Softcover, 496 pages, Oxford 2014, new
Naked Seeing investigates visionary yogas in the Tibetan Bön and Buddhist traditions: practices in which a meditator spends long periods of time in a dark room or gazing at the open sky, with the goal of experiencing luminous visions. The book examines these practices in two major esoteric traditions and offers complete English translations of three major Tibetan texts associated with these traditions.
This superb study brings to light some of the most esoteric and innovative contemplative practices ever to emerge within Asian religions. In clear and engaging terms, Hatchell explores how the visionary techniques of the Kalacakra and Great Perfection traditions work to undo our deeply engrained psychophysical habits and open us to new ways of seeing. The result is a study that will appeal not only to scholars and practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism, but to anyoneinterested in the phenomenology of sensory perception.