Inner Fire Practices of Bön Dzogchen (Meditation Retreat)

Overview

The Tibetan Bön model of Dzogchen presented in this retreat provides a comprehensive introduction into the Inner Fire practice of the inner channels and the chakras as outlined in the Bön tradition. In this retreat, students will be presented with a detailed set of “Tummo" (Inner Fire) instructions designed to clear energetic obscurations of the body in order intensify the clarity and luminosity inherent of primordial awareness.

These vivid energy practices are developed upon the foundations of "Trekchö” (See: Deepening Awareness Practice | Retreat 1) and designed to refine and stabilise awareness beyond the conceptual mind.

The intention of “Tummo” (Inner Fire) practice is to clear physiological and conceptual blockages that interfere with recognising the Minds natural luminosity & emptiness, the essential point of Bön. Through a series of visualisations intending the mind on the energy channels, chakras and winds, a more lucid connection between mind and body is established. Whilst, there are varying degrees of intensity with which Inner Fire can be performed, this is an advanced energy practice that requires students to be suitably prepared to receive the full benefit. Before progressing, students should have a strong foundation in the Preliminary Practices of Bön, One-Pointed Concentrated Evenness, and have been introduced to the natural state.

It should be noted that Trekchö (thoroughly-cutting-through) practice of dzogchen is the foundational view and has been designed to cut through all mental obscuration preventing realisation of the minds natural state. It is a students capacity to rest evenly in concentrated, non-dual awareness; clear and luminous, that serves as the basis for “Tummo” (Inner Fire) practice. It is this way to avoid practitioners engaging this work from the conceptual mind which invites a subject-object, doer-doing differentiation rather than experienced as simply luminous emptiness.

This retreat is grounded and authorised in the A Krid Dzogchen (pronounced “Atri”) Lineage of Tibetan Bön Dzogchen and is a one-thousand-year-old compendium of the middle path to liberation in Bön. This root text is the gateway to a series of expanded texts, including the ‘Self-Arising Three-fold Embodiment of Enlightenment, that refine the skills that ultimately lead to full awareness of mind.

Chapter 8 is covered from the text: ‘The Pith Instructions for the Stages of the Practice Sessions of the A-Tri (A Khrid) System of Bön Dzogchen Meditation’.

Book 8 is covered from the text: ‘Self-Arising Three-fold Embodiment of Enlightenment of Bön Dzogchen Meditation’. This text is an extensive commentary on the A Khrid Bön Great Completion practice of the Bru rGyal ba tradition by Shar rDza Rinpoche.

These texts are available for purchase here and will be available for pick up at the commencement of the next retreat.