The Dzogchen Primer
Page 32
If they did exist, gross things could not be assembled.
If they had parts, this would contradict the assertion of partlessness.
They are nothing but a nonexistent and false appearance, an interdependence,
Like dreams, magical illusions, and the reflection of the moon in water.
Regard them as a city of gandharvas and as a rainbow.
The mind that observes is also devoid of an ego or a self-entity.
It is seen neither as something different from the aggregates
Nor as identical with these five aggregates.
If the first were true, there would exist some other substance.
This is not the case, so were the second to be true,
That would contradict a permanent self, since the aggregates are impermanent.
Therefore, based on the five aggregates,
The self is a mere imputation by the power of ego-clinging.
As to that which imputes, the past thought has vanished and is nonexistent.
The future thought has not occurred, and the present thought does not withstand scrutiny.
In short, understand the twofold self, the perceiver and the perceived,
To be totally quiescent like the sky and devoid of arising,
And also that this nonarising is beyond the domain of conceptual mind.
Since even the Omniscient Ones find no words for this,
This absence of mental constructs is called the Middle Way.
Having realized this, rest in equanimity,
Free from conceptual activity, in the state devoid of fixation.
Thoughts then subside and the natural state of the essence is seen.
Hereby you accomplish the virtues such as the eyes, superknowledges, and dharani-recall.
The causal vehicle of the paramitas
Is to gradually attain the paths and bhumis.
On the path of fruition, you should still regard
The practice of unified emptiness and compassion as the basis of the path.
From the Root Verses of Lamrim Yeshe Nyingpo, translated by Erik Pema Kunsang. Padmasambhava and Jamgön Kongtrül, The Light of Wisdom, Volume I (Boudhanath: Rangjung Yeshe Publications, 1999), “Root Text.”
33
THE MEDITATION OF ULTIMATE BODHICHITTA AND ITS RESULT
Jamgön Kongtrül
PRACTICING BY MEANS OF THE MEDITATION
The Lamrim Yeshe Nyingpo root text says:
Having realized this, rest in equanimity,
Free from conceptual activity, in the state devoid of fixation.
When you have fully understood this view, the natural state devoid of constructs, and through the reasoning of analyzing the ultimate you have not found any constructed attributes whatsoever, you should then rest in the continuity of discriminating knowledge that has attained a penetrating certainty of the fact of the absence of extremes—free from all kinds of concepts of adhering to extremes without clinging to anything whatsoever. Rest naturally, devoid of any corrective action by the inferential mind’s reasoning, such as clinging to the emptiness of refuting a true or concrete existence, or the like—just as the fire produced from the rubbing stick as well as its base naturally vanishes after consuming both pieces of wood. The Treasury of the Nonarising Jewel advises:
Do not conceptualize and do not think of anything.
Nonfabrication is itself the treasury of nonarising.
The Eight Thousand Verses also states:
This cultivation of transcendent knowledge is to cultivate no concept whatsoever.
Both The Ornament of the Sutras and The Ornament of Realization state harmoniously:
From this there is nothing whatsoever to remove,
Nor even the slightest to add.
Look truly into the true.
To see the true is the total freedom.26
Thus one should continuously rest in equanimity. Concerning the postmeditation state, The Compendium says:
I have no such pretense as settling in equanimity or emerging from it.
And why, because of fully realizing the nature of phenomena.27
Accordingly, by having gathered the accumulation of merit to the best of one’s ability with the taste of understanding all phenomena to be illusory, you will, when perfecting the highest stage of acquaintance, attain stability in the samadhis.
LINKING UP BY EXPLAINING THE RESULT
The Lamrim Yeshe Nyingpo root text says:
Thoughts then subside and the natural state of the essence is seen.
Hereby you accomplish the virtues such as the eyes, superknowledges, and dharani-recall.
The causal vehicle of the paramitas
Is to gradually attain the paths and bhumis.
On the path of fruition, you should still regard
The practice of unified emptiness and compassion as the basis of the path.
Having grown accustomed to the meditation in this way, all of the turmoil of conceptual thinking calms down and you are able to remain in your innate nature for as long as you desire, and thus your body and mind become pliable. In the manner of not seeing you then clearly see and cognize the essence of perfect wakefulness.28 The Compendium says:
Sentient beings exclaim, “I see the sky!”
But examine the meaning of exactly how the sky is seen.
This is how the tathagata describes the way we see phenomena.
The Short Truth of the Middle Way says:
The extremely profound sutras state
That not seeing is the true seeing.29
This path of the unity of means and knowledge annihilates the two obscurations. Thus you gradually accomplish all the temporary and ultimate qualities including the five eyes, the six superknowledges, unforgetting recall, unimpeded courageous eloquence, the miraculous power of mastery over wind and mind, and the samadhi of the stream of Dharma. Successively journeying through all the five paths and the ten bhumis, you will attain all their qualities.30
In other words, the path of accumulation is to gather the accumulation of virtue conducive to liberation by endeavoring in the two accumulations such as generosity from the beginning of arousing bodhichitta up until attaining the wisdom of heat. Of the three levels (of the path of accumulation), one chiefly cultivates the four applications of mindfulness on the lesser path of accumulation, the four right endeavors on the middling, and the four legs of miraculous action on the greater path of accumulation.
Having fully completed the path of accumulation, you experience the four aspects of ascertainment—mundane wisdom resulting from meditation that corresponds to realization of the four truths. Thus, because this path “joins” you to the correct realization of the truths, it is called the path of joining.
The four aspects of ascertainment are the following four stages: the heat that is the omen for perceiving the truths, the summit of mundane samadhi, the acceptance of the profound Dharma, and the stage of supreme mundane attribute. The former two are endowed with the five ruling faculties and the latter two with the five powers. Each of these four can be divided into a greater, middling, and lesser stage so that they then are renowned as the twelve aspects of ascertainment.
At the end of the stage of supreme mundane attribute, you experience the wisdom endowed with the nature of sixteen moments, arrived at by dividing each of the four truths by the cognition, ensuing cognition, acceptance, and ensuing acceptance of the Dharma.
Thus, you relinquish all that is to be discarded through the path of seeing comprised of the three realms, and see in actuality with the supramundane discriminating knowledge the nature that has not been seen before, the truths of noble beings. This is therefore called the path of seeing, and it is endowed with the seven bodhi-factors.31
Beginning from that point, the path of cultivation is so called because one repeatedly makes oneself grow accustomed to the thatness that was previously realized. This path has the three aspects of higher, middling, and lesser and is endowed with the eightfo
ld path of noble beings.
In this way, when you have perfected the thirty-seven factors conducive to enlightenment comprised of the paths of training, the ultimate wisdom of realization after reaching the end of the path of cultivation and having relinquished all the most subtle discards without exception by means of the vajralike samadhi, that is the path beyond training, also called the path of consummation, and thus you have realized the ten qualities of the stage beyond training.
There is the definite number of ten special levels of complete training in terms of defining “level,” or bhumi, as the basis for the qualities of each of these stages as well as from the aspect of developing the bhumis above. On the path of seeing, one has attained the first bhumi of the Joyous; one is free from the five kinds of fear and has acquired the twelve times one hundred qualities.
On the three parts of the path of cultivation, journeying from the second to the tenth bhumi, the special qualities of abandonment and realization are increased to a higher and higher degree until they are multiplied one thousand times one billion. On the eighth bhumi you attain the ten masteries, on the ninth the four right discriminations, and on the tenth you receive the empowerment of the great rays of light. Thus you abide in buddhahood, the eleventh bhumi of Universal Illumination.
Each of these bhumis is explained in terms of nine special qualities as elucidated in the root text Ornament of the Sutras and elsewhere.
In this way, having summarized the meaning taught in the paramita vehicle of taking the causes as the path, “bodhichitta of emptiness with a core of compassion” is the root of all the teachings. Consequently, also in the Vajra Vehicles of taking the result as the path, you must practice the emptiness of knowledge as united with the great compassion of means as the basis or foundation of the path. For this reason, I will here first of all explain this unity. According to The Five Stages:
The one who understands how to engage
In knowledge and compassion as one—
That stage, explained as “unity,”
Is the domain of the buddhas’ experience.
The Vajra Dome agrees:
The one who fully trains his mind
In emptiness inseparable from compassion,
Will demonstrate the buddhahood
As well as the Dharma and Sangha.
Moreover, The Lamp for the Path of Enlightenment states:
Knowledge devoid of means as well as means devoid of knowledge,
Is in all cases taught to be a fetter; therefore do not abandon either of the two.
At this point, Eliminating the Two Extremes explains the meaning of the causal and resultant vehicles:
Having fully turned the Dharma Wheel
Of the causal teachings on applying the cause,
[The Buddha prophesied] the short path of the resultant vehicle.32
In general, it is well known that the causal vehicles are so called because of “being led along by means of this,” while the resultant vehicles are so called because of “being led right here.”33 Thus these terms are defined in the following way according to the view of the omniscient Longchenpa:
The causal vehicles are so called because of accepting a sequence of cause and effect, asserting that buddhahood is attained by increasing the qualities of the nature of the sugata essence, which is merely present as a seed, through the circumstance of the two accumulations. The resultant vehicles are so called because of asserting that the basis for purification is the [sugata] essence endowed with qualities that are spontaneously present as a natural possession in sentient beings, just as the sun is endowed with rays of light; that the objects of purification are the temporary defilements of the eight collections,34 like the sky being [temporarily] obscured by clouds; and that one realizes the result of purification, the primordially present nature, by means of that which purifies, the paths of ripening and liberation. Besides this, there is no difference in sequence or quality.35
The Two Segments also asserts:
All sentient beings are buddhas themselves.
However, they are obscured by the temporary stains.
When these are cleared away, they are enlightened.
The Torch of the Three Ways describes the difference between the two:
Though of identical purpose, it is undeluded,
It has many means and minor hardships,
And is to be mastered by those of sharp faculties;
Thus is the vehicle of Mantra especially eminent.
Although these two vehicles, the causal and the resultant, have the identical purpose of ultimate fruition, the Secret Mantra is especially exalted in four ways in traversing the path. The former is deluded by engaging in the outer paramitas and therefore obstructed by not reaching the ultimate even after a long duration. Mantrayana, on the other hand, is undeluded because of being capable of swiftly facilitating perfection by means of the inner samadhi of united means and knowledge. The former must for a long time rely on partial and less profound means such as hardships and vows in order to purify a single disturbing emotion or to accomplish a single goal. Mantrayana, however, has methods that are both profound and manifold. One easily accomplishes the purpose even by each of the numerous types of development and completion along with their subsidiary practices.36
Through the former you must gain accomplishment with great difficulties because the means for accomplishing the results in accordance with the intellectual capacities are scarce; whereas through Mantrayana the means corresponding to the special qualities of objects, time, situation, and mental faculties are easy and even fetters can be transformed into something liberating. Since it is capable of easily causing attainment of the results, it is free from hardships.37
The followers of the lesser vehicles are of dull faculties due to not knowing the means, and the paramita followers are of medium faculties because of mistaking the means. Whereas through Mantrayana one is capable of transforming into enlightenment, by special means, even a karmic deed the engagement in which would otherwise cause rebirth in the lower realms.
In addition, through the former one engages exclusively in dualistic thinking, accepting and rejecting; while through Mantrayana one recognizes the world and the beings to be great purity and equality, the superior indivisibility of the two truths, without a perceiver and the perceived, and without accepting and rejecting one can bring whatever is experienced into the path. For this reason, it is exalted by being for those of sharper faculties. Moreover, many other ways of being exalted such as the six, seven, or twelve ways are also explained.
The reason for entering this path is as follows. The victorious ones, considering the remedies, have taught the 84,000 Dharma sections. They can be condensed into the twelve aspects of excellent speech or into the nine gradual vehicles. If they are again condensed, they can be included within the three or four Collections and so forth. In this way, regardless of the number of teachings given, all are steps for the paths of entering into this Unexcelled Yoga.
That is to say, even all the shravakas and pratyekabuddhas who have reached perfection must, due to the great rays of light of the buddhas, at some point emerge from their state of cessation and then enter the Greater Vehicle. Also those who have journeyed to the stage of Great Regent on the tenth bhumi through the bodhisattva vehicle and the Three Outer Tantras of Secret Mantra still must, for their attainment of the great enlightenment, relinquish from their very root not only the subtle conceptualization that ties one to samsara, but also the tendencies of the three experiences also known as the habitual tendency of transference.38 The remedy for relinquishing these tendencies is exactly the self-cognizant wakefulness of the path of the fourth empowerment, the unchanging great bliss of unity, which has not been taught anywhere else than in the Unexcelled Yoga.39
Consequently, not only must you eventually enter the path of the Unexcelled Yoga no matter which vehicle-door you have entered, but also, the meaning of each lower vehicle is included within the following one. This vehicle of
the Unexcelled Yoga is therefore the most eminent, the pinnacle of all the teachings and of all the gradual vehicles. According to the Guhyagarbha Tantra:
This natural essence of secrets
Has been definitively resolved as being the source