The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness

by Chogyam Trungpa

  The Chakrasamvara dance is based on a great feast. So there is a great feast offering in the middle of the dance circle, which is eventually distributed to everybody. There is a blessing of the feast, in which you visualize yourself and the altar table holding the feast as part of a great mandala. And you bring in the jnanasattva with a certain dance movement.7 Usually that part is very slow.

  I was able to dance only about six times, because this dance happens only once a year. I began to enjoy it more every year; I was not particularly approved the first year as a good dancer, but as I went on I had memorized the whole thing completely. People used to carry little instruction books attached to their ornaments or dance costumes, but I didn’t have to do that. I was very good at it. I had become such a good dancer that I was about to be able to teach it. Every six years you recruit new dance students, and you spend three months training them, teaching the movements and the disciplines first, and then the actual themes and songs and everything. I was going to begin teaching the next year—and then I had to leave Tibet.

  The dance movements are very precise. I found that first you have the hassle of learning the dance and how to do it properly, and after that you begin to know the implications behind it. And what used to happen is that when you sounded your bell a certain way, or the monk in charge of chanting sounded his bell a certain way, it was a tea sound. This means they brought tea around as you danced. And there was another sound you made that was the liquor sound. So you would have tea and liquor alternately. So you were actually allowed to drink while you danced; you could drink some kind of beer, such as barley beer, or chang, or even arak, which is a more concentrated kind of alcohol.

  SUMMARY AND PREDICTIONS FOR THE TRUNGPA LINEAGE

  In conclusion, since we have already exposed the mystique of incarnations, I thought I should make myself very articulate about my own situation and intentions. If one were to ask whether this Trungpa is real or unreal, we might say, who cares? Based on an understanding of blessed incarnations, even the tenth Trungpa was not really “real.” Even the first Trungpa was not real, as soon as he became the second. There is always duality.

  I do not think the Trungpa line is going to continue beyond this lifetime. I don’t even know if I am going to be a Buddhist in my next life. I would be, at least in essence, but who can tell? If there are no more Trungpa tülkus after me, then what happens to that energy, that Trungpa tülku energy? Does it just die? I suppose in this case, although I have no intention of continuing the Trungpa line, the energy is still there. When you give this energy to someone else, you do not give it away; you radiate it. But having done so, you have the same amount of energy left, exactly the same volume. So energy is not a separate entity. A sunbeam coming through the window is not different from the sun itself.

  I may individually embody the Trungpa energy, but not independently. The Trungpa energy sucks up different people at different times. Actually, I was hoping to come back in Japan as a scientist. Maybe when I come back, one of my students will introduce me to the books Meditation in Action or Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism.8 And then we could go on from there.9

  1. The Tibetan Book of the Dead describes an after-death journey through the bardo of forty-nine days, with each day providing another opportunity for awakening. One opportunity after another one comes along, and each time you have the option of either awakening into greater freedom or continuing to perpetuate samsaric imprisonment.

  2. Ekajati (“one single lock of hair”) is a female protector important to the Nyingma lineage. She is said to be the protector of the highest tantric teachings, known as maha ati.

  3. The four karmas, or four activities, refer to the actions of pacifying, enriching, magnetizing, and destroying. Iconographically, these four are symbolized by the protector Mahakala’s four powerful arms. For more on the four karmas, see chapter 48, “Yogayana: Empowerments and Practice.”

  4. Chögyam Trungpa, Born in Tibet (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1995).

  5. The Chakrasamvara (Skt.: binder of the chakras) Sadhana is an important meditative practice of the Kagyü tradition. In general, sadhanas, or vajrayana ritual practices, include formless meditation, visualization practice, music, mantra recitations, and physical gestures, or mudras.

  6. In another account, based on an interview between Carolyn Gimian and Surmang Khenpo, it is said that the first Trungpa received this dance directly from Chakrasamvara and Vajrayogini. See Chögyam Trungpa, The Mishap Lineage, 116n6.

  7. In visualization practice, the jnanasattva, or “wisdom being,” is the wisdom power that descends into and enlivens the visualization.

  8. Chögyam Trungpa, Meditation in Action (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2010); Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1987).

  9. In spite of this prediction, four years after Trungpa Rinpoche passed away in 1987, His Eminence Tai Situ Rinpoche recognized the two-year-old Tibetan boy Chökyi Senge Rinpoche as the twelfth Trungpa Tülku. For more detailed information on the Trungpa tülkus and the Kagyü lineage, see Chögyam Trungpa, The Mishap Lineage (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2009).

  Part Four

  ESSENTIAL TEACHINGS

  14

  Unconditional Ground

  Yeshe cuts your thoughts on the spot, so there are no thoughts. It is like the experience of eating a jalapeño: it numbs any possibilities of wandering mind. It is a one-hundred-percent experience, or even two-hundred-percent.

  INDESTRUCTIBLE BEING

  In tantric Buddhism, we talk about vajra existence or vajra nature, as opposed to the vajra-like samadhi that the mahayanists talk about. At the same time, none of the experiences of vajrayana can occur if you do not understand the idea of tathagatagarbha from the point of view of mahayana. Vajra nature of dorje kham refers to an indestructible quality that we maintain and possess intrinsically in our being.

  Neither Beginning nor End

  If you ask how egolessness and emptiness fit together with the topic of vajra indestructibility, the answer is that this intrinsic quality of our being is completely indestructible because it is not existent. If it were at the level of existence, there would be no question of indestructibility, because it would have a form, and anything that has existence or form cannot possess vajra nature. The Sanskrit word for form is rupa, which refers to that which has substantial existence and which could therefore be destroyed at any time. Vajra nature, on the other hand, does not have its own entity, its own existence; therefore, it is indestructible. So vajra indestructibility equals nonexistence, because it has neither beginning nor end.

  Existence and Manifesting

  Samsara is nirvana, from that point of view. Whether something is garbage or a blade of grass, it is the same. Anything goes; it is all sacred. You see everything as the manifestation of the guru’s world, which allows you to relax and maintain your upliftedness. Even if you are sleeping in the midst of a garbage heap, you can then build up from that and work with whatever is workable. You can clean up whatever has to be cleaned up. But before you clean anything up, the point is not to fight with the ugly or unpleasant things, because that means you are labeling them as something to get rid of, as something outside of your capable world. So charity begins at home. That is why we have maitri practice first, and compassion practice later on. Unless you have developed maitri, you cannot develop compassion.

  Vajra nature is a state of complete invincibility. It is a complete state and completely invincible because you do not need an essence to work on. You are fully developed. You might ask, “Then why is it necessary to practice?” The answer is that the point of practice is to try to bring out the hang-ups of the mahayana. Although you experience and learn a lot in the mahayana, at the same time it also provides you with deceptions and hangovers of all kinds. The mahayana is enormously helpful, but its hangovers are problematic.

  In order to experience the true form of vajra existence, that you are already buddha in any case, you need
two aspects: ku and yeshe. Ku, or the body aspect, is solidity; it is the ground of sanity. Yeshe is the shining out or the celebrating of that particular situation. In Sanskrit, ku is kaya, as in dharmakaya, and yeshe is jnana. Kaya and jnana cannot be separated; existence and manifesting always happen together, like positive and negative electricity.

  Glimpses of Vajra Nature

  The vajrayanists’ approach to vajra experience is that you are there already, although it may be just in a glimpse, whether a short glimpse or a long glimpse. But even those glimpses have become arbitrary, and we do not pursue them. The idea here is that glimpses are workable, and since they exist within us already, we do not need to pursue them. In the mahayana, such glimpses have to be cultivated and brought about constantly. But in the vajrayana, they are already fully developed, although we might have to push ourselves to experience them. The only problem is in how long these gaps or glimpses could be experienced.

  In the mahayana, it is also possible to experience gaps, but those gaps are clouded with conflicting emotions. In the vajrayana, they are not. In the mahayana, it is as if you have a thick shield of glass in front of you, but in the vajrayana those gaps are real, a sheer drop. At first those gaps are very quick, and then you begin to expand the gaps so that you are not dependent on just glimpses. That is how you build vajrayana insight.

  The experience of vajra nature is more than perception; it is just what we have. Perception means that you perceive something, but here there is no separation between perception and perceiver. So the experience of vajra nature is not even an experience; it just happens. Vajra nature is nonconceptual and happens without perception, and without collecting further reference points or recording anything in the subconscious mind. Vajra nature just happens.

  LETTING GO OF GRASPING AND FIXATION

  Because we have such a wonderful foundation, we can turn to ourselves and begin to realize what happens when we surrender, when we give up our ego. When we let go of our grasping and fixation altogether, we realize that there is greater vision beyond grasping and fixation. This vision is very firm and definite, no longer just a wishy-washy idea. In fact, there is no idealism involved with this vision; it is realistic.

  The absence of grasping and fixation provides something extremely firm. It is not firm in the style of grasping or fixation, but it is the firmness of pure ground. It is like flying in an airplane. We take off and we fly up, and when we rise above the clouds, we begin to realize that upstairs there is blue sky all the time. We realize that the sun is always shining, even when it is cloudy and rainy down below. There is blue sky all the time, twenty-four hours a day, whether it is light or dark, and that blue sky is free from clouds.

  That kind of solidity or firmness is beyond the level of ego-clinging, because at that point, we are not harassed by our desire. For that matter, we do not hold on to our identity as such at all. When we let go of grasping and fixation, we find pure ground, which is all-pervasive and spacious. It is firm, not because there is a reference point, but because there is no reference point.

  The realization of nonreference point is connected to being without hesitation; it is connected with firmness, but in this case firmness does not refer to anything solid. It could be called lucidity rather than firmness, and it could even be called shiftyness. If you look up into the middle of a completely blue cloudless sky, you could say that it is very shifty, and at the same time, that it is very firm. It is firm because the sky is blue all over. But because the sky is so vast, you cannot focus your eyes on it. You cannot focus your eyes on the blue sky because there is nothing to focus on, so it is shifty as well as firm. Any glimpses you experience become a letdown, because there is nothing to hang on to. And if you sustained your glimpses, you would be experiencing that letdown continuously.

  There is nothing very mystical about this whole thing. Firmness simply means that you cannot grasp anything. If you are a lost astronaut floating in outer space, that space is very firm, because you have nothing to hang on to. So we are talking about a different kind of firmness than hanging on to a column or crushing your pillow in your arms.

  GLIMPSING THREEFOLD VAJRA BEING

  When we are able to take off that far, we begin to catch a glimpse of what is known as the threefold vajra nature: vajra body, vajra speech, and vajra mind. I think that vajra nature is the wrong term, however, because nature implies something that is still embryonic. It is like tomorrow’s sunshine as opposed to today’s sunshine. Instead, we probably should use the term vajra being. Vajra being is something that is already exposed, already existing. Vajra being, or in Sanskrit, vajrasattva, means “vajra existence.”

  When you give birth in the vajrayana, you give birth to a fully grown person, not to an infant. By means of vajra vision, or your understanding of the absence of grasping and fixation, you develop vajra being. Vajra body, speech, and mind are the expressions of that complete freedom from grasping and fixation. So firmness is nonreference point, and that firmness is threefold.

  THE NECESSITY OF MIND TRAINING

  Threefold vajra being develops out of your lojong practice. In lojong, or mind training, the word training implies that effort is involved. Nothing comes out of a dream; you cannot simply expect to find gold coins in your Christmas stocking right away. So vajra body, speech, and mind are the products of exertion. They are the products of sending and taking completely. If you are truly, fully trained in lojong, your body, speech, and mind turn into vajra body, vajra speech, and vajra mind. That allows you to remain in the vajra world physically, to hear the vajra teaching, and to experience glimpses of vajra mind.

  Lojong is limitless. Each time a student reaches a certain level of training, our standards get higher. Some students may think that they could go beyond the mahayana ideal when they became tantrikas, but that is completely wrong. If you do not have a good understanding of tonglen, as well as of lojong, you cannot become a good tantrika because you have not really experienced any kind of absence. When you do sending and taking, you experience absence. Nobody is actually there to do the exchanging; it just happens between space. There is a kind of enlightened confusion, in which you do not know who you are, whether you are the receiver or the sender. You have a gap, which is a very interesting point. So the study of lojong will help you to understand the vajrayana much more clearly.

  The vajrayana is very definitely a product of mind training. I think that everybody in the lineage would approve of that particular remark. That is how your mind becomes one with the dharma, and the dharma becomes the path. So you could work with lojong and the mahayana slogans from the vajrayana point of view. When you actually discover your own basic gentleness, your intrinsic goodness, you begin to realize that your hesitations have gone far away. You develop a vision based on fearlessness, gentleness, compassion, spaciousness, and invincibility. Lojong begins to become a vajrayana-like situation at that point.

  The basic point, which I would like to make clear, is that you have to prepare yourself first; then you can respond to what you have prepared. Natural preparation also exists outside of your own existence. That is to say, your own readiness to receive and understand the vajrayana, and the vajrayana world of the lineage, which exists outside of you, are both included. So it is a question of relating with two situations: the vajra world, and the vajra nature that exists within you. When you put those two together, you begin to have a basic understanding of entering into the vajrayana altogether.

  ATTAINING FREEDOM FROM THE KLESHAS

  The meaning of tantra is continuity. There is continuity from the beginning of the journey—from when we become refugees on the hinayana path, through when we become helpers of others, or would-be bodhisattvas on the mahayana path, and through the greater sanity that arises as we go on to the vajrayana. Throughout, the point is to attain freedom from the kleshas.

  This freedom is twofold: it is freedom from both samsara and nirvana. That is, we do not dwell in the peace or cessation of shamatha, nor do we
dwell in ego-centered grasping and fixation. Freedom from grasping and fixation is freedom from samsara; freedom from fixed notions of peace and contentment and from pure shamatha tranquillity is freedom from absorption in nirvana. We tend to have already developed that kind of attitude when we take the bodhisattva vow and begin to practice the mahayana discipline of twofold bodhichitta.

  YESHE: PRIMORDIAL WISDOM

  Even at the earliest stage of the vajrayana, we have to study and understand jnana, or yeshe in Tibetan. The meaning of ye is “primordial” or “original,” or it could be “a long time ago,” and she means “familiarity,” “comprehension,” or “knowing”; so yeshe means “primordial knowing.” It could be regarded as root knowledge or basic knowledge. In the related term ngo-she, ngo means “face,” and she means “knowing”; so ngo-she means “I know somebody.” It means “I know their face,” or in other words, “I am familiar with that person, I have met them before.”1

  Yeshe, or primordial knowing, is the definition of wisdom. Such wisdom is a very important and intrinsic aspect of the vajrayana; it runs right through the vajrayana presentation from beginning to end. In the vajrayana, all sorts of wisdoms are discovered, introduced, and realized. So yeshe is a very important term, one that we are going to use forever and ever.

  According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term wise refers to someone who comprehends knowledge. It refers to someone who is accomplished, either by training or through natural talent. But the concept of being wise is somewhat theistic; it means that you possess your wisdom, which is a concept we do not use in the Tibetan tradition. For instance, we do not say yeshepa, which would mean “one who possesses wisdom,” or a “yeshe-ist.” We do not say that, but we could use the word chang, which means “holding.” So we could say yeshe changwa, which means “one who holds wisdom,” as in dorje chang, which means “one who holds the vajra.” Chang, or holding, seems to be different than possessing. Holding means being adorned with or endowed with. For instance, you might hold the title of father.