Monday, September 22, 2008

Rainbow body

A rainbow body
(: 虹光身 / 光蘊身;
: Hong Gworng Sun / Gworng Whun Sun;
Tibetan language: Jalü or Jalus is a body not made of flesh, but consists of pure light.

Besides secret and unrevealed scriptures, the rainbow body is also mentioned in some Mahayana Sutras, for example, ''Mahayana Secret Sublime Sutra'' says:


They had therefore achieved the Wisdom Concentration, and acquired Mind-Created Bodies, which are adorned with mighty supernatural powers. Such bodies are free of any interspaces, bones, or substances, they are like the sun and the moon, like rainbows, electricity, finest gold, luminous pearls, Sphatikas, Pravadas, Hridaras, Campakas, Pavonine Flowers and Moons, and the images from mirrors.


In Dzogchen



The ''rainbow body'' is the physical mastery state of Dzogchen of the Nyingmapa Mantrayana and the B?npo where the trikaya is in accord and the nirmanakaya is congruent with bodymind and the integrity of the mindstream is realised as Dharmakaya. The corporeal body of the realised Dzogchenpa which is now hallowed, returns to the pure primordial energetic essence-quality of the Five Pure Lights of the five elemental processes of which it is constituted through phowa and the Bardo of Mahasamadhi or Parinirvana. This is then projected as the mindstream through the process of phowa. The realiser of ''Jalus'' resides in the 'once upon a time' time out of time, timeless eternal state that is considered a .

According to Dzogchen lore, the attainment of the Rainbow Body is the sign of complete realisation of the Dzogchen view. As Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche states: “The realised Dzogchen practitioner, no longer deluded by apparent substantiality or dualism such as mind and matter, releases the energy of the elements that compose the physical body at the time of death”.

More specifically, the rainbow body is constituted by the Five Pure Lights. When the view of Dzogchen and the integrity of the mindstream which links the Trikaya is realised prior to the death-Bardo , the bodymind of the Nirmanakaya Dzogchenpa enters samadhi and commences Phowa or the ‘transferral of consciousness’ into the constituent Five Pure Lights of the Sambhogakaya to the Dharmakaya, sometimes leaving the non-living elements of the bodymind such as hair and nails.

There have been a number of documented sightings of the Jalus process through the Bardo of death which may take a number of days to complete. The bodymind of the Nirmanakaya in samadhi, all the time decreasing its dimentionality as the constituent Five Pure Lights of the mindstream are transmuted into the 'glorious body' of Sambhogakaya.

From the case studies of those who have realised the rainbow body the practices of tregch?d and th?dgal are key.

Those who have realised the rainbow body according to tradition


* Togden Ugyen Tendzin
* Khenpo A-chos
* In 1953 Ayu Khandro realised the rainbow body.

No comments: