NEW 2026 – Ocean of Profound Meaning: Hearing Lineage of the Six Branches of Yoga

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Two Book Formats Available:

Physical Book
8.5”x11” Printed on Recycled Paper
Spiral Bound with a Clear Protective Cover
81 Pages
$40

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81 pages
$35

The Ocean of Profound Meaning: Hearing Lineage of the Six Branches of Yoga from the Generation and Completion Stages of the Glorious Kalachakra by Künga Rinchen is an experiential practice commentary on the Six Branches of Yoga of the glorious Kalachakra, Wheel of Time. While this is a wide ranging commentary that could help the understanding of all types of sincere practitioners, its distinctive character is unmistakably Drigung Kagyü. Kalachakra’s completion stage is presented through the language of mahamudra, luminosity, direct recognition, and the inseparability of mind and wind. The six branches are not treated merely as a technical system of subtle-body yoga. They become a direct means of recognizing the nature of mind through appearance, awareness, energy, bliss, and emptiness.

The text was composed by Gyalwang Künga Rinchen (1475–1527), the sixteenth throne holder of Drigung and one of the root lamas of his successor, Gyalwang Rinchen Phüntshog. Künga Rinchen was renowned for revitalizing the retreat tradition and strengthening the experiential transmission of the Drigung Kagyü. According to the colophon, he committed these instructions to writing at the Trawakha retreat place in the water female ox year of 1493. He explains that he feared this profound meaning, transmitted from ear to ear, might otherwise be forgotten. Significantly, he states that he wrote the work after meditative experience had arisen.

The six branches are arranged as three complementary pairs. Withdrawal and concentration are the yogas of enlightened body and constitute virtue in the beginning. Pranayama and holding are the yogas of enlightened speech and constitute virtue in the middle. Recollection and meditative absorption are the yogas of enlightened mind and constitute virtue in the end. The first practice of each pair accomplishes enlightened body, speech, or mind, while the second stabilizes that accomplishment.

Withdrawal gathers the senses from their ordinary objects and rests awareness, its focal object, and the winds one-pointedly in space. The text gives detailed instructions for both night practice in darkness and day practice beneath the open sky. As the ordinary activity of the senses subsides, empty forms arise in such appearances as mirage, smoke, fireflies, a blazing lamp, cloudless space, rays, celestial forms, and luminous bindus. These appearances are not treated as distractions. They become the experiential ground of the path.

Concentration stabilizes these empty forms and integrates them with luminosity during meditation, sleep, death, and the bardo. Pranayama and holding then work directly with the channels, winds, and bindus. Through vajra recitation, breath practices, tummo, the gathering of the winds into the central channel, and the stabilization of wind and mind, the subtle body becomes a vehicle for realization. Milarepa expresses their essential point:

When the breath neither comes nor goes, there is bliss.
When there is no movement, there is complete bliss.

Recollection and meditative absorption unite this subtle-body practice with the yidam, mudra, the four joys, immutable bliss, and emptiness endowed with the supreme of all aspects. At the culmination of the path, mind becomes inseparable from the great manifold bindu. The stated fruition is Kalachakra as the identity of the four kayas and five wisdoms, the non-duality of bliss and emptiness.

What makes this presentation especially valuable is its integration of Kalachakra with the living realization lineage of the Kagyü. The historical current of Tilopa, Naropa, Marpa, Milarepa, Gampopa, Phagmo Drupa, and Jigten Sumgön forms the contemplative foundation of the work. Künga Rinchen repeatedly introduces their words as practical guidance. Naropa instructs:

Do not follow what has passed or welcome what has not yet come.
Rest in your own place in the present, without grasping.

Marpa describes being introduced to mahamudra through the blessings of Naropa and Maitripa, seeing “the innate meaning, the essence of mind,” and realizing the nature of reality free from elaboration. This is the special perspective of Künga Rinchen’s commentary. Movement does not depart from stillness. Appearances do not have to be rejected in order to recognize dharmakaya. Empty form is not a mere absence, and mahamudra is not produced through intellectual analysis. The methods of Kalachakra disclose directly what has always been present.

The work also draws upon Saraha, Shavaripa, Nagarjuna, Atisha, Padampa Sangye, Rechungpa, Machig, Barompa, Butön, Dölpopa, Shakyashri, Sakya Pandita, and many other masters, together with such authoritative sources as the Kalachakra Tantra, Guhyasamaja Tantra, Hevajra Tantra, Chakrasamvara Tantra, Chanting the Names of Manjushri, and Stainless Light.

The original Tibetan is presented here alongside the English translations to facilitate transmission, study, and practice.

This is a specialized Vajrayana practice text intended for qualified practitioners. Künga Rinchen repeatedly stresses the necessity of oral instruction, direct experience, and the careful protection of the signs and realizations that arise through practice.