Phowa

Amitabha (from a thangka in the personal collection of Sogyal Rinpoche)

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. 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:

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dharmakaya transference free from focus (chos sku gtad med kyi 'pho ba) sambhogakaya transference of unity (longs sku zung 'jug gi 'pho ba) nirmanakaya transference of training (sprul sku rtsal sbyong gi 'pho ba) guru's transference of blessings (byin rlabs bla ma'i 'pho ba) unmistaken khachö transference ('chugs med mkha' spyod kyi 'pho ba)

༈ ཆོས་སྐུ་གཏད་མེད་ཀྱི་འཕོ་བ། ལོངས་སྐུ་ཟུང་འཇུག་གི་འཕོ་བ། སྤྲུལ་སྐུ་རྩལ་སྦྱོང་གི་འཕོ་བ། བྱིན་རླབས་བླ་མའི་འཕོ་བ། འཆུགས་མེད་མཁའ་སྤྱོད་ཀྱི་འཕོ་བ།

Patrul Rinpoche mentions another list of five kinds of phowa:

1. Superior transference to the dharmakaya through the seal of the view
2. Middling transference to the sambhogakaya through the union of the generation and completion phases
3. Lesser transference to the nirmanakaya through immeasurable compassion
4. 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.
5. Transference performed for the dead with the hook of compassion

In the Dzogchen teachings, two kinds of transference are sometimes mentioned:

transference of entering the sphere of clear light ('od gsal sbubs 'jug gi 'pho ba) transference of consciousness riding the subtle energy (rnam shes rlung zhon gyi 'pho ba)

༈ འོད་གསལ་སྦུབས་འཇུག་གི་འཕོ་བ། རྣམ་ཤེས་རླུང་ཞོན་གྱི་འཕོ་བ།

Empowerments and Transmissions

• Tulku Pegyal Rinpoche was the first teacher to give Amitabha empowerments and teachings to the Rigpa sangha for the practice of phowa from the Longchen Nyingtik tradition. He did this on several occasions.
• Chagdud Khadro has also given the Rigpa sangha Amitabha empowerments and taught the phowa practice of Longsal Nyingpo on different occasions.

Further Reading

• Chagdud Khadro, P’howa Commentary, Pilgrims Publishing, India, 2004
• Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying