Inner Heat Meditation

Sit comfortably in your meditation place and generate a strong positive

motivation for doing this inner heat practice. Determine to keep your
mind relaxed, concentrated and free of expectations for the entire
session.

Start by visualizing the central channel as a transparent, hollow tube, a

fingers breadth in diameter. It runs straight down through the center
of the body, just in front of the spinal column, from the crown of your
head to the base of your spine.

Next, visualize the right and left lateral channels, slightly thinner than
the central one. They start from the right and left nostrils respectively,
travel upwards to the top of the head and then curve over to run
downwards on either side of the central channel. They curve inwards
and join the central channel at a point approximately four fingers
breadth below the level of the navel. Take as long as you like to
construct this visualization. Once it is stable, imagine a red-hot ember
the size of a tiny seed inside the central channel at the level of the navel.
To strengthen this visualization, imagine reaching into a fire, taking out
a tiny glowing ember and placing it in your central channel. Once it is
there, really feel its intense heat. Now, in order to increase the heat,
gently contract the muscles of the pelvic floor, concentrating on the
internal rather than the external muscles, and in this way bring air
energy up from the lowest chakra to the ember. Next, gently take a full
breath through the nostrils. The air travels from the nostrils through
the right and left channels to where they enter the central channel just
below the level of the navel. The air joins with the heat there and with
energy brought up from below. As you stop inhaling, immediately
swallow and push down gently with your diaphragm in order to firmly
compress the energy brought down from above: now the air energy is
completely locked in, compressed from above and below.

Now, hold your breath as long as it is comfortable to do so. Concentrate

completely on the ember in the navel area, whose heat is increasing and
spreading as a result of the compressed air energy. When you are
ready, relax your lightly tensed muscles and exhale gently and
completely. Although the air leaves through the nostrils, visualize that it
rises up through the central channel and dissolves there. The heat
emanating from the burning ember at the navel continually increases
and spreads and starts to burn away the blockages at each chakra
and starts also to warm the concentration of silvery blissful energy
found at the crown chakra. However, the focal point of your
concentration is always the heat of the burning ember in the navel area.

Once your first exhalation is complete, again tighten the lower muscles,
inhale a second time, swallow and push down with diaphragm, thus
again compressing the air on the heat, then exhale, releasing the air up
the central channel once again. Repeat the entire cycle rhythmically
seven times altogether, the intensity of the heat growing with each
breath.

At the seventh exhalation, imagine that the now burning-hot ember

explodes into flames. They shoot up the central channel, completely
consuming and purifying the delude energy at each chakra. At the
crown, the flames finally melt and release the silvery blissful energy,
which pours down the purified central channel giving pleasure at each
chakra it passes. Finally, when it meets the blazing ember at the navel
chakra, there is an explosion of bliss. This blissful heat flows our to
every atom and cell of your body, completely filling you, making your
mind very happy.

Concentrate on this pleasure without tension or expectation, without

clinging to it or analyzing it. Just relax and enjoy it. You will notice that,
no matter how strong the pleasure is, your mind and body are calm and
controlled, unlike our usual experiences of physical pleasure when the
mind is excited and uncontrolled.

If your mind should wander from its concentration to other objects

the past or future, objects of attachment or aversion- focus your
attention on the subject of the thought, the mind that perceives the
distracting object, the thinker. Watch the subject until the distracting
thought disappears, then concentrate again on the blissful feeling.

Analysis of feeling: Having reached a state of clarity, it is good to use it

to discover the nature of your mind. After concentrating on your
feeling, being absorbed in it for some time, analyze it by contemplating
each of the following questions. Take as long as you

like.

Is the feeling permanent or impermanent? How? Why?

Is the feeling blissful or suffering? How? Why?
Is the feeling related or unrelated to the nervous system and in the
mind? How? Why?
Does the feeling exist inherently, from it own side, without depending
on anything else, or not? How? Why?
Examine each point from every angle. Finish the session by summing up
your conclusion, and then dedicate any positive energy and insight
gained during the meditation to your speedy enlightenment for the sake
of all living beings.

-Excerpted from How to Meditate: A Practical Guide by Kathleen

McDonald (Wisdom Publications).

Directions for Tummo Practice:

Tummo practice comes to us through Swami Rudrananda and is used to

digest and release tensions, karmas, stuck emotions. He received this
transmission when he was six years old and two Tibetan lamas
approached him and installed a "vase" inside him and made prophecies
about his future work. Later in his life he "discovered" this practice that
is often in Tibetan Buddhism called the Vase practice. It is used to
expand and strengthen the energy body and to draw in nourishing
energy from a higher more refined source. We grow by drawing in
nourishment, information and light, from higher energy, from the next
level of being, from the next or higher dimension. It is traditionally done
with eyes open, looking at a picture of a master, saint or your teacher,
the picture of whom should be at least a foot away from you and a foot
or so higher than higher than you. This practice may also be used in
person, open eyed, looking at your spiritual teacher and drawing energy
from them. It may also be used with eyes closed drawing energy from
the universe, or from the teacher in their subtle form. In this way it is
used as a Guru Yoga practice. The practice should be done gently,
without straining the breath. The maximum time to practice is for 30
minutes twice daily, once in the morning and again in evening time.
Practice should be done sitting up right in an easy crossed leg position
with the hips propped up higher than the knees so that the spine can
relax. Sitting in a chair is also acceptable if necessary.

Instructions:
Sit quietly, settling down and breath a few breaths, becoming present
and relaxing yourself. Breathe until you can tangibly feel yourself
breathing energy. The whole of the cosmos and the body is energy, as
the teachings of Tantra Yoga reveal, as modern physics reveals, and as
the experience of meditation reveals. Become aware of the energy
centers of the body, where energy is concentrated, noticing each center
until there is a tangible shift in energy. This should be done by
sensitively feeling. Notice the root of the body, then the creative center
at the level of the pubic bone, followed by awareness at the place a few
inches below the navel, the center of the chest, the throat, the third eye
area and then crown. Be aware in each of these areas until you feel a
shift there, then direct your attention to the next center. Then notice,
FEEL the place just above the crown. From that place, begin to inhale
and exhale as if you are inhaling in the crown, drawing inward breath,
awareness, space and energies. On the inhale you are drawing it down
into the lower centers and allowing it to fill through the belly/low back.
When you exhale, the energy and breath travels from the root up and
out the crown, rising up and out. Breathe in this way in and down the
central channel and up and out the central channel.

Part One: Inhale and hold the breath

Continue in this way, and on the next inhalation, draw in breath and
energy into the center of the chest. Hold this breath in the center of your
chest. Relax as you hold the breath, allowing the light to expand and
relaxing the heart deeply. Pray to grow. Pray that your longing to grow
would grow, surrender your heart to growth. Swallow, allowing the
swallowing to help the chest relax more, and bring deeper awareness to
the inner opening.

Part Two: Exhale a fifth of the breath

Then exhale from the center of the chest up through the crown, exhaling
a fifth of the breath up and out the crown, inhale again, drawing that
higher energy down deeply into you from above the crown, into the
crown, past your chest and down into your navel and lower centers.

Part Three: Hold the breath in the lower centers.

Hold the breath and energy in the lower centers, deeply relaxing and
allowing it to break up any density there, dissolve any patterns, digest
any stuck emotions, feel breath and energy permeating the lower
centers. Fully relaxing as you hold this breath, while allowing it to
expand within you as an inner light filling in through the lower centers
and dissolving any darkness or density.

Part Four: Exhale up and out the crown

Exhale up and out the crown, allowing the breath to rise up the central
channel, up and out the crown. As the breath rises, surrender and
release any tensions. As the breath rises, open and absorb the energy
liberated by the practice. The breath rises up and out of you as a
fountain of light that moves up and through the central channel.

Part Five: Return to regular breath

Returning to the regular flow and pace of breath, but with great
consciousness, drawing in energy and awareness as nourishment on the
in breath, and exhaling out tensions, surrendering tensions, and
resistance. When the breath comes in it is held for a moment and soaks
into your being.

Part Six: Repeat After a few minutes of deeply relaxing in this way, when
there is a tension or distraction or more to digest, repeat the flow of the
double breath cycles (part one through five). Approximately 8 double
breaths per half an hour should be done.

Inner Fire Yoga, or Tummo, is the basic method used in the advanced
stage of most tantra systems. When doing this practice, we will need to
visualize our body in a certain way. This is called theVajra Body and
incorporating it into our self-image provides a useful way to work with
our bodily energies. The structures visualized are not actually there
when the body is autopsied. There are correlates with our physical
bodies, yet that is only part of the picture. When we close our eyes and
feel our bodies, it is hard to deny that different parts of the body have
different energies and feelings. In any case, to do the practices, one
needs to suspend disbelief and visualize the postulated structures and
energies. After extended practice, the visualizations become
internalized and become powerful tools for calming ourselves,
connecting with the body and channeling energy.

As babies, we are born with blissful energy freely flowing throughout

our entire body. As we develop, this energy is inhibited by the traumas
of life and stored in our neuromuscular systems. We no longer breathe
freely and our muscles become distorted with tension and stored
psychic and physical pain. Inner Fire Yoga teaches us a method to free
up this trapped energy and use it to our advantage. If we look carefully
at emotion, we find that an emotion is actually a energized physical
sensation in one part of the body or another. Thoughts are
superimposed on these energies. The energy of emotion can scatter us,
or we can learn to use it to center ourselves. In Inner Fire Yoga,
energy is generated and collected in the navel chakra and spread
upward through the center of our body, centering and energizing us in a
positive way.

Sexual desire and anger can be very useful. Sexual energy in most adults
is usually limited to the area of the sexual chakra. When this energy is
spread throughout the body, it really isnt just sexual anymore. It is a
total body energized or blissful feeling. This is not the ordinary limited
bliss of orgasm. Sexual energy can be freed up and distributed
throughout the body by moving it into the navel chakra and then doing
the Inner Fire Yoga. Anger is energy also, but the energy can be
harmful. In the inner fire yoga we can learn to take the energy of anger
(usually felt in the solar plexus) and throw it also into the navel chakra
as fuel.

Emptiness: The blissful body is only half of the equation in Tantra. The
other half is the indispensable understanding of non-dual awareness, or
emptiness (the mind free or empty of conceptual divisions). The
practice of tummo is a core practice in Tibetan tantra yoga. I would like
to emphasize that the aim of this article is to present to the reader the
technique of tantra yoga. The reader may read this as a reference
document: I do not suggest you practice Tummo without the careful
guidance of a competent Guru.

In Indian yoga teachings, our spine is an energetic axis, which consists

of three energetic lines or nadis. These are: Pingala (positive), Ida
(negative) and a middle: Shushumma. Along the axis there
are seven chakras from the perineum to top of the head: Mudladhara,
Svadhisthana, Manipura, Anahata, Visuddha, Ajna and Sahasrara. Each
chakra relates to a seed syllable. Kundalini, the sacred serpent lies in the
Muladhara chakra. This system of seven chakras is the Kundalini
system. When it was incorporated into Tibetan Buddhism, the Kundalini
system changed; its because Muladhara and Svadhisthana are
associated as one Root zone, so theres one seed syllable AH
represent for these two chakras. Because the Ajna and Sahasrara are
associated as one Top zone, theres one seed sylable HAM to represent
them. We now see from Muladhara to Sahasrara five seed syllables in
order: AH, TRAM, HUM, HRI, HAM. These relate to five chakras (or
group of chakras). The principle of Tummo practice is waking the
Kundalini (seed syllable A, fire, red, positive) to create the Tummo heat,
make it rise up and reach the top of the head (seed syllable HAM, water,
white, negative). When the Tummo fire liquifies the Sahasrara into
Immortal fluid, it causes enlightenment. AH absorbs HAM to become A
HAM (in Sanskrit= I, me).

Preconditions The practitioner must study well in Buddhist

philosophies, behave ethically, have skill in mundane meditation, must
be able to visualize vividly the shape and the bright red color of the seed
syllable in his mind (see theAH seed syllable). And must have powerful
contemplation to realize the Tummo flame and its path. Tantric
tradition requires more serious conditions. To practice the Tummo (one
of the six yogas) you have to complete the preliminaries practices which
consists of two categories: The preliminaries consisting of general
meditations derived from the common mahayana teachings. The
preliminaries that belong exclusively to the highest yoga tradition: The
general Vajrajana preliminaries Four complete empowerments
(Abhisheka) The Tantric precepts (Samaya) The preliminaries for the
Naropa yogas.
Practice
First, contemplate the seed syllablle RAM in the umbilical chakra.
Next, imagine the Khandroma appear in bright red light. Then the
practitioner absorbs, and becomes the Khandroma: at this time the
practitioner visualizes the seed syllable A in the root zone and
visualizes the seed syllable HAM in the top zone. With conscious
breathing, the practitioner awakens the seed syllable A to a heating
flame. This flame must be imagined as increasing gradually in size and
heat level when it rises up along the spinal axis, from the root
(Mudladhara) to the top (Sahasrara). The spinal axis becomes a tube of
flame which begins the tiny flame, then gradually grows. This process
may be described in ten 2/4 tummo stages:

Stage 1: the flame is imagined as tiny as a hair

Stage 2: the flame diameter is large as a finger.
Stage 3: the flame diameter is large as an arm.
Stage 4: the flame is large as a whole body.
Stage 5: the practitioners contemplation come to the utmost degree, the
flame is immense and the practitioners body is absorbed in an immense
fire-storm.
Stage 6: the process is reversed, the fire storm calms, decreasing to body
size
Stage 7: the flame is decreased to the size of an arm .
Stage 8: the flame is decreased to the size of a finger.
Stage 9: the flame is decreased to the size of a hair.
Stage 10: the flame disappears, all becomes void

The practitioner imagines the seed syllable AH transform into a fire that
is burning red and which rises up the spine rhythmically. Each
breathing rhythm consists of one breath in and one breath out. In each
breathing rhythm the red flame rises up about half a finger, each time.

With the first breath, begins to imagine in the Root zone (Muladhara)
the red burning flame coming up the spine.
After the 8th breath it reaches the umbilical chakra (Manipura)
Continue the breath in Manipura ten times.
Descend and reach Muladhara at 28th breath.
Ascend and reach the Anahata at 38th breath
Ascend and reach the Visuddha at 48th breath
 Ascend and reach the crown chakra at the 58th breath
Use the contemplative power to imagine the fire heat up the top zone
in ten breath rhythms ( from 58th to 68th breath). Imagine the tummo
fire burns the Sahasrara and produces a cool liquid which flows down
the spine and decreases the heat and the size of the Tummo fire.

I do live in Canada and have spent many winters in -40C to -80C

weather. I found I could get the same kinds of effects more readily
using Taoist breath techniques my Tai Chi/Qi Gong teacher taught
us. Basically those techniques reverse the type of vase breathing
technique used in some buddhist breath techniques. What this
involves is initially exhaling completely and compressing the chest
and abdomen fully, squeezing out all air entirely. Then breathing in
very slowly one draws air deep down to the bottom of the abdomen
and packing the air very tightly by allowing the abdomen and then the
chest to expand only when the air pressure is so great that it forces
the chest open even though one is fully resisting the expansion with
the surrounding abdominal musculature. Then when one has packed
the maximum air into that space with the minimum of expansion one
slowly allows the air to exhale and escape and while doing so one
begins to slowly push the muscles out again from the bottom of the
abdomen so that when the air is finally fully pushed out the belly is
also pushed out. So this is basically the reverse of how the abdomen
and chest would naturally move with the inflow and outflow of air. It
takes a while to get a feel for this but once you get it working correctly
you should very rapidly start to experience heat buildup throughout
the body. If you continue in this way you will eventually become very
hot and begin sweating and so on. I has worked for me even walking
in very cold outdoor weather.

The Art of Warming Oneself Without Fire up in the Snows

To spend the winter in a cave amidst the snows, at an altitude that varies
between 11,000 and 18,000 feet clad in a thin garment or even naked, and
escape freezing is a somewhat difficult achievement. Yet numbers of Tibetan
hermits go safely each year through this ordeal. Their endurance is ascribed to
the power which they have acquired to generate tummo.
The word tummo signifies heat, warmth, but is not used in Tibetan language to
express ordinary heat or warmth. It is a technical term of mystic terminology,
and the effects of that mysterious heat are not confined to warming the
anchorites who can produce it.

Tibetan adepts of the secret lore distinguish various kinds of tummo: exoteric
tummo, which arises spontaneously in the course of peculiar raptures and,
gradually, folds the mystic in the "soft, warm mantle of the gods"; esoteric
tummo, that keeps the hermits comfortable on the snowy hills; mystic tummo,
which can only claim a distant and quite figurative connection with the term
"warmth," for it is the experience of "paradisiac bliss" in this world.
In the secret teaching, tummo is also the subtle fire which warms the generative
fluid and drives the energy in it, till it runs all over the body along the tiny
channels of the tsas (or channels).

Superstition and odd physiological ideas have contributed to give birth to many
extraordinary stories on this subject, one of which I will venture to briefly
relate.

The famous ascetic, Rechungpa, anxious to become an erudite, left his master
Milarepa, against the latter's advice, to study the philosophic literature at Lhasa.
Lacking his spiritual father's blessing, things turned badly for himat least
from a religious point of view. A rich man became quite enthusiastic about the
young lame's learning and mastery of occult lore and, in order to attach him to
his house, he gave him his only child as wife. This happened before the reform
of Tsongkhapa at a time when all lamas were allowed to marry. The girl did not
in the least share her father's admiration for Rechungpa, but she was obliged to
obey him, and in revenge made life rather hard for her poor husband, who
might well regret having yielded to the attraction of wealth.

His meekness in bearing ill treatment did not soften his wife's heart. She went
so far as to stab him with a knife. And lo! instead of blood, generative fluid ran
out of the wound. By the practice of tummoso said the lama who told me the
story with absolute conviction the body of Rechungpa had been filled with
the seed of life.

To do justice to Tibetans, I must add that another lama scoffed at the tale and
thus explained it. Truly, through tummo practices one may fill one's body with
generative force which allows psychic creations, but this is subtle, invisible
energy and not gross material substance.
However, only a few, even in mystic circles, are thoroughly acquainted with
these several kinds of tummo, while the wonderful effects of the tummo that
warms and keeps alive the hermits in the snowy wilds are known to every
Tibetan. It does not follow that the process by which that mysterious heat is
produced is equally familiar to all of them. On the contrary. It is kept secret by
the lamas who teach it, and they do not fail to declare that information gathered
by hearsay or by reading is without any practical result if one has not been
personally taught and trained by a master who is himself an adept.

Moreover, only those who are qualified to undertake the training may hope to
enjoy its fruit. The most important qualifications required are: to be already
skilled in the various practices connected with breathing to be capable of a
perfect concentration of mind, going as far as the trance in which thoughts
become visualized and to have received the proper empowerment from a lama
possessed with the power of conferring it.

Tummo initiation is preceded by a long period of probation. Among other

objects, I think probation aims at testing the robustness of the candidates. As
great as may be my confidence in the tummo method, I still doubt whether
people of weak constitution could safely practice it. It is probable, however,
that tummo's teachers, wisely, endeavor to avoid failures that might prove
harmful to presumptuous disciples and lower their own repute.

I do not know whether, when yielding to my pressing requests and shortening

my time of probation, the venerable lame who "empowered" me only wanted to
get rid of me or not. He simply told me to go to a lonely spot, to bathe there in
an icy mountain stream, and then, without drying my body or putting on my
clothes, to spend the night motionless in meditation. Winter had not yet begun,
but the level of the place, about 10,000 feet high, made the night rather chilly,
and I felt very proud of not catching cold.

Later on I took another bath of the same kind, this time involuntarily, when I
lost footing as I was fording the Mekong River, near Rakshi in Northern Tibet.
When I reached the shore, in a few minutes my clothes froze on me.... I had no
spare ones.

One may easily understand that Tibetans, who are frequently exposed to
accidents caused by a hard climate, hold a method that protects them against
the cold in high esteem.
Once initiated, one must renounce all fur or woolen clothing and never
approach the fire to warm oneself. After a short period, during which he exerts
himself under the close supervision of his master, the novice must retire to a
very remote, absolutely solitary place situated high up on the hills. In Tibet "
high up " means generally an altitude well above 10,000 feet. According to
tummo teachers and adepts, one must never practice the training exercises
inside a house, or near inhabited places. They believe that foul air produced by
smoke and smells, together with various occult causes, impede the success of
the student and may even harm him.

Once conveniently settled, the disciple must see nobody besides his lame, who
may visit him occasionally, or to whose hermitage he may repair at long
intervals. The novice must begin his training each day before dawn and finish
the special exercise relating to tummo before sunrise, because as a rule he has
to perform one or another meditation at that time. The practice must be done in
the open, and one must be either naked or clothed in a single cotton garment.
Beginners may sit on a straw mat, if they own one or on a piece of hard
sackcloth or a wooden stool. More advanced disciples sit on the bare ground,
and at a still higher degree of proficiency, on the snow or the ice of a frozen
pond or stream. They must not breakfast or even drink anything, especially any
hot drink, before practicing. Two postures are allowed. Either the usual medita-
tion posture cross-legged or seated in Western fashion, each hand placed on the
corresponding knee, the thumb, the forefinger and the little finger being
extended, and the middle and fourth fingers bent under the palm. Various
breathing drills are first performed which aim at clearing the passage of the air
in the nostrils. Then pride, anger, hatred, covetousness, sloth stupidity are
mentally rejected with the rhythmic breathing out. All blessings of saintly
beings, the Buddha's spirit, the five wisdoms, all that is good and lofty in the
world are attracted and assimilated while drawing in the breath.

Now, composing oneself for a while one dismisses all cares and cogitations.
Having become perfectly calm, one imagines that a golden lotus exists in one's
body, on a level with the navel. In this lotus, shining like the sun, stands the
syllable ram. Above ram is the syllable ma. From ma Dorje Naljorma (a
feminine deity) issues.

These mystic syllables, which are called "seed," must not be regarded as mere
written characters, or symbolic representations of things, but as living beings
standing erect and endowed with motive power. For instance ram is not the
mystic name of the fire, it is the seed of fire. Hindus attach great importance to
the right pronunciation of these "seed formulas" (bija mantras). They think that
their power resides in the sound which they believe to be creative. Certain
Tibetan mystics agree that ram correctly pronounced, may produce fire, yet
these mystic syllables are not generally used in Tibet as sound, but rather as
representations of elements, deities, etc. Tibetans identifying ram with the fire,
think that he who knows how to make mental use of the subjective image of
that word, can set anything ablaze or even produce flames without apparent
fuel.

As soon as one has imagined Dorje Naljorma springing from the syllable ma,
one must identify oneself with her. When one has " become" the deity, one
imagines the letter Ah placed in the navel and the letter Ha at the top of one's
head. Slow, deep inspirations act as bellows and wake up a smoldering fire, the
size and shape of a minute ball. This fire exists in Ah. Each inspiration
produces the sensation of a breath of wind penetrating the abdomen at the
height of the navel and increasing the force of the flames. In other tummo
exercises, drops of oil must be imagined as oozing from Ha and falling into the
fire situated in A, to feed it.

Then, each deep inspiration is followed by a retention of the breath. Gradually

the time spent holding in the breath is increased more and more. One's thoughts
continue to follow the waking up of fire which ascends along the uma vein
arising in the middle of the body.

Tibetans have borrowed from India the three mystic arteries or nadis which
play an important part in the various yoga psychic trainings. In Tibetan, nadis
are called tsas and respectively named roma, kyangma and uma. These so-
called arteries are not supposed to be true arteries containing blood, but
exceedingly thin nerves that distribute currents of psychic energy. The three
tsas just mentioned are the most important, but there exist countless others.
However, enlightened mystics consider the tsa system as devoid of any
physical reality. According to their opinion it is but symbolical imagery.

The exercise goes on, through ten stages, but one must understand that there
exists no pause between them. The different subjective visions, as well as the
sensations which accompany them, succeed each other in a series of gradual
modifications. Inhalations, retentions of the breath and expirations continue
rhythmically, and a mystic formula is continually repeated. The mind must
remain perfectly concentrated and "one pointed" on the vision of the fire and
the sensation of warmth which ensues.

The ten stages may be briefly described as follows:

I. The central artery uma is imaginedand subjectively seenas thin as the
thinnest thread or as a hair, yet filled with the ascending flame and crossed by
the current of air produced by the breath.
2. The artery has increased in size and become as large as the little finger.
3. It continues to increase and appears to be the size of an arm.
4. The artery fills the whole body, or rather the body has become the tsa itself, a
kind of tube filled with blazing fire and air.
5. The bodily form ceases to be perceived. Enlarged beyond all measure, the
artery engulfs the whole world and the naljorpa (yogi) feels himself to be a
storm-beaten flame among the glowing waves of an ocean of fire.

Beginners whose mind has not yet acquired the habit of very protracted
meditation go more quickly through these five stages than more advanced
disciples, who progress slowly from one to another, sunk in deep
contemplation. Yet, even the quickest ones take about an hour to reach the fifth
stage.

Now the subjective visions repeat themselves in reverse order.

6. The stormy wind abates, the fiery waves sink lower and are less agitated, the
blazing ocean narrows and is absorbed in the body.
7 The artery, which is reduced to the size of an arm, is seen again with the fire
enclosed in it.
8. The artery decreases to the size of the little finger.
9. It becomes as thin as a hair.
10. It entirely disappears: the fire ceases utterly to be perceived, as well as all
forms, all representations whatsoever. All ideas of any kind of objects vanish
likewise. The mind sinks into the great "emptiness" where the duality of the
knower and the object perceived does not exist any longer.

It is a trance which, according to the spiritual and psychic development of the

naljorpa, is more or less deep and more or less prolonged.

The exercise, either with or without the five last stages, may be repeated during
the day or whenever one is suffering from cold. But the training, properly
speaking, is done during the early practice before dawn.

It is probable that Milarespa resorted to it when he happened to be

unexpectedly surrounded by the snow in a cave of the Lachi Kang (near the
mount Everest) and found himself compelled to stay there till the next spring.
He made his adventure the subject of a poem part of which is freely translated
below.
Disgusted with the worldly life I sought solitude on the slopes of Lachi Kang.
Heavens and earth having held a council,
Sent me the tempest as their messenger
The airy and watery elements
Associated with the Southern dark clouds.
They imprisoned the sun and the moon,
Blew the small stars away from the sky
And shrouded the large ones in the mist.
Then, it snowed continually for nine days and nights,
The biggest flakes were as big as the fleece of wool,
They came down flying like birds.
The small ones were the size of peas and mustard seeds, They came down
rolling and whirling.
The greatness of the snowfall was beyond all expression,
High up it covered the crest of the glacier ranges,
Low down it buried, up to their tops, the trees of the forest.
The black hills appeared to be whitewashed.
The frost flattened the billowy lakes
And the blue running streams were hidden under the ice. The mountains and
the valleys were levelled and looked like a plain.
Men were prisoners in the villages,
Domestic animals suffered from famine,
Birds and wild beasts fasted,
Mice and rats were sealed under ground like a treasure During that time of
calamity.
The snow, the wintry blast and my thin cotton garment fought against each
other on the white mountain.
The snow as it fell on me, melted into a stream,
The roaring blast was broken against the thin cotton robe which enclosed fiery
warmth,
The life and death struggle of the fighter could there be seen
And I, having won the victory, left a landmark for the hermits
Demonstrating the great virtue of Limo.
Milarespa describes his impressions as a poet, but
excepting the fact that he was shut up unexpectedly in the snows, without
sufficient provisions and a proper shelter, there is nothing exceptional in his
experience.

Many Tibetan hermits spend the winter in surroundings resembling those that
he depicts.
I am not so presumptuous as to compare my wintry "villegiatures" on the
Tibetan hills with the exertions of anchorites of Milarepas ilk, yet scenery like
that of which he tells is familiar to me.

I, too, have lived in caves and huts on high altitudes Though I did not lack
provisions, and had fuel enough to light a fire whenever I wished it, I yet know
the hardships of that life. But I also remember the perfect silence, the delightful
aloofness and the wonderful peace in which my hermitage was bathed, and I do
not think that those who spend their days in such wise need to be pitied. I
would rather say they are to be envied.

Beside the exercises which I have outlined, there exist a few others aiming at
producing tummo. However, they are all more or less alike. The process always
combines prolonged retention of the breath and visualization of fire. This, in
fact, amounts to autosuggestion.

One of the six occult doctrines taught by Naropa is said to have included
tummo. Here is an abridged account of Naropa's method. One must bear in
mind thatas it has already been stated such exercises were devised for the
use of disciples who had already thoroughly drilled themselves for years in
preparatory breathing and other gymnastics.

The posture of the body is described as follows:

Squatting with the legs crossed, the hands passing under the thighs and then
clasped together.
In that posture, one must (I) turn the stomach from right to left thrice, and from
left to right thrice; (z) churn the stomach as hard as possible; (3) shake the body
in the way "a restive horse shakes himself," and perform a short leap while
keeping the legs in the same crossed position. These three exercises must be
repeated thrice successively and concluded with a leap, jumping as high as
possible.

It does not seem to me very wonderful that a man should feel warm after
performing this feat. The exercise is borrowed from Indian bathe yoga
practices, but in hatha yoga treatises it is not connected with the kind of tummo
known to Tibetans.

The process continues by holding in the breath, until the abdomen becomes
"the shape of a pot."
Next comes the visualization of Dorje Naljorma as in the exercise previously
described. Then a sun is imagined in the palm of each hand, on the sole of each
foot and below the navel.

By rubbing together the suns placed in the hands and in the feet, fire flares up
and strikes the sun below the navel, which flares up in its turn and fills the
whole body with fire.

With each expiration of the breath, the world is visualized as being filled with
fire.

The exercise ends by twenty-one big leaps.

Though there are certain resemblances in the images visualized in these two
methods the difference between them is nevertheless considerable, for while
the second includes leaps and gesticulations, the former requires complete
immobility.

It is not impossible that here, as in many other cases, certain elements of the
training have been borrowed from the autochthonous Bonpos occultists. One of
the latter once told me that it is the visualization of the fire, rather than the
motion of the breath, which produces warmth during the trance. As I did not
agree, he added: "A man may be killed by suggestion, he may kill himself by
auto-suggestion. If death can be produced in that way, so much more easily
may heat be generated."

Inhalations, retentions and expirations of the breath are accomplished

mechanically, in the prescribed order, by those who are already well trained in
the tummo practice. They do not break the concentration of the mind on the
mirage of the fire, nor the repetition of the mystic formula which must
accompany the contemplation. These advanced students do not need to make
any effort of imagination to see the growing intensity. In their case, the process
goes on by itself; a result of habit which they have acquired, and a pleasant
feeling of warmth spreads graduallv all over the brow(?) which is the aim of the
practice.

Sometimes, a kind of examination concludes the training of the tummo

students. Upon a frosty winter night, those who think themselves capable of
victoriously enduring the test are lee to the shore of a river or a lake. If all the
streams or frozen in the region, a hole is made in the ice. A moon light night,
with a hard wind blowing, is chosen. Such nights are not rare in Tibet during
the winter month.

The neophytes sit on the ground, cross-legged and naked. Sheets are dipped in
the icy water, each man wraps himself in one of them and must dry it on his
body. As soon as the sheet has become dry, it is again dipped in the water and
placed on the novice's body to be dried as before. The operation goes on in that
way until daybreak. Then he who has dried the largest number of sheets is
acknowledged the winner of the competition

It is said that some dry as many as forty sheets in one night. One should
perhaps make large allowances for exaggeration, or perhaps for the size of the
sheets which in some cases may have become so small as to be almost
symbolical. Yet I have seen some repas dry a number of pieces of cloth the size
of a large shawl.

According to the old rule, one must have dried at least three sheets to be a true
repa entitled to wear the white cotton skirt, insignia of proficiency in tummo.
But I doubt if the rule is strictly observed nowadays.

Repa means one who wears but a single cotton garment in all seasons and at
any height. Yet repas who slip warm clothes on under their cotton robes are not
lacking in Tibet. They are either complete frauds or monks who have really
gone through tummo training, but have not pursued it long enough to obtain its
full benefits.

Nevertheless, though there are frauds and mediocrities, some tummo adepts go
beyond the repa and, rejecting even their cotton garment, live entirely naked in
the recesses of the high mountain ranges for long periods, sometimes it is said
even for life.

Tibetans feel rather proud of such feats and do not fail to scoff at the naked
Indian yogins whom they meet when going on a pilgrimage to India. They do
not understand that, with Indians, nakedness is the symbol of absolute
renunciation and not a display of extraordinary physical endurance.

One of these super-repas who had trained himself in taco near Kang Tise while
journeying over the plains of India with another repa and a lay servant, from
Nepal to Gaya, happened to see a pretentious-looking sadhu lying naked and
sunbaked on a mat.
"Old chap, you should go naked like that and lie on tso Mophang's shore then
you will surely pull another face" said the Tibetan anchorite mockingly to the
Indian who, of course, did not understand his language, nor why the three
travellers irreverently burst out laughing at him.

This was related to me by the hermit himself who, in his old age, still enjoyed
this little joke of his younger days.

In fact, when one begins the training, the phenomenon of increasing heat, or
perhaps in some cases, the subjective sensation of warmth, only lasts while
practicing the exercise. When the concentration of mind and the breathing
gymnastics cease, cold is again gradually felt. On the contrary, it is said that,
with those students who have persevered in the training practice for many
years, the production of heat becomes a natural function of the organism, which
works all by itself, as soon as the weather grows cold.

Beside drying wet sheets on one's body, there exist various other tests to
ascertain the degree of heat which the neophyte is able to radiate. One of these
tests consists in sitting in the snow. The quantity of snow melted under the man
and the distance at which it melts around him are taken as measures of his
ability. Tibetan name of Kailas mountain, in Western Tibet.

It is difficult for us to get a perfectly correct idea about the extent of the results
obtained through tummo training but some of these feats are genuine. Hermits
really do, live naked, or wearing one single thin garment during the whole
winter in the high regions I have mentioned I am not the only one who has seen
some of them. It has been said that some members of the Mount Everest
expedition had an occasional glimpse of one of these' naked anchorites.
In conclusion I may say that I have myself obtained remarkable results from
my small experience of tummo.