Naked Seeing_ The Great Perfection, the Wheel of Time, and Visionary Buddhism in Renaissance Tibet

Abstract

Naked Seeing investigates visionary yogas in the Tibetan Bön and Buddhist traditions: practices in which a meditator dwells in a dark room or gazes at the open sky, with the goal of experiencing luminous visions. The book examines these practices in two major esoteric traditions, known as the Wheel of Time (Kālacakra) and the Great Perfection (rdzogs chen). The book examines the intellectual and literary histories of these practices, and also explores the meditative techniques and physiology that underlie their visionary experiences. The book contains complete English translations of three major Tibetan texts on visionary practice. These are: (1) a Kālacakra treatise by Yumo Mikyo Dorjé, The Lamp Illuminating Emptiness, (2) a Nyingma Great Perfection work called The Tantra of the Blazing Lamps, and (3) a Bön Great Perfection work called Advice on the Six Lamps, along with a detailed commentary on this by Drugom Gyalwa Yungdrung.