Into the Mystic

Still largely cloaked in mystery, ancient Tibetan yoga practices are slowly being introduced in the West, but teachers remain cautious about revealing their secrets.

By Elaine Lipson

The second form was brought to the West by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, a master of the Bˆn school of the Dzogchen meditative tradition. In 1992, he founded the Ligmincha Institute, based in Charlottesville, Virginia, with branches in Texas, California, Poland, and Mexico; its aim, according to Ligmincha literature, is to "introduce to the West the wisdom traditions of the Bonpo which are concerned with the harmonious integration of internal and external energies." One part of these wisdom traditions is the Tibetan yoga practice that Ligmincha practitioners call Trul-Khor. (In this story, the capitalized term "Trul-Khor" refers to the movement practice taught by the Ligmincha Institute's authorized teachers; the lowercase "trul-khor" is a generic term referring to Tibetan movement practices in general.)

Both Yantra Yoga and Trul-Khor are forms that have been kept intact through centuries, and that are designed to create a state of "natural mind" for the devoted disciple. With newly available workshops, classes, instructional videotapes, and soon-to-be-published books, Tibetan yoga is bound to attract the interest of Westerners. Those who know the practices say they hope these yogas will not be diluted or modified as hatha yoga has been. Powerful and demanding when fully engaged in, these disciplines will probably never find their way into the class schedule of every health club in America. The serious seeker who finds this path, however, will discover the magic of an ancient tradition still intact.

The Magical Wheel

"Trul-khor" means "magical wheel," says Alejandro Chaoul-Reich, a teacher associated with the Ligmincha Institute and a Ph.D. candidate in religious studies at Rice University in Houston. Chaoul-Reich learned Trul-Khor, a set of seven cycles with a total of 38 movements, at Tritan Norbutse Bˆn monastery in Kathmandu, and was then able to verify the movements against an original Tibetan text with his teacher, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche.

The form known as Yantra Yoga has 108 movements in all (a number considered auspicious because it echoes the 108 canonical texts of the Buddha). Yantra Yoga is one of the few trul-khor practices of the Buddhist tradition that authorized teachers will transmit, at least in part, to students who are not engaged in the traditional three-year retreat process, and who have not completed a lengthy series of prostrations, meditations, and mantras.

The Eight Movements of Yantra Yoga, a recently released videotape from Snow Lion Publications, represents a remarkable breakthrough in making Tibetan movement practice universally available. "It's out now because Namkhai Norbu is willing for it to be made public," says Jeff Cox, president of Snow Lion. "Norbu is concerned that people do these movements properly, and with the release of this video, I think he's making a statement that he thinks enough people will be able to learn and benefit from it." The eight movements demonstrated on the videotape can be considered a preparatory method for balancing one's energy system, Cox says; a book with extensive instructions for the full system of Yantra Yoga is being translated from Tibetan by Adriano Clemente of Italy, a student of Norbu's, and will be published by Snow Lion.

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