The Nuns of Gebchak. Dzogchen, thogal and tummo..

[Tibetan_Ice]

I found this website from a link at vajracakra, watched some videos of the nuns doing thogal and tummo.

http://gebchakgonpa.org/gebchak-nuns/nunnery-of-yoginis/

 

I also bought this book and read it:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Calling-Lama-Afar-Jampa-Kalden-ebook/dp/B004H4XF2A

 

Truly amazing!

 

Although the book is tedious in places, here are some highlights that I found interesting...

 

When a practitioner takes the rainbow body, all living parts of the physical body are dissolved, over a period of days, into light, leaving only the non-living nails and hair behind.

 

...

Like many of the Gebchak Gompa nuns, Sherab Zangmo undertook the dark retreat when she was a young nun. Dark retreat is an advanced Dzogchen practice in which the meditator stays in complete darkness for a month or more, practicing the stage of Dzogchen known as Tögyal.

 

...

the time of the first Tsang-Yang Gyatso the nuns experienced many magical emanations and accomplished many magical feats. For example, there was no bridge over the Tsi Chu river [a wide, swiftly-flowing tributary of the Mekong, near Gebchak Gompa] and the nuns were able to pass easily back and forth over the water, a sign of great accomplishment.”

 

...

During the annual preparation for the tummo ceremony the nuns intensively practice trulkhor, the yogic exercises that help in attaining mastery of the subtle winds and channels (tsa-lung). One year, Khaying told us, they were being instructed by a lama named Lhundrub Rinpoche, who unexpectedly announced that everyone should do a practice called kheyjor, using their mastery of tsa-lung to enable them to leap high in the air. This is the basis of the practice in which the practitioners walk great distances very quickly by travelling in large bounds. Khaying related how she saw many people doing this practice. Only when I asked her directly if she also participated did she admit that she, too, did the practice. She then told us another story of an old Gechag yogini who was asked by a monk to give him instruction in the kheyjor practice. They went up to an isolated spot above the gompa, as is appropriate for secret teachings of this nature. They were still visible from the gompa, however, and the old nun was seen by many people to leap “…two storeys into the air.”

 

...

the first Drubwang Tsoknyi, from the tradition of Ratna Lingpa. The instruction he received, said Dungkar Tulku, was that, “If you look at the space between two conceptual thoughts, then rigpa, pure awareness, naturally arises. One should rest in that awareness.”

 

...

“She says, ‘Recognize that your mind is inseparable from the mind of the lama,’ principally. If I have any questions about the nature of mind, I can ask and she gives clear instruction on the nature of mind.” Orgyen Chödron then talked about the “three modes of mental abiding,” but Phil was struggling to follow her. She explained them, in response to Phil’s prompting, as “abiding like the waters of the ocean, moving like the fish in the ocean and having awareness[59] like a yak surrounded by snow, seeing only white.” The last part took some time, with Phil having to ask Orgyen Chödron to repeat herself several times before he was reasonably confident of the translation. She further clarified, “Abiding like an ocean is when the mind is still, moving is the movement of conceptual thoughts and the third is seeing everything as the state of rigpa, whether the mind is moving or still.”

 

 

Videos are here:

http://gebchakgonpa.org/gallery/

 

 

Edited November 15, 2015 by Tibetan_Ice