Customer Reviews

Wearing the Body of Visions

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If perhaps you find yourself being in the process of sorting out the true mandala of your (non)being, then this book may add to your understanding. Main elements of Tibetan Buddhist Tantrayana are discussed in a very illuminating, lively way.

"Tantra is limitless dance. The dance of our senses with their corresponding sense fields - divided yet undivided, separate yet non-dual. The play of emptiness and form is the fabric of experience - the life-blood of Tantra."

This "limitless dance" is further explained as a trinity of realms:
"Emptiness, the sphere of unconditioned potentiality;
Energy, the visionary sphere of intangible appearance;
Form, the sphere of realised manifestation."

"Emptiness and form, in their essential undivided nature as the dance of reality, comprise the primal source of vision. This primal source is a continual outpouring of avenues back into itself. Every pattern that springs spontaneously out of this space is communication - a self-existing method by which our intrinsic nature can be realized. Such a pattern allows us to realize the unbounded space of what we are (...) because the irridescent splendor of inner [and outer] vision completely overawes our habitual self-concepts."

"Now, what is meant by "kyil-khor" (mandala of primal irridescence)? There are two kyil-khors - that of inner space and that of external space. There is a continual exchange of energy between them. In the dualistic condition, they appear to be divided, and we seem somehow at odds with the phenomenal world.
The basis of all siddhis (enlightened qualities) is however the ability to allow the internal and external kyil-khors (mandalas) to be undivided."

"To arise as the Tantric deity (yidam), is to wear the body of visions [title of this book]. This is what is called, living the view. Living the view, or living sacred outlook, means that we experience the world around us as the realized dimension of the deity."

- I like this book, and propose it to the interested reader, if you feel affinity with the above quotations from the book. It has certainly provided me with some typical missing links regarding the true nature of the subjects discussed.
Another book by this author, "Spectrum of Ecstasy; Embracing the Five Wisdom Emotions of Vajrayana Buddhism" (ISBN 1590300610) may also interest you (though I would rate that one with 4 stars).

"In true love, two mandalas mirror each other."

Wearing the Body of Visions is a unique overview of Tantric Buddhism. Ngak'chang Rinpoche abandons the didactic expository style of most books on Tantra. Instead, he adopts language that is poetic, electric, evocative, experiential, unconstrained and unconventional. This is the style of Tantra itself: Rinpoche writes Tantra rather than writing about Tantra.

The title of the book refers to one of its main topics - a central practise of Tantra. `Wearing the body of visions' is envisionment or self-arising, in which one experiences oneself as an enlightened being (yidam). This chapter of the book gives a better sense than anything else available in English of what it is like to practise envisionment. A related chapter discusses empowerment, a prerequisite for yidam practise.

The second major theme of the book is the nature of the relationship between a Lama and student. This will be of particular interest to those contemplating Aro apprenticeship. The degree of resonance experienced when reading this chapter provides a good indication of the likelihood of finding a permanent home in Aro. If you are excited by the prospect of the author personally enacting the rôle of Lama in your life, you may well have discovered the most important book you will ever read.

Wearing the Body of Visions also has chapters on the yanas, the kayas, and form, emptiness and non-duality.

Each chapter is supplemented with an extensive transcript of an oral question-and-answer session discussing its material with students. The book contains numerous depictions of yidams. These can deliver quite a jolt--they are at once shocking and beautiful--despite being line drawings. Finally it includes a valuable and informative glossary of the Tibetan and Sanskrit words used in the text.

This book clearly illuminates upon the subject of yidam practice. It begins with the fundamentals and then moves on to the more complex aspects of the practice. This is one of the easiest to read books about the subject of development stage practice which is central to the Nyingma tradition. Anyone wanting to practice deity yoga would benefit greatly from this down to earth text on the subject. The author spends no time wasting the reader's time using language which is antiquated or grossly academic. This is a highly accessible text for the average reader.

I seldom write reveiws, but this is a great book that brings forth both knowledge and feeling that will help many practitioners get a better sense of the tantric path.

Ngakpa Chögyam so tenderly and magically reveals the heart of Tantra in the devotion and intimacies of the Vajra relationship. This book is a startlingly beautiful description and instruction of how envisioning, and wearing the Body of Visions is to wake up into a world of electrifying vividness, the reality to which we cast a blind eye with our confusion and make believe; an occluded safety net. More sincerely, it is a powerful transmission of the indestructible and radically transformative nature of devotion to the Vajra Master. Ngakpa Chögyam's anecdotes, stories and profound clarification in these chapters breathes with the love and devotion he has for his own Lamas, speaking wild fire kindness into the Mind of any reader who is courageous enough to open. As the author says:

To receive empowerment is to be struck by lightning in the gentlest possible manner.
To be burnt by searing kindness, into nothing but what you actually are.
To be spontaneously immersed in a blazing world of light play for fractions of a second; or, for an eternity.
To be ferociously, yet delicately and tenderly, ripped open at the level of energy.
To be gutted like a fish, refurbished with a diamond heart, and set to swim in the clear stream of lineage.
To be perceptually dismembered, and sewn back together with the fabulous threads of commitment.
To wake up, softly startled, at one vivid moment in time.
To realise that you have been asleep; and, that suddenly you are both older than the earth, and younger than you can remember.

This is one of those wonderful works which is both an excellent starting point for understanding Buddhist Tantra (for example Lama Yeshe's work on the subject) but it is also a work which is worth rereading each year, as one's own practice and insight develops. The authors are disciples of several of the most revered Buddhist teachers from the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, yet write in a style entirely comprehensible to Westerners. This should be in the library of every Western Vajrayanist.

been patiently waiting for them to release the newest addition, since I enjoyed this one quite a lot. but its open to debate if this is really a dzog chen lineage. its worth reading as a westernisation.

a very interesting book, although wether they are really a dzog chen lineage has been open to debate. nevertheless you can get a lot out of this book.

What gobbledygook people write when trying too hard, when performing (or, more accurately, playing) a part that doesn't quite fit!

Compare the texture of this text with the writings of truly great Nyingma yogins, such as H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche, or H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche: notice a difference? Remembering that Ngakpa Chogyam fashions himself as a kind of lineage founder, compare his writings to those who themselves founded minority lineages: the magnificent Dolpopa (see Cyrus Stears' The Buddha from Dolpo), or the great Shambhalian Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. How does N.C. hold up in this "Pepsi Challenge"?

People who know what they're talking about are self-apparent. This text, on the contrary, is a production of performance anxiety.

There is one, and only one, criterion when assessing a book about the VAJRAYANA. "Does this come from an authentic lineage?" If not, then no matter how informative/humorous/entertaining it is, it is meaningless.
There is a good deal of authentic teaching now available on The vajrayana in general and dzogchen in particular. Dont accept an overwrought ersatz substitute like this. The sleight of hand being perpetrated by these self proclaimed "Lamas" is too obvious, and too well known, to be ignored. Stick to Namkhai Norbu.