The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness

by Chogyam Trungpa

  In simplicity, there is an all-encompassing awareness of deities such as Vajradhara, Chakrasamvara, Kalachakra, or Guhyasamaja. You have a sense of their presence. Tantric books actually open by talking about the simplicity of those deities, how they dwell in the vagina or the cervix of the unborn and unoriginated, surrounded by their queens and preaching the law of greater joy. The sutras talk about the Blessed One dwelling on Vulture Peak, surrounded by arhats, bodhisattvas, and so forth. But tantric texts open by saying that the great Bhagavat is dwelling in the cave of the vagina. There is a sense of real appreciation. That vagina has a quality of expansiveness and fertility; you can give birth infinitely. It is a kind of supervagina, able to give birth without aging. That is why it is called simplicity. Since things are seen as they are, there is no way of distorting anything. Things are as they are.

  THREE VAJRA PRACTICES. In connection with the first two yogas, the yogas of one-pointedness and simplicity, there are what are called the three vajra practices: vajra body, vajra speech, and vajra mind.

  Vajra body. The practice of vajra body involves visualizing the appropriate deity and identifying your alaya consciousness as the bija mantra, the seed syllable. From there, the alaya consciousness begins to expand and become part of greater wisdom. But before you visualize the alaya consciousness expanding into anything, you purify the ground by means of the shunyata mantra: OM SVABHAVA-SHUDDAH SARVA-DHARMAH SVABHAVA-SHUDDO HAM.

  Having established emptiness, or the shunyata principle, the jnanasattva enters into you and crowns you. You are presented with offerings and welcomed. You are given a seat and the main offering, and there is praise of your particular attributes. After that, you place deities called “armor deities” on your eyes, your nostrils, your ears, your mouth, your genitals, and so forth. Those deities are placed in the particular parts of your body that are related with the different sense consciousnesses and with the principle of openness. This creates something like a suit of armor or protection.

  Vajra speech. Then there is the actual mantra practice, which is the second category, or vajra speech. Here the mantras are seen as vajra utterance. You visualize the seed syllables mentally, and you hear them as you visualize them, as if they were beeping. You hear them saying their own sound, saying themselves as you see them. As you visualize AHs, they are AH-ing all the time: AH-AH-AH. There is a feeling of continuity.

  If you visualize yourself with a consort, a female or male deity, then you also visualize what is called the fire wheel, or fire chakra. It is like when you wave a lit incense stick around in the darkness: you see it making a ring. The mantras are going very fast, circulating between you and your consort. The sound of the mantras is experienced along with a basic understanding of simplicity and one-pointedness; they begin to coincide simultaneously. That is called mantra-mudra.

  The kinds of things I have been describing actually have to be experienced. It is hard to talk about them. It reminds me of what I used to hear about America when I was around fourteen. I heard that Americans had an entire city built in the sky, and that they had another city built underneath the ocean. I heard that all the streets were paved in gold, and there were all kinds of gadgets. When I tried to visualize that, I couldn’t connect with it. But once I arrived in America and could actually see the country as it is, I got entirely different ideas about the whole thing. That might be the best way of viewing these descriptions.

  Vajra mind. In the third vajra practice, or vajra mind, the emotions are regarded as one mandala. So the thoughts of the emotional mind that function in our ordinary everyday life also become expressions of the particular deities or herukas that we are relating with. There is no hesitation as to how you are identifying yourself, and no hesitation as to your yidams, whether they are passionate yidams or aggressive yidams. There is no hesitation and no confusion. Yidams are seen as real yidams, and their passionate and aggressive aspects are included as part of the basic mandala display. There is tremendous conviction, openness, and understanding.

  One Taste

  The third yoga is one taste. In Tibetan, one taste is called rochik. Ro means “taste,” and chik means “one”; so rochik is “one taste.” The reason this yoga is called “one taste” is that, at this point, we begin to experience that the mirror and that which is in front of the mirror are one. We cannot actually separate the reflector and the reflection. Pain and pleasure, or hope and fear—all such things become one taste. They are of equal taste for the very reason that we do not care what is the best and what is the worst. At the same time, our luminosity and our brilliance also tell us that experience has the nature of one taste. When there is great brilliance, we cannot actually separate objects according to which is green and which is blue.

  The third yoga is connected with the two types of truth: relative and absolute. Having already seen the expansive display of the simplicity—which in the ordinary sense may seem to be rather contradictory, but in the tantric sense is understandable—one taste begins to develop. In that expansiveness, the revenge of ordinary emotions and highly evolved, mystical experiences are no longer separate. They are all one. So there is a sense of one taste, rather than oneness. It is one taste because it is one experience. Oneness could mean a more philosophical or speculative process. The experience of one taste comes out of the simplicity, which is relative truth at this point.

  THREE LEVELS OF ONE TASTE. Again, there are lesser, medium, and greater levels of this yoga.

  All dharmas are dissolved into one taste. First, we begin to experience that all dharmas of samsara and nirvana are dissolved into one taste. That and this, grasping and fixation, anything we consider a big deal—all of those norms begin to become unnecessary and trivial.

  Appearance and mind become indistinguishable. Next, appearance and mind become like water poured into water. In other words, our seeing and what we see and experience become indistinguishable. If we pick up water with a ladle and pour it into a cauldron filled with water, we cannot separate the two waters. The only separation is that of ladle and cauldron, which is absurd. Who cares what kind of ladle we use? Who cares what kind of cauldron we have?

  Breakthrough of wisdom. Finally, there is a greater breakthrough of wisdom. Such wisdom is supposedly impossible to describe. But we could explain it linguistically at least. The Tibetan word yeshe means “utterly familiar,” “utterly knowing,” “primordially knowing.” It is a product of one taste, because with one taste you have no desire or possibility of either separating things or putting things together by means of experience, by means of theological explanations, by means of philosophy, metaphysics, science, or anything else. Because there is no way of separating things or putting them together, things are seen as they are, directly and utterly.

  Nonmeditation

  With the wisdom or the yeshe of one taste, you reach the next stage, the state of nonmeditation. Because things are seen so directly, any conventional thoughts begin to be exhausted, so you come to the fourth yoga, which is called gom-me. Gom means “meditation,” and me means “without” or “non”; so gom-me means “nonmeditation.”

  The reason nonmeditation happens is because preconceptions no longer exist. You may still have discursive thoughts and emotions, but they no longer carry their own little credentials. They do not have calling cards in their pockets. So conceptual mind is exhausted.

  We say that conceptual mind is exhausted rather than transcended. The word transcended has a different connotation: it means to bypass something. We also do not say that conceptual mind is liberated. That too has a strange connotation. The term liberated means that you are no longer imprisoned by your concepts. But they might imprison somebody else after you are gone. Therefore, the best term we could find is exhausted, which has the connotation of being used up, like an old shoe. The Tibetan term for that is ten-se. Ten means “permanently,” and se means “used up” or “worn-out”; so ten-se means “permanently worn-out.”

  That quality of being worn-out or used up
has a very important message, which is that practice is no longer regarded as warfare. We are not trying to fight samsara, confusion, or ego as something evil. We are not saying that we have finally won the victory or that we are the victors. Instead we are saying that conceptual mind is used up because we have been so honest, so genuine, so precise, and so decent. Because we have been working with our mind as naively as we could, conceptual mind is all used up. It is like living on our savings and running out of money, rather than trying to cheat the world by living on welfare.

  THREE LEVELS OF NONMEDITATION. As before, there are three levels of this yoga.

  Meditator and the meditation used up. First, we begin to realize that meditator and meditation are all used up. Those definitions are all used up.

  Habits and beliefs cleared away. The medium level is that our habitual patterns and primitive beliefs about reality are cleared away.

  Mother and child luminosities dissolve together. At the third level, the original state that we experienced in one-pointedness—in meeting ourselves one-pointedly—is finally re-created. The traditional language says that the mother and child luminosities are dissolved together. The mother luminosity, or the original state, and the child luminosity, or what you have cultivated through your practice, become one.1

  With the fourth yoga, or nonmeditation, once again the relative world has been seen as the entire working base, and the absolute world has become just confirmation beyond the relative world. In the final mahamudra experience, any phenomenal experience that you involve yourself with is seen as a working basis. Sights, smells, sounds, touchable objects, and mental contents are all seen as expressions of your particular deity or yidam. There is complete, total involvement, total openness beyond any limitations or hesitations. Therefore, you do not have to meditate. That is why this yoga is called nonmeditation. Meditation does not actually apply to it. Because everything is so vivid already, every experience is self-existing meditation. Having a body, having ears, having a nose, having teeth, having a tongue, and having eyes are inbuilt meditation for you. You realize that the yidam is you, and you are the yidam. At this point, you begin to be able to exercise your siddhis, your magical powers.

  BREAKING THROUGH IMPRISONMENT BY MEANS OF HATHA YOGA

  In mahamudra, breaking through imprisonment and arriving at the point of the wisdom of emptiness seems to be very important. In doing so, hatha yoga is extremely powerful and is very much needed. The principles of hatha yoga are lengthy. Not only is physical hatha yoga important, but it is important to first practice pranayama, or breathing exercises, so that the mind does not drift around. In order to work with the structure of your confusion, it is necessary to have some experience of pranayama and hatha yoga.

  With one-pointedness, you begin to realize that the herukas and deities are connected with the experience of the body’s energy system, or inner mandala. So in tantric hatha yoga, you are working with three types of energy: prana, nadi, and bindu. Prana, or breath, is a kind of energy or strength; nadis are the veins or channels through which the prana can flow; and bindu is a dot or particle of life force. In a traditional analogy, the mind is said to be the rider, prana is the horse, nadis are the roads or paths, and bindu is the food for the mind. Mind eats bindu, rides on prana, and races through the nadis. So in order to influence bindu, you have to relate with prana, and at the same time you have to improve the nadis.

  The mind in itself is nothing. Mind can only thrive on bindu, its essence; mind can only function with prana, its transport; and the only direction mind can go is through the nadis. That is the whole thing, a complete world. There is no way out. So in hatha yoga, body does not mean the physical body alone, but it is the body in the cosmic sense.

  THE MECHANISM OF CONFUSION

  In working with prana, nadi, and bindu, the idea is to transcend primitive prana, primitive nadi, and primitive bindu, and transform them into vajra prana, vajra nadi, and vajra bindu. The point is to develop their vajra nature or vajra intelligence. It is to bring out the vajra-ness of the whole thing. With that vajra-ness, there is a penetrating quality of one-pointed mind.

  Vajra-ness has a quality of well-being and awareness, and at the same time it is completely cutting. Well-being happens in a flash. You do not maintain your well-being, but it is kill and cure at once. Cure is being cured from maintaining oneself, and kill is just kill. You could say “food and poison at once,” but that is too extreme. It is better to say “kill and cure at once,” for confusion is something to be cured rather than destroyed.

  Confusion is related with prana, nadi, and bindu because, according to tantra, confusion can only come about when there is something moving. That quality of movement is the wind, or prana. Prana can be white or red: the white wind is oneself, and the red wind is phenomena. At the beginning, there are no winds. When prana first occurs, it is basically pure and immaculate. But prana becomes colored by white and red, by a certain panic, by this side or that side. Whenever you regard phenomena as this side, prana is colored by white; whenever you think of phenomena as a play of that, prana is colored by red.

  Since prana has been colored by white and red, it has become impure. From that impure prana, all eight types of consciousness and the five skandhas arise. Beyond that, you have nothing to complain about, and no reason for complaint. So you end up with “So what?” You end up in samsara, confused and trapped in the six realms of the world. An understanding of that whole process brings you back to “So what?”—to emotionally “So what?” and theoretically “So what?”

  You finally come back to yourself once again, wondering, “How does all that apply to me?” And you realize that you have nadis or channels in your body, in which speed is racing around constantly. That speed is connected with bindu, or life strength. Bindu is a sort of force. It is like the fluid quality of the semen that gives birth to reincarnations. When you lose your semen, you give birth to another child. Likewise, with bindu, you continue to give birth to yourself. You give birth to life. So bindu is the reproductive mechanism that creates volitional karmic activities.

  Altogether, what you end up with is three types of split experience: the prana, the nadis, and the bindu. You end up with those three, and on top of that, you also have mind. Something is actually minding the whole business. You are in complete chaos at this point. You are so confused that you have no way of knowing where to begin, unless you go further and further back. You have to swim through the bindu, swim through the prana, and not be confused by the nadis. It is getting tantric.

  WORKING WITH DUALITY

  In looking at the seeds of duality, tantric masters such as Naropa used two formulas. The first formula is: The reason we call ourselves “I” is because we have no origination. We are never born, we are unoriginated, we are nothing. The second formula is: The reason why we say “them” or “other” is because we cannot cease. An unceasing flow of play is happening. That is the seed of duality from the tantric point of view. It is how duality has begun. Both statements contradicting each other is duality. It doesn’t make any sense, does it?

  Again, the reason we are called “I” is because we cannot find our birth. It is because of our unbornness, because we cannot find where we came from. And the reason we cannot find the “other” is that we cannot find the source of the unceasingness, the fact that there are so many things happening constantly, so many energies. So there is a contradiction: things are happening, but at the same time things are empty. That is the duality.

  Those two situations are referred to as mantric sound. They are referred to as E and VAM, E being “I,” and VAM being “other.” They are also referred to as A HAM, A being “I,” and HAM being “other.” So we have a problem. That is why the first yoga, the yoga of one-pointedness, is very important.

  There is no point in trying to figure out why “I” and why “other”; there is no point in trying to find logical conclusions. There is no way out. First you have the “other.” The only way to work with your
body and your mind is to regard the other as the physical body, which is unceasingly energetic as long as you live. You have to eat food, you have to piss and shit, you have to do all kinds of things. So you cannot deny that your bodily energy is unceasing, or pretend that it is energyless. Even if you are very lazy, you still have to do those things, so you can still say that your body has enormous energy. That is why the body is an expression of the other.

  It is a very simpleminded approach. Your body is not other as the other, but it is an expression of the other. So this body, your body, is no longer regarded as your body, particularly, but as an expression of the other. The impersonal other, the other. This applies to anything whatsoever. Nothing is personal—not the rock, the table, or the chair, not the body, hands, arms, limbs, shoes, hat, or beard.

  So first you have the “other,” and then you have the “this.” You have the “I,” which is unborn, unoriginated, yet still very busy. It seems to be doing something, but when you look at it, it does not do anything at all. That is the mystery of the whole thing, which is the usual mystery. There you have the practice of mahamudra meditation.

  Mahamudra meditation is not quite the same as vipashyana or shunyata meditation. It is simply exaggerating the idea of well-being that we discussed in the section on shamatha practice.2 You do not question who or what you are, but you just experience well-being. You do not use that well-being as a working basis, and you do not work with it as a platform to do something more. It is just being. It is well-being, and at the same time it is careless in a pleasurable way. It is an open kind of thing.