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About Geksel
Medicine for Meditators
Geksel (or gegs sel, གེགས་སེལ་) is a genre of Tibetan literature and practice focused on identifying and removing obstacles, sicknesses, and adverse energetic reactions that arise during meditation or yogic training.
Found in oral transmissions and texts detailing element-based healing and ritual obstacle clearance. It sits at the rich intersection of Tibetan medicine and Tantric ritual, often utilizing breath, sound, and element balancing. Obstacles can be anything that obscures, limits or blocks the natural radiance of our innate awareness and its expression through the vehicles of our body, our speech and our thoughts. Gek is like storm clouds passing though the clear blue sky blocking the light of the sun. Now, from the point of view of the sun, the clouds don’t obscure anything - the sun is content to shine on whatever appears. And, the clouds aren’t inherently bad - they bring rain, they bring cooler weather, they bring shade.
In tantra, there is a clear understanding that there can and will be obstacles on the path. This is because tantra is heavily geared toward the idea that what ultimately makes something an obstacle depends largely on your orientation toward it—how you relate to it, digest it, and bring it onto the path.
This is a tentative statement, but perhaps more than any other Buddhist tradition, tantra traditions seem to take these obstacles in stride. If you are doing very intensive retreats for long periods of time where you actively manipulate the direction, flow, and function of your winds and humors through forceful means like Hatha Yoga, you are bound to have intense experiences.
It is baked into tantra that practices should produce signs—whether positive, neutral, or negative. Within the broader scope of Buddhist traditions, these practices are expected to do something quite quickly. You need to understand this symptomology and reactivity so you know whether you are doing the practices correctly, whether they are pointing you in the right direction, and if you are progressing as expected.
This is why gekel literature always acknowledges that gekel cannot be seen as separate from a related genre of instruction known as "the signs of the path", or signs that arise during practice. You need to understand what your reactions and meditative experiences actually mean:
Are they positive?
Are they positive, but on the verge of becoming negative and derailing your progress?
Are they outright negative and undesirable, requiring you to stop immediately?
Or are they simply nothing in particular, meaning you shouldn't latch onto them at all?
It is not always easy to tell, and the assessment of a particular meditative experience might necessarily change over time.
How do you deal with Geks and Demons once you've spotted them?
Point at them and laugh. Step one is to laugh at them. That said, there are a number of specific practices depending on the kinds of thing you have going on. For instance Vajrasattva is very effective for parches. There are also prayers that are very effective for parches.
For Dre, use mountain songs. For duds & döns, Dzogchen is the most effective. Dzogchen is the most effective and fastest for all geks. But that presumes you are capable of resting in Trekcho. Should you not be able to, then use the ceremonial and tantric methods. Chod is extremely effective.
Dud, dung, dres, gek, parche, and Rollangs all mean different things in Tibetan but they all translate as demons.
Dud is a devil, such as the devil of drink or the devil of passion. It is a symbol for an energy people trip over -- such as jealousy, passion, drinking, despair.
A Dön is a suffering, like a depression. It maybe situational such as grief. Or maybe coming from too many stressors over too long a time. For whatever reason it's come, it is a dön. Certain mental illnesses are dön.
A Dre is a sentient being. You cannot see them with your eyes, and they will harm you if they get into you. Like parasites and bacteria. They are alive, they can be killed, they can incarnate and reincarnate. But now they eat something of people, and cause harm. They make you sick, even make you crazy.
Gek translates as "imp," and is something you trip over. And you trip over it again and again, repeatedly.
A parche is a basic neuroses. You may be stricken by poverty again and again -- like having the karma of hungry ghosts. The way to fix this is to give things away and be as generous as possible. Do stuff for others for free, again and again! Another parche can be an illness parche. It is all karma.
Rollangs are zombies. Zombies controlled by a sorcerer. Found often in the south of the USA, like around New Orleans.
Sadak are land spirits. They are not negative. But they can still cause troubles. There are different types of Sadaks such as Ludak, Nagas who live in water. Elemental creatures of the land and wild places. Nature spirits who live in some trees. The universe is so vital and alive. Some live in rocks. Some are fast and some are as slow as mountains.
Gektor Tormas
Gektor tormas are offering tormas (food offerings) to obstructors and demonic beings who cause obstacles preventing us from progressing on the path. "Gek" means obstacles in Tibetan. These tormas are food offerings we make to these creators of obstacles. These tormas are inexhaustible nectar that we can offer –out of love and compassion– to those who create obstacles in our life.
These gektor tormas have three sides – and three points. A round sphere sits on this three sided, three pointed base in the front. Also on the left side of the torma is a lamp. The lamp represents lighting the way – the flame of wisdom. Then we also make the Karmic debt torma which we will wrap around the gektor torma.
To make this the ball of dough is rolled into a strip the width of the hand and squeezed so that each of the fingers make an impression. We mark the dough with our five fingers representing our actions of body, speech, and mind which has accumulated this karma through our own actions.
The five imprints from our fingers into the karmic imprint, represent the five wisdoms, or five divine qualities we wish to offer to those who cause us obstacles. We wrap this around the entire gektor torma.
Finally we place two flowers made out of butter on the torma as an ornament. We usually paint the gektor torma red, with the flowers white. After making the torma, it's included in our practice, and then taken and "thrown away," tossing it away either outside or into a fire.
Here you can see the candle on the left. The triangle base and sphere resting on it in the center. Wrapped around it is the karmic imprint torma, and the two flowers decorating it.
When we don't want to make the whole torma, we just do the karmic imprint tormas and instead of wrapping them, we just use them to offer and toss.
Karmic Debt Tormas (Länchag Tormas)
Gektor Torma
Geksel
Teachings by Lopon Tenzin Namdak Rinpoche
“If you look in the astrological calendar you will see (data relating to) your Wangthang, Lungta, body etc and will see which circumstances are good or which are contrary, how they meet. You can make mantras or necklaces to remedy this or for protection. Astrology also explains what is not needed. We call this Geksel, removing the obstacles of the year. You have to check each year according to the calendar. Disturbances of this kind come from the beings belonging to the Eight Classes of evil Semi-Gods such as Dud, Mamo who are female, Tsen who are very wrathful and Gyalpo who are kings. They are all Semi-Gods but they are different. They can disturb your LifeForce and if something is really seriously wrong, they can even cut it so you die. So you do Long- Life practice and keep the support of LongLife, Tsedrub, and opportunity.
If misfortune or sickness continue to suddenly befall someone no matter what they do or if they are suddenly disturbed by miseries and sufferings and something is always happening, either to an individual or to a family or country, and a lot of misfortune comes roughly without apparent reason , then this is because of previous cause connected with invisible spirits such as Earth Gods or Water Gods. Then the different Elements or different individuals take their revenge on the man who took something from them forcefully without paying rent, who cut down trees or destroyed the rocks, earth or water. He did something earlier and then slowly they take revenge and many things can happen.
If you don 't know (the source of the trouble) then you need to ask Divination - there are four kinds of Divination and you can ask any of them what is happening and they will tell you that it is the revenge of the Semi-Gods - such disturbances mainly come from wrathful Semi-Gods.
There are two ways to repay them or make peace:
1) Do or Lu
2) and Yitak
1) Do represents the whole area - fields, houses, domestic animals, property. So you make a representative of everything either as a painting or as an effigy, but you don 't slaughter or kill anything. It is often said that in early times Bonpos killed (and made blood sacrifices) and then later were ashamed and just made models instead, but here from the beginning it says you should make models; you make a model of the field or the house, you don 't go and destroy it! You make representatives of everything - fields, trees, houses and inside you put little figures of men, women, children, crops - you make representatives of everything which humans need and put them on this ritual object.
Then lu is a ransom or an effigy which represents a person or a country, and you can also use a Namkha or Changbu. The support for a man is an arrow and the support for a woman is a spindle, and you fix them onto the Iu.
2) Yitak means that you collect samples and little pieces of all edible and drinkable things, clothes and everything else which a human needs and put them together with the effigy.
Then you ask the Three Jewels to support what you are doing, which is an exchange to make peace with the disturbers. We arrange all the internal and external things and offer them to the disturbers in exchange for the person we want to release, so that they will withdraw their disturbances and make peace.
Then we must say something according to each specific ritual, saying that we are offering this effigy in exchange or in payment and that we don't want any more disturbances.
That is Iu, the effigy which you give in exchange to make peace. This effigy or ransom is very powerful. Even if someone is near death or has nearly finished this life , if you do this ransom and the ritual properly, you can extend the person's life for up to three years. But it is not guaranteed.
Using it can be very helpful for simple beings. Practically, if anyone needs to do something in an emergency or if it isn't easy to cure someone with medicine and you have no idea what to do, you are just watching and nothing is helpful, then instead of watching and waiting for the person to die , you can use Iu or effigy.
To make a Changbu, make some dough and squeeze it in your hand (right for men left for women). Then press the thumb of your other hand onto the top thus making a Changbu effigy with five imprints which represent five sensory objects.
These represent sights for the eye , sounds for the ear, smells for the nose, tastes for the tongue and touch for the body, all the things which humans need . So visualize all this and think very strongly that the dough represents that.
Then recite:
A KAR A ME DU TRI SU NAG PO ZHI ZHI MAL MAL
This is a very powerful mantra in many ways.
I [Lopon Tenzin Namdak Rinpoche] am not just saying this; Lord Tonpa Shenrab said it many times. It can send away disturbances, it can purify, it can do many things. So here, recite this mantra at least a hundred times and visualize that this dough represents all the five offerings.
Then, pay whoever is disturbing beings and say: 'Take this! I am offering it to you. Take it and release sentient beings from sufferings and miseries! ' You have to say this while visualizing very strongly after having recited the mantra. Don't only do this once, but two or three times, up to seven times. Then you have concluded paying the ransom. That is a short Tö.”
Gektor Torma
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