Original subtitles

To enter the Tao and experience enlightenment is

to answer the question, what was your original face

before your mother and father were born?

What is immortality?

Is the promise of everlasting life merely an illusion

created to shield you from the truth about death,

or is there proof that immortality is real?

What secrets are hidden in spiritual traditions about life

after death?

You can achieve the ultimate dream.

You can unlock the secret to who you really are.

You can open the hidden door to discover the genius within you.

You can achieve enlightenment and realize

your ultimate potential.

For thousands of years, the spiritual quest

of the human race has been to discover

the true self-- the eternal light of the Kundalini.

At last, from the wisdom of enlightened teachers,

you will discover your true nature,

which is far more powerful than you have ever imagined.

You will experience total inner illumination.

The ordinary reality, every day stuff

that we go through, good, bad or indifferent,

is of extreme value.

It's like gold.

It is jewels.

But only through spiritual practice

do you develop the sensitivity, which is actually innate.

So it's more like bringing out the sensitivity

to know that this moment is the only moment you're

going to get, and it's going to be wide open, luminous

and blissful.

You have the ability to master spiritual alchemy

and achieve enlightenment.

Early historical records show that man has searched almost

endlessly for the secret of immortality.

The first people who studied the natural world around them

became known as alchemists.

They experimented with animals, plants and minerals.

Their work and observations eventually

led to the creation of chemistry, physics

and medicine.

Eastern alchemists searched for immortality

through the study of meditation, yoga and the martial arts.

They believed immortality could be achieved

by recreating conception within their own bodies

through diligent practice.

Many Western alchemists believed there

was a secret formula that could turn base metals into gold.

This Philosopher's Stone was also

thought to be an elixir of immortality that

could rejuvenate the body.

They believed if it could turn a corruptible metal

to incorruptible gold, it would certainly

be able to transform human beings

from mortals to immortals.

The goal of the early alchemists was described in Latin

as finding the secret method to unite the soul, called

the anima, with the spiritus, or spirit, within the corpus,

or physical body.

This is believed to represent the original trinity which

underlies Christianity, Buddhism, Darwinism,

many other ancient alchemical sciences.

Every human being has the potential

to fully master spiritual alchemy.

Because if you only learn the practice that gives you

enlightenment, how are you going to enlighten other people who

might be different from you?

The Kundalini is the enlightened energy within you,

waiting to be awakened.

The search that spanned the centuries and covered the earth

eventually centered around inner alchemy, and the attainment

of immortality through the activation of a hidden power

known as Kundalini.

Kundalini is a dormant, enlightened energy

which resides within the lower torso of the human body

and is activated through yogic practice or meditation

and results in enlightenment, inner illumination

and immortality.

Many of the legendary figures of antiquity,

including Buddha and Jesus, were successful spiritual alchemists

who believed in the spark of light within human beings.

Jesus confirmed this when he said, "the Kingdom of God

is within you."

When Buddha spoke of the middle path to achieve nirvana,

he may have been describing the central channel

of the body through which the Kundalini energy travels.

China, India and Tibet are all civilizations

which are based on the complete evolution of consciousness

being achieved through a Kundalini activation.

A Kundalini activation, particularly

if achieved through the practice of sexual yoga,

represented the ultimate threat to the religious establishment

because it enabled the human being

to achieve enlightenment which freed

their person from the control of the religious authority

of the time.

The Philosopher's Stone was linked

with magic and with early religions,

and was greatly feared by the church

because it linked human sexuality, or sexual yoga,

with higher consciousness or enlightenment.

The basic theory of the Philosopher's Stone

is in the process of being rediscovered by science

because it represents the reality of the ability

of the individual to unite the energy of the body

with the energy of the universe.

In the hermetic tradition of alchemy,

this was called "squaring the circle."

People have striven for centuries

to find out about how to get back

to their primordial energy.

Some people have, of course, clicked

into those states, almost spontaneously,

and have been astonished at what's possible,

and then have tried to find ways to get us all, or least

sudden disciples, to move into those patterns of energy,

those patterns of the body-mind complex

that are for most people even hard to conceive of.

There are descriptions of the power of the Kundalini

experience in the esoteric teachings of China, India,

Tibet, Egypt, Africa and the Americas.

The Kundalini has been described in the Bible

as the solar principal in man, and is the basis

of the secret teachings of Gnostic Christianity,

the Kabbalah, and the hermetic tradition of alchemy.

In the I Ching, "The Book of Changes,"

the oldest sacred text of China, it

is called the "original spirit."

In the east, the Philosopher's Stone, or Buddha hood,

is a complete Kundalini activation

in which the meditator sees a golden, embryonic version

of himself at the time of enlightenment.

This genetic blueprint, which is created

at the time of a person's conception,

is dormant in the lower torso until it is fully awakened

by activating the original chi.

When you successfully cultivate the original chi of your body

and fully open the energy meridians,

your own chi unites with the chi of the universe.

Can you hold the body and spirit as one, concentrating your chi

and becoming pliant?

Can you become like a newborn baby, clearing your mind

and contemplating the profound?

Can you remain unknown?

In understanding all things, can you remain detached?

In Indian yoga scriptures, the Kundalini

was illustrated as a golden serpent coiled within the body

to describe the potential power of its energy and awakening.

And the serpent swallowing its tail

is the oldest known symbol of alchemical knowledge.

You have the potential to achieve Buddha hood.

You can become enlightened.

You can discover your true power if you fully open the energy

meridians of the body.

When you see your original face, when you fully

activate the Kundalini within your body,

this has been described as union with God

in all the theistic traditions.

True success in activating the Kundalini

is dependent on finding the secret

of the real spiritual gold within yourself

through meditation and other mental and physical practices.

Kundalini yoga theory is based on the concept

that there is a tremendous reservoir

of stored energy within the lower torso of the body.

When this energy is fully activated and raised

to the top of the head, it results

in enlightenment or immortality, and this is the most

ancient secret of yoga.

What many alchemists throughout the world

have called the legendary golden elixir

is actually the fully activated starting point of the body.

In its most complete form, it is the realization

of Buddhahood, or the attainment of immortality,

which results in permanent, deathless consciousness.

It is this recreation of conception

that has the potential to transform a normal person

into a fully enlightened being that has transcended

birth, death, space and time.

Buddha succeeded in awakening the Kundalini energy

within himself.

At that moment, he saw his original face

dissolve into emptiness.

From this golden vision, he created the basic philosophy

of spiritual freedom that has benefited humanity

throughout the world for thousands of years.

The word Buddha means "awake."

When asked are you a man or a god,

the Buddha is said to have replied, "I am awake."

The ancient Chinese medical system

describes the starting point of the body as a spark of light

from the beginning of time.

It is midway between your navel and your spine.

It exists within everyone, and is created

at the time of conception.

This point of light has been described as the face of God,

and alchemists called it "the prima materia,"

the first matter.

Milarepa has a great line in one of his teachings.

Milarepa was this Tibetan master that I wrote

my doctoral dissertation about.

He appeared to me once, too, by the way, in a dream.

He says, the best realization of openness

is right in the center of your body, in the avadhuti,

in the central channel.

This means that all of those energies of the Bindus,

the elements of consciousness moving through your body,

should move into that open space.

And what seems to be a confined place around the heart chakra

is actually the place where the whole universe opens out

to realization, to enlightenment.

So all of the things that we talk

about, the Bindus, the channels, the drops, all

of that kind of stuff, these esoteric teachings

about the subtle body, you might say

are accompanying subtle body that goes

with this gross material body.

Working with those energies allows

you to loosen up the entire physical, electronic, chemical

and mental aspects of the human person.

This is no joke.

How does a Milarepa become the model of a civilization?

And of course, what we've been talking about here

is the fully awakened, enlightened,

the fully realized Buddha is the model.

And so a person like Milarepa who did

become a fully awakened, enlightened Buddha,

was totally available to people and animals and phenomena

throughout the universe.

That is the ideal.

That is the archetype.

That is the model for whatever you're doing.

So that whatever you're doing, even

if it is building a principality,

as in fact Milarepa's guru, Marpa, did,

he built himself a principality.

But while he was building the principality,

he developed himself as a Buddha as well.

And he handed out to Milarepa who

in a different form, in the form of a hermit,

in the form of an ascetic, also manifested the same Buddha

nature.

So that suddenly becomes the basis out

of which you can leave an entire civilization.

And that is the thing that I think we're missing.

We're missing the civilization that

emerges out of the cave where a person goes to meditate.

Out of the hermitage where a person

discovers the fullness of being itself

through spiritual practice.

What's the natural state?

The natural state is this complete openness

so that your mind and body are completely open to something

much greater than what we are, and yet is not

separate from what we are.

It's one of those things that goes beyond words.

But once you've seen it and once you've

touched human beings who live that all the time,

you'll never forget it.

Am I a man dreaming I am a butterfly,

or am I a butterfly dreaming I am a man?

One of the most ancient Tibetan spiritual practices

is called Dream Yoga.

Dream Yoga is known to be one of the primary practices

of the legendary Six Yogas of Naropa.

Imagine as you are watching right now that you are actually

dreaming.

What is it that makes you think that you are awake right now?

How can you be certain if you are dreaming

or if you are awake?

What is you learn to control your own dreams?

You can do this with the practice

of Dream Yoga, an ancient method used

by Mahasiddhas and immortals.

Dreams can be so powerful that they can change the world.

Artists, writers, scientists and inventors

have all been inspired by dreams.

Solutions to complex problems have

been made clear within dreams.

Dreams also occur outside of three-dimensional space

and time and can reveal the future.

Padmasambhava in 8th century Tibet

described a dream where he saw a future time in which the iron

bird flies, and horses run on wheels,

and the Tibetan people were scattered around the Earth,

and the Dharma came to the land of the red man.

He was clearly seeing the world as it

became in the 20th century.

Many of the great scientific discoveries

are the result of parallel probable versions

of the scientists communicating within dreams according

to the mini world's interpretation of quantum

mechanics.

As you are watching right now, there

are multiple, parallel, probable and alternate versions

of yourself doing the same thing, simultaneously,

in multiple dimensions.

To control the dreams while you were dreaming

enables you to access creative information that can completely

transform your experience of reality.

And to have what is known as elusive

dream is to understand your waking life

is also a part of your personal dreamscape.

During the course of the day, it is necessary to ask yourself

repeatedly, is this a dream?

To discover your true self while in elusive dream,

go to a mirror and embrace the image of yourself

that you see there.

Elusive dreaming is a metaphor for enlightenment.

To realize you are dreaming while you are dreaming

represents the ability of each human being

to realize that their own perception is dreamlike,

and to achieve greater and greater levels

of awakening through their own spiritual practices.

One of the primary ways of realizing that you are dreaming

while you are dreaming is to recognize an incongruity

within the dream.

To realize that you are flying, you

are walking on water, that because you

are walking through a wall, that this

means that this is a dream because you could not possibly

be doing this in three-dimensional reality.

The goal of dream yoga is to discover who you really are.

So to see a golden embryonic version of yourself

within your dreams through a complete Kundalini activation

represents complete self-discovery

and ultimate enlightenment.

Now there are certain prayers and practices

also that the Tibetans give for how to position your body when

you sleep so that the channel's in the proper position,

so that you're breathing properly.

Also, they give a number of prayers that can be said.

And I say one of these prayers from time

to time about being able to see dreams as lucid,

and also to recognize the awake state as dreamlike

in some ways, because this way you see

through the patterns of energy.

It doesn't mean that they're not there,

it means that you see through them, you see their qualities

and the woven quality of all phenomena.

It is the dream of enlightenment

which makes achieving immortality possible.

The deepest level of our dreams has always been enlightenment.

That's a great blessing.

And these are the kinds of things

that the Lamas, the tradition of dream yoga

really is a wonderful gift, because then you

can use your nocturnal experience as part

of your practice.

And it goes right along with what

I was saying about everything being an oblation,

everything being an offering.

Because if you waste your valuable sleep time,

you're losing several hours of practice every day.

But if you turn sleep into a practice,

then you're practicing all the time.

And so your body at all times is engaged

in some kind of spiritual activity-- a pretty good thing.

To know other is wisdom, but to master oneself

is enlightenment.

Those who conquer others require great strength.

But to conquer oneself requires true power.

You can enter the Tao through the true mastery

of martial arts.

The traditional goal of higher martial arts in China

has always been to enter the Tao, which

is the achievement of enlightenment.

Seeing your original face was successfully

cultivating the spiritual embryo which transforms you

into an immortal.

So traditionally, the greatest martial artists

reached this ultimate level in which

you unite the energy of the body with the energy of the Tao

and actually become a living Buddha.

The secret of martial arts is a Kundalini activation

which results in the enlightened warrior seeing

his original face and achieving inner illumination.

The master martial artist actually

unites the microcosm of the body with a macrocosm

of the universe, and in doing so discovers

the holographic nature of reality.

This process unites the mind of the individual

with the universal mind.

Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism,

is the most well known and respected Buddhist teacher

in East Asia.

In the 5th century, he traveled from India to China

to teach the monks of the Shaolin temple.

It was there that he created Shaolin martial arts,

a method of self-defense which included

meditation and enlightenment.

Bodhidharma taught there was no enlightenment

outside of the mind, and that the mind

is enlightenment itself.

Enlightenment is not just an awakening of the mind,

it is a physical process as well.

Many of the greatest teachers of wisdom

have activated the original mind using the source

energy of their bodies.

This experience is called seeing your original face,

or returning the original spirit to void.

The Tao is based on the unity of the essential triad of heaven,

earth and humanity.

The ideal of the Shaolin temple is

to enter the way by mastering meditation and chi cultivation

as well as martial arts.

The creation of Tai Chi is based on the thousand-year-old story

in which the founder Chang San-Feng observed

an epic battle between a crane and a snake.

He watched intently as the bird fiercely attacked the snake

again and again.

With each attempt of the bird to kill the snake,

the serpent's agility, yielding and flowing movements

enabled it to survive.

The crane used its speed and mobility

to avoid the snake's counter attacks,

and also remained unharmed.

Chang San-Feng is also said to have

had a dream the following night in which he

was visited by the legendary God of War, Kuan Ti.

Kuan Ti taught him the methods of celestial martial arts

and the alchemical secret of the golden embryo.

Chang San-Feng combined these lessons

with a style of fighting based on the movements he observed

of the crane and the snake.

This method relies upon internal power,

or chi, and is based on the principal that

yielding overcomes aggression, and softness overpowers

hardness.

Chang San-Feng called it Tai Chi Chuan,

or "the supreme, ultimate fist."

The highest level of martial arts

is based on the enlightened warrior

seeing his original face and successfully cultivating

the spiritual embryo.

This has the potential of transforming an individual

into an immortal, or a living Buddha.

Many of the greatest Chinese martial artists

actually achieved this level of enlightenment,

and use their incredible skills and power

to protect and benefit their people.

A major aspect of Chinese martial arts

is the transformation of your three inner treasures--

jing, chi and chen-- within the body.

Often translated as reproductive energy, vital bodily energy

and mind and spirit, they are the most important aspect

of internal power development.

Their complete refinement results

in the spiritual embryo and immortality, a permanent state

of enlightened consciousness that

is not limited by the physical body and even

exists after death.

Complete mastery of the sword has always

been a metaphor for enlightenment.

The true sword represents the enlightened mind.

And the enlightened mind represents

discovering who you truly are by seeing your original face.

Mastery of the sword is based on the concept

that it is possible to enter the Tao

and realize compete inner illumination by combining

meditation and qi cultivation with a martial arts practice.

The legendary alchemist and founder

of Tai Chi, Chang San-Feng, said the Tao

is something miraculous.

It is empty and has no form, yet it has an essence.

It is hard to understand and exists

like a shadow or an echo.

No one knows why this is.

Great spiritual warriors have attained the Tao in the past,

and it is transmitted in the present

by mysterious and subtle ways.

The great Tao has the power to transform

both the body and the spirit.

In this way, the body is transformed,

united with spirit.

One who has attained this is called a spiritual warrior.

The shen, or spirit, is fluid and ever-changing

though its primal substance is unchanging.

Once the warrior has entered the Tao,

he no longer fears birth or death.

In this way, the body is the same as spirit or shen.

Once revealed, the spirit is the same as qi, or vital energy.

This is how the warrior is able to move through water or fire

without being harmed and to cast no shadow,

whether in the sunlight or moonlight.

At this point, whether to remain in the body or not

is entirely up to you.

At this stage, there is no difference

between being in the world and being out of it.

If the body, being material, can achieve

these levels of subtle integration, how much more

so can the shen, or spirit, reach even deeper and further.

It is said when the spirit and body are united they become

the true body, because when the body and spirit unite as one

they live forever.

However, there are differences in the depth of power

the warrior may attain.

If his spiritual power is deep and profound,

this will affect his body as well.

If it is small and shallow, it only affects the mind.

One whose body and spirit are united is an immortal warrior.

While one whose mind only is affected cannot escape death.

In this way, we see that the Tao is difficult to master.

But if one can fully enter the Tao,

he achieves what is called "leaving no body."

The warrior hides his light and conceals his brilliance-- this

is how one attains the Tao.

By stabilizing the spirit and cultivating their chi,

they study the Tao without ceasing.

When their spirit merges with the Tao,

it is called "entering the Tao."

It is said that those who enter the Tao

are themselves absorbed by the Tao.

If people will cultivate the Tao,

their bodies will be strong.

By cultivating the Tao for a long time,

one can transform substance to spirit,

refine their body into subtle energy, and merge with the Tao.

Then their knowledge is boundless,

and their physical body is transcendent.

This is the power of the Tao.

Speaking for a moment from the Tibetan,

or the tantric point of view, it's

not enough just to fall in love, to give yourself to family

life, to raise children.

There is another way of seeing all of that.

Because as we know, family life, raising children,

being responsible for your family

can be a tremendous attachment.

And every spiritual tradition has warnings about sex, family,

relatives, money, houses and all of those other things

as becoming obstacles on the spiritual path.

So it's almost as if by claiming that sexuality in some way

is a way to get enlightenment is like telling people go down

that road that's just full of potholes, and boulders,

and stray pieces of metal, and you're

going to attain enlightenment.

But the beauty of the tantric system

is that it takes life as it is and sees

something sacred, something wise, something

liberating in the potholes, and the iron

chunks, and the boulders, and the broken roads,

and the earthquakes and everything else that occur.

There is an ancient tantric saying

that Buddhahood can be found in the vagina of a woman.

One of the oldest methods of fully activating the Kundalini

and recreating conception within the body

is through the practice of sexual yoga.

Many couples in China, India and Tibet

have achieved enlightenment together in this manner.

The central teaching in tantric yoga is that all of life

is sacred, especially sexuality.

This is because tantrism views the reproductive energy

of our body as being the same inner energy that

powers our enlightenment.

The practitioner of sexual tantra

attempts to use the energy of conception

as an agent for awakening and transcendence.

Complete awakening results in a normal person

becoming a fully enlightened and realized human being.

This enables the individual to transcend birth, death, space

and time.

The Six Yogas of Naropa is a classical collection

of techniques from India which will result in Buddhahood

or complete enlightenment when fully mastered.

Many of these methods were transmitted

by Mahasiddhas who are often couples

that achieved enlightenment through the practice

of sexual yoga.

The famous saying that Buddhahood

can be found in the vagina of a woman

refers to an ancient tradition of sexual yoga

that results in complete awakening.

The full potential of activating the original reproductive

energy of the human body transforms a normal person

into an enlightened immortal.

Many of these lineages go back to famous Mahasiddhas

like Padmasambhava.

Padmasambhava is known to have said that more women than men

would achieve tantric enlightenment because

of their devotion to practice.

The tantras are sometimes revealed,

both the Hindu tantras and the Buddhist

tantras, in exactly the terms that you gave.

That enlightenment is found inside,

or abiding within the bhaga, within the womb,

within the vagina.

To open out to the state of wholeness and completeness,

which we can call openness, we can call sunyata,

we can call emptiness, we can call

voidness-- there are many ways of describing it.

I like the word "openness," because it has

that quality of the unbounded.

So this vaginal phenomenon is a way

of saying that at the same time this experience is

completely open, completely pleasurable, indeed

orgasmic, and luminous.

Those are the three characteristics

of the enlightened state in a Tibetan tantric system--

openness, luminosity and pleasure.

And that is something that we keep coming across

in text after text after text.

What is experience is that?

A person rediscovers what you were

saying as the original face-- the original, primordial embryo

of who we are, the very basis of our existence.

The tantras also talk about the mother

and the son reuniting together.

The white drop and the red drop joining together,

a symbol, of course, of conception itself.

So that the imagery of sexuality is in there

because that's part of it and that's

key to a lot of human experience.

But there's sexuality going on in every cell of your body

right now.

The light of the sun in your heart

through meditation and then spontaneously forming

a conflagration in every single cell

of your body, that is the kind of thing

that we're talking about.

So that the joining of the two sides of the double helix

of DNA inside the nucleus in every cell

is living that sexual bliss in every moment

as it produces the proteins that keep you alive.

If you're a Buddha, you see every particle

of time and matter and energy continually

generating as it were in a sexual, reproductive way, all

the phenomena of existence at all times.

You're living a blissful, highly energetic kind of life.

From a Tibetan perspective, the difference

between Buddhas and ordinary individuals

is merely a question of diligent practice.

Tibetan teachers have spoken with some reluctance

about sexual yoga.

In every case that I have personally encountered,

it has always been about something to do with families,

and really elite families preserving

very special traditions within that family,

within the customs and the beliefs of that family.

Many traditions believe that if the energy meridians

of the body are fully opened, the individual will inevitably

achieve complete realization.

The Kundalini experience activates

the starting point of the body and results

in the ultimate realization of a person's potential.

This is a discovery in which the entire universe is

found to exist within the mind.

One of the most famous sayings in Tibet

is, there can be no Mahamudra, which is enlightenment,

without Karmamudra, sexual yoga.

Although the majority of Buddhist monks are celibate,

the tradition of the Mahasiddhas believe

that the Buddha may have achieved enlightenment

through the practice of sexual yoga.

Because Mahamudra, which is complete enlightenment,

can only be achieved through Karmamudra,

which is sexual yoga.

In other words, the apparent peace and almost stasis

of a Buddha image does not really

adequately reflect the dance or phenomenon that is truly

at the heart of enlightenment.

The complete potential of fully harnessing and activating

the original reproductive or sexual energy of the body

is one in which the human being transforms into a Buddha,

or an immortal.

The ability to activate the Kundalini with sex

requires strict adherence to precise techniques

combined with specialized breathing methods.

The reason that Western couples are not achieving enlightenment

through the practice of sexual yoga

is that they are not aware of the authentic methods

and they haven't activated the pre-birth energy.

The energy of the body between the time of conception

and birth within everyone is enlightened

and is connected to the void, or the Tao.

The goal of inner alchemical practices that use sexual yoga

is to recreate conception by uniting the yin

and yang subtle bodies.

Tantric Buddhahood transforms a normal human being

into an enlightened immortal.

Ancient Chinese medicine also use the transformation

of the reproductive energy of the body

to enable an adept to achieve immortality

through successful inner alchemical

practice that use the complete activation of the starting

point of the body.

This tradition goes back to the time

of the Yellow Emperor who is said to have created

the Chinese medical tradition.

In Tibet, the union of the Trikaya, or three bodies,

using sexual yoga is known to result

in tantric enlightenment.

These systems are based on the concept

that the pre-birth energy of the body, the energy system that

is created between the time of conception and birth,

is enlightened and is connected to the void, or Tao.

This energy lies dormant in a normal person.

In many yogic systems, the final process

that transforms a human being into an immortal,

or living Buddha, is a sexual yoga practice

that results in full Kundalini activation.

The goal of all these traditions is

to create the spiritual embryo, or embryo of Buddhahood.

Of course, I'm talking in some ways as a Christian,

and a Christian loves everything.

God is love.

So if people are experiencing a loving relationship

through sexuality, they're going to be changed by that

and they're going to attain enlightenment.

If you study with someone like Namkhai Norbu, for example,

he'll make a very clear distinction

between tantric methods of attainment and Dzogchen

methods.

He'll even distinguish Dzogchen, which sometimes

sounds like zen to some of us.

He'll distinguish it from zen.

So he'll notice these things how.

Because he's been through this stuff.

He knows that from his own inner experience,

so he can make those distinctions very clearly.

Those of us who are not yet as highly

realized as Namkhai Norbu are walking on thin ice

if we try to make too many distinctions without rooting it

in our own inner experience.

In both China and Tibet, it is well

known that the most advanced spiritual practitioners leave

no bodies after the time of death,

and this represents the achievement

of whole body enlightenment.

Padmasambhava was a legendary mahasiddha,

considered to be the founder of Tibetan Buddhism.

The lineage that he started in the 8th century

has a particular phenomenon known

as the body of light associated with it

in which, when the meditator dies,

his physical body shrinks away to nothing within a few days.

Practitioners of the primordial yoga system originally

transmitted by Padmasambhava continue

to experience the post-mortem dissolution

of the body in modern times.

Ramalinga in India, Jesus of Nazareth,

and the Yellow Emperor in China are all

believed to have left no bodies upon their deaths.

Enlightenment without remainder may

be the basis of ascension stories throughout history.

Chinese legends say when a great master achieves immortality,

he casts no shadow, he appears and disappears at will,

and ascends to heaven in broad daylight.

One of the things that happens when a great teacher dies

is that there are often phenomena-- things that

impress their disciples as to the degree of holiness

in that person.

And so in some of the Tibetan traditions

there is a phenomenon that is called "the rainbow

body," in which the body of the deceased

manifests light phenomena after death.

Often, it takes the form of rainbows in the sky.

You're talking about the body that

begins to dissolve its material substance into light.

In 1998, an often repeated story

emerged once again from a village in the remote Kham

region of Eastern Tibet.

It is said that a rainbow appeared

one day above the cabin of Khenpo Achos, a devout Lama who

had continued to practice and teach Buddhism

despite the severe restrictions of the Chinese government.

He was in his 80s, but not sick.

Nevertheless, he laid down on his bed,

began reciting the Tibetan mantra om mani padme hum,

and died.

Shortly after, the nuns, monks and others who studied with him

began the Tibetan Buddhist prayers that accompany death.

They noticed that Khenpo Achos' skin

began to turn soft and pinkish.

His students hurried to another Lama to ask about this,

and he told them to cover the body

and continue their prayers.

They placed a thin, yellow monk's cloak over him,

and as the days passed, they saw his body was shrinking.

By the end of the week, the students reported,

nothing remained.

Khenpo Achos had apparently become

what is known in Tibetan Buddhism as a "rainbow body."

The story spread through Buddhist circles.

Many realized that the miraculous event had

implications for Christianity.

They believed if we can establish

as an anthropological fact that what

is described in the Resurrection of Jesus

had not only happened to others but is happening today,

it would put our view of human potential

in a completely different light.

Even if we were to think of it as ultimately

explainable by some form of physics that has not yet

been devised or something in quantum physics,

we can give all kinds of explanations.

But certainly, it's a paranormal phenomenon.

It's not something that happens every day,

and it does seem to have a connection

to spiritual practice.

In China, many great sages and alchemists

are also said to have left empty graves after death.

In Asia, the highest level of meditation

has always been known as enlightenment

without remainder, in which the physical body has

dissolved into pure energy.

To the point where their body and mind are engaged

in spiritual practice and mystical illumination,

habitually, every microsecond of the day,

it is highly likely that their body/mind complex

will do unusual things at the point of death.

Whether that means preserving the body from decay,

as occurs in the incorruptible saints,

whether it's a manifestation of stigmata,

manifestation of other internal symbols on the bones

or organs of the body, as has been

seen in some Catholic saints, or whether it's

going to be these phenomena of dissolution, shrinkage,

or complete disappearance, it all

depends on how that person has engaged with spiritual practice

such that everything that you are is in the process,

in the practice.

And I think that that's what this is all about.

That spiritual practice is really

about a total engagement of every last atom in your body.

The goal of life is to discover who we really.

At the highest level of meditation and yoga

we see our original face, and this

enables us to enter the Tao and fully discover

who we have always really been.

What we're talking about, in terms of spirituality,

in terms of the body, in terms of enlightenment,

is we're making the claim, along with all

the great historical traditions, that there's something

more that we are already.

There's something more that we can realize in our bodies

cannot be restricted merely to a vast complex of desires which

will come to an end with our last breath.

Khenpo Achos, this Tibetan monk, out in his little Hermitage

in Eastern Tibet, breathing his last with the words

om mani padme hum and then dying.

And then his face turns into the face of a little child,

pink and more alive than the 81-year-old man who

said his final mantra.

Om mani padme hum, om mani padme hum, om mani padme hum.

There is something formed in chaos coming

before heaven and earth, existing

in the silent and tranquil void.

It stands alone and unchanging.

It pervades everywhere without becoming exhausted.

It is the mother of heaven and earth.

I do not know its name, and so call it Tao.

The future of modern science is to discover

the mind of the Tao.

As science studies meditation and the evolution

of consciousness, the basic unification

of Eastern and Western paradigms of the evolution

of consciousness is inevitable.

Modern science will become focused

on enabling human beings to achieve

their complete potential, which is enlightenment.

Scientists will realize that the completion stage of meditation

is the primordial vision of the original face.

This represents the ultimate level

of human mind/body evolution.

There are hints, there are suggestions, that things go on

in the human body/mind complex that have not been completely

explained by science, by technology, by psychotherapy,

by quantum physics, or whatever.

So I think we're just being invited to explore more deeply.

We may actually come up with a new theory, a new paradigm.

Darwin's Theory of Evolution does not include the fact

that the human reproductive system is perfectly

designed to achieve enlightenment,

and that this is actually the purpose of the evolution

of consciousness.

Evolutionary psychology is based on the idea

that all human behavior is merely an attempt

to reproduce sexually.

The problem with this is that it leaves out the basic fact

that the human reproductive system is perfectly

designed to achieve enlightenment

by unifying the pre-birth and post-birth chi of the body.

This is the basis of the Chinese medical system,

and represents the future of science

in the 21st century as the Philosopher's Stone is

rediscovered.

It shows that the human body is a device

that the universe itself has generated

enabling that enlightenment to burst upon the scene.

In other words, your body, with all its aches and pains,

and some people tell us we weren't

meant to stand up on two legs, and a lot

of problems that have come into play

because of the shape of our body and the way the organs

are set up.

But if you look at it from a Buddhist point of view,

your body is set up so that the energy goes from the perineum,

from the crotch, from the base of the spine,

up through the subtle body and the material body, both

in intimate union so that it gets to the top of your head

and beyond so that you can attain enlightenment.

If you were a monkey or a dog, you

have some of those same structures,

but they're not positioned in such a way

to favor the attainment of enlightenment.

So that you're sitting in meditation in accord

with a certain set of points that highlight,

accentuate and enhance the inherent properties

of the human body to attain enlightenment.

So this is a little machine we've

been given for attaining that high degree of consciousness.

This is magnificent stuff.

Because then you suddenly realize,

oh, even if we did evolve from so-called lower forms of life,

we are also in continuity with those forms of life such

that what we attain is not just private property, but is good,

cosmic benefit.

And then you get immediately into the whole Bodhisattva vow,

the idea of doing this for the sake of all sentient beings.

There is an ancient story from China

in which a famous zen master told

his student, if you see the Buddha on the road, kill him.

What is meant by this story is that your idea

of the Buddha as a sacred figure to be worshipped

is incorrect, and is an illusion that actually is blocking

your own perception of your own awareness as enlightenment,

and your own realization that you yourself have always

been a living Buddha.

The fully activated starting point of the body

is your original face.

The Dalai Lama says very clearly

how no self, Buddhist teaching on no self and all of that,

is not about the destruction of the personality.

It's a transformative process that

has to do with who you really are comes to the fore,

and what you are not disappears.

Buddhahood, immortality or enlightenment actually

represent the true potential of each human being

to fully awaken.

This is inevitably going to be the goal

of the evolution of consciousness

in the 21st century.

We are at the edge of time when achieving enlightenment

will become a phenomenon recognized by Western science

as both the completion stage of meditation

and the achievement of matter, energy and consciousness

unification.

When enough individuals have activated the Kundalini

and seen their original face within themselves,

the human race will be completely transformed.

Already today, millions of people

practice yoga, meditation, Tai Chi and Qigong.

The complete evolution of consciousness

is the result of these mind/body arts when fully mastered.

The goal of our existence is to reach our ultimate potential

as fully enlightened beings.

Bodhidharma said, our original face is the mind.

The mind is our original face.

This mind is the same as the mind of all Buddhas.

Buddhas of the past and future merely transmit this mind.

Beyond your mind, there is no Buddha anywhere,

but confused people don't realize that their own mind is

the Buddha.

They keep searching for truth outside of themselves.

Don't become lost in such illusions.

Just realize that there is no Buddha

outside of your own mind.

Wherever you are, there is a Buddha.

Your mind has always been a living Buddha.

So if you see a Buddha on the road,

there is no need for reverence-- just kill him,

because it is a false illusion.

If people will cultivate the Tao,

their bodies will be strong.

By cultivating the Tao for a long time,

one can transform substance to spirit,

refining their body into subtle energy and merge with the Tao.

Then their knowledge is boundless,

and their physical body is transcended.

This is the power of the Tao.

Speaking without speaking and moving without moving

is called "the profound and secret virtue."

You look at it and it is not seen.

It is called "the formless."

You listen to it and it is not heard,

it is called "the soundless."

You grasp it and it cannot be held.

It is called "the intangible."

The ancient sages were masters at penetrating

the subtle and profound Tao.

Can you hold the body and spirit as one?

Concentrating your chi and becoming pliant,

can you become like a newborn baby?

Clearing your mind and contemplating the profound,

can you remain unknown?

In understanding all things, can you remain detached?

The highest enlightenment is like water.

Water benefits all beings, yet argues with no one.

It flows in unknown places, and in this way

is close to the Tao.

Because the enlightened do not go against nature,

they are one with the Tao.

The Tao that can be put into words

is not the true and eternal Tao.

The Tao is an empty vessel-- it is used, but never exhausted.

It is the fathomless source of everything.

Under heaven, there is nothing more yielding

and soft as water-- yet for attacking

what is hard and rigid, there is nothing better.

In this way, the weak can vanquish the strong

and the soft can overcome the hard.

People follow the way of earth.

Earth follows the way of heaven.

Heaven follows the way of Tao.

Tao follows its own natural way.

There is something formed in chaos coming

before heaven and earth, existing

in the silent and tranquil void.

It stands alone and unchanging.

It pervades everywhere without becoming exhausted.

It is the mother of heaven and earth.

I do not know its name, and so call it Tao.

To know others is wisdom, but to master

one's self in enlightenment.

Those who conquer others require great strength.

But to conquer one's self requires true power.