Illustrating the Dzogchen Teachings through Murals

Jakob Winkler

Lukhang Murals

Lhasa, U region, central Tibet (present-day TAR, China) ca. 1700 and later

Lukhang Murals, detail of western wall mural showing yogis applying Dzogchen practices; Lukhang, Lhasa; 17th century or later; photograph © Thomas Laird, 2018, from Murals of Tibet, TASCHEN

Summary

Buddhist studies scholar Jacob Winkler explores the Chapel of Serpents, the island temple of the Dalai Lamas where murals depict the holy realm of Shambhala and the yogic practices of the “Great Perfection.” This practice emphasizes the pure, enlightened awareness that is inherent in all beings. Murals in the temple show great masters of the past, the realms and beings between death and rebirth, and the yogic exercises and meditative visions that lead to liberation.

Key Terms

Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lamas are a tulku lineage that has played a central role in Tibetan history for the last five hundred years. In 1577 a Mongol khan gave the Geluk monk Sonam Gyatso (1543–1588) the title “Dalai Lama,” combining the Mongolian word for ocean, dalai (a reference to the depth of his knowledge), and the Tibetan word for guru, lama. Later, two previous incarnations were retroactively identified. The fifth incarnation, Ngawang Gyatso (1617–1682), allied with another Mongol khan to unite most of the Tibetan Plateau, forming the Ganden Podrang government that would govern Tibet until 1959. Since the Communist takeover, the current Fourteenth Dalai Lama has lived in exile at Dharamshala in India. The Dalai Lamas are understood to be emanations of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.

Dzogchen

Dzogchen refers to ritual practices and philosophical texts associated with the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as Bon. Dzogchen texts emphasize yogic practices, techniques for navigating the bardo states between birth and death, and the nature of the universe as pure, self-arisen consciousness.

lu

Lu is an ancient class of Tibetan exorcistic rituals in which one object is substituted for another. Often, negative forces affecting a person are enticed to enter an effigy (torma), which is then burned or discarded.

mahasiddha

In tantric Hinduism and Vajrayana Buddhism, a “siddha” is one who has mastered “siddhis,” or the magical powers that come with yogic practice. The “Great Siddhas” (mahasiddhas) were a semi-mythical group of tantric masters, men and women, who lived in medieval India. They were known for their extraordinary meditative powers, religious poetry, and their transgressive lifestyles, including dwelling in charnel grounds, drinking alcohol, fighting, and having sex. Many Himalayan Vajrayana traditions trace their initiation lineages back to the Mahasiddhas. Depictions of sets of eight, eighty-one, or eighty-four Mahasiddhas are a popular subject in Himalayan art.

Shambhala

According to the Kalachakra Tantra, Shambhala is a sacred mythical land in the north where Buddhist kings rule. At the end of our eon, these kings are prophesied to ride out from their mountain-ringed kingdom to destroy enemies of the Buddhist Dharma. In Tibetan and Inner Asian contexts, these enemies are often understood to be Muslim, viewed as the destroyers of Buddhism in India, but the Shambhala myth has often adapted to contemporary crises, and have been reinterpreted to any threat to Buddhism, or the state, including British forces in the Boxer Rebellion, or the Communists. Many individuals and states in history, including Mongol khans, the Russian tsars, and even the emperor of Japan have been identified as the savior-kings described in these prophecies.

visualization

Visualization is a process of using one’s imagination to transform reality. A practitioner imagines in their mind’s eye the deity with the associated enlightened qualities they wish to embody themselves. When focused on a specific deity, visualization and related ritual practices are called deity yoga. Visualization is a fundamental element of such practices described in texts known tantras, which define a system of meditation and ritual meant to transform the mind and body.

These exceptional murals, which illustrate the teachings, are found in an enchanting temple on a small island in the middle of a small lake behind the mighty fortress of the Potala. Accordingly, it is called the Naga Palace behind the Fortress: Dzonggyab Lui Podrang or, in short, Lukhang, literally meaning the House of the Serpents. The picturesque building is famous for its unique and exquisite paintings depicting the most secret practices (fig. 2). The pond was created by extracting earth for building the Potala Palace in the seventeenth century under the Fifth (1617–1682). According to legend, the local (: ), powerful serpentlike beings who inhabit bodies of water, belonging half to the animal realm and half to the god realm, and whose wrath brings disease and drought, appeared to the Great Fifth Dalai Lama during meditation and complained about the disturbance caused by the earthworks. To appease the lu, they were promised that a temple would be built in their honor for regular worship, thereby ensuring timely rainfall and prosperity for Tibet. There are various assertions as to whether the present-day Lukhang, a square, three-story pavilion, covered by a hexagonal Mongolian-style roof, creating the impression of a palace, was built at the time of the Fifth Dalai Lama, or whether an enlargement or a new building was erected on the same site in the time of the Sixth Dalai Lama (1683–1706) in 1700. Some sources see it as a work of the Eighth Dalai Lama (1758–1804) from the year 1791. Much of the thematic material of the wall paintings indicates a close connection to the Sixth Dalai Lama, for example, a detail showing a descendant of Pema Lingpa.

Fig. 2.

The Lukhang on an island behind the Potala Palace, nestled among gnarled old willows; Lukhang, Lhasa; 17th century; photograph © Thomas Laird, 2018, from Murals of Tibet, TASCHEN

The First and Second Floors with Kalachakra and Narrative Murals

In only one of the rooms on the first floor have the murals survived to the present day. They are dedicated to the tantric teachings of Kalachakra and to the regents of the mystical land of Shambhala (fig. 3).

Fig. 3.

Lukhang Murals, detail with Kalachakra Mandala, Shakyamuni, and King Suchandra; Lukhang, Lhasa; 17th century or later; photograph © Thomas Laird, 2018, from Murals of Tibet, TASCHEN

In the single room of the middle second floor, nine panels illustrate two popular stories, which are also performed by Tibetan opera (ache lhamo) troupes: the story of the previous of Padmasambhava as Pema Wobar (fig. 4), and the story of a legendary virtuous woman and , Drowa Zangmo (fig. 5).

Fig. 4

Lukhang Murals, detail of angry naga sinking the boat of Pema Wobar’s father; Lukhang, Lhasa; 17th century or later; photograph © Thomas Laird, 2018, from Murals of Tibet, TASCHEN

Fig. 5

Lukhang Murals, detail of nagas in pool with Drowa Zangmo; Lukhang, Lhasa; 17th century or later; photograph © Thomas Laird, 2018, from Murals of Tibet, TASCHEN

The Third Floor with Mahasiddhas and Dzogchen Murals

The top floor, with an area of less than 550 square feet (50 square meters), is the private chamber of the Dalai Lamas to which they resorted for private meditation retreats. Here we find the murals that have made the Lukhang so famous. To the left of the entrance are the guardians, or ; one of the three is a lu. The eastern wall shows the eighty-four Indian “great accomplished ones” or mahasiddhas (fig. 6), and below them are Padmasambhava and his twenty-five main students. The southeastern corner murals depict historic episodes from the lives of important Tibetan masters over the centuries, including several associated with Dzogchen teachings.

Fig. 6.

Lukhang Murals, detail of eastern wall with eighty-four mahasiddhas, Padmasambhava, and his twenty-five disciples; Lukhang, Lhasa; 17th century or later; photograph © Thomas Laird, 2018, from Murals of Tibet, TASCHEN

The west and north walls are dedicated to the “Great Perfection,” Dzogchen in Tibetan, considered the very essence of all Buddhist teachings. It is called the Great Perfection because it states that enlightenment is already perfectly present in all beings and only needs to be recognized. Thus, is based not on renunciation, as in monastic , or on transformation of the impure into the pure, as in tantric Vajrayana teachings and practices, but on the principle of spontaneous liberation through being in our clear and empty nature.

The Dzogchen teachings are illustrated according to the treasure, or , of Pema Lingpa (1450–1521)(fig. 7). The underlying cycle of teachings is called “The Union of Knowledge” (Kunzang Gongdu); at least eight texts from it serve as the bases for the illustrations, and passages of the text can be clearly assigned to the inscriptions, thus opening up invaluable additional information about what is depicted.

Fig. 7.

Lukhang Murals, detail of Pema Lingpa (left), and Pema Lingpa extracting a terma from the river (right); Lukhang, Lhasa; 17th century or later; photograph © Thomas Laird, 2018, from Murals of Tibet, TASCHEN

Significantly, a lu king or nagaraja, Nele Tokar (fig. 8), is one of the main protectors of this cycle of teachings. Pema Lingpa, who hailed from the area that today is Bhutan, is an ancestor of and in the same lineage as the Sixth Dalai Lama, which could explain why his texts were chosen as the source for the images.

Fig. 8.

Lukhang Murals, detail of naga king Nele Tokar on horse and submitting by kneeling in front of Padmasambhava; Lukhang, Lhasa; 17th century or later; photograph © Thomas Laird, 2018, from Murals of Tibet, TASCHEN

The Cycle of Life, Death, Bardo, and Rebirth

The northern mural provides an overview of the Dzogchen teachings in relation to cosmology, delusion and awakening, and cyclic existence, as well as life itself, with its embryonic development, birth, death, and the intermediate state ().

The left half shows the retaking of a physical form (fig. 9), the following details the embryonic development, and it ends with the mortal beings washed away in the “rivers” of . In the clouds sits a who sends down a fine ray of light to a couple of lovers. The textual source for the left half of the detail, “Closing of the Six Classes: The Tantra of Liberation into the Dimension of Instant Presence [rigpa],” states

Concerning the manner of arising of the compound body, there are two: the ones who transmigrate with control and the others without. Those who migrate in cyclic existence with control are conscious while taking rebirth. Being conscious while entering the womb, yet they incarnate [into samsara] for taming the beings of the six classes [gods, humans, animals, and so forth] in whatever form needed. Those who are transmigrating in cyclic existence without control will either descend downwards due to their ten nonvirtuous actions or progress upwards due to the ten virtuous actions.

Fig. 9.

Lukhang Murals, detail of two of five sections from northern wall dealing with the Cycle of Life: Incarnation, Gestation, Life, Death, Bardo, and Rebirth; Lukhang, Lhasa; 17th century or later; photograph © Thomas Laird, 2018, from Murals of Tibet, TASCHEN

Below these two couples the gestational process of a human fetus is illustrated. The first four weeks are rendered in the form of white, round droplets dividing themselves into more and more segments. Below are three reddish images for the sixth, seventh, and eighth weeks. The remaining weeks are illustrated with twenty-six standing figures, each representing a different stage of embryonic development. At the lower right end of the embryos is the mother giving birth.

The buddhas, blue Samantabhadra and white , who appear in light spheres, illustrate the narrative structure of the literary source: Vajrasattva asks a question to the primordial Buddha Samantabhadra at the start of each chapter.

In each chapter the reader is prompted to discover one’s primordial nature in order to overcome the cycle of permanent rebirth in suffering.

Being swept away by these four great rivers: of existence, of desire, of , and the river of unawareness [ma rigpa]; [one] sinks into the great ocean of the six destinies of the three realms. It is like the sun covered by the clouds, if one has not distinguished between ordinary mind and primordial awareness. Thus, the primordial awareness is covered by the ordinary deluded mind and has no possibility to shine through.

If the primordial state or true nature of being is not realized while the dying person is alive, that person enters the bardo. Here the luminous bardo of experiencing the nature of reality is represented in the right half of the detail of the wall painting. There are the One Hundred Peaceful and Wrathful Deities (found in the Rubin Museum collection here: 1, 2, 3) symbolically representing aspects of human existence in their primordial, enlightened form. Accordingly, in the upper center, five buddhas in union are seen: the five male ones represent the psychophysical aggregates (form, consciousness, perception, sensation, karmic formation), and the female buddhas represent the five elements (space, air, fire, water, earth). By familiarization with the process of dying and the bardo experiences through specific practices during life, the practitioner may use the moment of death for complete awakening. This corresponds to the Liberation upon Hearing teachings (Bardo Todrol) (found in the Rubin Museum collection here: 1, 2), known in the West as the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

The Path of Complete Liberation

The path to liberation is delineated on the western wall (fig. 1). Four texts of Pema Lingpa are illustrated, and the most extensive, “The Essential Instruction Known as the Illuminating Lamp, Composed by Padmasambhava,” describes the start of the path. Here, yogis are shown engaged in various practices. One important category of meditative practice is called khorde rushen, literally, discerning samsara and , that is, the ordinary mind from the nature of mind. We thus see a yogi (in the lower center) doing a exercise in front of a barren tree on which the blue Tibetan syllable HUM meanders. The same Tibetan syllable HUM is depicted in the green-blue rock above him. Below him is a wearing a tiger skin lower garment () and a white scarf. He plays a bell and a damaru drum, which he uses for the direct introduction to the nature of the mind. In this initiation, the teacher guides the student to discover within himself, through his own experience, the unchanging, pure, and spontaneously perfect nature of mind. Once the student recognizes this fundamental state of being, the next step is the continuous deepening of relaxation into this “naked” awareness. For this purpose, practitioners use different postures, as can be seen in the yogis (lower left margin) looking at spheres of light with the Tibetan letter pronounced Ah.

After the yogini has stabilized being in the primordial state, undistracted by rising thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, the practice of the release of tensions, trekcho, is accomplished. The last step is the practice of direct crossing, togel, that makes use of the spontaneous visions of clarity by integrating them in a nondual way. In summary: being in the indivisibility of awareness and is the practice of trekcho. Appearances and emptiness indivisible is the practice of togel.

The lower middle and right part of the detail of the western mural are based on the text “The Mirror of the Key Points of Practice—Teaching by Experiential Instructions.” We see a practitioner sitting in a retreat hut applying togel. Around the hut various apparitions are portrayed. On the right side we see various yogis who practice togel by looking at the rays of sun or moon (fig. 10); through these visions, which appear spontaneously and in a process of development from simple light spheres and apparitions, more and more complex spheres develop, containing symbols, buddhas, and mandalas. Finally, all these visions dissolve again. In this way the yogi experiences directly the mode of how perception and appearance manifest; he realizes experientially the dreamlike quality of all appearance as mere empty forms. Thus the attachment to a solid self and phenomena dissolves, like recognizing the true nature of a dream, as just what it is, apparent but not real.

Fig. 10.

Lukhang Murals, detail of western wall with togel practitioner and spontaneous arising visions; Lukhang, Lhasa; 17th century or later; photograph © Thomas Laird, 2018, from Murals of Tibet, TASCHEN

Footnotes

See the copiously illustrated Thomas Laird et al., Murals of Tibet, 2 vols. (Köln: Taschen, 2018), vol. 1, and its companion volume of explanatory texts, vol. 2.

On the dating, see Jakob Winkler, “The RDzogs Chen Murals of the Klu-Khang in Lhasa,” in Religion and Secular Culture of Tibet: Tibetan Studies II. PIATS 2000: Proceedings of the Ninth Seminar of the International Assocaition for Tibetan Studies, Leiden 2000, ed. Abek Zadoks and Henk Blezer, Brill’s Tibetan Studies Library 2/7 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 321–43.

Elena Pakhoutova, “For One and or for Many: Affluent and Common Patronage of Narrative Art in Tibet,” Material Religion 17, no. 1 (2021): 29–55.

For a simple but profound explanation of Dzogchen, see Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, The Crystal and the Way of Light: Sutra, Tantra, and Dzogchen, ed. John Shane (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 2000).

Pema Lingpa (Padma gling pa), “rDzogs Chen Kun Bzang Dgongs ʼdus,” in Rig ʼdzin Padma Gling Paʼi Zab Gter Chos Mdzod Rin Po Che, vol. 4 and 15 (Thimphu: Kunsang Tobgay, 1975), 4, 15, http://purl.bdrc.io/resource/W217274.

Jakob Winkler, “The Literary Sources of the Klu-Khang Murals,” in Sharro: Festschrift for Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, ed. Donatella Rossi and Charles Jamyang Oliphant of Rossie (Rudolfstetten: Garuda Verlag, 2016).

Pema Lingpa (Padma gling pa), “Rig Pa Klong Grol Gyi Rgyud Rigs Drug Sgo Bcad,” in Rig ʼdzin Padma Gling Paʼi Zab Gter Chos Mdzod Rin Po Che, vol. 4 (Thimphu: Kunsang Tobgay, 1975), 167, http://purl.bdrc.io/resource/W21727.

The book contains instructions for the moment of death and the intermediate state thereafter (bar do) to achieve liberation from the cyclic existence.

Pema Lingpa (Padma gling pa), “Don Khrid Gsal Baʼi Sgrom Me,” in Rig ʼdzin Padma Gling Paʼi Zab Gter Chos Mdzod Rin Po Che, vol. 15 (Thimphu: Kunsang Tobgay, 1975), 5–31, http://purl.bdrc.io/resource/W21727.

Pema Lingpa (Padma gling pa), “Nyams Len Gnad Kyi Me Long Nyams Khrid Du Bstan Pa Ldeb [The Mirror of the Key Points of Practice],” in Rig ʼdzin Padma Gling Paʼi Zab Gter Chos Mdzod Rin Po Che, vol. 15 (Thimphu: Kunsang Tobgay, 1975), 33–40, http://purl.bdrc.io/resource/W21727.