Part of the path is the maintenance of certain sense of the sacred that has been called "secret". Certain practices are not spoken about at all as they are so sacred and so important to the path that practitioners are only given these teachings when they are ready to receive them. This comes about through a commitment to completing the practice of Ngondrö and a commitment to the path in general. For many reasons, so that these teachings are not mis-used nor mis-understood, practitioners who have received such sacred teachings maintain this secrecy as part of their words of honor vows ("samaya"). In most cases, this is what these practitioners wish to do spontaneously and naturally.

The Tsa Lung practice is one of these teachings considered sacred and, thus, secret and so cannot be described here in detail. After completing the repetitions of the practice of Ngondrö (100,000 repetitions of 5 sections), this next step consists of working with the breath and the positive and negative channels contained within one's body. It is important to note these practices consist of yogic exercises which can be very strenuous. One should have good physical condition to undertake this course.

The prerequisite for admittance to this retreat are:

1) Completion of Ngondrö accumulations (100,000 repetitions each of each outer and inner preliminary practice)

2) Permission resulting from an interview with His Holiness or Khenchen Tsewang Gyatso

and

3) Ability to participate in the whole month-long retreat.

There have been cases in which those wishing to participate Tsa Lung have been permitted to attend the first two weeks and then, the following year, the subsequent two weeks. However, it is best for accomplishment to attend all four weeks in one retreat.

As mentioned, retreatants should be prepared to participate in strenuous physical activity. The traditional signs of accomplishment, the generation of inner heat, will be measured. As with any subsequent step in the "Liberation in the Palm of the Hand" cycle, retreatants should be prepared in the event that His Holiness requests them to repeat Ngondrö teachings and accumulations. This should not be viewed as a failure, but as a great blessing that a qualified master has given you such advice. If this situation were to occur, it would be part of the retreat experience, and so cannot be predicted in advance of the retreat. If you have any misgivings about taking this course with the chance that you could be asked to repeat the first step, you should not apply for this step.