Samding Dorje Phagmo In Dzogchen, sky gazing (Wylie: nam mkha' ar gtad, THDL: namkha arté) is one of the core practices of trekchö as well as tögal.
[3]: 9 In the larger Tibetan cultural area, it is the most elevated part of the human body—the skull or, its extension in the form of a turban-like headdress—that allows the religious practitioner to gain access to the source of vitality located in the heavens.
Both the head and the headdress have deep resonances with animals—particularly deer and sheep—which are central for the sky-gazing practice because of their ability to ascend and descend vertically to move in between various realms of existence.
This transition of letting go of the physical body is described as dissolving his materiality into space and light like ice melts into water.
These levels are described in Tibetan Yogas of Body, Speech, and Mind to be: The first things a practitioner will encounter are simple patterns of luminous dots.
When someone is looking at a uniform image for a longer time, the brain can start to create visions because of a lack of changing input for the senses.
[citation needed] As these effects can be a tool to start your visualisations, practitioners are advised to use the open sky (because of the colour) but any plain background such as a wall or ceiling.
[8] In his comprehensive introduction to the sky-gazing practice, Flavio A. Geisshuesler dedicates an entire chapter to the cognitive study of the four visions.
[3]: 59–70 Drawing on approaches from enactivism and predictive coding, he argues that the visions represent an perfect example for how humans are fundamentally meaning-making creatures.
As Geisshuesler puts it, "Ultimately, the presumed perceptional nakedness of Skullward Leap is clothed in a series of garments that have been woven from the threads formed during the ancient—largely pre-Buddhist—period of Tibet.