Dzogchen scholar and practitioner, David Germano explains (below) details of Dzogchen Nyinthig according to Longchenpa; it becomes clear that the later rendition of Dzogchen (Nyingthig) is not a direct Dharmakaya path as was earliest Semde, but became a hybrid of Yogini Tantra practices and original non-tantric Dzogchen. This turned Dzogchen into a gradualist type of Atiyoga based on Sambhogakaya methods instead of more direct Dharmakaya methods.
'Somatic functions: the universal ground of the karmic propensities-derived body'
Foundational consciousness’s (alaya, sem, karmic mind) .... points to its interdependence with embodiment, namely the deeply somatic character of the unconscious. The "Treasury of Reality’s Expanse" (ibid.) describes the “universal ground-as-body” (alaya) as the “beginningless karmic propensities for manifestation in terms of a body,” which becomes the “basis for the constellation of factors making up our individual bodies.” In general, the ordinary body is termed “ripened karmic propensities” (Longchenpa 1983b, vol. 2, 329.6) since it forms via the dynamics of karmic propensities from the moment of conception onwards:
"When the karmic mind; constellation of eight modes of consciousness, and fifty one mental factors manifest along with the karmic propensities, it is termed the “sheath” or “body” of the ripening karmic propensities. Furthermore, they are three in number – the flesh and blood body of the desire realm, the light body ripening in the four meditative states, and the psychic body (yid lus)which is latent in the formless realm". (Longchenpa 1971a, vol. 3, 202.3)
The three bodies correspond to the three realms of cyclic existence: (i) the flesh and blood corporeal body of the sensual realm, with the major limbs (the two arms, two legs, and head) and auxiliary appendages (the fingers, toes, chin); (ii) the luminous, etherealized bodies of the form realm corresponding to various levels of deities and rarefied states of meditation; and (iii) the “psychic bodies” of the formless realm, in which existence is attenuated to concentrated psychic energy without material physicality.
In the third case, embodiment is limited to a ghost- like existence between lives in the intermediate process (bar do), a mere mental image deriving from the karmic propensities of eons of embodied existence. In this way, the lived body can manifest on three different levels, which can be understood as dimensions of experience accessible to us in this life – the coarse physical level enmeshed in material existence, a vibrant subtle body reflexively sensed in contemplation, and the experiential body in various states – dreams, post-death, rarified contemplative states, visions, various imaginative processes, and acts of cognitive modeling.
The basic point is that the karmic traces constituting the unconscious dynamics of the foundational consciousness are deeply constitutive of all forms of embodiment:
"Since the karmic propensities for a body are present within the root psychic energy (of the universal ground), the bodies of flesh and blood, light, and the psyche manifest, and hence (this division of the universal ground) is termed (the “universal ground of the karmic propensities- derived body.” (Longchenpa 1983b, vol. 2, 36.2)
This somatic character of the foundational consciousness extends deeply into the body’s interior structure and processes, since the cosmogonic drama leading to it is not only interiorized within the consciousness and unconscious processes of sentient life, but is also somatically embedded within the body’s physiological detail.
Earlier Buddha-nature literature in Mahayana was pervaded by evocative metaphors placing divinity (whether potential or actual) within the ordinary body, but details are sparse on how that might actually work. The rise of yogic physiology in yogini tantras constituted a deeply somatic turn in Buddhist contemplation and discourse that focused on the intimate physiological detail of the human peripersonal space.
At times this took the form of an abstract mapping of Buddhist doctrinal concepts and iconographic detail onto the human body, but contemplation also involved genuine attention to ordinarily unconscious physiological processes and intense physical sensations. This somatic discourse entailed that all important concepts had to be embodied in very precise manners.
Thus the heart forming one of the four main “wheels” (S: cakra) of Buddhist subtle bodies is the somatic residence of the divine ground of pure awareness. Its cosmogonic luminosity – technically termed the “presencing of the ground” (gzhi snang) – spills out from the heart into a series of “luminous channels” (‘od rtsa) extending throughout the body from a central channel running up the body’s torso. As complicated physical and mental human structures evolve based upon it, it remains within the human body’s central vitality channel as a radiation of the heart’s radiant light via the network of the latter’s luminous channels.
The foundational consciousness (sem) is understood as deriving from the luminous channels’ “brightness” (gdangs), and is viewed as “clouds” which obscure the heart’s pristine awareness and thus must be cleared away via contemplation.
It (sem) is located within the “vitality channel” (srog rtsa), a term usually specifying the aorta or blood channel trunk, and often associated with the spinal cord (rgyungs pa) in these texts (Longchenpa 1971a).
In Tibetan medical texts, the aorta is termed the “black vitality channel” and the spinal cord the “white vitality channel,” clearly relating to the key role of blood and nervous energy. The luminous channel of transcendence remains located within this vitality channel, such that its somatic reality again reiterates the primacy and primordiality of Buddha-nature in terms of human being, and the secondary and derivative nature of the fundamental consciousness (sem).
In summary, these unconscious processes – both mundane and divine – are deeply intertwined with somatic processes and realities. This entails both that our physical state is a direct function of our relationship to unconscious processes, and that the key to gnosis lies through a somatic engagement rather than a purely cognitive one.
Contemplative functions: the gnostic transformation:
These models of the unconscious dimensions of being as well as bifurcated models of creation and agency are clearly manifest in the Seminal Heart’s (Nyingthig) contemplative traditions.
The contemplative focus on the foundational consciousness (sem, alaya) is chiefly on its eradication through traditional practices of “calming” (shamatha) and insight (vipassana). These function to deconstruct the foundational con- sciousness’s sedimented patterns, while also opening up a clearing for the divine ground’s efflugence to emerge in the field of reflexive awareness.
Similar practices include meditations on the sounds of the elements (wind, water, etc.) through cultivating calming based upon the sound of natural elements, as well as the “differentiation of samsara and nirvana” (‘khor ‘das ru shan) practice in which people act crazily in an isolated valley until pure fatigue exhausts ordinary constructions of experience. This culminates in the breakthrough (khregs chod) contemplative praxis, which essentially is a form-free relaxed presence of mind immersed within the depth unconscious of the (pure) ground.
However, the most distinctive contemplative practices are those focusing on a deeply somatic experi- ence of creative imaginal processes termed “direct transcendence” (thod rgal). This core practice involves cultivating a spontaneous flow of images understood to be the effulgent flow of luminosity from the heart’s universal ground through the eyes into exterior space. As this ordinarily unconscious process becomes reflexively self-aware, an alternative form of organization and patterning comes to the fore. Hence a dual tracked contemplative model is explicitly geared toward first eradicating the shallower layers of unconscious processes, and second bringing deeper processes into reflexive awareness.
Conclusion:
Explicit models of unconscious mental and physical processes arose within Indian Buddhism in response to the Abhidharma tradition’s intensive analysis of consciousness, both in theory and practice. Yogacarin Buddhists subsequently discerned the limits of conscious awareness, and, in the process, the underlying conditions that must necessarily support all ordinary conscious experience. Until this point, the notion of a foundational consciousness (alaya-vijñana) had largely remained a solution to an Abhidharmic problem concerning the relationship between different modalities and functions of consciousness. Once the notion of a foundational consciousness (alaya) underlying all other forms of mind was fully articulated, however, it became an interpretive nexus inviting speculation on its relationship to other processes outside consciousness awareness and control. These included Buddha-nature and pure consciousness (amala-vijñana), leading increasingly to speculation on older but as of yet poorly developed notions of original purity hidden within ordinary existence. This basic tension – namely whether fundamental consciousness is defiled or pure – came to be further developed in philosophical esoteric movements in Tibet. In at least one such tradition, the Great Perfection, we find a complex new synthesis elaborating both aspects into a deeply somatic portrayal of the unconscious as a dramatic unfolding of radically active divine and distorted processes with contrasting paradigms of creation and causality."
From: "A COMPARISON OF ALAYA-VIJÑANA IN YOGACARA AND DZOGCHEN" David F. Germano and William S. Waldron