Rainbow body

Rainbow body is a Dzogchen attainment in which an accomplished practitioner is said to dissolve the physical body into light at death, sometimes leaving hair and nails.

Dzogchen: A Tibetan Buddhist tradition that presents the direct recognition of awareness as the path to awakening. Rainbow body is described as an exceptional fruition of Dzogchen practice.
Garab Dorje: A foundational figure in Dzogchen lineage histories, traditionally regarded as its first human teacher. Dzogchen lineages trace teachings associated with rainbow-body attainment to early masters.
Jigme Lingpa: An eighteenth-century Nyingma master and visionary whose writings shaped later Dzogchen traditions. Accounts associate his lineage and teachings with rainbow-body realization.
Phowa: A Tibetan Buddhist practice of directing consciousness at death toward a favorable destination. Phowa concerns consciousness leaving the body, not the body's reported dissolution.
Trekchö: A Dzogchen practice of recognizing awareness as naturally pure and cutting through fixation on thoughts. Its recognition of awareness is central to explanations of rainbow-body attainment.
Padmasambhava: An eighth-century Buddhist tantric master revered in Tibetan Buddhism as a key figure in its establishment in Tibet. Tibetan traditions associate him with teachings and narratives about extraordinary realization.
Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen: A nineteenth- and twentieth-century Bonpo scholar and meditation master whose life is associated with rainbow-body claims. His reported attainment is among the best-known modern Tibetan accounts.
Tukdam: A postmortem meditative state in which a practitioner is said to remain in meditation after clinical death. Tukdam reports describe a preserved body, unlike rainbow-body accounts of bodily disappearance.
Tögal: A Dzogchen practice involving visionary experiences associated with the spontaneous presence of awareness. Some Dzogchen accounts connect its advanced practice with the body's transformation at death.
Vimalamitra: An Indian Buddhist master remembered in Tibetan traditions as a major transmitter of Dzogchen teachings. His lineage is linked to Dzogchen accounts of realization and bodily transformation.

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Seventeen TantrasBroader topic: It is a traditional fruition associated with the cycle’s highest contemplative practices.