Tibetan Tantric Yoga: Principles & Practices with Dr. Ian Baker

'Tibetan Tantric Yoga: Principles and Practices’ explores physical yoga in Tibetan Tantra and Dzogchen. Trulkhor (’phrul ’khor or ’khrul ’khor) refers in Tibetan Buddhism to sequenced, breathlinked movements based on a visualized metaphysical anatomy of channels, winds, and subtle essences. Trulkhor emerged in Tibet during the 11th century as a gymnastic form of deity yoga (devatāyoga) through which practitioners sought to actualize their indwelling Buddha-nature (tathāgatagarbha) by embodying the wisdom, bliss, and emptiness (détong yeshé) that the ‘magical movements’ were held to instigate. Conceiving of the human body as a yantra, or transformative device, Trulkhor reflects the mutual borrowings that occurred between Buddhist and Śaiva practice traditions within the context of the Anuttara Yoga Tantra lineages associated with Hevajra and Cakrasaṃvara. But Trulkhor was also shaped by indigenous, and perhaps Indic, traditions of ritual dance. It also involves highly dynamic ‘yogic falls’ (beb'), designed to concentrate vital energy and awareness within the body’s central channel (susumnā nāḍī). Later forms of Trulkhor, such as Yantra Yoga, revealed by Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, include āsanas that are prominent in Modern Postural Yoga. This presentation explores the syncretic origins and historical development of Trulkhor within the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, including its intercultural, twentieth-century manifestations. It also addresses the little-known aspect of dynamic physical disciplines within the Tibetan tradition of Dzogchen, or Ati Yoga, in which highly elaborated forms of Trulkhor recur as both spontaneous movement and protracted isometric āsanas.

Ian Baker pursued doctoral studies in literature and anthropology at the University of Oxford and University College London, and completed his PhD in History at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. He is the author of seven critically acclaimed books on Himalayan and Tibetan cultural history, environment, art, and medicine including The Heart of the World, Celestial Gallery, The Tibetan Art of Healing, and The Dalai Lamas Secret Temple, a collaborative work with His Holiness the Dalai Lama that illuminates Tantric Buddhist meditation practices. His latest book, Tibetan Yoga: Principles and Practices, was published in 2019 in several international editions. Ian studied with some of the greatest luminaries of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, including Jigdral Yeshé Dorje Rinpoche, Chatral Sangye Dorje Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, and Kyabjé Dungse Thinley Norbu, and undertook prolonged meditation retreats in the Himalayas. He was designated by National Geographic Society in 2000 as an ‘Explorer for the Millennium’ and was lead curator for the acclaimed 2015-2016 exhibition ‘Tibet’s Secret Temple: Body, Mind, and Meditation in Tantric Buddhism’ at London's Wellcome Collection.

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