The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness

by Chogyam Trungpa

  By going through the process of ngöndro, you develop devotion. When you have already accomplished complete devotion to the vajra master, without fear and without doubt, you are ready for abhisheka. At that point, as a student of vajrayana, you begin to experience that your vajra master is not just your lover, not just your schoolmaster, not purely a dictatorial leader, not purely a simple king, and not simply a professor. Instead, the vajra master is seen as a unique and extraordinary person, the guide who leads you on this journey.

  You see that the vajra master is a great teacher who has power over their students. If you are no longer willing to ransack your root kleshas—your passion, aggression, and ignorance—the vajra master does it for you. The vajra master minds your business very thoroughly. With that kind of confidence and dignity, the vajra master can actually bring down the jnanasattva and join it with the samayasattva, and so make you, the student, a worthwhile person.

  The vajra master joins heaven and earth to establish human society, to establish the vajra world. The jnanasattva, or heaven, and the samayasattva, or earth, are joined together, which makes a perfect human. The vajra master is the person who can actually do that for you. We could say that the wisdom of great bliss can be brought out because the jnanasattva principle already exists in the student’s mind. That is to say, vajra nature is in everyone. Everyone has fear and wisdom and precision. Outrageousness as well as insight exists in everyone. Whether or not you are exposed to that kind of vajra world, it is still possible to experience wisdom. So the wisdom of great bliss could be awakened anytime.

  TWO LEVELS OF GREAT JOY

  There are two levels of great joy: the mahasukha of example, and the mahasukha of reality.

  Mahasukha of Example

  The first level of great joy is the mahasukha of example. It is the reference point, or the flint stone that sparks the fire. Intrinsically and fundamentally, great joy means a state of mind that is without doubt or fear, a state of mind that experiences total love. Love here means rejoicing. It is ghastly, completely exasperated rejoicing. With this kind of rejoicing, there is a feeling of being intrinsically gay and festive. When you open a door and look down a narrow, dark hall, you don’t feel depressed, but you feel delighted: “Ha ha! There’s a narrow, dark hallway!” When you see a pile of shit on your plate, you don’t say, “Yuck,” but you think, “Why not?” And when you see a beautiful flower or bright green grass, you take the same attitude, which is very easy to do. There is a feeling of total and absolute celebration, and there is also a sense of humor. You can smile at your own depression with tremendous genuineness.

  Mahasukha of Reality

  The second level of great joy is the mahasukha of reality, the actual, real mahasukha that occurs when you cut your thoughts. Usually you do not want to cut your thoughts. You feel so wrapped up in them, and you enjoy indulging in your neuroses and making love to them. Even though that is shitty and smelly, it is what you always do.

  That kind of indulgence in depression can be overcome by a feeling of sadness and loneliness. Sadness is the recognition that you are the only person who can actually experience your own world, which is fine. It could be ego-centered, but it is still basically fine. And loneliness is finding that you are your only companion, apart from your vajra master. This loneliness is a very intrinsic loneliness, because you have no way to express your emotions. You experience the nonexistence of emotionality, and you begin to feel very empty, ghastly, completely ransacked. But some kind of energy is still taking place. It is very simple.

  Then, having realized your loneliness, there is an element of being intrinsically tickled by that very notion. If you take your loneliness with a vajrayana sense of humor, which is like having salt and pepper with your meal, then you begin to feel that it could become delightful. You begin to see trees, water, mountains, snowfall, raindrops, highways, your apartment and kitchen stove—everything—in that way. Those things make you lonely, but that loneliness is titillating. It is sad and happy put together, somewhat. At least you have found a companion. You never know where the loneliness is coming from, but there is some kind of companionship taking place there, which actually cheers you up. That experience makes you smile to yourself; you do not need an audience. There is depression, then suddenly there is [snaps fingers]—pfff!—and it flips. Aah! The air is filled with a heavy-cream cloud of joy—or bliss, in fact.

  When you begin to take that attitude of leaping or stepping over, then that flip becomes real, and you have what is known as mahasukha. This may sound a little bit artificial; however, it is true. You begin to find out what an artificial approach is later, but the point is that painful strongholds have finally been broken through. You flip over, and you find a home as opposed to imprisonment.

  When that flip takes place, you begin to open yourself simultaneously to the vajra master and to the vajra world. And at that point, the whole world, the whole atmosphere, is filled with jnanasattvas, along with your vajra master and your personal sense of great joy.

  1. The references to jnanasattva and samayasattva have to do with the practice of visualization, and the relationship of the vajra master and student to the sambhogakaya deities, or yidams. For a discussion of visualization practice, see chapter 38, “Visualization and Sadhana Practice.”

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  The Four Main Abhishekas

  With ultimate sacred outlook, there is nobody to flash sacred outlook, and nobody to open to sacred outlook: the doer and the doing are dissolving into one. There is a feeling of basic shock: the possibilities of conventional mind are dissolving into nothing. Wakefulness is a choiceless state. You cannot help but be wakeful, as long as you do not try to follow it up or to sustain it.

  THERE ARE many different levels of abhishekas, but basically there are four main abhishekas: outer, secret, prajna-jnana, and formless.1 These abhishekas are all connected with experiencing the phenomenal world as a sacred mandala. Checking in to a hotel does not mean you check in to any old hotel, just like that. First you decide what kind of hotel you want to check in to, and then you find out which floor your room is on. You can get a suite, a single bedroom, or a double bedroom, a private bathroom or a public one. There could be a restaurant.

  Likewise, there are a lot of possibilities and different levels of abhishekas. Each abhisheka is unique, and each abhisheka is connected with a particular sadhana, and with particular mandalas and deities, or yidams. The deity or yidam of the mandala is the agent of the vajra master, and this deity is your agent as well, so you are a part of that yidam and mandala.

  THE OUTER ABHISHEKA: CORONATION

  An abhisheka or empowerment ceremony begins with the outer abhisheka, which is like a coronation, confirming you as a king or queen. In this abhisheka, you are given purification water. Then you are crowned and given a scepter, or vajra, in your right hand, and a ghanta, or bell, in your left hand. Finally, you are given a name. Your name is changed from your ordinary name into the name of a would-be king or queen, a master of the mandala.

  In the outer abhisheka, you begin to identify yourself with a particular yidam, or deity. You visualize yourself in the form of whatever deity is chosen for the particular empowerment you are receiving. Such deities are not regarded as theistic deities or external beings, but as expressions of your own innate nature.

  The Five Steps of the Outer Abhisheka

  There are five steps to the outer abhisheka: the water abhisheka, the crown abhisheka, the vajra abhisheka, the ghanta abhisheka, and the name abhisheka.

  WATER ABHISHEKA. The outer abhisheka begins with the water abhisheka. It begins with purification and bathing. The water abhisheka is related with the idea of indestructibility or immovability. So before you put on your royal garments or wear your crown, you take a bath and are purified with holy water. Then, having been purified once, you are further purified in order to exorcise any of the little demigods or little ego friends that you may have brought along. You also reconfirm your refuge and bodhisattva
vows.

  CROWN ABHISHEKA. Once you have been purified, and you are fully dressed in your royal garments, the second step is that you are crowned. The crown abhisheka is related with equilibrium and a sense of rulership.

  VAJRA ABHISHEKA. Once you have been crowned, you receive a vajra scepter to hold. This is the vajra abhisheka, which represents transcending passion and developing discriminating-awareness wisdom.

  GHANTA ABHISHEKA. Next you receive a bell, or ghanta. This is a proclamation of the extent to which you can actually fulfill all your actions.

  NAME ABHISHEKA. Finally, you are given the name abhisheka, and you receive a royal name. You are actually confirmed and declared an enlightened person. You are told that, having received these abhishekas, you are actually going to become a buddha known as “Tathagata So-and-So.” The name abhisheka is related with the idea of all-encompassing space.

  The Five Wisdoms

  The five steps of the outer abhisheka are connected with the five wisdoms. Before the coronation, you first bathe and clean yourself so that you may develop mirrorlike wisdom, which sees the transparency of everything. Then you are given a crown, so that you may develop the wisdom of equanimity. Next, you are given a scepter so that you become entitled to develop discriminating-awareness wisdom. Then you are given a ghanta, or bell, so that you may proclaim the wisdom of all-accomplishing actions. And having done all that, you receive your royal name, which is connected with the wisdom of all-encompassing space.

  Through the five outer abhishekas, you actually become royalty. You are no longer a commoner like the bodhisattvas, the arhats, and the rest of the world of sentient beings.

  A Further Empowerment

  Sometimes if a student is completely ripe, that student is also empowered to transmit power to others. But this part is reserved for last, because after you have made somebody a king or queen, they have to be watched to see how they perform as the head of the country. You have to see how they relate with their own power structure, before you give them the power to create further kings and queens.

  THE SECRET OR INNER ABHISHEKA: MUTUAL INTOXICATION

  The secret or inner abhisheka is connected with the idea of mutual intoxication. In this abhisheka, you are presented with amrita, or liquor, from a skull cup. This liquor represents the juice derived from the union of the particular deities that you are being introduced to. Drinking the liquor intoxicates the confused mind into a higher level of existence.

  With the secret abhisheka, the boundary between confusion and wakefulness begins to dissolve. When that boundary is dissolved, confusion and wakefulness happen simultaneously. The problem with sanity is that it is bounded by insanity. That is, sanity is usually based on comparison, because there is also insanity. But when you dissolve both sanity and insanity, they both become, “So what?”

  Here we are not talking about small sanity; we are talking about greater sanity. If you open up your mind to greaterness, then you dissolve small sanity and small insanity into greater sanity. Relying on small sanity is like trying to read a book by flashlight during the day. When it is nighttime, there is a difference between using your flashlight and not using your flashlight to read a book. But when the sun is shining, you do not have to use a flashlight; in fact, a flashlight becomes an obstacle. So you have to think bigger.

  The secret abhisheka transforms your existence completely. Reality is no longer regarded as an obstacle, and you no longer have difficulty communicating. Your passion, aggression, and ignorance are transformed into greater wisdom, so the fickle aspect of duality is conquered. This abhisheka has to do with how you can amalgamate the nirvanic, enlightened point of view together with the samsaric, confused point of view. If you are able to digest this particular teaching, the effect is that your whole body becomes a sacred existence.

  THE PRAJNA-JNANA ABHISHEKA: BLISS

  The secret abhisheka is followed by the prajna-jnana abhisheka. This abhisheka is connected with understanding your reality and the relationship between you and your world. It is connected with how to relate with your consort, your family, and your world. Because of the wakefulness of intoxication, you begin to experience joy. You experience a sense of uniting with the world, a sense of orgasm.

  Such a relationship is often developed by means of karmamudra, or sexual union practices, which show how the experience of orgasm can be related with that of sudden enlightenment. So the general notion of this abhisheka is that the experience of orgasm is actually a way of opening yourself to the phenomenal world. In this abhisheka, you are allowed to use your passion at last, not as a source of aggression or possessiveness or self-indulgence, but as a source of raising the greatest joy in your life.

  The prajna-jnana abhisheka changes your mind and body completely; you become able to relate with the phenomenal world. You are able to copulate with the phenomenal world, to make love with the phenomenal world thoroughly and fully. You no longer experience inhibitions of any kind; therefore, you can actually open yourself up completely. By doing so, you can conquer any attacks, negativities, or negative powers that come to you.

  The Four Types of Bliss

  In the prajna-jnana abhisheka, you work with four types of bliss.

  BLISS OF FREEDOM FROM EGO. The first bliss is the bliss of freedom from ego, which is like taking off your heavy coat on a very hot day. It is a tremendous relief.

  BLISS OF BEING CAPABLE AND WORTHY OF FREEDOM FROM EGO. The second bliss is the appreciation that you are capable of dealing with that level of bliss or freedom; you feel you are worthy of it.

  BLISS OF DROPPING INHIBITIONS. In the third bliss, you boost yourself up further to the point that you begin to have no inhibitions about going beyond that bliss or freedom, even if you then have greater freedom.

  BLISS OF TRANSCENDING FREEDOM AND BLISS. With the fourth bliss, you go beyond freedom and you go beyond the experience of bliss. You do not have to experience the freedom or the bliss, so you are transcending freedom and bliss altogether. You are it already: you are the freedom; you are the bliss. You are united with it; you are one with it. It is nondual experience.

  That uniting with bliss, that being beyond bliss, is regarded as the bliss of the wisdom of example, which we call peyi yeshe. So the third abhisheka is also known as the abhisheka of the wisdom of example, or the wisdom of analogies.

  THE FORMLESS ABHISHEKA: THAT

  After the bliss of the third abhisheka, you have the fourth abhisheka, which is something more than that—or maybe less than that. After peyi yeshe comes töngyi yeshe, or “actual wisdom.” Tön means “ultimate,” “pith,” or “final,” kyi means “of,” and yeshe is “wisdom”; so töngyi yeshe means “ultimate wisdom.”

  The fourth abhisheka is very ordinary, but it is not particularly a big comedown. It is known as the mahamudra abhisheka, or the abhisheka of That. That traditionally refers to suddenly stopping the mind, suddenly stopping thoughts so that there is a gap. Ordinary mind is then introduced as very ordinary mind, and the idea of abhisheka as something special is cut through. Therefore, ordinary mind is experienced very directly. Once you have seen real ordinariness—the superordinary, the absolute ordinary—you realize that the regular world is not all that ordinary. Its ordinariness is purely superficial; you have not really deepened into it.

  The point of this abhisheka is to realize that none of those processes you have been going through are based on a subject-object relationship. It is no longer a matter of “this” and “that,” “I gain” or “I lose.” You are simply introduced to the understanding that past, present, and future are one. Again, this is what is traditionally known as the fourth moment. The fourth moment consists of warmth and power and strength. I don’t think I can actually explain it to you until you have received these abhishekas, but roughly speaking, there is a quality of warmth, strength, joy, and tremendous delight, because at last you are freed from being stuck to the past, present, and future.

  This also means that you are freed from “I�
� and “other,” “me” and “my belongings,” and all the rest of it. Usually, we find all of that schmuckiness so annoying, but at the same time, so pleasant. Because we feel so much pain from those fixations, we begin to enjoy them. But in the fourth moment, you begin to be given freedom from conceptualized enjoyment. You are given an experience that is no longer yours as a possession, but belongs to the cosmic world. That is why this is known as the fourth moment, because it is free from past, present, and future. You begin to appreciate that.

  The fourth moment accommodates all the rest of the abhisheka empowerments. It is the conquering of the entirety of space altogether; it conquers the entire time-and-space speculation. Our notions are not exactly changed, but they become bigger. When we talk about time and space, we usually think in very small measures. When we talk about time, we talk about minutes and hours; and when we talk about space, we talk in terms of yardage, meters, and miles. The measurement of the fourth moment transcends such measures altogether, and at the same time it comprehends them all at once. It is the all-encompassing space, definitely so, which includes both time and space. So although the fourth moment is talked about in terms of “moment,” which you might think means time alone, the fourth moment includes both space and time.