Homage to the lama!
This is addressed to those staying in three-year retreat in France.
Those of you who live in Europe and other modern countries have all the amenities and luxuries this life affords, but until recently you had never even heard of the practice of Dharma. In recent times, it so happened that the teachings declined in Tibet, and many lamas of senior and junior rank from all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism arrived in India. Now, when their various teachings are being revived and the allotted time for the Buddhadharma to remain has not yet passed, a number of great masters went to visit and settle in other countries, with the result that many people throughout the modern world now have the intention to practise Dharma.

The students of my teacher, Kangyur Rinpoche, in particular have come to regard me as their own root teacher and have a sincere desire to practise Dharma throughout their entire lives. Through the inspiration and assistance of Tsetrul Pema Wangyal Rinpoche, they have established a retreat centre at Chanteloube. The real purpose behind this centre is that those who remain there in retreat establish themselves firmly on the path to liberation. If they do so, they will fulfil the enlightened vision of Kangyur Rinpoche, serve their own teachers, and make the very best use of the many profound teachings they have received.

With this in mind, all who commit themselves to remain in retreat should ensure that faith, renunciation, compassion and looking into the nature of mind lie at the very heart of their practice.

‘Faith’ means complete trust in, and reliance upon, the Three Jewels in general, and our own teacher in particular, as well as in the Dharma we are practising. If we practise for a long time, after a while we might think, “I still haven’t gained any signs of progress! The teacher can’t have given me the most profound instructions. It would be better for me to do the main practice, rather than the preliminaries, because it’s more profound!” Or if we are doing the main practice we might think, “I think it would be better for me to set aside this simple generation stage practice and do some dzogrim instead.” Or even, “Dzogchen would be more profound than these completion stage practices like tummo.”

You might think that once you have received the Dzogchen teachings you will have all kinds of profound lofty experiences, even after just a few days. If you have such high expectations, then when things don’t work out that way, you will begin to doubt the instructions and relax your diligence. Or, if you do develop the slightest hint of renunciation or gain some minor experience or realization, you will only develop pride and think, “The Kagyü, Sakya and Gelug schools have nothing to compare with these Nyingma teachings!” You must avoid developing wrong views such as this and arrogantly supposing that you have gained some special experience or realization. No matter who you are, the ordinary mind is always prone to change and transformation, so you should try never to get carried away.

Even if you were to practise day and night with unflagging diligence for a full twelve years and still fail to have even one good dream, you must never lose heart. Recognizing that this is due simply to the strength of your own obscurations, you must be confident that neither your teachers nor the teachings will ever let you down.

On the other hand, even if you were to make such swift progress that in just a single day you reached the level at which there is nothing further in samsara to be abandoned nor anything further in nirvana to be gained, you should feel no pride, because to do so would only be to invite the demon of obstacles. That is why Jetsün Milarepa said:

When you are approaching the end of the Dharma,
Continue ceaselessly, without any highs or lows,
And without hopes for signs of swift attainment,
Ensure your practice endures as long as you do!

This is marvellous advice.

‘Renunciation’ means that while in the retreat centre, every single time you recite the Seven Line Prayer or complete a single mala of mani mantras, you must dedicate it towards the attainment of buddhahood for yourself and all other sentient beings. While in retreat, you should not waste even a single moment in idleness or frivolity, and you must avoid any form of insincerity or duplicity, such as pretending—for as long as you are in other people’s view—to practise perfectly.

Do all that you can to bring your own stubborn mind under control and to develop your faith, diligence and renunciation. Never think that the Dharma you are practising is for your benefit alone. To recite even a single mani mantra is of inconceivable benefit, so dedicate it for the sake of all who live.

Again and again, develop compassion for all sentient beings in general, and particularly for those who dislike you. It might be difficult at first, but you will never attain enlightenment as long as you continue to feel ill-will towards your enemies. Those who are now your enemies were in former lives your parents, and there is nothing fixed about the status of an enemy or friend. To feel hostility towards enemies and affection towards your friends is nothing but a deluded form of perception. If you train your mind to recognize everything as insubstantial like a dream, hostility towards enemies will lose its meaning entirely. This is crucially important, because ordinarily our lives are driven by the yearning to acquire food and clothing, possessions, partners, status and acclaim. We put a great deal of thought into devising the cleverest, most efficient ways to obtain them, and we think, “So-and-so has this much money, my friends have this much, so I need more.” Or: “In the past, I stayed in this kind of house, in this part of town, but now I shall move to a better place.” We must put a stop to all such thinking.

With ordinary work, the more you do the more suffering you create for the future. But now that you have found a human existence, met an authentic teacher, and received the Dharma teachings, your situation is even better and more fortunate than that of Indra, king of the gods. If you now put the teachings into practice with steadfast determination, you are sure to find happiness in all your future lives. So be content with only the most basic food and clothing. Let me put it simply: do all that you can to renounce and minimize the ordinary affairs and activities of samsara.

Noone should stay in the retreat centre without taking the vows of refuge. Even if you are a layperson, for the three years that you are in retreat you must avoid sexual relations, and, while in retreat, it is enormously significant and beneficial to wear the robes of a monk or nun. The Buddha himself said it is permissible for anyone who has taken the vows of refuge to wear the monastic robes.

Generally speaking, you have been practising the teachings of the Mahayana ever since you first entered the door of the Dharma, and this is really nothing other than compassion. Without genuine compassion there is simply no possibility of reaching buddhahood.

In their delusion, all the beings of samsara cherish only their own selfish interests and neglect others’ welfare. At the moment, no matter how well off we may be in terms of food, clothing or material possessions, and no matter how much happiness we may experience, we can never be satisfied. At the same time, if we give away even just a tiny fraction of what we own, it feels as if we are losing something enormous. We must let go of such attitudes, and, instead of caring for ourselves alone, learn to cherish others. Previously we neglected others, but now we must neglect our own selfish goals. Whenever we perform any virtuous deed with body, speech or mind, we must first remember that we are doing so as a means to bring about the enlightenment of all.

In Dharma practice, the most important thing is motivation. If it is motivated by the wish to benefit all beings, then even a single prostration or a single recitation of the hundred-syllable mantra will yield inexhaustible merit—merit that will remain until we have reached enlightenment and there are no beings left in samsara. Whereas if we do not have this motivation of universal benevolence, even a hundred thousand prostrations, or a hundred thousand recitations of the hundred-syllable mantra, will bear fruit only once before the merit is exhausted, and a single burst of anger will be enough to destroy our entire stock of virtue. It is crucial to understand this. If we consider that our practice is for the sake of all others, then because sentient beings are infinitely vast in number, our own merit will be equally vast.

No one is entirely free from suffering, so consider all the major and minor sufferings that befall others, and imagine them happening to you instead. How would you feel? Surely you would do all that you could to find a way to avoid the pain. So reflect continually on all the sufferings that other beings undergo and develop the compassionate wish that they may be free from pain. Once you have true compassion, you will naturally feel the wish to benefit others. Our teacher, the Buddha, while still a bodhisattva, had such vast and overwhelming compassion that he made five hundred prayers of aspiration for our benefit, and, as his followers, we too must make compassion the very core of our practice.

The immeasurable benefits of generating true compassion are described in detail in The Words of My Perfect Teacher and the Bodhicharyavatara, so please study them.

To look into the nature of the mind we must understand how all its ordinary thoughts about anything and everything imaginable are just empty and insubstantial. Until now, we have been the slave of what we call ‘mind,’ forced to wander helplessly through samsaric existence. Now we must reverse the situation, and take control of our own mind. It will be easy to do this if we have some real understanding of how the mind is empty, but just entertaining some vague notion of mind’s emptiness, by thinking, “Well, this is what the masters say,” or “This is what it says in the texts,” will not help us to recognize the insubstantiality of our own deluded perception.

Turn your attention within then, and allow your mind to relax. You will notice not just one thought or idea, but many. For example, if you think of your mother, that is one thought, but then it in turn evokes all kinds of other thoughts, such as memories of the kindness she showed you. If she is still alive, you might think about going to visit her, and if not, you might feel sad. These are thoughts of attachment. If you think about your enemies, reflecting on the ways they have hurt you in the past, how they are sure to do so again in the future, and how you must find some way to be rid of them, these are thoughts of aversion. You might wonder where this attachment and aversion come from. In fact, they come from the deluded belief in the existence of what we call “I.”

Where is such an “I” to be found? Is it in the body or the mind? If you really look into the body, examining each of its parts—flesh, blood, bones and skin—you can not find anything at all called ‘body,’ so how could this be the location of the “I”? The mind, on the other hand, is insubstantial, so how could the “I” abide within it? In fact, the “I” is merely a concept or a thought. There is no location within a thought, and nothing could remain there, but still the power of one thought, such as the thought of our mother, causes us to think another thought, about her kindness to us, and that in turn inspires the thought of wishing to see her.

If we look into this process in more detail, we can see that while we are thinking about our mother’s kindness, the initial thought of our mother is no longer there—it has already gone. And the thought that we must visit her has not yet occurred—it is still in the future. As soon as we look into it, the present thought of our mother’s kindness is no longer there; it has already turned into the future thought of wanting to visit her. This means that the thoughts of the past, present and future can not exist at the same time, and we only use these terms for the sake of communication. The past is gone, like a person who has died, and the future (or ‘that which is yet to come’) does not exist at all. In fact, there is no such thing as a ‘present thought’ existing somehow independently of past and future. Before we thought of our mother that ‘present thought’ was still in the future. Then, as we thought of her, it was present. Finally, as we brought to mind her kindness, it was already in the past.

For one thought to pass through these three phases of time is a sign of its impermanence, and whatever is impermanent is empty. It is because a thing is empty that it can change over the course of the past, present and future.

Consider the surface of a mirror: because it is empty [and not fixed in a particular way], reflections can appear within it. When a person’s likeness appears in a mirror, the reflection resembles the real person, but the person’s face has neither entered the mirror nor been transferred to its surface. The image of the face appears because of certain causes and conditions, including the clarity of the mirror and the presence of the person’s face before it. The reflection of the face and the face itself are not the same. The reflection is inanimate, and when the reflection disappears the real face does not. A face can be burned if it is touched by fire, but you can not burn a reflection. Nevertheless, the reflection and the face are not completely different either, because the reflection can not appear in the absence of the person’s face, and if the person adopts a particular expression, such as a smile or a look of anger, the reflection also appears that way.

For these reasons, thoughts and reflections appear to be real only when we fail to examine them or look into them in any detail. If we do pause to consider them, we find that although they appear, they do not really exist. And this is true not just of these phenomena. It applies to all the appearances of our deluded samsaric experience: they seem real enough as long as we do not examine them too deeply, but when we do, we find that they are not real. This is why we refer to them as “unexamined, seeming reality.”

If the understanding of this point develops and takes hold, so that it becomes self-sustaining, that is what we call ‘experience.’ When we become more and more familiar with this, so that the mind is no longer swayed by thoughts of aversion or attachment, that is what we call ‘realization.’

When we examine thoughts again and again in this way, we come to see that although they have no real existence, still they appear, and although they appear, they are insubstantial. At the same time, we understand how the thoughts of the past, present and future exist only as mere names or labels, and have no more reality than that.

If we have this understanding, then whenever we think of our mother and remember all the kindness she showed us, we need not succumb to thoughts of attachment. We will think, “Even if I were to go and see my mother, what good would that do? She has managed to provide food and clothing for herself, and even to provide for my material needs as well. If I were to take on this role, I would need to find work in some trade or business, and that would provoke all kinds of attachment and aversion and produce lots of distractions, which would only come in the way of my Dharma practice. Instead, I should put my energy into practising the Dharma, straightaway as much as I can, then dedicate all my sources of merit to my mother, to help relieve her sufferings of birth, death and the bardo states. It would be better for me to forget about ordinary worldly feelings of attachment to my mother. She has other children who can take care of her material needs, but there is no one but me to offer her spiritual assistance.” If we think this way, it will prevent us getting caught in the ordinary patterns of thought which can come up whenever we recall our mother.

This also gives us some clues as to how we can give up our thoughts of aversion towards our enemies. At first it might be a little difficult to overcome our attachment and aversion, but by practising again and again, it will become easier.

If you can overcome attachment and aversion, you will no longer accumulate karma. Morevoer, if you look into the unaltered state of mind that follows whenever feelings of attachment or aversion have subsided, you will find the nature of mind. As long as there are not too many thoughts arising, look undistractedly into the mind itself. Whenever there are lots of thoughts, examine them in the way I just described. If you become really familiar with this by training in it again and again, recognition of the nature of mind will occur naturally and spontaneously. The mind will no longer be caught up in thoughts, and even if thoughts do arise, they will not have any real strength and there will be no need to analyze or examine them. It will be sufficient simply to maintain an unaltered state of mind.

If ever you can not counteract a thought of attachment or aversion, repeat the process of investigation. When you have thoughts, don’t react with anxiety, thinking, “I shouldn’t have thoughts during meditation! Now lots of thoughts are going to come.” Simply look straight into the nature of any thought—be it positive or negative—and it will lose its strength and disappear. Without letting go of the state which follows, look gently into the nature of mind, and thoughts will vanish by themselves. When thoughts no longer occur one after another in swift succession you will gradually be able to liberate them.

When looking into the nature of mind, don’t expect to gain some exceptionally high or profound realization, or to see anything new. Nor should you hesitate or doubt your ability to meditate. Just trust that the nature of mind is simply the mind itself left in an unaltered state, and do all that you can to sustain this, without distraction, at all times, during and between the meditation sessions. Don’t expect to gain realization in just a few months, or even years. Whether you develop any of the qualities that come from the practice or not, remain steadfastly determined and resolve to continue the practice with diligence, day and night, throughout this life, future lives and the bardo state.

Understand this: it is more important to take to heart the key instructions than to receive a great many teachings.

In general, you should look at the instruction manual Words of My Perfect Teacher, and check whether or not your practice accords with what it says there. If you notice something that does not correspond, change it; and if there is something that is only partially in agreement, see whether or not it can be improved.

Aspire to practise the Dharma authentically, and never do anything that might upset your Dharma brothers and sisters.

In short, devote yourself to the Dharma as much as you possibly can, with body, speech and mind.

I will certainly come and visit you, and I will always remember to pray and practise for your protection, so that all your wishes in accordance with the Dharma will be accomplished.

Is my meditation correct? When shall I ever make progress? Never shall I attain the level of my spiritual Master? Juggled between hope and doubt, our mind is never at peace. According to our mood, one day we will practise intensely, and the next day, not at all. We are attached to the agreeable experiences which emerge from the state of mental calm, and we wish to abandon meditation when we fail to slow down the flow of thoughts. That is not the right way to practise. Whatever the state of our thoughts may be, we must apply ourselves steadfastly to regular practice, day after day; observing the movement of our thoughts and tracing them back to their source. We should not count on being immediately capable of maintaining the flow of our concentration day and night.

(…) Emptiness, the ultimate nature of Dharmakaya, the Absolute Body, is not a simple nothingness. It possesses intrinsically the faculty of knowing all phenomena. This faculty is the luminous or cognitive aspect of the Dharmakaya, whose expression is spontaneous. The Dharmakaya is not the product of causes and conditions; it is the original nature of mind. Recognition of this primordial nature resembles the rising of the sun of wisdom in the night of ignorance: the darkness is instantly dispelled. The clarity of the Dharmakaya does not wax and wane like the moon; it is like the immutable light which shines at the centre of the sun. Whenever clouds gather, the nature of the sky is not corrupted, and when they disperse, it is not ameliorated. The sky does not become less or more vast. It does not change. It is the same with the nature of mind: it is not spoiled by the arrival of thoughts; nor improved by their disappearance. The nature of the mind is emptiness; its expression is clarity. These two aspects are essentially one’s simple images designed to indicate the diverse modalities of the mind. It would be useless to attach oneself in turn to the notion of emptiness , and then to that of clarity, as if they were independent entities. The ultimate nature of mind is beyond all concepts, all definition and all fragmentation.
“I could walk on the clouds!” says a child. But if he reached the clouds, he would find nowhere to place his foot. Likewise, if one does not examine thoughts, they present a solid appearance; but if one examines them, there is nothing there. That is what is called being at the same time empty and apparent. Emptiness of mind is not a nothingness, nor a state of torpor, for it possesses by its very nature a luminous faculty of knowledge which is called Awareness. These two aspects, emptiness and Awareness, cannot be separated. They are essentially one, like the surface of the mirror and the image which is reflected in it.
Thoughts manifest themselves within emptiness and are reabsorbed into it like a face appears and disappears in a mirror; the face has never been in the mirror, and when it ceases to be reflected in it, it has not really ceased to exist. The mirror itself has never changed. So, before departing on the spiritual path, we remain in the so-called “impure” state of samsara, which is, in appearance, governed by ignorance. When we commit ourselves to that path, we cross a state where ignorance and wisdom are mixed. At the end, at the moment of Enlightenment, only pure wisdom exists. But all the way along this spiritual journey, although there is an appearance of transformation, the nature of the mind has never changed: it was not corrupted on entry onto the path, and it was not improved at the time of realisation.
The infinite and inexpressible qualities of primordial wisdom “the true nirvana” are inherent in our mind. It is not necessary to create them, to fabricate something new. Spiritual realisation only serves to reveal them through purification, which is the path. Finally, if one considers them from an ultimate point of view, these qualities are themselves only emptiness. Thus samsara is emptiness, nirvana is emptiness - and so consequently, one is not “bad” nor the other “good.” The person who has realised the nature of mind is freed from the impulsion to reject samsara and obtain nirvana. He is like a young child, who contemplates the world with an innocent simplicity, without concepts of beauty or ugliness, good or evil. He is no longer the prey of conflicting tendencies, the source of desires or aversions.
It serves no purpose to worry about the disruptions of daily life, like another child, who rejoices on building a sand castle, and cries when it collapses. See how puerile beings rush into difficulties, like a butterfly which plunges into the flame of a lamp, so as to appropriate what they covet, and get rid of what they hate. It is better to put down the burden which all these imaginary attachments bring to bear down upon one.
The state of Buddha contains in itself five “bodies” or aspects of Buddhahood: the Manifested Body, the Body of Perfect Enjoyment, the Absolute Body, the Essential Body and the Immutable Diamond Body. These are not to be sought outside us: they are inseparable from our being, from our mind. As soon as we have recognised this presence, there is an end to confusion. We have no further need to seek Enlightenment outside. The navigator who lands on an island made entirely of fine gold, will not find a single nugget, no matter how hard he searches. We must understand that all the qualities of Buddha have always existed inherently in our being.

When the guru is beating you, hitting you, you feel like you’re receiving great initiation. And you feel you’re blessed, totally blessed. When my guru is scolding at me, I feel like I’m receiving new mantra, and I’m receiving lung of transmission of new mantra, therefore all my obstacles on the path to enlightenment will immediately disappear.

And this is my own experience, having been on the “receiving end” so to speak. My own teacher was a formidable, tall man. A mountain, even when he was of advanced age. There is a film where he can be seen in the 1950s walking out of the gompa to lead a ceremony, towering over his attendants. Almost always, after the first high of having been picked by him to be his student, wore off, my next year under his tutelage was spent in a mixture of fear, resentment and anger. When he didn’t speak to me I was angry. When he did speak to me, or requested something from me, I felt afraid. Stories abound about how -once your commitment to a teacher is sealed- you need to do everything he or she asks you, or you break samaya. It took a long while, before I learned, that those commitments are a set-up. It’s not their presence but our reaction to them, that is the education. And you could say that the entire teacher - student relationship is a set-up, as Dongun Sanpa Gyargye says. In that relationship, the negative, the fear-inducing, often is the most educational. When we don’t yet dare trust our teacher entirely, the relationship can be one of intense suffering, side by side with deepest joy. This in itself is caused by our dualistic view. The most profound lesson to be learned in and through such a relationship is the notion that if the teacher is enlightened, all conduct within the teaching relationship, is skillful means, displayed by teacher and student both. It may well be that the initial attraction we feel towards a teacher is caused by the fact that we know him or her to be enlightened. Then, once our relationship with him or her stabilizes, it seems as if we have to give up our personal autonomy to surrender fully. And we know that it is this surrender that will allow our mind-stream to merge with that of the teacher and so reach enlightenment. For a long while, I rationalized my resistance against surrender by convincing myself that I needn’t give up my autonomy. I thought that my teacher was the cause of the fear I felt, and I resented him for it. He, of course, was the perfect mirror to see myself in, including my neurotic clinging to “independence”, my deep fear of abuse. What I received back was exactly the abuse I was afraid of, but as a resultant of my own actions, not as a victim of someone else, but by being my own assailant. This too I considered to be my teacher’s doing, until my stamina had finally worn itself out and the only thing left to recognize was my own despair and my teacher’s loving-kindness. At that moment, I could finally reach deep enough and let go of my fear, and surrender. After that, there was no way back.

In the bardo retreat, one follows a course of meditation that simulates the experiences of death and the after-death state. (See chapter 14.) The retreat itself is carried out in complete darkness, and because it is considered dangerous, facilities for it were found at only a few places in Tibet. Only those considered sufficiently well prepared both physically and mentally are authorized to carry out the retreat. The very real peril to the practitioner is one of psychosis, of dissociating from ordinary reality.`” A variety of methods and practices are known and employed to bring practitioners “back” when such a psychotic break occurs. A practitioner aspiring to perform yangti yoga needs to be at a most advanced stage of practice and spiritual maturity. Having been accepted for the retreat, he or she then undergoes months of preparation. Even then, one is allowed to enter the retreat only after clear evidence of mental and physical readiness. The retreat cell is specially designed so that all light can be gradually reduced until it is completely dark. The practitioner is taken to the cell and then, over the period of a week, the light is gradually excluded until he or she is in total darkness. Trungpa Rinpoche, who carried out this retreat as part of his training prior to leaving Tibet in 1959, remarks that at first the meditator feels depressed and anxious. In time, however, he becomes accustomed to the absence of light.

Each day, someone visits the retreatant to give meditation instruction and counsel. It is interesting that the instructions are the same as those provided to a dying person. Trungpa Rinpoche remarks that, as the retreat progresses, the daily visits are critically important, for without them the meditator would completely lose touch with ordinary reality. In contrast to other types of tantric meditation, in the bardo retreat no active visualizations are involved in the practice. Instead, the mental imagery associated with death appears spontaneously. An example is provided by the appearance of wrathful wisdom eyes:

The central place of the peaceful tathagatas is in the heart, so you see the different types of eyes in your heart; and the principle of the wrathful divinities is centralized in the brain, so you see certain types of eyes gazing at each other within your brain. These are not ordinary visualizations, but they arise out of the possibility of insanity and of losing ground altogether to the dharmata principle.(48)

Trungpa Rinpoche describes the evolving experience of the retreat. At a certain point, the dualistic notions of light and dark fall away, and everything is seen in a blue light. The meditator’s projections appear as the five buddhas (lower), the five buddha lights (medium), or the five buddha wisdoms (higher). Rinpoche comments that one usually sees the blue light first, then light of one color, then another, following the course of how one broke away from the alaya in the first place.(49) The experiences of the five buddhas manifest not in terms of physical or visual reality but in terms of energy having the qualities of earth, water, fire, air, and space. Trungpa Rinpoche explains:

We are not talking about ordinary substances, the gross level of the elements, but of subtle elements. From the perceiver’s point of view, perceiving the five tathagatas in visions is not vision and not perception, not quite experience. It is not vision, because if you have vision you have to look, and looking is in itself an extraverted way of separating yourself from the vision. You cannot perceive, because once you begin to perceive you are introducing that experience into your system, which means again a dualistic style of relationship. You cannot even know it, because as long as there is a watcher to tell you that these are your experiences, you are still separating those energies away from you.(50)

In characterizing the experience of the five buddha energies, Rinpoche remarks, “It flashes on and off; sometimes you experience it, and sometimes you do not experience it, but you are in it, so there is a journey between dharmakaya and luminosity.”(51) Through the bardo retreat, one is approaching an experience of space that is utterly beyond any interference or involvement by the human person, completely unorganized and undomesticated in any sense. It is totally naked, free-form, and unconditioned. It is naked because it contains not even the most subtle dualistic filter of subject and object. It is free-form because there are no concepts or categories to provide shape or interpretation. And it is unconditioned because it stands alone, not based on causes and conditions or leading to results, simply “as it is,” without any reference to past or future. It is outside of time. This description suggests the danger to the meditator. Out of the anxiety of the “free-fall” of the retreat, one may seek ground in what arises, becoming fascinated by the colored figures, the mental imagery, and the visions that one sees, and begin to fixate, magnify, and indulge in them. According to Tibetan tradition, this kind of fascination can lead to the withdrawal from reality mentioned above. In this case, one mentally creates a world of one’s own and physically enters into a state of suspended animation in which one remains for years, decades, or even centuries.(52) Tenzin Wangyal, who carried out a bardo retreat in the Bon context, provides the following illuminating comments:

I had heard stories and jokes about the problems people encountered while doing dark retreat, in which practitioners had visions they were sure were real. . . . In everyday life, external appearances deflect us from our thoughts, but in the dark retreat, there are no diversions of this kind, so that it becomes much easier to be disturbed, even to the point of madness, by our own mind-created visions. In the dark retreat, there is a situation of “sensory deprivation,” so that when thoughts or visions arise in the absence of external reality testing devices, we take them to be true and follow them, basing entire other chains of thoughts on them. In this case it is very easy to become `submerged’ in our own mind-created fantasies, entirely convinced of their “reality.”(53)

As the meditation proceeds, one passes through the bardo stages, described below in chapter 14. The meditation lasts for a nominal period of seven weeks, but it may in fact vary, depending upon the person. About the fifth week, a kind of breakthrough typically occurs. Trungpa Rinpoche:

Generally around the fifth week there comes a basic understanding of the five tathagatas, and these visions actually happen, not in terms of art at all. One is not exactly aware of their presence, but an abstract quality begins to develop, purely based on energy. When energy becomes independent, complete energy, it begins to look at itself and perceive itself, which transcends the ordinary idea of perception. It is as though you walk because you know you do not need any support; you walk unconsciously. It is that kind of independent energy without any self-consciousness, which is not at all phantasy-but then again, at the same time, one never knows.(54)

At the end of the meditation the light is gradually readmitted, until after a week the windows are completely uncovered and the meditator may leave the cell.

The purpose of the bardo retreat, like other forms of tantric meditation, is to enable the practitioner to touch the primordial reality that precedes the formation of the personality. It enables one to “know” the energies that circulate in the ocean of being, as they are before we structure them through our perception, slot them into recognizable quantities, and filter them through the mechanism of conceptual interpretation. Moreover, one not only touches these energies and knows them, but much more profoundly recognizes them as the ultimate truth of one’s own being and existence. This is, of course, a reality that is utterly free of any notion or movement of “I” or ego. What makes the bardo retreat so unique within Tibetan Buddhism is that its methods are incomparably powerful and effective, and it is able to bring this level of realization about so quickly-that is, for those who are sufficiently prepared and survive it rigors.