The Six Lamps: Description

The Six Lamps refers to the basis of all as well as five levels of manifest experience. The six divisions are called lamps because each refers to the same light in one of six different contexts.

The First Lamp

The first lamp is the luminosity of the abiding base, the primordial non-dual presence. It is not personal, not individualized, not localized, not dualistic. It is the luminous aspect that, in inseparable unity with emptiness, is the basis of all experience. If the practitioner recognizes the first lamp—not intellectually but by abiding in innate non-dual awareness—then the basis of all is known in every experience and condition and in the other five lamps.

The point of the first lamp is to recognize the light of kunzhi.

The Second Lamp

The second lamp is the “lamp of the flesh heart,” the lamp of the self-rising innate awareness, rigpa, in the dimension of the individual.

It is personal only in the sense that it is the pure awareness underlying the moving mind and the sense of subjectivity. It is related to the dharmakaya. It is awareness localized as an individual experiencing. But it is not bound by any constricted identity, although through the delusions of the dualistic mind we have come to experience it as being bound.

Although rigpa is not actually localized, many practitioners can most easily recognize it through a connection to the heart center. The Six Lamps specifically discusses this in terms of the space inside of the physical heart.

Westerners often find this strange, but it’s similar to what we mean when we say that “in” each being is the nature of mind. The nature of mind is not individual and not localized.

It is truer to say that we exist in the nature of mind than to say the nature of mind is in us. But in our experience, it is easier to recognize the nature of mind if we go “in” to the deepest place in ourselves, the heart. This is why we say that the rigpa resides in the heart, and why the heart is the center of the life-force prana and why love is always connected to the heart. Thus, we talk about the “light of the heart”.

The point of the second lamp is to recognize the light of innate awareness within.

The Third Lamp

The third lamp is the “lamp of the soft white channel.” It is rigpa and the prana of rigpa as it moves in the channels of the body, particularly the channel that connects the heart to the eyes. It is associated with the sambhogakaya.

The third lamp is the rigpa as it pervades, as it seems to move from the heart center throughout experience. Rigpa is not a substance and does not move. Rigpa abides in the heart, unmoving like the dharmakaya, but here it seems to be moving.

The movement in the third lamp is actually the liveliness of rigpa. It is the life-force prana. It is the wisdom of rigpa, which pervades everywhere. Although rigpa does not move, there is movement in rigpa and rigpa can be experienced in movement. The practitioner who is distracted from the nature of mind can seem to be far from rigpa but no one can ever be truly separated from his or her own nature.

We find ourselves unable to recognize rigpa even though it is the awareness underneath the search, the searcher, and the not finding.

Because we seem to lose connection to pure presence, we need to go back into ourselves, into the heart, into the center of experience.

If the practitioner (1) recognizes the essence in the first lamp or (2) abides in rigpa in the second lamp, (3) in the apparent movement of the third lamp he or she will continue to abide in pure presence and the movement will be integrated with the nature of mind.

The point of the third lamp is to recognize the light of the penetrating wisdom as it moves through the channels.

The Fourth Lamp

The fourth lamp is the “water lamp that lights the distance.”

It is the innate awareness experienced through the senses, particularly the eye (the water lamp).

The teaching relates the fourth lamp to the nirmanakaya. For the practitioner, this lamp is found in the first moment of sensory experience, before the conceptual mind shapes the raw sense data into apparent entities and things. For most beings identified with the moving mind, this first moment of experience is like a very brief moment of blankness.

But for the practitioner who has been introduced to the nature of mind, the first moment of any experience allows direct recognition of the innate non-dual awareness of rigpa.

The point of the fourth lamp is to see the light of naked awareness before experience is divided into particular forms or entities.

The Fifth Lamp

The fifth lamp is the “lamp of introduction to the pure land.” It is the light of rigpa as it manifests as luminous, apparently external objects and visions.

When the practitioner abides in the primordial awareness of the first lamp, the objects that arise to the senses remain pure and non-dual. This is known as “cutting doubt in the three bodies (kayas).”

One of the symbols used in teaching Dzogchen is the hollow doll, an empty shell with holes in it where the senses would be in a person: eyes, ears, mouth, and nose. In a dark room, a lit candle is placed inside the doll. There is light in the center of the doll, light moving throughout the doll, and light illuminating what is external to the doll—it is all the same light. Like the explanation in The Six Lamps, this points to the luminosity of primordial awareness as it is recognized in different contexts.

The light from inside the doll illuminates what is external to it. This is the opposite of the way we think in the West, where it is believed that the world comes into us through the senses. In the Tibetan tradition, it is believed that the awareness experiences through the senses.

It is important to remember that what appears to be outside is actually phenomena arising in awareness.

Experience is non-dual; subject and object arise together. They are divided into internal self and external object only conceptually— the light is not actually divided within or without. In reality both poles of duality are empty, luminous phenomena arising in the nature of mind.

This is the point of the fifth lamp—that the light of naked non-dual awareness lies under the apparent division into subject and object.

The Sixth Lamp

The sixth lamp is the lamp of the bardo, the intermediate state after death and before rebirth.

The visions and experiences that arise in the bardo are karmically determined manifestations of our own minds, as are the experiences in this life. For the practitioner who recognizes their true nature, there is liberation.

For the person who does not recognize the visions as self-arising, one vision eventually dominates and the individual is led to the realm and specific situation of his or her next rebirth in cyclic existence.

The point of the sixth lamp is the recognition of the light of samsara and nirvana.