Thogal theory and Practice
I am writing this as a "quick start" instructional guide that will allow anyone to begin practicing thogal effectively and safely.
Thogal means "over the skull", "over the crest". It actually means to arrive instantly without jumping to get there, like a quantum leap. Thogal practice makes it very easy to experience, know and differentiate rigpa from all other mind states, in its purest form.
Rigpa is our primordial Buddha Mind that is intrinsically perfect, permanently. Because it's permanent, it's always present. But it is not our experience, rather our experience is other coarser states of mind as content, which are appearing within the space of changeless rigpa awareness.
By practicing thogal, rigpa itself becomes its own self-experience. What is experienced is its own penetrating transparency, insightful clarity, wisdoms, and absence of a "me" egoic identity, as well as the absence of the sense of an "external" universe. Eventually the physical body will dissolve into pure Light as the practice comes to perfect fruition.
Thogal focuses on the visual apparatus. That means we use our eyes as our path.
Traditionally we use the sun by looking towards the sun in early morning and late afternoon. One does not look directly at the sun but slightly underneath it or off to the side, and with sun glasses on. I find using one eye at a time works best. One squints so that the ball of the sun is no longer visible but only a diffraction pattern of colored rays and a background tapestry of circles as though similar to looking at a peacock's feather. Within that diffraction pattern you can see little round spheres that may have little circular rings within them as well. At first they may just look like this but completely round: @
Sample images are posted below. They get larger over time with consistent practice. They are called "thigles" in Tibetan. (Pronounced: teeglay)
One then begins to focus on one little sphere by not moving the eyes. You just gaze at it. So do just this much for several sessions. I recommend a safer and easy way to do thogal:
Use your iPhone or similar phone with only the black screen. Hold it down toward your waist, angle it so you can look down and see the reflection of the sun. Squint your eyes until the ball disappears into the light refraction and continue as described above. This allows practicing throughout the day, even at noon. But be sure to wear sun glasses. Between the UV absorption in the phone's black glass and your sun glasses, no harmful UV rays should be entering your eyes. It's only the UV rays that damage the eyes. I recommend 20 minute sessions. 10 minutes with each eye. Start with one session per day and add a session later in the day if desired. But practice everyday. The effects will last and are cumulative.
If sun is not available you can flip the phone around and use the flashlight feature as though looking at the sun, but no sunglasses are necessary. You can also use an ordinary light bulb.
There are specific recommended postures for during thogal practice but I have not found them necessary and Namkhai Norbu stated that once the practice is working the postures are no longer necessary. I have taught dozens of people this approach in my retreats and it works for everyone without exception.
Once you are a little familiar wth the inner landscape and can focus on these thigle spheres easily, then while looking at the spheres ask your self "who or what is doing the looking?". "Where exactly is the observer?" Is there a "someone" looking or is there just empty perception?".
Also from time to time notice the empty space between the thigle and the place from where you are observing. Notice that completely clear and transparent space. Sense that space behind you and all around you and through you.
Also notice your state of inner empty clarity, transparent and vividly awake; from time to time.
Pay less attention to the condition of the thigles than to your empty awareness that is looking.
After you finish, look closely at various textures and surfaces close up and notice the sharpness of detail. Sometimes you can actually feel the textures by sight alone. Vision will become amazingly clear along with a sense of transparency and absence of selfness. It's this transparency (zangthal) and absence of selfing that transforms the mind completely into its own vivid emptiness. There is nothing to think about or workout. The practice does it all automatically.
There are many more aspects to all of this. To learn more and for additional support please join our thogal group here at FB, Dzogchen Thogal.
I am posting this on the general Dzogchen group to encourage those interested to practice. There is currently lots of misinformation out there regarding thogal and I would like to keep this technology available in an easy and workable format that can bring infinite benefit to any competent practitioner that wants to learn.
There are several lineage authorized books on the open public market now that explain thogal in complete detail. Now the traditional lineage Lamas have allowed these thogal teachings to be propagated broadly for everyone's benefit also out of a fear that these precious teachings may disappear eventually.
I received the thogal transmission and practice instructions privately in 1985 through the Yeshe Lama text as presented to me by a Nyingma Lama who was taught by Dudjum Rinpoche. I later received the detailed Bon transmission of Shardze Rinpoche's text "Heart Drops of the Dharmakaya" trekchod and thogal instructions personally from the Bon Menri Lopon. Shardza Rinpoche attained the "rainbow body of light" in the 1930's. Neither of my teachers asked me to keep these teachings secret, nor have I pledged any samaya regarding not sharing any of the Dzogchen teachings with others.
Please share your successes and insights in our thogal group as well as your practice issues.
I recommend reading my book and gaining familiarity with all the practices in the appendix before commencing thogal practice: "The Natural Bliss of Being", as well as attending one of my thogal retreats.
May all beings benefit! Emaho!
www.wayoflight.com

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INJURY DISCLAIMER on Dzogchen practice descriptions
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The sudden and totally unexpected shift from "grasping to understand emptiness" to suddenly "being emptiness" is not only breath-taking but is also the most liberating release possible!
"What you are now looking out of isn’t two small and tightly fastened “windows” called eyes but one immense and wide open “Window” without any edges; in fact you are this frameless, glassless “Window”. To make quite sure of this, you have only to point to the “Window” and notice what that finger is pointing at -if anything.
"Please do just that, now ... Contrary, no doubt, to one’s first impression, conscious headlessness or transparency -this seeing into the Nothingness-right-where-one-is -turns out to have several unique virtues."
Douglas Harding

Lopon Tenzin Namdak:

"The introduction is very simple: we just look back at ourselves." (the empty and aware crown chakra or "space chakra" behind our eyes)

how to look back precisely? to be just aware of the space in the head behind eyes? and the VAST EXPANSE starts when? After starting to be aware of the space in the head behind eyes? what more to do to facilitate it beside this?

Several Dzogchen masters have offered these precise instructions:

"It is as though your eyes are looking backwards instead of forwards as they usually do. You are looking out with your eyes but are looking back at the same time. Do not try too hard with this though, otherwise you will really make a big mistake. You just sort of look back ..."
Mingyur Rinpoche

"The way to do this is just to turn your attention slightly inward, not to look deeply inside, just to turn your focus from outward to inward in a very light way. The moment of recognizing this state is the blessings of the lineage." Tsoknyi Rinpoche

"Without any in or any out - utter openness. How is it that ‘openness’? It’s empty, awake, luminous and simple..." Tsoknyi Rinpoche

Here is a way I use at my retreats:

Sit in a comfortable posture in a well lit and bright room or outdoor space.

Close your eyes.

Notice the color at your closed eyelids. It will usually seem like an orangey color with brownish or gray tinges. Whatever the color, just observe the color that seems to be in front of your awareness that's noticing the colors.

Now, instead of attention being on the colors at the eyelids; notice that which is the "observing" the colors. Bring attention from the object to the subject side that is doing the observing.

Notice the empty nature of your own awareness that is observing. There is an empty space of awareness that knows itself, but not as a thing with shape, form or substance.

Relax attention again and again from the colors or any inner phenomena, so that attention and the empty, observing awareness occupy the same exact space, inseparably so.

"Relax into basic space beyond beginning and end,” introduces the nature of mind. Once you recognize it, there is no need to wait for another time in the future. Basic space never began and does not end in any way whatsoever. Rigpa never began and does not end. It is totally endless, utterly beginningless."
Tulku Urgyen

"This wakefulness that is primordially pure is the empty quality of the nature of our mind (Buddha Mind). In the moment when we recognize our nature, we do not see any ‘thing’ whatsoever. It is already utterly pure and perfect. That is exactly what we call primordial purity. Inseparable from that is a quality of knowing: we are cognizant, at the same time. This is the spontaneous presence. These two aspects are indivisible."
Tulku Urgyen

Once these instructions reveal what's being pointed to:

An ancient quote from a fundamental Great Perfection Tantra, or scriptural text, called the “The Heaped Jewels.” It com­pletely summarizes the unique method of Dzogchen practice:

"When anyone rests in the natural state (Buddha Mind) without concen­tration, understanding manifests in that individual’s mind, without someone having to teach all the words by which the mind understands these meanings. As this understanding dawns in the mind, all that is non-man­ifest and all sensory appearances, which in themselves entail no concepts, are seen to be naturally pure." (From Longchenpa’s Precious Treasury, Padma Publications.)

Kalu Rinpoche:

"Mind is poised in the state of bare awareness, there is no directing the mind. One is not looking within for anything; one is not looking without for anything. One is simply letting the mind rest in its own natu­ral state. The empty, clear and unimpeded nature of mind (Buddha Mind) can be experienced if we can rest in an uncon­trived state of bare awareness without distraction and without the spark of awareness being lost."

In daily life:

"It is easy to re-recognize it (rigpa). You just have to drop thinking and it is right there. There is not a lot to be done."
Mingyur Rinpoche

"Standing on the bare ground,--my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,--all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me;"
Ralph Waldo Emerson


“When thine eye is single,” said Jesus mysteriously, “thy whole body also is
full of light.” This single eye is surely identical with the precious Third Eye of Indian mysticism, which enables the seer simultaneously to look in at his Emptiness and out at what’s filling it. And the same, also, as the priceless gem which (according to Eastern tradition) we search everywhere for but here on our foreheads, where we all wear it."
Douglas Harding