The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness

by Chogyam Trungpa

  Künshi ngangluk kyi gewa is inferior to yeshe, because it still has the reference point of virtue, as opposed to non-virtue. However, I am afraid that you might nonetheless have to approach yeshe through künshi ngangluk kyi gewa. So basic goodness might accompany you up to a certain point—but then it is not there anymore, and you are left on your own with yeshe, completely. Even the absolute bodhichitta practice of lojong, or resting the mind in the nature of alaya, is a starting point rather than the ultimate reality. It is similar to the European custom of parents putting a small measure of wine in a glass of water, and presenting it to their children at the dinner table so their children can learn how to drink. Later on, when their children learn how to drink properly, they can have a whole glass.

  BEING SOAKED IN ALL THREE YANAS

  When all of this has taken place, the vajrayana aspect of taming is very simple and direct. First of all, you have been already fully and thoroughly trained in the basic Buddhist tradition of hinayana. Secondly, you have also learned to develop your ability to relate with others through mahayana practicality and through tonglen. Because you have thoroughly and fully developed in those ways, any leftover habitual tendencies and remains of samsaric pre-Buddhist training have been removed without a trace. And even if there were such a trace left over, it would not be difficult to remove the problem, because you have already been thoroughly trained or shinjanged.

  It seems to be very important for a vajrayana student to be soaked in all three yanas and become thoroughly Buddhist, rather than just becoming a vajrayana practitioner alone. We are talking about how to become a real Buddhist—about how to become a real hinayanist in the fullest sense of being tamed properly and thoroughly, and how to become a real mahayanist so that you have no problem with letting go and experiencing warmth.

  With that ground, you will be able to share your gratitude and devotion to people such as the guru, the lineage, and the teachers from whom you receive your teachings. When you have become quite proficient in shamatha-vipashyana and lojong, you will begin to understand and develop unconditional wisdom, or yeshe. You will be able to identify and emulate the style and mentality of the enlightened ones fully and completely. That enlightened mentality will cease to be a myth and will instead become a real living tradition.

  1. The knowing quality of ngo-she has the implication of recognizing one’s true nature.

  2. A reference to a traditional analogy in which students are compared to pots. If the pot is upside down, the teachings cannot enter; if the pot is leaky, the teachings will not stick; if the pot is dirty or poisoned, the teachings will be distorted or deadened; but when the pot is open and upright, the teachings can enter without distortion.

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  Transcending Mental Concepts

  When you wake up from ignorance, you discover rikpa. Rikpa is the first notion of wakefulness, not necessarily in the sense of enlightenment, but as contrasted to slothfulness or confusion. So rikpa is a sort of spark, as opposed to dullness and sleepiness. It is intrinsic sharpness, penetratingly bright.

  IN THE vajrayana, we are freeing ourselves from habitual tendencies, which brings about the transcending of mental concepts. That freedom from habitual tendencies and mental concepts seems to be the basis for bringing the three yanas together. It is the height of vajrayana possibilities that exist in us naturally. Such freedom is the result that derives from being thoroughly processed or shinjanged. It comes from full accomplishment of shamatha and vipashyana, and from the thorough and full development of tonglen practice.

  LO: METHODICAL MIND

  The term for “mental concept” in Tibetan is lo. Lo is quite a vast term and it is used in several ways. Generally, lo means “mind” or “minding,” in the sense of “minding others.” When mind minds others, it begins to achieve the clarity of lo.

  Lo is not a question of sanity, particularly, but of being methodical. You may achieve temporary or seeming sanity by being very methodical and orderly, but that’s it. You cannot go beyond that. You cannot put lo on a pedestal and say that it has greater potential than that. At the same time, lo is not at the klesha level, which is somewhat more mean. Lo is very innocent. It just tries to gather information and come to conclusions about where you are. Lo seems to be the first level of trying to figure out where you are, the primordial-ego level.

  Being methodical or meticulous is what lo does: that is lo’s function. Your body does the same thing in the sense that no matter how much you abuse your body, it always has a way of correcting itself. Physically, certain things are disposed of and certain things are maintained on an almost mechanical level. Psychologically and mentally, lo does the same thing: what needs to be kept is kept and what needs to be rejected is rejected. Lo is always faithful. It is the basic mechanism that exists in all of us always that keeps us going. Even though we might feel crazy, lo makes sure we do not do anything crazy, that we don’t jump off the roof or turn on the hot water and burn ourselves.

  Lo is almost on the animal instinct level of just being decent. It is the most decent aspect of regular mind. Lo takes care of you. Even though you might be depressed or excited, there is still some moderation principle going on in your mind, and that which moderates your mind is lo. Consequently, that lo needs to be trained, and that training is called lojong. So lo is not theoretical. It is simply minding what you would or would not do to yourself, on the day-to-day functional level.

  TWO TYPES OF LO

  There are two types of lo: ordinary lo and transcendent lo.

  Ordinary Lo: Reference-Point Mind

  Ordinary lo provides a reference point. It enables you to get feedback as to whether your projections are reaching whatever you are projecting to and whether your projections are achieving something. Obviously, this kind of lo is purely samsaric. Nonetheless, it is very businesslike, and in the conventional sense, very sane and regular. When the mind minds others, when it projects to others, it may discover either tenderness in them or harshness. So ordinary lo refers to the mind that discovers love and hate and so forth, the mind that expresses various emotions.

  TWO TYPES OF ORDINARY LO: LOPHAM AND LO-TE

  There are two types of ordinary lo: lopham and lo-te. Lopham means “disappointment” and lo-te means “trustworthiness.” Lo is “mind,” and pham means “defeat,” so lopham means “defeated lo,” or “disappointment.” Similarly, in the word lo-te, lo, means “mind,” and te means “directing”; so lo-te means “directing your mind,” which in this case means to trust somebody.

  In the vajrayana we are transcending ordinary lo altogether. We are transcending both lopham, or defeated lo, and lo-te, the lo of accomplishment, fulfillment, or trustworthiness. We are developing lo that is free from habitual tendencies altogether. However, in being free from ordinary lo, we are not actually giving up lo itself: lo itself is maintained.

  Lodrö: Transcendental Lo

  There is a third type of lo, called transcendental lo, or lodrö. Lo as before means “minding,” and drö means “satisfied” or “established,” so lodrö means “established minding.” Literally, drö means “advice,” or “counsel.” Lodrö is almost a synonym for prajna or intellect in the higher sense, so higher lo is close to prajna. Particularly in the case of the vajrayana, lodrö is more likely to refer to the transcendental form of lo, which is definitely free from habitual patterns as well as free from regular, discursive lo. With transcendental lo, freedom from the love-and-hate or hope-and-fear type of lo seems to be the outcome.

  LO AS THE PRODUCT OF CONCEPTUAL MIND OR SEM

  Lo seems to be the result of sem, or conceptual mind. Sem searches and cultivates, and lo achieves some sort of outcome. With lo, you come up with something hopeful, something passionate, something aggressive, or whatever. So lo is the product of sem, it is what sem discovers. Lo could be deceptive, but it is still just a discovery of mind. It is the conclusion of sem, and as such, lo is definitely conceptual. However, when sem is tired of working, it tends to produce
lo.

  In a way, when you go beyond habitual patterns of mind, you are going beyond lo. The term for this is lo-de, which means “beyond lo.”1 That is, lo itself does not go very high; for lo, there is nothing higher than lodrö. But transcendent sem goes beyond lodrö.

  THE DISCOVERY OF TRANSCENDENT SEM OR RIKPA

  Sem is generally regarded as ordinary, as samsaric. But there is an interesting term for sem, “transcendent sem,” which is said to have been coined by the great nineteenth-century Nyingma master, Mipham Rinpoche. In Tibetan, transcendent sem is called nyuk sem, or “primordial sem,” which is the same as rikpa.

  Rikpa is the clearest and most precise discovery. Before sem even begins to work, rikpa has a first glimpse of reality. We have referred to this first glimpse as “first thought, best thought.”2 Traditionally, rikpa means a discovery beyond ignorance. That is, when you wake up from ignorance, you discover rikpa. Rikpa is the first notion of wakefulness, not necessarily in the sense of enlightenment, but as contrasted to slothfulness or confusion. So rikpa is a sort of spark, as opposed to dullness and sleepiness. It is intrinsic sharpness, penetratingly bright.

  Rikpa is not dualistic: it could see everything. But rikpa is very hard to get hold of, which is why it is placed very high. In the vajrayana tradition, the vidyadhara, or rigdzin, the “holder of knowledge” is placed even higher than the vajracharya, or “vajra master.” So rikpa is regarded as the highest development, more or less on the level of yeshe, or wisdom.

  At the same time, rikpa is somewhat of a student’s or a practitioner’s point of view. In this case, rikpa is path oriented. On that path you could have a perception or rikpa of dharmakaya. The related term prajna could refer to either a faculty or to what you perceive. When prajna is what you perceive, that prajna is perceived by rikpa; whereas, when prajna is regarded as a faculty, prajna, like rikpa, is a path or journey. In that case, prajna is called prajnaparamita, which means “knowledge gone beyond.” So prajnaparamita is different than simple prajna.

  YESHE: PRIMORDIAL KNOWING

  A further kind of knowing is called yeshe. Yeshe is primordially knowing. It is the universal monarch or fruition level; therefore, it is even free from the path. But what we are talking about here is simply becoming free from habitual patterns, or transcending lo. So we are coming down to a much cruder and more detailed level. Saying that lo is the path or working basis for the practitioner is like saying that in order to be rich, you have to work harder. It is not yet at the level of saying that in order to be a universal monarch, you have to stop begging.

  The term yeshe is related to the notion of dharmakaya, which is actually a shortened form of jnana dharmakaya. Likewise, the Tibetan word for dharmakaya, or chöku, is an abbreviation of yeshe chöku. So dharmakaya means “being in the state of yeshe.”

  In the hinayana, the term dharmakaya refers simply to the body of dharma, such as the teachings of the four noble truths or whatever other dharma is being taught. But in the vajrayana, yeshe chöku or jnana dharmakaya means “full of wisdom.” So in order to experience dharmakaya, you have to be filled with yeshe. That is, yeshe is what dharmakaya has. In order to be known as someone who is rich, you have to have lots of money. In this analogy, the money is like yeshe, and being rich is like the dharmakaya. So if someone calls you a rich person, it means you have lots of money, and if someone calls you dharmakaya, it means you have lots of yeshe.

  1. Lo-te (blos gtad) means “directing the mind,” whereas the similar term lo-de (blo ’das) means “beyond lo.”

  2. This phrase comes up in many contexts in Trungpa Rinpoche’s teachings. For more on this quality of “first thought, best thought,” in terms of the mandala principle, see chapter 27, “The Outer Mandala.”

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  Fundamental Magic

  The world is a healthy world in its own way. Even if you are sick or unhealthy, even if your bathwater turns out to be full of rusty clogs from your pipes, still it is healthy. Because of that vajrayana approach of basic healthiness, you actually are able to cut through the original root kleshas, which is the best magic of all.

  THE UNIFICATION OF EMPTINESS AND COMPASSION

  Emptiness and compassion provide the basis for the student of vajrayana; as potential vajrayana persons, we are expected to have already understood shunyata, as well as karuna. We should have that much understanding to begin with in order to practice vajrayana. In vajrayana, we take the attitude that our basic nature is already in the process of full realization; we do not regard it as an essence or potentiality. Out of that, and due to our practice of the hinayana path and the bodhisattva way, we begin to experience the unification of emptiness and compassion.

  LUMINOUS EMPTINESS

  First comes emptiness, or shunyata. Shunyata is the emptiness of küntak, or “random labeling,” and of dualistic fixations of any kind. It is also the emptiness of oneself and of one’s basic core of bewilderment. That original primordial ignorance is also empty. Understanding that quality of emptiness, or twofold egolessness, we begin to develop a quality of brilliance. As we begin to see beyond dualistic fixations or hang-ups, we also begin to understand their absence. We realize that this absence is not empty or vacant in the ordinary sense, but there is a tremendous spark or brightness taking place. When we recognize that brightness, we develop what is known as “vajra pride” in traditional vajrayana terminology. Vajra pride is based on affirming that not only have we begun to see the emptiness or absence of all those hang-ups, but we have also begun to see the brilliance. We begin to take a fearless attitude toward all that, and we begin to hold that kind of posture.

  That brightness or brilliance is very basic. It is like daylight. It shines into your life so that you develop clear perceptions. You know what to perceive, how to follow situations, and how to prevent obstacles. It is almost at the level of prajna; but in tantric language, instead of referring to it as prajna, we refer to it as luminous emptiness. It is empty because it is free from fixations and hang-ups; it is luminous because after all the fixations are removed, what is left behind is fully realized experience, which is outstanding.

  So in the vajrayana, you are able to separate what should be rejected on the path from what should be accepted on the path, in the fashion of prajna. But not only are you able to discriminate what to accept and reject, you also experience brilliance, which brings delight and heartiness, and a somewhat macho style. It brings vajra pride.

  Immediately after the experience of emptiness, there is a quality of fullness. So emptiness is not regarded as a loss. In the vajrayana, your experience of shunyata is not as if part of your brain or heart has been taken away, but more as if the first layer of tissue on your brain and heart has been taken away because it created an obstacle. You feel that now your brain and heart are functioning extremely well, that they are actually functioning much better. You feel that at last the whole thing is working properly and as it should.

  In the vajrayana, you are not relating to emptiness as if you were a patient recovering in a hospital to regain your strength. In this case, the patient was never sick. Even though you had to go to the hospital to have some obstacles removed, fundamentally speaking you never got sick. The experience of emptiness is more like going to a barber to get a haircut when your hair is too long or needs shaping. When you get your hair cut, you come out better, but it is not an ordeal. The whole thing is straightforward and quite delightful.

  COMPASSION AS TRANSCENDENTAL INDULGENCE

  After emptiness comes compassion, which is soft and gentle, with an aspect of wrath. That is to say, in the vajrayana, compassion is no longer regarded as kindness in the conventional sense. It is not even kindness in the conventional mahayana sense. There is no particular norm of how to be kind in the vajrayana. Instead, compassion is an expression of the union of emptiness and luminosity.

  This kind of compassion sometimes has a threatening aspect, but it is only threatening because we want to gain something from ego’s point of view
. It is threatening because if an unreasonable situation occurs, this kind of compassion would answer that with its own unreasonability. This makes the whole thing into a good deal; it balances both situations. It could sometimes happen the other way around, of course, but that depends on what your shunyata vision has provided for you.

  Vajrayana compassion is based on fundamental lust and passion. So much warmth is expressed to fellow sentient beings and to yourself that you begin to feel almost romantic about the whole thing. In the bodhisattva path, you are not allowed to look at the romantic aspect, particularly; you are just performing good deeds all the time. You become a bridge, a highway, a ship, or a reservoir. You become whatever you possibly can in order to accommodate everything.

  In mahayana compassion, there is little possibility of indulgence, but in vajrayana compassion, indulgence somehow comes back. This is quite a dangerous thing to say, I suppose, but I hope you understand what I mean. I don’t want to produce any egomaniacs. In vajrayana compassion, indulgence means taking pride in your gentleness and softness, which is also harsh and flavored with aggression. But in this case, it is obviously transcendental aggression. Vajrayana compassion is like drinking milk that has been cooked over a slowly burning fire until it has begun to thicken and condense. That milk has lots of honey and sugar in it, but you then add a few drops of Tabasco sauce, which makes it both sweet and chipper, tasty, but with a reminder. You cannot just get into the smoothness and simplicity of it, but there is a touch of bitterness at the same time.