The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness

by Chogyam Trungpa

  Experiencing Reality

  When we say that yeshe means fundamentally comprehending, you might ask: Comprehending what? In English, of course, we always have to qualify things. If you like, we could say comprehending the nature of reality. But what is the nature of reality? The nature of reality seems to be something that cannot be changed or manufactured by concepts or philosophical speculation. The nature of reality is without a watcher; it does not require anyone to observe it or look at it. In other words, we could say that reality is unconditional. Reality cannot be put into pigeonholes, metaphysical categories, computer chips, or data of any kind. That cannot be done. Since the nature of reality is free from observation, it cannot be spoken of in conventional words. However, it can be experienced; it can be experienced very strongly, very thoroughly, very fully and fantastically.

  Protection from Conditionality

  When you experience the nature of reality, then that particular wisdom, or yeshe, has the possibility of protecting you from conditionality. It takes your mind away from further involvement with conditionality of any kind. What we have, therefore, is mantra: the protection of mind, the protection of consciousness, the protection of awareness.

  Mantra is that which is able to protect itself from others, which is why it is said to be synonymous with yeshe. It is a natural situation of the mind through which your existence cannot be attacked, defeated, or overpowered. This protection could be through any one of the three principles of body, speech, or mind. So although mantra is often referred to as incantation, such as when you say a mantra, it is not necessarily just things you say. Mantra is something more than that; it is the natural vibration that exists when you have such an experience within yourself.

  Mantra is protection from boundaries. It is connected with boundaries and with anything that boundaries cannot conquer. By means of mantra, you can dispel the negative forces coming from boundaries; therefore, there is protection. For instance, you could be protected from the boundaries of the three times. There is also a boundary between your experience of sanity and insanity. As you go out from where you are, your sanity becomes thinner and thinner. You begin to lose your grip on sanity, and you begin to experience insanity. You begin to question your existence and why you are practicing at all. If you go outside of that boundary, you lose your conviction and wonder why the dharma is true. Sanity is simple, and also quite terrifying in a sense, so it is easy to make that kind of choice.

  The ordinary samsaric pattern is always, without exception, to maintain its existence, even on the subconscious or unconscious level. Conditional mind is a mind that constantly looks forward. It is always looking out for its own survival, and generating further possibilities of maintaining ego. But now as we look back, it makes sense that mind protection is possible. It is possible because we have understood yeshe, the unconditionality that protects us from conditionality. Mantra, which could be said to be synonymous with yeshe, is protecting a particular way of thinking in which we do not stray into ego-centeredness, and therefore do not reproduce the volitional actions of karma.

  Once the wheel of karma is set in motion, it is like a potter’s wheel: it goes on and on, again and again. Once we have “I” existing, we just keep on going. When a potter has a little clay sitting on their wheel, they begin to fashion it with their hands until finally it becomes a nice, neat pot. Until then, they won’t stop. That is exactly how we fashion our karma, which sometimes makes us happy, sometimes makes us sad, and sometimes leads us into trouble. So mantra protects us from that; it protects our mind from conditionality.

  Protection from Habitual Patterns of Transmigration

  When our mind is protected from conditionality, this also tends to overcome the habitual pattern of transmigration, or phowe pakchak in Tibetan. Phowa means “transmigration,” “changing,” or “departing from one place to another,” changing phowa to phowe makes it “of that,” and pakchak means “habitual patterns”; so phowe pakchak means “habitual patterns of transmigration.”

  Habitual patterns of transmigration happen to us when one thought begins to die and we start looking for the next one. For instance, when we begin to lose interest in our orange juice, we would then like to order our coffee, which is the next thing. That is precisely the pattern of habitual transmigration. As soon as we get one thing, we would like to change it to something else. Throughout our life, we keep jumping like grasshoppers in that way. We would like to exchange one thing for another.

  With phowe pakchak, we also have the tendency to be bored. This particular type of consciousness or habitual pattern is what allows us to miss the reference point of understanding what is known as the fourth moment. The first three moments are the past, present, and future; and then there is a fourth moment that transcends all three. This moment is a pure moment that is not connected with what you have missed, what you are experiencing, or what you expect is about to happen. The fourth moment is a pure state of consciousness; it is clear and pure and free from habitual tendencies.

  Phowe pakchak does not contain the fourth-moment state of mind. In other words, phowe pakchak allows no abruptness; it does not like shocks of any kind. You would just like to relax a little bit and take your time. You would like to have your juice and then your coffee, and maybe a cigarette afterward; you would like to just lounge around and have a pleasurable life. With phowe pakchak, you would just like to lead your life in accord with the habitual patterns you used to enjoy. You would like to re-create them all over again.

  Phowe pakchak makes it difficult to practice patience, particularly in the vajrayana sense. The mahayana notion of patience is purely the absence of aggression, while the vajrayana notion of patience also includes the idea of waiting. You are just waiting, and by doing so, you are being the master of time. So vajrayana patience involves proper timing. There is greater precision in the experience of appropriateness: you know the time to proceed and the time not to proceed; you know the time things are ripe and the time they are not ripe. The idea of mastering time has nothing to do with aggression; you just have to tune in to the way situations develop and mature.

  Phowe pakchak is one of the outstanding problems that keep you from being able to receive proper transmission. When a student receives transmission from a vajra master, that transmission is usually abrupt. Transmission cuts thought; it cuts mind abruptly, on the spot. But the habitual tendency of phowe pakchak goes against that completely: you would just like to socialize a little bit more with your samsaric mind. Mantra, or yeshe, cuts through that.

  VAJRAYANA RENUNCIATION

  In order to get the pith instruction of vajrayana, you need to understand the pithiness, abruptness, and directness of shamatha and vipashyana as best and as fully as you can. This is necessary in order to understand, even for an instant, that you are not just theorizing that samsara is bad because it gives you pain, but samsara really is bad and difficult. It is not pleasurable to indulge in it even for an instant. Indulging in samsara gives you a very muddled and muddy state of mind, composed of preconceptions and habitual patterns, which together bring kleshas of all kinds.

  We understand how bad and painful it is to be in the hungry ghost realm; how bad and painful it is to be speedy; how bad and painful it is to live in the samsaric world. But we do not seem to be able to understand or click into that properly and fully. We do not understand that we are flipping back and forth, even at this very moment. At first, the samsaric state of mind seems inviting and comfortable, and we get into it. Our preconceptions and habitual patterns seem somewhat soothing. But then that state of mind begins to engulf and smother us, and we find ourselves, for no reason, in the middle of helplessness. We find that we have lost our connections somewhere, and we begin to feel loneliness, sadness, and pain. Suddenly, in an instant, or in a second or two, we get a tremendous attack of samsaric-ness.

  However, although we understand the pain of samsara, we do not see samsara as so bad that we just have to forget all about it. Instead, y
ou might say we see it as somewhat bad. By understanding samsara, it might teach us a lesson; we might learn how not to be in samsara. So we could study samsara the way we study poison and how it affects us. Poison is not bad, per se; but eating poison might be bad. Likewise, studying poison is not necessarily bad; doing so might give us more understanding about how to deal with it.

  In the vajrayana, we talk about renunciation in terms of the samsaric state of mind rather than samsaric life, which we already seem to understand. It is not that the samsaric world at large is particularly bad, but it is our pleasure-oriented attraction to samsara that is the problem. The attraction of our mind to that mentality is quite shocking—and we are accustomed to re-creating that mentality again and again, constantly. The purpose of renunciation is to reverse our mind from that particular situation and tune it in to something else. This may be somewhat discomforting in the beginning, because we do not get the grandmotherly kind of comfort or reassurance that we are used to getting. Nonetheless, renunciation is much fresher. Renunciation is regarded as fresh and good, basic and excellent.

  As a vajrayana student, or tantrika, you can develop this kind of renunciation by following the examples of the lineage and the vajra master. You can do so by appreciating their journey and their example, and by emulating that.

  RIKPA: INSIGHT

  Yeshe is that which is free from the habitual patterns of ordinary mind, or sem (that which projects to other), and from yeshe there arises what is known as insight, or rikpa. Rikpa is a clear way of looking at a situation, a kind of built-in perception for yeshe. It is also a seed of prajna, although prajna operates more in relationship to other, and rikpa relates more to yourself. With rikpa, you are your own disciplinarian, so you do not stray.

  Rikpa is able to perceive yeshe. But we cannot call this kind of perception a watcher. It is like your own tongue: when you eat food, you cannot call your tongue the watcher of your food. There is no strain in having a tongue in your mouth while you eat food. But if you did not have one, you might have a problem with eating. Likewise, you cannot call your eyelids the watchers of your eyes because you blink. So rikpa is a built-in situation, like your tongue.

  PRAJNA: CLEAR PERCEPTION

  Rikpa is the basic approach we are trying to work with in order to maintain or get in touch with yeshe. But in order to realize yeshe, we also have to realize prajna; and in order to realize prajna, we have to experience vipashyana. Vipashyana gives us a quality of gentleness, so we do not become too harsh and clever and we do not stay in the higher realms alone. It brings us down to the level of compassion and softness. Yeshe is all-knowing, and prajna is the communication system that goes with yeshe. Prajna enables you to relate with your world altogether. So prajna and yeshe happen together, simultaneously. Prajna is like the limbs, and yeshe is like the body.

  Prajna perceives what is there, which is not very much, so prajna is the perceiver of absence. But if you go beyond that, you have the perception of brilliance because of the absence, which is getting into yeshe. Shunyata, or emptiness, still has a slight notion of boundary. Why do you have to say “empty” once you are in the middle of it? You seem to be saying “empty of something,” so it is a somewhat defensive concept. The idea of being empty of something is a slightly early level and is connected with the path rather than the fruition. That is why in the vajrayana tradition we talk more about luminosity than emptiness, because the concept of emptiness is always crossing the boundaries of full and empty.

  NO BOUNDARIES

  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 a two-hundred-percent experience. Yeshe does not have any boundaries. So you cannot exactly experience yeshe, but you are there already. It is almost as if you are without a physical body, or you had a physical body a long time ago, so you no longer need to maintain it. You do not even have to be fearful of death; it is as if you are part of the elements already.

  With yeshe, the reference point—if you can call it a reference point—is that there is no experience other than That. That is the epitome of nontheism. If there are no discursive thoughts, you have intense devotion. If there are no clouds in the sky, you have intense sunshine. But here I am not speaking from the point of view of students, but from the point of view of the climate.

  With ordinary consciousness, you have gaps of unconsciousness, or ignorance. You fall asleep or go unconscious, and then that is short-circuited by consciousness, and you wake up. But after you wake up, you might relapse; it is possible to fall asleep, lose consciousness, or become forgetful. Yeshe is altogether different. The stage of yeshe is reached once you have understood or clicked into the possibility of being able to break through fundamental falsity altogether. So it is even more than indestructible; with yeshe there are no possibilities of making mistakes anymore at all. Driftwood cannot become plastic wood.

  GOING BACK TO SQUARE ONE

  To approach the stage of yeshe, we first have to experience the shamatha level of taming ourselves, which once again brings us back to square one. When you have tamed yourself by means of shamatha, you begin to realize that you can be more decent and genuine in expressing warmth, which in the vajrayana is connected with devotion. Shamatha is connected with humbleness. But this does not mean that you feel low and bad, belittled and uninspired. Rather, you are humble and simple because you begin to feel that you are like tilled soil, which has been plowed so many times that it feels soft and humble and ready for a seed to be sown.

  Next, with vipashyana we find ourselves ready for further communication, for actually sowing a seed, which in vajrayana terms means meeting the guru. Vipashyana is also connected with hearing the dharma. When there is humbleness and tameness and the willingness to open up, you spend your energy on hearing the dharma, rather than worrying about what you should do with yourself. If there were no gentleness and no tameness, there would be no possibility of hearing and experiencing the dharma; you would become like an upside-down pot.2

  Dropping the Watcher

  At the beginning, on the primitive shamatha level, you have to develop your watchfulness. But as you begin to master shamatha, you require less watchfulness. Your mindfulness becomes a natural pattern. And when you develop shinjang, watchfulness is no longer necessary. You do not need feedback; you just know what is happening.

  As you evolve into vipashyana, you develop more of an awareness of the situation, rather than constantly having to check back and forth with headquarters. So you need less watching, and more just being on the spot. In fact, the more you keep checking back, the more you lose your vipashyana; therefore, in vipashyana you should be on the spot all the time, each time.

  From there you go further, and you begin to experience shunyata. You practice tonglen and become much more intense about developing compassion, gentleness, and kindness to others. Since you are concentrating on the pain of others and on developing generosity for them, you do not have to be so watchful of yourself all the time. You do not have to congratulate yourself about what a good person you are. As you put more exertion into your practice, you need less congratulation. Instead, you need more of a one-to-one relationship with your actual experience of the meditation technique, and you need to simplify yourself. Since you are dealing with the techniques very simply, you need less commentator, which is the voice of watchfulness, and more just seeing things very clearly. You are doing that properly and fully, on the spot.

  As your confidence, discipline, exertion, and patience grow further, you finally get to the level of yeshe. It seems to be quite a long way, actually. At this point, you begin to feel that there is no need for a watcher. There is not even a question of being watched. If you had a watcher, it would actually be more of an obstacle. So finally, you do not need a commentator. That is the last thing you want! You just do it. That is called nowness. You do not need the past or the future to min
d your business, but you are right here—and the fourth moment is even more so.

  This whole process of dropping the watcher is like martial arts training. You need help at the beginning to make sure that you do not hurt yourself with your sword, and to make sure that you do a good job. But at some point, your assistants begin to become obstacles because they cut down your confidence in yourself, so they need to go away.

  Eventually you do not need anybody at all. You begin to pick yourself up.

  BASIC GOODNESS: THE GATEWAY TO YESHE

  In terms of yeshe, basic goodness is like kindling, or starter wood. The Tibetan for basic goodness is künshi ngangluk kyi gewa. Künshi, or alaya in Sanskrit, is the “basis of all,” ngangluk is “natural state,” and gewa is “goodness” or “virtue”; so künshi ngangluk kyi gewa means the “natural virtue of alaya.”

  Basic goodness is a glimpse of wakefulness or reality in which unconditionality is possible; but it is still based on a certain amount of dichotomy or separate reality, on this and that. It has been said that the experience of yeshe cannot be born out of dualistic mind, or sem, because yeshe is a completely non-ego experience, while sem still involves the reference point of self and other.