The Dark Retreat: Visions of the Five Elements

After the Dzogchen practitioner has been introduced to the natural state of mind by the master, he or she is taught the Crossing Over practices of tögal: the dark retreat, sky gazing, and sun gazing. Tögal practice is very much about the elements.

In the dark retreat the practitioner spends months practicing in a room or cave into which not even the slightest light enters. It is commonly understood that the lack of physical light can lead to depression and claustrophobia, and there are therapies for depression that are based on exposing people to light.

But when abiding in pure luminous presence in the dark retreat, practitioners do not become claustrophobic or depressed, even though they are in total darkness in a small room for a long time (in Bön the dark retreat is traditionally forty-nine days and is often done for longer). In fact, there is sometimes the opposite problem. Because so much is happening, the practitioner may be excited and the thoughts become wild and hard to control.

Trekchöd means stabilization in space, a state that results in no claustrophobia. And tögal is the manifestation of light.

In the small physical space of the dark retreat there is a lot of space and light—the space of the base of existence and the illumination of intrinsic awareness. Just as external light keeps us from becoming depressed, the internal light protects us. The vitality of the mind, of rigpa, gives the body vitality that comes from inside rather than outside.

Anyone, practitioner or not, can put themselves into a pitch-black environment and see lights. And if they stay long enough, they will begin to hallucinate. This is not tögal.

If the practitioner has not had proper instruction, has not had the pointing out instructions, and cannot abide in the natural state, the visions that arise are simply mental projections shaped by karmic traces. Without trekchöd there is no tögal, and if the practitioner is not abiding in the natural state, trekchöd has not been accomplished.

This is analogous to the yogic practices of dream and sleep. When ordinary dreams arise, they are just dreams, stories manifested by the mind’s interaction with karmic traces and karmic prana.

But when the dreamer abides in the natural state, dreams arise as dreams of clarity, dreams from below the surface of individual karma, and they often contain wisdom from beyond the boundaries of the individual.

The situation with sleep is similar. When an ordinary person sleeps, he or she falls into a state of unconsciousness.

When a practitioner stable in the nature of mind sleeps, the body and the conceptual mind sleep but the practitioner remains fully integrated with the clear light and abides as non-dual awareness.

In the dark retreat, if the practitioner abides in the natural state, the elements come into balance. In one of the practices often prescribed for the dark retreat, the practitioner uses five postures, one for each element, to open particular channels in the body, thus affecting the flow of prana.

We say that the posture, held while the practitioner abides in rigpa, evokes elemental energies and that the particular types of gazes—again there are five—are gates for the energies that allow the elemental energies to manifest externally. The internal processes of the elemental energies are reflected out, into the black room, and are reflected back to the practitioner as visions and experiences.

The Zhang Zhung Nyan Gyud describes five different stages of the tögal visions. There are five stages because they relate to the elements, from earth to space.

The progressive stages are the signs of the development of a more profound connection to the elements.

As we progress on the spiritual path, internal changes are manifested in increased positive experiences in our daily lives. Relationships become easier, negative emotions have less power, and so on.

In the Crossing Over practices, the positive internal changes that result from the practice also manifest externally, but as visions.

In all the tögal practices—dark retreat, sun gazing, space gazing—the practitioner is trying to connect with the pure essence of the elements, the five pure lights, and the visions are the signs that the process is occurring.

The visions are not the point of the practice, the internal changes are, but the visions are a way to check on the progress.

Generally, the visions begin with light and patterns of light. The light is colored—often one or two colors will dominate, or a color may not manifest at all. There are specific shapes and colors associated with each element as it begins to manifest in its purer form: square yellow shapes for earth; circular blue shapes for water; triangular red shapes for fire; green rectangular shapes for air; and white semicircular shapes for space.

Eventually fragments of images appear, usually fleeting and unclear. Over time they become whole and stable. The progression is not random.

As the practice deepens, the main channels and chakras open and karmic blocks and habitual tendencies dissolve in the nature of mind.

The obscurations that clothe the pure elements in apparent substantiality are cleared and the visions become correspondingly purer. They become more complete and vivid, and the colors are more balanced.

Visions of deities, goddesses, mandalas, sacred syllables, and symbols arise.

In daily life, as in the dark retreat, how we react to what arises in experience determines whether we remain deluded or move toward realization of the truth.

If we are caught in the dualistic view of the moving mind, the five elemental energies are experienced as substantial.

If we are stable in the nature of mind, what appears to be substantial dissolves back into pure light. One way moves toward bondage to karmic tendencies, the other moves toward freedom from conditioning.

If we abide in dualism, the five lights become the five negative emotions.

If we abide in the natural state, the five lights become the five wisdoms.

In the dark retreat, we can find out where we are in terms of practice because the level of practice will be reflected in what manifests and how we relate to what manifests.

At the highest level of tögal practice the elements are completely balanced. All experience is integrated with the natural state.

Although we usually experience the body as solid, it, also, is a manifestation of elemental light. When merged entirely with space, there is no experience of the body separate from the field of undivided experience. It’s not that the body is gone, but it is experienced as a body of light.

Ultimately this is how the rainbow body (‘ja’ lus) is attained.

As described earlier in this book, this is the particular sign of enlightenment in Dzogchen—the release of the elements of the body at death into their pure form as colored lights.

Ordinarily, our sense of who we are depends on our environment: our bodies, relationships, circumstances, thoughts, and memories.

When we abide in the nature of mind, the images and thoughts that represent our identities dissolve into the empty essence.

How we relate to what manifests from that space determines whether we are caught up in delusion or freed in wisdom. Whatever experience arises to one not abiding in the natural mind—even a vision of buddhas or pure lands—is a dualistic vision rooted in the delusion of self and other.

Whatever experience arises for the practitioner stable in the nature of mind is a tögal vision.