The Six Lamps

The Zhang Zhung Nyan Gyud is an ancient cycle of Bön Dzogchen teachings. It contains quintessential esoteric teachings as well as practices relating to Dzogchen.

The Six Lamps is a text found in the Zhang Zhung Nyan Gyud. It is a fairly long text composed of a root text and a commentary. Like the text on the five pure lights, it is a teaching that explains both the primordially pure essence and the error of the dualistic mind.

Here I give a very short explanation of the text.

From The Six Lamps:

How are samsara and nirvana separated?

How is Samantabhadra the primordial buddha?

How do sentient beings wander in samsara with their karma?

Samantabhadra is the buddha through realizing.

Sentient beings wander in samsara through not realizing.

The empty basis (kunzhi) and innate awareness (rigpa) are the basis of delusion and realization.

The moving mind is the cause of delusion and realization.

The three visions of sound, light, and rays are the secondary causes of delusion and realization.

There is no delusion or realization in kunzhi and rigpa.

There is no separation of samsara and nirvana in kunzhi and rigpa.

There is delusion and realization in the moving mind.

There arises the separation of samsara and nirvana in the moving mind.

Samsara and nirvana, ignorance and realization, deluded beings and buddhas, all arise from the same basis, the kunzhi, which is beyond any dualism of pure or impure, existent or nonexistent.

The moving mind arises from the kunzhi as a result of karma.

Samantabhadra is the primordial buddha because he was never deluded, never distracted from the natural state. He never mistook phenomena for something other than empty luminosity.

We ordinary beings are distracted. We identify with the moving mind and objectify phenomena. Deluded and trapped in the dualistic vision of me and not-me, we wander in samsara.

As I stated earlier, Dzogchen teachings say that inseparable emptiness and luminosity is the true nature of all phenomena.

In Dzogchen teachings, this fundamental reality is sometimes symbolized as a single sphere of pure light. It is single because it is non-dual. It is not single in opposition to something else. It has no boundaries or divisions, no inside or outside.

Though it is non-dual, the elemental energies ceaselessly manifest in it. This is why it is often painted as a sphere of rainbow light made of the five elemental colors.

Light is used as a symbol because (1) it is the least substantial of all things that we can perceive through the senses. Also, (2) the nature of mind is radiant and clear, like light. (3) Like the light of a candle, awareness illuminates itself as well as whatever it touches.

In Tibetan teachings, the word nang wa is often translated into English as “vision” or “appearance.” But it does not refer only to visual phenomena.

In this case, “vision” actually means “experience” and includes what is seen through the physical eyes and the mind’s eye; what is heard, smelled, tasted, touched; what arises in mental experience; and what is imagined. These are all “visions” because they arise in the light of awareness, the light of pure presence.

Although these are only words, they are close to describing the real experience. Luminosity means the “light” of awareness as well as all phenomena that arise in awareness, which without exception are also luminous.