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Rainbow Body and Resurrection: Spiritual Attainment, the Dissolution of the Material Body, and the Case of Khenpo A Chö
Francis V. Tiso, a noted authority on the rainbow body, explores this manifestation of spiritual realization in a wide-ranging and deeply informed study of the transformation of the material body into a body of light. Seeking evidence on the boundary between physical science and deep spirituality that might elucidate the resurrection of Jesus, he investigates the case of Khenpo A Chö, a Buddhist monk who died in eastern Tibet in 1999. Rainbow Body and Resurrection chronicles the dissolution of Khenpo's material body within a week of his death, including eye-witness interviews. Tiso describes the spiritual practices that give rise to the rainbow body and traces their history deep into the encounter of religions in medieval Central Asia. His erudite exploration of the Tibetan phenomenon raises the fascinating question of whether there is a connection between the rainbow body and the dying and rising of Jesus.
Drawing on a wealth of recent research, Tiso expands his discussion to include the contemplative geography out of which Dzogchen arose some time in the eighth century along the great Silk Road across Central Asia. The result is an illuminating consideration of previously unimagined relationships between spiritual practices and beliefs in Central Asia.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Drawing on a wealth of recent research, Tiso expands his discussion to include the contemplative geography out of which Dzogchen arose some time in the eighth century along the great Silk Road across Central Asia. The result is an illuminating consideration of previously unimagined relationships between spiritual practices and beliefs in Central Asia.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
409 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 26, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 8, 2025
“Now if we are manifest in this world wearing [Christ], we are [Christ’s] beams, and we are embraced by him until our setting, that is to say, our death in this life. We are drawn to heaven by him, like beams by the sun, not being restrained by anything. This is the spiritual resurrection, which swallows up the psychic in the same way as the fleshly. . . . The world is an illusion, not the resurrection. Everything is prone to change, but the resurrection does not change; it is the truth which stands firm. It is the revelation of what is, and the transformation of things, and a transition into newness. . . . Flee from the divisions and the fetters and already you have the resurrection.”
- From the Treatise on the Resurrection, a second-century text from the Nag Hammadi library
Beginning with an account of his own personal investigation into a series of alleged paranormal events accompanying the death of a revered Tibetan Buddhist monk, Fr. Francis Tiso embarks on an intriguing—if highly speculative and inconclusive—comparative study on the phenomenon of the rainbow body as a manifestation of spiritual attainment in the Dzogchen tradition and the Christian understanding(s) of resurrection—that of Christ and, by extension, of all who participate in Christ sacramentally—intuiting historical and conceptual connections (while freely admitting differences) and fruitfully problematizing hard distinctions between the spiritual and the empirical, interior transformation and outward manifestation, the present life and the eschatological horizon, subject and object, etc.
When Khenpo A Chö died in 1998, disciples, pilgrims, and mourners from neighboring communities reported a number of strange occurrences: a sky suffused with rainbows, mysterious lights, pleasant music with no identifiable source, dream visitations*, and, most perplexingly, the complete disappearance of the Khenpo’s body after seven days. Within the emic perspective of Dzogchen, the Khenpo had attained the “Rainbow Body of Great Transference”: his purity of consciousness in the primordial basis of manifestation had a visible corollary—visible, at least, for those with eyes to see—in the transformation of his material body into a body of pure light, free of corporeal limitations and able to manifest itself at will in a variety of ways to assist in the liberation of all beings in accordance with the bodhisattva vow.
Fr. Tiso notes the striking parallels between the rainbow body and the resurrection body, both in their perceived characteristics (he even suggests that the Shroud of Turin could be the product of a light body event!) and in their self-offering, liberative intent. To be sure, conventional Christian thinking would have trouble accommodating a “resurrectional” event occurring at the end of an individual life and constituting, to some degree, the product of spiritual practice. The mainstream of Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox tradition tends to view the resurrection of the dead as a solely eschatological event, and the resurrection body as something to be added to us at the end of the Age; this in contrast with Dzogchen’s understanding of the rainbow body as a primordial state, an immanent reality to which the practitioner regains access over a lifetime (or several) through the ascesis of karmic attachments. But not only does Fr. Tiso identify a “Syro-Oriental” trajectory of Christian tradition—running from the New Testament through the flourishing of the “Antiochian school” (Theodore of Mopsuestia, Isaac of Nineveh, Nestorius), to the branching out of the Syriac churches beyond the reach of Roman political-ecclesiastical authority after the Nestorian Schism—which incorporated Evagrius and non-canonical texts like the Treatise on the Resurrection (quoted above), and in which the luminous spiritual body was considered more original to human nature than the body of flesh and something to be cultivated in this life through ascetical and devotional practice**; he also goes so far as to hypothesize that this Syriac “light mysticism” influenced the development of Dzogchen itself when it made its way through the Silk Road into Tibet and Gansu in the eighth century, a formative period for Dzogchen's Nyingma lineage.
While some might be frustrated by the book’s inability to reach definitive conclusions, I think there’s more value in the questions it raises, and the conceptual spaces it opens up, than in whatever answers it might posit.
Even so, I may have received some experiential confirmation that Fr. Tiso is on to something: on the day I started reading this book, I saw my first rainbow of the year; rainbows being a somewhat rarer phenomenon in Colorado than in Tibet. A wink from the Khenpo, perhaps?
* I was particularly intrigued by Lama Norta’s testimony of a nun who dreamed she was falling off a cliff and that the Khenpo caught her when she invoked his aid. It reminded me of Matthew’s account of Peter walking on the water to Jesus, who catches him when he starts to sink. That story has a similarly dreamlike quality; hence Nikos Kazantzakis’s portrayal of the event as a dream in The Last Temptation of Christ.
** The Syriac Christians would agree with practitioners of Dzogchen that the light body can appear outwardly even before death, placing the Transfiguration on the same continuum of spiritual ascent as the resurrection itself.
- From the Treatise on the Resurrection, a second-century text from the Nag Hammadi library
Beginning with an account of his own personal investigation into a series of alleged paranormal events accompanying the death of a revered Tibetan Buddhist monk, Fr. Francis Tiso embarks on an intriguing—if highly speculative and inconclusive—comparative study on the phenomenon of the rainbow body as a manifestation of spiritual attainment in the Dzogchen tradition and the Christian understanding(s) of resurrection—that of Christ and, by extension, of all who participate in Christ sacramentally—intuiting historical and conceptual connections (while freely admitting differences) and fruitfully problematizing hard distinctions between the spiritual and the empirical, interior transformation and outward manifestation, the present life and the eschatological horizon, subject and object, etc.
When Khenpo A Chö died in 1998, disciples, pilgrims, and mourners from neighboring communities reported a number of strange occurrences: a sky suffused with rainbows, mysterious lights, pleasant music with no identifiable source, dream visitations*, and, most perplexingly, the complete disappearance of the Khenpo’s body after seven days. Within the emic perspective of Dzogchen, the Khenpo had attained the “Rainbow Body of Great Transference”: his purity of consciousness in the primordial basis of manifestation had a visible corollary—visible, at least, for those with eyes to see—in the transformation of his material body into a body of pure light, free of corporeal limitations and able to manifest itself at will in a variety of ways to assist in the liberation of all beings in accordance with the bodhisattva vow.
Fr. Tiso notes the striking parallels between the rainbow body and the resurrection body, both in their perceived characteristics (he even suggests that the Shroud of Turin could be the product of a light body event!) and in their self-offering, liberative intent. To be sure, conventional Christian thinking would have trouble accommodating a “resurrectional” event occurring at the end of an individual life and constituting, to some degree, the product of spiritual practice. The mainstream of Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox tradition tends to view the resurrection of the dead as a solely eschatological event, and the resurrection body as something to be added to us at the end of the Age; this in contrast with Dzogchen’s understanding of the rainbow body as a primordial state, an immanent reality to which the practitioner regains access over a lifetime (or several) through the ascesis of karmic attachments. But not only does Fr. Tiso identify a “Syro-Oriental” trajectory of Christian tradition—running from the New Testament through the flourishing of the “Antiochian school” (Theodore of Mopsuestia, Isaac of Nineveh, Nestorius), to the branching out of the Syriac churches beyond the reach of Roman political-ecclesiastical authority after the Nestorian Schism—which incorporated Evagrius and non-canonical texts like the Treatise on the Resurrection (quoted above), and in which the luminous spiritual body was considered more original to human nature than the body of flesh and something to be cultivated in this life through ascetical and devotional practice**; he also goes so far as to hypothesize that this Syriac “light mysticism” influenced the development of Dzogchen itself when it made its way through the Silk Road into Tibet and Gansu in the eighth century, a formative period for Dzogchen's Nyingma lineage.
While some might be frustrated by the book’s inability to reach definitive conclusions, I think there’s more value in the questions it raises, and the conceptual spaces it opens up, than in whatever answers it might posit.
Even so, I may have received some experiential confirmation that Fr. Tiso is on to something: on the day I started reading this book, I saw my first rainbow of the year; rainbows being a somewhat rarer phenomenon in Colorado than in Tibet. A wink from the Khenpo, perhaps?
* I was particularly intrigued by Lama Norta’s testimony of a nun who dreamed she was falling off a cliff and that the Khenpo caught her when she invoked his aid. It reminded me of Matthew’s account of Peter walking on the water to Jesus, who catches him when he starts to sink. That story has a similarly dreamlike quality; hence Nikos Kazantzakis’s portrayal of the event as a dream in The Last Temptation of Christ.
** The Syriac Christians would agree with practitioners of Dzogchen that the light body can appear outwardly even before death, placing the Transfiguration on the same continuum of spiritual ascent as the resurrection itself.
March 16, 2020
It's a pretty good case study on one rainbow body event, as well as covers some methodology, much of the rest is an attempt to link or make subservient Buddhism to Christianity which at times comes off as disrespectful especially how he accuses Dzogchen lineage of fabricating the story of their origins, so that Tiso can claim Dzogchen was created by Syriac Christian influence.
I guess we have to forgive him as a Catholic he could not see the most obvious explanation, that Garab Dorje was a reincarnation of Jesus or similar soul.
I guess we have to forgive him as a Catholic he could not see the most obvious explanation, that Garab Dorje was a reincarnation of Jesus or similar soul.
February 14, 2023
This book is interesting--You can tell that Francis Tiso is an incredibly well studied scholar, so it surprised me when I didn't agree with the overall premise of the book, which is that Tibetan Buddhism is foundationally influenced by contemplative Christianity, and that Christian meditation practices were the originators of tantric points of view. This just seems silly to me, because Occam's razor says that East Asian Buddhism was almost certainly more influential on Tibetan Buddhism during its formation, as well as Tantric Hinduism--Chan and Hindu meditation practices are extremely similar to (although not exactly the same as) many Tibetan meditation practices, so it seems superfluous to say that these practices come from an external non-dharmic source. It feels a bit like Tiso is trying to shove Christianity into the conversation when it doesn't need to be put there (which is par for the course in the history of Christianity, in my opinion).
In fact, I would flip the book's thesis on its head--Buddhism was well-known in Judea during the period when Christ was alive, so it's more likely that Buddhism (albeit not Tibetan Buddhism) was foundationally influential to Christianity, and not the other way around. If Buddhism influenced Christianity first, then it's not hard to theorize that Christian contemplative practices could have been the culmination of that influence. Many of Jesus' main teachings are strikingly similar to those of the Buddha, and they don't have a precedent in Halakhic Jewish law. It seems more apropos to say that Jesus' teachings were a combination of Buddhist Humanism and Jewish apocalypticism if we're going to postulate about which tradition influenced the other. All in all, I didn't find this book very impressive for that reason, despite the extensive citing of the Dunhuang Cave library throughout the text.
In fact, I would flip the book's thesis on its head--Buddhism was well-known in Judea during the period when Christ was alive, so it's more likely that Buddhism (albeit not Tibetan Buddhism) was foundationally influential to Christianity, and not the other way around. If Buddhism influenced Christianity first, then it's not hard to theorize that Christian contemplative practices could have been the culmination of that influence. Many of Jesus' main teachings are strikingly similar to those of the Buddha, and they don't have a precedent in Halakhic Jewish law. It seems more apropos to say that Jesus' teachings were a combination of Buddhist Humanism and Jewish apocalypticism if we're going to postulate about which tradition influenced the other. All in all, I didn't find this book very impressive for that reason, despite the extensive citing of the Dunhuang Cave library throughout the text.
June 14, 2024
The approach to writing the book is unique and the material is succinct with depth. I’m not entirely clear what the purpose of the book was? Was it to say that Jesus is a resurrected buddha? Couldn’t buddha also just be a resurrected Jesus then? The material on gnostics is interesting however all that it demonstrates is how frigid and desolate Christianity has become. A lot of the book felt like a lost cause, trying to convince a buddhist of something is just silly - the moment that you think you know something, you’ve already lost
March 31, 2018
Very well researched and reference. More of an academic book than something for the average lay reader but fascinating nonetheless and definitely the only one of its kind tackling this topic. Read during Easter weekend, perfect timing.
July 7, 2020
Despite being about an Eastern religious phenomenon, I credit this book with inspiring me to return to my Catholic faith. Thank you, Fr. Tizo.
February 1, 2023
Very good and interesting book, but I can't help seeing typical colonizing Christian supremacist undertones in it.
August 16, 2025
This is more dissertation than a casual read but very interesting comparison between dzogchen Buddhism and it's ties to human's ultimate guru (Jesus).
October 21, 2017
Synthesis of East and West
Careful scholarship and method, with the interest of a personal journey. Buddhism and Christianity compared by a respectful Seeker. Good read.
Careful scholarship and method, with the interest of a personal journey. Buddhism and Christianity compared by a respectful Seeker. Good read.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews