Monday, August 23, 2010

Ösel: the Yoga of the Clear Light

Vajrayana and Bön practice centered on the state of luminous clarity. Ösel is generally included amongst the Six Yogas of Naropa. Ösel is also an experience of 'Rigpa'.

Rigpa (Tibetan; Sanskrit vidya) is the primordial, nondual awareness advocated by the Dzogchen and Mahamudra teachings. Rigpa has two main wisdoms, kadag and lhun grub. Kadag (primordial purity) is simply how Dzogchen talks about emptiness. Lhun grub (natural formation) is how Dzogchen talks about dependent origination. Throughout Mahayana, emptiness and dependent origination are two sides of the same coin. The lhun grub aspect has to do with special yogas that self-liberate the dependently originated human body into the Sambhogakaya (rainbow body phenomenon). There is also a third wisdom which is merely the inseparability of the previous two wisdoms