The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness

by Chogyam Trungpa

  2. The dharmakaya (“dharma body”) refers to enlightenment itself, the unoriginated primordial mind of the Buddha.

  3. The samaya vow is the third main vow of the Tibetan Buddhist path. It follows the hinayana refuge vow and the mahayana bodhisattva vow. The samaya vow establishes a bond between the teacher, the student, and the deity or yidam. For more on the topic of samaya, see part 5, “Complete Commitment.”

  4. The four extremes of madhyamaka logic, attributed to Nagarjuna, are the four beliefs in existence, nonexistence, both, or neither.

  Part Two

  THE TEACHER-STUDENT RELATIONSHIP

  7

  The Role of the Guru or Vajra Master

  The guru could shine brilliant hot sun on you or create a thunderstorm on you or freeze you to death or bake you into bread, because the guru has a relationship with every aspect of reality that there is, as far as your world is concerned.

  THE TEACHER-STUDENT RELATIONSHIP

  In the vajrayana, it is important and necessary to understand the relationship between the student and the guru, or vajra master. Having a guru might seem like a great idea, but it is necessary to know the function of the guru and how you are going to relate with him or her in terms of your own development. For example, somebody might think that getting married is a hot idea, but this person needs to first understand the role of a husband, the role of a wife, and how they are going to work together in their marriage. And when you relate to a guru, the guru has to relate with you as well. So you have to find a guru who does not change their mind in relating with you. That way you don’t run into each other, like a car crash.

  There are many teachers, but basically speaking you have one generator generating electricity, and then you have lots of bulbs. Which bulb you relate to depends on what room you are in. You can always walk into another room with a different bulb, where the chandelier seems better or the switch is more exotic. And if you need more light, you can turn on more bulbs, realizing that the fundamental generator never fails. The fundamental generator, or root guru, is omnipresent.

  THE HINAYANA PRECEPTOR

  The guru principle has different facets in the various yanas. In the hinayana, the guru is known as a teacher or preceptor, somebody who ordains you into the order, whether you are taking the basic refuge vow or monastic vows. So the hinayana teacher functions at the level of a preceptor. In Sanskrit, the word for a preceptor is upadhyaya. In Tibetan, the word khenpo refers to that kind of scholar and abbot, or professional master. The preceptor’s role is to instruct the students, so a preceptor is somewhat like a schoolteacher. You are instructed and told about various levels of the teaching and given different ordinations. Basically, the hinayana teacher is acting as kind of a parental principle. There is no notion of craziness or wildness or penetration, particularly, unless you violate the rules and get told off.

  THE MAHAYANA SPIRITUAL FRIEND

  At the mahayana level, you have the kalyanamitra, or spiritual friend. A kalyanamitra is more than a schoolteacher level: it is the level of a physician and friend at the same time. The kalyanamitra is more concerned with your basic nature, your basic makeup, and your state of being. So at the level of mahayana, the Sanskrit word guru also applies. Guru means “one who carries a heavy burden” or “one who carries a heavy load.” The Tibetans use a slightly different word. Instead of guru, they say lama (which can be connected to uttara in Sanskrit). La means “above,” and ma means “one who is”; so lama means “one who is above” or “one who is at the top.” As a being on a high spiritual level, the lama has the panoramic vision of looking down on a student’s development.

  THE VAJRAYANA MASTER

  In the vajrayana, the term or title for the teacher is “vajra master,” or dorje loppön in Tibetan. Loppön means “teacher” or “master,” and dorje means “vajra”; so dorje loppön means “vajra master.” In Sanskrit the term for dorje loppön is vajracharya.

  Spokesperson for the Phenomenal World

  The term vajracharya has the feeling of the teacher being a spokesperson for the phenomenal world. The relationship between the Indian mahasiddha Tilopa and his student Naropa is one example of a vajra master acting in this way. Naropa was a great scholar at Nalanda University who left to find his teacher. As Naropa was searching for his guru, he had twelve visions or experiences, all of which were actually the guru manifesting in various forms. But each time, Naropa failed to realize that what he was experiencing was a manifestation of the guru, because he was still clinging to his fascination. He took those experiences literally, as they appeared. For instance, Naropa came across a half-dead dog, and later he went to a freak show, but in both cases he missed the point, and the vision disappeared.

  Each time this happened, Naropa would hear the voice of his teacher telling him how he had failed to understand the experience, and then his teacher would say, “Tomorrow we will do such and such or visit so-and-so.” Then Naropa would go on to the next thing. He regarded what he was experiencing as an external world that was happening, rather than understanding it as symbolic language and recognizing it as the manifestation of the guru. If Naropa had understood what was happening, he need never have encountered the dog or gone to the freak show or whatever else.

  So the vajra master is a spokesperson for, or even a manifestation of, the phenomenal world. Some of the stories about Don Juan that Carlos Castaneda told have a similar quality—that everything is the doing of the guru.1

  Surgeon or Executioner

  The vajra master is a teacher, an executioner, a magician, and a surgeon. A doctor who does not have the training to perform surgery, but who has just learned to prescribe medicine and who tells you to discipline yourself, is somewhat at the bodhisattva level. But the vajra master is more like a surgeon, because they help you out thoroughly, and that thoroughness might present you with some pain.

  It is similar to undergoing an operation in order to restore your health. You could say to the surgeon, “I want you to cure me, but I do not want you to open my stomach and look inside. I have a human right to proclaim that you do not have access to the inside of my stomach. You can recommend any diet you like, tell me what kind of food to eat and how to behave. You can give me medicine. But you can’t get inside my stomach.” But that kind of limitation seems to be ridiculous. In order for the surgeon to heal you, you have to let them get into you thoroughly and completely. So while the vajra master is a parental figure, this particular parental figure is a surgeon, somewhat of an executioner, a heavy-handed person who has good intentions. That is one of the important aspects of a vajra master.

  The vajra master’s compassion may manifest as kindness and softness in the background—or the foreground, for that matter—but that kindness does not become idiot compassion, or kindness without intelligence. Students need the chance to go through a lot of discipline. Being a vajra master is somewhat like teaching somebody parachuting. The teacher may have a soft spot for you in the back of their mind, but at the same time they do not prevent you from jumping. Teaching you to parachute is their profession; that is what they are supposed to teach. The vajra master teaches you to jump into nowhere, hoping that your parachute will open. No genuine teacher would say, “No, I cannot do this to you. You just come down with me in the airplane. You don’t have to parachute.”

  The vajra master is the transcendent version of the bodhisattva, definitely. At the same time, the vajra master’s principles and ways of working with their students are much more direct than the bodhisattva’s. The bodhisattva creates some kind of hospitality, which does not exist in vajrayana unless you help yourself, in which case there is an enormous bank of wealth.

  Indestructible Teacher Who Is Never Put Off

  It is impossible to put a vajra master off or to make a vajra master change their mind about working with you. You might think that if they become disgusted with you, they could say, “I’ll go work with somebody else.” But the more disgusting things the vajra master finds in
a student, the more they find sickness or neurosis, that much more is the vajra master interested in you—in your problems and your sickness. Seeing the student’s sickness is one of the ways that a vajra master becomes turned on, so to speak, and creative: “Ah, now there is a problem! Let’s look into it; let’s do tests. Piss in this bottle and shit in this container. Let me examine you.”

  The vajra master is interested in your problems, rather than disgusted. You are unable to put such a person off. That is one of the characteristics of a vajra master, and that is why this person is known as a vajra master, or indestructible teacher. The more icky stuff that comes out of you, the more the teacher is turned on to being a teacher who is willing and excited to work with you. This is one of the vajrayana principles: the vajra nature of the vajra master.

  It is not so much that the vajra master is looking for a challenge, but the vajra master is highly inquisitive. They are highly inquisitive about investigating how this piece of shit may one day turn out to be a crystal clear sambhogakaya buddha.2 The vajra master is fascinated that this wretched little stuff could be turned into a fantastic explosion of vajra energy. That kind of interest entertains the vajra master, and at the same time it entertains the phenomenal world and you as well.

  So the activity of the vajra master is a somewhat more sophisticated level of compassion. It is not only how much you learn that interests such a teacher. In fact, the more you make mistakes, the more the vajra master is interested. So the nature of vajra masters is that they have the kind of exertion that never gives up hope.

  Crocodile Who Never Rejects Anyone Once They Are Accepted

  Anyone entering into the vajrayana needs such a vajra master. It is said that you need a vajra master who is like a crocodile, who only knows how to accept. Once anybody enters into a crocodile’s mouth, it accepts rather than rejects. The crocodile never lets go. Rejection is against the principle of crocodileship, and that quality of not letting go is also one of the vajra principles of the vajra master. You actually find that image in iconography. In the five-pointed vajra scepter, or dorje, the four outer prongs of the vajra arise out of the mouths of four crocodiles.

  The principle of vajrayana is nonflinching; you never let go, but you accept and hold on. That is vajra nature. And the same thing applies to the vajra master, who is actually and literally the spokesperson of the vajrayana teachings. In fact, the vajra master is the only spokesperson. Even the books that present the vajrayana teachings cannot be regarded as independent from the vajra master. Books can speak, in some sense; but books have to be worked with, interpreted, and elucidated to be suitable for you.

  THE RELATIVE AND ULTIMATE VAJRA MASTER

  The vajra master has two expressions: relative and ultimate. The relative expression is how the vajra master manifests according to kündzop, or the relative phenomenal world. Sometimes kündzop can fool you a great deal, and sometimes it can inspire you to see the flawlessness of the truth. In order to deal with your apparent phenomenal world, to deal with your fascination with this world of facade, you have an external guru, a kündzop guru. This external guru or vajra master of kündzop actually exists outside of your body and mind; this guru is manifested externally. The kündzop guru shares the same roof, the same sky, the same floor, and the same earth as you do.

  The second type of guru, the ultimate guru, or töndam, appears from the memory or the example of the external guru. From that, you begin to have a sense of inner guru, or inner guidance. This is often subject to misunderstanding, because the inner guru could be misinterpreted as a part of your expectations. If you do not have a complete and proper relationship with the kündzop guru, you could misunderstand the inner guru according to your own wishful thinking.

  The guru of kündzop is also called the guru of example or impression. When you have enough of an impression of the kündzop guru imprinted on your state of mind, then the guru of the ultimate reality within you can shine through. Otherwise, the inner guru could be regarded as just pure hoax, just your own expectations. That kind of inner guru is much phonier than the real kündzop guru who actually exists outside your body, physically or geographically.

  Photo 5. A vajra (Tib.: dorje) showing the prongs arising out of crocodile mouths.

  The way in which the kündzop guru becomes imprinted on your state of mind comes from something more than simply observing the guru or just gazing at the guru. Admiring him or her and hoping for the best somehow does not work. The impression the guru makes on you is a question of how much communication takes place between the guru and you. It is a question of how much the actual message is getting into you.

  If we return to the analogy of the guru being like a crocodile, you could say that the impression the teacher makes on you is the same as when the crocodile has swallowed you, digested you, and shat you out, and afterward you still have teeth marks on your neck. As another analogy, it is a bit like relating to your dying father by having to put him in the coffin and put flowers around his corpse, rather than just watching the ceremony. You take part in the funeral service for your dead father, and it makes an impression on you. You have a sense of reality.

  In talking about the kündzop guru, we are talking about a living guru. The guru is sending particular messages to you, and manifesting their liveliness to you in all kinds of ways. The living power of the lineage is taking place, channeled through your guru. Some of the guru’s messages may be verbal, while others are communicated in silence. It could be any form of communication, but it has to be realistic rather than imaginary. You cannot stretch the logic by thinking that, since your guru gave you an apple this morning, you have attained some kind of fruition. The guru might give you an egg, but that does not mean you are in an embryonic state. The communication is more sophisticated than that. The guru is aware of your intelligence, and any communication has to work with that individual intelligence.

  FIVE ASPECTS OF THE GURU

  The guru, whether relative or ultimate, is seen in the vajrayana as the embodiment of all the tantric principles. This is described in terms of five aspects: body, speech, mind, quality, and action.

  Body as Vajra Sangha

  The form or body of the guru is a manifestation of the vajra sangha, the sangha of tantric practitioners. The guru is an example of somebody who has trod on the path, someone who has achieved and experienced sangha-hood. In this way, the physical existence of the guru can be seen as the vajra sangha.

  Speech as the Teachings

  The speech of the guru is a manifestation of the teachings. Whether that speech is spoken or unspoken communication, both kinds of communication could be seen as manifesting the teachings.

  When we talk about the importance or value of the guru’s speech, it does not mean that the guru is a good speaker, a good lecturer, or highly articulate. Rather, the guru’s speech has a quality or pattern that transforms the environment around you into an environment that is an utterance or expression of the teaching. A body without speech does not create such an atmosphere or feeling of a complete world; that sense of complete reality comes particularly out of speech.

  If you see musical instruments just lying around on the floor, it is a very different experience than hearing musical instruments being played. However, if you have heard such musical instruments being played, and then you see the musical instruments lying on the floor, that still evokes an experience. So speech is not only words, or verbalization of the teachings alone, but speech is that which creates an atmosphere or environment of dharma.

  Mind as the Buddha

  The mind of the guru represents the Buddha, the Enlightened One, the Tathagata. This connection is quite simple and direct. For one thing, the guru’s mind is flawless, all-pervasive, and constantly keen. The guru’s mind is the embodiment of the dharmadhatu principle of all-encompassing space. In addition, as in the example of the vajra master’s fascination with the student and with the relationship that is taking place, the guru’s mind is also connected with com
passion.

  Quality as the Yidams

  The quality or personality of the guru is that of the yidams. Yidams are personifications of your particular nature. They can be either peaceful or wrathful, male (called herukas) or female (called dakinis). The various deities that you identify yourself with on the tantric path are all embodied in the guru, but the yidam is not a guru. The yidam is your experience rather than a guru, because the yidam is an imagination of your mind, and the guru is somebody who tells you that the yidam is an imagination of your mind. The guru shows you how you should imagine the yidam. It is up to the guru; the guru manifests all five buddha-family principles to students,3 depending on what particular nature they are receptive to.

  Action as the Dharmapalas

  The action of the guru is constantly sharp, up-to-date, cutting, and powerful. The guru embodies the action of the dharmapalas, the protectors of the dharma.4 The guru’s actions are constantly pointing out various things. For example, if you are just about to jump off a cliff, an action of the guru could prevent you from doing so. This is quite simple and direct.

  GURU AS POSSESSOR AND MAKER OF ALL

  In tantric literature, the guru principle is also described as the possessor and maker of all.

  Possessor of All Knowledge

  The first point is that the guru is considered to be the possessor of all knowledge. The guru possesses complete knowledge of an individual’s psychological development and the workings of their mind, as well as having a nationwide or cosmic scale of understanding about how the phenomenal world works. Because the guru is very much attuned to the phenomenal world, constantly and completely, the guru is never out-of-date. Therefore, the guru is the possessor of all knowledge.