Chapter 18 - Trance Walking and lung-gom training

The first eye witness of a lung-gom that reached the West is probably the graphic description which Alexandra David-Neel gave in her famous book With Mystics and Magicians in Tibet. One day, while crossing a wide table land, she noticed in the distance a moving black spot which aroused her curiosity, since she was travelling through uninhabited territory; and had not met any human being for almost two weeks. Her field-glasses revealed the moving object to be a man, who 'proceeded at an unusual gait and especially with an extraordinary swiftness'. When he came nearer she could clearly see his perfectly calm impassive face and wide-open eyes with their gaze fixed on some invisible far-distant object situated somewhere high up in space. The man did not run. He seemed to lift himself from the ground, proceeding by leaps. It looked as if he had been endowed with the elasticity of a ball and rebounded each time his feet touched the ground. His steps had the regularity of a pendulum.

When I read this account a few years after my above-related experience, I immediately was reminded of what had happened to me on the shores of the Pangong Lake. Her description exactly coincided with my own experience. Beginners in the art of lung-gom are often advised to fix their mind not only on a mentally visualised object, namely the aim towards which they want to move, but to keep their eyes fixed on a particular star, which in some cases seems to produce a hypnotic effect. Even in this detail, I had unwittingly conformed to the rules, and I clearly reached a condition in which the weight of the body is no more felt and in which the feet seem to be endowed with an instinct of their own, avoiding invisible obstacles and finding footholds, which only a clairvoyant consciousness could have detected in the speed of such a movement and in the darkness of the night.

Alexandra David-Neel thinks that a kind of anesthesia deadens the sensations that would be produced by knocking against the stones or other obstacles on the way. But this seems not to be the case, otherwise the lung-gom-pa would find his feet bruised and swollen afterwards, which apparently is not so, as I have learned from my own experience. Neither can I subscribe to the view that it is due to a remainder of normal consciousness, which keeps one aware of the obstacles in ones way. Just on the contrary, it is the noninterference of normal consciousness which ensures the immunity of the trance walker and the instinctive sureness of his movements. There is no greater danger than the sudden awakening to normal consciousness. It is for this reason that the lung-gom-pa must avoid speaking or looking about, because the slightest distraction would result in breaking his trance.

The deeper meaning of lung-gom is that matter can be mastered by the mind. This is illustrated by the fact that the preparatory exercises are mainly spiritual, i.e. consisting in strict seclusion and mental concentration upon certain elementary forces and their visualised symbols, accompanied by the recitation of mantras, through which certain psychic centres (chakra) of the body, which are related to those forces by their natural functions, are awakened and activated.

Just as in the tum-mo practices, which result in the production of 'psychic heat' (for reference see in Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism), the adept has to concentrate upon the element 'fire' in its corresponding psychic centre and in all its phenomenal and essential qualities and psychic implications, so in the case of lung-gom the adept is required to concentrate on all the phenomena, aspects, and functions of the vital element air.

Gom (sgom) means meditation, contemplation, concentration of mind and soul upon a certain subject, as well as the gradual emptying of the mind of all subject-object relationship, until a complete identification of subject and object has taken place.

Lung (Hun) signifies both the elementary state of 'air' (Skt: vāyu) as well as the subtle vital energy or psychic force (Skt: Prāṇa). Just as the Greek word 'pneuma' can signify 'air' as well as 'spirit', so lung can be applied to the element 'air' and to those bodily functions which represent the material side of our vital principle, as exemplified by the process of breathing and the faculty of movement, as well as the currents of psychic energy resulting in various states of consciousness.

In combination with gom, the word lung can only be applied to the from of various meditational practices, connected with the control of vital functions of the human body through the finer forces of the mind. In other words, the lung-gom-pa is not a man who has the faculty to fly through the air (a belief that has its origin in the wrong interpretation of the word lung), but one who has learned to control his Prāṇa through the yogi-practice of Prāṇāyāma, which starts with the simple function of conscious breathing and makes it the basis of a profound spiritual experience, resulting in a transformation of the whole psycho-physical organism and of the very personality of the practitioner. Forces and faculties, which are present in every human individual, are re-channelled and concentrated in a new direction.

Thus lung-gom could be aptly rendered with 'concentration on the dynamic vital principle'. It reveals the dynamic nature of our physical organism and of all material states of aggregation, not in the sense of a self-sufficient dynamism, but as something that depends on the co-operation and interaction of various forces and ultimately on the fundamental (and universal) faculties of consciousness. Thus, a direct influence is possible upon the bodily functions and their respective organs, so that a psychophysical co-operation is established: a parallelism of thought and movement, and a rhythm that gathers all available forces into its service.

If one has reached the point where the transformation of one force or state of materialisation into another one is possible one may produce various effects of an apparently miraculous nature, as, for instance, the transformation of psychic energy into bodily movement (a miracle that we perform on a smaller scale every moment, without being conscious of it), or the transformation of matter into an active state of energy, resulting at the same time in a reduction of weight or the apparent elimination or reduction of the power of gravitation.

In the original system of Buddhist meditation the attainment of magic power is a mere by-product and is looked upon rather as a danger than as a stimulus on the higher path, which aims at liberation and abhors the exhibition of occult forces. The peculiar conditions of Tibet, however, have sometimes made it necessary to make use of these powers to a certain degree, especially when nature placed unsurmountable obstacles in the way of the adept or his desire to be of service to his fellow-beings. Thus tum-mo may at the same time serve as a protection against the excessive cold during the hard Tibetan winters, to which Yogis are exposed in their caves and hermitages high up in the bare mountains, where fuel is almost unobtainable. However, it should be noted that this is far from being the purpose of tum-mo, which is purely spiritual, namely the attainment of inner unification or integration, which brings about the state of enlightenment and the wholeness of being.

In a similar way lung-gom-pa is only one of the many ways of liberation, though it may under certain circumstances help an individual to move speedily over vast distances, which, in a country where communications are beset with many difficulties, assumes a particular importance. It may happen that people take to this training, spurred by the ambition to obtain spectacular magic powers. But the sacrifice that is demanded of them is so great that anyone who is able to go through the full training must be a man of extraordinary character and spiritual qualities. And such a man, the more seriously he pursues his exercises, will soon lose all his initial pride and ambition, because his whole training is based on the giving up and not on the strengthening of his ego, in which pride and ambition have their origin.

This has been illustrated by many of the popular stories of the famous eighty-four medieval Siddhas (literally: 'Accomplished Ones'), many of whom set out with the idea to acquire supernatural powers for their own benefit, and who in the process of it, or by the time they had realised them, had lost interest in such mundane aims, because they had overcome that very sense of ego which was the source of their desires.

Here only one example, the story of Siddha Kadgapā: There was once a robber, who met a yogi and asked him how he could become invincible. The yogi answered: 'There is a stūpa in such and such a place. Go there and circumambulate the sanctuary with the image of Avalokiteśvara for three weeks, reciting the mantra and performing the Sādhanā, which I will give you, If you do this with full devotion and unfailing concentration, without diverting your mind, then at the end of the third week a deadly black snake will emerge from the stūpa. You must immediately seize the snake behind the head, and if you have faithfully carried out your Sādhanā, the snake will not harm you, and you will obtain the power of invincibility.

The robber thanked the yogi and did as be was told. He devoted himself heart and soul to the indicated exercise, and when the fearful snake finally emerged from the hollow niche of the stūpa he seized it behind the head, and lo! he held in his hand the invincible Sword of Wisdom. He had no more use for miraculous powers and became a saint. Since then he has been known as Siddha Kadgapā, 'the Saint with the Sword'.