The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness

by Chogyam Trungpa

  1. For a description of the wisdoms and kleshas, see chapter 26, “The Mandala of the Five Buddha-Families.”

  2. The list of primary kleshas can vary. In terms of the five buddha-families, Trungpa Rinpoche usually lists them as ignorance (buddha), aggression (vajra), pride (ratna), passion (padma), and jealousy (karma). In relation to the six realms of being they are anger (hell), greed (hungry ghosts), ignorance (animals), passion (humans), jealousy (jealous gods), and pride (god realm).

  29

  The Secret Mandala

  The secret mandala is quite simple and straightforward: it is the idea of transmuting neurosis into wakefulness.

  RELATING TO YOUR MIND AS A SACRED MANDALA

  The third mandala principle is the secret mandala. The Sanskrit word for secret is guhya, and the Tibetan is sangwa, which means “secret” or “hidden.”

  The secret mandala is known as secret, not in the sense of top secret, but in the sense that you alone can understand it. So this mandala is not necessarily all that secret, or a trick of any kind. It is called “secret” because it is based on an individual’s understanding of reality. Experiencing the secret mandala does not mean that you have actually developed or advanced from the outer mandala to the inner to the secret. It is more a question of preparing the ground and going through the depths of reality as a tantric practitioner, or a tantrika.

  Basically, the secret mandala is based on relating to your mind as the mandala principle. Any kleshas that occur are regarded as the mandala of the five wisdoms. So if any emotionalism or sheer klesha state of mind arises, that is not regarded as either a problem or a promise, but as a source of wakefulness. It is regarded as a source of understanding the fourth abhisheka of That.1 The secret mandala is quite simple and straightforward: it is the idea of transmuting neurosis into wakefulness.

  When neurosis occurs, we begin to feel that it is putting us to sleep or making us deaf, dumb, and mute. But we can transcend that total stupidity altogether when we realize that there is wakefulness beyond the threshold of the doorway, beyond that twist. When we put our foot inside the doorway of the mandala, we begin to realize that there is an entirely different story, and we cannot help appreciating that. There is a quality of sacredness, and the sacredness of smell, sight, sound, and feelings begins to dawn. Once again, there is the fundamental principle of sacred outlook.

  A mandala is a complete world, which possesses a center and a fringe, a beginning and an end. A mandala could be made up of master and servants, commander and troops, warlords and their machine guns, fountains with water, flowers with the seasons, winter with the snow, autumn with the harvest, spring with blossoms, hair with barbers, publishers with writers, equestrians with horsemanship and saddles, fishing with hooks and worms, taking a shower with dirt, shoemakers with feet, doctors with patients, dentists with teeth, and electricians with domestic conveniences. Many of these things are connected with the secret mandala and with the secret aspect of the guru principle.

  In the secret mandala, the guru principle is experienced more intimately than the principle of te-kho-na-nyi in the inner mandala. The relationship between teacher and student is like that of a doctor and a patient: you are regarded as a patient, and the guru is referred to as the physician. In the inner mandala, te-kho-na-nyi is a kind of directness; but in the secret mandala, te-kho-na-nyi becomes warmth. The secret mandala is very personal. You are sharing the guru’s heart, which is “that itself.” The inner mandala may be impersonal, but the secret is very personal.

  In some sense, the process of realizing the kleshas as wisdom is carried to its completion at the level of inner mandala. But there are various levels of fruition. It does not work quite like the ordinary Western concept of getting married, which is that once you get married, you are married forever. It is more a question of first being engaged, and then getting married. Using this analogy, the inner mandala is like being engaged, and the secret mandala is like getting married. So the secret mandala could be considered the fruition of the inner mandala.

  This has to be so, for at the level of the secret mandala, there is no further need for working with the inner mandala. You have already done that, so at this point the inner mandala is no longer necessary. However, the outer mandala involves working with sentient beings, so you always need that. You cannot abandon that, unless you liberate the whole world. So you have to keep working with the outer mandala for the sake of sentient beings. The outer mandala goes on, always.

  BUSTING SECRET SAMSARA

  When you study the secret mandala, you also have to understand secret samsara at the same time. Secret samsara refers to your secret individualism. It is your not wanting to give up anything at all, unless it is in the name of pleasure or the glory of your own existence. With secret samsara, you experience pleasure if you have a little bit of money or a little bit of resources; and you feel glorious if you have even more money, which provides you with much more flair to magnetize the rest of your world to you. The teacher cannot let you keep your secret samsara, and then teach you the secret mandala on top of that, so you keep a double secret.

  This description of secret samsara might make it sound as if everybody is being somewhat wicked—and from some point of view, you have been wicked. You have not wanted to give away your little corner of secretness that you have been holding on to so dearly. It is very precious to you. You hold your little Joe Schmidt treasure or your Jane Doe treasure. It is your secret treasure that you really do not want to give to anybody at all. You want to hold on to it. You always want to hold on to it, and you never want to give it away; you never want to reveal it.

  With respect to the kyil and the khor principles that we discussed already, in the secret mandala the kyil is the guru principle, and the khor is the little secret you want to hide. In vajrayana, the role of the secret mandala is precisely and obviously to raid that secrecy. This might be regarded as an intrusion, but let it be an intrusion. Regard it as an uncompassionate way of busting your little stash. Let it be so; it is the case.

  Having been busted, you are not put in prison, and you are not seen as a terrible person who has committed a major crime and has a long criminal record. Instead, once you are actually able to expose that little secret of yours and let go of it, you and your vajra master and your vajra brothers and sisters could share a feeling of pleasure and joy and a sense of humor. You could meet each other once more, and say to one another, “Hello, how do you do?”

  In the secret mandala, you are relating to the teacher in a very intimate way. You are working with your hesitation and with holding back in those little, personal areas. Generally, you are holding on to that little piece of yourself that you think you are, and without which you feel that you are not anything. Even if it is something painful, you still hold on to some little corner of it. But you have to give that up; you have to offer it as a present. That seems to be the only way, and I have done it myself.

  You might have one little secret or many little secrets; nonetheless, all those secrets have to go. Your secrets may have to do with hiding from your vulnerability, with the wish to boycott the pain of others, with all sorts of things. The way to give all that up would be to connect to your heart without any secrets, very simply. If you give up your secrets, you do not find any problems. In fact, you begin to realize that it costs you more to keep your little secrets. It costs a lot to try to maintain those secrets: You have to pay them little rents. You have to feed them, and you have to wash them and groom them. Keeping those little secrets is a source of inconvenience and financial drain. They become very demanding tenants. So when you feel hesitation come up, you could just give that hesitation away. You should not do so naively or with blind faith. You could do it with intelligent faith, because of the trust that has developed from your shamatha, vipashyana, and tonglen practice.

  Giving up your secrets is like cleaning your mandala plate. When you establish or set up a physical mandala, you first clean the background.2 This pr
ocess is related with developing peacefulness and tranquillity. You relate to every part of the mandala as being innately good, clean, and pure. Out of that come the vajrayana possibilities of never giving in to your hesitation and never running away from reality. In the vajrayana, you just stick with reality. When you experience difficulties, you do not just throw them into the dishwasher because you cannot cope with cleaning them up manually—you clean the mandala by hand. You do not give up on anything. You do not throw your neurosis and chaos into the dishwasher. Instead, you keep things very simple and very direct, and you take things step-by-step.

  THE BOND BETWEEN STUDENT AND TEACHER

  The secret mandala is connected with devotion to the teacher, the guru. In this case, the definition of the guru is someone who lives and sees with panoramic vision, someone who has the highest perspective on their students’ state of being. The Tibetan term lama means the “one who holds the highest virtues of all,” and the Sanskrit term guru implies the “one who carries the heaviest load of all.” That load is put on the lama by the students, by their neurosis, so the lama could be regarded as the most dedicated and courageous porter. The guru is willing to carry the load for you that you cannot carry.

  Such a guru is intimately connected with the secret mandala because they are willing to share your vision and your inadequacies completely. The guru is willing to carry you out and willing to see you through. If necessary, the guru will carry you out of samsara. Without the guru principle, the secret mandala does not mean anything. And as we go on further, we will continue to discuss the mutual bond that exists between student and teacher.

  THE MANDALA OF THE BUDDHAS

  Because of your devotion, trust, and appreciation of what you have experienced already, you begin to realize an additional mandala: the mandala of the buddhas. This mandala actually extends over or permeates all the other mandalas. With the buddha mandala, you begin to experience sacredness everywhere. You could be too localized in experiencing the outer, inner, and secret mandalas without this connection to greater sacredness. But with the buddha mandala, there is an overall sense of the messages that you might receive in dealing with the threefold mandala. So with the mandala of the buddhas, you experience a pervasive sense of sacredness, whether it is connected with your outer, inner, or secret mandala.

  At this point, you are including the adhishthana principle, the guru principle, and the principle of devotion. The reason you can actually let go into such a larger space is because of the buddha mandala, which is a combination of intense devotion and a slight pain in the heart. The experience of buddha mandala is somewhat painful and sad, but at the same time it brings out tremendous delightfulness. It is analogous to falling in love: when your lover’s name is mentioned, you feel heartache, a slight hurt, but at the same time it is a pleasurable sensation.

  When you have this pain, it is a feeling of empty heart. This empty-heartedness is different from an “Oy vey!” or complaining type of pain. It is not a pain of blame. Instead, it is the pain that comes out of hardship. It is amazement. You think, “Good heavens! For a long time, for a very long time—eternally!—I have been fooled by something or other. How come I am not fooled now?” You do not feel resentful, but you realize that you had become a professional samsaric person. And now suddenly, you have finally realized that you do not have to be that way. You do not have to carry that kind of burden anymore, so there is a sense of relief.

  This is like finally falling in love. When you fall in love, your seeming incapability of falling in love suddenly changes into your being completely capable of falling in love. That provides a feeling of pain and delight at the same time, as well as a sense of relief, because there is no blame.

  Ironically, such an experience always comes to you by driving all blames into yourself. Because you drive all blames into yourself rather than onto others, you begin to realize that this is the only problem—and this is very easy to pop. You have finally caught this nasty thing, and you can pop it. You do not have to chase after anybody else so they can try to pop it for you or with you. You have it with you right here and you can pop it, which is at once painful and pleasurable.

  The heartfelt principle of the mandala of the buddhas is one of complete and total fullness. Because you are so full, you want to expand completely into your three worlds: your outer world, your body, and your state of mind. There is a respect for situations and experiences throughout. So for example, you do not step on or over teaching objects, such as texts or practice materials. You recognize that it is necessary to respect such seemingly small or insignificant principles. You learn to appreciate the sacredness and the magical aspect of those norms and admonitions.

  MAGIC AND SURPRISES

  The magical aspect of vajrayana is not cheap magic—presto! Instead, in this case we are talking about something much more profound. Magic is the reason that you connect with the dharma or the vajrayana altogether. Encountering the vajrayana is a fundamentally magical situation. Meeting a teacher is also a magical situation: you would never, ever have expected to meet a teacher who communicated the truth. It is a magical situation that a teacher and a student come together. It is magical to be able to hear the teachings. If you reflect back many years to before you even heard these teachings, you realize that you would never have thought then that you would ever be doing such a thing. Finally, practice is a magical situation: you would never have thought that you would be practicing anything like this at all.

  When you enter the vajrayana, all sorts of surprises come up. There are changes in your relationships and changes in your outlook on the phenomenal world. You begin to feel that you may actually be able to overpower the phenomenal world by means of complete understanding and total wakefulness.

  You might think that this description of the vajrayana is somewhat tame and ordinary, but believe it or not, once you enter the vajrayana, there is no doubt that you will have all sorts of magical experiences. However, I am not saying that you should dwell on these experiences and try to make a great magician out of yourself. Instead, you should become a great practitioner, and save becoming a magician for later.

  1. For a discussion of the four main abhishekas, see chapter 37, “The Four Main Abhishekas.”

  2. In the vajrayana preliminary practice called mandala offering, students offer heaps of rice onto a plate, which symbolizes offering the entire universe. The first step of the practice is to wipe the plate clean. This sequence of cleaning and offering rice is repeated many times. For more on preliminary practices, see chapter 31, “The Four Preliminaries.”

  Part Seven

  PRELIMINARY PRACTICES

  30

  The Four Reminders

  We practice the four reminders by having a greater sense of connection with the lineage, with the disciplines that are inspired by the lineage, and with our own discipline. Therefore, we begin to have devotion to the authentic guru, and we understand that studying with such an authentic guru is the only way that we can actually do these four practices properly, fully, and truly. We begin to realize that we are worthy people, and because we are worthy people, we find that our guru is also a worthy person.

  RIPENING STUDENTS

  In the vajrayana, we talk about students being ripened. We say that a student’s potential to be free depends on their level of ripeness. From this point of view, every fruit has the potential of becoming ripe, but it is very tricky. Your level of ripeness depends on how long you have been sitting in the fruit basket. It depends on when you were picked off the tree: what season, what day, and what month. And it depends on what temperature you were stored at after you were separated from the branch of your tree in your particular orchard.

  The ripening process is based on the pre-vajrayana disciplines of shamatha and vipashyana. It is based on practicing the two bodhichittas and tonglen. We have to go through that training fully and thoroughly, to transcend hesitation and be fully shinjanged. In fact, teachers of vajrayana usually recommend that st
udents entering the vajrayana should be two-hundred-percent shinjanged; they say that one hundred percent is not good enough.

  We have been told that such training is particularly important as we get further and further into the dark age, a time when there is less sacred outlook in the world, and there is no help in maintaining our sanity. When insanity reigns constantly and we have to overcome the external world’s neurosis, a complete cleaning and sweeping process is necessary. Therefore, it has been recommended that we attain two-hundred-percent hinayana and two-hundred-percent, or even three-hundred-percent, mahayana. The degree to which we are properly prepared for vajrayana discipline determines whether we are workable or unworkable as vajrayana students.

  So workability is not based on whether we are Jewish or Gentile, or whether we are made out of ivory or plastic. It is based on how much we have actually attained through practice and study, and on how thoroughly we have been processed by the previous yanas. Whether you fill a bucket with water from a lake, a river, or a waterfall, it will make the same base for your stew. Likewise, as a vajrayana student, it does not particularly matter where you come from. What really matters is how much you have attained through practice and study.

  We begin to become workable when we finally accept ourselves. We start by giving up our spiritual shopping and by taking refuge in the Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha. We begin by synchronizing our mind and body through shamatha-vipashyana, and by developing friendliness to ourselves. Having begun by paying attention to ourselves, we then find that others are also important. So in the mahayana, we develop compassion by means of tonglen practice and by working with the lojong slogans. We relate to both relative and absolute truth, and we realize ultimate bodhichitta.