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The Five Tsa Lung Trul Khor Exercises – Tibetan Yoga of Breath and Movement

The Five Tsa Lung Exercises are movements that work with five chakra locations within the central channel of the body: the crown, throat, heart, navel and secret chakra.

It contains five types of exercises corresponding to the five elements (Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, and Void).

Meaning of Tsa Lung Trul Khor:

”Tsa” is the Tibetan word for ”channel,” and ”lung” is the word for ”wind” (called prana, qi, or chi in other traditions). These exercises are used in the Tibetan Bon tradition and the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

It is said in the introduction of Lama Kunga’s book about Tsa Lung:

“Tsa Lung, in Tibetan, means channel and wind and it refers to a collection of traditional psychophysiological techniques based on the subtle constitution of individuals. Spread from India to Tibet … some may think that it is the Tibetan version of the Indian Yogi, but it is not, the yoga has Hinduism for origin, Tsa Lung is a pure Buddhist technique.”

Benefits Of Practicing Tsa Lung Exercises:

Tsa Lung works with both the body and the breath. Also, this technique combines movements of the body (subtle body channels – nadi) while holding the breath and visualizations, to open channels, release blockages and restore the healthy flow of prana (energy).

Because you are holding the breath, the movements can penetrate deeper into the body and open more of the smaller channels, the very subtle chakras. It is only possible to open these small chakras with the breath. Movement alone is not sufficient. Something more subtle, such as the breath, must be used to reach these subtle places.

During the practice of these simple exercises, you inhale, bringing your focus and breath together to a particular chakra in the body. Then you reinhale and hold the breath and focus while performing a specific movement designed to open the blockages and obscurations of that chakra. After releasing the breath, you rest in open awareness, which allows you to become aware of more subtle qualities.

Main Benefits Of Tsa Lung:

It opens major chakras in order to access the deeper wisdom that is always available. When you would like to go even deeper than Tsa Lung, then you need to practice Tummo.

How to practice Tsa Lung exercises:

Watch Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, a Tibetan lama from Bon tradition in the video below. If you are finding the starting pose hard to accommodate on the floor, you could invest in a comfortable yoga mat.

READ MORE: Breathing Exercises For Relaxation

Chogyal Namkhai Norbu Tashigar explains the benefits of practicing these exercises:

“The most important part of all Tantric practices is Tsa Lung.”

What does this word really mean? Tsa means channels; lung means prana energy – so altogether it means how the prana is related to the channels and how we should work with these. We always prepare to do Tsa Lung practices by doing the main practice of Mandarava.

Also, you remember that Mandarava manifests the three Kayas. We stay in the presence of whichever aspect is necessary for the particular practice we are doing.

Here we are explaining Tsa Lung practices which put a lot of emphasis on the heat. If people are living in a warm place they wonder why we need even more heat.

Even if the weather is warm it doesn’t mean we have developed our inner heat. What we need to develop is inner heat because it is important for discovering and developing sensation. The sensation of pleasure is one of the most important means of having knowledge and realization. If we don’t develop inner heat we don’t have that possibility.

When you do these practices in a perfect way, relaxing in the sensation of the pleasant feeling and staying in this presence, combining it with the visualization, you can obtain the following benefits: all the self-perfected, ”lhundrub” qualities arise; also you automatically overcome attachment to food and you can easily integrate and stay in instant presence forever.

It also becomes a very important purification of negative karma and any kind of obstacle. Your clarity will manifest and develop and you will be able to go beyond your limitations.”

Learn on insightstate.com more exercises that will increase your vitality – Meditation TechniquesThe Five Tibetan RitesLu JongInner Fire Yoga, and Nine Purification Breaths.

an.

Wednesday 2nd of September 2020

warmly, thank you for this.

Random

Thursday 30th of August 2018

How many times in a day and what time is perfect to do this meditation?

Michael

Sunday 28th of November 2021

@Random, Two or even three times a day. Morning, later in the morning and the late afternoon/dusk

Insight State's Editorial

Thursday 30th of August 2018

Once, early in the morning.

Brian Hull

Tuesday 20th of December 2016

Is that Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche in the video?

Insight State

Tuesday 20th of December 2016

Yes.

Thursday 10th of November 2016

is the secret chakra the same as the root chakra?

James

Monday 25th of March 2024

It actually depends on the particular system being used. There are many different subtle body practices of the Bon, Buddhist, and other Indian systems, and the systems vary in the Buddhist tantras depending on what is being emphasized, so there is no simple answer “yes”. It is best to check which system you are working with. In completion stage practices of Buddhist tantra, the secret chakra is sometimes 4 finger widths below the navel, sometimes at the root of the sex organ, and sometimes at the tip of the sex organ (which for a woman is the cervix). It is worth mentioning that the subtle psychic anatomy explained in Bon and both Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, is not the same as the systems explained by other traditions such as Hindu or those we might find in western spiritual books about chakras. That is not to say one is better than any other, but merely to indicate it is important to know according to the particular system we are working with.

Insight State

Thursday 10th of November 2016

Yes.