Instructions for the Tsa-Lung Exercises — Part 2

Inner refuge

Tsa (Channel)
RANG LÜ GYAL WE KYIL KHOR Ü
YÖN TEN MA LÜ JUNG WE NE
TSA SUM KHOR LO NGA YI LONG
TONG PE KU LA KYAP SU CHI

 

First refuge: Body
The center of the victorious mandala, one's own body,
The source of all positive qualities without exception,
Is the expanse within the three channels and the five chakras.
I take refuge in this body of emptiness. (30 sec)

 

 

Lung (Wind)
DUK NGEL PUNG PÖ TREN TSOK KÜN
YE SHE LUNG GI RAP SEL TE
MA CHÖ KA DAK NAM KHE LONG
Ö KYI KU LA KYAP SU CHI

 

Second refuge: Speech
All the gathered clouds of suffering and misery
Are completely cleared by the wisdom wind,
Revealing the unelaborated, primordially pure expanse of the sky.
I take refuge in this body of light. (30 sec)

 

 

Tigle (Sphere of light)
YE SHE Ö NGE GUR KHANG NE
NYI ME TIG LE Ö ZER TRÖ
MA RIK MÜN PE DRA WA SANG
DE CHEN KU LA KYAP SU CHI

 

Third refuge: Mind
From the pavilion of the five wisdom lights,
Rays of non-dual spheres of light emanate,
Clearing the webs of the darkness of ignorance.
I take refuge in this body of great bliss. (30 sec)

 

 

The idea in performing the Tsa-Lung exercises is to support physical, energetic, and mental levels for opening. You stick with it and basically continue to do so with every experience of opening. After the Tsa Lung Exercise, the physical experience eventually comes to rest, then you eventually lose the energetic sensation; the mind still feels openness and then you start to lose it, but as you lose it, you begin to rest in it. These three levels are pretty clear, if you pay close attention to each exercise, it's pretty clear.

 

We find a stronger relationship with the first level, because here the sensation of contraction is greater. Whatever we have blockages, we feel them strongly, when you let them go, you also feel it strongly. After that, the relationship with this space is less because you are not very familiar with the space; the blocking is more familiar to you. If you are familiar with blocking, you feel very connected and very clear at the moment you let go, but after a while you do not know what to do next. Following these teachings, it is necessary that you develop more awareness after letting go of the blockage because there are subtle differences. For example, in the five different exercises, you can feel physically that something is released in the five places in the body. At the end, when everything is completely dissolved and there is nothing left, you do not feel so much difference in the space of the Five Tsa Lung. Does it make sense? There are basically differences in these spaces. At some point, they merge, but there are differences, because these differences are the main source of where the qualities manifest.

 

Take the anger as a general example. Being able to feel love remains difficult until the anger is healed or diminished, in whatever form it exists. He is either very active or oppressed or hidden, in whatever form the anger exists, it will be very difficult to feel real, spontaneous love. When you work with anger and the anger is pure or purified, the space in which the anger was purified is quite unique. It is not the same space that exists when sadness is purified. The purification of sadness gives space for pleasure. When anger is cleansed, the space allows love.

 

What is love? Which channel is it in? Although it is difficult to locate, describe, weigh and measure, it is impossible to disallow the power of love. We try to pinpoint and localize it, but it's one of the hardest things to aim for. That is, they exist in our system, in our mind and body, and in the channels and in our heart. The question is, how easily can we gain access to space and openness - to the sense of wisdom? How easily do we find access to feeling those qualities as well as love and joy? How easily we can feel these two - wisdom and qualities - is the question we have to ask ourselves. How easily are they accessible to us?

 

 

The nine Lung

These nine Pranas [Tib. Lung] go from the subtlest to the coarsest. They are winds; they are energy. The first Prana is called «Essential lung of Bön Nature, bon nyi kyi ying lung». The second is called «Blissful wisdom-lung, yeshe kyi de lung». The third is the «Spontaneous lung of the original awarenes»; the fourth is the «Wind horse lung of the moving mind»; the fifth is the «Powerful karmic lung», the sixth is the «Gross emotional lung», the seventh is the «Disease-causing lung»; the eighth is the «Mighty lung of existence, si pä top lung», and «the Age-destroying lung» is the ninth.

 

The first three are related to the practice of inner wisdom: the Essential lung of Bön Nature, the Blissful wisdom-lung, and the Spontaneous lung of the original awareness..

 

Ask yourself right now, as you look at which of these nine Lung is most active. Whichever Lung is most active at the moment, I recognize by what my mind feels. That's the metaphor. With the Age-destructive Lung, my mind feels like someone trying to commit suicide or something similar right now. Imagine the consciousness at that particular moment, the images in the mind, the crazy ideas that go into one's mind. Why these special thoughts and feelings are active is because there is a Prana that is currently working on that person. In such a case, I think of the crazy ideas of the mind and the Prana that moves the mind. What is the nature of these two? Mind and Prana are actually inseparable, or is there a place where they separate? They are different in the sense that it is harder to influence the mind and easier to exert influence on the Prana; by influencing the Prana you influence the mind. That's the benefit of having something separate. You see a problem and you cannot solve the problem as it is, but you can solve it in a different way. There may be another level from which you can approach the problem. If you succeed in approaching the problem in a certain way, then you work on that level to move in a way to the other level where it is almost impossible to get there.

 

Similarly, the Age-destructive Lung makes perfect sense. For example, during meditation, the first three Pranas are very active. Of course, I mean a good meditation session! The Essential Bön nature is there; the Lung of blissful wisdom is there. When the Lung of blissful wisdom is present, you feel the space and you can naturally enter the space and feel no disturbing thoughts, emotions or sounds. There are fewer obstacles from outside or inside - from every level. You just feel peace. You enter the spac and rest in it. The Spontaneous Lung of the original awareness is effortless. Being there is basically without effort. Space is there, light is there and the effortless quality is there. It is just there.

 

Let us say that is not true. Let's say the space is not there, the wisdom is not there, the ease is not there. This means that the experience of deep meditation is not what you want it to be. What do you do? Do not wait for it. Do not just pray for it. Work with the Prana. Basically, you need Prana. Why do you need the Prana? As you make the Nine Purification Breathings, exhale these blocks and obstacles until your experience becomes more subtle, subtle enough that the Three Pranas are available in your meditation. The function of the Nine Breathings and the Tsa-Lung Exercises is purification. That is the purpose of these practices.

 

 

Resting in the space

There is always this interesting phenomenon in people who have practiced Dharma for a long time, who honestly mean and try hard, but somehow their practice does not seem to work well. When looking at what does not work well, it sometimes seems that the ability to connect to space is lacking. There is an inability to associate with the first Three Lung associated with space. It lacks the qualities that are related to the first three Pranas, «I want to feel good. I try to feel good. I did this and that and I try ....» It's always the same story. There is no understanding of resting. The part of the rest is minimal. The exhausting part is completely worked out with so many different and beautiful names. The names change, the notations change, but this attitude does not change in the least. You try to influence the outcome, but the result does not change, because the way you handle your practice has not changed. The story has changed, but what's under it has not changed. Our view has not changed. The ability to change the perspective is not so much a matter of effort, but more the ability of to be and to rest. «I feel restless and I feel I should say something!» Can you just rest and be quiet? «My body feels that he has to do something». Can you rest and feel the silence? Go back and connect with this root in the space. The function of these first three Pranas is very important here.

 

Let us say it is not the case that I try to dwell; I do not feel much space or openness and therefore not so much wisdom. The second Prana is not there, so there is no spontaneity and I have to try hard to get the experience of openness, and I work harder to get spontaneous openness. You can see, there is already a contradiction in that. Even in our ordinary usage of the speech, it makes no sense to work hard to be open - it does not work. When it does not work, the fourth Prana, the wind horse Lung of the moving mind, produces a lot of thoughts.

 

If there are a lot of thoughts, what happens then? Not all of these thoughts are like snow that falls into the ocean and dissolves, falls and dissolves, falls and dissolves, or like clouds that come and dissolves, always maintaining the sensation of the clear sky. No, with the Wind horse Lung of the moving mind come the thoughts and stay, come and stay, and there is a very dull sky or icy lake. It becomes very firm. The result of the fourth Prana is the Powerful karmic Lung, le kyi shuk lung. The fifth Lung are the karmic forces. Sometimes we think we have chosen our life. Sometimes we seem to make a choice in our lives, but at other times we are not sure whether we have the choice in our lives or our life makes the choice for us. Anyway, if you look at a specific moment and situation and look at what you do and who you know, you have to ask yourself: did you choose that or just happen it for you? That's a good question. Maybe there was sometimes the opportunity for you to make a choice in places where the (karmic) wind was not so strong and you had enough wisdom to make a choice. But at other times the karmic wind is too strong and the wisdom wind is too weak. Then there is no choice and you will be blown in one direction.

 

It's interesting, you can see that some people have many thoughts, but most of these thoughts are very peaceful and do not create many problems. In other cases, a thought comes up - a really serious, difficult, challenging, complex, deep, difficult to overcome thought that causes a lot of conflict in other areas. A single such thought is enough to create many problems. But the same thought can come to someone else and five minutes later he is completely gone. There is no impact on the other person. Consider the «worrying». Some people worry about something and the next moment they forget that they are worried. Others are worried and they remember them very well and they continue to be worried for a long time. Maybe the thoughts generate feelings. The sixth lung, nyon mong pe tsup lung, means I have a thought and the thought makes me feel angry. I feel no space or wisdom or spontaneous experience. Instead, I have had thoughts and now these thoughts lead me to the feelings and now I feel anger. One Prana leads to the next, and the seventh is du be truk lung, das Krankheit verursachende Lung. Tibetan medicine makes reference to Lung diseases. There are Lungs that cause illnesses and imbalances. The whole idea of the imbalance of the elements in the body has something to do with the different characteristics of the elements' perturbations. Disease has come into being. When you physically feel the problem, the point seems to be where the obstacles are no longer at the mind or energy level, but manifesting on the physical level. That's whatDisease-causing Lung means. And it is not just that, the Disease-causing Lung brings actually another stage of existence with it, such as death or some form of destruction in life. But not only that, then the ninth Prana, kal pe jik lung, follows with the idea of a collective force. The individual accumulation of stress produces disease; a collective stressful situation is, in a sense, causing a global catastrophe. That is, one collects and accumulates somehow and then it simply has an effect on the world. It has emerged a broader sense of destruction.

 

When we talk about Tsa, Lung and Tigle we want to clearly understand what the Pranas are and how they can help us. Apart from the fact that this is a wonderful lesson from the Ma Gyü, each one of us must ask the question, «How can it help me in my development and growth?» What is the answer? The fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh Pranas seems to be the critical Pranas.

 

What was the fourth Lung? It is the Lung that moves the thoughts. Thoughts are moving due to Prana. The thought is the mind and the Wind horse Lung of the moving mind is the thought-producing Prana. If I have a bad thought, it will be brought out by something. There is a Prana that has produced this thought. When you do the Nine-Fold Breathing, you breathe out something that can produce a thought. Or you exhale the thoughts, the Prana, which can bring forth anger. By working with the Prana you eliminate the cause to avoid the result. I do not want to get angry, so I let go of the Prana that makes me angry. That's the idea. Since this is about successive levels of development, this is a preventative method. It prevents possible illnesses, possible emotional crises or too many crazy thoughts. So to avoid a certain result, you have to go to the previous level and work on it. Of course, if you stay in the essence of Bön nature, every problem is solved. But if that seems difficult, go a little further to avoid the obstacles below.

 

Before you go to a difficult meeting, will the Nine Breathing session affect the meeting? Yes it will. Will the Nine Purification Breathings affect the next meditation session? Yes. That's why we do it, right? The whole idea about Prana and breathing is something very new, right? One of the practices, the contemplative breathing, was done by Yongdzin Rinpoche and myself for hours when I was a teenager. Why did we spend hours with this breathing exercise? We did not practice that to resolve emotional conflicts or anything like that, but simply because every moment of abiding in the nature of mind could be as fresh as possible. That was the main reason: Make the breath, experience the nature of the mind and rest in it. If the experience is not fresh anymore, repeat it again and again. In essence, contemplative breathing means to exhale dullness and agitation and reconnect with this state [the nature of the mind] more clearly than before. That's the purpose.

 

 

Dedication

(ngo mön)
GO SUM DAK PE GE WA GANG GYI PA
KHAM SUM SEM CHEN NAM KYI DÖN DU NGO
DUK SUM SAK PE LE DRIP KÜN JANG NE
KU SUM DZOK PE SANG GYE NYUR TOP SHOK

 

All pure virtue done through the Three Doors,
I dedicate to the welfare of all sentient beings of the Three Realms.
Having purified all afflictions and obscurations of the Three Poisons,
May we swiftly achieve the complete Buddhahood of the Three Bodies.

 

 

Dedication prayer

(ngo wa)
KYAP NE SUM LA DING CHEN TOP PAR SHOK
GO SUM NYAM TOK YE SHE GYE PAR SHOK
DUK SUM DAK NE KU SUM TOP PAR SHOK
RANG GYÜ DRÖL NE ZHEN LA PEN PAR SHOK

 

May I gain great confidence in the Three Refuges.
May my experiences and my realization of wisdom of the Three Doors increase.
By purifying the Three Poisons, may I receive the Three Bodies.
By liberating myself in my own being, may I benefit others.

 

 

Explanation of the terms in the dedication:
Three Doors — Body, Speech, Mind
Three Realms — desirable, shape, shapeless
Three Poisons — Aversion, Desire, Ignorance
Three Bodies (or dimensions) —

 

bön ku or Dharmakaya;
dzok ku, long ku, or Sambhogakaya; and
trül ku or Nirmanakaya