Derge Kangyur/Tengyur e-text, Esukhia/Barom edition — public domain (mechanical reproduction)
Gazing Upon the Buddhas of the Three Times provides a technical manual for a specific visualization practice based on the Nāmasaṃgīti. The text instructs the practitioner to generate a visual field of five-colored, rainbow-like light rays emanating from a vajra located at the heart-moon. These rays are intended to pervade and illuminate the entirety of space, serving as the foundational stage for visualizing the Buddhas of the three times. By committing the reader to a precise geometric and chromatic mental construction, the work seeks to transform the practitioner's perception of space into a sacred environment. The fragment suggests a methodology where internal somatic markers, such as the heart-moon, act as the source for an expansive external projection of light, aligning the practitioner's internal state with a cosmic Buddhist architecture.
Provenance
About this text
A technical manual for visualization based on the Nāmasaṃgīti, the dus gsum gyi sangs rgyas la blta ba is a treatise from the classical Tibetan period. This work is preserved in the Tengyur, volume ངུ, where it comprises two pages and is situated within the Yoga Tantra Treatises collection. The text enacts a specific meditative process, instructing the practitioner to visualize five-colored, rainbow-like light rays emanating from a vajra at the heart-moon to illuminate the entirety of space. This projection serves as the necessary foundation for visualizing the immeasurable tathāgatas across the vast buddha-fields. A scholar or serious reader consults this work today to examine the precise geometric and chromatic methodology used to transform the practitioner's perception of space into a sacred environment, utilizing internal somatic markers to align the individual's internal state with a cosmic Buddhist architecture.
Cite thisAnuvāda, “Gazing Upon the Buddhas of the Three Times” (Toh 2564), machine draft, 2026.https://naxiai.com/tibetan/works/toh2564
Summary & commentary
Significance
The work is significant for its application of the Nāmasaṃgīti, a canonical source for the names and attributes of Buddhas, within a meditative context. It demonstrates the intersection of textual study and visualization technology in the Indo-Tibetan tradition. For the modern reader, it illustrates the sophisticated use of light and color as tools for cognitive restructuring in Buddhist praxis.
Structure
Passages
Section
Description
1
Visualization Instructions
Initial homage and the technical description of generating five-colored light from the heart-moon to illuminate space.
Themes
Visualization (Sādhanā) (1)
Nāmasaṃgīti (1)
Light and Color (1)
Summary, significance and provenance note generated by gemma4:31b from the translation and the catalogue record.
AnuvādaGazing Upon the Buddhas of the Three Times·
Homage to Mañjuśrī Kumārabhūta. Regarding the visualization of the buddhas of the three times by way of the Nāmasaṃgīti: one should visualize by means of five-colored light rays, like a rainbow, emanating from the vajra at the heart-moon, which pervade and illuminate the entire extent of space. One should then focus the mind and visualize the immeasurable tathāgatas in the many and vast buddha-fields of the world systems, performing the twelve deeds, turning the wheel of Dharma, remaining in meditative equipoise, arising from that state, surrounded by bodhisattvas, and surrounded by the fourfold assembly; one should visualize their activities as tathāgatas and their conduct as bodhisattvas. This concludes the visualization of the buddhas of the three times.
Translation status: Not among 84000's published translations, and not in progress there. Translations published elsewhere have not been searched for, so one may exist. (source: 84000 catalogue + registry; checked 2026-11-10).
Set in Newsreader and EB Garamond; Tibetan in Noto Serif Tibetan; Chinese in Noto Serif SC.