Within tögal, luminous appearances are understood as the spontaneous display of rigpa, the primordial awareness whose nature is both empty and radiantly clear. When this basic clarity is recognized, its dynamic energy naturally expresses itself as light and form. These visions are not regarded as products of imagination or deliberate visualization, but as the self-display of awareness itself, arising when the coarse activity of mind relaxes and dualistic grasping loosens. The key is that they are seen as expressions of the ground’s luminous clarity, rather than as external or inherently existent entities.

On the practical level, tögal relies on a specific coordination of body, gaze, and subtle energy. Postures and gazing techniques—often involving an open, unfocused gaze toward the sky, light, or even darkness—allow the winds (lung) to settle and enter the central channel, and the channels (tsa) to be purified. As the subtle energies are no longer so entangled in karmic patterns, the luminous essences (tiglé) can manifest more purely. At the interface where external light meets the inner luminosity of awareness, colored spheres of light, rays, rainbow-like radiances, and geometric patterns begin to appear.

These appearances unfold in a structured way, traditionally described as four visionary stages. Initially, there is a direct perception of lights and tiglés, brief glimpses of emptiness and luminosity. With increasing stability of rigpa, the visions become more complex and vivid, forming networks of light and more elaborate patterns. At a further stage, detailed mandalas, buddha-forms, and pure realms manifest, sometimes described as the complete mandala of peaceful and wrathful deities. Ultimately, as practice matures, these appearances are exhausted into dharmakāya, where the apparent division between seer and seen dissolves in nondual awareness.

Throughout this process, the crucial orientation is one of non-attachment and clear recognition. The visions are allowed to arise and dissolve on their own, without being grasped at or rejected, and are understood as self-liberated displays of awareness. As the recognition of rigpa becomes more stable and the body–energy system more relaxed and open, the visions tend to appear with greater clarity and order, revealing ever more directly the inseparability of emptiness and luminous appearance.