明體覺照），善體念頭即是修（寂照雙流）。行者修持時，覺照念頭，

一刹那不可散亂。本覺智慧本自具足，不用執着，自然光明廣大普遍。非觀想可得，

非修可出，非妄念分别所可見，本来清静，即普賢如来之智慧，即修彻却之心要。63

The Confrontation with the Clear Essence of Mind

Fahai Lama emphasizes that “seeing the reality just as it is” is like seeing a crystal clear sky, its limitless spatiality. This can be possible by removing the dark layers of obscuration and being confronted with the nature of mind, which is beyond time and conditioned existence. The function of the guru or lama is to introduce his disciples to the nature of mind. According to the words of his master Gangs dkar rin po che:

To perceive this nature which in its essence is “non-duality of clarity and emp-tiness” [Ch. mingkong buer, Tib. stong gsal dbyer med] is my original mind, sub-ject-object at once, without past, present of future and without space, dimen-sion, shape or color; just as with the empty sky all phenomena appear sponta-neously due to the sky’s nature of emptiness.

認識此明空不二之體性，就是吾人之本心，能所一体，無過去、現在、未來三时，無

東南西北上下大小長短之分，無青黄赤白只色相，猶如虛空，一切法就在這虚空體

性上任運明現。64

Gangs dkar rin po che explains in his instructions on the Yang ti nag po (Dayuanman zuisheng xinzhongxin yindao lüeyao):

62 On the role played by Samantabhadra in rDzogs chen see M. Kapstein, “Samantabhadra and Rudra: Innate Enlightenment and Radical Evil in Tibetan Rnying-ma-pa Buddhism,” in Discourse and Practice, eds. Frank E. Reynolds and David Tracy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992): 51-82.

63 Qiu Ling (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman, 60.64 Qiu Ling (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman, 61.


The perfection of dharmakåya, ultimate thusness, tathågatagarbha, […] the unique sphere [Ch. weiyi mingdian, Tib. thig le nyag gcig], dharmakåya, wis-dom, empty nature, […] originally awakened wisdom, primordially purity, etc.: so many names but they all refer to the dharmakåya free from the games of the discursive mind. Being luminous like a mirror and without attachment characterizes the sambhogakåya. Manifesting everything and being originally without cessation is called nirmanakåya. This is so because essence [Ch. benti, Tib. ngo bo], nature [Ch. zixing, Tib. rang bzhin], and energy [Ch. beixin, Tib. thugs rje, lit. compassion]65 are without differentiation. In one instant one can recognize the “original face” (benmian)66 of mind and penetrate everything in samsara and nirvana.

法性圓成、真如勝義、如來藏、[…]唯一明點、法性、智慧、空性 […]本覺智、

本來清静，雖有如是多名，皆為離心戲論之法身也。如明照無著，名為報身。

顯現種種，本來不滅，名為化身。由是本體、自性、悲心，三無差別。以一刹那，

能認識心之本面，則通達輪回，捏磐所攝一切法。67

This points to an important difference between the view of rDzogs chen and the view of other Buddhist vehicles. The three bodies here mentioned are fully manifest from the very beginning as the essence, nature and energy of the mind, although man fails to recognize this due to accumulated obscuring layers of emotion and dis-cursiviness. In order to remove these concealing factors and be confronted with the nature of mind—the aim of the instantaneous breakthrough view—68 Fahai Lama introduces four key-points to his disciples. These four key-points are presented according to the instructions given by Gangs dkar rin po che on the basis of the Ye shes bla ma.69 These are four modes of imperturbable rest or calm abiding (Ch. sizhong anzhu 四種安住, Tib. cog bzhag bzhi)70 which teach how to leave things as they are without trying to modify and correct the arising thoughts. They apply to:

65 On these key terms of essence, nature, and energy in rDzogs chen referring to the tri-une nature of the basis or ground (Tib. gzhi, Ch. genben 根本), see Namkhai Norbu, The Cycle of Day and Night, 67-68 and below note 93. It is interesting to note that the Chinese term bei-xin 悲心 (lit. compassion) can be replaced by the term qi (Tib. rlung) in order to focus on its dy-namic aspect of energy. This aspect is normally characterized in rDzogs chen texts as “all-per-vading” (Ch. pubian 普遍, Tib. kun khyab).

66 On this term, abbreviation for benlai mianmu 本來面目, and indicating the nature of mind see below.

67 Qiu Ling (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman, 62.68 As it is said in Dayuanman guanding on p. 65b: 修且卻認自己明體之指示。69 This is based on the commentary given by Gangs dkar rin po che on the quotation

of the Tantra of the Clear Lamp (Tib. sGron ma snang byed, Ch. Mingdeng ji 明燈集). See the Chinese translation of the Ye shes bla ma under the title Dayuan shenghui (Fahai Lama’s manu-script, 30a), and Tulku Thondup, Buddha Mind, 70-71.

70 In Chinese texts, there are various expressions for referring to Tibetan cog bzhag bzhi: sizhong anzhu 四種安住, sizhong xiang 四種相, siliang 四量, and sixiang yaoze 四項要則. The closest to the Tibetan meaning is sizhong anzhu (Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangshou lu 大圓滿心中心講

授錄 [Recorded instructions on the Great Perfection yang ti], in Qiu Ling ed., Zangmi dayuan-man, 146). One also finds general terms like sizhong xiang (four aspects/four kinds of aspects for Tibetan rnam pa bzhi; see Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangyi, 18b), siliang (four measures; see Dayuan shenghui, 30), sixiang yaoze (four important regulations; see Dayuanman guanding, 72b).

500 Monica Esposito

1. view (Ch. jian 見, Tib. lta ba): “to be stable like the king of a mountain” (Ch. ru shanwang anzhu 如山王安住, Tib. ri bo cog bzhag);71

2. meditation (Ch. ding 定，or xiu 修, Tib. sgom pa): “to be calm like an ocean without waves” (Ch. ru dahai anzhu 如大海安住, Tib. rgya mtsho cog bzhag);72

3. conduct (Ch. xing 行, Tib. spyod pa): “to follow the oral precepts [for the body, speech, and mind] leaving everything as it is” (Ch. koujue shang anzhu 口訣上安住, Tib. man ngag cog bzhag).73 Body, speech and mind are clear and pure like the sky, and “they remain spontaneously accomplished and imperturbable in relation to all-manifest or sensory appearances” (Ch. renyun zai faxing zhong anzhu 任運在法性中安

住, or zai faxing shang anzhu 在法性上安住, Tib. snang ba cog bzhag);74 4. fruit or fruition (Ch. guo 果 or zheng 證, Tib. ’bras bu): “the presence of the

mind in an unmodified and uncorrected state” (Ch. wuzhengzhi anzhu 無整治安住, Tib. ma bcos cog bzhag),75 also called “the spontaneous accomplished rest of aware-ness” (Ch. zixin renyun er anzhu, 自心任運而安住, Tib. rig pa’i cog bzhag)76 in which “wisdom manifests itself as unity of clarity and emptiness” (Ch. mingkong buer zhi zhihui 明空不二之智慧, Tib. gsal stong gi ye shes).77

71 In some Chinese texts there is reference to a king or lord which is not found in the Tibetan expression ri bo (mountain) cog bzhag. See, for instance, the Dayuanman xinzhong xin jiangshou lu (Qiu Ling ed., Zangmi dayuanman): 146. Following Dayuan shenghui, Dayuanman guanding on p. 72b uses the expression jianliang rushan 見量如山 (the measure of the view like a mountain) but adds in its explanations that one should have a high and broad, wide open, and naturally straightforward distant view without limits like the king or lord of Mount Sumeru (應如須彌山王之高廣開敞自然坦遠見無邊／應如須彌山主之自然開敞). The Dayuanman xinzhongx-in jiangyi, 18b: qixiang rushan buneng dongyao 其相如山不能動摇 (its aspect [i.e., the view aspect] is like an immobile mountain).

72 Dayuan shenghui, 30, Dayuanman guanding, 73a, Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangyi, 19a, and Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangshou lu (Qiu Ling ed., Zangmi dayuanman): 146.

73 See Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangshou lu (Qiu Ling ed., Zangmi dayuanman): 146. Following the Dayuan shenghui on p. 31 (“the measure for the code of conduct is to be in ac-cord with the oral instructions of the spontaneous accomplishment of body, speech, and mind 戒量依口訣身口意任運”), the Dayuanman guanding comments by saying that for the conduct “one does not have to abandon in any instant the oral instructions of the guru and keep the sa-maya vow commitments 行時應無時不離上師之口訣，護三昧耶戒誓.”

74 These explanations are based on the passage of the Dayuanman guanding which on p. 73a goes as follows: “Cutting off all attachments makes the three doors—body, speech, and mind—permanently pure and clear like the sky; they rest spontaneously accomplished in the middle of all-manifest phenomena 折斷一切妄執，令身口意三門恆明淨如虛空。任運在法性中安

住.” For the expression zai faxing shang anzhu 在法性上安住 (calm abiding or imperturbable rest in the all-manifest phenomena), see Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangshou lu (Qiu Ling ed., Zangmi dayuanman): 146. See also Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangyi, 19a, which simply says: “Its [i.e., the conduct] aspect is to be clear and pure like the sky 其相明淨如虛空.”

75 Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangshou lu (Qiu Ling ed., Zangmi dayuanman): 146.76 Dayuanman guanding, 73a. Here the expression zixin 自心 (mind itself or mind as such;

Tib. sems nyid) stands for the nature of mind (Tib. sems kyi rang bzhin) in its luminous and nat-ural aspect as zixin mingti 自心明體 (luminous essence of mind as such/nature of mind). An ex-pression close to rig pa, and more precisely to the Tibetan expression rig pa nang gsal (the in-ner luminosity of the awareness or rig pa), cf. also note 81.

77 Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangshou lu (Qiu Ling ed., Zangmi dayuanman): 146-147. See also Dayuanman guanding, 73a-74a, and Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangyi, 19a.


According to the Yang ti instructions as explained by Fahai Lama, this is applied to three kinds of rest (Ch. sanzhong anzhu 三種安住, Tib. cog bzhag gsum) of body, eyes, and mind:

Immobile and tranquil like Mount Sumeru the body should rest in the vajra lotus position; like an ocean without waves the eyes should remain fixed on the sky; and the mind should rest at ease and without moving, freed from the discrimination and delusion of past, present, and future, and without any cor-rection or modification.

身、身金剛跏趺坐，應如須彌山之不動而安住。眼、眼不動直視虚空，應如無波

之大海平静而安住。心、心離三世之分别妄念，無整無治，不動而安住。78

According to the oral instructions that Gangs dkar rin po che transmitted to Fahai Lama there are two supplementary methods for khregs chod: 1) The transmission of the impermanent A (Ch. wusheng azi koujue 無生阿字口訣), referring to the practice of the “Five seals” (Tib. gzer lnga),79 and 2) the practice of the “Three skies” (Ch. san xukong, 三虚空，Tib. nam mkha’ gsum) based on the oral transmission of the Karma pa.80

The practice of three skies consists of looking at the sky with the mind focused on the eyes and the eyes on the sky in such a way that the three skies are all united letting the luminous essence of mind (Ch. mingti 明體, Tib. rig pa nang gsal) mani-fest itself.81 The three skies are:

1. the secret sky (Ch. mi xukong 密虛空, Tib. gsang ba’i nam mkha’), i.e., the mind;2. the internal sky (Ch. nei xukong 內虛空, Tib. nang gi nam mkha’), i.e., the

Crystal Duct (see below pp. 509-511); 3. the external sky (Ch. wai xukong 外虛空, Tib. phyi’i nam mkha’), i.e., the clear

sky (Ch. wuyun qingkong 無雲晴空, Tib. nam mkha’ stong pa).

78 Dayuanman guanding, 74a. See also Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangshou lu (Qiu Ling ed., Zangmi dayuanman): 149-150.

79 This practice consists in breathing in by conducting the breath down to the navel, re-taining it, and expiring while visualizing the syllable “A” in the heart of blue color for the el-ement space; two syllables “A” of green color in the head for the element wind; three sylla-bles “A” of white color in the heart for the element water; four syllables “A” of red color in the throat for the element fire; and five syllables “A” of yellow color in the navel for the element earth. The aim is to transform the five elements into the five wisdoms (Ch. wuzhi 五智, Tib. ye shes lnga) that are the five aspects of primordial awareness. This method is explained in detail and supplementary oral instructions are given in order to avoid mistakes in its practice. See Dayuanman guanding, 74a-76b, Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangyi, 14b-17b. See also Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangshou lu (Qiu Ling, ed., Zangmi dayuanman): 147-148.

80 It is worthy of note that Gangs dkar rin po che also received bKa’ brgyud teachings di-rectly from the fifteenth Karma pa mKha’ khyab rdo rje (1871-1922), including Vajrayogin¥, the sixfold yoga of Nåropa, and Mahåmudra. More on this in C. Meinert, “Gangs dkar rin po che between Tibet and China.”

81 Dayuanman guanding, 76b-77a, Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangyi, 17b-18b, Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangshou lu (Qiu Ling ed., Zangmi dayuanman): 149-150. On the practice of the three skies see Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, “Space,” in Quintessential Dzogchen, trans. & eds. Erik Pema Kunsang and Marcia Binder Schmidt (Boudhanath: Ranjung Yeshe Publications, 2006): 190-196. On the term rig pa nang gsal see also note 76.

502 Monica Esposito

Unlike the practice of fixating on an object of meditation, the practitioner has to integrate his attention into the space of the sky. After focusing his attention on the eyes and on a point in space, he relaxes and allows his awareness to integrate with the sky.

Both khregs chod and thod rgal methods emphasize the immediate access to the essence of mind: the former concentrates on its emptiness and spatiality and the latter on its luminosity or power of radiance. In contrast with khregs chod, in the explana-tions given to thod rgal, one finds descriptions of a complex visionary system of chan-nels, lamps, and a gradually unfolding series of luminous visions. In the following sec-tions devoted to thod rgal I will summarize on the basis of Fahai Lama’s instructions, the visionary anatomy on which thod rgal is based. Through it, the Great Perfection practitioner appears to be able to see the luminous essence of reality manifest in front of his eyes and experience, via the path of four visions, the dissolution of matter into light. The goal of such practice is the final dissolution of the body aggregates into the so-called rainbow body. This progressive dissolution is illustrated by a number of drawings which, in the following sections, are mainly reproduced from The Collected Rediscovered Teachings (gter ma) of Gter-chen Mchog-gyur-gli∫-pa. Only few original Chinese drawings from Fahai Lama’s manuscripts can be reproduced.82

The Immediate Path of Going Beyond

The meaning of thod rgal is rendered in Chinese texts by the expression dunchao 頓超 where chao 超 means “to transcend, go beyond, leap over,” and dun 頓 “immedi-ate, sudden.” The term chao is often found in Chan and Daoist alchemical literature in expressions like chaofan 超凡 (transcending the ordinary), chaofan yuesheng 超凡越

聖 (transcending the ordinary and going beyond the holy), chaofan rusheng 超凡入聖 (transcending the ordinary and entering the holy).83 According to Dayuanman guan-ding (78b), Fahai Lama explains:

82 The Collected Rediscovered Teachings (gter ma) of Gter-chen Mchog-gyur-gli∫-pa. Reproduced from a set of the Rtsi-rke blockprints and unpublished manuscripts from the library of the late Mchog-gli∫ sprul-sku, vol. 30 (New Delhi, 1977). I am indebted to David Germano for hav-ing sent me a copy of this. In the section below I will also reproduce some drawings found in Chinese texts. Unfortunately, the original drawings included in the Chinese manuscripts I re-ceived from Fahai Lama were accidentally destroyed by J.-L. Achard with print and notes ma-terials related to Chinese rDzogs chen. This happened in 1998 when I was in Japan after having placed these materials in Achard’s temporary custody. Thanks to the help of Rev. Folian, I was able to recuperate some of the manuscripts with their drawings but only in their Xerox form. On these manuscripts see Appendix 2.

83 For the expressions chaofan, chaofan yuesheng, and chaofan rusheng, see Zengaku daijiten 禅学大辞典 [Comprehensive dictionary of Zen studies] (Tokyo: Taish¨kan Shoten, 1985): 868a, s.v. Chanyi qinggui 禪苑清規, chap. 8 and 3. In Daoist alchemy the expression chaofan rusheng is found, for instance, in the Song Daoist Encyclopedia Yunji qiqian 雲笈七籤 (72.1b/7, 72.8b/8 in http://www.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~dokisha/sakuin.html). See also the Dadan zhizhi 大丹直

指 (cf. Hu Fuchen 胡孚琛 ed., Zhonghua daojiao dacidian 中华道教大辞典 [Comprehensive dic-tionary of Chinese Daoism], Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue, 1995, 1263), a Yuan work attrib-uted to Qiu Chuji 邱處機 (1148-1227), a key-figure of Quanzhen 全真 Daoism. Qiu was later


The meaning of tuoga [Tib. thod rgal] is “instantaneous going beyond” as it allows the immediate liberation of man from the turning wheel [of transmi-gration, Ch. lunhui] and “transcending the ordinary and entering the holy” (chaofan rusheng). It is the supreme method (wushang famen) for ordinary per-sons “to achieve buddhahood in the present body” ( jishen chengfo).

妥噶為頓超義，即能令人立脱輪迴，超凡入聖。由凡夫而令即身成佛之無上法門。

While the goal of this ultimate method is here qualified with the well-known Tantric or esoteric Buddhist (mizong) formula of jishen chengfo 即身成佛 (achieving buddha-hood in the present body),84 the specific term for it —thod rgal—is original. Its mean-ing (“instantaneous going beyond”) takes shape within what may be referred as a “progression beyond duality” trend: it defines itself by affirming superiority not only with regard to other Tantric vehicles—Mahåyoga, Anuyoga—but also inside the very section man ngag sde to which it belongs.85 It seems to echo the “movement upward” (xiangshang 向上) or “going beyond” that has also been seen at the core of Chan teachings through denial, rejection and negation of normative Mahayana Buddhist doctrines and practices.86 In the context of thod rgal the “movement of going beyond duality” takes place within normative Tantric vehicles and their teachings. It is not only characterized by the new expression thod rgal (translated into Chinese as dunchao 頓超) referring to an ultimate and immediate “going beyond” or “crossing an insu-perable peak” (chaoding wushang 超頂無上),87 but also and above all by an ultimate

recognized as Founding Patriarch of the Longmen tradition 龍門派 to which the Daoist Yang Yuanhe, the occupant of the Taijidong before Fahai Lama, belongs. The expression is also used in Daoist Longmen texts for characterizing the goal of the inner alchemical path (neidan 內丹). Along the same line, the Daoist canon of the Qing dynasty entitled Daozang jiyao 道藏輯要 [Essentials of the Daoist Canon] (Taibei: Xinwenfeng, 1982, vol. 1, 11) characterizes the inner alchemical path as “being capable of transcending the ordinary and entering the holy” (neidan keyi chaofan rusheng).

84 On this terms see also note 31.85 See the discussion concerning the superiority of thod rgal over khregs chod as present-

ed in the Ye shes bla ma (the “Seven Superiorities of thod rgal over khregs chod” according to the Chinese translation Dayuan shenghui; Fahai Lama’s manuscript, 32-33). It is also important to note that rDzogs chen is presented as a distinct vehicle, the Atiyoga (Tib. rdzogs pa chen po shin tu rnal ’byor) or vehicle of the supreme yoga after Mahåyoga (Tib. rnal ’byor chen po) and Anuyoga (Tib. rjes su rnal ’byor), and seen as the pinnacle of all other Tantric vehicles and tra-ditions. See Tulku Thondup, Buddha Mind, 89-122, and S. van Schaik, Approaching the Great Perfection, 3-19.

86 Iriya Yoshitaka 入矢義高, “Unmon no zen—sono ‘kØjØ’ to iu koto” 雲門の禅—その「向

上」ということ [The Chan of Yunmen: its so-called movement upward], in Iriya Yoshitaka, Jiko to chØetsu 自己と超越 [Self and transcendence] (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1986): 78-86 quoted in Urs App, Facets of the Life and Teaching of Chan master Yunmen Wenyan (PhD diss., Temple University, 1989): 166. In Mahayana thought the theme of “ascent” is contrasted with that of “descent”; see Gadjin M. Nagao (Mådhyamika and Yogåcåra, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991, 201-207) who sees “going beyond” as a characteristic of Mahayana in gen-eral. For its application in Chan, see U. App, Master Yunmen (New York: Kodansha, 1994): 89 note 1, 157 note 1, and 190 note 5.

87 This expression is used in Dayuan shenghui (Fahai Lama’s manuscript, 12; Wu Jialiang ed., Dayuanman, 554) where it is said: “The meaning of thod rgal is to cross a peak, it points

504 Monica Esposito

visionary experience which is seen as the pinnacle of all other Tantric vehicles.88 According to the Dayuanman guanding (78b), Fahai Lama explains:

This method mainly consists of contemplating the light (kanguang). Its pur-pose is to make the Lamp of originally awakened Wisdom [Ch. benjue zhiguang] —inherent in mind as such [Ch. zixin, Tib. sems nyid]89—manifest in space thanks to the support of five other kinds of lamps [Ch. guangming, Tib. sgron ma]90 in order to see one’s own original face [benzi mianmu, i.e., the nature of mind] and round out the merits of the Fruit [guode, i.e., the merits of nirvana]91 of the Three Bodies. This is what one can attain by fol-lowing this method of cultivation. This [method] can rectify [the errone-ous view of regarding] the heart-mind (xin) [as separate from] wisdom (zhi-hui), making them converge into one in order to let the primordial unity of the essence (ti) of “heart-mind” and “wisdom” appear in its originally ac-complished light (chengjiu benming).92 In their essence (tixing) they are also originally one with breath-vital energy (qi) as they are all manifestations of Reality [Ch. fa xing, Tib. chos nyid].93 However, as the ordinary person is sub-ject to conceptualization, they (heart-mind and wisdom) cannot be one but are split into two. The heart-mind and wisdom cannot appear [as they are]

that its method is incomparable, the crossing of an insuperable peak 名為超頂意，指其法殊勝，

超頂無上也.”88 See note 85.89 On this term see note 76.90 See the discussion of the lamps below. The text refers to two systems of four and six

lamps; see also below note 118.91 The term guode 果德 indicates the four transcendental realities in nirvana, i.e., eterni-

ty, bliss, autonomy and purity, the four påramitå of knowledge presented in the Nirvåˆa-s¨tra; see William E. Soothill and Lewis Hodous, A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd, 1937): 264 and 349.

92 The term benming 本明 or yuanming 元明 (original light) refers to the original light or po-tential enlightenment that is reputedly in all beings, and is synonym with benjue 本覺 (original en-lightenment/primordial or innate awareness; see note 95). See W. E. Soothill and L. Hodous, A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms, 189. The term benming is here coupled with chengjiu, which in Chinese translations of Tibetan rDzogs chen texts corresponds to the Tibetan term grub pa (accomplished); see Dayuanman san zijietuo lun [Trilogy of the natural freedom in the Great Perfection] (Jilong: Dazang wenhua, 1995): 288. This is the Chinese translation by Fahu 法護 of Klong chen rab ’byams’s Rang grol skor sum; see Appendix 2 (n° 30). More on the translation of ben-jue as rig pa in Fang Lixiu 方力脩, Dayuanman fa 大圓滿法 (Taibei: Huiju, 2003): 94-98.

93 The Chinese term faxing 法性 stands for chos nyid, the real condition of existence from which all phenomena (Ch. fa, Tib. chos) arise. It translates the Sanskrit word dharmatå. Dharma (Tib. chos, Ch. fa) means “whatever exist” and tå (Tib. nyid, Ch. xing) means “in its own condi-tion.” “All things which arise have their own condition or nature (rang-bzhin). … This level of manifestation of the energy of all phenomena is called the Dharmatå.” See Namkhai Norbu, The Cycle of Day and Night, 68. The Chinese passage seems to refer to the threefold way of ex-perimenting the unity of the basis or ground (Ch. genben 根本, Tib. gzhi) as essence (Ch. ti 體 or ti xing 體性, Tib. ngo bo), nature (Ch. xing 性 or zixing 自性, Tib. rang bzhin) and energy (Ch. dabei 大悲 or beixin 悲心, Tib. thugs rje). Since in Chinese translations these three terms can be found in their long or abbreviated form, the choice of translation is sometimes difficult. See also note 65.


to unfold their great efficacy (da yong).94 The method of tuoga [thod rgal] can make ordinary persons understand the cause of the transmigration in the six realms since it thoroughly understand the inherent principle.

此法主要在看光。看光之目的乃在使自心中本具之本覺智光，得依其他之五種

光明，在空中顯出，以認識本自面目，而圓三身之果德。其所以能如是者，蓋

因其修法。是能直智慧心，令心智合一，以使出顯「心」和「智」在成就本明上，

其體本來是一，在體性上亦與氣原是一，皆為法性之所顯現。但凡夫因妄執，

改未能合一，而將其分立為二。智慧心不能出顯以起大用。此妥噶之法，即是

因能徹知此中之理，了知凡夫輪迴六道之因。

Although Chinese terminology for translating Tibetan concepts is clearly inherited from Chinese Buddhism, one can discern some key terms specific to the rDzogs chen system. The term benjue 本覺 (original enlightenment), for instance, in the expression benjue zhiguang 本覺智光, is one of the Chinese terms for translating the Tibetan term rig pa or its quality of self-existing/innate (rang byung) awareness;95 it is borrowed from the sixth century Chinese apocryphon Dasheng qixin lun 大乘起心

論 (Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana, T. 1666 & 1667), and other texts.96 In rDzogs

94 The term dayong 大用, great efficacy, great functioning or marvelous function was ad-opted in Buddhist texts to refer to the skillful means at the disposal of buddhas and bodhisattvas. It is originally a term used in Zhuangzi, referring to the Great Use of useless things, such as gnarled trees and crippled people. It is commonly found in Chan records referring to the liber-ating powers of skilful means possessed by the greatly enlightened masters whose every small action is guided by attunement to the essence (ti 體). See R. Sharf, Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism, 207-208; and C. Muller (ed.), Digital Dictionary of Buddhism.

95 The Tibetan term rig pa (awareness) is translated in Chinese in different ways. On this, see notes 76, 92, 96, 125. For its meaning of “self-existing wisdom” or innate awareness (rang byung ye shes) or lamp of self-existing wisdom (shes rab rang byung gi sgron ma) see also Achard, L’essence perlée du secret, 113, 140, 142, and note 97 below.

96 The Dasheng qixin lun is a text attributed to AßvagoΣa but in reality a Chinese apocry-phon. It is also one of the major sources on which Shingon is based (Kiyota, Shingon Buddhism Theory and Practice, 65). See also Renwang jing 仁王經 (T. 245, 246, vol. 8, 825-834), and Jingang sanmei jing 金剛三昧經 (T. 273, vol. 9, 365-373), two Chinese apocryphal texts quoted by Paul L. Swanson, “‘Zen is not Buddhism’ Recent Japanese critiques of Buddha-nature,” Numen 40 (1993): 115-149, here 117. The term benjue (original enlightenment) is contrasted with the term shijue (initial awakening). “The former is the enlightenment as one’s Buddha-nature found amidst defilement, while the latter is the enlightenment realized when the defilement is removed.” Nagao, Mådhyamika and Yogåcåra, 251 note 16. Suzuki in his translation of the Dasheng qixin lun talks of “enlightenment a priori and enlightenment a posteriori.” (Daisetsu Suzuki and Dwight Goddard, The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana and its Commentary, The Principle and Practice of Mahayana Buddhism, Taipei: SMC Publishing Inc, 1990): 62. The ex-istence of an original enlightenment implies that there is non-enlightenment: beings are in-herently enlightened but they fail to recognize it. This is illustrated in the Jingang sanmei jing or Vajrasamådhi-s¨tra parable of the deluded man who carries gold coins in his hand without knowing (see the translation of this passage in Robert Buswell, The Formation of Ch’an ideolo-gy in China and Korea, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989): 207. A revised version of this parable is often quoted in explanations on the rDzogs chen view; see for example, Tenzin Wangyal, Wonders of the Natural Mind—The Essence of Dzogchen in the Native Bon Tradition of Tibet (New York: Station Hill, 1993). This idea of original or inherent enlightenment had a

506 Monica Esposito

chen texts it is coupled with zhihui (wisdom; Tib. shes rab). Being regarded as innate source of light, it is in Chinese technically referred to as “Lamp” of originally awak-ened Wisdom (Ch. benjue zhiguang 本覺智光, Tib. shes rab rang byung gi sgron ma), or more literally “Wisdom-Lamp of Original Enlightnement.” It is associated with the “flesh-heart” or physical heart, its original sanctuary.97 As innate luminosity, this “lamp” with the support of five (or three) other lamps, has the power to show “one’s original face and round off the nirvanic merits of the Three Bodies.” Although in this Chinese translation one finds terms connected with Chan like “one’s own original face,” the “great efficacy or marvelous function” (dayong 大用), or with the notion of Fruit (guode 果德) stemming from Nirvåˆa S¨tra’s four påramitå of knowledge, it is important to remark that these same terms come to have a specific meaning in rDzogs chen texts. Such meanings cannot be separated from the vision-ary experience to which they refer. As we are going to see, the interplay of mirror-ing lamps, rainbows, and luminous spheres, which all constitute the subtle warp of one’s original body with its luminous vessels, are “the marvelous function” for breaking through the ordinary flesh-body. Going back to the source, to the instant when matter is not yet solidified by the erroneous grasping of subject-object, forms the core of thod rgal visionary practices whose “fruit” reveals itself thanks to this irreversible return to the innate luminous source.98 This ultimate “going back” sig-nifies the dissolution of the ordinary body’s aggregates into light and the liberation of the fleshly body into the radiancy of the so-called rainbow body (Ch. hongshen 虹身, Tib. ’ja’ lus). This constitutes the ultimate “fruit” in rDzogs chen. But how does this dissolution of matter into rainbow light take place, and what are the methods capable of producing such a feat?

The Phantasmagoric World of Duality: Qi and Deluded Mind

The initial method of thod rgal consists in “pacifying and harmonizing mind and qi” (Ch. qixin antiao zhi fa 氣心安調之法) in order to attain perfect immobility. This is the condition for the manifestation of the original body beyond duality, the appear-ance of its innate luminous essence under the form of luminous channels, spheres, lamps, etc. The term used here for translating Tibetan rlung is qi. This term, very

great influence on the development of East Asian Buddhism. In China, for instance, it played a role in the Huayan, Chan and Tiantai traditions while in Japan it became an almost uni-versal assumption in the Buddhist tradition under the name of Hongaku shisØ 本覺思想; see P. Swanson, “Zen is not Buddhism,” and Jacqueline I. Stone, Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999).

97 The problem noted for the triune terms (notes 65 and 93) also applies to the term zhi 智 because it can be the abbreviated form for zhihui 智慧 or insight (shes rab) or simply indicate zhi 智, i.e., knowledge or wisdom (ye shes). Benjue zhi (guang) 本覺智(光) thus stands for both shes rab rang byung (gyi sgron ma) and rang byung ye shes. On the meaning of these terms see Samten Karmay, The Great Perfection, 107 note 4, and 115-116 note 42, and Achard, L’essence perlée, 113 and 116-117.

98 On the notion of “fruit” in rDzogs chen texts see Achard, L’essence perlée, 142-155.


familiar to the Chinese, includes a variety of meanings like air, breath, vital energy, pneuma, etc. When Fahai Lama was transmitting these teachings at Qianfo chansi, China was experiencing a revival of all sorts of psycho-physiologic techniques wel-comed by Chinese authorities under the term of qigong 氣功, “practice or manipula-tion of qi.” Within this frame Fahai Lama, who was already known as an expert of Chinese medicine and qigong, felt quite free to teach Tibetan esoteric practices under the label of “practices on qi.”

99 In these texts, as Fahai Lama explains, qi has a more specific meaning: the chaotic circulation of qi or breath-vital energy can create the phantasmagoric world of solidified matter and simultaneously, once harmonized, be the vehicle for breaking through the real world of light. To quote the Dayuanman guanding (78b):

The reason ordinary beings transmigrate in the six realms is that genuine mind (zhenxin) is being enticed ( yinyou) by qi and becomes deluded mind (wangxin).

凡夫輪迴六道，乃因其真心被氣所引誘而成為妄心故。

However, qi is not responsible for this seduction: its chaotic flow spontaneously arises from the separation of One into Two and happens every time man fails to rec-ognize the inherent unity of the genuine mind (zhenxin).100 From this fundamental misunderstanding, the phantasmagoric-solidified world appears. It is created from the chaotic progress of the “crippled genuine mind” (zhenxin ru bozou zhe 真心如

跛走者) and the “breath-vital energy (qi) of the body that is like a blind untamed horse” (shen zhong zhi qi ru mang liema 身中之氣如盲劣馬).101 The genuine mind thus appears as deluded, erring like a crippled man (wangxin ru wuzou zhi ren 妄心如無走

之人); and breath-vital energy, being no more harmonized, moves like a loose horse (qi ru machi 氣如馬馳) and is transformed in the karmic energy of the turning wheel of transmigrations.102 How does this take place?

Breath-vital energy (qi) originally dwells in the lungs; the deluded mind is like a crippled man, and the breath-vital energy is like a blind horse. From the heart to the lungs there is a connecting vessel (maiguan), thin like a wheat stalk. In its empty center resides breath-vital energy. This means that the so-called breath-vital energy is what dwells in this center. From this ves-sel (maiguan) additional and countless fine vessels branch off. They pervade the lungs and all the doors of perceptions which are body, eyes, ears, nose, and tongue; they flow in the whole body. When the deluded mind (wangxin)

99 More on this below.100 It is interesting to compare the division taking place on the basis of the genuine mind

(zhenxin) itself, to the creative division of the world. In Daoist cosmology, this division consti-tutes the fundamental background of Daoist alchemy; see Isabelle Robinet, “Un, deux, trois: Les différentes modalités de l’Un et sa dynamique,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 8 (1995): 175-220.

101 This is a famous quotation from Ye shes bla ma presented in the Chinese translation, Dayuan shenghui (Fahai Lama’s manuscript, 33).

102 I have summirized it on the basis of the explanations given by Fahai Lama in Dayuanman guanding, 78b-79b.

508 Monica Esposito

is attracted by [the chaotic flow of] breath-vital energy, it moves along with it. In turn, [the chaotic flow of] breath-vital energy is only emitted (suoshi) by the deluded mind; both of them rely on each other, and through the vessels they flee in disorder throughout the body. The place the mind (xin) aims at is where breath-vital energy rushes: it keeps running to the six organs (liugen) that relate to the six objects (liuchen), and the six delusions (liu fannao) and three poisons—desire, anger, ignorance—arise. This is the reason why there is transmigration in the six realms (lunhui liudao) and samsara without any chance of escaping. This is the reason why ordinary persons plunge into the six realms.

吾人之氣原住於肺，妄心如無走之人，氣如瞎眼之馬。由心至肺有脈管相通，狀如

小麥杆之細，中空有氣。所謂氣者，即住於此中。由此脈管上復分出無數支細脈管，

通達全肺，及眼、耳、鼻、舌、身、諸門，而流佈全身。此妄心既被氣引誘，即

依氣而行，而氣亦惟妄心所使，兩者相依，由脈而亂竄全身。心想何處，氣即竄達

何處，竄至六根對六塵，而六煩惱生，貪、瞋、癡三毒起矣。因而輪迴六道轉生死，

無有出期。是即凡夫所以淪於六道之理也。103

This passage explains why duality arises, and its continuation describes how to tran-scend it by understanding thoroughly the origin and cause of this delusion, and by recognizing the luminous essence of mind. The key lies in the term dingzhu 定住 which means “to fix the abode” of the deluded mind (wangxin).

I am not going to dwell on these thod rgal techniques, but it is important to note that, as Fahai Lama explains, the notion of “immobility” (an immobility without ef-fort) is applied, for example, to the body posture, to the way of breathing (leaving the mouth slightly open), to the gaze with fixed eyes, etc.104 This kind of “fixation” is also alluded to by the Chinese term ding 定’s meaning of “nail” (a kind of “pinning down”), which is literally applied to all the “doors” of communication between the inner (microcosmos) and outer body (macrocosmos) in the thod rgal practical pre-cepts.105 According to the Dayuanman guanding (79a), Fahai Lama explains:

Ordinary persons become buddhas by being able to let the genuine mind (zhenxin) not move and peacefully rest (anzhu) inside the flesh-heart (routuan xin) without being diverted by the breath-vital energy and without giving rise to any deluded thoughts. As the genuine mind can stay unmoved, the Lamp of originally awakened Wisdom (zhihui guangming), which is origi-nally inside the genuine mind, can become manifest. As a result of this, the realm of the Three Bodies (sanshen zhi jing jie) appears. The application of tuoga [thod rgal] practice according to its precepts (xiuchi)106 begins the culti-

103 Dayuanman guanding, 79a.104 The term dingzhu means guding de zhuchu 固定的住處; see Hanyu dacidian 漢語大詞典

[Large dictionary of Chinese language] 12 vols. (Shanghai: Hanyu dacidian, 1993): vol. 3, 1362.105 On this notion see also Lopon Tenzin Namdak, Heart Drops of Dharmakaya, 86-90 and

108-110.106 I refer to the first meaning of xiuchi 修持 as chijie xiuxing 持戒修行. This expression in-

cludes the meaning of xiushen shoudao 修身守道 (cultivate one’s moral character and hold to the Path), or baoyang 保養 (take care of one’s health); see Hanyu dacidian, vol. 1, 1374.


vation from the breath-vital energy in the heart of the basis [Ch. genben, Tib. gzhi].107 Applying oneself hard on the breath-vital energy in the heart, one is able to fix the abode (dingzhu) of the deluded mind and prevent the deluded breath-vital energy from moving in disorder while leading back to the genuine mind ( fangui yu zhenxin). This causes the Lamp of Wisdom (zhiguang), which is originally inside the genuine mind, to follow the correct track (zheng gui) along the breath-vital energy vessel (qimai), and to clearly manifest. This is what makes tuoga [thod rgal] unsurpassed (shusheng).

至凡夫所以成佛者，乃因其能令真心不動，安住於肉團心之中，不被氣轉，不起妄念。

由于真心能不動，于是真心中本具之智慧光明，即可顯現發出。三身之境界，由是

而出現。妥噶之修持，即是從根本之心氣上起修，在心氣上用功夫，能定住妄心，

定令妄氣不亂生動，而仍返歸於真心，使真心中本具智光，循正軌之氣脈而顯發。

此即妥噶所以殊勝之處也。

Visionary Anatomy: Looking through the Crystal Duct

Having understood that the dualistic world solidified in our flesh-body is a creation of the deluded mind (wangxin) and originates from the amalgamation of breath-vital energy and genuine mind, the question remains: where does the genu-ine mind dwell and how can it show itself? Quoting the Jinzhu jing 金珠經 or Tan-tra of the Golden Pearls (Tib. gSer phreng), Fahai Lama on the basis of the Dayuanman guanding (82b) explains thus:

From the Jewel Palace of the Heart (xin baogong) to the Ocean of the Eyes [yanhai, i.e., the pupils] there is a connecting vessel which is called in Tibetan “Kati.” It is opalescent, transparent, and soft. Empty in its interior (neikong), it is not engendered by the mother’s red blood and the father’s white semen ( fumu hongbai jingxue), which “some people call sun and moon.” It is great wisdom (da zhihui), the dharmakåya ( fashen) that “freely traverses it” (tong yu ci): this is the principle on which the tuoga [thod rgal] method is based.

由心寶宮通達眼海（即瞳人），有聯之脈，藏名曰「噶底」。細白透明而柔軟，內空此

非父母紅白精血所生，「或云日月」。大智慧「法身」，「即通於此」。此即妥噶法所

依之理也。

Fahai Lama then explains this passage as follows (Dayuanman guanding, 83a):

From the heart to the eyes there is a connecting vessel-path (maidao). It is the most secret duct ( ji mimi guan) like crystal whose name is Kati. This is why it was pointed out before that this is the principle on which tuoga [thod rgal] is based.

心眼相聯有脈道，極秘密管，如水晶，其名曰「噶底」。故上說此妥噶所依之理。

107 On this term, see notes 65 and 93.

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This Crystal Duct is a vessel-path linking the heart to the eyes and is quali-fied as li 理, “a principle absolutely free from any error” since it is not soiled by the father’s semen and the mother’s menstrual blood (i.e., the coarse body developed from the embryo).108 This principle expresses itself through a fourfold dynamic incorporated in the so-called Vessel of the Far-reaching Water Lamp (Ch. yuan-tong shui guang 遠通水光, Tib. rgyang zhags chu’i sgron ma) in which the breath-vital energy of wisdom (Ch. zhiqi 智气, Tib. ye shes kyi rlung) circulates.109 From the point of view of the incorporation of this dynamic, the Far-reaching Water Lamp is

a vessel that from the navel wheel passes through the heart and opens into the eyes. From the back of the brain it divides into two branches which look like wild ox horns (below the brain it becomes a single root).

[遠通水光之脈]由臍化輪經心而通於眼。至腦後時則分為二，形如野牛角(腦以下

仍為單根)。110

The smooth and luminous tip of this horn-like branch is the pupil; it is “like the light on the surface of clear water allowing light to move and reflecting objects; this is why it is called Vessel of the Far-reaching Water Lamp 如水之清亮有光，光能運射

見物，故名遠通水光脈.” 111 It is at the same time a synonym of the Crystal Duct, the “principle” which links the four following vessels (Ch. qimai 氣脈):

(1) Kati—The Great Golden Vessel (Ch. gadi／jiadi da jinmai 噶底／迦底大金脈, Tib. ka ti gser gyi rtsa chen) located inside the central channel and linking this chan-nel to the center of the heart;

(2) The White Silk Thread Vessel (Ch. baisixian mai 白絲線脈, Tib. dar dkar skud pa) enclosed in the Kati Vessel and going through the Brahmå Cavity (Ch. fanxue 梵穴, Tib. tshang bu). This is the path for the practice of transferring consciousness (Ch. powa 破瓦, kaiding fa 開頂法, Tib. ’pho ba);

(3) The Subtly Coiled Vessel (Ch. xixuan mai 細旋脈, Tib. phra la ’dril ba) located inside the four wheels of navel, heart, throat, and sinciput;

(4) The Crystal Duct Vessel (Ch. jingguan mai 晶管脈, Tib. shel sbug can), a syn-onym of the Vessel of the Far-reaching Water Lamp, is the channel which links the heart to the eyes and supports the manifestations of countless luminous spheres and bright strands (Ch. wushu mingdian lianxi guangming 無數明點連系光明).112

108 The term li 理 (principle) cannot be understood without its coupled term zhi 智 (wis-dom), a fundamental notion that stands at the basis of Chinese esoteric path as well; see Yoritomi Motohiro 頼富本宏, “Ch¨goku mikkyØ no shisØ teki tokushitsu” 中国密教の思想的

特質 [Characteristics in the thought of Chinese Tantrism], in Ch¨goku mikkyØ, eds. Tachikawa Musashi and Yoritomi Motohiro, 113-140.

109 On this lamp see D. Germano, Poetic Thought, 104-105, and J.-L. Achard, L’essence perlée, 140-142. Its name alludes to the eye which is “fluid in nature; like a lasso, it reaches out to things far away; and like a lamp, it illuminates,” see Karma Chagmé, Naked Awareness (with commen-tary by Gyatrul Rinpoche, trans. Alan Wallace, Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 2000): 165.

110 Dayuanman guanding, 82b-83a. It explains the passage of the Ye shes bla ma; see Dayuan shenghui, (Fahai Lama’s manuscript, 34-35).

111 Dayuanman guanding, 83a. 112 Here the Chinese expression lianxi guangming refers to jingang lian 金剛連, vajra or ad-


These four vessels can be seen as a fourfold path developed from the wheel of the heart in which the breath-vital energy of wisdom dwells and from which it can reach the eye, the door of its manifestation. Known as “luminous subtle vessels” (Ch. guangming fengmai 光明風脈 or guangming mai 光明脈, Tib. ’od rtsa),113 these four channels form part of a specific system. In the Great Perfection texts they are added to the already adopted Tantric system of four wheels or chakras (Ch. silun 四輪, Tib. ’khor lo bzhi) and three channels or nadi (Ch. sanmai 三脈, Tib. rtsa gsum). As Fahai Lama emphasizes, in the Great Perfection system of luminous vessels, only the central channel comes to play an important role in connection with the wheel of the heart. Furthermore, it is important to mention that Dayuanman guanding also presents an eightfold path of channels which can be regarded as a supplementary eight branches of the central channel.

The Lamps, Source and Expression of the Luminous Vision of Wisdom

The Vessel of the Far-reaching Water Lamp, synonym of the Crystal Duct, is regarded as the principle of incorporation of the four vessels and at the same time as the principle of the “lamps” itself—the eyes—the source of vision.114 This pow-er is released through the support of other supplementary lamps and, in this sense, represents the principle of released dynamism, that is, the door through which the breath-vital energy of wisdom appears as pure light. Following the Dayuanman guanding, Fahai Lama explains that while the ordinary view coming from the ele-ment water is unable to see the realm of the Three Bodies, the view released by the Vessel of the Far-reaching Water Lamp can see it. “This realm appears in the form of four kinds of auspicious lamps” which, according to their order of manifestation in the front of the practitioner’s eyes, are:

(1) The Far-reaching Water Lamp (Ch. yuantong shuiguang 遠通水光, Tib. rgyang zhangs chu’i sgron ma):

(it is in the center of the eyes, i.e., the pupils, where the all-pervading four ele-ments are born); it is the door through which one can see far into empty space by joining the Lamp of the White and Soft Vessel [Ch. bairuo maiguang, Tib. dkar ’jam rtsa’i sgron ma] with the Vessel of Wisdom.

amantine strands (Tib. rdo rje lu gu rgyud; see below Fig. 14-16). Chinese texts present some differences with Tibetan sources; cf. Achard, L’essence perlée, 131.

113 The system of four vessels is well explained in the fifth chapter of the Chinese trans-lation of Klong chen pa’s Tshig don mdzod entitled Juyi baozang lun 句義寶藏論 [The treasury of words and meanings] (Fahai Lama’s manuscript, 49b-65a). For a study on these four lumi-nous vessels on the basis of Tibetan sources, see Germano, Poetic thought, 90-94, and Achard, L’essence perlée, 129-131. For a study based on Chinese translations see Qiu Ling (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman, 68-70.

114 For studies on the lamps based on Tibetan sources see H. Guenther, Meditation Differently (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1992): 73-94; Lopon Tenzin Namdak, Heart Drops of Dharmakaya, 191-94; Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Tayé, Myriad Worlds (New York: Snow Lion Publications, 1995): 216-219; Germano, Poetic thought, 95-108; Achard, L’essence perlée, 140-142; and Karma Chagmé, Naked Awareness, 160-178.

512 Monica Esposito

遠通水光(即眼根中普通四大所生之眼內)，(即眼根)，智慧脈與白柔脈光相連，能

遠見虛空，此是門。115

It is also said that:

The Far-reaching Water Lamp is the Lamp of the White and Soft Vessel which, passing through the doors of both eyes, projects itself (shexiang) to the limit of space. Because it gets in touch with the external world and sees far away into the sky, it is “the main gate of exit and entry”(churu zhi menhu)116 of the Lamp of Wisdom (zhihui guang).

遠通水光—白柔脈光通過兩眼根如門，射向空際，與外界接觸，遠見虛空，為智

慧光出入之門戶。117

In this sense, the Far-reaching Water Lamp includes a threefold meaning referring to (a) the eyes, organs of vision; (b) the Vessel linking the heart to the eyes (here men-tioned under the name of the Lamp of the White and Soft Vessel [Ch. bairou guang, Tib. dkar ’jam rtsa’i sgron ma]); (c) the Lamp of Wisdom (Ch. zhihui guang, Tib. shes rab [rang byung] gi sgron ma) as the door (or as path in the form of the Vessel of Wis-dom) through which the breath-vital energy of wisdom appears as pure light.118

(2) The “Lamp of the Absolute Space of the non-duality of ßamatha and vipaßyanå” (ding hui wuer zhi faxing guang 定慧無二之法性光),119 also called the Lamp of Pure Space (Ch. jie qingjing guang 界清淨光, Tib. dag pa dyings kyi sgron ma or dbyings rnam dag gi sgron ma).

115 Dayuanman guanding, 81b. The expression yuanjian 遠見 can indicate the capacity to see far in space but also to foresee, having a foresight or vision of the sky as it appears in its pris-tine purity.

116 In the well-known Secret of the Golden Flower, a fundamental alchemical text in the Daoist Longmen tradition, the same expression is used for indicating the Celestial Eye (tian-mu), or Celestial Heart, “the main gate of exit and entry where the three luminous ones [sun, moon and polar star] converge.” See M. Esposito, “Longmen Taoism in Qing China,” Journal of Chinese Religions 29 (2001): 191-231, here 206-207.

117 Qiu Ling (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman, 72.118 In the explanations given by Fahai Lama, the system of the four lamps and six lamps

are combined together according to the instructions found in the Dayuanman guanding (79a-84a). These explanations are based on the Ye shes bla ma and on chap. 6 of the Tshig don mdzod. Although the Dayuanman guanding mentions five lamps, it lists six lamps (Tib. sgron ma drug). As mentioned above, two supplementary lamps—the Lamp of the Flesh-Heart (Ch. routuan xin guang, Tib. tsitta sha’i sgron ma) and the White and Soft Vessel Lamp (Ch. bairou mai guang, Tib. dkar ’jam rtsa’i sgron ma) —are examined as discrete parts of the all-encompassing Far-reaching Water Lamp. It is thus important to note that the Far-reaching Water Lamp has the role of me-diator between the incorporation of the lamps associated with the Vessel (i.e., the Lamp of the Flesh-Heart, the Lamp of the White and Soft Vessel, and the Far-reaching Water Lamp as the connecting door of this Vessel itself), and the Lamps associated with Space. It is the intermedi-ary between the microcosmic cavities and the macrocosmic hollow where the luminous essence of Wisdom (i.e., the Lamp of originally awakened Self-existing Wisdom) appears as pure light supported by the Lamp of Pure Space and the Lamp of the Empty Luminous Spheres. For a Chinese presentation of the system of six lamps see Qiu Ling (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman, 71-74.

119 The Chinese term faxing 法性 stands for dharmatå (Tib. chos nyid) “the essential na-ture of phenomena, which is emptiness also known as the absolute space”; see Karma Chagmé,


It is what is seen in the exterior field [of vision] (waijing): the blue lamp of the cloudless clear sky, which is the domain of support [of luminous visions] (ac-cording to the oral comment it is the domain of support where the Lamp of originally awakened Wisdom [Ch. benjue zhiguang, Tib. shes rab rang byung gi sgron ma] appears).

即所見外境，無雲晴空之籃色光，此是所依之境，（為本覺智光顯現時所依之處）

口訣。120

As we can see in Fig. 12, the visions developed through thod rgal practice have a cir-cle as their frame, a kind of luminous halo marking the field of vision.121 Fahai Lama in the Dayuanman guanding (81b) draws a picture on its form and adds that it cannot be seen by the ordinary eye.122 On this lamp it is also said that:

The Lamp of Pure Space develops after the Far-reaching Water Lamp has come in contact with the external world (waijie) as the domain which allows the manifestation of the Lamp of Wisdom. Like a cloudless bright sky, it is supported by the emptiness of the heart-mind through which the Lamp of originally awakened Wisdom appears.

界清淨光—為遠通水光與外界接觸後，形成的法界清淨光，為智慧光能顯現之

境，如無雲晴空，為虛空心所依，本覺智光將依此顯現。123

(3) The Lamp of Empty Spheres (Ch. yuankong guang 圓空光) which appears like the eye of a peacock feather (ru kongqueling yan 如孔雀翎眼) is also called the Lamp of Luminous Empty Spheres (Ch. mingdian kongguang 明點空光, Tib. thig le stong pa’i sgron ma). It represents the luminous manifestation of wisdom in its spherical and

Naked Awareness, 300 and previous note 93.120 Dayuanman guanding, 81b.121 See also the explanations by Lopon Tenzin Namdak, Heart Drops of Dharmakaya, 91

and note 19, and Karma Chagmé, Naked Awareness, 158. 122 On the distinction between the normal or ordinary channel of the eye and the ves-

sel of the eye which is opened thanks to thod rgal methods, see Lopon Tenzin Namdak, Heart Drops of Dharmakaya, 85 note 13.

123 Qiu Ling (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman, 72.

Fig. 12: The Lamp of the Pure Space. (Source: Dayuanman guan-ding 大圓滿灌頂)

514 Monica Esposito

five-colored form. In fact, Fahai Lama on the basis of the Dayuanman guan ding (81b) explains that this lamp “is the Lamp of originally awakened Wisdom which appears inside the Lamp of Pure Space 明點空光，即於界清淨光中所顯出之本覺智光.” It is also said that it appears “like the concentric ripples arising from casting a stone into wa-ter” [Fig. 13].124

124 Qiu Ling (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman, 72. See also below in the context of the first vision.125 As mentioned above (note 76), the Chinese term mingti is another expression for rig

pa but, unlike benjue or zhihui, it puts stress on the visionary experience of being confronted to the luminous essence of the mind, its power of radiance.

126 Qiu Ling (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman, 72.127 Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangyi, 42b-43a, and Dayuanman xinzhongxin jianglu (Qiu

Ling ed., Zangmi dayuanman): 153.128 The Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangyi, 20b, gives the same passage but with important

modifications that go as follows: “ ‘Bright nature’ (zixing ming) means that it is visible in the do-main of manifestation like the light of a lamp. ‘All-pervading energy’ (dabei pubian) means that it has the effect of sending out the clear light of Five-fold wisdom in the heart. It is like under

Fig. 13: The Lamp of Empty Spheres. (Source: The Collected Redis-covered Teachings)

(4) The Lamp of originally awakened Wisdom (Ch. benjue zhiguang 本覺智光 or benjue zhihui zhi guang 本覺智慧之光, Tib. shes rab rang byung gi sgron ma), represents the luminous essence, i.e., rig pa (mingti 明體).125 It is regarded as “the original es-sence (yuanti 原體) of the Lamp of the Empty Luminous Spheres, which is hidden in the flesh-heart and endowed with the three qualities of emptiness, brightness, and energy.”

126 Thanks to the support of the Lamp of the Empty Luminous Spheres, the Lamp of originally awakened Wisdom progressively manifests itself in four stages of visions.127 Regarding the definition of the Lamp of originally awakened Wisdom Fa-hai Lama explains as follows (Dayuanman guanding, 81b-82a):

The Lamp of originally awakened Wisdom (benjue zhiguang) is endowed with three special qualities: primordially empty essence (tixing), bright nature (zi-xing), and all-pervading energy (dabei). “Empty essence”(tixing kong) means that it is primordially empty like the body of a lamp. “Bright nature” (zixing ming) means that it is luminous like the radiance of a lamp. “All-pervading en-ergy” (dabei pubian) means that it is like the light of the lamp illuminating all around.128 It is empty in its essence (ti), bright in its aspect (xiang), and ener-getic in its action (yong).129


本覺智光、具足體性本空，自性光明，大悲普遍三特性。體性空者，謂從本空寂，

喻如燈體。自性明者，喻如燈明。大悲普遍者，喻如燈光普照。空為體，明為相，

大悲為用。

Thanks to these four lamps, reality appears in its visionary aspect as a circular or mandalic form which is the realm of the Three Bodies. In fact, these lamps are said to “produce visions of mandalas and the forms of divinities.”130 Fahai Lama adds according to the Dayuanman guanding (83a-b):

All animate beings have these four lamps without any defect. Although the power of sight of eyes uses little energy, it has nonetheless a great capacity of seeing objects from the smallest to the biggest dimension. This is due to the fact that it uses the efficacious power of breath-vital energy (qi). […] After be-ing cultivated, it can be transformed into the energy of the clear light (guang-ming zhi qi). Thus, it can make every domain formed by the four elements appear. Yet the whole world is sublimated into the domain of the Lamp of the Empty Spheres and appears from inside to outside. This is why these four kinds of lamps can be seen. After having seen these four lamps, one must re-sorb them and become one into the dharmatå ( faxing).131

此四種光，一切有情器皆具備而不缺。眼之視力，所以能用小視大，能見外界極

大之境者，乃由氣力作用之故。[…]修後即能使其化光明之氣，因而能令所見之

外界之四大所成各境。世皆化為圓空之光之境界，如是由內而外顯，故四種光即

可得見矣。此四種光得見後，復又須將其收入於法性之中，令與法性合一。

The Four Visions

Thanks to thod rgal practices which require specific postures with appropriate gazes while contemplating the light of sun, moon, or lamps, the luminous essence of wisdom is said to appear in front of the eyes of the practitioner.132 At the beginning, colored vapors will manifest, some more luminous, some more transparent or with-out colors, and they will increase in form and structure in the following four stages of visions (xianxian 顯現):133

the light of a lamp that one can distinguish what one is doing. It is also said that it is empty in its essence (ti), bright in its aspect (xiang), and energetic in its action (yong) 自性明者，謂顯境明

顯，喻如燈明。大悲普遍者，謂於心現五智，體光明發生作用，喻如燈光下可認工作故。又喻空為體，

明為相，大悲為用.” This passage is given in the explanation of the system of the six lamps and is related to the first Lamp of the Flesh-Heart (Ch. routuan xinguang 肉團心光, Tib. tsitta sha’i sgron ma).

129 For the meaning of compassion as “energy” in Great Perfection texts, see above note 65, and Achard, L’essence perlée, 104-105, 111 note 41, 42.

130 Lopon Tenzin Namdak, Heart Drops of Dharmakaya, 91131 This is based on the quotation of the Chinese translation of the Ye shes bla ma (cf. Dayuan

shenghui, Fahai Lama’s manuscript, 35, and Wu Jialiang, ed., Dayuanman, 589).132 On these precepts of practice see Lopon Tenzin Namdak, Heart Drops of Dharmakaya,

86-90.133 The presentation of the four visions is mainly based on Dayuanman guanding, 90b-

92b; Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangyi, 44b-45a; and Qiu Ling (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman, 75-83.

(1) The Vision of Self-Manifesting Reality (Ch. xianjian faxing xianxian 現見法

性顯現, Tib. chos nyid mngon sum gyi snang ba).134 This vision appears in the blue halo of the Lamp of Pure Space like a rainbow light or like the eye of a peacock feather (i.e., the Lamp of Empty Luminous Spheres of five colors). At the beginning it is as small as a fish eye, but with practice it increases to the size of a thumb or an index finger. Its form resembles the concentric ripples arising when one casts a pebble into a pool, small and large. They are often composed of three circles that merge into one. They tend to exhibit the pattern of threads, fine-meshed nets (xianwen 纖紋), luminous spheres or sparkles (Ch. mingdian 明點, Tib. thig le), and adamantine strands (Ch. jingang lian 金剛練／鏈, Tib. rdo rje lu gu rgyud). The latter are the most important because they represent the direct experience of the nature of mind in terms of luminous essence (Ch. mingti, Tib. rig pa), “strands which link to the mani-fested appearance of the nature of mind” (cilian ji xi zixin zhi xianxiang 此練即係自心

之顯相).135 They are like two or four knots tied into a horse’s tail (mawei jiejie 馬尾結

結), like a string of pearls, like a garland of flowers, etc. [Figs. 14-16]. The vision of adamantine strands characterizes this first vision, the first manifestation of Reality.

(2) The Vision of Increased Experiences (Ch. jueshou zengchang xianxian 覺受增長

顯現, 136 Tib. nyams snang gong ’phel gyi snang ba).137 It appears under the form of five-colored luminous spheres which are horizontally and vertically distributed, every one containing different forms like lotus flowers, tassel-shaped ornaments (yingluo 纓絡), precious pagodas (baota 寶塔), conches, spear-points, and so on [Fig. 17]. Their form undergoes infinite changes and progressively increases to the size of a bowl or a mir-ror, wheel or shield. These visions “shoot straight upward from the eyebrow” within luminous spheres (Ch. mingdian, Tib. thig le) or outside them and also “go to the side, and sometimes even appear as a triangle.” 138

It is important to note that the Chinese term for “vision” is xianxian 顯現, literally “manifesta-tion, what appears or reveals (xian) just in front (xian),” which is the Chinese translation of the Tibetan term snang ba. For its Tibetan meaning see H. Guenther, Meditation Differently, 73-74 and 79. For other studies based on Tibetan sources, see H. Guenther, Meditation Differently, 73-94; Lopon Tenzin Namdak, Heart Drops of Dharmakaya, Achard, L’essence perlée, 121-129 and Karma Chagmé, Naked Awareness, 160-178.

134 In the Chinese translation of the Ye shes bla ma this vision is translated as faxing mingwu 法性明悟 (Dayuan shenghui, in Fahai Lama’s manuscript, 46, and Wu Jialiang ed., Dayuanman, 608).

135 Dayuanman guanding, 91a. On the meaning of the adamantine strands see also Achard, L’essence perlée, 111-112, 172-173, and Karma Chagmé Naked Awareness, 160-161.

136 The Chinese Buddhist term jueshou 覺受 meaning “perception, apprehension, experi-ence,” stands for the Tibetan term nyams snang, “experiences (and displays), visionary/medita-tive experiences, experiential vision.”

137 In the Chinese translation of the Ye shes bla ma this vision is translated as wujing rijin 悟境

日進 (Dayuan shenghui, in Fahai Lama’s manuscript, 46, and Wu Jialiang ed., Dayuanman, 608).138 In Bon po Great Perfection they are described as: “All the stars and planets are shin-

ing brightly on his breast” (Lopon Tenzin Namdak, Heart Drops of Dharmakaya, 98). For in-stance, according to the Zhang zhung snyang rgyud: “When the visions come as a semicircle and white you should gaze upward and as hard as possible. When the colours are above and to the right and red you should look down. When the visions come in square shapes yellow in colour,

516 Monica Esposito

the gaze is to the right. When they are round and green then look to the left. If the shapes are triangular and the colors are blue the eyes should gaze straight ahead.” See Lopon Tenzin Namdak, Heart Drops of Dharmakaya, 98.

Fig. 14: Adamantine strands. (Source: Da yuanman guanding 大圓滿灌

頂)

Fig. 15: Adamantine strands like a string of pearls. (Source: The Collected Redis covered Teachings)

Fig. 16: Adamantine strands like knots tied into a horse’s tail. (Source: The Collected Rediscovered Teach-ings)


Fig. 17: The Vision of Increased Expe-riences. (Source: The Col lected Rediscovered Teachings)

518 Monica Esposito

As one practices, the visions take on certain structures, and at the center of the lu-minous spheres various images of divinities may appear. At first, only a headdress or bust may appear, or only a hand or a foot; but later, the whole figure manifests [Fig. 18]. While at the outset a certain divinity may appear without consort and without or-naments, with practice it will become more elaborate and appear with a consort. The manifestation of forms of deities characterizes this second vision.

139 In the Chinese translation of the Ye shes bla ma this vision is translated as zixin jinzhi 自心進詣 (Dayuan shenghui, in Fahai Lama’s manuscript, 46, and in Wu Jialiang, ed., Dayuanman, 608).

140 Lopon Tenzin Namdak, in Heart Drops of Dharmakaya (101-102) quotes that “the vi-sions mix with the external vision. … All the normal visions in life are seen as the Buddha realms and the five Buddha families. You can see coming from your chest the five-coloured rays connecting you to these divinities.”

141 These thaumaturgical powers are not so different from those mentioned in Indian Tantric literature (see David Gordon White, The Alchemical Body, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996) and Chinese texts concerning the power of the Immortals or Transcendent beings; see below.

Fig. 18: The manifestation of forms of deities. (Source: The Collected Rediscovered Teachings)

(3) The Vision of Reaching Culmination of the Luminous Essence [i.e., rig pa; awareness] (Ch. mingti jinyi xianxian 明體進詣顯現, Tib. rig pa tshad phebs kyi snang ba).139 In this stage everything that appears is luminous and pervaded with rainbow light. The luminous spheres merge into a single sphere at whose center five luminous spheres appear. Inside them, the five Buddha families (wufang fo 五方佛) appear in complete form and in union with their consorts. At this stage one also sees pure lands, Buddha’s palaces, nets of adamantine strands, precious and encircled mandalas, etc. The manifestation of the Buddha’s palaces, pure lands, and the five families with their consort characterize this third vision. At this stage, the practitioner does not need the exterior support of the light of the sun, moon, or lamps anymore because the mani-festations appear at any moment and under any condition.140 All that is seen is of rain-bow light color. It is also stressed that at this stage the practitioner develops extraor-dinary powers or siddhi.141 As Fahai Lama explains, the manifestation of these powers that is comparable to the thaumaturgical powers of Daoist immortals and Buddhas is a natural result, the fruit of a natural process which does not imply any research or ef-fort by the practitioner.


(4) The Vision of Exhausting Reality (Ch. qiongjin faxing xianxian 窮盡法性顯現, Tib. chos nyid zad pa’i snang ba).142 The preceding visions of the luminous dynamism of wisdom come to an end. The luminous spheres of Buddhas, their palaces, pure lands and so on merge down into the nature of mind. This absorption is compared with the image of the black moon which, though it does not appear in the sky, still is there. This dissolution of all phenomena characterizes this last vision: as all visions come to an end, they merge back into Reality or dharmatå, and the body dissolves into rainbow light.

Reception of rDzogs chen and Qigong Fever in the People’s Republic of China

In his explanations, Fahai Lama liked to compare this last vision to “breaking through the ultimate barrier” of Chan, the solid barrier (laoguan 牢關) which cannot be overcome without abandoning discursive thought.143 But what is stricking in the analysis of Chinese sources and in Fahai Lama’s explanations is the peculiarity of these practices, their terminology, and the results that differ from what is described in Chan or Buddhist Mahayana texts in general. From Fahai Lama’s viewpoint Chan and rDzogs chen are united on the basis of the ultimate experience of “break-ing through duality,” while the irreversible secret manifestations (buzhuan mimi xi-anxiang 不轉秘密顯象) of thod rgal practice are put in relation with the attainments described in Daoist texts dealing with the search for immortality. According to the Chinese translation of the Ye shes bla ma (Dayuanman shenghui, 56), Fahai Lama pres-ents these attainments as follows:

The body is light like cotton, its skin color is replenished, the face is without wrinkles, the hair is not white or getting longer, and the finger and toe nails do not grow anymore. In the body there appears the image of the five Buddha families, some in form of their emblems (samaya) or mantra-syllables. The ap-perance of some becomes youthful, their white hairs return to black color, their missing teeth grow again, and so on, and the body is light and calm with-out any disease. […] As the mind is constantly in a state of meditative concen-tration (chanding), clothing and food are not necessary anymore, every séance of meditative concentration will last months or years and the flow of breath-vital energy (qi) will be under your control.

142 In the Chinese translation of the Ye shes bla ma this vision is translated as zhufa jinru faxing 諸法盡入法性 (Dayuan shenghui, in Fahai Lama’s manuscript, 46, and Wu Jialiang ed., Dayuanman, 608).

143 The three barriers (sanguan) in Chan represent three strategic passes corresponding to three stages of practice: initial, intermediary and ultimate. In the initial barrier one sees one’s nature being confronted with the nature of mind. In the intermediary barrier one gets liberat-ed from attachment to the nature of existence and non existence. In the ultimate barrier “one is capable of reaching the non duality of absorption (ßamatha) and contemplation (vipaßyanå), the domain without any hindrance of being and non-being 此後，再用功磨鍊，乃能達寂照不二、空

有無礙之境.” See Foguangshan dictionary (electronic version): 4813. On the meaning of laoguan 牢關, see Zengaku daijiten, 1311d.

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身輕如綿，膚色充實，面無皺紋，髮不白不長，指與爪亦不再長，身現五佛像，

或法器心咒。或老轉童相，髮白轉青，齒落復生，如是種種，身輕安無病。[…]

心入禪定，衣食無須，每一入定，可住一月或一年，氣可任意運用。144

This colorful description by Fahai Lama recalls the Chinese portrayals of Immortals “whose skin is pure like ice and snow, … who do not partake of the five grains but inhale wind and drink dew.”145 When he said this, Fahai Lama surely remembered that he himself had been interested in Daoist techniques of immortality while liv-ing in the Taijidong, the cave in the Southern Celestial-Eye Mountains previously inhabited by the Daoist Yang Yuanhe.146 During his life, Fahai Lama also had the opportunity of studying Daoist techniques, and he was interested to see how these techniques were similar to Tantric methods and their results with regard to the body, qi circulation, and its manipulation. According to Fahai Lama this was also compara-ble with modern qigong practices whose purpose matches the description given in the above passage from the Ye shes bla ma: “As the mind is constantly in a state of medita-tive concentration, … the flow of breath-vital energy (qi) will be under your control.” Furthermore, Daoism and its techniques of immortality that are comparable to mod-ern qigong practices also have another positive side: they can be seen as skillful means leading to Buddhist conversions. According to Fahai Lama, some of his own disciples joined him after being initiated into Daoist techniques. Even famous Buddhist monks like Taixu 太虚 (1890-1947) confessed that they entered the sangha longing for the supernatural powers of the immortals and Buddhas without sharply differentiating between Daoist and Buddhist attainments.147

When Fahai Lama in his monastery harmonized Chinese and Tibetan Bud dhism and explained the common points shared by rDzogs chen and Chan, Tantrism and Chan, and Tantrism, qigong, and Daoist techniques of immortality, a lively debate was taking place outside the monasteries about the role of religion and its esoteric tech-niques in modern Chinese society. Buddhism, Tantrism, Daoism, Neo-confucianism, and all sorts of esoteric and religious traditions were presented by the areligious Chinese communist government and by famous scientists like Qian Xuesen 錢學森 as expression of a larger Chinese tradition of “qi culture.”148 During the 1980s and 90s, Chinese “qi culture” and its results that were to some extent similar to the traditional

144 See also Dayuan shenghui (Wu Jialiang ed., Dayuanman): 627. This expression qi keren yi yunyong 气可任意運用 as Fahai Lama explains here below, echoes the art of controlling or manipulating the qi, common to Daoism, Tantrism and the techniques of modern qigong.

145 Quotation from the Daoist classic of Zhuangzi (chap. 1).146 See note 20.147 Yinshun 印順, Taixu dashi nianpu 太虛大師年譜 [Chronological biography of the ven-

erable master Taixu] (Taibei, 1973): 24, quoted in Don Pittman, Toward a Modern Chinese Buddhism, 65-66. For Taixu’s discourse on qigong, Daoism, and its techniques of immortali-ty that are to some degree comparable to Fahai Lama’s approach, see the contribution by Luo Tongbing on p. 458. On the basis of evidence from the early Gaoseng zhuan 高僧傳 collections one can argue that such a lack of differentiation had not been unusual since the early days of Buddhism in China.

148 On the discourse of Qian Xuesen about the defense of the qigong and its scientific pro-paganda see D. Palmer, La fièvre du qigong, 121-124.


Daoist image of immortals and their feats became part of a pseudoscientific discourse on qigong. Extracted from its philosophical and religious background, “qi techniques” were regarded as the basis of a new Chinese science. Scientific measurements of qi, via sophisticated instruments and machinery, were carried in various institutions, hos-pitals, and famous universities like Qinghua in Beijing. Regarded as qigong masters, Tibetan lamas and many other religious specialists including Fahai Lama demonstrat-ed their abilities in front of scientific teams. In 1988 Fahai Lama, who was already known since the 50s as an expert of Chinese acupuncture and qigong, was invited as a “master of qigong” to the capital. 149 From February 26 to March 1, Fahai Lama and Tibetan lamas along with hundreds of admirers of Tibetan Tantric practices (mostly Gangs dkar rin po che’s disciples) gathered at the Badachu Hotel (Badachu fandian 八大處飯店) in Beijing to take part in the founding symposium of the Tibetan Tantric Qigong Society of the Chinese Qigong Research Association (Zhongguo Qigong Yanjiuhui Zangmi Qigonghui 中國氣功研究會藏密氣功會). On this occasion more than thirty contributions reportedly focused on the so-called Tibetan Tantric Qigong (Zangmi Qigong 藏密氣功), presenting it as “worthy of study and research not only because it has a precise doctrine and rigorous practical stages but because of its undeniable meaning for the development of latent abilities (qianneng) in the body and the exploration of the secret of psychosomatic science.” 150

Fahai Lama was invited to present his esoteric teachings as one of the multiple facets of qigong practice whose results were discussed in Chinese official press, re-views, scientific journals, and books. At the time so-called paranormal or latent abilities (teyi gongneng 特異功能, qianneng 潛能) gathered a great deal of media at-tention.151 Through the amalgamation of traditional and modern esoteric tech-

149 The life of Fahai Lama reflects the various phases of the development of qigong in PRC. During the 40s and 50s when qigong began to be systematized within therapeutic insti-tutions as a branch of Chinese traditional medicine with governmental support, Fahai Lama found a way to make his living in Shanghai and continue to transmit his religious teachings under the guise of a physician and qigong therapist (see above p. 479). At that time different tra-ditional methods of breathing, meditation and gymnastics began to be assimilated in the so-called qigong. Qigong and Chinese traditional medicine and acupuncture all were seen as fo-cusing on qigong preventive methods for curing diseases. For the phase of the 1980s and 90s and the involvement of Fahai Lama see here below. For a study of the different phases of qigong from 1949 to 1999 see the study by D. Palmer, La fièvre du qigong.

150 由于藏密气功有一整套严密的理论和严格的修持步骤，它对于开发人体的潜能，发掘人体

科学的奥妙，有不容忽视的意义，值得学习和研究。See “Zangmi qigong yanjiuhui diyijie xueshu jiao liuhui zai Jing zhaokai” 藏密气功研究会第一届学术交流会在京召开 [The first academic ex-change of the Association of Research of the Tibetan Tantric Qigong held in Bejing] Qigong 9 (1988.5): 237. My thanks to Luo Tongbing for sending me a copy of this page. On the mean-ing of qianneng 潛能 see note 151.

151 I refer to the so-called teyi gongneng 特異功能 (paranormal abilities) or qianneng 潛能 (latent abilities such as clairvoyance, levitation, X-ray vision, etc.) as powers which were be-lieved to be granted thanks to qigong practice. For more on this and the government scientific support for their development, see the number 27.1 of Chinese Sociology & Anthropology edited in 1994 by Zhu Xiaoyang and Benjamin Penny. It is entirely devoted to “The Qigong Boom” (in particular pp. 35-47). See also M. Esposito, Il qigong, 46-49, 149-154, and D. Palmer, La fièvre du qigong, 115-157.

522 Monica Esposito

niques with a variety of breathing gymnastic and meditative exercises new forms of qigong came to be practiced by millions of Chinese not only in public parks but also in work units.152 During this explosive expansion of the practice of qigong after the 1980s, known as “qigong fever” (qigong re 氣功熱), Tibetan Buddhism experienced a revival.153 Under the label of qigong, Chinese religious practices and various cults came again to the surface and benefited from an apparent freedom in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Publication of religious texts was once again allowed, and a great number of secret and sacred texts were published in PRC and Taiwan under the cover of qigong.154 Religious teachings and esoteric techniques that were appar-ently forgotten inside the recently reopened monasteries became an object of study and public discussion and were put at the disposal of Chinese masses as benefits of science. Monasteries including Fahai Lama’s Qianfo chansi, became official sites of pilgrimage for qigong masters in search of powerful techniques.

During this wave of Chinese “scientific” promotion of qigong, the doctrinal and religious context of these techniques was secondary. As we have seen, inside the Qianfo chansi monastery Tibetan Tantric teachings were assimilated within qi tech-niques under the generic heading of mizong. Fahai Lama’s efforts were mostly di-rected towards harmonizing Tibetan doctrines and beliefs with Chinese Buddhism

152 M. Esposito, Il qigong, and D. Palmer, La fièvre du qigong. See also Nancy N. Chen, “Urban spaces and experiences of qigong,” in Urban Spaces in Contemporary China, eds. Deborah S. Davis, Richard Kraus, Barry Naughton, and Elizabeth J. Perry (Cambridge: Woodrow Wilson Center Press/Cambridge University Press, 1995): 347-361, here 349.

153 According to Chinese government estimations in 1990, the number of qigong practi-tioners was about five percent of the total population (about 60 million persons); more recent estimates raises the number to nearly two hundred million. See Elizabeth J. Perry and Ellen V. Fuller, “China’s Long March to Democracy,” World Policy Journal (Fall 1991): 663-685, quot-ed in Nancy N. Chen, “Urban spaces and experiences of qigong,” 347. As Chen Bing emphasiz-es in his article in the first volume on p. 410, the “qigong fever” phenomenon formed a bridge to the earlier enthusiasm for Tibetan Buddhism.

154 Apart from Tibetan texts on rDzogs chen and Tibetan Tantric techniques edited by Qiu Ling (see Appendix 2 and Chen Bing’s article in the first volume), the Tibetan work attrib-uted to Marpa on the sixfold yoga of Nåropa translated by Yu Wangzhi 余萬治 and Wan Guo 萬果 was published under the title Zangchuan mizong qigong: Naluoba liuchengjiu fa 藏傳密宗氣

功 : 那洛巴六成就法 [Tibetan Tantric Qigong: The sixfold yoga of Nåropa] (Taibei: Baitong tushu, 1998). See also Selected Works on Ancient Tibetan Qigong, eight articles by Tibetan au-thors, edited by Duoshi (December 1990), quoted by Heather Stoddard, “Tibetan Publications and National Identity,” in Resistance and Reform in Tibet, eds. Robert Barnett and Shirin Akiner (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1994): 121-156, here 148. A collection of Tantric techniques was published by Zangmi Qigong Kexue Yanjiuhui Zangmi Qigong Yanjiuhui 藏密氣功科學

研究會 [Qigong of Tibetan Tantra Research Institute of the China Qigong Science Institute] (ed.), Zangmi qigong 藏密氣功 [Qigong Deep-breathing Exercises of Tibetan Tantra] (Beijing: Qiushi Publishing House, 1989) including: “A General Account of Buddhist Qigong,” “The Origin and Development of Qigong of Tibetan Tantra,” “Studies on Qigong of Tibetan Tantra,” and “Practicing Methods of Qigong of Tibetan Tantra.” In the same vein, Tibetan tantras were also republished in Tibet like Bairozana, Qigong of Tibetan Tantra, annotated by Nam-mkha’ i nor-bu (Beijing: Nationalities Publishing House, 1993). See the website of China Tibet Information Center at http://www.tibetinfor.com.cn/english/zt/bibliotheca/..%5Cbibliotheca/20040200452195449.htm.


or Chinese traditions in general. Although, as noticed above, Fahai Lama presents Tantrism as a teaching at the same level as Chan, from the viewpoints of doctrine and practical organization of his monastery, Chinese Buddhism remains at the center. Thus it is not surprising that Fahai Lama compared Tibetan rDzogs chen with Chi-nese Chan and Daoism and that other Tibetan lamas ended up calling Chan “great Tantrism” (da mizong 大密宗) or asserting that there is “no difference between the merit one gets from reciting the name of Amitåbha and that from reciting Tantric mantras.”

155 These efforts to develop a non-sectarian rhetoric of assimilation between esoteric and exoteric traditions and between Tibetan and Chinese Buddhism should be seen in the perspective of the 19th-20th century movement of Tantric revival for es-tablishing a “Chinese esoteric tradition” or a “Chinese Tantrism.”

156 Fahai Lama’s transmission was clearly part of this trend, as was his dream to build a Meditation Hall, a Buddha Recitation Hall, and a Tantric Shrine for practicing Chan, Pure Land and Tantrism together. Although his strategy differed from that of the Chinese monk Taixu’s dream of reforming Chinese Buddhism, Fahai Lama ended up simi-larly combining Tibetan Tantrism with qigong and the Daoist study of immortality.157 Confronted with Chinese followers but also with official Chinese Buddhist associa-tions, Fahai Lama, like many other Tibetan or Chinese masters, had to find a legiti-mate space for his religious discourse within the limits allowed by the Chinese gov-ernment and its office of religious affairs. At time one legitimate area in PRC was certainly qigong. The project of building a qigong sanatorium for retired cadres in Fa-hai Lama’s triune religious complex should be also regarded in this light.158

It is difficult to know at which level religious experts were involved in qigong pro-paganda and how conscious they were about the use of their religious beliefs to fan the flames of the “qigong fever.” The results of such a religious and political strategy and its abrupt stop with the Falun Gong persecution still await study. From Fahai Lama’s side, what can be observed is that his “Tibetan identity” was so much sini-cized that he had forgotten how to speak Tibetan anymore. His qigong expertise cer-tainly had its effects on his practical life. Compared to leaders in other monastic in-stitutions in China in his time, Fahai Lama was quite free to organize his activities,

155 This association between Chan, Pure Land, and Tantrism stems back to Nor lha rin po che (1865-1936), a well-known Tibetan lama associated with Gangs dkar rin po che, and quoted by Chen Bing in the first volume (Jingang shangshi Nuona hutuketu fayu kaishi lu 金剛上

師諾那呼圖克圖法語開示錄 [Notes on Dharma instructions given by the Tantric Guru Nor lha Khutukhtu], Part. 2, available at http://www.jingtu.org/dd/zsfj/nazs/nafyks2.htm). More on this can be found in the section “The Sinicization of Esoteric Buddhism and the Emergence of Chinese Tantrism” in Chen Bing’s contribution in the first volume.

156 On this issue see the contributions by Chen Bing and Luo Tongbing. See also the stud-ies by H. Welch, The Buddhist Revival in China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968): 160-179, and Gotelind Müller, Buddhismus und Moderne: Ouyang Jingwu, Taixu und das Ringen um ein zeitgemässes Selbstverständnis im chinesischen Buddhismus des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1993): 122-129.

157 On Taixu’s view, see the contribution by Luo Tongbing in this volume, especially pp. 459-460.

158 On this project, see above note 25.

524 Monica Esposito

to receive offerings, and even to lodge foreigners, things that were still forbidden in China in the middle of the 1980s. From the viewpoint of the common people, how-ever, Fahai Lama’s monastery (although recognized by Chinese government as a qigong site of pilgrimage and part of the official Qigong Tantric Association) still seemed somewhat suspicious. Chinese Buddhist monks and nuns with their shaved heads were regarded as aliens by people indoctrinated during the Cultural Revolu-tion; but Tibetan lamas seemed even stranger. The effort to assimilate Tantrism in the public space of Chinese qigong therapy and to recognize Tibetan Tantric meth-ods as part of the official Chinese Qigong associations had only limited effects on the Lin’an community. As the promotion of qigong practice took place, critical fac-tions inside and outside the government were also active in emphasizing the nega-tive side effects due to the qigong practice.159 As we can imagine, sexual ghosts and black magic were associated with Tibetan qigong.160 While Fahai Lama’s Chan mas-ter Huiding in the 1950s regarded Tantrism as a heretical technique of magical mantras, the Lin’an community in the middle of the 1980s was projecting its sexual ghosts and black magic on Fahai Lama’s monastery. The words of Miss Yang softly whispered in my ears while climbing the Southern Celestial-Eye Mountains are part of these historical “Tibetan side effects.” I still remember her concerned face when she put me on guard against the monastery we were visiting because sex and magical powers supposedly haunted the lama and his nuns.

As far as I observed during my stay at Fahai Lama’s monastery, the “sexual tech-niques” that Fahai Lama supposedly practiced with his nuns were limited to the visu-alization of a “less dressed” deity as Vajrayogin¥ instead of the long-robed Guan-yin [Figs. 19-20]. To judge by appearances the long-robed Guanyin was still the most common object of veneration among the nuns at Qianfo chansi. Dressed in ordinary Chinese Buddhist monastic robes these nuns performed the daily chores and morn-ing and evening services common to all Chinese Buddhist monasteries. The build-ings of Qianfo chansi, its main hall with its statues and wall paintings, and its reli-gious objects were all thoroughly Chinese in style. What differentiated the Qianfo chansi from other Chinese monasteries was the great emphasis that Fahai Lama in his

159 More on this in the third part of Palmer’s La fièvre du qigong titled “The political cri-sis.” Along with the promotion of qigong by the state as a unique Chinese tradition, the for-mation of new social networks led by charismatic qigong leaders presented a latent danger. Categories of “official” versus “false” qigong were then created, and boundaries of normality were established via the creation of a medical disorder called “qigong deviation.” In this way practitioners devoted to “superstitious activities” could be taken into custody and the surveil-lance of public parks could be strengthened for health reasons. See Nancy N. Chen, “Urban spaces and experiences of qigong,” 359. See also a similar dynamic presented in Chen Bing’s contribution (vol. 1, p. 421), in which the highest number of negative side effects are inevita-bly attributed to the practice of Tibetan Buddhism.

160 On the negative image of Tibetan Buddhism and lamas in Chinese history and their sexualization as well as mystification, see the contribution by Shen Weirong and Wang Liping in this volume. See also the debates arising today in the PRC in a similar context of establish-ing boundaries between the “normality” of Chinese Buddhism and the “deviation” of Tibetan Buddhism in the contribution by Chen Bing.


Tibetan-style robe put on the study of esoteric traditions and practices that were wel-comed because they apparently matched the governmental qigong standards. Apart from that the nuns occasionally enjoyed in their monastic space secret initiation cere-monies and the unique rDzogs chen transmissions by their lama after sunset.

161 The result of this assimilation can be also seen in Western publications that repro-duce this Chinese rhetoric. See for instance Virginia Newton, Healing Energy: Master Zi Sheng Wang & Tibetan Buddhist Qigong (San Francisco: China Books and Periodicals, 2000).

Fig. 19: Guanyin. (Picture given to the au-thor by Rev. Folian at Qianfo chansi, January 1989)

Fig. 20: Vajrayogin¥. (Picture given to the au-thor by Rev. Folian at Qianfo chansi, January 1989)

,.

In the eyes of Fahai Lama’s community, rDzogs chen represented the pinna-cle of all Tibetan Tantric vehicles. At the same time this did not prevent Fahai Lama’s community from regarding rDzogs chen teachings as one of the multifacet-ed expressions of the PRC’s “Tantric Qigong” and from comparing its visions and its ultimate fruit—the rainbow body—with one of the many achievements obtained through the development of latent abilities via qigong practice.161 If such rhetoric was accepted, at least apparently, in Fahai Lama’s monastery, how did the general public react to it? How were the publications of this kind of esoteric Tibetan tradition seen by the general public?

526 Monica Esposito

In 1996 I had the opportunity to put this question to Wu Jialiang 吳家樑, the Taiwanese editor of the Dayuanman (i.e., rDzogs chen) collection in Chinese.162 He told me that when, during the 80s and 90s, rDzogs chen texts were sold in Chinese bookstores as “qigong books” they were regarded by the general public as rather com-plex and difficult to understand and were used in the narrow context of therapeutic qigong techniques. Though they were presented as healing techniques using yoga or qigong they were too far removed from the range of Chinese comprehension to be widely used. The Taiwanese felt more inclined to devotional practices rather than the study and practice of such overly technical teachings.163 In fact, the rDzogs chen materials that I presented here for the first time according to Fahai Lama’s trans-mission belong to the specific section known as man ngag sde (Ch. koubu 口部). This section is very technical because it focuses, as its name indicates, on oral instruc-tions traditionally reserved to very few initiates. To my knowledge it was this kind of teaching, by and large related to Gangs dkar rin po che’s transmission, that was translated into Chinese during the 1930s and 40s. As I showed in this contribution, Chinese materials reveal a terminological and doctrinal richness that is in dire need of being studied. Their use of metaphors and terminology from different traditions mirrors, to some extent, the first Chinese translations of Indian Buddhist texts. Yet the history of Chinese rDzogs chen translations is not yet written and the results of this assimilation and terminological adaptation is still ongoing in the new PRC em-pire. Thanks to the recorded transmissions of Gangs dkar rin po che, Fahai Lama, and other Tibetan and Chinese figures of the last century, the study of rDzogs chen in China has become possible. The so-called qigong fever phenomenon has also con-tributed, for better or worse, by leading to the first publication of Chinese esoteric scriptures on rDzogs chen in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. It is on this wave of qigong fervor that, on an autumn day of 1988 I found myself riding to Lin’an in the company of my well-built Italian friend, a fan of martial arts, in search of the monastery of a certain Fahai Lama whose name will remain forever a mystery.

162 On this collection and its content, see Appendix 2.163 This inclination from the side of Taiwanese people to devotional practices and initi-

ation ceremonies instead of individual practices is confirmed by the study by Yao Lixiang in this volume. See also a similar attitude in the reception of Tibetan Buddhism in Hong Kong by Henry Shiu in this volume.


Appendix 1

XIANDAI GAOSENG HUIDING FASHI CHENGJIU ZHUAN 現代高僧慧定法師成就傳

[Biography of the realized master Huiding, a contemporary eminent monk]*

* Recorded by Xiaoyin 小音 according to the oral explanations given by Fahai Lama on November, 6, 1984. My thanks to Ikehira Noriko 池平紀子 for having checked and revised my Chinese transcription and translation.

528 Monica Esposito

五．精严律行，宗教并通

[1] 法海喇嘛二十岁上下去貢嘎山学密宗，跟貢嘎活佛数年。一九六一年来到浙江南

天目山玉皇坪。

慧定法師一开始不理解法海喇嘛何以悟了道尚努力于究竟密宗，法海喇嘛机智答曰：

“你大彻大悟后又为什么要听“华严经”呢?”这一说，谦德好学的老法师便不言语了。常

随佛学，是菩萨的大圆性；深入佛学，自有无量之德，这是诸多悟道得道的释迦弟子持守

的信条。但密宗是什么样的？这对于老法师当然是个全新的课题。[2]禅宗是明心见性，

见性成佛，心即是佛，心外无佛。密宗则是即身成佛，身可成佛。不仅从道理上论，二者

互异有别，在修道的方法上，也是殊可见的。用禅定的方法，如同用一石板在住意根，石

板一挪开草自长。比丘、比丘尼把根断了才能修好。密宗正是通过修不生灭心来到涅槃妙行。

[3] 心在哪里?住在体内。体有六根：眼、耳、鼻、舌、身、意，能共六识而使各別緣六境。

五脏六腑，手脚脸腕得以运动。根立得以存活，主要是气、脉、明点的作用。[4]如网络

般布满全身的脉有七万二千，分左、中、右三主脉。人一生下，七万二千脉是长圆满的。

从二岁始，每天有二百坏死，又有二百生出，一年中七万二千全部更替一轮，新陈代谢，

周而复始，人便慢慢长大。[5]人的呼吸自脉出，称为气，有风的自性。可分为五根本气：

命根气、下行气、上行气、平住气、通行气 ;五支分气：蜥蜴气、龙气、龟气、胜宝气、

施财气、气静动脉，使人体的各种反应成为可能，并决定内脏的发育情况。[6]脉里还能

生出红、白明点，红的是血液，驻于右脉，作用使身体产生暖热，白的是津液，驻于左脉，

作用使精神喜乐。红、白明点趋入中脉就可以得成就。[7]气、脉、明点三者互生互长，气、

血旺便使人有魅力，促生出新脉；脉畅通又可以助气、血之循环。心就住在脉里，本性不

生不灭不增不减不垢不净。凡夫的心是集起为心，圣人的心是菩提心。密宗讲修道，就是

要断惑证真，证到智慧心、菩提心。[8] 气、脉、明点是烦恼的根本，居心动念皆出此三者，

使人在凡界受折磨，显出三界六道轮回的境界。密宗断烦恼证菩提，也要修无间道和解脱道。

[9] 数十年不改恒门的慧定法师，对密宗不甚了解，他以为密宗就是那么念念咒的。

[10] 法海告诉他，除了念咒外，还有很多很多的道理。“那你讲给我听听，我替你印证。”

当时慧定法师哪里知道，密宗有密宗传承，他是在禅宗里大彻大悟的，但并未得到密宗的

真谛，因而是无法替学密宗的法海印证的，如同物理学教授无法给文学博士的论文答辩打

分一样。密宗的规定是，在没有受灌顶的人面前不能宣说密宗的法门。当法海将这一戒告

知慧定法师时，慧定放弃了原来的打[?],“好吧，你学你的密宗，我参我的禅，我们还是

在一起用功好了。”[11]话虽体解，意颇有惑，慧定法师对自己的弟子法海喇嘛的又学密宗，

是觉得有点不够“正统”的，抑或有点为他可惜，悟了道再学另宗，弃了参禅岂不竹蓝提水，

前功尽逝?可是法海喇嘛年青的心里，已经有了区别于慧定的东西，便是在知识上不仅要

日益长进，还要日益扩展。法门无量，禅宗要学，密宗还要学，有比较才有发展，挪其精

华者互鉴互长。

[12] 过了两天，法海再叩老法师的心门。这回他有了新的方式。“你要不要密宗？”法

海问。“要是要，就是我没有受灌顶，你能讲一点给我听听吗?”法海这次很干脆。“行。

我是你的禅宗弟子，作为供养，我可以把密宗的道理对你讲一些，这是密宗的戒律所允许

的。”慧定听了大喜，忙让法海喇嘛说密宗给他。于是法海将轴轮旋转法教给了慧定。

[13] 所谓轴轮旋转法是指在脐下四指的三脉会含处以及胸前、喉间、眉间这四轮脉间

旋转念诵“毗盧心咒，”共有十六字，即：。。。。每轮一千遍。老法师念了七天后，境界两择了，


一念身体就空，鸟呜风吹等一切妙物的响动都变成了咒的音声。见收效如此立快，老法师

深知密宗的法宝不可测度，愈加想穷其究竟。[14]“还有没有别的说给我听听”他往法海

喇嘛倾囊取出。这下可让法海喇嘛为难了：“我只能说这么一点作为供养。其他的道理还

有很多，要受灌顶才能讲。”“那就给我灌顶好了。”[15] 亲自证到密宗轴轮旋转法的慧定

法师，此时已完全打消了几天前还不曾动摇过的疑虑。但法海还是为难：“我是从贡嘎活

佛那儿得到的传承，又是你的弟子，我怎么能倣你的藏师呢?”[16] 说得也是，法海喇嘛

一向对老法师非常恭敬，参学禅制时有赖慧定法师的指点。如今他学得密宗，要是按密宗

的传承讲，便可以为慧定之师了。但在他的心里，总是把自己当作慧定法师的弟子，不断

把从老法师那儿学得的东西转化为自己的利益。法供养在诸供养中为，法海喇嘛仍然愿

意将密宗的许多道理作为供养奉给自己的师傅。因此，他在接受给老法师灌顶的同时，坚

不易弟子之位。当时在南天目山玉皇坪千佛寺居住的还有真得小达弥，他到山洞溪旁去采

花，以备灌顶之用。已近隆冬，本是百花凋零的季节，不料真得摘来许多解美润泽的奇花

异草，气大家十分高兴。[17] 晚上，法海喇嘛便代贡嘎上师给慧定老法师和真得小达弥

灌了顶。

从此以后，法海喇嘛每日给老法师讲密宗各法。[18] 密宗里有三句话，照这三句话

修就可以得成就。第一，得灌顶后，要天天照灌顶的依规来修；第二，根据密宗的三昧耶

戒不能违约，对藏师要相信，若有疑，要运心忏悔，换作洁净的境界；第三，要晓得密

宗的自性，为什么叫密宗，密宗所有的成就以及怎么修才能得成就。统而言之，即密宗所

有的道理都明白。这三条中，虽然有前二种，重要的乃是第三。不懂得密宗的自性，就

是灌了顶并严格遵守三昧耶戒，也无法证得成就。[19] 在藏文里流传着这样的说法：得了

灌顶但不天天修，天天修放不遵守三昧耶戒，密宗的道理不明白糊里糊涂修，按这三种方

法，无论你怎么修，都无法有成就。这很辩证地说明了三者关系互辅的重要性。[20] 慧定

老法师每日恒处千佛寺端坐屹然，按受了许多密宗的道理。其中重要的是体会修无间道。

解脱道时三种力量的感应。即诸佛菩萨的加被力，秘密神咒的威神力和法界自性力。

[21] 法界自性力是法尔如是的自然之力，一切丛生皆具，有凡夫千差万别的力，也有圣

人千差万别的力，生出千差万别的烦恼，造成千差万别的果报。凡夫的法界自性力受到贪

嗔痴慢疑的驱使，生出惑、孽、苦的果子，如幻如梦，识有染溽。圣人不被力所迷，能用

般若波罗密心（智慧心）转烦恼为菩提。慧有观察之用，智有决断之用，智慧的力量能对善

恶好丑了了分明，断恶修善，将染溽、不善、有漏的种子转为洁净、无漏、光明的种子。

转凡夫为圣人。

[22] 秘密神咒威神力，是转识成智之力，外道也会念咒，但他没有智慧，虽是咒，但仍

属法界自性力。而佛教徒所念的咒是上师的真言，乃智慧结晶，天天念咒可以把不善的因

缘果报全部断了，心心念念觉悟，便有观察法界自性力的境界，有纯洁无杂的力量，将染溽

的识转成对因果报应了了分明的智。

[23] 诸佛菩萨的加被力是慈悲助丛（生）之力。神佛对丛生八万八千种身体观察细致，

没有丛生的妄想，果报是万德在严，福慧在严。佛菩萨以圣智圣见之力加于丛生，能令瑜

珈行者念咒时在声語意三昧中起无量无边的感应力。有诸佛菩萨的加被力，才会产生秘密

神咒的威神力，才能转变法界自性力。

[24] 上述三种力量可以产生“入我我入”的影响。如来三密入于我，我三业入于如来；

上师的加被力可入弟子，弟子的诚意可入上师的身上；别人居心动念是善是恶可伤我护我；

我居心动念也可以对他不直接的作用。每一种力量都可以我入入我。念头双生一善一恶，

530 Monica Esposito

一黑一白，一进一退，彼此相应互入。重要的是入我要入佛，具足一切诸佛之功德于吾身。

我入也要入佛，诸佛之无数劫中所修功德具足吾身。

[25] 由“二入”的作用表示增长法，敬爱法，降伏法洗灾法四种四业。四法有四种咒，

四咒有四种作用，而每种咒又可应用于四法，由颜色来决定哪一法为主。咒有四个种子，

每个种子里有一个字，当这个字为主时，是念咒的轴心，周围的字皆围绕之，此如洗灾法

的咒，种子里的字是 (Skt. b¥jas),读“当”音，念咒时轴心 Skt. bija 字不动，咒语则围绕

此字念之，观乳白色，是水大的作用，即生津活血，消除病灾。其他如增长法的咒，字是 (Skt. b¥jas),读“吽”音，观金黄色，起地大的作用。敬爱法的咒，字是 (Skt. b¥jas),读“嘻

尔”音，观红色，起火大的作用。降伏法的咒，字 (Skt. b¥jas),读“阿”音，观青或天蓝色，

起风大的作用。身体是地木水火风组成，津血五脏六腑、呼吸、暖热皆由四大作用，四大

是宇宙万物的本体，互为主伴。因此，念咒时可依不同作用而择其要者，使之产生“二入”

的感应，体现咒的不可思议之力。一面念咒一面要把色界天的精华射入一点，气、脉、明

点就会起变化。把染溽的东西去掉，水清月自现，会得千，般神通。小的现大，大的现小，

一现无量，无量现一，从而将种种内外因缘解脱，转凡成圣。

[26] 如此这般，法海喇嘛讲了一个多月，慧定老法师对密宗有了一个全盘的了解，并

日日照诸口诀勤修，脉结很快开了。一天，老法师觉得境界又不同，脐、胸、喉、眉四轮

脉间旋转念诵毘盧遮那十六字咒时，初初尚一字一字观相，后来就分不清是哪一个字。轴

轮不停地飞快旋转，身体不存在了，只听出一片念咒的音声。不久声出禅定，从晚间六点

入定，正午夜两，三点出定，但这种利益，还属于初期的境界。后后住于前前，只有舍前

前，修后后，方能将密宗透彻顿悟，内外解脱，转烦恼成圣人。老法师大彻大悟后仍习华

严宝训，得华严真谛；于今又潜学密宗，不辍修持，其孜孜不倦追随佛法的精神倍于常人。

[27] 明白了密宗的道理后，老法师次第渐进，研习参究，境界不断更新。是日，刚入定，

铮然一声“噌—”，其音美妙清净。与此同时，胸前刹那现出一轮明月。白色中透出金黄，

烨烨生光，与音声共续约半小时。慢慢，光芒幻为一线上升，牵动双眸，直通兜率天。此

天依空而居，人间四百年，为此天一夜。内院系弥勒菩萨之净土，外院则是天众之欲乐处。

老法师动念想去兜牢天，身子便立即腾空随一线光明而入，见到弥勒慈尊。他恭恭敬敬地

叩拜之。此后数日，老法师屡屡入兜率天内院礼诸多菩萨，听经问法。只要老法师一心想

供养哪尊菩萨，眼里射出的一线白光便幻为飘逸美丽的天女 ,把馨香的花卉和精美的

饭菜放到那尊佛菩萨的面前。每次入定，他都依依不舍回转。

[28] 如是一月，境界有变，光明不到兜率天，十方一切诸佛皆持宝瓶来给他灌顶。他

的身体起头变得很大很大，可以须弥山形[?]立。诸佛同声[?]念灌顶咒，老法师的身体

里充满了甘露水。此几天以后，十方佛母也来给他灌顶。持续了一个多月后，老法师身上

非常喜乐轻安，才一居念，即便入定，种种境界都在禅定显现出来。接着，法海喇嘛又把

白度母长寿法和红教大圆满传给了他。


Appendix 2

RDZOGS CHEN LITERATURE IN CHINESE*

This Appendix contains the first presentation of Chinese materials on rDzogs chen. It is divided into two parts:

A. Manuscript materials in possession of Fahai Lama; B. Printed materials mainly published in Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 (ed.), Dayuanman

大圓滿 [The Great Perfection], 2 vols. (Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui, 1987),1 Qiu Ling 邱陵 (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman xinsui tan’ao 藏密大圓滿心髓探奧 [Exploration of the quintessence of the Tibetan Tantric Great Perfection] (Beijing: Meitan gongye, 1993), and Qiu Ling 邱陵 (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman fa xuanji 藏密大圓滿法選集 [Selected works on the Tibetan Tantric Great Perfection] (Beijing: Beijing gongye daxue, 1993).

This list cannot be regarded as exhaustive; but I hope it will open the path to further research in this domain.

The presentation of the texts described in this Appendix is based on the fol-lowing model:

x. Number attributed to the text followed by the title in pinyin, Chinese characters, and translated title according to Chinese in brackets.

Tibetan title Transliteration of the Tibetan title whenever it exists or has been identified.Author Name and dates of the authors whenever they are known. Name and dates of

the author of the Chinese commented and transmitted version, followed by the author/translator of the Chinese version whenever they are known.

Collection bibliographical references to the text, either in printed or manuscript form.References Studies in Western languages and Chinese including translations, partial or

complete, and presentations of the texts in question.

* A preliminary draft was made in the framework of the Italo-French European Project entitled “Dottrine e applicazioni nel buddismo tibetano e cinese: ricerche sulla terminologia dottrinale e tecnica degli scritti rDzogs-chen (Grande Perfezione), in vista di un’analisi ermeneu-tica necessaria alla comprensione dell’oggetto della ricerca.” Thanks to the collaboration with Jean-Luc Achard and the agreement of Alfredo Cadonna and Anne-Marie Blondeau, this proj-ect opened the way to the first collaboration between the University Ca’ Foscari of Venice (Italy) and the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris). Under the guidance of Anne-Marie Blondeau it was integrated in the research project of CNRS-URA 1229 (Langues et cultures de l’aire tibé-taine) before being directed by Anne Chayet. It was interrupted in 1998. On this project see Monica Esposito, “Journey to the Temple of Celestial-Eye,” in The Spirit of Enterprise, the 1993 Rolex Awards, ed. David W. Reed (Bern: Buri, 1993): 275-277, and “Una tradizione di rDzogs-chen in Cina. Una Nota sul Monastero delle Montagne dell’Occhio Celeste,” Asiatica Venetiana 3 (1998): 221-224. I am grateful to the late Fahai Lama and his disciple Rev. Folian for their transmission of manuscript materials and teachings on rDzogs chen. I am also indebted to Jean-Luc Achard for his help in identifying some of these manuscripts, and to Anne-Marie Blondeau, Donatella Rossi, Stéphane Arguillère, and Okuyama Naoji for their comments and suggestions.

1 The edition in two volumes whose full title is Dayuanman–Puxianwang rulai dayuan-man xinyao zongji 大圓滿—普賢王如來大圓滿心要總集 [The Great Perfection–Anthology of the quintessential rDzogs chen teachings of Samantabhadra], was among the materials accidentally destroyed by Jean-Luc Achard (see p. 502 note 82). The edition I used for Part B of this Appendix includes only one volume and is stored at the Taiwan National Library (Guojia tushu guan 國家圖

書館). For a few more texts included in the two-volume edition see also note 15 below.

532 Monica Esposito

2 I did not have access to this printed translation and ignore if it corresponds to that of Fahai Lama. I assume that the Chinese characters used in Taiwan for transliterating the name of the Tibetan master refer to the more common Chinese characters used in PRC for the Sa skya Khutukhtu Kun bzang tshe ’phrin (Ch. Sajia Hutuketu Gensang zecheng 薩迦呼

圖克圖根桑澤程). More on this master and his transmission below.

A. MANUSCRIPTS OF FAHAI LAMA

1. Juyi baozang lun 句義寶藏論 [The treasury of words and meanings]

Tibetan title Tshig don mdzodAuthor Klong chen rab ’byams (Dri med ’od zer, Ch. Wugou guang 無垢光,

1308-1364). The name of the translator is not mentioned.Collection Fahai Lama’s manuscript into two volumes (1.1a-82b; 2.83a-189a).References David Germano, Poetic thought, the intelligent Universe, and the mystery of self:

The Tantric synthesis of rDzogs Chen in fourteenth century Tibet (PhD diss., The University of Wisconsin, 1992).

This text is divided into two parts (shang, xia) and, according to the Tibetan structure, includes eleven “Adamantine chapters.” It was regarded by Fahai Lama as his spiritual testament. In the manuscript there is no mention of the translator. A printed edition titled Ciyi baozang lun 詞義寶藏論 [The treasury of words and mea-nings] has been published in 1998 (Taibei: Xilinyuan liaoyi wenhua) with the expla-nations and commentaries of ’Jigs med Kun bzang tshe ’phrin rin po che (Ch. Jimei gunsang dianzhen renboqie 吉美袞桑滇真仁波切).2

2. Dayuanman shenghui benjue xinyao xiuzheng cidi 大圓滿勝慧本覺心要修證次第 [The victorious wisdom of the Great Perfection: Graduated stages on the Heart Essence cultivation and realization of the primordial awareness], abbr. Dayuan shenghui 大圓勝慧 or Shenghui 勝慧

Tibetan title rDzogs pa chen po klong chen snying thig gi gdod ma’i mgon po’i lam gyi rim pa’i khrid yig ye shes bla ma

Author ’Jigs med gling pa (mKhyen brtse ’od zer, Ch. Zhibei guang zunzhe 智悲光尊者, 1729/30-1798). Translated into Chinese and commented by the Sa skya Khutukhtu Kun bzang tshe ’phrin (Ch. Jingang shangshi Sajia Hutuketu Gensang zecheng 金剛上師薩迦呼圖克圖根桑澤程).

Collection Fahai Lama’s manuscript, 1-100. Also in Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 (ed.), Dayuanman 大圓滿 (Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui, 1987): 542-672, see below B no 15 & 18.

References Steven Goodman, The Klong-Chen snying-thig: An Eighteenth Century Tibetan Revelation (PhD diss., University of Saskatchewan, 1983); Steven Goodman, “Rig-’dzin ’Jigs-med gling-pa and the kLong-Chen sNying-thig,” in Tibetan Buddhism: Reasons and Revelation, eds. Steven Goodman and Ronald Davidson (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992): 133-146; Tulku Thondup, The Tantric Tradition of the Nyingmapa (Marion, MA: Buddhayana, 1984); Sam van Schaik, Approaching the Great Perfection: Simultaneous and Gradual Approaches to Dzogchen Practice in Jigme Lingpa’s Longchen Nyingtig (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004).

On this text see below B no 15 & 18.


3. Chuiji san yaojue shengfa jie 椎擊三要訣勝法解 [Explanations on the supreme method of striking the essence in three secret stanzas]

Tibetan title mKhas pa shr¥ rgyal po khyad chos ’grel paAuthor dPal sprul rin po che (O rgyan ’Jigs med chos kyi dbang po, Ch. Dashan jie-

gong dezhu dashi 大善解功德主大師, 1808-1887). Transmitted by Gangs dkar rin po che (1893-1957). Translated by Ven. Mankong 釋滿空, and revised by Zhang Miaoding 張妙定.

Collection Fahai Lama’s manuscript, 1-33. Cf. Fang Lixiu 方力脩, Dayuanman fa 大圓滿法 (Taibei: Huiju, 2003): 399-402.

References Jean-Luc Achard, Les testaments de Vajradhara et des porteurs-de-science (Paris: Les deux Océans, 1995); Peltrul Rinpoche, Le Docte et Glorieux Roi, trans. Jean-Luc Achard (Paris: Les deux Océans, 1997); Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, “Three Words,” in Quintessential Dzogchen, trans. & eds. Erik Pema Kunsang and Marcia Binder Schmidt (Boudhanath: Ranjung Yeshe Publications, 2006): 185-189; Fang Lixiu 方力脩, Dayuanman fa.

The root-text of this commentary on the dGa’ rab rdo rje’s testament Tshig gsum gnad brdeg (Ch. Jisong niede 基松聶德) [Three lines that hit on the key points] by dPal sprul rin po che has been published by Fang Lixiu, Dayuanman fa (399-402), with other materials including a copy of the Tibetan text (347-352). The Tibetan text has been translated from Tibetan into French by Jean-Luc Achard (Les testaments de Vajradhara et des porteurs-de-science). Fahai Lama’s manuscript is based on the trans-lation made by Ven. Mankong who was one of the main translators of Gangs dkar rin po che. This manuscript was given to Fahai Lama’s disciples as the first text of rDzogs chen at the beginning of rDzogs chen instructions at Qianfo chansi (Nan Tianmushan, Zhejiang).

4. Dayuanman zuisheng xinzhongxin yangdui kemu 大圓滿勝心中心仰兌科目 [Yang ti instructions on the quintessential teachings of the Great Perfection]

Tibetan title rDzogs chen yang ti nag po gser gyi ’bru gcig pa’i khrid yig mdor bsdus pa ’od gsal lam ’jug

Author Kong sprul Yon tan rgya mtsho (1813-1899). Transmitted by Gangs dkar rin po che (1893-1957).

Collection Fahai Lama’s manuscript. Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 (ed.), Dayuanman 大圓滿 (Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui, 1987); see below B no 23.

References Dayuanman zuisheng xinzhongxin yindao lüeyao 大圓滿勝心中心引導略要 [Instructions on the quintessential teachings of the Great Perfection yang ti] (Qiu Ling 邱陵 ed., Zangmi dayuanman xinsui tan’ao 藏密大圓滿心髓探奧, Beijing: Meitan gongye, 1993): 23, 98-161.

On this text see below A no 5-6, and B no 23, 28.

5. Dayuanman xinzhongxin zhouye yujia 大圓滿心中心晝夜瑜伽 [Great Perfection yang ti yoga of day and night]

Tibetan title Author Transmitted by Gangs dkar rin po che (1893-1957).Collection Fahai Lama’s manuscript, 1a-18b.References

534 Monica Esposito

This text is based on the oral transmissions by Gangs dkar rin po che on the ba-sis of Kong sprul Yon tan rgya mtsho’s rDzogs chen yang ti nag po gser gyi ’bru gcig pa’i khrid yig mdor bsdus pa ’od gsal lam ’jug.

See also A no 4 & 6, and below B no 23, 28.

6. Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangyi 大圓滿心中心講義 [Commentary on the Great Perfection yang ti]

Tibetan title Author Transmitted by Gangs dkar rin po che (1893-1957).Collection Fahai Lama’s manuscript, 1a-92a. See also below B no 23 & 28.References Dayuanman fajie xinzhongxin heiguan yindao fa 大圓滿法界心中心黑關引導法

[Instructions on the retreat in darkness of yang ti in the domain of the Great Perfection] (Qiu Ling 邱陵 ed., Zangmi dayuanman xinsui tan’ao 藏密大圓滿心髓探奧, Beijing: Meitan gongye, 1993): 27, 162-172.

This text is based on the oral explanations given by Gangs dkar rin po che on the so-called Atiyoga (A ti yo ga), i.e., rDzogs chen, among which figure his te-achings on the rDzogs chen yang ti nag po by Dung mtsho ras pa (Ch. Congzun luohai 叢尊螺海, 15th cent.). See below B no 23 & 28.

7. Dayuanman guanding jianglu quanji 大圓滿灌頂講錄全集 [Complete collection of recorded explanations on Great Perfection initiations]

Tibetan title Author Transmitted by Gangs dkar rin po che (1893-1957), edited by Fahai Lama

(1920-1991) under the title Dayuanman guanding yiji quanji Fahai Lama 大圓滿灌頂義記全集法海喇嘛 [Complete collection of explicative notes on Great Perfection initiations by Fahai Lama]. See Fig. 11 on p. 495.

Collection Fahai Lama’s manuscript. Cf. Wu Jialiang (ed.), Dayuanman (see B no 18-19, 23 & 28).

References Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangshou lu 大圓滿心中心講授錄 [Recorded in-structions on the Great Perfection yang ti] (Qiu Ling 邱陵 ed., Zangmi dayuanman xinsui tan’ao 藏密大圓滿心髓探奧, Beijing: Meitan gongye, 1993): 23-24, 131-161; Yogi Chen, The Essential Teaching of Adi-Buddha: Part I & II, Chenian Booklets no 84 (http://yogichen.org/cw/cw32/bk084.html) & 85 (http://yogichen.org/cw/cw32/bk085.html).

This text is based on the oral “Yang ti transmission” of Gangs dkar rin po che, which is mainly based on three Tibetan texts: (1) Ye shes bla ma by ’Jigs med gling pa (1729/30-1791) included in his Klong chen snying thig (see here no 2, and below B no 15 & 18); (2) the so-called yang ti transmission according to Gangs dkar rin po che’s oral instructions including the transmission on the Yang ti nag po (see here no 4-6, and below B no 19, 23, 28); and (3) the Karma snying thig by the third Karma pa Rang byung rdo rje (1284-1334); see B no 23.


B. PRINTED MATERIALS

8. Dayuanman de yiyi he neirong 大圓滿的意義和内容 [Content and signi ficance of the Great Perfection]

Tibetan Title Author Commented and revised by Vajråcarya Guru Ciwei (Ch. Jingang Asheli Ciwei

Shangshi 金剛阿闍黎慈威上師). Recorded by Guo Yuanxing 郭元興 (1920-1989).

Collection Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 (ed.), Dayuanman 大圓滿 (Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui, 1987): 1-34

References

This first text of the Dayuanman collection edited by Wu Jialiang is a Chinese composition based on Tibetan ma terials which are quoted at the end among which figure three works by Klong chen rab ’byams (Dri med ’od zer, Ch. Wugou guang 無垢光, 1308-1363): the Chos dbyings mdzod (Ch. Fajie zanglun 法界藏論 [The treasury of the Dharma Realm]), Theg mchog mdzod (Ch. Shengcheng zanglun 勝乘藏論 [The treasury of the supreme vehicle]), Grub mtha’ mdzod (Ch. Zongpai zanglun 宗派藏論 [The treasury of spiritual traditions]). The works by Sum pa mkhan po Ye shes dpal ’byor (Ch. Songba 松巴), and Amoghavajra (Ch. Bukong 不空) are also quoted. The text itself is divided into three parts: 1. Transmission of rDzogs chen teachings in the rNying ma pa tradition according to the scheme of the nine vehicles and presen-tation of rDzogs chen as divided into Mind Series (sems sde), Space Series (klong sde), and Precepts Series (man ngag sde); 2. Contents and theory of the Precepts Series, and particularly of the snying thig and the history of its transmission; 3. Diffusion of rDzogs chen in Tibet.

9. Puxianwang rulai qidao nengxian ziran zhi genben yuanwen 普賢王如來祈禱能

顯自然智根本原文 [The root stanzas of the aspiration of Samantabhadra for the manifestation of natural wisdom]

Tibetan Title Kun tu bzang po smon lam stobs po cheAuthor For the gter ma version, Rig ’dzin rGod ldem (1337-1408/9). The name of the

Chinese translator is not mentioned.Collection Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 (ed.), Dayuanman 大圓滿 (Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui,

1987): 35-38.References The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Penetrating Wisdom: The Aspiration of

Samantabhadra (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 2006); Lama Yeshe Gyamtso & The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche (trans.), The Aspiration of Samantabhadra (http://www.nalandabodhi.org/samantabhadra.html); Bhakha Tulku and Steven Goodman (trans.), “The Prayer of Kuntuzangpo,” in Quintessential Dzogchen, trans. & eds. Erik Pema Kunsang and Marcia Binder Schmidt (Boudhanath: Ranjung Yeshe Publications, 2006): 79-84.

This text, which is largely known throughout the Tibetan Buddhist world, exists in two Chinese translations (no 9 & 10), based on the Tibetan text Kun tu bzang po smon lam stobs po che extracted from a larger tantra whose full title is rDzogs pa chen po

536 Monica Esposito

3 For a short presentation on Nor lha rin po che see the contribution by Chen Bing in the first volume on pp. 399-400.

kun tu bzang po dgongs pa zang thal du bstan pa’i bshad rgyud. This explanatory tantra comments on the root text of the dGongs pa zang thal cycle. See also below text no 10.

10. Puxianwang rulai dali yuansong 普賢王如來大力願頌 [The prayer of the powerful aspiration of Samantabhadra]

Tibetan Title Kun tu bzang po smon lam stobs po cheAuthor Transmitted by Nor lha Khutukhtu (1865-1936) (Ch. Nuona Hutuketu 諾那

呼圖克圖). Translated into Chinese by Lianhua Zhengjue 蓮華正覺 (i.e., Wu Jialiang)

Collection Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 (ed.), Dayuanman 大圓滿 (Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui, 1987): 39-42.

References The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Penetrating Wisdom: The Aspiration of Samantabhadra (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 2006); Lama Yeshe Gyamtso & The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche (trans.), The Aspiration of Samantabhadra (http://www.nalandabodhi.org/samantabhadra.html); Bhakha Tulku and Steven Goodman (trans.), “The Prayer of Kuntuzangpo,” in Quintessential Dzogchen, trans. & eds. Erik Pema Kunsang and Marcia Binder Schmidt (Boudhanath: Ranjung Yeshe Publications, 2006): 79-84.

This is a Chinese translation of the commentary by Nor lha Khutukhtu on the Tibetan text (also see no 9 & 11).

11. Ada’erma rulai wushang yuanman dali yuan shesong koushou mijue 啊達爾嘛如來無上圓滿大力願攝頌口授密訣 [Secret instructions on the oral transmission of the prayer according to the powerful aspiration of absorption of the paramount perfection of Samantabhadra]

Tibetan Title Author Transmitted by Nor lha Khutukhtu [mGar ra bla ma] ’Phrin las rgya mtsho

(1865-1936) (Ch. Puyou fashi Nuona Hutuketu Bukong hai 普佑法師諾那呼圖克圖不空海).


References The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Penetrating Wisdom: The Aspiration of Samantabhadra (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 2006); Lama Yeshe Gyamtso & The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche (transl), The Aspiration of Samantabhadra (http://www.nalandabodhi.org/samantabhadra.html); Bhakha Tulku and Steven Goodman (trans.), “The Prayer of Kuntuzangpo,” in Quintessential Dzogchen, trans. & eds. Erik Pema Kunsang and Marcia Binder Schmidt (Boudhanath: Ranjung Yeshe Publications, 2006): 79-84.

This text is a detailed commentary of the Aspiration of Samantabhadra, explained by Nor lha Khutukhtu under the Chinese title Puyou fashi 普佑法師 (also mentioned in Chinese sources as Puyou chanshi 普佑禪師), “Universal Protector Master,” a ti-tle Nor lha received from the Nanjing’s central government when in 1930 he was ap-pointed member of the Commission for Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs.3 The Chi-


nese style of this text suggests that it is a translation from Tibetan. It uses a tradi-tional pattern consisting in first quoting the root-stanzas of the text, then summa-rizing their true meaning, and finally describing the main practices to be conducted according to the hidden content of the verses. Thus the whole original prayer can be divided into eight or nine parts, depending on the inclusion of the first preliminary paragraphs in this list. All practices refer to methods of Tantric visualization.

12. Dayuanman zhihui jueding benlai qingjing jietuo jian 大圓滿智慧決定本來清淨解

脱見 [The view of freedom and primordial purity determining the wisdom of the Great Perfection]

Tibetan Title Ye shes rang grol (?)Author Attr. Padmasambhava. The name of the Chinese translator is not mentioned.Collection Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 (ed.), Dayuanman 大圓滿 (Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui,

1987): 75-82.References Lianshi Dayuanman jiaoshou gouti 蓮師大圓滿教授勾提 [Sizing Padma-

sambhava’s transmission of the Great Perfection] (Qiu Ling 邱陵 ed., Zangmi dayuanman xinsui tan’ao 藏密大圓滿心髓探奧, Beijing: Meitan gongye, 1993): 28-29, and 173-235.

The Chinese title is followed by the abbreviated title in Chinese Sanskrit phonet-ics Zhana amage nama 扎那阿媽哥那媽, Tibetan phonetics Yixi langzhuo 移喜郎卓, i.e., Ye shes rang grol, and Chinese translation as Zhihui fa’er jietuo 智慧法爾解脫 [Natural freedom of wisdom]. The text is divided into 280 verses of seven characters. It is al-legedly the transmission given by Padmasambhava to Ye shes mtsho rgyal. In the two volume-edition of Wu Jialiang there is the same text followed by a commentary of Chen Jianmin 陳健民 (better known as Yogi Chen, 1906-1987; see below note 15).

13. Dachengdao qingjing jimie chanding guangming dayuanman fayao shilun 大乘道清淨寂滅禪定光明大圓滿法要釋論 [The pure great chariot, commentary to resting-at-ease through the luminous meditation according to the principles of the Great Perfection]

Tibetan Title rDzogs pa chen po bSam gtan ngal gso’i ’grel pa shing rta rnam dagAuthor Klong chen rab ’byams (Ch. Longqing ranjiang ba 龍清燃將巴, 1308-1364). Collection Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 (ed.), Dayuanman 大圓滿 (Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui, 1987):

84-162.References Herbert V. Guenther, Kindly Bent to Ease Us (Berkeley: Dharma Publication,

1976); Tulku Thondup, Buddha Mind (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1989): 156-157; Qiu Ling 邱陵 (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman xinsui tan’ao 藏密大圓滿心髓探奧 (Beijing: Meitan gongye, 1993): 28.

There is no mention of the master who transmitted this Tibetan text in Chi-na nor of its translator but this translation was probably based on the transmission given by the Sa skya Kun bzang tshe ’phrin.4 This text has also been translated into

4 See also the contribution by Chen Bing in the first volume on p. 401. For the trans-lation in Chinese by Liu Liqian 劉立千 of the rDzogs chen sgyu ma ngal gso’i ’grel pa shing rta bzang po as Dayuanman xuhuan xiuxi miaoche shu 大圓滿虛幻休息妙車疏 see the Appendix of Henry Shiu in this volume on p. 570.

538 Monica Esposito

5 A first translation based on the transmission given by Khetsun Sangpo (mKhas btsun bzang po, b. 1921) on dPal sprul rin po che’s Kun bzang bla ma’i zhal lung was done by Jeffrey Hopkins in 1982. This version was also translated into Chinese as Geizun sanbo renbo qie 給尊桑波仁波切 [mKhas btsun bzang po rin po che], Dayuanman Longqin xinsui xiuxing fa 大圓滿龍欽心髓修行法 [Great Perfection preliminaries to the Klong chen snying thig] (Taibei, Xindianshi: Om Ah Hung 唵阿吽, 1998). See also Bachu renpoqie 巴楚仁波切 [dPal sprul rin po che], Xinzhi shijiao 心止師教 (Zhonghe: Shuixing wenhua, 2003), which is another transla-tion of dPal sprul rin po che’s Kun bzang bla ma’i zhal lung, according to the transmission of Anzhang zhuba huofo 安章珠巴活佛 (A ’dzom ’brug pa sprul sku, 1842-1924), translated and annotated by Zhuoge duojie 卓格多傑 (mDzod dge rdo rje).

6 On this monastery and its location see above pp. 403-404 [Fig. 4] and note 12.

Chinese as Dayuanman chanding xiuxi qingjing jie 大圓滿禪定休息清凈車解 (see Qiu Ling 邱陵, ed., Zangmi dayuanman xinsui tan’ao 藏密大圓滿心髓探奧, Beijing: Meitan gongye, 1993, 28).

14. Dayuanman guangda xinyao qianxing cidi fa 大圓滿廣大心要前行次第法 [Gradual instructions on the preliminaries to the Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse of the Great Perfection]

Tibetan title rDzogs pa chen po klong chen snying thig gi sngon ’groAuthor ’Jigs med gling pa (1729/30-1798). Transmitted and commented by the 19th

Klong chen snying thig Vajra Guru Sa skya Khutukhtu Kun bzang tshe ’phrin rin po che (Ch. Longqqing lingti pai di shijiu dai Jingang shangshi Sajia Gensang zecheng renboqing 龍清領體派第十九代金剛上師薩迦根桑澤程仁波卿).


References Steven Goodman, The Klong-Chen snying-thig: An Eighteenth Century Tibetan Revelation (PhD diss., University of Saskatchewan, 1983): 130-133; Patrul Rinpoche, The words of my perfect teacher, translated by the Padmakara Translation Group, with a foreword by the Dalai Lama and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 1998); Tulku Thondup (trans.), The Dzog-chen Preliminary Practice of the Innermost Essence, ed. Brian C. Beresford (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1989); Khetsun Sangpo, Tantric Practice in Nying-ma, trans. & ed. Jeffrey Hopkins, co-ed. Anne C. Klein (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1996);5 Sam van Schaik, Approaching the Great Perfection: Simultaneous and Gradual Approaches to Dzogchen Practice in Jigme Lingpa’s Longchen Nyingtig (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004): 94-96; Qiu Ling 邱陵 (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman xinsui tan’ao 藏密大圓滿心髓探奧 (Beijing: Meitan gongye, 1993): 19-22, 24-25.

This Chinese version of the preliminary instructions to the Klong chen snying thig has been transmitted by the Sa skya sprul sku Kun bzang tshe ’phrin, a disciple of Gangs dkar rin po che (1893-1957) heading the Sa skya monastery Khams gsum grwa, which is located next to Gangs dkar rin po che’s own monastery.6 The Chinese text includes the instructions on the ordinary preliminaries (Tib. thun mong sngon ’gro, Ch. waigong jiaxing 外共加行, or gong jiaxing 共加行) based on the rDzogs pa chen po klong chen snying thig gi thun mong gi sngon ’gro khrid kyi lag len las ’debs lugs and its


7 There are also two other Chinese translations: 1) Dayuanman guangda xinyao qian-xing cidi jiangyi 大圓满廣大心要前行次第講義 [Graduated explanations on the preliminaries to the Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse of the Great Perfection], translated by Yanding 嚴定 et al., in the collection Zangmi xiufa midian 藏密修法祕典 [Secret compendium of Tibetan Tantric practices], 5 vols. (Beijing: Huaxia, 1995): vol. 4 (it has also been published in Zhongguo shaoshu minzu guji jicheng 中國少數民族古籍集成, Chengdu: Sichuan minzu, 2002); 2) Dayuanman Lonqin xinti qianxing daowen 大圓滿龍欽心髓前行引導文 [Instructions on the Great Perfection preliminaries to the Klong chen snying thig], by Genzao 根造 and translated by Guo Yuanxing 郭元興 (Taibei: Micheng, 1981). There is also a compilation by Xu Qinting 徐芹庭 entitled Dayuanman Longchen xinsui 大圓滿龍欽心髓 [rDzogs chen klong chen snying thig] (Zhongli: Shenghuan tushu, 1998). As I could not consult it I ignore its content.

8 For other transliterations of these two terms and their meaning see above pp. 496-497 and 502-504.

six main sections, and the extraordinary preliminaries (Tib. thun mong ma yin pa’i sngon ’gro, Ch. bugong nei jiaxing 不共內加行 or bugong jiaxing 不共加行) according to the rDzogs pa chen po klong chen snying thig gi thun mong ma yin pa’i sngon ’gro’i khrid yig dran pa nyer gzhag. These explanations are based on the later commentary of dPal sprul rin po che (Ch. Bazu renboqing 巴祖仁波卿, alias ’Jigs med chos kyi dbang po, 1808-1887)’s Kun bzang bla ma’i zhal lung; see Patrul Rinpoche, The words of my perfect teacher, and Khetsun Sangpo, Tantric Practice in Nying-ma.7

15. Dayuanman guangda xinyao benjue dao cidi 大圓滿廣大心要本覺道次第 [Gradual path to the primordial awareness according to the Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse of the Great Perfection]

Tibetan title: rDzogs pa chen po klong chen snying thig gi gdod ma’i mgon po’i lam gyi rim pa’i khrid yig ye shes bla ma

Author: 13th Klong chen snying thig master [’Jigs med gling pa] mKhyen brtse ’od zer (Ch. Longqqing lingtipai dishisan dai Zhibei guang zunzhe 龍清領體派第十三代智悲光尊者). Transmitted and explained by Kun bzang tshe ’phrin rin po che (Ch. Gensang zecheng renboqing 根桑澤程仁波卿).

Collection Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 (ed.), Dayuanman 大圓滿 (Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui, 1987): 368-487. Cf. B no 18 & A no 2.

References Sam van Schaik, Approaching the Great Perfection: Simultaneous and Gradual Approaches to Dzogchen Practice in Jigme Lingpa’s Longchen Nyingtig (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004): 313-317; Qiu Ling 邱陵 (ed.), Zangmi da-yuanman xinsui tan’ao 藏密大圓滿心髓探奧 (Beijing: Meitan gongye, 1993): 19-22, 24-25.

’Jigs med gling pa’s Ye shes bla ma is one of the favored works among present day practioners. There are at least two Chinese translations (no 15 & 18). This text contains the teachings of Kun bzang tshe ’phrin rin po che on the Ye shes bla ma’s preliminaries (Tib. sngon ’gro, Ch. jiaxing 加行), the main practice (Tib. dngos gzhi, Ch. zhengxing 正行) of khregs chod (Ch. quque 且卻) and thod rgal (Ch. tuoga 妥噶),8 and the bar do (Ch. zhongyin 中陰) instructions for the disciples of mediocre (Tib. dbang po ’bring, Ch. zhonggen 中根) and inferior capacities (Tib. dbang po tha ma, Ch. xiagen 下根). It also includes the translation of the colophon.

540 Monica Esposito

9 See the Appendix to the contribution by Henry Shiu in this volume on p. 574.

16. Dayuanman guangda xinyao qianxing niansong nengxian bianzhi miaodao yigui 大圓滿廣大心要前行念誦能顯遍智妙道儀軌 [Recitation of the preliminaries to the Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse of the Great Perfection, illuminating the auspicious path of omniscience]

Tibetan title: rDzogs pa chen po klong chen snying thig gi sngon ’gro’i ngag ’don rnam mkhyen lam bzang gsal byed

Author: ’Jigs med gling pa (1729/30-1798). Transmitted by Kun bzang tshe ’phrin rin po che (Ch. Gensang zecheng renboqing 根桑澤程仁波卿). Translated and edited by Yanding fashi 嚴定法師.


References Tulku Thondup, The Dzog-chen preliminary practice of the innermost essence: The Long-chen nying-thig ngon-dro with original Tibetan root text, composed by Jig-me ling-pa (1729-1798), translated with commentary by Tulku Thondup, edited by Brian C. Beresford (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works & Archives, 1989, first published 1982); Khetsun Sangpo, Tantric Practice in Nying-ma, trans. & ed. Jeffrey Hopkins, co-ed. Anne C. Klein (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1996): 197-214; Qiu Ling 邱陵 (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman xinsui tan’ao 藏密大圓滿心髓探奧 (Beijing: Meitan gongye, 1993): 26.

The Tibetan text has been translated and commented by Tulku Thondub. There also is a translation by Jeffrey Hopkins according to Khetsun Sangpo’s ex-planations. The Chinese text translated here and edited by Yanding fashi is based on the explanations given by the Sa skya sprul sku Kun bzang tshe ’phrin. It exists two other Chinese translations: 1) Dayuanman shenhui xinsui qianxing niansong yigui xianshi bianzhi miaodao 大圓滿深慧心髓前行念誦儀軌—顯示遍智妙道, translated by Ven. Ruji 釋如吉 in the Nyingmapa Series (Hong Kong: Vajrayana Buddhism Association);9 2) Dayuanman Longqing ningti bianzhi miaodao qianxing niansong yigui 大圓滿龍清寧

體遍智妙道前行念誦儀軌 [Prayer of “the preliminary practice” the excellent path of omnis-cience of “Dzog-pa chen-po Long Chen Nying-Thig”] facing Chinese and Tibetan text (Gao xiong: Gaoxiongshi Ningma Longning Jiucheng Foxuehui, 2003).

17. Dayuanman guangda xinyao zongshe chiming neixiu fa yigui 大圓滿廣大心要總

攝持明内修法儀軌 [Liturgical commentary of the inner sadhana of the Vidyadhara assemblage to the Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse of the Great Perfection]

Tibetan title Klong chen snying thig nang sgrub rig ’dzin ’dus paAuthor ’Jigs med gling pa (1729/30-1798).Collection Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 (ed.), Dayuanman 大圓滿 (Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui,

1987): 516-541.References Sam van Schaik, Approaching the Great Perfection: Simultaneous and Gradual

Approaches to Dzogchen Practice in Jigme Lingpa’s Longchen Nyingtig (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004): 94-96.

Although no person in charge of tranmission or translation is mentioned, this explanation on the graduated set of guruyoga texts seems to belong to the Sa skya


10 The name of the translator is not indicated in Wu Jialiang’s edition. Conversely, the name Liu Liqian 劉立千 appears in Dayuan shenghui 大圓勝慧 published by Miaojixiang 妙吉

祥, 1977, and republished as Dayuan shenghui benjue xinyao xiuzheng cidi 大圓勝慧本覺心要修證

次第 in Liu Liqian zangxue zhuyi wenji 劉立千藏學著譯文集, vol. 11 (Beijing: Minzu, 2000). See also Dayuan shenghui benjue xinyao xiuzheng cidi 大圓勝慧本覺心要修證次第 (Chengdu: Sichuan minzu, 2002).

sprul sku Kun bzang tshe ’phrin rin po che. It seems to be the work of the translator and editor Yanding fashi.

18. Dayuanman shenghui benjue xinyao xiuzheng cidi 大圓滿勝慧本覺心要修證次第 [The victorious wisdom of the Great Perfection: Graduated cultivation and realization of the Heart Essence of the primordial awareness], abbr. Dayuan shenghui 大圓勝慧 [The victorious wisdom of the Great Perfection]

Tibetan title rDzogs pa chen po klong chen snying thig gi gdod ma’i mgon po’i lam gyi rim pa’i khrid yig ye shes bla ma

Author 13th Klong chen snying thig Patriarch [’Jigs med gling pa] mKhyen brtse ’od zer (Ch. Longqqing lingtipai dishisan dai zu Zhibei guang zunzhe 龍清領體派第十三代祖智悲光尊者). Transmitted and explained by the 19th Klong chen sn ying thig Vajraguru Sa skya Kun bzang tshe ’phrin (Ch. Longqqing lingtipai dishijiu dai Jingang shangshi Sajia Gensang zecheng 龍清領體派第十九代金剛上師薩迦根桑澤程). Translated by Liu Liqian 劉立千 (1910-?).10

Collection Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 (ed.), Dayuanman 大圓滿 (Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui, 1987): 542-672. Also in the manuscript version by Fahai Lama (A no 2)

References Steven Goodman, The Klong-Chen snying-thig: An Eighteenth Century Tibetan Revelation (PhD diss., University of Saskatchewan, 1983), Steven Goodman, “Rig-’dzin ’Jigs-med gling-pa and the kLong-Chen sNying-thig,” in Tibetan Buddhism: Reasons and Revelation, eds. Steven Goodman and Ronald Davidson (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992): 133-146; Tulku Thondup, The Tantric Tradition of the Nyingmapa (Marion, MA: Buddhayana, 1984); Sam van Schaik, Approaching the Great Perfection: Simultaneous and Gradual Approaches to Dzogchen Practice in Jigme Lingpa’s Longchen Nyingtig (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004); Qiu Ling 邱陵 (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman xinsui tan’ao 藏密大圓滿心髓探奧 (Beijing: Meitan gongye, 1993): 19-21, 25, and Qiu Ling 邱陵 (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman fa xuanji 藏密大圓滿法選集 (Beijing: Beijing gongye daxue, 1993): 108-129.

This text seems to be a closer translation of the Tibetan Ye shes bla ma explained by the 19th Klong chen snying thig master, Kun bzang tshe ’phrin rin po che, than the previous text (no 15). It begins with a short history of the three highest vehicles (Mahåyoga, Anuyoga, Atiyoga) and ends with the Atiyoga lineages of transmission. The same text is found in the manuscript of Fahai Lama (A no 2).

19. Dayuanman guanding ji xiuchi fangfa jiangjie jilu 大圓滿灌頂及修持方法講解記

錄 [Recorded explanations on the methods of practice and initiations of the Great Perfection]

Tibetan title Author Orally transmitted by Gangs dkar rin po che, Karma bshad sprul chos kyi

seng ge (1893-1957) (Ch. Fujiao Guangjue Chanshi Gongga Hutuketu Fashizi

542 Monica Esposito

11 On this see above pp. 501-502.12 This is also confirmed in Huang Yingjie 黃英傑, Minguo mizong nianjian 民國密宗年

鑑 [Yearbook of esoteric Buddhism in republican China] (Taibei: Quanfo wenhua, 1992): 138 note 516.

輔教廣覺禪師貢噶呼圖克圖法獅子). Translated into Chinese by Hu Yalong 胡亞龍. Recorded transmission by Ciwei Jingang Shangshi 慈威金剛上師.

Collection Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 (ed.), Dayuanman 大圓滿 (Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui, 1987): 673-745. Cf. Fahai Lama’s manuscript (A no 7).

References Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangshou lu 大圓滿心中心講授錄 [Recorded instruc-tions on the Great Perfection yang ti] (Qiu Ling 邱陵 ed., Zangmi dayuanman xinsui tan’ao 藏密大圓滿心髓探奧, Beijing: Meitan gongye, 1993): 23-24, 131-161; Yogi Chen, The Essential Teaching of Adi-Buddha: Part I & II, Chenian Booklets no 84 (http://yogichen.org/cw/cw32/bk084.html) & 85 (http://yogichen.org/cw/cw32/bk085.html).

This text is based on the transmission given in 1948 by Gangs dkar rin po che at the Nuona Jingshe 諾那精舍 of Nanjing. Under the Chinese title Fujiao Guangjue Chanshi 輔教廣覺禪師 (given to him by the republican government in 1947) Gangs dkar rin po che conferred rDzogs chen teachings to his Chinese disciples for four days. The first day included a general presentation of the snying thig transmissions of the Bi ma snying thig, Kar ma snying thig, mKha’ ’gro snying thig, Klong chen snying thig and a short presentation of the first of four initiations (Ch. si guanding 四灌頂, Tib. dbang bzhi). The second day was devoted to the explanations of the other three ini-tiations, ending with the Initiation to the Dynamism of Awareness (Tib. rig pa’i rtsal dbang) that is mentioned in Chinese as rDzogs chen initiation (Dayuanman guanding 大圓滿灌頂). The third day began with the practice of the preliminaries, ordinary and extraordinary. The fourth day focused on the practice of khregs chod with the gzer lnga and the practice of the three skies of Karma pa, and thod rgal.11 The prac-tice of thod rgal is divided into two parts: the yoga of the day (bai yujia 白瑜伽) and the yoga of the night (hei yujia 黑瑜伽). See also A no 7, and B no 20 & 23.

20. Dayuanman guanding ji xiuchi fangfa jiangjie jilu 大圓滿灌頂及修持方法講解

記錄 [Recorded explanations on the Great Perfection methods of practice and initiations]. Also titled Kunming Miaogaosi dayuanman fa guanding 昆明妙高寺大圓

滿法灌頂 [Great Perfection initiations at the Miaogao monastery of Kunming]

Tibetan title Author Transmitted by Gangs dkar rin po che, Karma bshad sprul chos kyi seng

ge (1893-1957) (Ch. Jingang Shangshi Fujiao Guangjue Chanshi Gongga Hutuketu 金剛上師輔教廣覺禪師貢噶呼圖克圖). Recorded by Jianfu 劍夫.12

Collection Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 (ed.), Dayuanman 大圓滿 (Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui, 1987): 746-802. Cf. Fahai Lama’s manuscript (A no 7)

References Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangshou lu 大圓滿心中心講授錄 [Recorded ins-tructions on the Great Perfection yang ti] (Qiu Ling 邱陵 ed., Zangmi dayuanman xinsui tan’ao 藏密大圓滿心髓探奧 Beijing: Meitan gongye, 1993): 23-24, 131-161; Yogi Chen, The Essential Teaching of Adi-Buddha: Part I & II, Chenian Booklets no 84 (http://yogichen.org/cw/cw32/bk084.html) & 85 (http://yogichen.org/cw/cw32/bk085.html).


13 As the sixth patriarch of Nor lha rin po che’s lineage, Wu Runjiang 吳潤江 (1906–1979) established the Wujindeng Xuehui 無盡燈學會 (Association of the Endless Lamp) and published the journal Wujindeng 無盡燈 [Endless Lamp], which has recently been taken over by Guru Huang Zhengnan 黃正男上師. In 1960, as one of the first Chinese to teach Tibetan Tantrism, Wu was invited to the United States and Canada to transmit his teachings. His disciples in New York established the Nuona Ashram (Nuona Jingshe 諾那精舍). See the contribution by Yao Lixiang in this volume, and Chen Bing 陳兵 and Deng Zimei 鄧子美, Ershi shiji Zhongguo fojiao 二十世紀中國佛教 [Chinese Buddhism in the 20th century] (Taibei: Xiandai Chan, 2003): 439. Among Wu Runjiang’s disciples in Taiwan are Qian Zhimin 錢智

敏, his wife Huang Huihua 黃慧華, and Liang Naichong 梁乃崇, a professor at the Institute of Research in Physics of the University of Qinghua in Taiwan 台湾清華大學. He gathered a group of scientists for the study of Buddhism and established the Yuanjue Wenjiao Jijinhui 圓覺文教基金會 (Foundation for Culture and Education of Perfect Illumination) and published the periodical Foxue yu kexue 佛學與科學 (Buddhism and Science). My thanks to Chen Bing for this information.

This text is the Chinese transcription of the oral transmissions given in Tibetan by Gangs dkar rin po che in 1948 at the Miaogaosi 妙高寺 of Kunming 昆明 (Yun-nan). The content is very close to the text above (no 19), but the instructions on the main practice (Ch. zhengxing 正行, Tib. dngos gzhi), i.e., khregs chod and thod rgal, which is addressed to the disciples of superior capacities, is here presented according to 1. Ye shes bla ma (Ch. Dayuan shenghui 大圓勝慧); 2. the Yang ti (Ch. Yangdi 仰的; see no 23); and 3. the Oral Instructions of Karma pa (Ch. koujue 口訣; see no 23). The first encounter between Gangs dkar rin po che’s tradition and the Western world was certainly the English summary (based on the Chinese version) of this transmis-sion published by Yogi Chen (1906-1987) in his Chenian Booklets n° 84 & 85 under the title The Essential Teachings of Adi-Buddha (Part 1 and 2).

21. Dayuanman xinzhi yuantong wu’ai yaomen 大圓滿心智圓通無礙要門 [Essential methods on the perfectly penetrating and unobstructed wisdom-mind according to the Great Perfection]

Tibetan title Author Orally transmitted by Wu Runjiang 吳潤江 (1906-1979).Collection Wu Jialiang (ed.) Dayuanman, 803-820.References

As the Chinese titles of Wu Runjiang show in the heading of the text: Xi-kang Nuona Hutuketu fasi Da Chiming Jingang shangshi Lianhua Jingangzang zunzhe Banzhida 西康諾那呼圖克圖法嗣大持明金剛上師蓮華金剛藏尊者班智達, i.e., Måhå-vidyådhara Vajraguru Honorable Padmavajragarbha Paˆ∂ita, Heir of Nor lha Khutukhtu from Khams, Wu Runjiang presents himself as disciple of Nor lha Khutukhtu (1865-1936).13 Wu Runjiang’s teaching focus on the confrontation to the nature of mind, its power of emitting light thanks to techniques of visualization, recitation and absorption.

544 Monica Esposito

22. Dayuanman zuisheng bao zongji jianxiu yigui 大圓滿勝寶總集簡修儀軌 [Litur-gical explanations on the simplified meditation according to the sublime treasury of the Great Perfection]

Tibetan title Author Transmitted by Gangs dkar rin po che (1893–1957) (Ch. Fujiao Guangjue

Chanshi Gongga Shangshi 輔教廣覺禪師貢噶上師).Collection Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 (ed.), Dayuanman 大圓滿 (Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui,

1987): 821-833.References

This teaching consists in the sådhana-based ritual of visualization and recitation of Oμ å˙ h¨μ, in the recitation of the mantra of Padmasambhava (Ch. Lianhua zhou 蓮華咒) combined with the visualization of his wrathful form (Ch. fennu Lianshizhe 忿怒蓮師者, Tib. Guru Drag po), and his ∂åkiˆ¥ (Ch. Lianshi shizi kongxing 蓮師獅子

空行, Tib. Seng ge gdong can ma).

23. Dayuanman zuisheng xinzhongxin yindao lüeyao 大圓滿勝心中心引導略要 [Instructions on the quintessential teachings of the rDzogs chen yang ti]. Original title: Yi heiwu shang jinzi xianchu dayuanman zuisheng xinzhongxin yindao lüeyao ming quru guangming dao 依黑物上金字顯出大圓滿勝心中心引導要名趨入光明道 [Entering the path of the clear light—Essential instructions on the golden syllable of the Black Quintessence (yang ti nag po) of the Great Perfection]

Tibetan title rDzogs chen yang ti nag po gser gyi gcig pa’i khrid yig mdor bsdus pa ’od gsal lam ’jugAuthor Kong sprul Yon tan rgya mtsho (alias ’Jam mgon Kong sprul blo gros mtha’

yas, 1813-1899). Transmitted by Gangs dkar rin po che (1893–1957) (Ch. Jingang shangshi Gongga 金剛上師貢噶).

Collection Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 (ed.), Dayuanman 大圓滿 (Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui, 1987): 834-921. Manuscript by Fahai Lama (A no 4).

References Dayuanman zuisheng xinzhongxin yindao lüeyao 大圓滿勝心中心引導略要 [Instructions on the quintessential teachings of the Great Perfection yang ti] (Qiu Ling 邱陵 ed., Zangmi dayuanman xinsui tan’ao 藏密大圓滿心髓探奧, Beijing: Meitan gongye, 1993): 23, 62, 98-130, and Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangshou lu 大圓滿心中心講授錄 [Recorded instructions on the Great Perfection yang ti] (Qiu Ling 邱陵 ed., Zangmi dayuanman xinsui tan’ao 藏密大圓滿心髓探奧, Beijing: Meitan gongye, 1993): 23-24, 131-161; Yogi Chen, The Essential Teaching of Adi-Buddha: Part I & II, Chenian Booklets no 84 (http://yogichen.org/cw/cw32/bk084.html) & 85 (http://yogichen.org/cw/cw32/bk085.html).

This text was first transmitted at Shashi 沙市 (today’s Jingzhou 荊州, Hubei) in 1938 by Gangs dkar rin po che, and then in Chongqing and Chengdu (Sichuan), ac-cording to the Tibetan text written by one of the foremost figures of the ris med movement at dPal spungs monastery (Ch. Babangsi 八蚌寺), Kong sprul Yon tan rgya mtsho (mentioned at the end of the Chinese text with his Bodhisattva vow name Pad-ma gar dbang Blo gros mtha’ yas, Ch. Lianhua youxi zizai zhihui wubian dashi 蓮華遊

戲自在智慧無遍大師). Compiled for his Rin chen gter mdzod, Kong sprul’s text is a “stan-dard” exegesis of the cycle revealed by Dung mtsho ras pa (Ch. Dongcuo reba 董錯惹


14 A text simply titled Yangdui 仰兌 has also been published in the collection Jingangcheng quanji 金剛乘全集, vol. 3 (Taibei: Misheng, 1985); see the Appendix by Henry Shiu in this volume on p. 570. It has been translated by Lau Yui-chi (Liu Ruizhi 劉銳之, 1914-1997). It corresponds to the text with the same original title Yi heiwu shang jinzi xianchu dayuan-man zuisheng xinzhongxin yindao lüeyao ming quru guangming dao 依黑物上金字顯出大圓滿

勝心中心引導要名趨入光明道. My thanks to Henry Shiu for having sent me a copy of this text. The same text has been also published in Wu Xinru 吳信如, Dayuanman jingcui 大圓滿

精萃 (Zhongguo zangxue chubanshe, 2005 (http://big5.phoenixtv.com:82/gate/big5/www.phoenixtv.com/phoenixtv/ 72343471507111936/20050610/565202.shtml).

巴, also called Congzun luohai 叢尊螺海, 15th cent.). The Chinese text is also known under its abbreviated title Quru guangming dao jinzi jing 趨入光明道金字經 or simply Yangdui 仰兌 or Yangdi 仰地 (Chinese phonetic for yang ti).14 In the manuscript version of Fahai Lama (A no 4) it is titled Dayuanman zuisheng xinzhongxin yangdui kemu. Like Fahai Lama’s manuscript version, this text in Wu Jialiang’s edition has in addition the oral instructions of the third Karma pa Rang byung rdo rje (Ch. Rangjiang diji 讓蔣的

吉, 1284-1339), which includes “the practice of the three skies” (Ch. Yangdi san xukong xiangying 仰地三虛空相應), and the “Song of the Great Perfection from the Kar ma snying thig” (Ch. Kama ningti dayuanman she song 噶馬甯體大圓滿攝頌).

24. Dayuanman pushi yaomen 大圓滿普施要門 [The Great Perfection method of spreading (salvation)]

Tibetan title Author Orally transmitted by Wu Runjiang 吳潤江 (1906-1979).Collection Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 (ed.), Dayuanman 大圓滿 (Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui,


The text contains an annotated transmission of the purificatory practice of the six realms in the Nor lha Khutukhtu’s tradition offering a detailed explanation on the visualisation of its six syllables. The adept in accord with the aspiration of Sa-mantabhadra devotes her/his practice to saving all beings from the six life forms and the three realms of samsara.

25. Dayuanman pushi yaomen 大圓滿極尊心要 [Great Perfection Heart Essence of the highest revered one)

Tibetan title Author Orally transmitted by Gangs dkar rin po che (1893-1957) (Ch. Jingang shang-

shi Gongga 金剛上師貢噶).Collection Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 (ed.), Dayuanman 大圓滿 (Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui,


This is an explanation based on a Tibetan version of the guruyoga practice along with a visualized recitation of 100 characters and respective mantras.

546 Monica Esposito

26. Xiu Puxianwang rulai lunhui niepan zijietuo zuigao fangbian 修普賢王如來輪迴涅槃自解脱高方便 [Practicing Samantabhadra’s highest method of samsara and nirvana self-liberation]

Tibetan title Author Transmitted by Gangs dkar rin po che. Recorded by Chen Jianmin 陳健民

(i.e., Yogi Chen, 1906-1987).Collection Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 (ed.), Dayuanman 大圓滿 (Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui,

1987): 963-968.References Yogi Chen, Adi-Buddha Samadhi, Chennian Booklets, 117 (http://yogichen.

org/chenian/bk117.html)

It is an explanation about the visualization of Samantabhadra and Samantabhadr¥ in their blue and white form respectively. The meaning of their different postures and emblems is given according to the traditional qualities belonging to the nature of mind. Natural state is symbolized by the syllable A in their hearts encircled by the five colored lights.

27. Nuona Jingang shangshi koushou jingang song qifen 諾那金剛上師口授金剛頌起分 [Distinctive explanations of the prayer of Vajrasattva in the oral transmission of the Vajra Master Nor lha]

Tibetan titleAuthor Published on the basis of Ouyang Hanbing’s 歐陽翰屏 manuscript. Collection Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 (ed.), Dayuanman 大圓滿 (Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui,


This text explains Vajrasattva meditation in the tradition of Nor lha rin po che as divided into 10 items: 1. Hommage; 2. Extraordinary meaning of Vajrasattava recitation; 3. Refuge; 4. Developing bodhicitta; 5. The nature of mind; 6. The syllable h¨μ; 7. Vajrasattva; 8. All characteristics; 9. Visualization of the syllable and breath; 10. The immensity of the mind-space 寬坦. It includes a postface dated 1956.

28. Dayuanman fajie xinzhongxin heiguan yindao weidu jike chengjiu shiye 大圓滿法界心中心黑關引導惟讀即可成就事業 [Instructions on the retreat in darkness of yang ti in the domain of the Great Perfection, the simple reading of which allows accomplishment of one’s pursuit]

Tibetan title rDzogs pa chen po Yang ti nag po mun khrid bklags pas don grubAuthor Kun bzang nges don dbang po (fl. 1798). Transmitted by Gangs dkar rin po

che (1893-1957) (Ch. Jingang shangshi Gongga 金剛上師貢噶). Recorded by Chen Jianmin 陳健民 (i.e., Yogi Chen, 1906-1987).

Collection Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 (ed.), Dayuanman 大圓滿 (Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui, 1987): 979-995. Cf. Dayuanman xinzhongxin jiangyi (Part “Hei yujia,” 72a-90b in Fahai Lama’s manuscript, A no 6).

References Dayuanman fajie xinzhongxin heiguan yindao fa 大圓滿法界心中心黑關引導法 [Instructions on the retreat in darkness of yang ti in the domain of the Great Perfection] (Qiu Ling 邱陵 ed., Zangmi dayuanman xinsui tan’ao 藏密大圓滿心髓探奧, Beijing: Meitan gongye, 1993): 27, 162-172; and Qiu Ling 邱陵 (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman fa xuanji 藏密大圓滿法選集 (Beijing: Beijing gongye daxue, 1993): 154-156.


15 The one volume of Wu Jialiang’s edition kept at the Taiwan National Library ends with two texts related to Vajrasattva recitation and mandala offering, respectively titled Dayuanman shiwan zhou jingang huikai fajue 大圓滿十萬咒金剛‚鎧法訣 [Oral instruction of ten thousand time recitation of the method of the diamond armor of the Great Perfection], attributed to rDo rje gling pa (Ch. Duojie linba 多傑林巴, 1346-1405), and transmit-ted by Gangs dkar rin po che (pp. 1016-1022), and Dayuanman jiao shenshen xinyao sanbao zongji Lianshi hui hongfa 大圓滿教甚深心要三寶總集蓮師薈供法 [Mandala offering to Master Padmasambhava according to the Three Jewels of the deepest quintessence of the Great Perfection teachings] (pp. 1023-1033), which may correspond to the Tibetan text rDzogs pa chen po yang zab dkon mchog spyi ’dus by ’Ja’ tshon snying po (1585-1656). The second volume of Wu Jialiang’s edition includes more texts, among which the Dayuanman xuhuan xiuxi miaoche shu 大圓滿虛幻休息妙車疏 (i.e., Klong chen pa’s rDzogs pa chen po sgyu ma ngal gso’i ’grel pa shing rta bzang po), transmitted by Kun bzang tshe ’phrin (vol. 2, 1033-1050); the Xiaodasheng xiukong ji misheng dashouyin, dayuanman, chanzong bianwei 小大乘修空及密乘大手印大圓滿禪

宗辨微 [The cultivation of ß¨nyatå in Hinayana and Mahayana and their slight differences with Chan and the Tantric vehicles of Mahåmudrå and rDzogs chen] by Chen Jianmin (vol. 2, 1051-1070), which has been translated in Yogi Chen, Chennian Booklet (old no 57), and C.M. Chen, Buddhist Meditation, Systematic and Practical (Kalimpong: Mani Printing, 1967. It is also partially available at http://yogichen.org/efiles/bmtoc.html). See also Chen Jianmin

According to Qiu Ling (Zangmi dayuanman xinsui, 27 and 162), Gangs dkar rin po che transmitted the method of the retreat in a dark-chamber to Chen Jianmin 陳健民 (i.e., Yogi Chen) in 1937 when he was in Lushan 盧山 (Jiangxi). Yogi Chen is said to be the only Chinese holder of the Yang ti nag po transmission. He wrote down Gangs dkar rin po che’s teachings and composed his Chinese version record-ed in Qiu Ling (Zangmi dayuanman xinsui, 162-169), which is less complete than the text reproduced here in Wu Jialiang’s edition. The latter seems to be a closer trans-lation of the Tibetan text. It includes an appendix (pp. 993-995) entitled Dayuanman xinzhongxin heiguan guanxiang cidi 大圓滿心中心黑關觀想次第 [Stages of visualization for the dark-retreat of the yang ti of the Great Perfection] whose title seems to corre-spond to Dung mtsho ras pa’s rDzogs pa chen po yang ti nag po’i ngo sprod dmigs pa’i rim pa ’char sgo; but in reality it refers to his Yang ti nag po’i shog dril skor gsum presented in Chinese as Sanjuan jing 三卷經 [The three scrolls], or according to Chinese Tibe-tan spelling Suzou gesong 宿走個聳 (Shog dril skor gsum). Parts of the same text are also found in the Chinese manuscript of Fahai Lama entitled Dayuanman xinzhong xin ji-angyi 大圓滿心中心講義 under the part “Hei Yujia” 黑瑜伽 (72a-90b, A no 6), which re-sumes Gangs dkar rin po che’s teachings on the retreat in darkness (mun mtshams). It is also included in Qiu Ling (Zangmi dayuanman xinsui, 170-172 and Zangmi da yuan-man fa, 156-160). Both versions recorded in Qiu Ling give more practical details and are close to the manuscript version of Fahai Lama (A no 6).

29. Dayuanman fajie xinzhongxin heiguan yindao jiushi 大圓滿法界心中心黑關引導九釋 [Nine explanations on the instructions for the retreat in darkness of yang ti in the domain of the Great Perfection]

Tibetan titleAuthor Chen Jianmin 陳健民 (i.e, Yogi Chen, 1906-1987)Collection Wu Jialiang 吳家樑 (ed.), Dayuanman 大圓滿 (Taibei: Zhengjian xuehui,

1987): 996-1015.15

548 Monica Esposito

陳健民, Qugongzhai quanji 曲肱齋全集 [Collected Works of the Bent-Arm Studio], 6 vols. (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue, 2002): vol. 1. Finally, the Lianshi dayuanman jiaoshou gouti 蓮師大圓滿教授勾提 [Sizing Padmasambhava’s transmission of the Great Perfection] (vol. 2, 1071-1079). The latter is a commentary on the Ye shes rang grol by Yogi Chen. On this text, see also Qiu Ling (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman xinsui, 28-29, 173-235 (B no 12).

References Qiu Ling 邱陵 (ed.), Zangmi dayuanman xinsui tan’ao 藏密大圓滿心髓探奧 (Beijing: Meitan gongye, 1993): 27; Dayuanman fajie xinzhongxin heiguan yindao jiushi 大圓滿法界心中心黑關引導九釋 [Nine explanations on the in-structions for the retreat in darkness of yang ti in the domain of the Great Perfection] (Qiu Ling 邱陵 ed., Zangmi dayuanman fa xuanji 藏密大圓滿法選集, Beijing: Beijing gongye daxue, 1993): 161-170.

This text was written by Chen Jianmin, alias Yogi Chen, after he practiced the retreat in darkness in India in 1956. It is divided in nine explanations summing up Yogi Chen’s personal experience according to Gangs dkar rin po che’s transmission.

30. Dayuanman san zijietuo lun 大圓滿三自解脱論 [Trilogy of natural freedom of the Great Perfection]

Tibetan title rDzogs pa chen po Rang grol skor gsumAuthor Klong chen rab ’byams (Ch. Longqin raojiang ba zushi 龍欽饒降巴祖師).

Translated by Fahu 法護.Collection Dayuanman san zijietuo lun 大圓滿三自解脫論 (Qilong: Dazang wenhua, 1995).References Tulku Thondup, Buddha Mind (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1989): 157, 316-354,

355-374; Herbert Guenther, The Natural Freedom of Mind (in Crystal Mirror 4, ed. Tarthang Tulku, Berkeley: Dharma Publication, 1975): 113-146.

This features Chinese and Tibetan texts. The Chinese text is an annotated translation by Fahu 法護. It includes the 1. Sems nyid rang grol (Ch. Dayuanman xin-xing zijietuo 大圓滿心性自解脫); 2. Chos nyid rang grol (Ch. Dayuanman faxing zijietuo 大圓滿法性自解脫); 3. mNyam nyid rang grol (Ch. Dayuanman pingdengxing zijietuo 大圓

滿平等性自解脫). It also presents a short introduction to the meaning and contents of rDzogs chen with a traditional explanation of the nine vehicles.

esposito zogchen in china

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