Insight Editions · No. 374
Radical Dzogchen
The Direct Way to En-Light-enment
L. Ron Gardner
Dzogchen is a universal yoga of direct presence. Practised as plugged-in presence and conductivity of Clear-Light Energy, it needs none of the eye-pressing visionary tantra that became canon.
A study guide to Radical Dzogchen by L. Ron Gardner. Shared free for personal reading; not for sale and not endorsed by the authors or publishers. Please read and buy the original.
The Book on One Page
CORE CLAIM
Trekcho and togal are one practice: presence builds spiritual voltage and true togal conducts the Clear-Light current it draws down; canonical visionary togal is a perversion of Dzogchen.
SCOPE
Eleven Q&A chapters on the Trikaya, rigpa, trekcho, togal, Ohm's Law spirituality, Christian and Daist parallels, and a Dzogchen reading list.
KEY FIGURES
Longchen Rabjam, Jigme Lingpa, Namkhai Norbu, Tenzin Wangyal, Adi Da, Meister Eckhart, Sam van Schaik, Christopher Hatchell.
BEST FOR
Dzogchen and Mahamudra practitioners who want a sharp, heterodox, cross-traditional critique of togal and a concrete practice method.
What the book is. Radical Dzogchen is a set of question-and-answer sessions between L. Ron Gardner and his students, edited and supplemented from his earlier books. Gardner met Dzogchen in the late 1970s through the books of Namkhai Norbu, and says he "cracked the code" of En-Light-enment about fifteen years before writing. The book follows Zen Mind, Thinker's Mind, and he warns readers about his tone in four words: "Dale Carnegie I ain't."
The central claim. Dzogchen is a universal yoga of direct presence, and its two practices, trekcho and togal, are one practice with two components: building spiritual force and conducting the Light-Energy that force draws down. Gardner calls this his Electrical Spiritual Paradigm (ESP) and maps it onto Ohm's Law: presence is voltage, ego is resistance, and the descending Sambhogakaya is the current.
The framework. Everything rests on a trinitarian reading of the Trikaya. The Dharmakaya is Being-Consciousness, the Sambhogakaya is Clear-Light Energy (Shakti, the Holy Spirit), and the Nirmanakaya is Buddha-nature realized in the Heart-center on the right of the chest. Enlightenment, Bodhicitta, is the permanent union of that Energy with consciousness in the Heart.
The attack. The longest chapter turns on the canonical togal of Longchen Rabjam's Precious Treasury of the Genuine Meaning and Jigme Lingpa's Yeshe Lama. Gardner argues its gazes, postures and eye pressure produce entoptic lights, not Reality, that its esoteric anatomy is inconsistent, that its siddhi and Rainbow Body claims are unproven, and that its secrecy is protected by samaya threats.
The bridges. He then reads Dzogchen through Christian mysticism (the Eucharist, Meister Eckhart, the three monastic vows) and through Adi Da's "radical understanding," whose question "Avoiding relationship?" he uses as his own enquiry. The book closes with a free-ranging discussion and an annotated reading list.
How to read it. As a practitioner's polemic: original, often sharp, and deliberately one-sided. The Critical Lens boxes mark where Nyingma teachers and scholars would answer him.
| Ch | Title | One-line payload |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dzogchen | A universal, trinitarian yoga of direct presence |
| 2 | The Trikaya | Only the Dharmakaya is real; Norbu's and Wangyal's formulas corrected |
| 3 | Rigpa | Rigpa is presence, practised as both trekcho and togal |
| 4 | Trekcho | Plug in and cut through spiritual materialism; it takes effort |
| 5 | Togal, Part 1 | True togal is channelling the Sambhogakaya; the Four Visions are felt |
| 6 | Togal, Part 2 | Canonical togal is visionary tantra built on eye-generated light |
| 7 | Electrical Dzogchen | Ohm's Law, the dialectic, and five practice steps |
| 8 | Christian Dzogchen | The mystical Eucharist, Eckhart and the three vows |
| 9 | Daist Dzogchen | Adi Da's understanding as rigpa; union with Shakti still required |
| 10 | Dzogchen Discursion | Terms, Guru yoga, kayas, transmission, the future |
| 11 | Dzogchen Literature | What to read, and what to skip |
Chapter map
Dzogchen (The Great Perfection)
Gardner opens by refusing to treat Dzogchen as Tibetan property. Dzogchen is a universal yoga of the primordial State, and his stated aim is to "upgrade" it by reading it against the other Great Traditions and through his own Electrical Spiritual Paradigm (ESP).
The State and the yoga. Dzogchen names both the non-state, or "State," of unconditioned Being-Awareness (Buddhism's Dharmata) and the practice that realizes it. The only yoga that realizes Being-Awareness directly is being-awareness itself, direct presence, which turns into transcendental Awareness "by virtue of the dynamic Light-Energy it engenders." Gardner cites Rigpa Wiki for support: Dzogchen is "the heart of the teachings of all the Buddhas," not limited "to Buddhism, nor to Tibet."
One Body seen three ways. Strictly there is only the Dharmakaya, but it is best grasped as the Trikaya: the Dharmakaya as Being-Consciousness; the Sambhogakaya when it "radiates and moves" as Spirit-Power; the Nirmanakaya when realized immanently as Buddha-nature. This makes Dzogchen, unlike most Buddhist schools, a trinitarian Dharma, parallel to Shaivism's Siva-Shakti-Jiva and Christianity's Father-Spirit-Son.
- Rigpa. Immediate presence; the root practice of Atiyoga ("Utmost yoga").
- Trekcho. Cutting through "spiritual materialism", everything that is not Spirit, to reach the Sambhogakaya.
- Togal. Communing with, channelling and finally uniting with the Clear-Light Energy, which reveals the Nirmanakaya and the whole Trikaya.
Gardner admits up front that his definitions "differ from those of orthodox Dzogchen." Readers should take every later "correction" of Tibetan masters as his reconstruction, not as a neutral report of the tradition.
The Trikaya (The Triadic "Structure" of Reality)
The Trikaya, Gardner argues, has never been properly explained by Dzogchen teachers, and without it the Enlightenment project cannot be explained either. He works through the standard Tibetan formulas one by one and rewrites each Body in the vocabulary of Shaivism and Christian mysticism.
Two ground rules. First, only the Dharmakaya is real; the other two Bodies are the Dharmakaya in two modes. Second, the Trikaya never enters spacetime: it pervades the world but is not of it, and both Christians and Buddhists err when they drag their Trinity into creation.
Against Namkhai Norbu
Gardner quotes two formulas from Norbu's The Cycle of Day and Night and calls them "contradictory, unclear, and unelaborated":
- "Emptiness is the Dharmakaya." Untenable. Emptiness has no ontological status; there must first be something that is empty, and that something is Awareness. He blames the "Madhyamaka virus," Nagarjuna's emptiness teaching, endemic in Dzogchen.
- "Luminous clarity, self-perfected, is the Sambhogakaya." The Sambhogakaya is Clear-Light Energy that gives clarity, and the self cannot perfect it; it perfects the self.
- "Unobstructed Energy is the Nirmanakaya." That energy belongs to the Sambhogakaya; the Nirmanakaya is the embodied Buddha through which it flows.
- "Dimension of Existence and Primordial Awareness." Correct, and identical to Hinduism's Being-Consciousness. Adding Bliss gives Sat-Cit-Ananda, so Dharmakaya plus Sambhogakaya equals Sat-Cit plus Ananda-Shakti.
Against Tenzin Wangyal
In Wonders of the Natural Mind the Bon master gives the stock triad (emptiness, clarity, energy) and then goes further. Gardner rejects his claim that the five elements cause the Sambhogakaya (they are its stepped-down derivatives) and that "concepts, memories, or passions" are the Nirmanakaya. The Nirmanakaya is felt in the Heart-center, not the six cakras, and radiates through the Amrita (Atma) Nadi.
| Body | Gardner's definition | Hindu | Christian |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dharmakaya | Timeless Being-Awareness, universal Mind | Siva, Cit | Father as Presence |
| Sambhogakaya | Clear-Light Energy, Divine Power | Shakti, Ananda | Holy Spirit |
| Nirmanakaya | Immanent, embodied Mind; Buddha | Atman, Self | Son, Christ |
Gardner's Trikaya concordance
Two directions of one current. Received, the Sambhogakaya is Shaktipat, "absorptive and uniting"; radiated by a Buddha it is Hridaya-Shakti, "emissional and expansive." Only arya-bodhisattvas can receive it into the Heart (Hridayam, Tathagatagarbha); only Buddhas both receive and radiate it unobstructed.
Current and field. Gardner found the Sambhogakaya called "the vehicle of the Divine Power of the Dharmakaya" in the Buddhist Lodge's 1937 Brief Glossary of Buddhist Terms. His ESP reconciles static "Clear Light" with dynamic Power: as an electric current generates a magnetic field, the Spirit-current (Holy Spirit) generates a radiant field (Holy Ghost).
Base, Path, Fruit. Norbu's line that the Trikaya is already "the Foundation... the Path... the Fruit" is correct, but for people wrapped in gross, subtle and causal sheaths it changes nothing practical. The path is Di-"vine" yoga: joining the "vine" of one's consciousness (the contracted Nirmanakaya) to the "vine" of Clear-Light Energy.
The "Reward Body." Gardner's own string of descriptions ends here: colourless, invisible but felt, Blessing/Blissing Clear-Light-Energy Body, and a "Reward Body" because Grace is "measured out" in proportion to the yogi's relational force. Jigme Lingpa's formula (stillness, mindfulness, nonduality) gets Ayn Rand's line on definitions thrown at it.
Gardner prefers Dzogchen to Zen and Trika Shaivism to Advaita Vedanta for one reason: traditions without a trinitarian model, he says, cannot describe the "mechanics" of enlightenment. Advaita even dismisses Shakti as Maya-Shakti.
The equation of the Trikaya with the Christian Trinity and Shaiva triads is Gardner's comparative thesis, not a Tibetan doctrine. Academic Buddhology treats "emptiness" (shunyata) as a claim about the absence of inherent existence, not as a candidate substance, so his "non-existent with no ontological status" objection addresses a reading most Madhyamikas would reject.
Rigpa (Primal Presence)
Rigpa is the one prescribed practice. Gardner redefines it from "naked awareness" to direct and immediate presence, because the yogi is actively be-ing that awareness.
Presence becomes force. "Plugged-in" presence builds a pressure that wants to move. When it is felt as descending, "crashing-down" Energy, the yogi has met the Sambhogakaya. Radical gnosis is literally "standing under" that current and learning that the connection is what enlightens; permanent union means a Light Body.
Knowledge of the Ground. The Ground is universal Mind, "known" only in the Heart-center, and the only route there is the descent of Divine Power, which produces the Four Visions of Togal.
| Aspect | Meaning | Practice | Function |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kadag | Primordial purity | Trekcho | Consciousness cuts through |
| Lhun grub | Spontaneous presence | Togal | Conductivity of Light |
Rigpa's two aspects mapped onto its two practices
Rigpa cannot realize the Great Perfection unless it is practised as both trekcho and togal.
Mapping kadag and lhun grub onto two separate practices is Gardner's move. In Nyingma teaching they are two inseparable qualities of the one nature of mind (its emptiness and its spontaneous display), not a division of labour between trekcho and togal.
Trekcho (Cutting through Spiritual Materialism)
Trekcho, "breakthrough," turns consciousness into a diamond-cutter. Its target is any created thing that grips attention, gross or subtle, and its goal is the "Other Side": Spirit, the Sambhogakaya.
Idols. "Put no idols before Me" says the same thing: any object of fascination, distraction or consolation becomes spiritual materialism once consciousness clings to it. Union of the soul (citta) with the Sambhogakaya awakens citta as the Nirmanakaya, and so the whole Trikaya. Gardner sets this beside Trika Shaivism, where contracted Siva joins Shakti and yields Siva-Shakti, Sat-Cit-Ananda.
Why aim at the Sambhogakaya and not the Dharmakaya? A student objects that God is the Dharmakaya. Gardner's answer: the Sambhogakaya is the Dharmakaya, "in its objectified form as perceivable, receivable Radiance." The Dharmakaya cannot be approached as an object, but its Energy can be received, and receiving it is the only route to the full Trikaya. In Trika terms, Shakti de-contracts the contracted Siva who is the yogi's own consciousness; the result is not a new state but the Divine Being recognized in full.
Two ways to understand presence
- Awareness-oneness. Awareness is a lamp switched on; plugging it in is trekcho. Embodied presence becomes a penetrating force that "pushes" through the dross.
- Relationship. To be directly present is to be relationship; unobstructed, it turns into nondual being-consciousness. The Heart-center is felt "two digits to the right of the center of one's chest."
Gardner's own self-enquiry is "Avoiding relationship?", used whenever he notices he has retracted. He takes the rule from Adi Da Samraj (1939-2008): "Relationship is the discipline."
Space as object
Relationship can be to anything, but empty space is ideal. It is a mirror in which thoughts show up as contractions, the "clenched fist of consciousness," and a doorway that starts to "dance" as gift waves of Shakti. Space is the Akasha, the created ether; conflating it with the Dharmakaya is a Tibetan error. Breathing space in and out is an adjunct for the "initiated."
- Bare attention. Look straight at thoughts; "a dew drop evaporating in the sun."
- Neither accept nor reject. Close to Krishnamurti's choiceless awareness; "snow melting as it falls into the sea."
- Self-liberation. Rested in Buddha-nature, thoughts burn in the Clear Light; "a snake unwinding the coils of its own body."
Gardner adds that thoughts are not bound; only the self is liberated.
The last sheath is Spirit. The causal body is not really a sheath but pure Spirit; it counts as one only until Grace (Anugraha-Shakti) cuts the Heart-knot (Hridaya-granthi). Then trekcho has become togal.
Even Spirit is a sheath. The obstacles are the mind, conscious and subconscious, the physical body, the pranic body, and finally the Sambhogakaya itself, which veils the Vision of Dharmata as long as it is objectified as a Body separate from Being-Consciousness. The method is the same throughout: be directly present to, and through, whatever arises. When consciousness meets the Clear-Light continuum, cutting turns into contemplation.
Letting go comes second. Other descriptions make trekcho sound like letting go and letting loose. Gardner agrees, but "only secondarily." First it is a cutting and penetrating practice: one assumes the asana of plugged-in presence, which takes effort, and the pressure it builds must then be released by self-emptying. Gardner promises that his real criticisms of Rabjam are still to come, in Togal Part 2.
Effort first. Gardner quotes Longchen Rabjam: freedom comes "through the effortful cultivations of the visions of togal... alternatively... effortlessly through... trekcho." Rabjam "has it backwards": trekcho takes effort, togal is quasi-effortless. Trekcho is a dialectic: presence (thesis), absence or self-emptying (antithesis), power (synthesis). John Myrdhin Reynolds' The Golden Letters supports the "directly penetrating Awareness" reading. The Instruction Series (trekcho and togal) superseded the Mind and Space Series because the project needed two explicit practices.
Trekcho in one line: plug in, let go, and keep cutting whatever grips attention, until the current from above takes over and the practice has become togal.
Gardner's reversal of effort and effortlessness contradicts the mainstream Nyingma presentation, where trekcho rests in effortless recognition of rigpa. His view is closer to Hindu bhakti-tantra than to Longchenpa.
Togal, Part 1 (Conducting the Clear-Light Continuum)
Gardner presents his own togal before demolishing the canonical one. True togal is contemplating and channelling the Sambhogakaya, the Clear-Light continuum, and its Four Visions are degrees of one felt descent of Spirit, not things seen with the eyes.
His credentials and his targets. He has studied the two canonical togal texts, Longchen Rabjam's Precious Treasury of the Genuine Meaning and Jigme Lingpa's Yeshe Lama, plus Sam van Schaik's Approaching the Great Perfection, Christopher Hatchell's Naked Seeing and Reynolds on the Zhang-Zhung tradition. As Nagarjuna is "the great subverter/perverter of original Buddhism," so Rabjam is the subverter of the Great Perfection.
What the names mean. "Leap over" and "direct crossing" describe bypassing trekcho to connect at once with Spirit; "direct vision of Reality" and "spontaneous presence" describe the connected state. Until full Enlightenment the yogi will often fall back on trekcho. In Hindu terms, trekcho is like Satsang (seeking at-one-ment with Presence) and togal like Shaktipat (receiving it).
One practice, two names. Rabjam himself says those who practise the two separately are "a blind person examining forms," then lists seven ways togal is superior. Before the Instruction Series, yogis simply practised rigpa, which in its empowered stage becomes Clear-Light conductivity. Is that dualistic? Rabjam calls Dzogchen "the union of the ultimate sphere and intrinsic awareness"; awareness and Light are only apparently two, but for a Maya-enmeshed yogi the separation is real.
| Vision | Dzogchen | Bodhisattva bhumi | Christian grace |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vision of Dharmata | 7th | Baptism |
| 2 | Its development | 8th | Confirmation |
| 3 | Its maturation (full, not permanent) | 9th | Sanctifying Grace |
| 4 | Consummation of existence | 10th, Dharmamegha | Divine Union, Beatitude |
The Four Visions read across traditions, per Gardner
A single vision that matures. Norbu's own wording shows the Four Visions are one "vision" intensifying until Dharmata is permanent. Gardner equates the Sambhogakaya with the Dharmamegha (Dharma Cloud): when its descent into the Heart is "full-blown," the Heart-knot is cut (the Buddha's "Heart-release") and Bodhicitta, Conscious Light, is attained. He also lines the Visions up with the Four Jhanas of Pali Buddhism and suggests Dzogchen simply repackaged the last four bhumis as "secret togal."
"The 'Clear' Light is clear, meaning it can't be seen." Gardner's whole argument rests on this premise. In Nyingma sources the visions of light are understood as the self-display (rang snang) of rigpa, not as objects mistaken for it, so the tradition would say he has misread the point of the visions rather than exposed them.
- Yin. Be an empty container that receives the downpoured Light-Energy.
- Yang. Converge actively with the Sambhogakaya.
- Neutral. Rest in the Light-Energy continuum.
An advanced practitioner cycles between all three in one sitting, choosing by "skillful means."
Why the quarrel with Rabjam. Rabjam's best-known books describe togal only as "resting in the continuum of the radiance of Awareness," which matches Gardner's view. He assumed later masters had corrupted togal; reading the detailed manuals showed him Rabjam was "the guilty party." Norbu, by contrast, keeps togal "genuinely secret," which Gardner calls a carrot held in front of the naive disciple.
Togal, Part 2 (The Perversion of Dzogchen)
The book's longest chapter is a prosecution. Using Precious Treasury of the Genuine Meaning, Yeshe Lama and the scholarship of van Schaik and Hatchell, Gardner argues that canonical togal is "recycled, remedial, tantric twaddle" dressed up as the summit of Dzogchen, and that its visions are eye-generated light, not Reality.
Is Dzogchen tantra?
Norbu and Reynolds say "Dzogchen is neither Sutra nor Tantra." Gardner disagrees: togal comes from the Seventeen Tantras, the Mind-Series root text The Supreme Source (Kunjed Gyalpo) is "the Fundamental Tantra of the Dzogchen Semde" in Norbu's own words, and Tulku Thondup places Yeshe Lama in the "innermost esoteric" cycle of upadesha, "superior to all the other vehicles." In practice, Gardner says, much of it is a mishmash of Mahayoga and Anuyoga ritual.
14th century. Longchen Rabjam systematizes the Seminal Heart (Seventeen Tantras) in the Tegcho Dzo and Tsigzon Dzo.
18th century. The Seminal Heart looks like "competing and increasingly divergent practices" (van Schaik).
18th century. Jigme Lingpa's Longchen Nyingtig makes it normative in the Nyingma school, teaching a gradualist path in the voice of simultaneist treasure texts.
Why sell it? Gardner's answer is blunt: "lies, bullshit, and exaggerations." Few students could practise rigpa, competing schools sold visionary tantra, and secrecy vows hid the "charade." He rejects the terma (treasure) and mind-terma claims, including Lingpa's story of receiving the Longchen Nyingtig from Rabjam in visions.
The text on trial
Gardner quotes Precious Treasury passage by passage:
- Syllables in the channels. Buddha-nature emerges "through the development of their syllables present within their energy channels"; embryo stages tied to kham, sum, ram, yam and to anger and hatred. "Delusional."
- Green light and prajna. Across "3,000+ spiritual texts" he has found no other sage linking a colour to wisdom.
- Discerning winds. Winds (vayus) are life processes; they neither "discern" nor are "dual" or "nondual."
- Ears and eyes. From The Reverberation of Sound: "Through the left ear, sound is heard as wisdom"; "from the corners [of the eyes], the two kayas are sustained." A blind yogi, he replies, can still realize the kayas.
- Pressure. Thumb and index finger in and beside the eye sockets; "two fingers rather than three"; pressure on the neck.
- Three kaya postures. Lion (Dharmakaya), with the squatting Nirmanakaya posture promising liberation "in that life."
- Three gazes. Upward (Dharmakaya), straight (Sambhogakaya), downward (Nirmanakaya), plus sun- and flame-gazing.
- Massage. "To increase the dharmata, apply massage substances."
- Dark retreat. Visions cultivated in darkness.
Rabjam's instruction: with two fingers on the eyes, "reddish" appearances arise, then greenish-yellow, then blue; when the empty bindu shows "clear reddish-orange," keep pressing, then gaze. Gardner's verdict: when practice depends on "two fingers rather than three," the tradition is corrupt.
Samaya threats. Breaking vows with the guru brings, per Dynamic Strength, "leprosy and pox," thieves, and "the lowest, most unbearable hell... for many kalpas." Yet the Sixfold Expanse says there is "no teacher... no dharma," and the Dynamic Strength of the Lion says to drop "right or wrong." Gardner thinks the threat explains why no lama attacks the system: critics would be excommunicated "from the cult."
Contradictions
- Alaya. Rabjam denies that the alaya and Dharmakaya are one, then quotes a tantra saying "the alaya is realized to be the great dharmakaya."
- Effort. In A Treasure Trove (translated by Richard Barron) trekcho brings the best to freedom "effortlessly," and the All-Creating Monarch says effort "constitutes error." In Precious Treasury a subchapter, "The Way Togal Surpasses Trekcho," says trekcho pursues wisdom "through the projection of the conceptual mind."
- Visions. Togal appearances "close the door" to rebirth, yet "have no innate, true existence."
- Norbu. He calls togal superior and secret, so every book he published teaches the inferior practice; he says togal means "as soon as you're here, you're there" and then describes gradual "development" of the Four Lights.
- Norbu, again. Norbu, who died in 2018 and was perhaps the most revered teacher of Dzogchen in the West, writes in The Crystal and the Way of Light that working "directly at the level of Mind" culminates in the Body of Light, yet by Yeshe Lama that body comes only through togal. Gardner finds him "as Dharma-challenged and contradiction-riddled" as Rabjam and Lingpa.
Canonical togal. Bindus (thigle) form vajra chains, the building blocks of reality; visions of the five Buddha families with consorts, mandalas, "faraway lands," and walls passed through.
Gardner. Changing the gaze changes the vision, so they are optical. Buddha families are cultural conditioning, as Christians see Jesus. "Partless particles" were abandoned by physics.
Yeshe Lama, the "crown jewel"
Keith Dowman's translation calls Yeshe Lama "the most renowned, comprehensive, and efficacious of the Dzogchen manuals." It is roughly a tenth the length of Precious Treasury, and Gardner's advice is practical: read it first, and only if it "floats your boat" pay $45 for Rabjam's book. Its higher visions show the five buddha families, first as solitary figures, then fully ornamented, then with consorts and retinues, and "directed cognition" that can penetrate and set in motion mountains and crags. Gardner calls this "utter hooey": practitioners do not see bodies as "partless particles," and if the visions were real, the yogi could demonstrate them.
Why visions at all? The texts themselves answer: to lead the yogi past them. The final stage is "the exhaustion of the dharmata," the clearing of visionary experience. Gardner's objection is simple. If the visions must be exhausted to reach Dharmata, a practice that goes straight to Dharmata never needed them.
Five reasons the visions are not spiritual
- They contradict meditation reports in every other tradition.
- They have physiological explanations.
- They reflect cultural conditioning.
- The powers claimed for them are laughable.
- The texts themselves call all appearances "without substance"; the goal is the "exhaustion of the dharmata," the clearing of visions.
Hatchell's Naked Seeing cites Harvard Medical School research: 13 subjects blindfolded for five days reported spots and patches (phosphenes) that grew into peacock feathers, faces, architecture, scenery, matching dark-retreat accounts. Gardner adds eye-doctor descriptions of entoptic effects and "rainbow vision."
Esoteric anatomy
- Three main channels. Avadhuti, lalana, rasana (Hindu sushumna, ida, pingala), with three bindus: relative (contaminated bliss, rasana), genuine (the "actual path," lalana), natural Dharmata bindu (avadhuti). If the central channel is the Dharmata bindu, why isn't it the path? Because togal is indirect and visionary.
- Four light channels. Great Golden Kati, Crystal Pipe, White Silken Thread, Slender Coil (sometimes a fifth). Hatchell: canonical texts "do not all agree." Gardner sees the Crystal Kati as the true sushumna, Amrita Nadi, running from crown to the Heart on the right of the chest: a force-current with a field of light, not a tube. Lingpa: "Mind is located in a channel in the lungs." "While wisdom is located in the physical heart." For Gardner this one line shows how little the masters knew of the anatomy they taught. Gardner points readers to Ramana Maharshi and Adi Da instead.
- Four chakras. Crown, throat, heart, navel, with no Ajna. For Gardner Ajna is the last and hardest pranic knot, where four cardinal channels cross, opened only by Shaktipat. Dzogchen alludes to the Dharmamegha only cryptically; Rabjam does say transmission "descends into one's heart."
- Four luminosities, five elements, five lights. Water lasso, empty bindu, pure basic space, self-emergent prajna, assigned to the right and left eyes. Elements are said to emerge from five colours and to equal five wisdoms. Gardner: elements derive from the ether; colour is reflected wavelength; other traditions pair colours and elements differently.
- Arbitrary correspondences. Western alchemy and Chinese systems assign different colours to the elements, so Dzogchen's pairings have "no basis in reality." The texts also equate the elements with the five wisdoms (basic space, mirrorlike, evenness, discerning, all-accomplishing), and one tantra even speaks of "five divisions of earth." Gardner's own account: the elements are tattvas, stepped-down condensations of the ether, which itself is a created derivative of the Clear Light.
- Six clairvoyances and instant knowledge of everything "far away or covertly hidden."
- Not burned by fire, not drowned, flying, passing underground.
- The body of "a sixteen-year-old youth," wrinkles dissolved, white hair dark again.
- Invisible to others; corpse self-cremated by "wisdom fire."
The Rainbow Body. Gardner treats it as "another slice off the same block." Until he sees documented proof he is "not buying the dissolution of the body into Light." He suggests the idea may echo Catholic transubstantiation, bread vanishing into the invisible Body of Christ.
The Four Visions without visions
Norbu describes the Four Visions as Dharmata, its development, its maturation and "the consummation of existence." For Gardner these are stages of realizing Mind-as-Thusness, and Dharmata "has nothing whatsoever to do with appearances." So the same Four Visions must hold for every practitioner, whether they call the practice trekcho, true togal, Zen or Christian contemplation. Yogis in other gnostic schools pass through the equivalent stages without claiming a Rainbow Body, which is why he files that claim with the other "absurd and untenable" ones.
Why no one objected
Two reasons, he says. Few students were sharp enough to deconstruct the teachings, and the tradition threatens critics with "a hell that rivals Christianity's." Rabjam lists three samaya breaches, disrespecting the guru, disrespecting the vajra family, and "exposing the secret", and the threat attaches above all to the third. That makes the secrecy self-sealing: the one act that could test the teaching is the act most severely punished.
| Question | Canonical togal | Gardner's togal |
|---|---|---|
| Method | Gazes, postures, eye pressure, dark retreat | Plugged-in presence, letting go, receiving |
| What arises | Lights, thigle, vajra chains, deities | The felt descent of Clear-Light Energy |
| Status of what arises | Self-display of rigpa, later exhausted | Spirit itself; visions are entoptic |
| Relation to trekcho | Superior, separate stage | Inseparable; voltage and amperage |
| Goal | Rainbow Body, dissolution in light | Bodhicitta: Light-Energy united with citta in the Heart |
| Source | Seventeen Tantras, Rabjam, Lingpa | Experience, cross-tradition parallels |
Canonical togal versus Gardner's true togal
Gardner's summary: canonical togal is not superior to rigpa but inferior, "reductive yoga" below Ati level. Teach trekcho as spiritual voltage and true togal as spiritual amperage, two components of one practice, and the visionary substitute becomes unnecessary.
Gardner writes as a polemicist, and the language ("crappola," "liars," "cult") is his. Van Schaik does show the gradualist/simultaneist tension, but he does not call the tradition fraudulent. Practitioners report that togal is taught only after trekcho is stable, as a display of rigpa's own radiance; Gardner reads the manuals without that oral frame. The Harvard study shows such visions can be induced, not that togal experience is nothing more.
Electrical Dzogchen (Plugged-in Presence)
Gardner recasts his Plugged-in Presence method from Electrical Christianity in Dzogchen terms. It explains rigpa three ways, as a dialectic, through Ohm's Law, and as five practice steps, and it does what he says Tibetan Dzogchen never did: teach presence as a whole-body practice.
The dialectic
Presence (relationship) is the thesis, absence (inner emptiness) the antithesis, and the descent of the Sambhogakaya the synthesis. Presence is about connecting, absence about surrendering, and the third practice, power, about receiving: letting go of psychic content while holding on to the context of connection. When the descent is intense, the yogi drops both poles and simply rests in the current.
- V = I × R becomes C = I × R: C is connected consciousness (consciousness-force, trekcho), I is the intensity of the Spirit-current (togal), R is ego-resistance.
- I = C / R. The flow of the Sambhogakaya rises with one's presence-force and falls with one's self-grasping.
- Any one formula follows from the other two, as in electrics.
Gardner admits no one can prove the law applies to Spirit; he offers it as his own experience and as a "nonpareil metaphor." As a current makes a field, the Spirit-current felt descending into the Heart makes a field felt as radiant Light, which is why he calls the Sambhogakaya a Light-Energy Body; resting in it brings bliss, hence "Bliss Body."
- Sit upright but relaxed.
- Self-possession. Feel and inhabit the whole body; touch attention randomly to the third-eye area and hands to heal the body-mind split.
- Gaze into empty space as whole-bodily relationship; when you notice retraction, ask "Avoiding relationship?" When the void "shines" and pours down, emptiness has become Spirit.
- Breath. Relate directly to the breath until it becomes prana-shakti, then Anugraha-Shakti from above.
- Let go of body, head and mind; be "an empty cup" and stay motivelessly present to the downpour.
Against "effortlessness"
No yogi has ever reached Enlightenment by effortlessness alone; Buddha, Ramana Maharshi and Milarepa all practised focused attention as well. Even letting go needs effort to stay alert. Gardner's "heretical take" is that Tilopa and Naropa misunderstood Mahamudra: "Great Gesture" means the sacrament of Holy Communion, a high-voltage practice, not passivity. He cites Chen-Chi Chang in Evans-Wentz's Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines (Mahamudra a "mild antidote," the Six Yogas a "strong antidote") as proof that the weakened Mahamudra needed supplements.
| Phase | Gardner's equivalent |
|---|---|
| One-pointedness | Voltage |
| Simplicity | In-between: some focus, some release |
| One taste | In-between |
| Non-meditation | Maximal ohms reduction |
Mahamudra's four phases in electrical terms
Tilopa's line about the "Lights of Son and Mother" merging becomes the formula: Son Light (consciousness) plus Mother Light-Energy (the Sambhogakaya) yields realization of the Dharmakaya.
The Ohm's Law mapping is a metaphor presented with the confidence of a law; Gardner concedes it cannot be tested. His reading of "mudra" as "gesture" is linguistically sound, but Kagyu tradition glosses Mahamudra as "Great Seal," the seal of emptiness on all phenomena.
Christian Dzogchen: The Mystical Eucharist
The mystical Eucharist mirrors Dzogchen: breaking through to the Holy Spirit is trekcho, conducting it is togal, and the Trikaya is the Trinity.
Institutional parallels. Lamas as confessors and "spiritual friends"; the Dalai Lama as Pope; Tibet before the 1950s Chinese takeover a theocracy like the Vatican; and water empowerment (wang, abhisheka), which Dzongsar Khyentse glosses as lugpa, "pouring."
Meister Eckhart (via Bernard McGinn): breaking through, detaching, birthing.
Longchen Rabjam (Precious Treasury of the Way of Abiding): spontaneous presence + oneness (voltage), openness (ohms reduction), ineffability of the "dynamic energy" (amperage).
| Vow | Dzogchen | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Obedience | Trekcho | Never avoid the practice of communion |
| Poverty | Effortlessness | Self-empty; let go and let flow |
| Chastity | Togal | Converge with the "virgin," stainless Clear Light |
The monk's three vows as Dzogchen practice
True togal is "simply consenting to be Blessed, Blissed, and En-Light-ened by the virgin Spirit."
The parallels are strongest at the level of structure (a triad, a sacrament, a vow). Buddhist teachers generally resist equating the Trikaya with the Trinity, because the Dharmakaya is not a creator, and Gardner's own "Father" language for Samantabhadra is one of the points they would contest.
Daist Dzogchen: Radical Understanding
The modern teaching closest to Dzogchen, Gardner says, is Adi Da's (born Franklin Jones). J. Krishnamurti's instructions are "incomplete and undeveloped"; Da's early "understanding" is a near-exact analogue of rigpa.
The texts. The Knee of Listening and The Method of the Siddhas, both early 1970s. Da: "Understanding is simply to be present, whatever arises... to be in relationship, actively, consciously." Had Da trained in Tibet, Gardner says, he would be revered as one of Dzogchen's greatest masters.
Marigpa (ignorance) is the avoidance of relationship; rigpa is relationship, which when unqualified becomes nondual Being-Awareness.
Not a search. Mature understanding is "the action of the present Heart, the living Self, not any search for him." Real meditation "has no purpose," and its perfection is Sahaja Samadhi, constant realization "prior to all conditions," lived while sitting, walking or working.
A smuggled Self. Dzogchen denies a Self but "smuggles" one in as the Nirmanakaya, the indwelling Dharmakaya, the same hypostasis as the Hindu Self.
Da describes the Divine Shakti embracing him in motionless "Sexual Union." The next day, September 10, 1970, nothing happened at all, and he "Realized that I had Realized... I Am the 'Bright.'" Gardner reads the "Bright Consciousness" as Siva-Shakti, that is Dharmakaya-Sambhogakaya, joined in the Heart.
Union. Consciousness unites with Light-Energy (Shakti) in the Heart. Da's Temple account.
Radical Be-ing. Stay present as Consciousness and see through obstructions. Da's later teaching. Gardner: even here, the mechanics still require union with Shakti.
Against Zen minimalism. He likes Huang Po's "There's never been a single thing," but keeps the Trikaya and togal, which Zen leaves implicit.
Gardner is a long-time admirer of Adi Da Samraj. Da's community faced lawsuits and press reports of abuse in the 1980s, which the book does not mention; readers weighing Da's authority should know that history.
Dzogchen Discursion
An open-ended session: definitions, Guru yoga, the minor kayas, rigpa versus sems, transmission, and what Dzogchen should become.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Dharma | The True Condition of a thing; also Truth Teaching |
| Dharmakaya | Timeless, self-conscious Awareness underlying all things |
| Dharmadhatu | The Dharmakaya as spaceless context, not physical space (which is Akasha, created) |
| Dharmamegha | The Dharmakaya rained down as Grace; "Great" Dharmamegha yields Bodhicitta |
| Dharmata | Mind-as-Thusness, Being-Consciousness |
Gardner's glossary of the Dharma terms
Guru yoga is union with the Guru's true nature, Clear Light: outer (living teacher or Gautama), inner (the yidam), secret (one's own Buddha-nature). A gifted disciple needs only the secret Guru. A living Guru "ceaselessly emits radiant Light-Energy," so a mature disciple who communes with that Transmission can see his own Buddha-nature mirrored in it; with a yidam, the deity's image falls away in communion and Buddha-nature "stands out." Dharmamegha comes in degrees: "partial" Dharmamegha is Shaktipat too weak for Buddhahood, while Great Dharmamegha is the Dharma Cloud bursting, the unobstructed Sambhogakaya uniting with the Nirmanakaya in the Heart-cave.
The other kayas. The Rupakaya, Svabhavakaya, Mahasukhakaya, Vajrakaya and Rainbow Body are not distinct bodies but names for the post-Enlightenment Sambhogakaya; a human body refracts the Clear Light "like a prism."
Rigpa versus sems. Gardner rejects "distinguish rigpa from sems" as the point of practice. Citta unmixed with manas is consciousness itself; the point is to be Mind, and the distinction from grasping mind then becomes self-evident.
Transmission. Mind cannot be passed on as an object; only Clear-Light Energy can, and in its "Mirror" the disciple recognizes Mind. The Four Empowerments (Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya, Dharmakaya, Svabhavakaya) are degrees of Shaktipat and match the Four Visions and the four Christian sacraments.
- Re-teach it inside an Esoteric Perennial Philosophy of trinitarianism.
- Scrap Precious Treasury of the Genuine Meaning and Yeshe Lama.
- Present trekcho as a dialectic that slides into togal.
Gardner's call to "scrap" two canonical texts comes from an outsider who, by his own account, has no lineage authorization. That is the source of his freedom to criticize, and also why Nyingma readers will not treat his proposal as a reform from within.
Dzogchen Literature: A Cognizant Overview
Gardner's recommended reading, starting outside Tibet. Fuller reviews are on his blog electricalspirituality.com and in Buddhist Book Reviews for Smarties.
| Author | Book | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| J. Krishnamurti | The First and Last Freedom; Commentaries on Living | Choiceless awareness; psychological depth |
| Adi Da (Franklin Jones) | The Knee of Listening; The Method of the Siddhas | Early used editions best |
| Garma C.C. Chang | Teachings of Tibetan Yoga | Most elegant Song of Mahamudra; Lama Kong Ka "superb" |
| W.Y. Evans-Wentz | Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines | Get the edition with Chen-Chi Chang's commentary |
| Namkhai Norbu | The Cycle of Day and Night | Best Dzogchen meditation text |
| John Myrdhin Reynolds | The Golden Letters | Garab Dorje's Three Statements |
| Longchen Rabjam | Way of Abiding; A Treasure Trove | "A veritable fountain" |
| Norbu and Clemente | The Supreme Source | Kunjed Gyalpo translation |
| Karma Chagme | Naked Awareness | Mahamudra and Dzogchen united |
| Rodney Devenish | Principal Yogacara Texts | Rare Indic source texts |
| Tenzin Wangyal | Wonders of the Natural Mind | Best on Bon Dzogchen |
Gardner's recommendations at a glance
Why read outside Tibet first. Krishnamurti (1895-1986) rejected every tradition, yet his effortless, choiceless awareness "accords with Dzogchen," even if he never develops the energetic side. Garma C.C. Chang, who is the same person as Professor Chen-Chi Chang of the Evans-Wentz commentary, gives the translation of Tilopa that Osho chose for Only One Sky, and his view of Mahamudra as a low-energy practice is the one Gardner says his paradigm explains. Chang's books also detail the Six Yogas of Naropa: psychic heat, illusory body, dream, clear light, the after-death state and consciousness-transference.
Qualified picks. Trungpa's Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism suits beginners but won't demystify. The 2002 Practice of Dzogchen (Rabjam and Tulku Thondup) is poorly translated. Genuine Meaning and Yeshe Lama are "must-reading" for standard togal despite his low opinion, alongside van Schaik and Hatchell. For Padmasambhava's "Yoga of Knowing the Mind," compare Evans-Wentz (1954) with Reynolds's Self-Liberation (2010): more precise, "flatter."
Jackson Peterson, Keith Dowman, Tulku Urgyen: read, but they "added" nothing.
The list rewards students who read Dzogchen beside Mahamudra, Advaita and Christian mysticism, which is the book's whole method.
Every pick is filtered through Gardner's own paradigm, and he says he hasn't read the newer translations (Wilkinson's All-Creating King, the 2014 Practice of Dzogchen).
Master Takeaways
- Trekcho and togal are one practice. Trekcho builds consciousness-force; true togal conducts the Light-Energy it draws down.
- Presence is voltage, ego is resistance, Spirit is current. The Ohm's Law metaphor is the book's working model of practice.
- Canonical togal is, for Gardner, a remedial visionary tantra, not the summit of Dzogchen.
- The visions are optical. Gazes, eye pressure and darkness produce phosphenes; the texts themselves call the visions empty.
- Enlightenment is Bodhicitta: Clear-Light Energy permanently united with consciousness in the right-side Heart-center.
- Effort comes first. Pure effortlessness is impossible before Enlightenment; trekcho takes effort and togal becomes quasi-effortless.
- Only the Dharmakaya is real; the Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya are its modes, and the Trikaya never enters spacetime.
- Emptiness is not a thing. Something must be empty, and that something is Awareness; the "Madhyamaka virus" obscures this.
- Rigpa is direct presence, not passive naked awareness.
- Relationship is the discipline. Ignorance is the avoidance of relationship; "Avoiding relationship?" restores it.
- The Four Visions are stages of one maturing realization and match the jhanas, bhumis 7-10 and the four Christian sacraments.
- Space is the created ether, not the Dharmakaya, but it is the ideal object for practice.
- Mind cannot be transmitted; only Clear-Light Energy can, and the disciple recognizes Mind in its mirror.
- Secrecy plus samaya threats shielded the visionary teachings from criticism.
- The Rainbow Body and siddhi claims are unproven, and Gardner will not accept them without evidence.
- Mahamudra was weakened when read as passivity, which is why it needed the Six Yogas.
- Christian mysticism gives the same map: Obedience, Poverty and Chastity as trekcho, letting go and togal.
- Adi Da's early teaching is the closest modern match to Dzogchen.
- Dzogchen should be re-taught within an esoteric, trinitarian perennial philosophy.
- Read Dzogchen beside other traditions; Gardner's reading list is built that way.
| Name | What it says | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Electrical Spiritual Paradigm | Presence (voltage) over ego-resistance gives Spirit-current | Diagnosing why a sitting feels flat or forced |
| Presence-absence-power dialectic | Connect, surrender, receive | Choosing what to emphasize in practice |
| Trikaya as Trinity | Being, Energy, embodied Buddha-nature | Comparing Buddhist and Christian mystical maps |
| Three modes of togal | Yin receive, yang converge, neutral rest | Adjusting once the current is felt |
| Five sheaths | Trekcho cuts body, prana, mind, intellect, then the causal knot | Locating what attention is gripping |
| Five objections to visions | Contradiction, physiology, culture, siddhis, the text itself | Evaluating any claimed visionary attainment |
Frameworks and mental models
The whole book. Gardner's strength is that he tests Tibetan claims against experience and other traditions instead of deferring to lineage. His weakness is the same: he reads togal manuals stripped of the oral instruction and view that frame them, treats his own experience as the measure of every tradition, and presents a metaphor (Ohm's Law) with the certainty of a law. The tone ("liars," "crappola") will close many doors. Take it as one practitioner's strong reconstruction, valuable for its questions, rather than an account of what Dzogchen teachers mean.
- AI and claimed capabilities. Gardner's five objections to visions (contradicts other evidence, has a simpler mechanism, reflects training data, makes untestable claims, undermined by its own documentation) work as a checklist for vendor claims about model "reasoning."
- Enterprise architecture. His trekcho/togal argument is a warning against splitting one capability into two products and then ranking one as "superior." Model the shared core first.
- Banking controls. Samaya-style secrecy, where exposing the process is the worst offence, is the pattern that lets weak controls survive. Make processes inspectable so critics are not punished for testing them.