Although the original Lukhang temple was almost certainly a clandestine retreat where the Sixth Dalai Lama entertained his lovers, there is no reason to believe that it was not also a place where he practised esoteric Tantric doctrines. In one popular account, when the Sixth Dalai Lama was critizised for his behaviour, he said: "Just because I sleep with women, don't think that it's the same.

To prove his point, he supposedly climbed to the highest ramparts of the Potala and let forth a stream of urine. Before the urine hit the ground he drew it up again, demonstrating his control over the nadis, or currents of subtle energy within the body. Although the story is probably apocryphal, it points to the common belief, held even by His Holiness, that also the Sixth Dalai Lama had many lovers, he never once emitted a single drop of semen. As the Sixth Dalai Lama attests in one of his poems:

Never have I slept without a sweetheart
Nor have I spent a single drop of sperm.

In Tantric practice, it is believed that seminal essences can be redirected through a subtle channel paralleling the spinal column and dispersed throughout the body, leading to a blissful state that reveals the empty and luminous nature of reality. Thubten Jigme Norbu, the Dalai Lama's elder brother, wrote that:

"The sexual act performed normally may give a slight notion of the nature of this higher consciousness, but more than that it cannot do since the energy, instead of being trapped and put to use, is expended and lost to physical ends - creating a (new) physical body instead of spiritual consciousness... Long and special training (is required) before the rite can take place."

aus "The Dalai Lama's Secret Temple" von Jan A. Baker

Besonders die Malereien an den Wänden des Lukhang sind sehenswert.