STRAIGHTFORWARD PRACTICE
In visualization practice, there is no other purpose than to have proper contact with reality through whatever deity was given to you as part of your practice. You just work with that very simply. It is not all that subtle. You have your own particular patron saint, and you just work with that. It may seem to be very unsubtle and crude, but it is very direct. You just do the visualization you were given. You develop your own identification with that particular deity. Simply that.
It’s like buying clothes. If the clothing fits well, you wear it, and if it doesn’t fit, you don’t wear it. It’s like buying a pair of spectacles. If you can see through them, you buy them, and if you can’t see through them, you don’t buy them. You follow your own inclination as well as the vajra master’s recommendation. The eye doctor might recommend a certain kind of glasses, so you just wear them and use them. You are buying something that you do not yet have, but at the same time it is something you are somewhat familiar with. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be buying it. You would be too nervous to be willing to spend money on it.
THE CONTINUITY OF MEDITATION AND POSTMEDITATION PRACTICE
In the postmeditation state, you see and hear and think in the same way as the deities that have been given to you. Postmeditation is considered formless because you have dissolved the ritual activities and visualization. So there is an alternation between the meditation, which is in the form of visualization, and ordinary life, which is formless.
A further possibility is what is known as the indivisibility of those two states. This has to do with being able to handle the phenomenal world and your state of mind at the same time, which should be regarded as the ideal form of visualization. That kind of visualization comes out of a basic awareness of shunyata running through both visualization and formless practice, so there is some kind of continuity, or tantra.
1. According to the Buddhist tradition, there are four modes of birth: birth from an egg, from a womb, from moisture, or spontaneously.
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The Importance of a Nontheistic View
The vajrayana approach to deity is very simple and basic: it is that there is no external salvation. Although in vajrayana we speak a great deal about the experience of blessing, or adhishthana, and we invoke all kinds of power and energy, those things do not come from some entity existing either within us or outside of us. We do not invoke blessings from any entity at all.
IT IS timely to review the difference between theism and nontheism, at this point, for we will continue to speak of the divine principle or devata throughout our discussion of vajrayana, so it is important to understand the nontheistic idea of divinity. The view of the deity in tantra is often thought of as the same as in the theistic traditions. The simple fact of having all kinds of deities, gods and goddesses, devas and devis, is completely misunderstood. However, in the vajrayana teachings, the concept of deity has nothing to do with messengers or representations of some kind of external existence. We do not talk in terms of God, Godhead, or God-ness. There is no reference in vajrayana to celestial beings. Rather, we are talking about a higher level of energy, a higher level of wakefulness. But even that is not a definite reference point. Keep this in mind for future reference.
Deities in tantra have a purely situational existence, which brings our insight to its fullest point, but they are not regarded as external existents. Buddhist tantric deities are simply expressions of our mind. So although the word divinity, or devata in Sanskrit, is used quite widely in the Hindu tradition as well as in the Buddhist tradition, there is no mutual understanding of divinity between the two traditions.
DIVINITY IN THE THREE YANAS
To understand the nontheistic approach to divinity, it would be helpful to examine the notion of divinity in each of the three yanas.
The Hinayana Approach to Divinity: Prajna
There is a link to the vajrayana concept of deity starting from the hinayana. On the ordinary level, before even embarking on the path, there is a sense of self. Then in the hinayana, we have an experience of renunciation and of loneliness. We feel that somebody is actually experiencing suffering and pain. In that situation, we develop admiration for the Buddha as an example of freedom from suffering. That is the seed of the realization of deity in the Buddhist sense.
The seed of the deity principle in Buddhism is not based on a sense of self, or on any kind of tangible or intangible mystical experience. It is based on prajna, on insight. It is like the story of the arhat practicing in the charnel ground. The arhat saw a piece of bone and began to contemplate where it came from. He saw that the bone came from death. Then he asked, “Where did death come from?” He saw that death came from old age. The arhat went on in his contemplation, which led him through the entire cycle of the twelve nidanas. Finally, he realized that the whole process depends on ignorance, and that in order to dispel ignorance, one needs insight. At that point, the arhat began to develop prajna. That prajna principle, which is the insight that runs through all the yanas, is the basic idea of divinity.
The Mahayana Approach to Divinity: Buddha Nature
Prajna is the starting point for the idea of deities in Buddhist tantra, and it continues through the mahayana and expands into the vajrayana. On the mahayana level, the deity comes into the picture, not as an external deity or Godhead, but as a feeling for the existence of buddha nature in you. When you have opened to that possibility and have some understanding of buddha nature, or tathagatagarbha, that is the notion of deity on the maha yana level.
Once again, the deity is not seen from the point of view of self, nor is it seen as an existence or concept outside of yourself. Divinity is your experience of a basic and subtle inner nature, which comes with the experience of prajna. In the mahayana, prajna becomes more intelligent and expands out to a greater degree. Prajna continues in the mahayana in the realization that one has buddha possibilities in oneself.
THE VAJRAYANA APPROACH TO DEITY: NO EXTERNAL SALVATION
The vajrayana approach to deity is very simple and basic: there is no external salvation. Although in vajrayana we speak a great deal about the experience of blessing, or adhishthana, and although we invoke all kinds of power and energy, those things do not come from some entity existing either within us or outside of us. We do not invoke blessings from any entity at all. The whole experience of invoking the deity is on a nonentity level. That is a very basic point.
In the vajrayana, we do not start with matches in order to light a fire. We just light the fire, and the fire just burns. That may sound impractical, but it actually does happen that way. There is no set point or spotlight to work with or work up to; there is no existing thing that constitutes the spotlight or focus. There is not any kind of basic reference point. Even if such a point of focus were equated with something psychological, such as the highest degree of awareness or the highest degree of confusion, it would not make any difference. We do not start from anywhere. When we invoke deities, there is no reference to a special existence. That is the difference between Hindu tantra and Buddhist tantra. In Buddhist tantra, we do not start from anywhere. We do not start from a word or by developing a name.
Bhaktivedanta was an Indian teacher who came to this country as the head of the Hare Krishna movement. In his teaching, he equated the mantra syllable OM with the Christian idea that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God,” which is quite accurate in a sense. He said that because of the truth of the belief that the Word is God, all the Hare Krishna disciples chant their devotional mantric incantations. Furthermore, Bhaktivedanta said that this truth was universal—and in the theistic world, it is universal, but it absolutely does not apply in the nontheistic world, or in the humanistic world, for that matter.
In Buddhist vajrayana, we do not have such a Word. We do not have a Word that is God, and we do not have God. We do not have anything. There is nothing to be made out of God, and nothing to make anything out of. In theism, I suppose the Word has a feeling
of energy, proclamation, and brightness, and God is the basic accommodator and the fantastic overviewer that is within us or outside us, depending on the particular approach. But as far as Buddhist tantra is concerned, we do not have any of that.
The nontheistic view is crucial to the vajrayana. In hinayana, the question of nontheism is not particularly important. You do your little practice and you have your particular discipline. Everything is based on morality and discipline, on monastic rules and individual salvation. On the mahayana level, the theory of God or gods still does not play a very important part. You engage in compassionate action, and there is the inspiration from within concerning your buddha nature and so forth. But in the vajrayana, knowing the real differences between theism and nontheism is absolutely crucial.
It is very tricky. It has been said in many of the tantras that whatever the deity, if you visualize the image of the deity on the basis of blind faith or one-pointed belief, you are cultivating egohood. So nontheism is a very important point. You have to understand the difference between the theistic and nontheistic view. You have to understand both the similarities and the differences.
BUDDHISM AND WESTERN MYSTICISM
In the past, the finest Christian mystics were afraid they might be beheaded, cooked, boiled, and crucified for speaking the heresy of nontheism. They actually had to fear for their lives if they spoke out. People had that kind of fear in the past and, though less extreme, that fear still exists. Even today, Christian mystics have to watch their step and think in terms of diplomacy. This situation has prevented a true, real mystical tradition in both the Christian and Judaic traditions from shining through properly. It has prevented mysticism from coming into the picture in the fullest sense, with the fundamental realization of divinity as just a phantom. But nonetheless, there has still been a lot of personal insight occurring and being expressed by Christian and Jewish mystics.
In Christian and Judaic mysticism, the concept of God is often qualified with some kind of subtlety, such as calling God the “kingdom of heaven within us.” For instance, the German theologian Meister Eckhardt (1260–1327) described God in terms of the Godhead principle. That idea is very close to the idea of divinity in Buddhist tantra, but there is still a faint little tissue of difference between the two; in Meister Eckhardt’s view, there is still the faintest idea of a kind of power that comes from somewhere else.
In his writings, Meister Eckhardt does not refer to the Godhead as being completely outside of us or completely beyond us, nor for that matter does he quite say that the Godhead is completely in us. He somehow dances on that razor’s edge. It is as if he could see the possibility of nontheism very clearly, but he was hesitating, torn between theism and nontheism. It seems as if he wanted to say that no-God is the greatest experience, but at the same time he did not quite want to say so. So although Meister Eckhardt understood and experienced things in a completely vajrayana way, he was still afraid to break from theism, so he ended up by speaking in terms of Godhead.
Father Thomas Merton (1915–1968), the prominent Catholic mystic, who was a great friend of mine, was also going in the nontheistic direction. In private we agreed on everything, and he understood nontheism completely. We met over a few gin and tonics in a hotel in Calcutta, India, and he was in complete agreement with me, and not just because he was influenced by the gin and tonics. He was very good, and we understood one another. But even at that point, his last words were that he was concerned about whether he would be quoted by me for what he had said. There was a little panic about that on his part.
A similar thing happened when I gave a meditation workshop in a nunnery at Stanbrook Abbey in England. I met with the abbess and the rest of the senior nuns, divided from them by an iron grill. The hall for public talks was divided into two sections: outsiders sat outside the grill, and the nuns sat inside. We discussed meditation and the existence of God, and the nuns went along completely with the nontheistic view. They understood fully. But then one little nun in the corner of the room panicked, and suddenly distance set in.
The point of these stories is that in the theistic mystical traditions, people do understand the concept of the nonexistence of the divinity principle outside of one’s existence. They understand fully and completely. But in order to stay in the church, in order to make the appropriate confessions, they are still very shy about the whole nontheistic approach.
I am not trying to show that the theistic mystical traditions are wrong. I am just saying that they are bound by their religious orders and laws and by their hierarchical problems. Many very radical and true writings and teachings of those theistic mystical traditions have been shut down simply because they are unorthodox. Such is the case with the doctrine of reincarnation, or the principle of continual consciousness, which was shut down very powerfully by the early Roman Catholic Church. And things like that can still happen. So Western mystics have to watch their step about speaking out; they have been told to be careful. We should sympathize with those people, who actually would like to say much more, but who are unable to do so because of the constraints of their particular hierarchy and political situation.
The principle of divinity in Buddhism has nothing to do with deifying anything, as it does in Christian and Judaic mysticism. As far as the nontheistic tradition of Buddhism is concerned, we have nothing to lose, and we just speak out very fully. We might lose a few audience members in the Christian world, but nevertheless, there is fundamentally nothing to lose. We have no hierarchical setup saying that you should worship a deity like Vajradhara or a great teacher like Padmasambhava as God. Even if some unenlightened hierarch decided to impose that idea on us, we could always challenge that view by saying, “If you believe in egolessness, you are wrong to take the theistic approach.”
Part Ten
THE TANTRIC JOURNEY: LOWER TANTRA
KRIYAYOGA: THE YANA OF PURITY
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Kriyayoga: Trust in Reality
The function of kriyayoga is to abandon the notion of töndam as something to be attained or looked forward to. Instead, you pay homage to kündzop and try to relate with its usefulness. You try to relate with the insightfulness of the phenomenal world properly and fully. You can take water as water, and it cleans you inside and out, including your psychological problems. The point is that you need to drop any hesitation about actually getting into kündzop.
THE TANTRIC YANAS
The tantric yanas can be explained in terms of the nine-yana system or the four-yana system.
The Nine-Yana System
The three-yana journey can be described in terms of nine yanas. The nine yanas are shravakayana, pratyekabuddhayana, mahayana or bodhisattva yana, kriyayogayana, upayogayana, yogayana, mahayogayana, anuyogayana, and atiyogayana. Of these nine, the first two are a part of the hinayana, the third is the mahayana, and the remaining six are within the vajrayana. These last six yanas are known as the tantric yanas, which are divided into lower and higher tantra. The first three (kriyayoga, upayoga, and yogayana) are referred to as lower tantra, and the second three (mahayoga, anuyoga, and atiyoga) are referred to as higher tantra.1 The Old Translation school,2 which are the teachings introduced to Tibet at the time of Padmasambhava, is associated with the three higher yanas, and with the approach known as dzokchen or maha ati.
The six tantric yanas are not highly structured and linear like the ten bhumis of the bodhisattva path. The tantric path is more random and temperamental. I find it very difficult to discuss tantra after the mahayana because the whole thing is so illogical. It doesn’t make much sense. As I read Jamgön Kongtrül the Great’s writings, every sentence makes sense and every word makes sense. But when I try to pick up the basic geography, a lot of things sound absurd. I often have to look back and find out what something means. So I discovered I have to give up any hope of understanding the tantric path in a linear way. Instead, I just take the merit of each yana as it is. I realized that I do not understand tantra if I try to understand it.
The Four-Yana System
The tantric path is also described in terms of four tantric yanas, called the four orders of tantra: kriyayoga, upayoga, yogayana, and anuttarayoga. Here, along with the gradual psychological development through the first three levels of kriyayoga, upayoga, and yogayana, there is a fourth stage of tantra, known as anuttarayoga. According to the New Translation school, which was introduced at the time of Marpa, anuttarayoga is regarded as the highest of the tantric teachings.3 This approach is referred to as mahamudra (“great symbol”).4
The first two tantric yanas—kriyayoga and upayoga—are about how to begin our life as tantric practitioners. It is the beginner’s level, so we are dealing with a very early stage of tantra. We are not yet concerned with the drama of tantra or the larger scale of tantra. This stage has to do with the discovery of basic purity and impurity and the realization of immovability, and it stays on that level. At the same time, it is the starting point for discussing time and form, and it is the basis for more advanced tantric practices.
Kriyayoga is referred to as the tantra of action. The Tibetan term for kriyayoga is cha-we gyü. Cha-we is “action,” gyü is “tantra”; so cha-we gyü is “action tantra.” The word gyü has many meanings: It can mean “continuity” or “thread.” Gyü is also the Tibetan word for “lineage.” Gyü can refer to family lineages or blood relationships, such as between grandparents and grandchildren. It can also refer to dharma lineages such as the Kagyü, which is the lineage of ka, or the “sacred word.”
The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness Page 48
