འོད་གསལ
Clear Light Yoga (Ösel)
光明定 · Prabhāsvara / Āloka-siddhi
Supreme Siddhi 最高成就Clear Light Yoga (Ösel, 'Luminosity') is the recognition and stabilisation of the ground luminosity—the fundamental, self-aware, empty brightness that is the true nature of mind and the basis of all experience. At the moment of ordinary death, this clear light naturally manifests for a brief moment before all beings, but only those who have trained in its recognition through Dream Yoga and the other completion stage practices can recognise it and thereby achieve liberation rather than being swept away by the bardo. The ultimate siddhi of the Clear Light is that the practitioner's awareness merges with the 'Mother Clear Light' (ground luminosity that always pervades reality) during meditation and especially at death, recognising that the subjective experience of awareness and the objective ground of being have always been the same. This is the direct realisation of the Dharmakāya—the truth body of all Buddhas.
🧘 Associated Practice
Six Yogas of Naropa (Clear Light is the sixth and highest yoga); Dzogchen (where the Clear Light is called rigpa—naked awareness); Dream Yoga (where the practitioner recognises the clear light within the dream state)
☸ Relationship to the Path
The Clear Light is both the foundation and the fruit of the entire path: it is the ground awareness that makes all experience possible, the subtle luminosity that becomes clearer as practice deepens, and the final recognition that ends the cycle of birth and death. In Dzogchen terminology, ordinary mind (sems) and pristine awareness (rigpa) are recognised as the same in the Clear Light realisation.
📜 Classical Source
Six Yogas of Naropa; Longchenpa's 'Precious Treasury of the Dharmadātu'; Bardo Thodol; Kālacakra Tantra (Luminosity chapter); Tilopa's Song of Mahāmudrā
Associated Masters
⚖ Ethical Note
Clear Light Yoga cannot be practised through force of will or intellectual understanding—it requires a genuine relationship with a qualified teacher who can point out the nature of mind directly through transmission. Attempting to conceptualise the Clear Light as a meditation object rather than recognising it as one's own nature is the most common and most serious error.