Chapter 2 Visualization and Heaven-Yoga

2.1 Visualization as the preliminary stage of practice


Visualization is a necessary stage of practice for the practitioners in Tibetan Secret Schools. It plays a very important role in tantric practice since all the later stages of practice cannot progress if they fail at this stage. It is also the first point to be observed whether they can learn the tantricpractices. Therefore, visualization is regarded as the preliminary stage of practice in Tibetan Secret Schools. As it is stated in The Six Yogas of Naropa:


The preliminary stage of practice is a preparation for the main stage. It is like that one must use a stairway for going upstairs. After fulfilling the preliminary stage, one can then practice the main stage. The way to practice the preliminary stage is not clearly explained in tantras. It must be taught by the guru orally. Now I briefly describe the method to you. At first, one must sit down quietly, calm down and visualize oneself as deity. One must practice such visualization everyday for a long time until it becomes a habit. After settling the mind, one can be deaf to any sound and keep one’s mind undisturbed at all even if somebody in the room is yelling. This state is called the tranquil concentration. [62: 50]


Accordingly, visualizing the deity is the basis of practice in Tibetan Secret Schools. Prior to practicing visualization, one must prostrate oneself and make offering. First, one makes prostration through the following visualization:


At the four doors of Altar Palace, the wonderful-desire celestial ladies prostrate themselves before the deities in the altar with a specific posture. [158: 215]


As stated by Jigme Lingpa:


If a counterpart deity exists, one must visualize four celestial ladies come out from the heart of one’s own deity and prostrate themselves before that deity. In the same way, other four celestial ladies come out from that counterpart deity’s heart and prostrate themselves before one’s own deity in return. Then, all of those ladies return to each deity’s hearts. [158: 217]


After completing the visualization of prostration, one must further visualize offering as follows:


The measureless celestial ladies are generated from one’s heart to make offering. They carry lots of offerings, sing songs, play music, and dance. Every tiny part of the offerings releases the fantastic clouds of subtle desires. It makes all buddhas, bodhisattvas and dharma-protectors in the altar happy and satisfied. Among those offerings, the yoga with eight merits is offered to the mouth; the clear and cool water is offered to clean hands and feet; the flowers and tendrils from heaven are put on the head; the natural or compound perfume is offered to the nose; the lamp mounted with jewelry is offered to the eyes; the medicinal perfume with the smell of sandalwood, safflower, etc. is spread on the body; the delicacies with hundreds of tastes are offered to the tongue; and many pleasant musical sounds are offered to the ears. After offering, all the celestial ladies merge into the heart. [158: 217]


The Collection of Esotericism also states:


There are five kinds of offering in total; all the offerings arranged subtly and solemnly means the offering of materials; the appearance like Bodhisattva Samantabhadra offering the cloud means the offering of dhyana; the melodious words praised means the offering of sound; the hand-seal (mudra) of lotus in a respectful posture to make offering means the offering of seal; the mantras of seed-syllables like the sounds of "A-Gan", etc. mean the offering of mantras. [158: 219]


In addition, there is an inner offering as follows:


The medicine is a remarkable holy object, which is composed of eight bases and one thousand other medical materials. It comes from experiencing the equality nature in all dharma and is the fluid for removing the evils of two discriminative attachments (the obscene fluid from the practitioner who practices Couple-Practice Tantra). It has four kinds of attainments. This medicine is pinched and sprinkled with the thumb and ring finger. The nectar (the fluid) drips down into the (visualized) deities’ mouths and makes the deities satisfied with the taste of great pleasure. The Outline of Maha Practices states: “Many celestial ladies are released from one’s heart. They hold the kapalas (the skull cups, the offering containers which are made of human beings’ skulls, referring to the cover page of this book) which are full of nectar, and offer the nectar to the gods. This offering makes the gods happy so that they drop the rain of the body-speech-mind achievements.” One should visualize that one’s right hand holds a kapala and the connected left thumb and ring finger take and sprinkle the nectar. And the celestial ladies from one’s heart also make offering in the same way. One must offer to the guru on the top of the altar at first, and then offers to all the deities in the altar one by one. [158: 221]


Another type of offering, “Food”, is stated as follows:


The vast jewelry-made container is filled with the foods of many extraordinary tastes. Lots of celestial ladies come from the container and make offering. The deities’ tongues become the light tubes with the appearance of vajra pestle. They suck the nectar essence of the pure wisdom from the foods, and enjoy the foods happily. Then, one further visualizes the celestial ladies merging into one’s own body. [158: 223]


There is another one, the so-called “Secret Offering” or “Copulation Offering”, as follows:


Both the buddha-father’s nature of expediency and buddha-mother’s nature of emptiness wisdom operate together without any difference (The buddha-father and buddha-mother copulate and both stay in the same awareness state of lustful pleasure and emptiness generated from the dual operations). This is the greatest and original copulation. The great lustful pleasure generated from such copulation can make all deities in the altar satisfied. Those deities can know many couples of the buddha-fathers and buddha-mothers copulate (many visualized couples copulate and stay in the state of lustful pleasure and emptiness.). In case of a single celestial lady, she must transform the celestial stick of hand-seal from the buddha-father or her clan master into the great lustful pleasure of copulation. By that way, one can complete the wisdom of great bliss, and observe that the wisdom of emptiness and bliss is generated continuously. Then, one can take the same buddha’s pride in following all deities’ behavior on the desires. [158: 225]


While succeeding in the visualization of Secret Offering, one must let the visualized buddhas, bodhisattvas, etc., who embrace female consorts, derive great pleasure from the obscene touch. One must make offering in that way to all buddhas, bodhisattvas, gods and dharma-protectors, etc. For example:


On the first page of The White Horse Head Vajra Practice of The Vajra Tantra, it states: “A ‘Sha’ seed-syllable at the secret place (lower part of one’s body) becomes the same green hayagriva vajra as mine. The buddha-mother’s secret place has a vajra pestle with blue and white colors at one end, together with a pig head at the other end. She holds a small drum and a human skull, and visualizes offering happiness.” Here, both the male and female deities’ secret places are specified obviously. In the completion stage of tantric practice, the pestle (penis) and lotus (pudendum) stand for the male and female sexual organs respectively. Both of them either operate with each other (to observe the bliss and emptiness in union during copulation) to do business (perform various sexual actions) or make offering (to visualize that the offering of lustful pleasure during copulation makes the buddha-father and buddha-mother happy). Everything comes from those two secret places (everything being created from the couple’s copulation). That offering is called the bliss of Secret Offering, which can also be concluded as offering the great bliss of the fourth-joy by drawing, thrusting, and moving the pestle and lotus (the male’s and female’s secret places). [34: 213]


Not only did Yogi C. M. Chen say so, but The Great Sun Sutra, the basic tantra of both Japanese Esoteric Buddhism and Tibetan Esotericism, also had stated so much earlier. For example, as mentioned in Vol. 3:


Secret Master! All Thus-come Ones in the worlds clearly understand the expedient paramita (perfection). They know the nature of discrimination is emptiness. Nevertheless, by the power of the expedient paramita, they act conditionally outside but stay in the unconditioned state inside. They show the dharma in the dharma-realm for sentient beings in order to let them stay in happiness and make a delightful resolve, or let them live long, enjoy the activities of the five desires (the lustful desires from the five sense-objects) and make offering to the buddha with such lustful activities (offering such activities on the five desires to the so-called “buddha” of Tibetan Secret Schools). The evidence is shown as above, but it is not believable to the ordinary people. [Taisho Tripitaka, Vol. 18]


It also states in All Buddhas Realize the Great Mahayana Samatha Teaching Sutra, Vol. 2, as follows:


It is great! My original nature is pure and all defilements are generated naturally. Because the original nature is clean and away from all defilements, the defilements can be used to subdue themselves. In Vol. 4, the visualization is: “Right after coming from the Thus-come One’s heart, the vajra holder generates numberless Thus-come Ones from one’s great vajra seal. Then, those Thus-come Ones merge into one and the pictures of the vajra seal holder playing with the great female consort (the pictures with various kinds of copulating postures) appear. The vajra seal holder, who wears various magnificent clothes and accessories like the vajrasattva (diamond-like person), has various kinds of subtle deportment and tightly hugs a female consort. The seal holder stays at the left moon disc in Buddha Akshobhya’s altar and recites the following verse: “It is great! I have the best subtle offering to all buddhas. Because I know the offering of this lustful pleasure, I can transfer this offering to all buddhas.” [Taisho Tripitaka, Vol. 18]


Even when the lustful pleasure is generated during the practice of Couple-Practice Tantra, one must visualize offering the obscene pleasure to the buddhas as well. In All Buddhas Realize the Great Mahayana Samatha Teaching Sutra, Vol. 8, it states:


Both bodies copulate tightly; the natural subtle happiness becomes the offering; by devoting this offering, one can become vajrasattva soon. The sexual contact corresponds with the real subtle love so that the lustful pleasure of touch is generated anywhere in response to the contact; by offering that to all buddhas, one can get the vajra jewel. The solid pleasure is held continuously (lasting long without leakage); every response to a touch generates the greatest pleasure; by offering that to all buddhas, one can attain thevajra dharma. The lotus (pudendum) and pestle (penis) copulate to generate the great subtle pleasure everywhere; by offering this to all buddhas, one can obtain the vajrakarma. [Taisho Tripitaka, Vol. 18]


Sometimes, the gurus may entice people through this visualization to make them generate the delightful minds, so as to learn the tantricpractices:


On the second page of The Chant Dharma of Deng-que-ga-bu of The Vajra Tantra, it states: “For the purpose of enticing people to learn the practice, it is necessary to make them visualize that, while both navels bond together tightly, two deities enter the samadhi (concentration), generate the sounds of lustful pleasure as if they were in the dream, and entice people to come into one’s own body.” In this paragraph, that both navels bond together tightly actually means the copulation of the two deities’ pestle and lotus to perform the practice of the third empowerment. And the sounds of lustful pleasure are due to drawing, thrusting, and moving both secret places during the couple practice. By that way, the enticing can take effect. [34: 212]


Tibetan Secret Schools create their tantras in that way, and falsely claim those tantras are Buddha Vairocana’s sutras. They set lustful methods to entice people for wide spreading the wrong teachings and generating a great power so that the Buddhist cannot deny their tantras. That power gradually permeates into and may eventually replace the genuine Sakyamuni’s Buddhism. Then, Tibetan Secret Schools may become the mainstream of Buddhism and their many heretical practices may replace the Buddha dharma. Unfortunately, till now, none in the Buddhist communities dare to denounce them. If the situation does not change, the genuine Buddhism will be destroyed again in the future.


Generally speaking, visualization is the step about to enter the formal stage of tantric practice. Prior to visualizing, one must offer the altar (treasure vase) as follows:


In the example of offering the altar, holding an altar offers not only to the three-body buddha (i.e., the dharma-body, reward-body and embodiment buddha) but also to one’sdakini (female sky-walker). One altar is visualized to become five; five altars are visualized to become many; and the number of altars expands in geometric-series order. Since you must offer the altar one hundred thousand times and a huge number of altars are generated each time, your virtues can increase rapidly. Once your virtues increase, the preparatory practice is easier to complete. [32: 175]


When offering the altar, one must also make offering to the three-body buddha:


According to the three-body altar of Nyingma School, the ordinary offering of altar corresponds to offering to the embodiment. The offering of both the dual operations to the reward-body and the luminosity to the dharma-body must rely on the understanding of emptiness-nature. The practice of the great-seal (mahamudra) is the unique and uppermost expediency to complete the offering to the three-bodies (the dharma-body, reward-body and embodiment). This is the rationale of offering the altar leading to the great-seal. [34: 842]


In summary, all the practice methods in Tibetan Secret Schools are closely related to visualization; one first visualizes the five desires resulting from the obscene pleasures and offers them to the buddha, and then visualizes the bright-drop (bindu). If one cannot make visualization, all of one’s practices are in vain and one cannot go further at all. So, the practices of Tibetan Secret Schools are based on visualization.



2.2 The achievements and purposes of visualization


There are four main purposes in practicing visualization: (1) to attain a celestial body (for becoming a buddha’s body in the future) through the visualized vast celestial body, (2) to attain Buddhahood in one’s lifetime through the completion of visualizing one’s deity with the buddha’s major marks, (3) to attain the bright-drop, and (4) together with the bright-drop and Chi practices, to form the basis of learning Couple-Practice Tantra after receiving the secret empowerment. Once fulfilling those four purposes, the tantric practitioners can further cultivate Couple-Practice Tantra which allows them to obtain “the fruition of Buddhahood” in a lifetime and attain “the three-bodies” together with “the five kinds of wisdom” (including The Wisdom of Essential Nature of Dharma-realm).


Regarding the first purpose, Tibetan Secret Schools believe that one can become any other person as long as one visualizes oneself as that person. If one succeeds in visualizing a vast magnificent celestial body coming out from one’s mind during sitting meditation, one has achieved the practice of vast celestial body and will appear like it after one’s death.


For example, Tsongkhapa said:


The Treatise on Expedient Methods for Self-Practices describes the expediency of vast Heaven-yoga. It sets up the expediency by referring to the “teachings of the rebirth in heaven” in A Collection of Present Insight into the Deep Truth of Buddhism – the Collected True Reality, and states that expediency is the difference between the paramita and secret-mantra vehicles (only the secret-mantra vehicle having that expedient method). It also states clearly that this yoga includes the deities’ rules in the vajra-realm, and its expediency is thus different from the expedient methods of both Highest-yoga and Yoga Tantra. Other discussants have given those teachings too. All the tantras regarding practicing the celestial body have the same teachings of practice as well. Further, Yoga Tantra gives the same teachings at many places. For example, as stated in the initial section of The Collected True Reality Sutra (Note: Most sutras referred to by the tantric gurus were created by a group of gurus in ancient time rather than by Buddha Sakyamuni; all the following tantric sutras or tantras are created by the same way too.): “If one visualizes one’s body, speech, mind and motes as the buddha’s body, one can attain the true enlightenment immediately.” The Interpreting Treatise on Solemn Kosala mentions: “The Yogis who practice the transformation of their bodies into the vajras’ must visualize the buddha’s body four times everyday. Why can they attain the true enlightenment through visualization? That is because it can achieve the buddha’s good and magnificent appearance. [21: 29]


Tsongkhapa further said:


If one does not have a thorough understanding of that expediency, gives up Heaven-yoga and only practices the secret mantra, one will definitely not get the essence of the way. [21: 33]


One should induce samadhi during the visualization of celestial body and comfortably stay in it for a long time. By that way, one can easily keep the mind concentrated. …How long does it take to practice that visualization? As stated in The Sutra on Empowerments of Vajrapani: “(One must practice it) until one can get all the dignified appearances and use the clear celestial body and arrogance to mask the ordinary arrogance.” Therefore, only the visualization of clear celestial body in the mind is not enough; it is necessary to keep the celestial arrogance solid in the mind too. [21: 80]


The Direct Observation of Susiddhikara (The Susiddhikara- abhisamayalankara) states: “Do not misunderstand that the tantras have not described the stages of practicing Heaven-yoga. Although The World-honored One did not proclaim them much, He emphasized them in The Sutras on Empowerments of Vajrapani and Ten Real States. In addition, all kinds of achievements rely on chanting the mantra toward celestial beings and practicing the real states. If those fail, all such things as eliminating disasters are not achievable. The practitioners can know them from their gurus’ teachings and by reading tantras.” The saying here, by referring to The Sutra on Empowerments of Vajrapani as evidence, proves that Action Tantra has the celestial practice. It is obviously the Heaven-yoga stated in Action and Performance Tantras. In order to successfully carry out numberless businesses, such as eliminating disasters, etc., the practitioners are requested to practice both “Heaven-yoga and Emptiness-yoga.” That is the very good reason why the practitioners of Action Tantra must practice Heaven-yoga. [21: 55]


In summary, the tantric practitioners must practice Heaven-yoga first; after completing it, they can then practice the deity method, bright-drop, Vase-Chi yoga of central-channel, and so on. Those are what Tsongkhapa advocated: “Heaven-yoga is the root of learning the tantric practices.”


The second purpose of practicing visualization is to attain Buddhahood. The stages include visualizing the deity coming out from one’s mind during sitting meditation and then gradually modifying the deity’s appearance by making it more and more magnificent; upon visualizing the deity as a vajrasattva (a diamond-like person), one becomes vajrasattva too; if one visualizes the deity, makes it more vast and magnificent gradually, and finally makes it become the buddha’s appearance with thirty-two excellent major marks and eighty minor characteristics, one becomes buddha definitively. For that reason, the Tibetan tantric practitioners must practice visualization.


For example, in All Buddhas Realize the Great Mahayana Samatha Teaching Sutra, the “buddha” of Tibetan Secret Schools teaches as follows:


The subtle vajra will correspond with you. Visualize that your body appears in the moon image and you have the purified bodhi mind. In the purified and subtle moon image, visualize your body has the same vajra appearance as the vajrasattva’s; the subtle vajra dharma will correspond with you. Visualize you have the same vajra mind as thevajrasattva’s. Visualize your body has the buddha’s all appearances and you have all buddhas’ bodhi. … The subtle vajra dharma will correspond with you. Visualize that you stay in the vajra mind and your body has the buddha’s all appearances. Through that visualization, you can then become buddha. [Vol. 7]


In fact, the practice of the buddha’s bodhi can only start after realizing the eighth consciousness, the thus-come-store, rather than by visualization. That is because the buddha’s bodhi wisdom is the wisdom arisen after one realizes the thus-come-store. However, all Tibetan tantrasteach only the visualization of the buddha’s bodhi, rather than the realization of thus-come-store through meditative contemplation. How can the buddha’s bodhi wisdom be visualized? It is very ridiculous. To those tantric practitioners who have attained Buddhahood in such a way, if we ask them about the meaning of prajna (supra-mundane wisdom), they will simply reply that “all dharma is empty.” Such an answer is totally ignorant of the true prajna—the middle-way view of thus-come-store. If we ask them what the true-suchness is, they will wrongly regard the conscious mind that can visualize the deity as true-suchness. Their view does not differ from the heretical permanence view. In that way, they claim to have the same achievements as the Buddha’s and declare attaining Buddhahood. What a ridiculous thinking it is!


Tibetan Secret Schools also believe that one is equivalent to the buddha upon achieving the visualization of seed-syllables. Therefore, the practitioners must learn visualization. For example, The Great Sun Sutra, the basic tantra of Tibetan Secret Schools, states as follows:


The so-called seed-syllable “Ah” is the mind of all mantras, from which countless mantras flow out. It can cease all meaningless statements and generate the subtle wisdom. Secret Master, what is the mind of all mantras? The buddha says: “The syllable ‘Ah’ means the seed. It stays in each branch of the body and pervasively responds according to the dharma. The original seed-syllable duplicates and spreads out; the resulting seed-syllables constitute the sound, which generates all branches of the body. Finally the seed-syllables spread all-over the body and generate various virtues.” All the buddha’s disciples listen attentively! Now I explain: “Use my mind as yours, and then distribute it to all branches in your bodies. You do it like that way and then your bodies will be the same as mine. Sit comfortably on your yoga seats, and meditate on all Thus-Come Ones. After realizing the vast wisdom and getting the great merits and virtues of the true enlightenment from those teachings, you are qualified as gurus and entitled Thus-come Ones, or buddhas.” [Vol. 5]


Here they regard the visualized seed-syllable “Ah” as mantra mind or buddha’s true mind, which is totally different from the Buddha’s teaching that the eighth consciousness is the buddha’s true mind. They wrongly believe that one will equal a buddha when achieving the visualization of seed-syllable “Ah” and that there is no need to cultivate the prajna and seed-wisdom, which have mentioned in the Buddhist sutras of prajna and consciousness-only. Those totally violate all the teachings from Buddha Sakyamuni. The practitioner becoming buddha through that way is completely ignorant of and misunderstands the prajna and seed-wisdom. Without understanding even a little bit of the prajna or seed-wisdom, how can they proclaim their attainments of Buddhahood? How can we believe them?


The third purpose of practicing visualization is to validate the bodhi mind by achieving the visualization of bright-drop; that is because the Tibetan tantric practitioner regards the bright-drop as bodhi mind. However, bringing forth the bodhi mind merely means the ordinary people’s first intention to learn or practice Buddhahood. As for the definition of the supreme bodhi mind, it refers to the eighth consciousness, namely the Alaya consciousness or thus-come-store, that every sentient being originally has rather than the visualized bright-drop of the tantric practice. Therefore, the achievement of visualizing the bright-drop does not mean the realization of the true bodhi mind. Such a kind of visualization practice is never the Buddha dharma. All the tantric practitioners should ponder that carefully. Otherwise, they will waste money and time, commit the sins of the severe deception, and get painful retribution in their future lives. It is not worthwhile at all.


The fourth purpose of practicing visualization is to further practice Vase-Chi after the achievement of visualization. Through practicing Vase-Chi and the bright-drop, the practitioners can then achieve the yoga of consciousness transference so as to go to the buddha’s pure-land after death. Or by the efforts of practicing the bright-drop and Vase-Chi, they can really cultivate Couple-Practice Tantra after receiving the secret empowerment, and become “ultimate buddha” with “complete omniscience” finally.


Those are the four purposes of learning visualization. From the theory and practice of Tibetan Secret Schools, we can summarize that the visualization of the celestial body and the luminous-body is the root of entering the tantric practices and becoming buddha in a lifetime. Therefore, it is very important to Tibetan Secret Schools.


In addition to Tsongkhapa of Gelug School, Yogi C.M. Chen, the guru of Kagyu School, had the similar saying as follows:


After eliminating the two kinds of selflessness, the person and dharma, through the great-seal, the practitioners must renounce the attachment to the luminous-body too. By those practices, they will suddenly attain the five kinds of wisdom and the three-bodies. The more they renounce, the closer they reach the way. Finally, they can attain Buddhahood in a lifetime. If the tantric practitioners use the same kind of mind-renunciation as that of the exoteric Buddhists, how can they attain Buddhahood in a lifetime?[34: 802]


The tantric practitioners regard the luminous-body (the visualized bright-drop in the central-channel) as focus of practicing the “Buddha dharma”; after fulfilling various kinds of practices on the luminous-body, they bear another mind not clinging to the luminous-body, and name that Non-conceptual-yoga. The practitioners who have that kind of achievement are regarded as buddhas. However, for those “buddhas,” if we ask them about the prajna and seed-wisdom, they all give the wrong answers which violate the Buddha’s true teachings. They do not even know the content of the prajna and seed-wisdom; needlessly to say, they do not know that the essence of all the prajna and seed-wisdom is the eighth consciousness, the thus-come-store.


A Tibetan tantric practitioner said:


The special and supreme part of the tantric practice is attaining Buddhahood in a lifetime. During the practice, one’s body becomes deity and the deity is exactly the same as the buddha. [119: 81]


And another one said:


If practicing diligently, one can be free from the sufferings and retribution of the six paths of rebirth. During dying, one will not generate the bardo body (the body in the intermediate existence) and can visualize emptiness all the time; then suddenly, a seed-syllable (the deity’s seed- syllable practiced before one’s death.) will appear in the emptiness; the seed-syllable will then become the deity practiced before, and finally one’s body will become exactly that deity; the light will emit from one’s heart to invite the wisdom buddha, and that light will combine with the buddha’s; staying in that state, one will definitely become buddha within forty-nine days. During the first fourteen days, all buddhas will come time after time. If one cannot become buddha within that period, the diamond-like brave warrior will come everyday after the first fourteen days. It is very easy to become buddha at that time. That is the so-called becoming buddha by the replacement of the bardo body. [62: 106]


I have the most secret tantra. If listening to it seven times, even without any practice, one can then become buddha after death only by frequently thinking of the statements in the tantra. This secret method is not described in the doctrine of the Naropa’s main and preliminary practices, but in another tantra. Now I explain it as follows. There are three ways to become buddha: (1) attaining Buddhahood in a lifetime (Original note: becoming buddha from the dharma-body), (2) becoming buddha from the bardobody if the previous way fails (Original note: becoming buddha from the reward-body), (3) becoming buddha through rebirth if the previous two ways fail, i.e., finding a good couple for rebirth, then leaving home with the parents’ permission to practice the tantric dharma, and becoming buddha finally. [62: 106-107]


Originally the oral pithy instructions of practice are visualizing one’s body as the buddha’s. The visualized self-body must be sixteen feet in height and can be bigger or smaller without limitation. Practicing like that way, one will become deity after death. With a large and magnificent body, one will not be afraid of demons at all. This is the oral pithy instructions and the essence of practice. You can hear these teachings because of your many virtues accumulated from the passed lives. Otherwise, it is impossible for you to come and hear the most secret main and preliminary practices from me. Even in Tibet, only one or two persons out of ten thousand people heard this method before. Hence you can understand how rare you have gotten these teachings. [62: 153]


Regarding the methods of practices, visualization is the most important one. If one visualizes the seed-syllable of energy-center in the body and practice it steadily, the effect will be significant. But the effect will be very little if one only recites the mantras without visualization. Because reciting the mantras is just like calling someone’s name frequently, the called person will think the caller is crazy. Therefore, the practitioners, besides chanting the mantras, must visualize themselves as buddhas and keep those visualized images clear no matter how big those are. They must also visualize the seed-syllables of energy-centers in their bodies and make them apparent and clear. By that way they can fulfill the practice finally. [62: 152]


If one can visualize the deity clearly all the time (even during sleep), one will become buddha in this lifetime. If not in this lifetime, one will become buddha after death. But if one does not practice daily, one will illusively regard a small sound as a clap of thunder and a tiny object as a monster during dying. One will then get into a panic and try to escape. Those will make one fall immediately. The practitioner who practices daily will not be afraid and can visualize the self-body becoming deity. Staying in that state until midnight, the practitioner will become buddha immediately. [62: 190]


All the above passages are false thinking. Why? To become buddha must rely on the prajna rather than visualization. One who practices such kinds of visualization can never know the simplest General-phenomenon-wisdom of prajna, not to say the more advanced Specific-phenomenon-wisdom, Way-seed- wisdom or All-seed-wisdom. Those practitioners can become neither virtuous bodhisattvas nor buddhas. They are completely ignorant of all those kinds of prajna wisdom, but dare to claim that they can become buddhas in a lifetime. It is very ridiculous.


As stated by Yogi C.M. Chen: “So the bardo body (in the intermediate existence) is a wisdom body, and the object visualized is a wisdom body too. Both of them combined together will become reward-body buddha.” [32: 138] He wrongly regards the combination of the perceptive awareness inside the bardo body and the bardo body itself as reward-body buddha. That totally differs from the reward-body buddha of the exoteric Buddhism. Such a “reward-body buddha” is just the bardo body and its perceptive mind, exactly the same as those of the ordinary people and all other sentient beings after death. Since the visualization neither changes the essence nor generates the prajna wisdom, it has absolutely nothing to do with the magnificent reward-body buddha of the exoteric Buddhism. But surprisingly the gurus of Tibetan Secret Schools mistake this bardo body as reward-body buddha, use it to show off their achievements of Buddhahood to the exoteric Buddhists, and deceive them. How outrageously arrogant those gurus are!


Moreover, if anyone can become buddha by visualization, then all ghosts and deities can claim that they are the ultimate buddhas too. Because they all have the five supernatural powers and can transform their bodies into the buddha’s appearance with thirty-two excellent major marks, their transformations are much better than the tantric gurus’ visualizing images. Therefore, they should be more qualified as buddhas. By that comparison, the “buddhas” from the ghosts and deities are superior to those from the gurus of Tibetan Secret Schools. But all buddhas never bestow the registration of Buddhahood on those ghosts and deities. How can the tantric practitioners, who cultivate the visualization by their perceptive minds, become buddhas? In summary, the visualization of becoming buddha in Tibetan Secret Schools is just the irrational thinking.






2.3 Visualization becoming the preliminary stage of practice later on


Initially, visualization was the main practice of Tibetan Secret Schools. If one can visualize one’s deity with the buddha’s full appearance successfully, one is then named as “ultimate buddha.” However, after Couple-Practice Tantra of Tantrism from Brahmanism and Hinduism was introduced into Tibetan Secret Schools, it had become the highest yoga tantra and visualization had descended to the preliminary stage as a basis of the practice.


Therefore, a tantric guru once said in The Six Yogas of Naropa:


Upon knowing the generation stage, one must endeavor to practice “visualizing oneself as buddha” and always visualize it without doubt. But if one only completes this stage without going on the main practice (i.e., Couple-Practice Tantra), one will never become buddha; that is because becoming buddha needs several hundred thousands of embodiments to generate the great power for benefiting sentient beings, and the method of generating embodiments only exists in the main practice. [62: 50]


Thereafter, visualization became the preliminary practice and was modified to visualize the dakini instead (as a preparation for the future couple practice). As stated in the same book:


There is definitely no disadvantage for one to visualize oneself as Kyabje while practicing Buddha-mother Kyabje. (Original note: Buddha-mother Kyabje is the alias of Naropa Dakini; there are numerous dakinis all-over world, and Kyabje is their master.) On the other hand, if one directly cultivates the main practice without visualization, one will become ill and commit a severe sin. [62: 51]


In addition, the visualization method evolved and generated various derivatives due to the visualization of central-channel and altar. For example,


There are seventy-two thousands of channels in a human body and each channel has one altar. There are seventy-two thousands of tiny pores in the skin and each pore has one arhat as well. (Original note: There is a distinction of the arhat between Great-vehicle and Small-vehicle; the arhat of Great-vehicle stands for the buddha or bodhisattva, while the arhat of Small-vehicle stands for the solitary-realizer or sound-hearer.) [62: 51]


Nevertheless, the visualization that one pore has one arhat is a delusion originated from one’s own irrational thinking. Likewise, the saying of “one channel having one buddha” is also a delusive idea since each sentient being’s true mind is totally unique and independent of each other. This true mind cannot be divided in parts or combined together with others. Now, it is surprising that Tibetan Secret Schools have the expressions of “each pore having one arhat” and “an arhat being a buddha”. If those expressions were true, a human body would have seventy-two thousand sentient beings because the body possesses seventy-two thousand pores. It implies that, when one becomes buddha, either there will be seventy-two thousand buddhas (in one’s pores) co-existent in the same place and at the same time, or those buddhas will be merged into one and appear in the world. In fact, there is no such number of buddhas co-existent in the world. It thus implies that those seventy-two thousand buddhas will be merged into one. However, if this were true, then a sentient being’s true mind could be divided or combined, and could also be produced or destroyed because some of those minds disappear. Those sayings are actually invented by Tibetan Secret Schools, rather than taught by Buddha Sakyamuni. As Buddha says, each sentient being’s true mind cannot be increased, nor be decreased, and cannot be produced, nor be destroyed. From the above reasoning, the sayings like “one pore having one arhat” from Tibetan Secret Schools are the delusion and all learners should not believe them.


In addition, the time restrictions on visualization are delusive too. For example, to practice Guru-yoga, the practitioner must avoid some specific periods of time; otherwise, the practice will be in vain:


There are four periods of time during which the buddha practices meditative concentration: from 11:00 p.m. till 1:00 a.m., from the time before dawn till the daylight becoming very bright (Original note: about 5:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.), from 11:00 a.m. till 1:00 p.m., and from dusk till the appearance of stars (Original note: about 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.). Except those advanced practitioners who can sit in meditation at any time, all beginners must avoid sitting during those four periods, because it will be impossible for the beginners to attain meditative concentration during the time reserved for the buddha. [62: 39]


Yet in fact, the time concerns for a person to practice meditative concentration are solely for one’s own health, e.g., not to practice right after a full meal or when one is weak or ill. Those concerns have nothing to do with the buddha. Further, all buddhas have achieved perfect meditative concentration since the past measureless eons. Why does the buddha ever need to practice meditative concentration again? Even if the buddha would practice it in those periods, how could it interfere with the practitioner’s meditative concentration? Thus, it is absurd for Tibetan Secret Schools to impose such time restrictions on meditative concentration.


Visualization had been downgraded to the preliminary stage of practice and had become a non-ultimate method after Couple-Practice Tantra of Highest-yoga was introduced into Tibetan Secret Schools. By introducing the practice of the heretical tantric schools, Tibetan Secret Schools evolved from the original “secret mantra schools” and resulted in the following changes: downgrading visualization from the main practice to the preliminary stage of practice, and regarding the union or dual operations of bliss and emptiness of Couple-Practice Tantra as the main practice. After such changes, some tantras like The Great Sun Sutra, All Buddhas Realizing the Great Mahayana Samatha Teachings Sutra, etc. thus appeared to integrate and formalize all the secret practices.






2.4 The overview of visualization practice


After introduced into Tibetan Secret Schools, the visualization practice has evolved into many derivatives due to its transition for a long time. However, all of those derivatives are only changed a little bit, but still within the scope of practicing the bright-drop and Vase-Chi of central-channel. In this section, I will give some representative examples to illustrate the gist of tantric visualization. Regarding the meaning of visualization, as stated in The Six Yogas of Naropa:


The human body possesses a navel chakra (energy-center) at the navel, a dharma chakra in the heart, a reward chakra at the throat, a great-happiness chakra on the top of the head, and a happiness-protecting chakra at the secret place (the sexual organ). The shapes of all those five chakras are different and will be described later. Those five chakras are connected with the central-channel which is the root of the mind. The central- channel starts from the middle of two eyebrows, ascends to the top of the head and passes through the great-happiness chakra; then, it descends to the throat and passes through the reward chakra; subsequently, it descends again to the heart through the dharma chakra, to the navel through the navel chakra, further to the secret place through the happiness-protecting chakra, and finally terminates at the tip of penis. Malpa Lama stated two methods of the practice: (1) practicing during sleeping, and (2) practicing during awakening. While in sleeping, one practices the dharmachakra in the heart and reward chakra at the throat; while in awakening, one practices the navel chakra like embracing a bright mother (a female consort) and then practices the great-happiness chakra on the top of the head. Practicing well on the four chakras by those two methods, one will gradually make the Chi stronger, and thus attain the achievement easily. The practice here means the visualization actually. But the practice of Kalachakra Vajra is a little bit different from the visualization mentioned above. While in awakening, one practices the great-happiness chakra on the top of the head and navel chakra at the navel. While in sleeping, one practices the rewardchakra at the throat and happiness-protecting chakra at the secret place. And while in deep sleep without any sense, one practices the dharma chakra in the heart and happiness-protecting chakra at the tip of secret pestle (the glans). Due to the extrusion of Chi, the semen goes up and down along the central-channel. When practicing the dharma chakra in the heart and happiness-protecting chakra in the secret place during sleep, one gathers the Chi of central-channel at the dharma chakra, and then descends it to the happiness-protecting chakra at the secret place along the central-channel. At that moment, a great happiness in the mind arises and is indescribable, but reduces gradually afterward. Then the Chi ascends to the reward chakra at the throat from the happiness-protecting chakra. At that time, the mind falls into a trance and then wakes up gradually. After that, the Chi branches into two routes; one ascends to the great-happiness chakra on the top of the head, and the other descends to the happiness-protecting chakra at the secret place. At that moment, the mind awakes totally. Actually, the bodhi mind is exactly the semen. When the white semen is pressed by the Chi from the great-happiness charka, along the central-channel, down to the reward chakra at the throat, the mind is in a trance like dreaming. When the semen reaches the dharma chakra in the heart, the mind to benefit all beings arises. After the semen goes down to the navel chakra, one feels happy and the mind of self-protection arises. At last, when the semen arrives at the happiness-protecting chakra at the tip of penis, the mind is in a state of bliss and the “all-emptiness mind” arises. One is completely ignorant of everything at this time. The way to practice Chi begins from visualizing and performing Chi in the mind, and then one must uses that visualized Chi to push the semen. Once visualized and practiced for a long time, the Chi can be created naturally and go freely to anywhere with one’s will. After the Chi is free to move around the body, the crown chakra starts to open. The semen cannot move around spontaneously without pushing by the Chi; the Chi cannot arise or function automatically without the mastering of the mind. The semen is human being’s the most valuable treasure. Therefore, it is not very difficult for one to become buddha by using Chi well. Due to the function of that semen, one may become buddha with countless embodiments in the future. [62: 77-79]


As mentioned above, the tantric gurus regard the semen as the supreme bodhi mind. It contradicts the Buddha’s teaching that the eighth consciousness is the supreme bodhi mind. How come the semen they attain can be the supreme bodhi mind of the orthodox Buddhism? In addition, they claim that the semen can be transformed into countless embodiments after the practitioner attains the achievement. It is totally different from the Buddha’s saying that the embodiments are the achievement of practicing both the seed-wisdom of prajna and the advancedsamadhi by the bodhisattvas of the third, fourth, or fifth ground. Therefore, it is ridiculous to practice the semen for the Buddha’s countless embodiments. Such a kind of “Buddha dharma” is never the right one of the genuine Buddhism.


In addition, the states of visualization are ridiculous too. How can one make the visualization during the mind being completely ignorant of everything? The state of complete ignorance is actually the state without the mind-consciousness. With one’s mind being absent, how can one do the visualization? From above reasoning, we can conclude that the gurus of Tibetan Secret Schools do not know what they have said at all. They surely do not understand the contradiction in the visualization practice either. How can those persons be called the practitioners with real experience in the Buddha dharma? Thus, we should not believe those sayings in The Six Yogas of Naropa.


The following passage briefly describes the method of visualizing the central-channel:


The central-channel, whose shape looks like a bamboo tube, is empty inside and possesses a tiny channel-point with the size of only a mustard seed. That tiny channel-point is the heart of life. But that heart is not a physical heart. The physical heart is big but the heart of life is tiny. As for their positions, the heart of life is within the physical heart; after death, the physical heart still stays inside the body, but that tiny heart of life leaves the body. The tantric guru says: “The shape of the heart of life is like a reversed seed-syllable ‘Hum’ at the central-channel of the dharma chakra; other long shape of the central-channel is not the heart of life. As soon as the seed-syllable ‘Hum’ leaves the body, so does the heart of life. When the heart of life leaves the body, the person dies. As for the practice of central-channel, in addition to the visualization of chakras, one must also visualize the seed-syllable ‘Hum’, ‘An’, ‘Hung’ and ‘Ah’, at the heart, throat, crown and navel chakras respectively. Other tantras mention the similar method of practicing the four charkas with one seed-syllable in each charka too. But only this tantra teaches the method of ‘avadhuti.’ If one does not know the way to gather the Chi at avadhuti, one’s all oral pithy instructions will lose their functions. Therefore, one will be difficult to get the attainment. After knowing this method and during dying in the future, one can assemble 80 different kinds of Chi into 25 kinds, further into 3 kinds, and finally into one, and then become buddha. In fact, avadhuti is called the union. It locates inside the central-channel of the physical heart, and its shape looks like the swelling of a snake after swallowing a mouse. The heart of life mentioned previously hides in that union, and is packed immovably by the life-holding Chi. If the heart of life is moved, the person will die immediately. ... One must visualize the appearance of the object inside the body rather than outside. Practicing like this way for quite a long time, one can move the drop with one’s will. Namely, the drop follows one’s will and is able to go to any place inside the body. This drop is the seminal-drop mentioned previously and its size is as big as a soybean. The seminal-drop is not the normal semen. It is like a light point of a blaze, and the human’s life is stored inside of it. It can also be called the drop, life, bright-drop, or seminal-drop. Actually, they are all the same thing. …One must practice each chakra first and then integrate all the chakras into the central-channel. Afterwards, the bright-drop can be gathered and run freely. After practicing it well, one can move the drop to anywhere inside the body with one’s will. With such capability, one has attained the achievement of the main practice. The practitioner will be a liar if fails in this practice but claims having fulfilled the main practice (Couple-Practice Tantra).


For those people who have achieved the main practice, it does not matter to have sex. Otherwise, it is harmful to their bodies. When the bright-drop gathers at the great-happiness chakra (during practicing Couple-Practice Tantra), the happiness mind arises. When the bright-drop enters the reward chakra at the throat, the subtle happiness mind arises. When the bright-drop enters the dharma chakra in the heart, the specific and best happiness mind arises. When the bright-drop enters the navel chakra at the navel, the copulating happiness mind arises. Those are the four happiness minds mentioned previously. In order to generate the four happiness minds, one must learn the method of mantra seed-syllables at four chakras. Practicing like this way all the time, then one can gather the bright-drop at avadhuti. Upon the forth emptiness mind arising, one can transfer (the consciousness). During transferring, the inside of the stomach becomes hot at first. The Chi ascends to the great-happiness chakra on top along the central-channel. Then the white bodhi mind melts and descends to the heart, where it meets and combines with the red bodhi mind. The white bodhi mind enters the red one, and the red bodhi mind enters the white one. The red and the white bodhi minds are then merged and enter avadhuti. The bodhi mind becomes very dark after entering avadhuti. At that time, the mind is completely ignorant of everything, everything disappears like one falling asleep, and then one has attained the achievement. How soon does it happen? It really depends on each practitioner. At that moment, one can see (by visualization) the blood-like red light at first because of the slightly opening ofavadhuti. But it opens only for a while, and then closes suddenly. If it opens for a long time, the person will die because the life has left the body. The blood-like red light displays only for a moment and then disappears. After that the yellow and white light displays. At that moment, the life has left the body. Once the life has left, one knows one is already dead. But only those practitioners who practice for a long time can know that; the beginners will not know it at all. At the moment of death, one must visualize “I being dead,” “impermanence,” “all dharma being empty,” and “emptiness having nothing.” Then suddenly a deity’s seed-syllable appears in the emptiness. The seed-syllable becomes deity, and the self-body becomes deity too. At that time, one emits light from the heart to invite the wisdom buddha to merge into one’s body. When the wisdom buddha comes, the light becomes too bright to see it. Then, one should not be afraid and must welcome the buddha like the son meeting his mother, jump into the light, and merge oneself with the light finally. Once merged with the light, one becomes buddha. [62: 141-146]


The above passage about the root of the human life, being in the bright-drop of central-channel, is ridiculous. The root of life is just an illusive term from human. It belongs to “the dharma not interactive with the mind” mentioned in the consciousness- only sutras and is not a real object. In fact, it is exactly a person’s eighth consciousness rather than the root of life to decide whether or how long one can survive. If those seeds contained in the eighth consciousness conclude the duration of one’s life, then the karmic seeds in it will manifest and let one live for that period of time accordingly. Therefore, the life is contained in the Alaya consciousness rather than the bright-drop in the central-channel. It is the irrational thinking for the tantric practitioners to use the visualized bright-drop as the way to achieve Buddhahood. The visualized bright-drop is only an internal image of the sense-object in one’s brain, and still manifested by the eighth consciousness. That image exists by visualization and will disappear at any other time. The visualization is a method of conditioned dependent arising; the bright-drop will disappear sooner or later if the conditions no longer exist. Thus, it should not be the origin of life which must exist all the time without any condition.


Furthermore, if the bright-drop is the origin of life, it will be irrational that there are two origins of life: One is the bright-drop mentioned in thetantras and the other is the eighth consciousness taught by Buddha Sakyamuni. In many sutras of the three-vehicles, Buddha says that the “cause of life” is the thus-come-store, the eighth consciousness. This very consciousness is the original cause of all other seven changeable consciousnesses and even the body. All the Buddhist learners should follow Buddha Sakyamuni’s teachings, and never conflict with His doctrines by establishing another origin of life. In addition, the eighth consciousness Alaya mentioned by Buddha Sakyamuni can be truly realized. Many ancient people had realized it. Even today, many practitioners in our Buddhist True Enlightenment Practitioners Association have realized it too. It is so real and can be proven by the practitioners’ first hand experiences; thus, they can verify Buddha Sakyamuni’s teachings in the sutras. Hence all the learners should understand the eighth consciousness is the origin of life, and not believe the tantric absurd saying that the bright-drop is the origin.


The basic tantra of Tibetan Secret Schools, The Great Sun Sutra, further states that the attainment by visualizing is the attainment of Buddhahood. For example,


Secret Master asks: “The World-honored One! Please let us know the reason why one can get the attainment definitely if one can visualize the deity, who having the solemn appearances, as one’s own body.” [Vol.6]


The “buddha” in The Great Sun Sutra replied:


… Secret Master! Deities have three bodies—the syllable, hand-seal and appearance. There are two kinds of syllables, the sound and bodhi mind, two kinds of hand-seals, the form and no-form, and two kinds of appearances, the clean and unclean one. The clean mindless body is formless, while the unclean thinking body has a real form. There are two attainments from those two appearances. The thinking body gets the form attainment, and the mindless body gets the formless one. [Vol.6]


Then, the “buddha” said the following verse:


The buddha says that the happiness and desire become tangible because of thinking, and one can attain the formless achievement because of the thoughtless state. Thus, all people should stay in the thoughtless state. [Vol.6]


Such a “buddha” says that the achievement of visualized deity becomes exactly one’s own body. It is so ridiculous. The image of visualized deity is only the internal appearance in one’s brain by visualization. This image results from other conditions such as one’s body and concentration, etc. How come the conditioned imagination can become a real body?


Furthermore, although the syllable, hand-seal or appearance each has two explanations respectively, they are all in the scope of conditioned depending arising. Tibetan Secret Schools falsely proclaim that the thoughtless awareness mind is the attainment. But in fact the mindless consciousness is only keeping the mind without any thought in the desire-realm. It does not even reach the lowest level of the samadhi yet, not to say the realization of prajna. If no thinking were the attainment of tantric formless reality, all the practitioners in the desire-realm who get thesamadhis could be the buddhas of Tibetan Secret Schools.


Again, the “buddha” in The Great Sun Sutra said:


Ordinary people generate self-attachment, illusive thinking and discrimination from the nature of emptiness. Secret Master! Due to leaving all thinking, the mind does not have any nature. One must think about the nature of mind being empty. Secret Master! The mind is beyond the three lives. Such nature is away from all appearances. Secret Master! If there is any thinking in the mind, it is ordinary people’s discrimination. That false discrimination is from their ignorance. Thus, the practitioners must think their minds are unreal and cannot be generated. Secret Master! By dwelling in that samadhi, the mantra practitioners can attain the imageless samadhi, and then the states which the buddha has experienced will appear. [Vol. 6]


In that way, the tantric practitioners regard the thinking of visualization being empty and formless, and the visualized deity being formless as emptiness. By the visualization practice, they claim the attainment of imageless samadhi. That kind of formless reality mentioned by the tantric“buddha” is totally different from the Buddha Sakyamuni’s teachings that the eighth consciousness is the true reality of all dharma. However, thetantric practitioners declare that “the mind-consciousness without any notion or language” is the attainment of Buddhahood. With that declaration, they debase the real practices of the orthodox Buddhism as the stages of the cause, and on the other hand, exaggerate their practice as the stage of the fruition for an “ultimate buddha.” It is never the truth.






2.5 Eliminating obstacles and offering to the buddhas by visualization


Using visualization to eliminate obstacles and offer to the buddhas is a ridiculous thought belonging to Tibetan Secret Schools only. As stated inThe Six Yogas of Naropa:


During practice, one must dispel the demon-obstacles in the body by mantra power. The demons will become black gas and be expelled out of the body through the pores. The expelled gas will then transform into one’s countless bodies. By beating, killing or insulting those transformed bodies, one’s enemies will eventually get their revenge and feel satisfied. Thus, this kind of visualization for repaying debts is very important. Everyone may have done something bad to others and therefore must repay later on. It will be difficult for a practitioner to attain any achievement without visualizing repayment. This is the essential point of my teaching, and must be kept in secret. That is the reason why you must visualize repaying debts at least two or three times a day. [62: 169]


If the above saying were ever true, it would not be a mercy way to expel demons out of one’s body so that their enemies can beat or kill the demons instead of oneself, and to use the demons’ lives to replace one’s own life.


In addition, if the visualization practice worked, all people could repay their sinful debts by only visualization. Then, why did Buddha Sakyamuni not teach such a wonderful and easy method? If what is visualized could become real, one could get many things through visualization and rob other people of the virtues if one is powerful enough. Moreover, the buddhas can help their followers become buddhas by visualization too. If that were true, all the practitioners would not need to practice so hard; as long as they could please the buddha with plenty of offerings, the buddha would let them become buddhas through His visualization.


Due to compassion, then the buddha should actively visualize all His followers becoming buddhas everyday. If so, we need not diligently gather virtues and practice samadhi. The practitioners of Tibetan Secret Schools need not practice the bright-drop, Chi, central-channel, visualization, Couple- Practice Tantra, etc. In summary, the method of repaying debts through visualization is not believable and just wasting time.


As stated in the same book:


After the visualization of repaying debts, one must visualize using one’s mantra power to create lots of treasures and offerings desired by the buddhas and bodhisattavas, and offer those visualized objects to the buddhas, bodhisattavas and deity to make them happy. Then, the buddhas and bodhisattavas will become the light and merge into the deity’s body. The deity will also become the light and merge into one’s body. Finally one will become deity. [62: 169-170]


If such “offering to a buddha” could become real offering, the eighth-ground bodhisattvas would not need to have practiced so hard for countless eons. Moreover, if there were such a good thing, the buddhas and bodhisattvas should teach this great method to benefit all the practitioners. However, such a method only exists in the teachings of the unenlightened tantric patriarchs, rather than in any of Buddha Sakyamuni’s sutras. It is definitely not the right dharma.


In the same book, the guru said again:


When becoming deity, one must teach sutras to all sentient beings (through visualization) in order to help them achieve Buddhahood. At the same time, one must generate measureless treasures and goods desired by all sentient beings through visualization, give all these things and transfer the merits of giving to all of them, and pray for their attainments of Buddhahood. The above three kinds of visualization for repaying debts, offering to the buddhas, and becoming deity are my secret oral pithy instructions. You must keep them strictly confidential, and not tell other people except our brothers. Otherwise, you will get evil punishment. [62: 170]


Such visualization of becoming buddha, teaching the sentient beings and then helping them get enlightened is merely their absurd thinking. None of the sentient beings can benefit from that visualization. All visualization on the deity, sentient beings and teaching is simply the practitioner’s internal images in the brain. If such visualization could help people be free from sufferings, all buddhas would not need to appear in the three-realms and to work so hard to help the sentient beings. They can do nothing but visualization all the day, so as to make all sentient beings enlightened. But in fact, Buddha Sakyamuni did not do that way. Not only does He create the response-body to help people in this world, but also He shows His embodiment to help the sentient beings in the heaven-realm. In addition, He uses His solemn reward-body to teach the bodhisattvas on or over the first-ground. Thus, the tantric practitioners’ visualization is only their own imagination and has nothing to do with other sentient beings.


Furthermore, since the visualized deity is still inside one’s brain, one offers to that deity is actually offering to oneself. If such a kind of self offering can increase one’s merit and virtue, it is irrational.


Moreover, when the visualized deity or buddha becomes the light and merges into one’s body, it actually means one’s internal image in the brain disappears. This kind of light merging is only an imagination. For example, if a man daydreams that he is an emperor, he visualizes that the emperor becomes the light and merges into his own body. Then, this man declares himself as emperor and asks people to treat him like an emperor. But actually people will simply think he is a mad man with paranoia. The visualization method of Tibetan Secret Schools is identical to the case above, which is only a worldly absurd method rather than the orthodox Buddhist practice.






2.6 The tantric ridiculous thoughts on releasing souls from suffering


The people of Tibetan Secret Schools always declare: “Tibetan Secret Schools are the most experienced in releasing souls and the releasing method is supreme; its releasing effect is the best and superior to that of the exoteric Buddhism.” But from the viewpoint of the way-seed wisdom, thetantric method of releasing souls from suffering is total nonsense; this method cannot benefit the dead and may only make them feel funny due to the absurdity.


For example, as stated in The Six Yogas of Naropa:


When one is dying, the four elements (earth, water, fire and wind) of one’s body will dissolve in sequence. The state generated during the dissolution will make one confused, panic and extremely painful so that one will become indecisive and follow one’s karma for reincarnation. To avoid that, one should frequently practice the eight methods of facing death; through that practice, one will be able to stay calm and conscious when dying. There are various states of dissolution during death: When the earth dissolves into the water, one will feel like oneself crushed to death under a high mountain; when the water dissolves into the fire, one will feel like oneself drowned by the large waves; when the fire dissolves into the wind, one will feel like oneself burned to death by the big fire in the forest; when the wind dissolves into the consciousness, one will feel like oneself blown up to the high clouds by the raging wind and falling to death immediately.


In addition, when the earth dissolves into the water, one can mentally see the bright sun in the cloudless sky; when the water dissolves into the fire, one can mentally see the smoke; when the fire dissolves into the wind, one can mentally see the fluorescent light; when the wind dissolves into the consciousness, one can mentally see a very bright lamp on a windless plain. When those scenes show up, one knows one will die. At that time, one should think “My death being impermanent and all dharma being empty,” and visualize a seed-syllable appearing in the air and become the deity immediately. If the deity embraces a female consort, one should visualize her too. When one dies with visualizing one’s body, speech and mind being the same as those of the deity, one will become buddha immediately.


Most of the dying people will become afraid of cold or heat prior to death. Those who are afraid of cold will fall into the fire hell, while those who are afraid of heat will fall into the ice hell. To avoid those conditions, the practitioners must disregard the cold or heat during death, concentrate on reciting the mantra, and visualize that they become the deities they practice daily. Then they must visualize the lights emitting from their hearts to invite the wisdom buddha (the couple-body buddha) at their clean places (their visualized lower places) to come and merge with them. Once such visualization is achieved, they become buddhas right away. This is the method of “becoming buddha from the bardo body during the intermediate existence.” To avoid their panic or fear at the moment of death that leads to hell, the practitioners should diligently practice all mentioned conditions, including the dissolution of the four elements, the visualization of “my death being impermanent and all dharma being empty,” the union of them and their deities, the feelings of cold or heat, etc. [62: 179-180]


The above statements do not conform to The Agama Sutra, in which Buddha Sakyamuni said that, during dying, the virtuous persons will feel like in a wonderful dream and seeing many celestial ladies around; they will then be happy, desirous, and thus be reborn in the heaven of desire-realm; for those persons who hold the five precepts, they will first lose consciousness as if in the deepest sleep, and then regain consciousness through the bardo bodies to recognize their deaths; for those who slander the buddha, dharma, or sangha (monks or nuns, whether ordinary or supreme), or those who replace the orthodox Buddhism with the heresy (such as those of Tibetan Secret Schools, who replace the orthodox Buddhism with Couple-Practice Tantra from the heretical Tantrism and declare that it is the ultimate Buddhism), they will first suffer many kinds of pains and become completely unconscious due to extreme pains prior to death; then, after recovering from unconsciousness, they are suffering in hell already; thus, for the persons who commit such a grave sin, they will be completely unconscious during dying; they will not go through the intermediate existence, nor will they experience the pains of the dissolution of earth, water, fire, wind, emptiness and consciousness during dying.”


As for the bodhisattvas who attain samadhi and realize prajna, they will neither face the evil states nor feel any pain during dying, if they did not slander their teachers, damage the dharma or have their past evil karma becoming mature. Only the persons who have done some evil karma that are not serious enough for hell will experience several kinds of pains during dying, including the dissolution of the four elements. Those are the karmic retributions they doomed to receive.


Therefore, the dying process taught by Tibetan Secret Schools is nothing but ridiculous fantasy and inconsistent with the Buddha’s teachings. If a practitioner tries to guide the deceased to go through the dying process told by Tibetan Secret Schools or written in The Lotus Born’s book, The Tibetan Death, the spirit of the deceased will get into endless waiting for the absurd fantasy to come true. Sooner or later the spirit will get impatient and will start to laugh at the practitioner who still keeps on saying in nonsense. The spirit may even be disturbed and start to blame the practitioner, which will be harmful to both the practitioner and the deceased.


In addition, the content of The Tibetan Death is completely from The Lotus Born’s own absurd fantasy. It does not conform to the All-seed-wisdom and even contradicts with the Buddha’s teachings. For example, in his fictitious teachings, The Lotus Born says that during the intermediate existence, there will be one different buddha each day to guide the deceased, regardless of their virtues and deeds when alive. That is against what Buddha said: “The deceased can not be reborn in Amitabha’s pure-land without sufficient virtues.” Buddha also said that one should concentrate on buddha-remembrance without the slightest distraction so as to can be reborn in the pure-land (Ultimate-bliss Pure-land). Thus, an excellent buddha- remembrance practice is the requirement for the rebirth in the pure-land. Buddhas do not voluntarily and un-selectively serve every deceased by offering the guide everyday.


Furthermore, the daily appeared “buddhas” mentioned in The Tibetan Death are the “reward-body buddhas” of Tibetan Secret Schools. Each of those so-called “buddhas” always hugs a woman and enjoys the lustful happiness. But all the true buddhas have purified their bodies, speeches and minds, and are absolutely free from even the slightest habits. Therefore, the true buddhas will never appear as the pose of couple-practice and never enjoy the lust either. Obviously, those are the ghosts or deities in disguise.


The Tibetan Death is in direct contradiction to All-seed- wisdom. In that book, The Lotus Born says that at the moment of thorough death, the deceased should regard their conscious clear-lights as the emptiness natures of the dharma-bodies, or so-called the permanent, pure consciousnesses. If they can recognize those clear-lights, they have validated the dharma-body buddhas and hence become ultimate buddhas. As stated in The Tibetan Death:


In order to help the deceased to validate the true reality, the reciting person should say: “Listen, honorable one! You are experiencing the pure clear-light of the true reality. You should recognize it. Honorable one! The nature of your wisdom is always empty, colorless, and formless. It is the true reality, pure consciousness and nature of Buddha Samantabhadra-raja’s dharma realm (referring to the tantric Samantabhadra-raja buddha who enjoys the happiness of copulation through the couple-practice). The emptiness nature is not void. It is the wisdom nature with brightness, happiness, attentiveness, and without obstruction. The emptiness nature and pure consciousness fit seamlessly to form the state of perfect enlightened dharma-body—the boundless light, Buddha Amitabha—that has neither birth nor death. Regard your own wisdom nature as the emptiness nature of the buddha, and treat it as your own pure consciousness. This will then make you stay peacefully in the holy state of the great enlightenment.”


Repeating the above statements clearly for three to seven times will allow the deceased to remember the realization methods taught by their gurus, to treat the pure consciousnesses as the basic clear-lights, to make themselves, who have recognized their true natures, merge with the dharma-bodies permanently, and thus to ensure their liberation. [139: 46-47]


By the above thoughts and compositions, Tibetan Secret Schools claim that they have the best research and experience on death, and that they are the most capable of helping people become buddhas after death. But those claims are actually imaginary and ridiculous. Preaching to the deceased with those kinds of sayings will cause them to commit the sins of severe deception, which will make them fall to hell with endless suffering. It is really a pity that the innocent persons will fall to hell just because of the absurd teachings of Tibetan Secret Schools.


Why does it become so? It is because the manifested clear-light of wisdom is actually the awareness mind (the sixth consciousness), not the true reality (the eighth consciousness). Thus, they will commit the sin of severe deception by regarding the awareness mind as the true reality and declaring themselves as buddhas. Originally, the deceased can be reborn in a good place due to their wholesome karma, but they may fall to hell instead because of such wrong teachings. That is just like one stupidly following wrong medical advices and making a healthy child suffer or even die due to an unnecessary surgery. Thus, all practitioners, including the tantric ones, should seriously and wisely judge the teachings of Tibetan Secret Schools in order not to repeat the same tragedy.


Furthermore, the tantric practitioners always think that the deceased can become buddhas during the intermediate existence if they can combine the mother and son clear-lights:


When the wind dissolves into the consciousness, the deceased will see firm but tiny fire, as stated earlier. When the consciousness dissolves into the central-channel of the body, the deceased will first see a white light followed by a red light, and then experience very deep darkness. Shortly, the darkness disappears and a bloody red light flashes away. After that, a bright white-yellow light follows. At that time, the life has gone out of the body. There are two components of the white- yellow light. One is the mother light, and the other is the son light. The mother light is attained through daily practice, while the son light is from the buddha. Upon dying, one can become buddha only if one combines the mother and son lights. During daily practice, there is only the mother light; one should visualize the son light combined with one’s mother light. The visualized son light is the light of emptiness rather than the real son light from the buddha. If well practiced before death, one can easily and accurately combine one’s mother light with the son light during death. When one is dying, one’s Chi will first enter the central-channel of one’s body; then, the bright-drop will rise to the middle of one’s heart; the knot in the heart is thus opened to allow the bright-drop to continue its way to go out through the crown aperture in one’s head. Once the bright-drop exits from the crown aperture, the person dies together with a scene of white-yellow light. At that time, the deceased should think: “My death is impermanent and all dharma is empty.” they also should visualize their own bodies becoming deities and merging with the buddha lights. This is the method of becoming buddha by the bardo body. One should engage in such visualization during daily practice. The rise and outburst of the bright-drop must follow the rise of Chi from the secret place and the abdomen heat. [62: 180-181]


Tibetan Secret Schools falsely think that people’s death is due to the leaving of the bright mother light, rather than the Alaya consciousness as told by Buddha Sakyamuni. They think the body is held by the mind of clear-light, i.e., the sixth consciousness and visualized bright-drop. This heretical statement is totally different from Buddha Sakyamuni’s teachings. Yet ironically, they cherish that method as the genuine Buddhist practice, endeavor to cultivate it and keep it in secret to prevent the verification and challenge from the outsiders. Therefore, for the past thousand years, most of the tantric disciples did not know what they had diligently practiced was wrong and that they had ignorantly committed the sins of severe deception and slandering the true Buddhist dharma. It is so regrettable that they devoted themselves to pursuing the ultimate truth and ended up with such grave sins.






2.7 Visualization being able to achieve the dual operations of bliss and emptiness


In Tibetan Secret Schools, there is a visualization practice, which belongs to the most secret oral pithy instructions, can let the practitioners achieve the dual operations of bliss and emptiness. Those who use it to attain that state are entitled buddhas too:


The way of practice is to melt the bodhi mind (bright-drop), descend it from the top of head to the secret place (the sexual organ) and then ascend it from the secret place back to the top of the head again. The four joyful minds will arise during the motion of the bright-drop in each direction. The practice of guiding the bodhi mind up and down is very important. As for the abdomen heat, it does not matter since that will be attained as long as one fulfills the practice of guiding the bodhi mind. A venerable sir once said: “it is not necessary to use the abdomen heat to melt the bodhi mind (the visualized bright-drop) or to guide the bodhi mind to the central-channel. All that one has to do is using the visualization to melt the bodhi mind and to guide it up and down.” Although the wonderful method of melting the bodhi mind without the abdomen heat has not been stated in tantras, I will instruct you right now. You should cherish it, and never show it to the public because it is the most secret oral pithy instructions.


How to perform this practice? At first, one must visualize one’s root guru above the head as deity. (Original note: One who practices the dakini of Naropa can visualize the deity as a male because the buddha is genderless; thus, either a male or female is acceptable.) Then, one must visualize offering the most beautiful dakini to the guru and theguru hugging the dakini with delight. After that, the red and the white nectars (from the visualized guru’s and dakini’s genitals) descend and enter one’s head. At that time the bodhi mind (bright-drop) of the great-happiness chakra on the head melts. Then, the melted mind descends to the throat and melts the bodhi mind (bright-drop) of the reward chakra. A joyful mind will arise during melting one bodhi mind at each chakra, and totally four joyful minds will arise during each downward or upward melting sequence of the four bodhi minds. That is exactly a secret method to melt the bodhi mind through visualization rather than the practice of inner abdomen heat. It will be the best practice if a male practitioner can control the bright-drop entering the secret chakra without ejaculation. But it is not easy. Another safer practice is to avoid letting the bright-drop enter the secret charka by guiding it upward right after reaching the place beneath the navel. Thus, the bright-drop can never enter the tip of the secret place (the male glans) so that he will not ejaculate. In case of ejaculating, he will get a serious illness, or even be killed. You should be cautious about practicing it. … Therefore, the male practitioner should avoid having sex with a woman (practicing Couple-Practice Tantra) before he can practice that method perfectly. You must know this reason and should not try the physical exercise before you really attain the achievement successfully. Otherwise, that will cause your death. [62: 192]


It also states:


Dwelling in the way mainly relies on knowing emptiness. Once one knows it, one will correspond to the way gradually. The clear-lights are also important because the root of practice is to emit the light during death. The clear-lights can be classified into the mother and son lights. The mother light comes from the inside of one’s body, while the son light comes from the outside through cultivation. Both lights of mother and son merge perfectly and will become one. That is the unsurpassed wondrous way and the practitioners must know it. [62: 292]


If a male practitioner fulfills the visualization of descending the bright-drop to the tip of his pestle and perceives the great bliss without ejaculating, during enjoying the great bliss, he can bring forth another notion to observe that the touch of bliss is formless and with the pure nature; thus, both the touch and feeling of bliss are pure and without any form, namely “emptiness-nature.” Then, he further observes that the perceptive mind enjoying the great bliss is also formless and with “emptiness-nature.” Because such great bliss is generated from the perceptive mind, the bliss and emptiness goes together, and thus called “the union of bliss and emptiness.” In this way, if one can always stay in the great sexual bliss and maintain the operations of the bliss and those two kinds of “emptiness-nature” continuously, it is called fulfilling the great-seal of Highest-yoga: “the union and dual operations of both bliss and emptiness.” And it is also regarded as accomplishing the ultimate Buddha way. However, even after “attaining Buddhahood” through those tantric practices, the practitioners are still unable to realize their eighth consciousnesses and misconceive the visualized bright-drops as the eighth consciousnesses. They never see the way of Great-vehicle and get the prajna wisdom.


Such tantric practices of attaining Buddhahood do not relate to the Buddha dharma and not have any value at all. Those are all the heretical illusions which were introduced, from the tantric weird practices, into Buddhism. However, Tibetan Secret Schools secretly cherish such dharma and flaunt it to the exoteric Buddhists by proclaiming their superiority. In Couple-Practice Tantra, through either the visualization or physical consort exercise, they regard experiencing the formless nature of the lustful touch all-over the body as the gist of verifying the “emptiness-nature,” “all dharma being empty” and “complete omniscience” (omniscience on the bliss all-over the body). Those totally belong to the heretical Tantrism. All the Buddha followers must be aware of this fact and avoid being misled.


Moreover, when I composed this book, the visualization of the dual operations of bliss and emptiness was mentioned. Out of curiosity, as well as responding to some tantric practitioners’ accusations on my criticism being entirely based on my own assumptions or deductions, I took some leisure time to practice the visualization of the dual operations of bliss and emptiness, and found that the achievement of “the dual operations of bliss and emptiness” does not require the perfection of cultivating the bright-drop and Chi-practice. Those methods are only useful for the “dull people” with inadequate skills, and to help them learn how to expand the duration of their orgasm. That is, practicing the bright-drop is not necessary for those tantric practitioners with competent skills.


Furthermore, the “emptiness-nature” verified through the dual operations of bliss and emptiness simply belongs to the conscious state and has totally nothing to do with the Buddhist true emptiness-nature. The real emptiness-nature defined in the Buddhist doctrine is the nature of the eighth consciousness, the thus-come-store. Even being intangible and invisible, the perceptive mind during the dual operations of bliss and emptiness is still the conscious mind, belonging to the existence of the three-realms since it still corresponds to the five mental functions of the particular states.Moreover, the feeling of happiness is not produced by the conscious mind; it is generated by the eighth consciousness through the healthy body, together with the perception of the conscious mind and the intention from the Manas consciousness etc. It is definitely not generated by the mind-consciousness of the perceptive mind. However, those gurus of Tibetan Secret Schools are ignorant of this common sense, and still unwisely claim that the feeling of happiness is generated from the perceptive mind. That is the reason why the tantric visualization for the dual operations of bliss and emptiness is illusory and far away from the Buddha dharma.


Besides, the gurus of Tibetan Secret Schools teach their disciples to practice the visualization on the guru, called a kind of “Guru-yoga.” However, some rotten male gurus often utilize Guru-yoga of the dual operations to order female disciples to perform such visualization everyday: “I visualize my guru as my deity appearing in vast celestial body, and he embraces a dakini in copulating posture to generate lustful joy; From their genitals, the “nectar” descends and instills into my head, and that will purify my sin and eliminate my evil karma.”


After the female practitioner can conduct the practice of visualization skillfully, the male guru orders her to visualize: “I myself become dakini, embrace my guru, make love with him and enjoy the great sexual bliss; meanwhile, my guru teaches me the reasoning of the dual operations of bliss and emptiness.” Thus, through the long-term visualization like that way, the female disciple will naturally admire and adore the male guru, so she will request her guru’s individual teaching. Later on, the male guru and female student will have an abnormal sexual relation.


As a result, the guru and student are tangled with the love feelings, and their cravings for sex are upraised. Both of them stick together with desires, and always think about the physical exercise of Couple-Practice Tantra. As time passed by, their secret affairs will be exposed someday. Once that sexual scandal explodes, the genuine Buddhism will suffer from the unexpected disaster caused by Tibetan Secret Schools, and become the scapegoat blamed by the society. The following is a quote as the evidence:


During the period of the degenerate dharma, there are many gurus who violate their precepts. They often utilize the visualization of Couple-Practice Tantra in Guru-yoga to gradually deceive their believers into sexual misconduct. Therefore, if a female disciple has a conservative attitude to her male guru, she has better visualize the “Vajradhara” instead of her guru and practice the Vajradhara Guru-yoga. That will be safer. [62: 348]


The above passage, generated from a tantric guru with the written form, has its background reason and is never the groundless writing. Those affairs happen very often at the practice-centers of Tibetan Secret Schools. But those are still unknown because they are not yet exposed. I will not be surprised at hearing the sexual scandals happened at their practice-centers. Only the people who are totally ignorant of the fact of Tibetan Secret schools will be surprised. In summary, the dual operations of bliss and emptiness are also achievable through only visualization, not necessarily through the physical exercise with a female consort.






2.8 The delusion of becoming buddha by merging with the buddha’s light


The tantric practitioners consistently advocate that, through the practice of visualization, one will be able to visualize the bright-drop and clear-light, merge one’s clear-light with the buddha’s light, and thus become buddha after death. They believe that is a wonder way of becoming buddha:


Within forty-nine days after death, the buddha comes to guide the deceased everyday. When the buddha comes, His light is shining in all directions. As that bright light glitters, the people who have never cultivated this practice before death will always fear and escape. Only the skillful practitioners know it is the buddha’s light and will neither fear the light nor run away. Then, they will visualize themselves as buddhas and emitting the same clear-lights, from their hearts, as the buddha’s. As soon as both of the lights are merged, they can suddenly become buddhas. This is the method for a bardo body to become buddha. [62: 281]


It also says:


When visualization has been practiced appropriately, the substitute for the bardo body, rather than the bardo body itself, will be able to become buddha after one’s death. If grasping the bardo body, one will be unable to become buddha. As for the substitute for the bardo body to become buddha, this actually means, during the intermediate existence, the bardo body visualizes the self body, changes itself into the buddha’s appearance, and then becomes buddha. [62: 281]


In fact, the visualization in that way is only one’s internal image of the sense-object. Such a method is identical with an ordinary person’s dream that results from the wandering thoughts. The tantric practitioners wrongly believe that if one can visualize the deity as buddha before death, with the same visualization, one can visualize one’s bardo body as buddha and becomes buddha after death. That is an absurd thought. Why? Based on the respective karmic retribution, each sentient being’s bardo body differs in size and superiority; it can not be changed by any visualization. No matter how large the size of visualized deity was before, the size of the bardo body after death is decided by one’s karma. It is impossible to change that size through visualization after one’s death, not to say becoming buddha. Therefore, it is absurd to make an attempt on attaining Buddhahood through visualization.


Moreover, the sense-object formed by visualization, which is only one’s internal image and not the true dharma. If the tantric practitioners are unaware of its illusive nature and insist that their visualization equals to the real one, they will be unable to convince other people and incompatible with the real world because of their irrational thinking. Thus, they may become cynical and generate many afflictions. That is not what a wise person should do.


Furthermore, the tantric visualization is illusive and based on the conditioned phenomena and existent states. If the practitioners practice it to pursue further mystery, they are likely to be haunted by those ghosts, deities, or demons. Thus, they will become absent-minded or even demented and their life-long endeavors of practice will be useless. They cannot even have a normal life; let alone learn how to practice or realize the Buddhist dharma. In the psychiatric asylums of some major hospitals in Taiwan, there are many mentally disordered patients who practiced visualization. They have lived there for several years, but still do not have the sign of recovery. Therefore, the tantric practitioners should be very cautious about the visualization practice. Also, the saying that a substitute for a bardo body can become buddha is a serious wrong claim. Further details will be illustrated in the next section, and also in Section 14.20.


The tantric saying about one’s clear-light of “the true mind” merging with the buddha’s light is a gross delusion. The Treatise on the Establishment of the Doctrine of Consciousness-Only had pervasively criticized that fault. Buddha Sakyamuni had refuted that explicitly at many places in The Great Nirvana Sutra too. However, the patriarchs of Tibetan Secret Schools never verified the way, neither did they understand Buddha Sakyamuni’s refutation, so they had that illusory thinking. The Buddhist learners should know the real fact. I will elaborate on this issue again in Section 14.20 later.






2.9 The way to Buddhahood through the three-bodies


2.9.1 The way to Buddhahood through the dharma-body


As stated in The Six Yogas of Naropa:


For the ordinary persons who have never practiced, their bardo bodies are generated in the sequence of birth, death, and intermediate existence. But that is not the case for the diligent yoga practitioners; at first, instead of the normal sequence, they must practice in the sequence of death, intermediate existence, and birth so that they can change their bardo bodies to the buddhas’ embodiments and their bodies, speeches and minds to the buddhas’ three-bodies respectively. Therefore, the practitioners must visualize without any hesitation everyday: “I think I am dying, I am dead, and my heart emits light.” Then, they can finally become buddhas. That is the way to Buddhahood through the bardo body. While practicing, they must doubtlessly visualize themselves as buddhas like really seeing them; the practice at this time is the cause of becoming buddha in the future; and attaining Buddhahood through the bardo body in the future is the fruition of current practice; by that achievement, they can attain Buddhahood with the reward-body. If they practice Vajrabhairava, they will become Vajrabhairava with nine faces and thirty-two arms in the future; that is attaining Buddhahood with the embodiment. Thus, the three-bodies (birth, death and intermediate existence) are connected in the above way and are the buddha’s three bodies—the dharma-body, reward-body and embodiment. This is the way to attain Buddhahood, which is very important. [62: 264-265]


However, it is not possible to attain Buddhahood through the method of visualization. Actually, what really achieved by visualization is only an internal image in one’s brain, which has nothing to do with the way to Buddhahood. To attain Buddhahood, one must realize both Buddhahood-way and Liberation-way. Liberation-way lies in breaking off the afflictions on self-view and self-attachment rather than the visualization. On the other hand, Buddhahood-way lies in realizing the eighth (Alaya) consciousness to bring forth General-phenomenon-wisdom of prajna; then from that step, one must go on practicing to obtain some parts of Specific-phenomenon-wisdom gradually, and further practice to get some of All-seed-wisdom after mastering Specific- phenomenon-wisdom. Before the complete achievement of All-seed-wisdom, the part of All-seed-wisdom is called Way-seed-wisdom, which is the prajna wisdom of the bodhisattva on or over the ground. Once the All-seed-wisdom of prajna is perfectly obtained, one has attained ultimate Buddhahood.


Only through the above sequence of orthodox practices can one perfectly attain the three-bodies and achieve Buddhahood. The tantricvisualization can not help people break the self-view. Thus, even after having practiced for measureless eons, the tantric practitioners will still regard the conscious minds as the true indestructible minds and fall into the worldly delusion just like the ordinary persons. As such, they will not be able to obtain the sound-hearer’s first-fruition, let alone the bodhi fruition of Great-vehicle. Those tantric practitioners are truly pitiful because all their practices are in vain due to the misleading of their gurus.


That guru also said:


When dying, one will see a clear-light like a red flash of lightning, experience arising of the abdomen heat (Original note: the inner heat to keep warm), and then see a moon disc (Original note: the seminal-drop) over the head. With the power of abdomen heat, then a male practitioner can cultivate the thought of “neither duality nor difference between emptiness and happiness.” After realizing that thought, he is ready to embrace a female consort (which means he can practice the visualization of Couple-Practice Tantra). The so-called embracing a female consort actually means the way of copulation by a male and female couple. He can bring forth the happiness by embracing a female consort, observe “all dharma being empty,” and mix both of emptiness and happiness together; those are called “neither duality nor difference between emptiness and happiness.” But embracing a female consort is only the visualization rather than a physical exercise because there will be no real consort during one’s death. (Embracing a female consort means emptiness and happiness; happiness is the state of one’s mind and emptiness stands for the female consort; the combination of both means neither duality nor difference between emptiness and happiness, and never depart from each other; refer to [62:273] for details.) By thinking of “all dharma being empty” at that time, one can attain the dharma-body. [62: 270-271]


The above is the tantric way to “attain Buddhahood through the intermediate existence state.” Through such a practice, Tibetan Secret Schools claim that they can validate the dharma-bodies and become ultimate buddhas when dying, thus attaining the dharma-bodies in a lifetime. However, that is only a delusion because the dharma-body is actually the eighth consciousness (the thus-come-store) rather than the object of visualization. By that way, the tantric practitioners can never realize the eighth consciousnesses, i.e., the dharma-bodies.


The guru further said:


When cultivating the light of dying, one must carefully visualize the light in order to know it. During the daily practices, one must think one is dying and visualize: The four elements melt in order; then the emptiness elements appear with the sequence of the white wonderful-emptiness, red great-emptiness and black all-emptiness; afterward, the Chi ascends and the life exits from one’s body; finally the clear-light appears and the dharma-body is obtained. [62: 294-295]


Obviously, the above description mistakes “the mind of clear-light”, which is only a state of the mind consciousness, for the dharma-body. In fact, the dharma-body mentioned in all Great-vehicle sutras is the eighth consciousness, whereas that mentioned by the tantric gurus is the “clear-light” which has nothing to do with the Buddha dharma. (Please refer to Section 2.4 and some specific descriptions in Chapters 8 and 9 for the details.)






2.9.2 The way to Buddhahood through the reward-body


As stated in The Six Yogas of Naropa again:


In addition, there is a way to attain Buddhahood through the three-bodies of the dharma-body, reward-body and embodiment. For example, when one is practicing the fourth emptiness (i.e., the all-emptiness) and the clear-light appears, one must think: “I am dead; my death is impermanent; and all dharma is empty.” Then, a deity who looks the same as oneself appears in the emptiness. That is the way to Buddhahood through the reward-body. [62: 264]


A male practitioner must reflect on “being dead” everyday with the eighty kinds of air flows melting into the twenty-five kinds; the twenty-five kinds of air flows then melt into the three kinds of the melting scenes: the moon (white), the sun (red), and the darkness (both the sun and moon disappearing). After the three melting scenes, his crown aperture opens and the life exit from it. At that time, he must think: “All dharma is empty; and I am dead.” … When the fourth emptiness comes, he must embrace a female consort and copulate with her. In the future when he actually dies, he must also think: “I am dead; my death is impermanent; and all dharma is empty.” After thinking of the emptiness, he can see the buddha’s bright light everywhere. The light is actually the emptiness. Then he must visualize a buddha with the same look as his daily visualized deity appears in the emptiness. (Original note: The deity is exactly the practitioner himself.) Once all the magnificence has been ready, the practitioner emits a light from the “Hum” seed-syllable in his heart to invite the wisdom buddha. (Original note: The light is generated through his daily practice.) After the invitation, the buddha’s light will come. At that time, his own light may be afraid of the buddha’s light since the latter is too bright to be seen directly. But in fact, he must welcome and merge into it just like a son meeting his mother, rather than be afraid of it. That is the way to Buddhahood through the reward-body. [62: 271-272]


The tantric fulfillment through such a way is only a delusion created by Tibetan Secret Schools with the Buddhist term “reward-body.” That is by no means the real buddha’s reward-body taught by Buddha Sakyamuni. To attain the true buddha’s reward-bodies, the practitioners must possess the three mentally-produced bodies as well as the advanced learning of prajna, samadhi, and discipline in all grounds; then, their reward-bodies will appear after eliminating all habit-seeds of affliction-hindrances, as well as the dormant-afflictions of the hindrances to the true wisdom. In other words, the reward-bodies are the states experienced and realized only by the bodhisattvas who are ready to become buddhas, rather than the bodhisattvas on all grounds or even lower.


However, all the ancient and present tantric gurus are actually the ordinary persons because they did not realize the eighth consciousness, the thus-come-store, which is the qualification of the seventh-stay bodhisattvas and the key to bring forth the prajna of General-phenomenon-wisdom. Without understanding that basic prajna, how could they realize the first-ground bodhisattva’s five-part dharma-body? Without understanding the five-part dharma-body, how could they realize the three mentally-produced bodies of all grounds? Without understanding the three mentally-produced bodies, how could they realize the solemn reward-body of the Buddha ground? Thus, their bombastic boasting of attaining the reward-body is just like the beggar claiming himself being a king.


The guru also said:


One needs the long-time practice to attain the dharma-body. Basically, it is extremely difficult to become buddha after one attains the bardo body. But if one combines the Chi and mind, one can eventually achieve the reward-body. The Vajrabhairava’s sutra of vowing states: “When both the Chi and mind exist, the great reward-body comes.” There will be no reward-body if either of them is missing. [62: 281-282]


But in fact, the dharma-body means the originally inherent true mind, the eighth consciousness, which is inborn for every sentient being and can never be obtained through tantric practice. Whereas all buddhas’ dharma-bodies (the true- suchnesses of the Buddha ground) are attained through a series of practices: realizing the eighth consciousness, eliminating all habit-seeds of affliction-hindrances and realizing all the seeds stored in theeighth consciousness; once thoroughly realizing and understanding all seeds, one fulfills the practice of All-seed-wisdom and eliminate thehindrances to the true wisdom totally. In that way, it is called completely eliminating all habit-seeds of affliction-hindrances and countless dormant-afflictions of hindrances to the true wisdom, and called “the achievement of ultimate Buddhahood”.


Therefore, the realization of all buddhas’ dharma-bodies relies on the eighth consciousness, and all references to the dharma-body must be based on it. But instead of the eighth consciousness, the tantric gurus take the clear-light as the dharma-body and visualize merging their lights with the buddha’s. Thus, they must use the tantric practices to attain the dharma-bodies, which are factually inborn for them. That is heretical and completely against the Buddha dharma.


Tsongkhapa has a delusion on attaining Buddhahood through the reward-body as follows:


Regarding to the theory of doubled mother vowels, An Ear of Grain Catchedonthe Guru’s Teachings describes that the sixteen mother vowels represent the sixteen realms of fields inside the body. Those can be divided into the expediency (the skillfulness in Father Tantra, showing the male firmness and strength) and the wisdom (the enlightenment in Mother Tantra, making one attain the bliss and emptiness through the female); the total is thirty-two (Original note: sixteen for the male and another sixteen for the female). Therefore, it is required to practice the seed-syllables doubly. As cited from the sutra (the sutra created by Tibetan Secret Schools): “The World-honored One (in the tantric sutra) says: the seed-syllable ‘E’ is at the root of thumb; ‘Ah’ is at the shin … ‘Eh’ is on the head, ‘Ang’ is on the top of the head. The wiser thinks in this manner. The white part stays in that way, but the black one is on the contrary. The female represents the Vajra mind, while the male stands for all the time.” TheCommentary on Vinaya Learner’s Guide says: “The left means the white part ascending gradually from the thumb to the top of the head along the left side of the body. The right means the black part descending gradually from the top of the head to the thumb along the right side of the body.” That describes the sixteen parts of the bodhimind. Regarding to the two types, the expediency (Father Tantra) and the wisdom (Mother Tantra), as cited from the Two Kinds of Observation: “The appearance of realm means the World-honored One, and the bliss is the desire mother.” That means the sixteen meanings expressed by the mother vowels can be divided into two types, the expediency and the wisdom. Hence the sixteen seed-syllables can also be separated into two groups. An Ear of Grain Catchedonthe Guru’s Teachings describes that each of the non-realm and the non-bliss consists of sixteen parts, and the total makes thirty-two. (Tibetan Secret Schools regard that as the cause of the buddha’s thirty-two excellent major marks, and thus practice it.) This is the division based on the positions of the body mentioned above. Next, there are thirty-four syllables beginning from “Jia” to “Chan” as the father consonants, and six more syllables “Zha-Da-Ye-Re-La-Fu” are added, hence a total of forty. It further doubles to eighty (to form the eighty excellent minor characteristics of Tibetan Secret Schools). But those six more syllables added to the thirty-four syllables may vary in different ways. Regarding to the eighty father consonants, An Ear of Grain Catchedonthe Guru’s Teachings says: “The father consonants include the five realms, each realm contains four realms, and the total of them is twenty. From the earth to the wind realm, each contains four. Thus, one realm implies four realms. The emptiness realm represents the joy because there are four types of joys. Those twenty realms have their respective object parts, and the total is forty. Each of them has two divisions, the wisdom and the expediency. Thus, the total number equals eighty.” … Next, the specified seed emits the lights to benefit all beings, and then absorbs the lights into one. Some persons may not mention emitting and absorbing the lights, but just say merging the lights into one. Afterward, they must visualize the perfect bodies and marks (of the deities). [21: 509-511]


As mentioned by Tsongkhapa, after achieving the visualization of seed-syllables, the practitioners must again visualize their bodies perfectly possessing the buddha’s thirty-two excellent major marks and eighty excellent minor characteristics. If such visualization is achieved, they can attain the ultimate fruition of Buddhahood in a lifetime—realizing the reward-body. That is why Tsongkhapa said that the achievement of visualization leads to that of the five-wisdoms (detailed in [21:511]). But such a saying is indeed delusional because the visualization does not lead to All-seed-wisdom or Buddhahood. In fact, in order to achieve Buddhahood, one must first realize the thus-come-store to bring forth prajna, and then advance towards the upper grounds by following the steps stated in the orthodox sutras; the visualization can never make it.


Furthermore, Tsongkhapa’s “five-wisdoms” are the exact example of a wrong start because those rely solely upon visualization and have nothing to do with the realization of the eighth consciousness. As such, the “four-wisdoms of the Buddha ground” realized by his method differ completely from the true bodhi wisdom through realizing the eighth consciousness. That will be detailed in Section 11.5 during talking about The Wisdom of Essential Nature of Dharma-realm later.






2.9.3 The way to Buddhahood through the embodiment


As stated in The Six Yogas of Naropa:


Although merging two lights means becoming buddha, one still needs the empowerment to get a real power. That is just like asking a lama to open the light when setting up a buddha’s statue. If not so, that buddha corresponds to the statue will not possess full wisdom to benefit all sentient beings. Therefore, after one attains Buddhahood through the reward-body, the “Hum” seed-syllable at one’s heart must again emits the light to invite the buddha for empowerment. After that, one can then have the power for generating the embodiments to benefit all sentient beings. One must understand the rationale. The embodiment only comes after the reward-body. Buddha Sakyamuni in his lifetime is an example of embodiment. The reward-body appears with wearing a five-buddha hat and bodhisattva garment during receiving the dharma. The dharma-body is only a light object and cannot be seen by the naked eyes. [62: 272-273]


Without deeply contemplating the above passage, most of the people are easily to believe that the gurus of Tibetan Secret Schools are the great practitioners. But if one investigates the so-called “embodiment” thoroughly, one will find it is nothing but a state in the intermediate existence of the bardo body, with the combination of the visualized self light and the so-called buddha light. Tibetan Secret Schools have invented their own “embodiment”, which has nothing to do with the real one in the genuine Buddha dharma. Ridiculously and sympathetically, the tantricpractitioners highly praise their methods to be the supreme ones, and devalue the orthodox Buddhism by regarding Buddha Sakyamuni as embodiment being inferior to the reward or dharma bodies attained by the tantric gurus.


Further, the dharma-body is the eighth consciousness (the Alaya consciousness). Although it can emit light, it is not an ordinary light object and does not emit light all the time. For example, when an arhat enters the complete extinction samadhi, his eighth consciousness still coexists with his body without emitting any light. Also, when an arhat enters the remainderless nirvana, his eighth consciousness, the dharma-body, does not emit light. In addition, it is quite often to find some demons with supernatural powers to emit light without showing their bodies. Those lights are operated by the demons’ mind consciousnesses. Hence, it is a big mistake to regard the dharma-body as the light object. Actually the dharma-body is the eighth consciousness which continuously operates forever and exists inherently in every sentient being’s body.


Also, the buddha’s reward-body does not bear the appearance of the tantric dharma kings: wearing the five-buddha hats and bodhisattvagarments. The actual appearance of the reward-body is categorized into the self-benefited and other-benefited bodies, and detailed in the sutras such as The Buddha Ground Sutra, etc. The tantric reward-body is their fantasy and a wise person can prove that by studying the descriptions in the orthodox sutras.


Regarding to the practice of embodiment, as stated in the same book:


The achievement of embodiment during awakening means one successfully visualizes it like the bardo body; at that time, although one practices and visualizes it, one’s embodiment has already exited from the body. On the other hand, the achievement of that during sleeping means: One first practices the clear-light prior to sleep and then falls asleep; while in the dream, one visualizes the three shapes of the bardo body, which correspond to the embodiments of the three kinds of karma—the body, speech, and mind. The three shapes correspond to the three kinds of bodies—the dharma-body, reward-body and embodiment. (Those are not the real three-bodies mentioned in the Great-vehicle sutras.) For those who successfully achieved, the embodiments are still with the shapes of the bardo body. (Tibetan Secret Schools mistake the appearance in the dream for the embodiment and call it the dream bardo body.) … The successful practitioner can visualize emitting light, exiting from the body, getting rid of the bardo body and replacing it with the reward-body instead. Just like those who practice the Amitabha or Long-life dharma, they must practice the shape of Buddha Amitabha’s or Buddha Long-life’s reward-body everyday (visualizing the deity who becomes Buddha Amitabha wearing a five-buddha hat and bodhisattva garment). Thus they can emit light while dying. The light is the emptiness and will become buddha. If they frequently practice like that way, their visualized situations will come true during dying. Such a way to Buddhahood through the dharma-body, reward-body, and embodiment are imperative. The practitioners must know that for the preparation of death. Without any preparation when alive, one will be in a great flurry while dying, and still find no way to Buddhahood. [62: 267-268]


From the above descriptions, obviously the teachings of Tibetan Secret Schools, which claim being able to let people “achieve the three-bodies in a lifetime,” are really absurd. Those claims and teachings of achieving the buddha’s three-bodies are all invented by the gurus of Tibetan Secret Schools rather than from the Buddha Sakyamuni’s teachings, and completely unreliable.


The guru further said:


There are two kinds of embodiments: the learning and non-learning ones. The former is achieved through practices, while the latter is inborn. Ordinary person’s bardo body is from one’s causality and it is impossible to attain Buddhahood without eliminating the causality. In order to eliminate it, one must practice “the three times of melting and the four emptiness-correspondences” to be familiar with the visualized clear-light and embodiment. Doing like that way, one can then attain Buddhahood. [62: 281]


The meanings of “the three times of melting” and “the four emptiness-correspondences” are as follows.


One will emit light during dying. Prior to emitting light, there are the three times of melting: First, one will see the white drop, then the red drop, and darkness finally. The melting of the white, the red, and darkness happens due to the Chi entering the central-channel. After the Chi enters it, the white drop on the top of the head descends and the red drop at the navel ascends. When both drops meet in the heart, one is in a state of unusual dark and unaware of anything at all. [62: 289]


When the earth element returns to the water element, one feels weak, exhausted and immovable as if one’s body were boneless and crushed by a high mountain. At that time, one is eager to escape but in vain and can see a sunny flame inside one’s body. That is the phenomenon of the earth returning to the water. When the water element returns to the fire element, one feels thirsty in mouth and dry in nose with one’s tongue slightly exposed. At that time, one can see smoke inside one’s body. That is the phenomenon of the water returning to the fire. When the fire element returns to the wind element, one feels the body temperature decreased and the four limbs becoming cold due to the warmth creeping inward. At that time, one can see a tiny light. That is the phenomenon of the fire returning to the wind. When the wind element returns to the consciousness element, one feels hard to breathe due to more air exiting than entering. At that time, one can see a small steady fire. That is the phenomenon of the wind returning to the consciousness. Later, when the first emptiness comes, one can see a white color inside one’s body like a bright moon in the cloudless sky. That is the phenomenon of the first emptiness coming. When the second wonderful-emptiness comes, one can see the red color inside the body like the first rays of the morning sun. (Original note: The white color is the semen at the top of head from one’s father; the red color is the blood in the abdomen from one’s mother.) That is the phenomenon of the wonderful-emptiness coming. When the third great-emptiness comes, one can see the white one descends while the red one ascends; both of them meet and merge at the heart. At that time one can see the darkness inside the body like a dusky night. Then, one does not have any physical strength, stops breathing and loses all awareness except hearing so that one can still hear the family’s crying. That is the phenomenon of the great-emptiness coming. When the fourth all-emptiness coming, one can see the dark broken suddenly and a red light flash and then disappear immediately; after the flashing of the red light, one can see a slightly yellow light like the first sunlight in the morning. (Original note: the slightly yellow light is the sunlight appearing in the southeast of the Tibetan highland at 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning.) At that time, one’s soul has exited from the body. The slightly yellow light is the light in the “emptiness,” i.e., the so-called clear-light. That is the phenomenon of the fourth all-emptiness coming. (Original note: The last seed-syllable “Hung” of the visualizing-emptiness mantra means the emptiness; that is the fourth emptiness.) All of those are from one’s practices. The clear-light is the real “fundamental clear-light”. [62: 285-287]


The above passage describes the transitions during death. Even if the sayings were true and the deceased could recognize the fourth emptiness at the last stage, the transitions or practices were still in the scope of the mind consciousness. As such, the deceased cannot realize the true reality of the dharma-realm—the eighth consciousness, the thus-come-store, nor can he understands the right meaning of the dharma-body. Moreover, the transitions during death taught by Tibetan Secret Schools are actually from their imagination and contradict not only the prajna and All-seed-wisdom but also the situations foreseen by the bodhisattvas who have truly realized the thus-come-store and Way-seed-wisdom.


Although the tantric conception about the dharma-body, reward-body and embodiment is totally wrong from the beginning, all the ancient and present gurus of Tibetan Secret Schools think and boast that they can achieve the three-bodies through their invented methods. That is just like a beggar who picks up an old used garment discarded by the king and puts on it; then he wrongly thinks of himself as king and expresses his arrogance to the prime minister and other officials. Similarly, the tantric gurus wrongly regard their imagined three-bodies as true Buddhist three-bodies and their invented methods as the true Buddhist practices; thus they express their arrogances to the exoteric Buddhists by boasting their achievements of the buddha’s three-bodies. But in fact, they are totally ignorant of the true Buddhist three-bodies. Such ignorant tantric gurus can boast their achievements and express their arrogances to the Buddhist learners, realized bodhisattvas, heavenly beings and ghosts. It is really funny.


The following example proves their ignorance about the three-bodies:


During daily practice, one must ponder that “my death is impermanent and all dharma is empty.” At that time, a seed-syllable appears in the emptiness and becomes the deity immediately. Without practicing, all such things will never come. When those come, one must be doubtless. If there is any doubt, one must think it is wrong and subdue it immediately. All visualization must be treated as the real things, and the guru’s previous teachings must be strictly followed without any exception. By that way, one then can obtain the dharma-body while dying, the reward-body in the intermediate existence, and the embodiment when reborn. Therefore, it is imperative to practice the three-bodies together. [62: 273]


Such three-bodies differ completely from those taught by Buddha Sakyamuni. It is really ridiculous that the tantric practitioners all follow theirgurus’ teachings without comparing those of the Buddha’s sutras, that the tantric gurus all use the wrong tantras to teach their followers, that they are completely ignorant of the three-bodies taught by Buddha Sakyamuni, and that they wrongly claim their achievements of tantric three-bodies and slander the exoteric dharma as a practice of the causal ground. Therefore, their claims of being the Buddhist practitioners are very absurd.






2.10 The visualization of bright-drop and central-channel as the Semen-practicing fairies’ cultivation


The so-called “reward-body” of Tibetan Secret Schools is a pre-defined object before being acquired by visualization. It is actually one’s pure imagination rather than the real image of the reward-body buddha. The visualized attainment is absolutely not a true dharma in the real world.


In addition, even if the visualized reward-body could come true, the tantric reward-body buddha would never be the true Buddhist reward-body buddha. According to Couple Practice Tantra, the tantric reward-body buddha always appears with a five-buddha hat and enjoying the lustful copulation with his female consort. They pursue the mundane experience of obscene bliss, and proclaim their achievements of reward-body if they can get the lustful bliss and last it long. They declare this kind of lustful bliss as the reward-body buddha’s reward, debase Buddha Sakyamuni because of not having this long-lasting sexual happiness, and name Him as embodiment buddha rather than reward-body buddha. As stated:


Buddha Sakyamuni in his lifetime is an example of the embodiment. The reward-body appears with wearing a five-buddha hat and bodhisattva garment during receiving the dharma. The dharma-body is only a light object and cannot be seen by the naked eyes. [62: 273]


Based on that kind of fantasy, they proclaim the tantric buddhas are all reward-body buddhas beyond Buddha Sakyamuni of Exoteric Buddhism, debase the true Buddhist cultivation as the cause ground practice and boast their weird and ridiculous method as the fruition ground practice—being able to become buddha in a lifetime. But in fact, Tibetan tantric practice is the method of heretical Semen-practicing and has completely nothing to do with the Buddha dharma.


The visualization of luminous-body in Tibetan Secret Schools is a kind of the great-seal because it can visualize the dual operations of clarity and emptiness. Tibetan Secret Schools misunderstand that luminous-body and Chi can last forever. Thus, they regard the luminous-body as the basic entity of the everlasting great-seal:


The phrase “everlasting Chi” illustrates that the character of Chi has been unborn. The everlasting nature is the basic entity of the great-seal and the non-extinct Chi is the subtle usage of it. The “everlasting Chi” has been named in the preliminary practice, but it can be fulfilled and contained now. It is great! [34: 845]


Like this way, they do not know that the luminous-body depends on one’s mental activities, but wrongly regard the visualized luminous-body as the everlasting object and all sentient beings’ original true reality. It is really a big misunderstanding. Why? The existence of luminous-body is under the conditions of the human healthy body, proper external environment, the visualization by the conscious mind, the intension from the seventh (Manas) consciousness, and the manifestations of all above by the eighth (Alaya) consciousness. This luminous-body cannot appear without mental visualization and will disappear under the conditions like in the dreamless deep sleep, in coma, in the samadhi of no thought, in the extinction samadhi, and in the deceased status of death. It is not like the eighth consciousness which can function at all times regardless of one’s visualization. Any enlightened person, with or without practice, can always see the operations of his and other people’s eighth consciousnesses. However, the luminous-body can only appear with one’s visualization; how can it be the everlasting dharma?


Thus, the achievement of luminous-body is the worldly fruition of the Chi practice. It is heretical and never the main samadhi practice of the Buddha dharma. As stated by Buddha Sakyamuni in The Surangama Sutra, Vol. 8:


Those who restlessly keep the body immovable and have gotten the perfect attainment of seminal Chi are named as Sky-walking fairies. … Those who restlessly keep the semen and completely absorb the seminal Chi are named as Passing-through fairies. … Those who restlessly copulate and obtain the complete responses are named as Semen-practicing fairies.


The so-called four-yogas of Tibetan Secret Schools, Single-minded-yoga, Non-conceptual-yoga, One-taste-yoga and No-meditation-yoga, all depend on the mind-consciousness to visualize the luminous-body. They have nothing to do with the true yogas of the Buddha dharma; therefore, we will not discuss their further details in this book.