BARDO TEACHINGS
Journey of the Mind
buddhistinformation.com/tibetan/bardo_teachings.htm Journey of the Mind:
To the Bardo of Dharmata, an Interval Without Confusion...
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There are two aspects to the practice of phowa. One is the training, which is done during one’s life, so that one can effect the actual ejection at the time of death; and the second is the actual ejection of the consciousness at the time of death. There are also many different types of phowa, which can be classified into two, into three, into five, and so on.
First is what is called
Dharmakaya phowa/Truth Body Consciousness Transference(CT), which is the ejection of consciousness into the Dharmakaya itself. This is the type of phowa, which is effected by those who have great realization. When someone has thorough realization of either Mahamudra or Dzogchen, then, at the time of their death, through the power of their realization, they are spontaneously or automatically liberated in the expanse of the nature of all things.
That is called the phowa of the Dharmakaya. It is not really a technique of phowa per se that has to be separately cultivated.
The second type of phowa is called the
Sambhogakaya phowa/Enjoyment Body CT. This phowa is done by a practitioner who has an extremely stable practice of the generation stage of their yidam, which is to say that they have actually seen the face of the yidam. They have actually accomplished their yidam practice fully, and have, therefore, some experience of what is called the illusory body. Such a practitioner, through the power of their realization, will naturally find themselves immediately transported at the time of their death to the pure realm of their yidam. Therefore, they also do not need to train in a particular technique of phowa.
Nevertheless, their transference is called the Sambhogakaya phowa.
The phowa that is actually practiced as a distinct or separate technique is what is called
Nirmanakaya phowa/Transformation Body CT. The actual practice of Nirmanakaya phowa begins with the preliminary of going for refuge to the three jewels and generating bodhicitta. Then the actual practice consists of the coordinated application of three techniques, which are the physical technique, the technique of the breathing, and the visualization.
The physical technique is the posture, which you take when you practice phowa. The essential point of this posture is that your back be as straight and upright as possible. The reason for this is that the technique of phowa is based upon working with the central channel, the avadhuti, and using the avadhuti as a pathway to send your consciousness out the top of your head. Therefore, it is most helpful if your avadhuti is straight. In order to make it straight, you straighten your back.
The second aspect of the practice is the breathing, and the key point here is that you somewhat hold the breath, and then, at the moment at which you perform the visualization of shooting your consciousness up from your heart through the avadhuti and out the top of your head, you exhale and let the breath go, let the breath out.
The third point is the visualization, which has several elements. The first, as we saw, is the closing or blocking of what are called the impure gates, which are the openings or orifices of the body. If your consciousness goes out from one of them, it will cause rebirth in samsara. The eight of these are as follows (from the bottom up): the anus, the urethra, the navel, the mouth, the nose, the two ears (counted as one), the two eyes (counted as one), and between the eyebrows. Those are the eight impure gates. They are sealed by visualizing a HRI syllable outside, right against each one of these, preventing the consciousness from leaving by any of these gates.
The second aspect of the visualization is that you visualize in the center of your body, starting from the heart in this case and extending upward to the top of your head, a channel of light, the central channel or the avadhuti in Sanskrit. Now, this channel is like a tube of light that goes straight upwards without impediment and without any kind of twist or blockage. The only other characteristic it has is that, at the top of the head, it widens like the mouth of a trumpet; so it flares at the top. And above the opening of the avadhuti, at the very center of the top of your head, you visualize, most commonly in phowa practices, the Buddha Amitabha. But, alternatively, and according to the specific liturgy of phowa which you are using, you may be called upon to visualize your particular yidam, and so forth. In addition, you visualize, originally in your heart, either a drop of light or a syllable or the figure of the deity. Exactly what you visualize will depend upon the particular form and liturgy of phowa that you are using. It does not make any difference which of the three it is. The point is that what you are representing by any one of these three visualizations is your mind, which is inseparable from the subtle winds on which it rides. So this is referred to as the visualization of inseparable wind and mind [Tib: rlung sems dbyer med].
The practice consists of shooting this visualized drop or syllable or deity up through the central channel and out the top of your head, in coordination with the breathing, as was described before. Now, when you are practicing this during your lifetime, that is to say, when you are doing it at a time at which you are not about to die, then you shoot it up just to the top of your head and then bring it back down. The repetition of that constitutes the main body of the practice. For example, if you are visualizing Amitabha seated above your head as the target of the phowa, so to speak, then you would think that his feet are actually blocking the aperture at the top of your head, and that when you shoot your consciousness up, it merely touches the soles of his feet and then returns back down, and then goes up for another try, and so on. The training in phowa would consist of the repetition of that type of visualization.
Now, because you are practicing shooting your consciousness out of your body, out of the top of your head, there is a slight danger that you could shorten your life by doing this. In order to remedy that or prevent that from becoming a problem, it is customary, in between sessions of formal practice, to visualize either the letter HUM or a golden double vajra or something similar blocking the aperture which you have been visualizing at the top of your head, so that your consciousness does remain firmly seated in your body. You generate this visualization strongly at the end of every session of phowa practice.
You will remember that earlier I said that there were five types of phowa. We have been discussing the third of these. The fourth type is called the phowa of the guru, in which practice you actually attempt to eject your consciousness into the visualized body of your root guru.
This is a form of phowa that is based upon having the utmost faith and devotion in the guru, and is customarily not emphasized nowadays.
The fifth type of phowa is called the celestial phowa, or the kachari phowa, of which there are several different forms. One of the practices under this category entails using the practice of lucid dreaming to train in the approach and transference to pure realms.In such a practice, through the cultivation of lucid dreaming and the training of the dream state, you gain the ability, at will, to send your mind out of your body, actually going to pure realms such as the realms of the five Buddhas of the five Buddha families, such as Amitabha and so on. And if you gain that kind of familiarity with a particular realm during your life, then you will be reborn there upon your death.
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