Secrecy
This quality of protection is related with the understanding of secrecy, and the question of how to present the vajrayana teachings properly. The vajrayana should not be presented in an outrageous way or with a salesperson’s approach, where you put out publicity about your secrets and say: “Join us in our secret mind-protection circle.” When unskillful teachers on this continent have tried to proclaim the vajrayana in that way, it has been an absolute failure and deserving of punishment. So we have to use the right approach when we are presenting mind protection as a secret teaching.
Why is the vajrayana secret? It is very simple. The vajrayana is so secret that nobody can understand it other than by being tuned in to it properly. This is so much the case that traditionally it is referred to as self-secret. You might decide to ignore this quality and say that what you are doing is fine. But you get so involved with doing fine that you lose track of the message, and consequently you get attacked or killed. That is the kind of secret it is.
The vajrayana is secret, and at the same time it is a proclamation. It is the proclamation that brings the secret message, although there are no passwords or little chitchats going on through intelligence agents. If you understand it, you understand it; and if you do not understand it, you are liable to be extinguished. If you do not understand the vajrayana, even though you have studied it, you will be kicked out. But it is not only a question of understanding. The idea is that because you have listened to the vajrayana and misunderstood it, the vajrayana has turned out to be too lethal for you, so you should be kicked out to save your life.
Protection from Comfort
At this point, there is still a need for protection from religiosity. There is a need for protection from too much piety. There is also a need for protection from the feeling that you have attained something, and therefore you do not have to give anything up. That is precisely why, when the Buddha taught the shunyata teachings, a lot of the arhats had heart attacks.
So mantra is protection from being comfortable in a given teaching. Once a teaching is received, whatever yana it may be, you might find that it is very comfortable and you can relax in it. That becomes a problem. With each new yana, you may have to give up the feeling of protection or security of the previous yanas. And you need to keep doing this until you have actually exhausted everything completely, until you no longer need to rely on any form of security. So even though the yanas are vehicles, you have to abandon those vehicles. You have to get into a diamond jet at some point.
A Spell or Incantation
Mantra can also mean a spell or incantation—a positive or healthy spell. With this kind of spell, you are bringing the world together by means of one utterance. One thought brings all thoughts into one, and when you have that one thought, it liberates everything. One word elucidates everything; one thought, one perception, frees you from neurosis.
We usually recite mantras in Sanskrit, as opposed to translating them into English. For one thing, many mantras do not make any sense, so translating them would be pointless. Likewise, in visualization practice, we do not dress a deity such as Vajradhara in a suit and tie, but in his own medieval Indian costume, making primordial archetypal sounds, holding archetypal symbols, and wearing archetypal clothes.
Some people talk about mantras as vibration, but I do not think a mantra is just a vibration of sound. It is a psychological state, and each mantra has its own meaning. Mantras are not particularly objects of scholarship and the analytical process. Many mantras are simply onomatopoeic enlightened sound. If your tantric deity, or yidam, burps, you might hear it as the syllable HUM.
There are also a lot of onomatopoeic sounds and meanings in ordinary language, but none of them are particularly threatening. They are usually very silly or playful. But you could develop threatening sounds or creative sounds as well, which is what is done with mantras. What do such mantras say that is so lethal, so powerful, and so dangerous? They do not make any conventional sense; therefore, they are powerful. A mantra changes your psychological state at once, as soon as you hear that particular sound. The closest thing to mantra I have heard is the howling of coyotes. Coyotes are constantly making mantric sounds. During certain parts of the day they do their tantric practice, or sadhana, and you are haunted by it.
Joining Wisdom and Joy
Another definition of mantra is that it is the joining of wisdom and joy, or insight and bliss. Through that quality of mantra, we relate with magical powers; so mantra could be said to be the magical aspect of this world. We could say that tantra refers to the activity that takes place, and mantra refers to our state of mind in relation to that. One word for mantra is slogan, and another is proclamation. Mantra is also described as the combination of great pleasure and big mind, or in Sanskrit, mahasukha and jnana. According to tradition, great bliss and great mind (or wisdom) can work together.
Overcoming Frivolity
The technique of mantra is continuous, linear, and ongoing. It is like you are on a long boat ride: you cannot suddenly get off and go to shore, but you have to flow along the whole way. That kind of continuous technique brings a quality of boredom. All vajrayana practices work that way. It is like your life: you actually cannot jump back and forth in it. Mantra is like eating a long meal without a break.
We usually do not want to be in one place all the time. We get bored so easily, and we are impatient. From that, we also become unreasonable. We demand so much from our life that we get divorced over and over, hundreds of times—at least we do so psychologically. We would like to change scenes all the time. The setting-sun society provides for that restlessness. There are all sorts of programs on television; there are all sorts of brands of cigarettes, in case you don’t like your old brand; there are all sorts of places to go, new things to do, new cars to try. Everything is provided for you, so that you can say, “Wow! Look at that! Isn’t that something!” You can always get into the next situation, and you go on that way constantly. There is a fear of being with yourself, which means that fundamentally you do not like yourself. You are always trying to escape from yourself, so you try some other occupation, some other entertainment, so that hopefully you can forget yourself for a while, as if you were somewhere else.
When you begin to look into your mind, you see that mind consists of every possible way of breaking the linear or evolutionary process of your growth. You are constantly jumping around all over the place, trying to get rid of any possible learning situation. For instance, you might suddenly come up with a bright idea and think, “Yesterday doesn’t mean anything to me. I feel different today.” But then you think, “This morning I felt one way, but now I feel different.” Mind consists of that kind of fickleness. You are not willing to live with yourself at all.
When you study your childhood, teens, adulthood, and old age—or even when you study your yesterday, this morning, midmorning, noon, early afternoon, late afternoon, and evening—you usually do not actually relate to all that as one linear situation, although you have to go through quite an ordeal just trying to live through all those things. Instead, there is a kind of choppiness. That choppiness allows you to invite obstacles, because you are not regarding your whole practice, your whole life, as one piece, one gradual process, one big thing. That choppy or fickle mind is an obstacle in the vajrayana, and that same statement would be quite true even in the hinayana and mahayana. We like to pinpoint and celebrate, like a bird suddenly landing on a worm, eating it, then flying away, and that’s that. And then we look out for the next worm. We do this all the time. That is mind’s habitual pattern, and it is an obstacle.
Mantra protects your mind from that cheap scale of existence. It protects you so that you can relate to the whole process of your life as one piece, one theme. You can appreciate it and understand that there is a pattern to it. This is like the difference between a collage and an oil painting or watercolor. The collage approach is choppy; you just cut out some pictures and paste them on. In contrast, in
a watercolor or oil painting, you start from the beginning with a sketch and then you apply your colors, so there is a sense of continuity. With such continuity, you are conducting your life, not with opportunism, but with grace and understanding. That is how mantra works. It protects the mind so that you can conduct your life fully and properly, and not just jump impulsively into situations from one minute to another.
The approach of working on your frivolity seems to be one of the definitions of tantra. People might think tantra is a very impulsive practice, with lots of drinking and lots of sex. They might think that you just say your mantras occasionally, here and there, and you have your little shrine setup, and everything is swell. But in fact, tantra is completely the opposite of that. Tantra is not frivolity, but seriousness with tremendous humor. This humor is brought out by compassion. The combination of gentleness, softness, and lust brings out and increases your sense of humor, so it becomes very simple and natural.
Connecting with Magical Power
The tantric approach could be seen to have developed as a way to understand phenomena and oneself through the application of mantra, mudra, and various other techniques. It could be seen as a way to achieve magical power over the phenomenal world and oneself. Magical power in this case refers to knowing the sensitive focal points in the phenomenal world and in your own psychological world, which is saying the same thing, in a sense. You are able to pinpoint the stronghold of phenomenal power, the power the phenomenal world has been imposing on you for years and aeons and kalpas. You are a victim of that power, but finally you are able to pinpoint the heart or the brain of it by means of the application of mantras, mudras, visualizations, and so forth.
Mantra is the means or method of tantra. Your mind has developed many facets and sidetracks, but once you realize that and tune in to vajrayana practice, you begin to save yourself from circling or swimming around in samsara or samsaric mind. At the same time, your mind has all kinds of reference points; it sees and perceives everything at once. Mantra protects that intelligence and understanding. So mantra could be described as protecting the intelligence of the mind, which is able to see the sensitive points of the phenomenal world.
The repetition of a mantra is not such a big deal. What is a big deal is the idea of protecting the mind, the intelligence, the buddha nature, that essential element that exists within us. Therefore, the vajrayana is known as mantrayana.
VIDYADHARAYANA
Another definition of vajrayana is vidyadharayana in Sanskrit, or rigdzin thekpa in Tibetan. Rigdzin or vidyadhara means “wisdom holder”; so rigdzin thekpa is the “yana or vehicle of wisdom holders.”
This definition is based on the understanding of visualizations and deities as expressions of ourselves and our personal energies and potentials. Because we identify with the particular deities that were given to us by our vajra master as expressions of ourselves, such expressions are met properly. We finally make friends with our own shadow. This removes our frustration, because we are finally able to speak to ourselves properly. This brings greater joy, not because everything is okay and fine, or because we no longer have problems or irritations, but because it brings a kind of orgasm.
In this situation, meeting your mind does not take place through somebody else meeting your mind. Instead, it is a meeting of your own mind with yourself, which cuts away all kinds of paraphernalia. The embellishment of trying to protect yourself goes away, so nakedness begins to dawn. You discover that you are naked, that you are your own expression, and that you need no embellishment, no clothing, and no ornaments. You are meeting your own good old self in a very special way, in a tantric way. You see yourself as you are very directly. Usually what happens with electricity when you put two wires together is that you get a short circuit. The fuse box cannot handle the power, it is too embarrassing, so the fuse box has to create a blackout. But in this case, in trusting your buddha nature, you have a stronger fuse box: you have vajra nature, a vajra fuse box. Therefore, your mind cannot shy away from itself; it cannot create a blackout or short-circuit anything at all.
That non-short-circuiting is known as rikpa in Tibetan, or vidya in Sanskrit, which means “intelligence.” Rik means “perceiving,” “seeing,” or “touching,” and pa makes it a noun; so rikpa means “that which perceives.” In Sanskrit, rikpa is vidya, which can also be translated as “science” or “awareness.”
Rikpa or vidya is self-existing conviction or understanding that never shies away from itself, and tantric practitioners are known as vidyadharas, the holders of that particular knowledge. Therefore, the vajrayana could also be known as the vidyadharayana, the vehicle for the great knowledge holders or crazy wisdom holders.
FRUITION YANA
Another term for vajrayana is fruition yana, or drebü thekpa. Drebü means “fruition”; so drebü thekpa means the “fruition vehicle.”
Generally, we start from the origin or the beginning, the root or the cause. But the approach of vajrayana is entirely different. Instead of beginning by studying the root or the seed, we study the end result as the inspiration, the way, and the starting point.
There are all kinds of ways by which we think we could make ourselves sane. It could be by swimming, racing horses, or cooking. There are endless ways to go about it. Some people think that if they play golf in an enlightened way, they could practice tantra, or if they ski in an enlightened way, they could attain complete enlightenment. The mahayana schools, with their paramita practices of transcendent virtue, have fallen into the same problem. They think that if you only practice your transcendental this or that, or if you understand the shunyata principle, you will be okay. In those kinds of approaches, we are stuck with our means being more important than the meaning behind the whole thing.
It is like planting a flower. The approach of starting with the seed is probably all right for the time being. But in order to be inspired to plant your flower seed, you first need to have seen a flower that has already blossomed. Then you will be inspired to plant the seed of such a flower. When you plant a seed, you want to know if you are going to get an iris or a chrysanthemum. You need to have a glimpse of the fruition; otherwise, if you just see a few little pellets in a bottle, it doesn’t mean anything. If someone tells you, “It’s going to become a good flower one day,” all you can say is, “Sure, if you say so. But I have never seen a flower.” That approach does not make any sense, and it requires enormous blind faith.
The idea of vajrayana as fruition yana is that you have already experienced what you might attain. Some glimpse has already developed, so the whole thing is not just a myth. The mahayana approach is seed oriented, and the vajrayana approach is blossom oriented. Vajrayana students have at least seen films of beautiful flowers, or photographs or drawings of them. Otherwise, they would not commit themselves into making big gardens, not knowing what kind of flowers they were going to get out of it. Therefore, there is enormous emphasis put on the result. So in the vajrayana, the seductive result is the inspiration, rather than the funky beginning. Therefore, the vajrayana could be seen as the yana of fruition.
UPAYAYANA
Another term for vajrayana is upayayana in Sanskrit, or thapkyi thekpa in Tibetan. Thap means “skillful means”; so thapkyi thekpa is the “vehicle of skillful means.”
In the mahayana, you learn to develop attitudes and behaviors based on the transcendent virtues, or paramitas. But up to this point, none of the lower yanas have attempted to present a true and complete psychological geography. There is no suggestion, other than in tantra, of tapping energy in unusual ways, such as by relating with the elements or the different emotions. So in tantra, you are part of the whole setup; you can see the whole psychological geography. Therefore, the lower yanas are inferior to tantra, because they fail to present greater skillful means. That is why tantrayana is called upayayana, the yana of skillful means.
GUHYAYANA
Vajrayana is also referred to as the guhyayana in Sanskrit, or sang-we thekpa in
Tibetan. Sang-we means “hidden” or “secret”; so sang-we thekpa means the “secret yana.” When you try to understand or comprehend tantra, if you do not have enough preparation for it, it is self-secret. It is secret because in order to understand it, a personal process of ripening and freeing has to take place; otherwise, it does not make any sense, and the whole thing becomes gibberish.
Tantric teachings are sometimes deliberately kept secret from those who have not heard the message of vajrayana, because of the danger of confusing people and disrupting their path. People may think that the tantric path is outrageous, or even insane, which completely freaks them out; or they may think that because such an outrageously enlightened idea exists, their own path does not seem to make any sense. They may begin to think their own path is too limited. So the tantric path is both self-secret and deliberately kept secret at the same time, which seems to be absolutely necessary. Therefore, it is often known as sang-we thekpa, the secret yana.
DHARANAYANA
Another term for vajrayana is dharanayana in Sanskrit. Dharana means “that which holds together” or “that which fastens things together,” and yana again means “vehicle”; so dharanayana means the “binding or holding-together vehicle.”
In dharanayana, what is held together are the body, speech, and mind of the practitioner. They are bound together, so there is no looseness and no confusion. Whenever you practice dharanayana, it holds your basic being together. It is like being a clean and well-dressed person who has taken a bath or shower and whose shoes and shirt and clothes all fit.
As the thread that binds together body, speech, and mind, dharanayana is similar to the idea of tantra. When your mind is synchronized with your speech and your body, it actually makes a bridge. Practices such as oryoki, or mindful eating, and vajrayana preliminary practices—such as the 100,000 prostrations and 100,000 mantras—are designed to synchronize body, speech, and mind so that there is no room for subconscious gossip, subconscious innuendo, or subconscious distractions. As the famous Zen saying goes: “When we sit, we sit, and when we eat, we eat.” In fact, all of Buddhism teaches us how to synchronize body, speech, and mind thoroughly and fully as a way to overcome chaos and extend a sense of basic goodness.
The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness Page 11