Tummo

Tummo (Tibetan: gtum-mo; Sanskrit: caṇḍalī) is a practice associated with the subtle body of energy-channels, energy-winds and energy-drops. The practices are taught in a suite of advanced sadhana, such as the Six yogas of Naropa, which are contemplative practices, spiritual energetic work or meditations in the Himalayan traditions of Vajrayana and Bön. This discipline is key to a suite of advanced sadhana or spiritual disciplines in Tibetan Buddhism. Himalayan disciplines like Yantra Yoga work with this 'inner heat': where 'yantra' is the synonym for 'asana' .

In common currency, Tummo is related to the description of intense sensations of body heat, that are held to be a partial effect of the practice of Tummo-meditation. Tummo is taught as one part of the six yogas of Naropa. Stories and eyewitness accounts abound of yogi practitioners being able to generate sufficient heat to dry wet sheets draped around their naked bodies while sitting outside in the freezing cold, not just once, but multiple times. These observations have also been discussed in medical articles (Ding-E Young and Taylor, 1998).

Nomenclature and etymology

Tummo (gTum mo in Wylie transliteration, also spelled Tumo, or Tum-mo; Sanskrit caṇḍālī) is a Tibetan word, literally meaning 'fierce [woman]'. Tummo is a Tibetan word for 'inner fire', its literal meaning in Tibetan is 'brave female'.^[1] The term 'drod' and 'tummo' are synonymous though the former is used in Traditional Tibetan medicine, whilst the latter is employed in tantric spiritual disciplines. The Sanskrit terms caṇḍalī and kuṇḍalinī are clearly etymologically related.

Kundalini and tummo

Kundalini is etymologically linked to caṇḍalī, the Sanskrit term for tummo, or 'inner fire'. The two practices are also related. Miranda Shaw clarifies:

Kuṇḍalinī-yoga offered a range of techniques to harness the powerful psycho-physical energy coursing through the body... Most people simply allow the energy to churn in a cauldron of chaotic thoughts and emotions or dissipate the energy in a superficial pursuit of pleasure, but a yogi or yogini consciously accumulates and then directs it for specified purposes. This energy generates warmth as it accumulates and becomes an inner fire or inner heat (caṇḍālī) that burns away the dross of ignorance and ego-clinging.^[2]

Kundalini, therefore, is the energy that when accumulated and directed can become tummo, or inner fire. The two are essentially the same in nature but applied in somewhat different ways in the Hindu Kundalini Yoga practice and the Vajrayana Buddhist tummo practices, such as the Six Yogas of Naropa. Kundalini is generally described as a coiled energy at the base of the spine^[3]^[4]^[5], at the first chakra, whereas Tummo is generally described as being accumulated at the second chakra, four fingers below the navel.^[6]^[7] In Tibetan Buddhism the primary purpose of tummo is to gain control over subtle body processes as a foundation for Anuttarayoga Tantra practices in either the Dzogchen or Mahamudra systems.^[8]

Overview

Kurt Keutzer (2002) discusses the Kundalini yoga, Vajrayana, Nath Sampradaya, Mahasiddha and Milarepa:

Kundalini yoga in the Natha Sampradaya and Vajrayana in Tibetan Buddhism both take their origin from the Mahasiddhas who were active in India from the 8th century to the 12th century. Kundalini yoga practices formed the core of the teachings of a number of these Mahasiddhas and are strongly represented in both Tibetan Buddhist practices and contemporary kundalini yoga practices. Kundalini yoga was spoken of as ``Candali yoga by these Mahasiddhas and became known as gTummo rnal 'byor in Tibet. Candali yoga was a key practice of the famous Tibetan yogin Milarepa.^[9]

The Tummo practices were first described in writing by the Indian yogi and Buddhist scholar Naropa, although the Tibetan Buddhist tradition holds that the practice was actually taught by Shakyamuni Buddha and passed down orally until the time of Naropa. The Tummo practice is also found in the Tibetan Bön lineage. One of the most famous practitioners of Tummo according to the Tibetan tradition was held to be Milarepa. The biography of Milarepa is one of the most popular among the Tibetan people (Evans-Wentz, 2001). Modern western witnesses of this practice include the adventurer Alexandra David-Néel (David-Néel, 1971), Lama Anagarika Govinda (Govinda, 1988), and anthropologist Dr. John Crook.

Dr Arya (2006) in discussing the 'life airs' (Tibetan: rLung) states that historically: "The rLung practitioner (yogi) uses special colors of clothes to improve the power of the Tummo fire."^[10]

Dr Arya (2006) describes the raising of 'drod' or 'tummo' through the tsa lung vortices (Tibetan: khorlo; Sanskrit: chakra) in a manner comparable to the 'serpent fire' (Sanskrit: kuṇḍalinī; caṇḍalī) and mentions Vajrayogini and bodymind making reference to English renderings of marigpa, sahasrara and Traditional Tibetan medicine:

The psychic heat Drod is produced by the space particles and the heat manifested from the friction of the wind element. This is another fundamental element as it supports and gives power to the consciousness, like the power of the fire that can launch rockets to space. The power is called medrod or 'digestion fire' in medicine and Tummo in yoga tantra. The heat (fire) sustains life and protects the body/mind. The psychic fire increases the wisdom, burns the ignorant mind of the brain and gives realization and liberation from the darkness of unawareness. That is why yoga describes Tummo as the aggressive fire which ignites from below navel, pierces the chakras one by one and reaches the sky of the crown chakra. The tummo burning arrow married with the celestial bride leads to enjoy the life of transformation of samsara. They give birth to the son of awareness from the blissful garden of Vajrayogini.^[11]

The celestial partnership is comparable with the Shiva-Shakti Kundalini union. As the serpent energy "shakti" 'ascends' to the Crown Khorlo, Shiva, the cosmic consciousness (Dharmakaya) 'descends' through the khorlo and takes 'root' in the Base Khorlo as the Sambhogakaya into the Nirmanakaya of the sadhaka. It is important to remember that the language of directionality encoded within this process is only metaphorical and that the Dharmakaya is nonlocal, unbounded and uncontained.

Scientific investigation

An attempt to study the physiological effects of Tummo has been made by Benson and colleagues (Benson et al., 1982; Cromie, 2002) who studied Indo-Tibetan Yogis in the Himalayas and in India in the 1980s. In the first experiment, in Upper Dharamsala (India), Benson et al. (1982) found that these subjects exhibited the capacity to increase the temperature of their fingers and toes by as much as 8.3°C. In the most recent experiment, which was conducted in Normandy (France), two monks from the Buddhist tradition wore sensors that recorded changes in heat production and metabolism (Cromie, 2002).

While the physiological effects of Tummo are well known, they are not the primary purpose of the meditation practice. Tummo is a tantric meditation practice that transforms and evolves the consciousness of the practitioner so that wisdom and compassion are manifested in the individual^{[citation needed]}.

It is not considered wise to engage in the practice of Tummo, or any other intense form of meditation, without the supervision of a credible teacher or guide, or without thorough psychological and physiological preparation. Intense, or unsupervised forms of meditation, might sometimes lead to substantial meditation-related problems. See Lukoff, Lu & Turner (1998) for more details on these problems.

Tummo is taught currently in both Asia and the West by a few qualified Tibetan lamas, typically to students who have mastered other preliminary meditation practices. There are also several books now published in English that describe the practices in some detail.

Present Day Information

In January, 2008, Wim Hof of Holland set a world record^[12] for exposure to ice. Wim Hof is a self-described Tummo master who spent 72 minutes in a tub of ice wearing minimal clothing.

Notes

^ Yeshe, Lama Thubten (1998). The Bliss of Inner Fire: Heart Practice of the Six Yogas of Naropa. Boston: Wisdom Publications. pp. p.22. ISBN 0-86171-136-x. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
^ Shaw, Miranda (1995). Passionate Enlightenment::Women in Tantric Buddhism. Princeton University Press. pp. p.31. ISBN 0-691-01090-0. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
^ Flood, Gavin. An Introduction to Hinduism. (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1996). ISBN 0-521-43878-0), p. 99.
^ Harper, Katherine Anne (2002). The Roots of Tantra. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-5306-5. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help), p. 94
^ McDaniel, June (2004). Offering Flowers, Feeding Skulls Popular Goddess Worship in West Bengal. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195167902. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) , p. 103
^ Yeshe, Lama Thubten (1998). The Bliss of Inner Fire: Heart Practice of the Six Yogas of Naropa. Boston: Wisdom Publications. pp. p.22. ISBN 0-86171-136-x. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
^ Tsongkhapa (2005). Glenn H. Mullin (ed.). The Six Yogas of Naropa. Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications. pp. p.148. ISBN 978-1-55939-234-1. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
^ Gyatso, Tenzin (1997). The Gelug/Kagyu Tradition of Mahamudra. New York: Snow Lion Publications. pp. p.265. ISBN 1-55939-072-7. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
^ Source: kundalini-faq (accessed: December 27, 2007)
^ Arya, Pasang Yonten (2006). Tibetan Tantric Yoga. Source: [1] (accessed: December 27, 2007)
^ Arya, Pasang Yonten (2006). Tibetan Tantric Yoga. Source: [2] (accessed: December 27, 2007)
^ Washington Post

References

Benson, Herbert; Lehmann, John W.; Malhotra, M. S., Goldman, Ralph F.; Hopkins, Jeffrey; Epstein, Mark D. (1982) Body temperature changes during the practice of g Tum-mo yoga. Letter to Nature Magazine, 21 January 1982. Nature 295, 234 - 236

Cromie, William J. (2002) Research: Meditation changes temperatures: Mind controls body in extreme experiments. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Gazette, 18 April 2002

David-Neel, Alexandra (1971) Magic and Mystery in Tibet. Dover Publications

Ding-E Young, John and Taylor, Eugene (1998) Meditation as a Voluntary Hypometabolic State of Biological Estivation . News in Physiological Sciences, Vol. 13, No. 3, 149-153, June 1998

Evans-Wentz, W. Y. Editor (2000) Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa: A Biography from the Tibetan being the Jetsün-Kabbum or Biographical History of Jetsün-Milarepa, According to the Late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup's English Rendering. USA:Oxford University Press

Govinda, Lama Anagarika (1988) Way Of White Clouds. Shambhala Publications

Lukoff, David; Lu Francis G. & Turner, Robert P. (1998) From Spiritual Emergency to Spiritual Problem: The Transpersonal Roots of the New DSM-IV Category. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 38(2), 21-50,

Mullin, Glen H. (2006) The Practice of the Six Yogas of Naropa, Snow Lion Publications.

Mullin, Glen H. (2005) The Six Yogas of Naropa: Tsongkhapa's Commentary, Snow Lion Publications.

Yeshe, Lama Thubten (1995) The Bliss of Inner Fire: Heart Practice of the Six Yogas of Naropa, Wisdom Publications.

External links

Harvard University Gazette - Meditation Changes Temperature

[1] Yeshe, Lama Thubten (1998). The Bliss of Inner Fire: Heart Practice of the Six Yogas of Naropa. Boston: Wisdom Publications. pp. p.22. ISBN 0-86171-136-x. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)

[2] Shaw, Miranda (1995). Passionate Enlightenment::Women in Tantric Buddhism. Princeton University Press. pp. p.31. ISBN 0-691-01090-0. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)

[3] Flood, Gavin. An Introduction to Hinduism. (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1996). ISBN 0-521-43878-0), p. 99.

[4] Harper, Katherine Anne (2002). The Roots of Tantra. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-5306-5. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help), p. 94

[5] McDaniel, June (2004). Offering Flowers, Feeding Skulls Popular Goddess Worship in West Bengal. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195167902. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) , p. 103

[6] Yeshe, Lama Thubten (1998). The Bliss of Inner Fire: Heart Practice of the Six Yogas of Naropa. Boston: Wisdom Publications. pp. p.22. ISBN 0-86171-136-x. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)

[7] Tsongkhapa (2005). Glenn H. Mullin (ed.). The Six Yogas of Naropa. Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications. pp. p.148. ISBN 978-1-55939-234-1. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

[8] Gyatso, Tenzin (1997). The Gelug/Kagyu Tradition of Mahamudra. New York: Snow Lion Publications. pp. p.265. ISBN 1-55939-072-7. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

[9] Source: kundalini-faq (accessed: December 27, 2007)

[10] Arya, Pasang Yonten (2006). Tibetan Tantric Yoga. Source: [1] (accessed: December 27, 2007)

[11] Arya, Pasang Yonten (2006). Tibetan Tantric Yoga. Source: [2] (accessed: December 27, 2007)

[12] Washington Post

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]