Amitabha)]
Phowa (Skt.
saṃkrānti; Tib.
འཕོ་བ་;
Wyl. ‘pho ba) is the
practice for directing the
transference of consciousness at the time of
death, either for oneself or another.
Phowa (
Tibetan:
འཕོ་བ,
Wylie:
'pho ba,
Sanskrit:
saṃkrānti) is a
Vajrayana Buddhist meditation practice. It may be described as "the
practice of conscious dying", "
transference of consciousness at the time of
death", "
mindstream transference", or “
enlightenment without meditation” (
Wylie:
ma-sgom sangs-rgyas). "This controversial
esoteric technique (Skt.utkrānti), by which a
tantric practitioner is able to sever his
connection to the
physical body, goes by the
Indian reference to '
yogic' or
spiritual suicide The
consciousness may be transferred to the
dharmakaya nature, to a
pure realm such as
Sukhavati or to a
favourable existence in the
human realm. The
practice is one of the
Six Yogas of Naropa, but is also to be found in many other
lineages and systems of
teaching,
including the
Longchen Nyingtik and
Namchö cycles. Although it is included among the so-called '
five practices of enlightenment without meditation, it does require a thorough
training before it can be put into effect successfully. Moreover, the teachings advise that
phowa for others should only be undertaken by someone who has reached the
path of seeing.
Subdivisions
Tsele Natsok Rangdrol lists
five kinds of phowa:
Patrul Rinpoche mentions another list of
five kinds of phowa: #
Superior transference to the
dharmakaya through the
seal of the view #Middling
transference to the
sambhogakaya through the union of the
generation and completion phases #Lesser
transference to the
nirmanakaya through
immeasurable compassion #Ordinary “
phowa of three recognitions”:
recognition of our
central channel as the
path;
recognition of our
consciousness as the traveller; and
recognition of the
environment of a
buddha realm as the destination. #
Transference performed for the
dead with the hook of
compassion In the
Dzogchen teachings, two kinds of
transference are sometimes mentioned:
Further Reading
*
Chagdud Khadro,
P’howa Commentary,
Pilgrims Publishing,
India, 2004 *
Sogyal Rinpoche,
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Ch. 13 & 14.
Source
RigpaWiki:Phowa
Phowa (
Wylie: '
pho ba; also spelled
Powa or
Poa phonetically;
Sanskrit:
saṃkrānti) is a
Vajrayāna Buddhist meditation practice. It may be described as "the
practice of conscious dying", "
transference of consciousness at the time of
death", "
mindstream transference", or “
enlightenment without meditation” (
Wylie:
ma-sgom sangs-rgyas).
Application of Phowa
The method can be applied at the
moment of death to
transfer one's consciousness through the top of the head directly into a Buddha-field of one’s choice. By so doing, one bypasses some of the typical
experiences that are said to occur after
death. Example destinations are
Sukhāvatī,
Abhirati,
Ghanavyūha,
Aṭakāvatī, Mount
Potala, the
Copper-Colored Mountain (
Wylie:
Zangs-mdog dpal-ri), and
Tuṣita; the most popular is
Sukhavati.
Phowa is also performed by specialists (
Wylie:
’pho-’debs bla-ma) on the behalf of the deceased, as a
post-mortem ritual.
The mark of a successful
Phowa practice is a
small drop of blood directly from the center of the vertex. To demonstrate a successful
practice traditionally a
Kusha-grass was pushed into the small opening created in the fontanel.
The main
lineage of phowa is one of the
Six yogas of Naropa, although other
transmissions also
exist. The
chöd subsumes within its
auspices aspects of
phowa sadhana. The
Kagyu phowa lineage is from the
Six yogas of Naropa.
Nāropa received it from the
Indian mahāsiddha Tilopa and later passed it to his
Tibetan disciple Marpa.
Nāropa’s teachings describe a second method of ’
pho-ba that entails the
transference of one’s consciousness to another body (
Wylie:
’pho-ba grong-’jug).
Milarepa’s query regarding these teachings forced
Marpa to search for explanatory treatises on the
subject among his
Indian manuscripts, and, having found none, to return to
India to obtain more
scriptures.The
Drikung Kagyu school of
Tibetan Buddhism is known for their
phowa teachings. A major
pilgrimage and
cultural celebration is known in the
Tibetan world as the
Great Drikung Phowa (
Wylie:
’Bri-gung ’pho-ba chen-mo). This
festival was
traditionally held once in every
twelve-year calendrical cycle, and its last
observance took place in August 1992 in
gTer-sgrom,
Central Tibet, after a hiatus of 36 years due to a ban enforced by the
Chinese authorities.
Choeje Ayang Rinpoche from
Eastern Tibet belongs to the
Drikung school