The Blissful Body of the Yogi(ni): Yidam Practice & Yoga Asana

Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, a Tibetan yogi often compared to the great Milarepa , when addressing the issue of Yidam practice within the Vajrayana vehicle of Tibetan Buddhism, has said:"It is the blissful body of the yogi or yogini that is the true Deity". So what might this mean? And how, if at all, is it (or could it be) related to the practice of Yoga asana? Let’s explore …

Yidam practice unfolds in two stages: (1) The Generation or Creation Stage, in which the specific deity that one is working with is created, i.e. given a “form” within the imagination of the practitioner; and (2) The Completion Stage, in which that created form of the deity is dissolved: resolved into emptiness, and (its residue, its true intelligence) light/radiance. The practice also, over time, evolves from one in which the deity is merely a conceptual projection, to one in which the “natural deity” appears, non-conceptually, before the practitioner, as a visible aspect of his/her own radiance.

Yidam practice as a whole is based, in large part, upon a productive use of the imagination. It takes that capacity (and strong tendency) most of us have to make mental pictures, and uses this as a tool to align us with, open us to, a reality that is deeper, more profound, and “truer” than the one we’re habitually “tuned into.” The imagined forms of the deities have the quality of being able, potentially, to act as portals, or gateways into these deeper realities … to put us in touch, directly, with aspects of awakened mind.

Now it’s important to notice the distinction between ~ on the one hand ~ this Yidam-practice way of using our imagination (as a very specific form of mental training, which ultimately can liberate us), and ~ on the other hand ~ a use of the imagination which amounts to no more than (habitual, and often largely unconscious) fantasizing. To engage in fantasy is ~ from the perspective of Buddha Dharma ~ a non-productive use of the imagination: one that takes us further into the territory of conceptualization, mental elaboration, and as such further and further away from a reality which has the potential to liberate us.

So how does any of this relate to the practice of Yoga asana? We could, first of all, consider each specific asana as a deity-form: something we construct/project (a la the Creation Stage) and then dissolve (a la the Completion Stage). And certainly asana practice is based largely upon a distinction between productive and non-productive alignments/uses of the body. The productive alignments (a la the productive uses of mental imagination) are those which have the potential to open us into a reality deeper than the mere physical, e.g. to the level of the Central Channel/Shushumna Nadi, and the subsequent conscious flow of that awakened energy outward, into the whole network of nadis within the subtle body of the yogi or yogini. The non-productive alignments (a la fantasies), on the other hand, simply keep the energy of our subtle bodies circulating unconsciously (divorced from the “truth” of the Shushumna Nadi) in old samskaric patterns, i.e. keep us circling on the wheel of bith-and-death which in Buddhism is called Samsara.

And in the same way that in deity practice there is an evolution from the deity as a mere conceptual projection (though a potentially productive one!) to the non-conceptual appearance of the “natural deity”; just so in our asana practice we often begin with a rather “outside-in” approach, in which the asana is actually a form of conceptual projection, i.e. it’s an “idea” we have (from our teacher, or books, or whatever) that we put forth in the form of an arrangement of (the appearance of) bones, muscles, etc. … but it’s not yet “real” or “natural.” As our asana practice matures, more and more we’re able to work from the “inside-out,” in which the asanas emerge spontaneously, non-conceptually, as aspects of our natural intelligence/radiance. Our movements in and out of the asanas are infused with the spirit of what in Taoism is called Wu Wei: an effortless effort which quite naturally produces the “correct” alignments (as opposed to “imposing” those alignments based upon some external “moral code” of asana practice).

So how then do we progress from a conceptual to a natural way of expressing our asana practice? From the poses as mere conceptual projections to expressions of an awakened bodymind? A practitioner of the Generation Stage of Yidam practice might move in this direction by finding the Completion Stage within the Creation Stage, by finding the dissolution of the form as an inherent aspect of the form itself (much as ~ in Taoist theory/practice ~ Yang is an inherent aspect of Yin: they inter-are). In this same way, our asana practice might re-member the dissolution of form within every form/asana taken. And might ~ to extend the principle ~ put into conscious and ever-evolving relationship all opposing movements … So little by little our “ideas” about the “right way” to do the pose are replaced by an ever-more-subtle tremoring which spontaneously aligns us in a way that allows our conceptually projected “body” to dissolve into the blissful body of the deity: an aspect of our own radiance, pouring forth, shedding itself continuously, for the benefit of all living beings.

One of the initial trainings in Dream Yoga ~ once the practitioner is able to be lucid (i.e. awake) within the dream ~ is to transform the body: to change the shape of ones body into the body of a bird; into an airplane (and fly to Paris!); or ~ relevant to our current exploration ~ into the shape of a deity, which ~ in the context of dreaming ~ is quite easy to experience and understand as being an “empty form,” i.e. a form made only of color, light & energy (much like a rainbow). In this same way, our vinyasa ~ our movement in and out of asanas, upon the thread of our awakened breath ~ might become, with practice, a kind of “Rainbow Painting” (I’ve borrowed the phrase from a book with this same title written by Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche): merely a “play” in color, light and energy, a toggling back and forth between the display of empty forms (the specific asanas), and the bliss which is the residue of their dissolution.

And this, perhaps, represents ~ simultaneously ~ the “waking up” of the dream of our asana practice, and the “waking up” of the dream of our Yidam practice; represents the “waking up” from the dream/fantasy of religious practice into the blissful radiance of the Present Moment … Amen and Sobeit.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elizabeth Reninger has been exploring yoga ~ in its Hindu, Buddhist & Taoist forms ~ for more than twenty years, and is a student of Richard Freeman and Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. She is also a published poet, and currently resides in Boulder, Colorado. For more essays on yoga-related topics, please visit her website.

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The Blissful Body of the Yogi(ni): Yidam Practice & Yoga Asana

ABOUT THE AUTHOR