The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness

by Chogyam Trungpa

  2. The five buddha-families refer to five styles of energy, which can manifest in either confused or enlightened ways. This grouping of five, arranged in the center and four cardinal directions of a circle, or mandala, is found throughout tantric teachings and iconography. For more on the five buddha-families, see chapter 26, “The Mandala of the Five Buddha-Families.”

  3. The practice of the four reminders, the first stage of vajrayana preliminary practices, is discussed in chapter 30, “The Four Reminders.”

  17

  The Play of Space and Form

  When we talk about enlightened ones as opposed to unenlightened ones, that vocabulary of enlightenment has actually developed from the samsaric point of view rather than from the view of ultimate perfection. Ultimate perfection transcends the definition of enlightenment. It is purely space, purely dhatu or ying.

  BEFORE WE get into the details of the various yogas of tantra, I thought we should talk about the idea of space in tantra. The Tibetan term for space is ying, and in Sanskrit it is dhatu. The word dhatu can be used to mean “realm” or “essence,” but in tantra it means basic psychological space. I suppose the word realm is appropriate as well, meaning the particular environment you are in, so dhatu is your environment as well as space. The word ying, or dhatu, is a very prominent and important principle of vajrayana understanding.

  RIKPA AND THE LEVELS OF SPACE

  Your practice of shamatha at the hinayana level and your vipashyana and shunyata experience at the mahayana level have together brought this particular notion of space into the situation. The tantric way of looking at the whole thing brings in a different perspective, which is that there are various levels of space. Basically, we are trying to relate with the origin of the origin of the originator and of origination itself. But we are not talking in the theistic sense of the maker of the world. Instead, we are talking in terms of transcendent intelligence, or rikpa.

  There are various definitions for rikpa. There is rikpa according to vipashyana experience, and rikpa according to higher tantric experience. At the vipashyana level, rikpa still has some kind of plan or strategy. But in the vajrayana, rikpa is not equated with discriminating one from the other, or “me” and “my world.” It is not operating from the point of view of the dualistic split, but it is more like a beam of light that shines constantly. And because that beam of light or beam of intelligence shines constantly, it is known in the tantric literature as the dawn of Vajrasattva. It is the dawn, the awakening, the crisp-winter-morning aspect of clarity and sharpness.

  At the same time, rikpa creates space. Rikpa is indivisible with space. Rikpa does not have any plans; it does not decide to become enlightened or not to become enlightened. Rikpa is a self-existing situation. It has also been said that the basic nature of tathagatagarbha is self-existing. Tathagatagarbha has limitless functions. It is not aware of itself, but at the same time it is also not ignorant of itself. So it is self-shining or self-luminous.

  The basic principle here is that when tantra speaks of enlightenment, it means basic being. The idea is that you have already arrived at the final end result, except that you have clouded it over. But each time there is a gap between the clouds, you begin to see your attributes clearly. It might take only a fraction of a second or a microsecond, and it might only be a glimpse; nevertheless, it is still a glimpse of what it should be in the long term, the final term.

  THE FOUR LEVELS OF SPACE

  In connection with rikpa, there are various levels of space and form, or dhatus and kayas. First we’ll discuss the four levels of space: indestructible space, self-existing wisdom, primordial space, and intricate space.

  Vajradhatu: Indestructible Space

  The first level of space is dorje ying in Tibetan, or vajradhatu in Sanskrit, which means “indestructible space.” Vajradhatu is regarded as the basic space that accommodates everything, samsara and nirvana. Nothing can challenge this space. In spite of its clarity, or discriminating wisdom, it is still indestructible.

  Generally when we talk about space, we are talking about psychological space, but vajradhatu is not particularly psychologically oriented; it is just basic experience, basic being. Vajradhatu is completely distinctive and completely clear, and at the same time, there is immense space and indestructibility. The basic quality of this space is that it is immovable. It is immovable because of its spaciousness, because of its all-pervasiveness.

  Rangjung Gi Yeshe: Self-Existing Wisdom

  The next level of space, according to the great fourteenth-century Nyingma master Longchen Rabjam and Jamgön Kongtrül the Great, is called rangjung gi yeshe. Rang means “self,” jung means “arising” or “coming into existence,” gi means “of,” and yeshe means “wisdom”; so rangjung gi yeshe means “self-existing wisdom.”

  After the indestructibility of vajradhatu, there is wisdom. There is a sense of being learned, a sense of comprehending all kinds of things, a sense of scrutinizing the phenomenal world in a very spacious way. The reason this wisdom is known as “self-existing” is because there is no reason. There is no reason, no purpose, and no particular attitude. But there is enormous clarity—clarity born from nothing.

  Dö-me Ying: Primordial Space

  The next level of space is called dö-me ying. Döma means “primordial,” dö-me makes that “of primordial,” and ying is “space”; so dö-me ying means “primordial space.”

  Based on the perspective that you have already covered the indestructibility of vajradhatu, you then experience primordial space as well. Here, a concept of time and space begins to come into being in the psychological state of the practitioner. This particular idea of mind is not new, and it is not a newly discovered experience. You have not been talked into it or led into it by metaphysical concepts. But you begin to realize its oldness, that it existed a long time ago. There is a quality of primordial space and time—time in the sense of endless beginning. You begin to feel that the beginninglessness is more important than what is happening now—and what is happening at this point also depends on that beginninglessness, so it too is primordial.

  So the idea of primordial is not just at the level of prenatal or prehistoric, but it goes far beyond that. It is old wisdom that is still new at the present moment. Old space, or dö-me ying, is still up-to-date at this moment.

  When we talk about beginninglessness, we have to be very clear that we are not saying that something started at the beginning, and that this beginning is far away from us. We are talking about beginninglessness. Beginninglessness is why it is primordial rather than just very old, like an antique piece. It is very old because it does not have a beginning. Therefore the old and the young could be together at once, because it is up-to-date now and it is also very old. In that sense, primordial space is beyond age; it transcends age. And that brings us to the next level, or dharmadhatu.

  Dharmadhatu: Intricate Space

  After the space of beginninglessness, the next level is dharmadhatu. With dharmadhatu, because so many dharmas exist, because so many norms and styles exist, that crowdedness becomes the space element at the same time.

  Dharmadhatu provides further clarification in terms of understanding separate realities: me and my perceptions, me and my relationships, me and my concepts of the phenomenal world, and so forth. At the same time, there is a sense of norm, or law. The functions and workings of the phenomenal world begin to come into being, but there are so many styles of working, so many ways of being, that the whole thing is completely endless and completely beginningless. Therefore, the space of dharmadhatu is known as the space of the complete and very intricate galaxies of intelligence and styles operating in the phenomenal world. But in spite of its crowdedness and nonspaciousness, dharmadhatu creates another space. So dharmadhatu is also a level of space.

  THE THREE KAYAS AND THE LEVELS OF FORM

  Now we’ll discuss the next three levels, which are the levels of form: the dharmakaya, the sambhogakaya, and the nirmanakaya.

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p; Dharmakaya: The Body of Dharma

  The next level is dharmakaya, the body of dharma. I would like to make it clear that with dharmakaya, we are beginning to get more into form than space.

  At this level, intelligence begins to appear in terms of the awakened state, or enlightenment, as opposed to samsara. Awakening as a dualistic term begins to appear. So at the dharmakaya level, there exists a separate reality apart from samsaric confusion and nirvanic liberation, and this is where the actual awakening aspect begins. So with dharmakaya, there is still an entity or a personality of some kind. Therefore, when the Buddha first attained enlightenment under the bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya and claimed that he was the enlightened one, he touched the earth and said that the earth was his witness. He said, “I sat on the earth and I attained enlightenment.”

  According to the tantra Rikpa Rangshar Chenpö Gyü (Tantra of Great Self-Arising Awareness), the utterance of the dharmakaya is: “I am unborn; therefore, I am intelligent. I have no dharma and no form. I have no marks. I am the charnel ground where all existence is exposed.1 Since I am the origin of kindness and compassion; therefore, I have transcended the definition of shunyata or any ideology. I shine brilliantly; therefore, I have never known the darkness.” Those are the utterances of the dharmakaya Buddha.

  This quote begins with “I am,” because of its kaya-ness. Because of its dharmakaya quality, there is definitely an entity, an enlightened being. So with dharmakaya, there is the origin of the idea of an enlightened being who knows all the norms of the phenomenal world. That enlightened being also knows all the norms of the phenomenal world’s jargons. Enlightenment should therefore be equal to saying: “This. That is that, and this is this. Therefore, I am this, and so on and so on.”

  This “I” has nothing to do with ego particularly; it is just the utterance of space. When space is ignored or you begin to lose track of space, you begin to knock pots off your table. Space accentuates its voice of “I do exist.” Therefore, breaking your pot is a message from space. When you begin to get crowded or confused, and you lose track of space, space makes you break pots. That is dharmakaya.

  Sambhogakaya: The Body of Joy

  From dharmakaya, strangely enough, comes the sambhogakaya, the body of joy. Sambhoga means “joy” or “bliss”; so sambhogakaya is the “body of joy.” In this case, the body of joy has nothing to do with pain or pleasure, but it is the body of stimulation. Everything is completely stimulated and heightened. All kinds of perceptions could be experienced from the stimulation that comes from the dharmakaya of the origin. It is stimulated so completely that the body of joy is synonymous with stimulation.

  In the sambhogakaya, expression comes out in terms of speech and movement. You experience the sense perceptions very clearly and precisely, and you understand them as they are. When you see red, red is very red; and when you see yellow, yellow is very yellow. Black is very black, and blue is very blue. There is no blurry vision, and everything speaks for itself. This is not particularly mystical, as in the feeling that red should mean compassion, or yellow should mean richness, and it is not particularly intellectual or conceptual. But in seeing the phenomenal world, the experience is very direct, definite, and clear.

  Nirmanakaya: The Emanation Body

  The next level is the nirmanakaya, or tülku. Tül means “emanation” or “multiplicity,” and ku means “body”; so tülku means “emanation body.” It is like mistakenly bringing an anthill back home, thinking it is bread: when you break it open, you find so many ants coming out. There is such minuteness and so many things happening at once; it is a sudden shock. There are bodies of emanation all over, but each has its own little style.

  Emanation bodies, or tülkus, appear in this world as craftspeople, teachers, business leaders, and politicians. There are all kinds of tülkus, and all of those beings are equally enlightened. It is like the story of the eighty-four mahasiddhas. Each had their own function, their own occupation, but somehow they all still seemed to be siddhas; they were all still nirmanakaya buddhas.

  Nirmanakaya buddhas are resourceful, and they never cause a nuisance to society. Not only that, but they also tend to create further expansion and further realization by teaching other people. Because you are not a nuisance to society, because you have your trip together, you can also communicate. You do not have to ask society for any favors, so there is a sense of freedom or liberation. You know what you are doing.

  The nirmanakaya level is another kind of space, actually, and it is more interesting than any of the others, as a matter of fact. If you look in detail, you see that the skillful means, compassion, and resourcefulness of these nirmanakayas are all expressions of the teachings. And nirmanakayas are visible to the eyes of ordinary sentient beings who are unable to see the other kayas and the other levels of space.

  FURTHER THOUGHTS ON KAYAS AND DHATUS

  The dhatus are not particularly hierarchical. They are more accentuated and expressive. So the dhatus are not a progression particularly, but they are rather different manifestations of space. It is like seeing a building during darkness, dawn, sunrise, midday, and evening: you are seeing the same building in different perspectives, different lighting. However, each time we go to the level of the next dhatu, it is much closer and more communicative and understandable to the samsaric world. That is the only pattern.

  The kayas are closer to the samsaric world than the dhatus because there is a form to relate with, although the dharmakaya refers to a buddha who attained enlightenment and who has no form. From this point of view, vajradhatu is more distant from enlightenment, because enlightenment is a samsaric concept. When we talk about enlightened ones as opposed to unenlightened ones, that vocabulary of enlightenment has actually developed from the samsaric point of view, rather than from the view of ultimate perfection. Ultimate perfection transcends the definition of enlightenment. It is purely space, purely dhatu or ying.

  The basic approach to space throughout the whole tantrayana is based on the three kayas. The dharmakaya is the origin or nonexistence body that is the creator of everything. The sambhogakaya is the body of excitement of intelligence, and the willingness to play with the phenomenal world. The nirmanakaya is the body that is actually communicating with the sunset and sunrise, daytime and nighttime and everything. It is in that acceptance of the universe, within that particular frame of reference, that the nirmanakaya buddha functions.

  In tantric disciplines, what we will largely be working with is the sambhogakaya buddha principle. For instance, all the yidams are sambhogakaya buddhas. They are also part of your own basic being, basic expression, and basic mannerisms. Your innate nature is the sambhogakaya buddha principle.

  For practitioners, what happens is that there is a developmental journey, which starts with being in the nirmanakaya, then experiencing sambhogakaya, and finally experiencing dharmakaya. But then you have to break through your kaya-ness, your formness, and begin to experience the dhatus. The reversal of that is the expressive journey, which goes downward. In this journey, having attained dharmakaya already, you experience the dhatus, then you come down to sambhogakaya, and then the nirmanakaya.

  Basically, your world is questionable, so you keep searching. There is some body, some kaya, evolving itself into the samsaric world, acting as a benevolent bodhisattva or as a very sane arhat. Whether as a sane teacher or an outrageous one, some expression begins to take place. But the whole approach is offhanded. Nothing is planned and nothing is strategized, but there has to be some brilliance or intelligence, some accuracy and skillfulness, in order to be offhanded. Probably that is what the word self-liberated means: offhandedness in the enlightened sense.

  RELATING WITH VAJRAYANA LANGUAGE

  In the mahayana, even if someone completely attained the mahayana through the eleventh bhumi, although they could imagine looking down and although they have the intelligence to experience that, they are still journeying upward. But we are now speaking the vajrayana language, which is a view from a
bove as opposed to a view from below. The view from above would say that the city is behind a cloud, and the view from below would say that the sky is covered with clouds. So we are talking from the point of view that cities are covered with clouds, not that the sun is behind a cloud, or the moon is behind a cloud. That is why the vajrayana is referred to as the imperial yana. It is like being on top of a mountain and looking down on the small hills and being able to see the whole thing. So it is a different approach altogether.

  Relating with the various definitions of space is a question of expansion, of how many territories or areas have been covered or conceptualized. These definitions exist because of us confused people; that is why these definitions unfortunately happen to exist. But they do not really mean anything, actually, if we can even say that. The whole point is that you cannot trust the definitions, because once you begin to trust the definitions, you begin to solidify them. When you say “vajra,” it means all kinds of things. So unless you know the limitlessness of the definitions of dharma from the highest tantric point of view, you cannot really trust in any concrete term for anything. That is why all these definitions are called ying or space: nothing is concrete, and nothing is dependable. The fact that basic being cannot be depended on may be a refuge. It could mean cutting your own throat, but at the same time, it could mean putting a new head on your body.

  1. The charnel ground is a cemetery where dead bodies are placed to be devoured by wild animals. It is a powerful symbol used throughout vajrayana literature and iconography.