Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 47-minute teaching, Geshe Jampa Gyaltsen guides practitioners through the detailed visualization practices of the completion stage of the Six Yogas of Naropa, based on Je Tsongkhapa’s commentary. He begins with practical logistics—how to balance vase breathing exercises with visualization work without rushing—then moves into the foundational framework: completing generation stage practice first, dissolving the ordinary body into emptiness, and arising as a chosen deity (such as Heruka, Yamāntaka, or Vajrayoginī) whose body is pure wisdom. The bulk of the session focuses on a systematic visualization of the three main channels and four channel wheels. Geshe covers the central channel (running from the navel to the crown, internally red and externally blue), the right and left side channels, and the four primary wheel centers at the navel, heart, throat, and crown—including their shapes, colors, petal counts, and how the channels interconnect and branch outward. He emphasizes that beginners should start simply, visualizing the three main channels clearly before worrying about all 72,000 channels or every branch detail. Intended for practitioners already familiar with tantric generation stage practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1993-12-05 – 2A – Inner Heat Retreat – KR.mp3
UUID: ddcac2b9-132b-43f2-99b0-35677d52d855
Teacher: Geshe Jampa Gyaltsen
Collection: Six Yogas of Naropa
Date: 1993-12-05
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~1,658
So I think it would be difficult to to do the exercise and the breathing together. Rather than combining the vase breathing and these exercises simultaneously, you could do them in an alternate, do a then an exercise, an breathing exercise. There’s no specific numbers set out according to how much time you have. In view of how much time you have, you’d have to allot that much time for the exercise. Yeah.
So one session and one time, but how long they took would be according to how much time you had for your session. So this is a an explanation of a teaching of Je Rinpoche on the completion yoga, but this text itself is not by Tsongkhapa. It’s not composed by Tsongkhapa. It’s a is a comment, an explanation of another commentary on Tsongkhapa’s teaching on Completion Yoga. So it’s taken from Tsongkhapa’s, but it’s an explanation of a teaching by Tsongkhapa on Completion Yoga.
His teacher received the teaching on completion yoga from Je Rinpoche. From Tsongkhapa. So in a slow, relaxed. So it’s in it’s best if it’s done in a slow, relaxed manner with the proper visualization. It’s mainly trying to expel the bad winds, to remove conceptions, and to vitalize the channels of the body.
So, a slow, gentle, relaxed manner. So, it’s necessary to the channels have various defects and trying to eliminate the defects of the channels and to bring about healthy channels. So, this is in order to remove any obstacles as was explained previously to request the blessings that one’s winds become blissful, to develop healthy channels, and to gain the realization of emptiness. That’s, yeah, as was explained, one is the single deity without consort whether it be Vajrayoginī, Heruka, or Yamāntaka, and maintaining the visualization of oneself as the deity. So in the practice of generation stage, one is to continually visualize oneself as a deity, and so here, since this is a completion stage practice, go back, but it’s done at the preparation, it’s done at the generation stage.
It is mentioned specifically that one is to generate oneself as the deity, but in general, in practice of generation stage, one is continually meditating oneself as the deity. The, without, and without the generation stage, one cannot go on to the completion stage. Yes. So once in through the dissolution into emptiness, has eliminated one’s gross body. Within emptiness, gross body is purified, everything becomes empty.
And then within this emptiness, the wisdom realizing emptiness takes on the aspect of the deity. It’s like in the course of taking rebirth, we abandon the old body, we go through an intermediate state, and we take on a new body. And likewise here, we abandon the old gross body and then go through an intermediate state and take on the new body of it of the deity. The deity in the body is in fact the expression of the wisdom realizing emptiness and taking on physical aspect of the deity whether it’s Heruka, Yamāntaka, Vajrayoginī. One’s body is in the nature of wisdom.
So, the one in nature, one’s body is wisdom, understanding, emptiness. In aspect, it takes the shape of the particular deity, and then internally it’s completely empty or hollow. So it’s in the once the body is light, like an illusory body without any defects and without any defects and without any physical problems whatsoever. Internally, there are no organs, like intestines, etcetera. It’s hollow.
So but then we go on to visualize the channels within the body. The human body has these channels and we go on to visualize these channels. So now we should then visualize that in the center of our body, we’re going to visualize the central channel and with in in the center of our body, slightly to the back, near to the back and very straight runs the central channel from the level of the navel upward toward the crown and ending between the brows. It can be the thickness depending upon it can be the diameter can be thin as as Rinpoche pointed out, or if you find it difficult, it can be visualized thicker depending upon ease of visualization. So, the second division is the visualizing the channels. They’re flexible and smooth.
Should do. So the channel has three qualities. It is straight. It is the inside of the channel is the inside wall. The channel internally, it’s red.
Externally, it’s blue. That’s the second quality color. And thirdly, it’s hollow. So the interior wall is red. The external wall is blue.
It’s straight. It’s very flexible, very delicate like the petals of a flower. And then this is the visualization of the right and left channels. It’s central channel, then to to the right is the right channel, is red in color. And then to the left is the left channel, white in color.
Running along the the side channels are running alongside the central channel. So the, as you may be able to see from the drawing, central channels are, the side channels are joined into the central channel at the bottom and then they all three channels move upward. The central channel opens up, comes out at the brow between the eyebrows and the two side channels exit down at the The central channel just extends down to the level of the navel. The two side channels extend slightly further, but then curve back up and enter into the central channel. The the central channel to the level of the navel.
The side channels extend a bit further down and then curve back up and join into the center. In general, there are 72,000 channels, but here we’re just concerned with the three main channels. So in general, there are five channel wheels. But here we’re only concerned with four. At the channel wheels at the level of the navel, the heart, the throat, and the crown.
This is the channel wheel of great bliss at the crown. At the heart center, each of the two side channels wrap around So at the heart center, each of the two side channels wrap around twice, three times.
So, the right wraps around three times, the left wraps around three times. These are called knots, making a total of six knots at the heart center. So the the there are three knots above and three knots below the actual heart center itself with the channel wheel at the heart. So, above the channel wheel there are three knots, below the channel wheel there are three knots. Then the actual channel wheel itself, there are four main subchannels moving off, one in each of the directions, north, south, east, and west.
So then these, again, fork off into two branches, making eight branch channels. So you can you can look at this. Yes. Yes.
You got. So they they are it’s like is there a curve? The shape is that they are curved. They’re white in color. So their their shape is that they’re curved?
Oh, They’re round. And and they’re So they’re they’re circular.
They’re they’re white, and they’re they’re they’re bowl shaped facing downward. So they’re curving downward. So at the heart at the throat center, there are two knots. And then as was the case at the heart center, there the the the sub channels branch off in the four directions. But here, they they branch they fork off twice, making a total of 16 branches or petals.
Petals. Not red in color? Yeah. Circular. Same shape as before.
The throat channel wheel is like a bowl shape facing upward. Then the crown channel wheel called the wheel of great bliss is located between the skull, the cranium and the brain. So there’s a space between the cranium and the brain. Between that space is the crown channel wheel And it has 32 petals. And the the arrangement of the petals of the of the branches is there’s 32.
So it’s just as in the case of the secret place. Then at the navel, there is the navel channel wheel, which is called the wheel of emanation. And it has two knots, one above and one below. And as is the case with the others, there are four main branches, and then these fork off immediately again and again and finally making a total of 64 petals, these sub branches.
And the the crown channel wheel is the branches are multicolored. The shape is triangular. Curving downward. The throat throat branches are curving upward. Throat channel with branches are red.
The navel channel wheel branches are multicolored. The shape is triangular, curving downward. Those are the four channel centers. So we won’t be dealing with the secret place channel wheel.
The channels are transparent, almost like glass. They’re very they have no defects. They’re flawless, and the the side channels run immediately alongside the central channel. Beginners, such a visualization would be extremely difficult. We should mainly, you know, we can simply mainly concern ourselves with the visualization of the three channels.
And just imagine that the various branch branches, channels moving out from the centers are there. Just roughly imagine. And amongst amongst them, mainly concerning ourselves with the visualization of the central channel. So this is that’s the second. So this is the second division visualizing the the channels and the channel centers.
So trying to gain a clear appearance in terms of visualization of these channels and channel centers. Then the third division is training in the pathways, visualizing the channels as clearly as possible. Like, try to see them as you would see an object with your eye. They should try to be that clear.