Gankyil

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The Gankyil (Tib. dga’dkyil) (pronounced: ganshey or ganshee) ("bliss+whirling" or "wheel of joy") is a potent polyvalent symbol and ritual tool. The symbol is evident in the Himalaya as well as incised on the Pictish stones of Scotland and Celtic art and knotwork.^[1] It is employed in Korea and throughout East Asia. In Bön and Nyingma Dzogchen lineages, the Gakyil is the principal polyvalent symbol and teaching tool: it is symbolic of primordial energy and represents the central unity and indivisibility of all the teaching, philosophical and doctrinal trinities in Dzogchen and is an attribute of the Snowlion.

In metaphysical terms, the Gankyil is the Vajrayana equivalent of the Bindu of Classical Hinduism and it is held to embody the conceptual mystery of the the point at which Creation ^[2] begins, when the unity becomes the many. The Gankyil is the evocative investiture of Indra's Pearls: the principle of inconceivable simultaneous oneness and difference ^[3] and the resolution of duality into primordial unity. ^[4]

The gankyil is the central part of the shang, a traditional ritual tool and instrument that Bönpo shaman employ as an energetic sound structure to caste their mindstream as thoughtform, sometimes also with the intention to engender sambhogakaya simulacrum.

The energetic potency (wisdom or shakti) of the Snowlion is personified in the attribute of the Gankyil that the Snowlion keep in eternal play. The Gankyil is a vriddhi derivation of the dragon's fiery 'pearl of great price', the priceless Pearl of Wisdom.^[5] As a gem, the gankyil is also a rendering of the Wishfulfilling Jewel at the epicentre of the lotus of the Avalokiteśvara Mantra and as the energetic nirmanakaya embodiment of the Triratna.

The gankyil is the energetic signature of the Trikaya, realised through the transmutation of the obscurations forded by the Three poisons (refer klesha) and therefore in the Bhavachakra the Gankyil is encoded as the snake, boar and fowl(?). Gankyil is to Dharmachakra, as still eye is to cyclone, as Bindu is to Mandala. The Gankyil is the inner wheel of the Vajrayana Dharmacakra (refer Himalayan Ashtamangala).

The Gankyil is symbolic of the Trikaya doctrine of nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya and dharmakaya and also of the Buddhist understanding of the interdependence of body, speech and mind. The divisions of the teaching of Dzogchen are for the purposes of explanation only; just as the Gankyil divisions are understood to dissolve in the energetic whirl of the Wheel of Joy.

Namkai Norbu & Shane (1988: p.149-150) state that the:

"The Gankyil, or ‘Wheel of Joy’, can clearly be seen to reflect the inseparability and interdependence of all the groups of three in the Dzogchen teaching, but perhaps most particularly it shows the inseparability of the Base, the Path, and the Fruit. And since Dzogchen, the Great Perfection, is essentially the self-perfected indivisibility of the primordial state, it naturally requires a non-dual symbol to represent it.”

The gankyil also embodies the three cycles of Nyingmapa Dzogchen codified by Mañjushrīmītra:

Semde (mind class/cycle);
Longde (space class/cycle); and
Mengagde (oral instruction class/cycle), and this classification determined the exposition of the Dzogchen teachings in the subsequent centuries.

The gankyil also embodies the three tantra lineagues as Penor Rinpoche^[6] a Nyingmapa states:

According to the history of the origin of tantras there are three lineages: The Lineage of Buddha's Intention, which refers to the teachings of the Truth Body originating from the primordial Buddha Samantabhadra, who is said to have taught tantras to an assembly of completely enlightened beings emanated from the Truth Body itself. Therefore, this level of teaching is considered as being completely beyond the reach of ordinary human beings. The Lineage of the Knowledge Holders corresponds to the teachings of the Enjoyment Body originating from Vajrasattva and Vajrapani, whose human lineage begins with Garab Dorje of the Ögyan Dakini land. From him the lineage passed to Manjushrimitra, Shrisimha and then to Guru Rinpochey, Jnanasutra, Vimalamitra and Vairochana who disseminated it in Tibet. Lastly, the Human Whispered Lineage corresponds to the teachings of the Emanation Body, originating from the Five Buddha Families. They were passed on to Shrisimha, who transmitted them to Guru Rinpochey, who in giving them to Vimalamitra started the lineage which has continued in Tibet until the present day. (NB: original quotation not meta-enhanced.)

1 Three aspects of energy in Dzogchen doctrine
2 Notes
- 2.1 References
3 External links

[edit] Three aspects of energy in Dzogchen doctrine

The gankyil also embodies the energy manifested in the three aspects of all Sentient beings:

dang (Wylie: gdangs), which is essentially infinite and formless;
rolpa (Wylie: rol pa), which may be perceived as the thoughtform of 'the eye of the mind', or the transpersonal imaginal manifestion (Many practices of thödgal and yangthig work on the basis of functioning of the rolpa aspect of individual's energy. It is also the original source of the deities visualized in Buddhist tantric transformational practices and of manifestations of one hundred peaceful and wrathful deities in bardo;
tsal (Wylie: rtsal), which may be conceived as the manifestation of the energy of the individual him or herself, as apparently an 'external' world.^[7] The mind of a sentient being is also tsal energy when it is 'contaminated' by the karmic winds.^{[citation needed]} Certain practices stop the karmic winds of the body and therefore allow the energy of tsal to be experienced by itself.

Though not discrete correlates, dang equates to dharmakaya; rolpa to sambhogakaya; and tsal to nirmanakaya.

The Dzogchen teachings focus on three terms: View, Meditation, and Action. To see directly the absolute state of our mind is the View; the way of stabilizing that View and making it an unbroken experience is Meditation; and integrating that View into our daily life is what is meant by Action.

[edit] Notes

^ Comparable designs and motifs to the Gankyil are classified as derivations of the three spiral patterns in Celtic art and knotwork according to Sloss (1999) and are evident on the: Aberlemno Stone, Book of Durrow, Clach a' Charridh (or Shandwick Stone), and the Hilton of Cadboll Stone.
^ The Creation is essentially uncreated due to its endemic essence-quality to engender-manifest in a blissful, luminous and void play or thoughtform phantasmagoria of the Five Pure Lights.
^ The front-end of this metatext is primary and to be foregrounded whilst the back-end translineage association is to inform an aggregation: to graft unity of the disparate. (The gendered language of the back-end deixis is not upheld herewith.)
^ As the inaugural quatrain of Blake's singularly resplendent Auguries Of Innocence enshrines:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour. (Kazin, 1946: p.150)
^ Source: http://www.sacred-texts.com/etc/ddl/ddl12.htm (accessed: Friday January 19, 2007)
^ http://www.bhutanvisit.com/Buddhism/nyingmapa.html accessed: 1 February 2007
^ Norbu (1999), pp. 99, 100, 101

[edit] References

Norbu, Chögyal Namkhai Rinpoche (Edited by John Shane) (1988). The Crystal and the Way of Light.. Routledge & Kegan Paul. ISBN 0140190848
Norbu, Chögyal Namkhai (1999). The Crystal and The Way of Light: Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen. Snow Lion Publications. ISBN 1-55939-135-9
Sloss, Andy (1999). Celtic Body Decoration. Carlton Books Ltd. ISBN 1 85868 597 4
Kazin, Alfred (1946). The Portable Blake. (Selected and arranged with an introduction by Alfred Kazin.) New York: The Viking Press.

[edit] External links

Henkemans, Anneco Blanson (1996). The Gakayil And The Windmill Hill Formation. http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/column/blanson.html (accessed: Tuesday, February 6, 2007)