Jax wrote:Adamantine, gTumo yoga is kundalini yoga. Norbu calls "thigle" kundalini. Thigle is kundalini. I am not mixing anything.
I have not personally heard him say this, but if he has than I wonder why. I have certainly never heard other Lamas refer to thigle this way. Thigle is not something confined to the base of the spine. What is
widely referred to as "kundalini yoga" is a hindu practice of awakening the serpent-energy which is considered to be locked within the center at the base of the spine in the majority, mainly through shaktipat transmission, but there are various forceful and subtle ways to try to arouse it .. this can happen very spontaneously, and powefully, and often kriyas and other manifestations occur (sometimes people even exhibit psychotic symptoms.) The movement of energy is quick and intense.. Now I don't want to get into the details of gTummo practice online but it is, in my experience, a much different process, much slower, involving visualization and pranayama specific to the Buddhist yogas, and there is an equal emphasis on ascent and descent of different energies. . (red and white). The emphasis of the chakras is different too. I have had elaborate conversations with Kurt Kuetzer also about this, who likewise was very familiar with practicing both traditions. Perhaps the sanskrit word Kundalini could be used to refer to gTumo but I would say this is akin to the word coke. On the one hand, we have a caffeinated bubbly beverage, on the other, we have a white powder that is a serious drug. Historically there is a relation, but they no longer share much in common. If you have experience with Kundalini yoga, and find it to be identical to gTumo, I am curious how.
Why do you think Milarepa praised gTumo so highly? Because people could sit in the snow and melt it? gTumo is not about "heat", its about bliss and realization. If you bring all of the karmic pranas into the central channel, they transform into "yeshe", the yeshe of "rang jyung yeshe", the Knowingness of Rigpa. This is the key to tantric transformation. The result is Rigpa or Mahamudra. Are you saying that the realization of Mahamudra is not Rigpa? The subtlest mind, the mind of Clear Light, is revealed as a result of this practice. Why do you think in the Yeshe Lama it is instructed that one do daily sessions of gTumo yoga when in a thogal retreat?
I have no doubt about the power of gTumo or it's usefulness for realization. You don't need to teach me what it is about, as I said I have had extensive teachings on it from a qualified Guru. My point was that in other posts you seem very eager to place Dzogchen as a whole outside of the context of Buddhism, and especially Vajrayana-- but here you are pointing to the opposite-- how entwined they are. gTumo, you must know, is an anuyoga practice, right?