'Let us praise the Dharma King of the Thousand Peacock Eyes.'
—Nestorian Christian Sutra from Dunhuang, 8th c.
'If you wish to see the Body of the Buddha, gaze into the fivefold rainbows.'
—Tapihritsa
According to ancient hermetico-alchemical Alexandrian doctrines, as colour is in itself a chromatic modality of pure light, so the 'tincture' or colour of any thing is co-identical with its vivifying pneuma.
Marsilio Ficino preserves and advances this metaphysics of light. For the Florentine Platonist, pure light is the irradiation of the One, which is the Good (Agathon). The spectrum of colours is the prismatic emanation of the Intelligible Ideas in the Archetypal World, which 'takes on the forms of various colours... containing sparks of light as their little souls' (De Lumine).
Ficino elaborates the same esoteric doctrine as Suhrawardhi who contemplates the irradiation of the archetypal Victorial Lights from the supreme 'Light of Lights' (Nur al-Anwar) in his Hikmat al-Ishraq. Rooted in the profound depths of ancient Persian and 'Oriental' light-theosophy, this metaphysical vista ultimately opens upon eternal topographies of light, imperishable landscapes of luminosity which constitute the 'Terra Lucida' and relate to the angelic radiance, aura or nimbus of solarity, the 'divine glory', Xvarenah.
Pure light is the irradiation of the One, which is the Good (Agathon). The spectrum of colours is the prismatic emanation of the Intelligible Ideas in the Archetypal World...
The luminous light-seed symbolism of Bodhichitta in Indo-Tibetan and Tantric traditions is to be considered as interrelated with these themes.
Scholars such as Herbert Guenther, Giuseppe Tucci and Francis Siso have speculated upon the historical interactions between spiritual traditions in Central Asia along the ancient Silk Road, positing archaic synthetizing influences from Indo-Iranian gnostic currents, Zurvanism, Manichaean strains, Syro-Oriental Christianity propagated in the East as the Jingjiao - 'The Luminous Teaching' (with its esoteric doctrines and praxes regarding the uncreated 'Taboric Light') upon Bon-Po and Buddhist cultures on the Himalayan plateau.
More apposite to our special perspective is the suggestive comment made by the French metaphysician, René Guénon, that the Nestorian Church in the East functioned as a kind of 'cover' or 'concealment' of the hidden initiatory centre in central Asia symbolized in the medieval imagination as the fabulous oriental 'Kingdom of Prester John' alluded to in the Grail-cycles of the European Middle Ages. The figure of Prester John was considered identical with the mysterious archetypal king-pontiff, the Rigden-Jyepo or 'King of the World'. Guénon comments upon the relations which existed at that period between Nestorian Christianity, Indo-Tibetan Vajrayana and Bon (and also contacts relating to the beginnings of Islam). The iconography of the Nestorian 'Swastika Cross' emblem with lotus and flaming pearl, found as far as Yuan dynasty China, may be pertinent to these considerations, also noting the polar-axial symbolism of the 'Nine-Tiered Swastika Mountain' in the sacred land of Tagzig Olmo Lungring from whence, according to the doctrine, the Bon teachings emanated 18,000 years ago and also the figure of the 'Transcendent Lord', Shen Lha Okar, 'God of the White Light', primordial divinity of Yungdrung (Swastika) Bon.[[1]]
As an integral initiatory doctrine and praxis of Light-hierophanies and visionary photisms, we can cite the Indo-Tibetan traditions of Dzogchen Atiyoga within Bon and Buddhadharma. René Guénon's contextualisation of initiation in regard to Buddhadharma affirms that the attainment of the Lesser Mysteries corresponds with the degree of Arahantship, the term of the Greater Mysteries being identical with the degree of the Bodhisattvic being who, in realization of the Buddha-nature, attains the supreme liberation.
Atiyoga, literally the 'Primordial Yoga' transmitted and practised as the summit of Bon-Po and Tantric Buddhist initiatory traditions, is traditionally held to be the highest teaching of the Nine Vehicles and the path beyond all others, offering an immediatist or instantaneous gnosis of the non-dual ground: the spontaneous (sahaja) supra-formal, supra-individual realization of the Supreme Identity (here symbolized as the Buddha-nature, one's own true awareness personified in the Adi-Buddha, Kuntuzangpo/Samantabadhra, the 'All-Creating King', the 'All-Good One') which crowns the yogic vehicles as the apogee and zenith of the Greater Mysteries – symbolized by the short Tibetan letter ‘A’ equating with kadag, 'primordial purity' of the Base. Of metaphysical necessity, all traditional forms effectively contain an implicit Atiyoga at their highest plane as 'a Light neither of the East or the West.' Indo-Tibetan traditions of the Great Perfection (Mahasandha) present a notably pure transmission of this primordial gnosis and initiatic ontology of Light.
As the paradoxical 'path neither taken up nor abandoned', going beyond causational method and gradualist paths of striving and effort, abandoning any reifying conceptualization or dualistic contrivance, the essence of Atiyoga lies in the sudden effortless release into, and instantaneous recognition of, the pure awareness or gnosis (Rigpa, Skt. Vidya) of the non-dual Base (Kunzhi), the numinous ground (Skt. Alaya Vijnana) of Mind from which all apparent phenomena (samsaric and nirvanic) arise as luminous displays of the Clear Light of Shunyata– the dynamic aspect of the Base manifesting as a spontaneous play of energies (Rtsal) appears as the luminosities of self-arising Wisdom. Rigpa is like the jewel of gnosis overlooked and occluded by mundane nescience, the crystalline mirror obscured by the dualistic obscurations of the 'world of red dust': like the primal substance of the alchemists, which is blindly handled everyday without any awareness of the secret treasure of its essence.
Trekchod or 'cutting through' the existential roots of dualizing ignorance that sees only delusory appearance: The simile evoked is that of a cord tightly binding a bundle of staves. Upon 'cutting through' the cord, the staves are suddenly released, just as mind is released spontaneously and without effort into its natural (sahaja) state: this is the prelude to, sometimes simultaneous with, Thogel– the 'skull-ward leap' or 'cross-over' in which visionary appearances and luminous displays of Light-Seeds, Bindus or Thigles, are facilitated through various yogic methods, pranayamas, asanas and operative modes of gazing.[[2]]
For those possessing the requisite spiritual qualifications, yogic 'sky-gazing' practises are cultivated to obtain and contemplate visions of the rainbow-luminescent Five Lights of the Thigles, observing them shine and dilate into congeries forming luminescent 'vajra-chains' with increasing stabilization, at more advanced degrees unfurling into vast garlanded pavilions, jewel-nets, palaces and pure realms of light in which the radiant mandalas of peaceful and wrathful deities are beheld filling the visionary firmament.[[3]]
The visionary appearances of the Bindus/Light-seeds or Thigles: these are conceived by an archaic traditional doctrine to be projections of the rays of the Five Lights of the luminous Thigle at the heart-space, ascending through the central 'Crystal Kati-Channel' and emanating via two branching channels through the eyes (the eyes because of their aqueous physiological constitution are called 'the Lamps of the Far-Reaching Water Lasso') and appearing as visionary photisms, manifesting to perception as luminous displays of the self-arising Wisdom of the Base.
The primordial light of Rigpa in the heart-space corresponds with the Dharmakaya, the rays of the Five Radiances projected along the central 'Hollow Crystal Kati Channel' and through the ocular channels correspond with the Sambhogakaya, the perceived visionary displays of the luminosities of self-arising Wisdom corresponding with the Nirmanakaya. In this way the yogic mystery of Thogel encompasses the experiential realization of the Trikaya (Three Bodies) of the Buddha.
The Lukhang temple murals at Lhasa depict the stylized emblem of the 'Yak's Eye', symbolizing the narrowed recursive yogic gaze which refracts light into a radiant 'fan' of prismatic rays or 'spears' contemplated as a screen upon which Thigles– described variously as transparent light-seeds in motion like 'beads of mercury' or droplets of a waterfall cascading down a mountain, iridescent vajra-strands resembling wreaths of lustrous pearls and so forth – may be perceived by the yogic practitioner, and are to be observed 'without craving or fixation'.[[4]]
The Bon treatise 'The Six Lamps of Illumination'[[5]] states:
'The channel of the eyes are the doorways through which the visions of Awareness come forth. From the cavity of this channel the Five Lights shine like peacock feathers.'
The Bon teaching affirms as follows regarding these visionary displays:
'As to the Lights, they are the natural light of Awareness, shining in the sky in the manner of rainbow abodes.'[[6]]
Sky-gazing in the limpid heavens of dawn and evening forms an operative technique of the yoga, contemplating the light-field of the sun, the moon, a lamp and so forth. Thogel visions are held in the Atiyoga tantras to be an especially powerful and swift accelerant to initiatic realization – the alchemical 'play' of purified vision and the transfiguration of light as pure gnosis.
Upon the direct recognition (gnosis/vidya) of one’s true essence as the Buddha-nature (Dharmadhatu), the Bon-Sku, all things are seen and known as irradiations of pure rainbow translucence (Tibetan Zang thal– 'transparent', the translucent nature of the Clear Light, alluding to the metaphysical transparency of phenomena known sub specie aeternitatis). The empty luminosity of the clear light of the primordial Thigle is experienced as the true and ultimate nature of all. Thus, opaque objects become permeable to vision for the Atiyogin who can pass through solid mountains, walls, assume countless myriads of forms, travel or be present throughout space, and such-like, as certain Indo-Tibetan Dzogchen tantras relate.
The Five Colours of the Light, forming the rainbow peacock-tailfeathers array of Pan-Indian and Indo-Tibetan symbolic conception, are the chromatic hues as the energetic play of radiances self-arising from the Base, luminous modes of Wisdom illuminating the great visionary mandala of the Five Buddha families: White for Vairochana (Centre), Red for Amitabha (West), Blue for Akshobhya (East), Yellow for Ratnasambhava (South), Green for Amoghasiddhi (North), with their corresponding retinues of wisdom-consorts, buddha-families, faculties of awareness, corresponding modes, sensory-fields, elements, passional states – the primordial non-dual Khorlo (wheel) of Peaceful and Wrathful Deities. The Five Colours/Lights are iterated in the esoteric symbolism of the 5-tined Vajra – 'All Tathagatas are Five Lights' says the tantric commentator Chandrakirti.[[7]]
'The Five Lights are the radiance of the elements and Earth, Water, Fire and Air are the four corruptions. Our very flesh and bones are corruptions of the radiance. You can see the radiance in the Five Colours of the rainbow.'[[8]]
The symbolism of the Five Lights is present too in other faith traditions, including Judaism[[9]] and Islam.[[10]]
At their climactic expansive consummation, the spacious visions are re-absorbed into the primordial luminous Thigle-point at the heart-space, released into the Base. As the Bon text 'The Six Lamps' asserts:
'This quintessence, which abides since the beginning as the Universal Base and Awareness, has a ground located in the centre of the Heart.' [[11]]
This initiatory degree is the attainment of the Rainbow-Body (Tibetan: Jai-Lus, Chinese: Hong Hua) at the instant of supreme Liberation, the material atoms of the body being 'translated' into pure imperishable light – a spiritual resurrection which is the transmutation/transfiguration of the apparent substantiality of the corporeal state into an adamantine Vajra-Body (Vajra-kaya) of light in the supreme mystery of alchemy (Rasayana).
'Through the quality of the Moon, the body becomes like a crystal, emitting a shadowless radiance. Through the quality of the Sun, the body being transformed into a Rainbow-body of Purity, becomes invisible to others.'[[12]]
[[1]]: As the 'Tantra of Great Bliss' trans. C. Wilkinson, Cambridge, MA, 2015. p.89-91. says: 'The unchanging swastika is the embodiment of the Great Perfection... We attain that swastika that has no birth or death.' Cf. R. Guenon for the symbolism of the swastika as the immutable pole and emblem of the Supreme Centre, co-identical with the indestructible and adamantine Vajra in Bon po symbology, the non-dual Principle.
[[2]]: Yogic gazing (drishti) possibly originating from ancient Indian 'sun-gazing' antecedents and Surya-yogis. Such methodologies find parallels in the yogic text 'Vijnana Bhairav Tantra' (itself part of Rudrayamala Tantra): 'One should fix one's sight on the place where the light from the sun, lamp, etc, forms different colours. There indeed one's true Self (Atman) will reveal itself' (verse 76); and furthermore, Lord Bhairava instructs: 'Meditate on the five voids in the form of the five-coloured circles on a peacock's tail; when the circles dissolve one will enter into the supreme Void (Shunya) within.' (verse 32)
[[3]]: In a paradoxical teaching-simile the non-dual Base of Gnosis-Mind, Chitta-Vajra, is likened to a pure crystal which when acted upon by a 'secondary cause' such as sunbeams striking upon it, manifests and emits the rainbow colours of the Five Radiances which are conceived as having been latent within the crystal – this traditional perspective runs counter to modern scientific theories of light expounded by materialistic Newtonian physics: the ontological viewpoint of Atiyoga is however that the ultimate reality and original nature of all things is and always has been, stainless pure light – so that the light of a 'secondary cause' can activate the 'solidified light' of the crystal to manifest the rainbow innate and latent within it, manifesting luminous potentialities, 'rays, lights, sounds' – 'light from light'. Just so in the medieval texts of Western Hermetic alchemy, many adepts counsel the artist to utilize an 'external fire' to activate and potentiate the 'internal fire'. According to René Guénon, the Hermetic Sulphur of the Wise corresponds to the luminous Divine Ray.
[[4]]: In the Western alchemical treatise 'The Water-Stone of the Wise', such polychromatic visions are alluded to thus: 'First there appear granular bodies like fishes eyes, then a circle around the substance which is first reddish, then turns white, then green and yellow like a peacock's tail.' In numerous Atiyoga texts such as 'Yeshe Lama', the Thigles are likewise described as 'multiform eyes' likened explicitly to 'fishes eyes' i.e. spherical orbs/drops containing circular striated bands of rainbow luminosity.
In terms of the Hermetico-alchemical Great Work, the 'blacker than black' of the Raven's Head, may correspond with dark retreats and darkness meditations, the darkness subsequently illuminated by the appearance of the Cauda Pavonis, the arising visionary-luminous display of the Peacock's Tail. The Albedo or White Swan regimen relates to the purification and gnosis of the Clear Light, that of the Rubedo or Phoenix with the subsequent realization of the Vajra-kaya, Sahaja-kaya or Rainbow Body.
[[5]]: In 'The Six Lamps: Secret Dzogchen Instructions from the Bon Tradition', p.76 (trans. Jean-Luc Achelard, 2017, Wisdom Publications).
[[6]]: Ibid, p.77.
[[7]]: The great Buddha Tonpa Shenrab, founder of the Bon tradition, descended as a prismatic radiance of Five Colours from the heavenly palace of Akanishta, to settle as a luminous bird on his mother's head, emitting a white light-ray into his father and a red-light-ray into his mother at his own conception.
[[8]]: Ch.22 'The Clear Meaning Tantra' in 'The Gospel of Garab Dorje: The Highest, Secret Teachings of Tibetan Buddhism', ed. R. Calverley, Twin Lakes 2022.
[[9]]: In the Kabbalistic tradition the rainbow is the symbol of the Shekhinah. The Zoharic account of Moses' ascent of Sinai relates how the cloud that the prophet was enveloped in was the rainbow-coloured luminescence or 'vesture' of the Shekinah. See also the luminous, multi-hued 'robe of glory' in the Syriac 'Hymn of the Pearl'. An 18th century German alchemical text describes the crowning of the Opus as the adept's attainment of a 'pure spiritual body of rainbow colours like unto the transparent, crystal-like, paradisiacal gold'.
[[10]]: In the Shia esoteric treatise 'Umm al-Kitab', 'The Mother of Books' from 8th century Kufa (in W. Barnstone & M. Meyer 'The Gnostic Bible' Boston 2009), we find this cosmogenic account, equating the Five Lights to the Panj Tan Pak of the Holy Prophet’s family:
'Before the sky or earth or any creature, there were five pre-existent lights in five colours like the rainbow. Sublime air issued like sun from sparks of light... The five lights stood in this air and a glow came out of the... light continuously, and in five colours: hearing, sight, smell, taste and speech. The Five Lights are Muhammed, Ali, Fatima, Hasan and Husayn.'
Cf. 'Die Islamische Gnosis. Die extreme Schia und die Alawiten', H. Helm, Munich 1982.
[[11]]: Supra, p.176.
[[12]]: 'The Perfection of Desire as the Path (Kama-Siddhi): Three Early Indian Vajrayana Treatises', trans. Laul Jadusingh, p.41 n.d.
