Lama Yangtik Phowa

Transference: The Essence of Clear Light

by Longchen Rabjam

I pay homage to Samantabhadra the victorious,
Lord of primordial vastness equal to space.
So that we might enter the non-abiding sphere,
I shall write 'Transference: Essence of Clear Light'.

What follows is the key definitive instruction on the transference in which one trains and so on, as spoken of multiple times in the Reverberation of Sound.

First, sit on a comfortable seat, take refuge and generate bodhicitta. Then, after meditating on guru yoga, visualize the central channel, the size of a hollow reed arrow, running from your secret place to the crown of your head and resembling an open skylight at the brahma-aperture. Within this, at the heart, in a sphere of light enclosed in five-coloured iridescence, is a shining blue A, the size of a pea. As you hold your mind on this visualization, the clear light of wisdom, naturally arising clarity and emptiness, will dawn. This is the basis for the arising of the sambhogakāya, known as the intent of the primordial protector Changeless Light, Samantabhadra and consort inseparable.

Then, as you melodiously chant "Ah, ah, aah!" one hundred and eight times, the sphere moves upwards, higher and higher, and emerges from the brahma-aperture. It shoots up like an arrow into the heart of Vairocana and consort, the principal deities among the five families in Ghanavyūha, the spontaneously present sambhogakāya realm, in the sky above. This realm itself then rises ever higher, until it finally becomes unobservable and inconceivable, indivisible from the spatial dimension. Relax your awareness within that experience and recite countless A-syllables, long and melodiously. With this, remain in an experience of clarity and emptiness beyond conceptual elaboration, vast and impartial.

By training in this way for seven days and nights, the brahma-aperture will swell, and it will become possible to insert a needle or stick into it. Thereafter, repeat the visualization once a day. Through this, you will recognize the luminosity of the bardo and be freed without witnessing the abyss that is the bardo of becoming. You will be perfectly enlightened in the realm of the youthful vase body, a state inseparable from Samantabhadra, and gain mastery of the activity that spontaneously accomplishes the twofold benefit of sentient beings.

This auxiliary to the direct path has been well set out in accordance with the tantras and the spoken pith instructions as heard from the guru and applied in practice. Through the virtue of this, may all beings be fully liberated!

This concludes the transference entitled Essence of Clear Light, composed by Longchen Rabjam, a yogin of the supreme vehicle, in the place of the Supreme Wish-Fulfilling Secret. May it be virtuous! Virtuous! Virtuous!

| Translated by Adam Pearcey with the generous support of the Tsadra Foundation, 2024.

Bibliography

Tibetan Edition

klong chen rab 'byams pa dri med 'od zer. "'pho ba 'od gsal snying po" In snying thig ya bzhi. 13 vols. Delhi: Sherab Gyaltsen Lama, 1975. Vol. 2: 313–316 (1.5 folios)

Version: 1.0-20240116