The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness

by Chogyam Trungpa

  Karma Family

  The next family, in the North, is the karma family, which is symbolized by a sword or a crossed-vajra. In this case, when we speak of karma, we are not talking about karmic debts, or karmic consequences: here karma simply means “action.” The buddha of the karma family is Amoghasiddhi. The enlightened aspect of karma is called the wisdom of all-accomplishing action, which is the transcendental sense of the complete fulfillment of action without being hassled or pushed into neurosis. It is natural fulfillment in how you relate with your world. The klesha or neurotic quality of karma is jealousy, comparison, and envy. But in either case, whether you relate to the karma family on the transcendental level or the neurotic level, karma is the energy of efficiency.

  If you have karma-family neurosis, you feel highly irritated if you see a hair on your teacup. First you think that your cup is broken and that the hair is a crack in the cup. Then there is some relief. You realize that your cup is not broken; it just has a piece of hair on the side. But when you look at the hair on your cup of tea, you become angry all over again. You would like to make everything very efficient, pure, and absolutely clean. However, if you do achieve cleanliness, then that itself becomes a further problem; you feel insecure because there is nothing to administer, nothing to work on. You constantly check every loose end.

  In the karma family, being very keen on efficiency, you get hung up on it. If you meet a person who is not efficient, who does not have their life together, you regard them as a terrible person. You would like to get rid of such inefficient people, and certainly you do not respect them, even if they are talented musicians or scientists or whatever they may be. On the other hand, if someone has immaculate efficiency, you begin to feel that they are a good person to be with. You would like to associate exclusively with people who are both responsible and clean-cut. However, you find that you are envious and jealous of such efficient people. You want others to be efficient, but not more efficient than you are.

  The epitome of karma-family neurosis is the desire to create a uniform world. Even though you might have very little philosophy, very little meditation, very little consciousness in terms of developing yourself, you feel that you can handle your world properly. You think that you have composure, and you can relate properly with the whole world, and you are resentful that everybody else does not see things in the same way that you do.

  Karma is connected with the element of wind. The wind never blows in all directions, but it blows in one direction at a time. This represents the one-way view of resentment and envy, which picks on one little fault or virtue, and then blows it out of proportion. But with karma wisdom, that resentment falls away, and the qualities of energy, fulfillment of action, and openness remain. In other words, the active aspect of wind is retained so that your energetic activity touches everything in its path. You see the possibilities inherent in situations, and you automatically take the appropriate course. So action fulfills its purpose.

  Buddha Family

  The fifth family is called the buddha family. The symbol of the buddha family is the wheel, and the deity of the buddha family is Vairochana. This family is in the center of the mandala, and it is the foundation. The buddha family is associated with the element of space. It is the environment or oxygen that makes it possible for the other principles to function. Buddha-family energy has a sedate, solid quality. Persons in this family have a strong sense of contemplative experience, and they are highly meditative.

  The buddha neurosis or klesha is the quality of ignorance. It is being spaced-out rather than spacious. It is often associated with an unwillingness to express yourself. For example, you might see that your neighbors are destroying your picket fence with a sledgehammer. You can hear them and see them; in fact, you have been watching your neighbors at work all day, continuously smashing your picket fence. But instead of reacting, you just observe them, and then you return to your snug little home. You eat your breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and you ignore what they are doing. You are paralyzed, unable to talk to outsiders.

  Another quality of buddha neurosis is that you couldn’t be bothered. Your dirty laundry is piled up in a corner of your room. Sometimes you use your dirty laundry to wipe up spills on the floor or table, and then you put your laundry back on the same pile. As time goes on, your dirty socks become unbearable, but you just sit there.

  If you are embarking on a political career, your colleagues may suggest that you develop a certain project and expand your organization. But if you have a buddha neurosis, you will choose to develop the area that needs the least effort. You do not want to deal directly with the details of handling reality. Entertaining friends is also a hassle. You prefer to take your friends to a restaurant rather than cook in your home. And if you want to have a love affair, instead of seducing a partner, or talking to them and making friends, you just look for somebody who is already keen on you. You cannot be bothered with talking somebody into something.

  Sometimes you feel you are sinking into the earth, the solid mud. Sometimes you feel good because you think you are the most stable person in the universe. You slowly begin to grin to yourself, to smile at yourself, because you are the best person of all. You are the only person who manages to remain stable. But other times you feel that you are the loneliest person in the whole universe. You do not particularly like to dance, and when you are asked to dance with somebody, you feel embarrassed and uncomfortable. You want to stay in your own little corner.

  When the ignoring quality of buddha neurosis is transmuted into wisdom, it becomes an environment of all-pervasive spaciousness. This enlightened aspect is called the wisdom of all-encompassing space. In itself, it might still be somewhat desolate and empty, but at the same time it has a quality of completely open potential. It can accommodate anything. It is spacious and vast like the sky.

  LOOKING AT THE BUDDHA FAMILIES IN TERMS OF DEPTH AND EXPANSIVENESS

  Another way of looking at the buddha-families is in relationship to the five skandhas. The five skandhas—form, feeling, perception, formation, and consciousness—represent the structure of ego, as well as the evolution of ego’s world. Skandhas are also related to blockages of different types—spiritual blockages, material blockages, and emotional blockages. The first skandha, form, is the sense of there being something definite and solid to hold onto. The second skandha, feeling, is the projection onto phenomena as being either pleasurable or painful. The third skandha, perception, is the impulse to grasp what is pleasurable and reject what is painful. The fourth skandha, formation, is the tendency to accumulate a collection of mental states as territory. The fifth skandha, consciousness, is the subtle fulfillment of the entire skandha process and is the mental undergrowth of the thought process.

  From the point of view of the skandhas, whenever we function, we function with all five principles at once. So in this case, we are viewing the buddha-families as having various levels of depth or weight. We are looking at the buddha-families in terms of depth and expanding from that depth, or as a process of going from heaviness to lightness. It is like rising out of the depths of the ocean, and slowly floating up to the surface.

  In this approach, there is no allegiance to a particular buddha-family that you cherish as your one-and-only style. That view would tend to give you a two-dimensional experience of the buddha principles. In order to see the whole thing as a three-dimensional experience, you have to approach it as a process from depth to expansion.

  The Buddha Family and the Skandha of Form

  You start with the buddha family, which is the heaviest of all. This is the most solid family, that which clings to ego or relates to the wisdom of all-pervasive space. It is the core of the matter. The buddha family brings a sense of solidity and basic being, and at the same time, it brings a quality of openness, wisdom, and sanity. The buddha family is related with the skandha of form.

  The Ratna Family and the Skandha of Feeling

  From there, with the ratna family, you move
out slowly to the skandha of feeling. This brings a quality of intelligent expansiveness, like tentacles or antennae.

  The Padma Family and the Skandha of Perception

  Next is the padma family. The padma family is connected with the skandha of perception or impulse, because of its sharpness and quickness, and at the same time its willingness to seduce the world outside into relationship with itself.

  The Karma Family and the Skandha of Formation

  Fourth is the karma family, which is connected with the skandha of concept or formation. This principle happens very actively and very efficiently.

  The Vajra Family and the Skandha of Consciousness

  The fifth is the vajra family, and the skandha of consciousness. Here there is a type of intelligence and intellect that operates with very minute precision and clarity, so the whole thing becomes extraordinarily workable. Once you are on the surface, you know how to relate with the phenomenal world.

  The five skandhas are components of our basic makeup, our being, both from the samsaric and nirvanic points of view. Therefore, we are constantly manifesting the five types of buddha nature within ourselves directly and precisely, with a certain amount of style. Because of that, the five types of energy are completely available to us and workable. It is very important to realize that.

  THE BUDDHA FAMILIES AS THE WORKING BASIS OF TANTRA

  We need to understand and relate with the five buddha principles before we begin tantric discipline, so that we can start to understand what tantra is all about. Without understanding the five buddha-families, we have no working basis to relate with tantra, and we begin to find ourselves alienated from it. The vajrayana is seen to be so outrageous that it seems to have no bearing on us as individuals; we feel that it is purely a distant aim, a distant goal. If tantra is a mystical experience, how can we relate it to our ordinary, everyday life at home? There could be a big gap between tantric experience and day-to-day life. But by understanding the five buddha-families, it is possible to close the gap. Therefore, it is necessary to study the five buddha principles, because they provide a bridge between tantric experience and everyday life.

  By working with the buddha-families, we discover that we already have certain qualities. According to the tantric perspective, we cannot ignore those qualities, and we cannot reject them and try to be something else. We each belong to certain buddha-families, and we each have our particular neuroses: our aggression, passion, jealousy, resentment, ignorance, or whatever we have. We should work with our neuroses; we should relate with them and experience them properly. They are the only potential we have. When we begin to work with them, we see that we can use them as stepping-stones.

  DEVELOPING THE ABILITY TO PERCEIVE MANDALAS AND FAMILIES

  The sitting practice of shamatha meditation develops basic sanity. It develops solidness and slowness, and the possibility of watching your mind operating all the time. Out of that, you develop vipashyana expansiveness and awareness. You become more perceptive, and your mind becomes more clear, like an immaculate microscope lens. You develop awareness without conditions, just simple, straightforward awareness itself, awareness being aware without putting anything into it. Out of that clarity, various styles of perception begin to develop, which are the styles of the five buddha-families.

  Awareness is the key point. Clarity is the microscope that is able to perceive the mandala spectrum and the five buddha-families. With that kind of clarity, the buddha-families are not seen as extraordinary but as matter-of-fact, and the basic mandala principle becomes very simple and straightforward: it is that everything is related to everything else.

  On the solid, sane, open, fresh ground of hinayana, the mahayana gives you directions about how to act as a good citizen; and in the vajrayana, there is an enormous possibility of becoming a genius. Basic sanity has developed, a proper lifestyle has been established, and there are no hassles or obstacles. At the vajrayana level, having removed the fog of any dualistic barrier, you begin to have a clear perception of the phenomenal world as it is. That is the mahamudra experience, in which there is no inhibition, and things are seen precisely and beautifully. In this experience, you begin to see the workings of the universe in its ultimate details. You are such a genius that you see everything completely. This genius is described as jnana, or wisdom, of which there are five types, corresponding to the five buddha-families.

  THE FIVE WISDOMS

  So within the clear perception of the mahamudra, you develop the ability to experience the wisdoms of the five buddha-families. That is the kind of cosmic genius we find in the vajrayana.

  The Wisdom of All-Encompassing Space

  In the center of the mandala is all-encompassing space, also known as the wisdom of dharmadhatu, or the wisdom of clear space. It consists of a quality of utter and complete spaciousness, where the coming and going of thought patterns, as well as the phenomenal world and everything else, could be accommodated completely, thoroughly and fully.

  Mirrorlike Wisdom

  In the East, there is mirrorlike wisdom, which is connected with the dawn, with the morning. This is the experience of shining and brilliance, along with a sense of great joy.

  The Wisdom of Equanimity

  In the South, there is the wisdom of equanimity. It is the one-taste experience of wisdom, seeing that sweet and sour are one. You are not particularly attracted to the sweet or repelled by the sour, but there is a quality of equilibrium.

  Discriminating-Awareness Wisdom

  In the West, there is discriminating-awareness wisdom. You are able to see pain as naked pain, and pleasure as naked pleasure. Therefore, you are no longer magnetized by the pleasure or repelled by the pain, but you see them as they are.

  The Wisdom of All-Accomplishing Action

  In the North, there is the wisdom of all-accomplishing action, which is the idea of achievement without being a busybody. It is the natural achievement of seeing that each situation, each color, each sound, and each taste has room or space of its own. You do not just reorganize the universe according to your own wishes of what you would like to see, but you see things as they are.

  These are the five buddha-family wisdoms. Of course, all these wisdoms come from strict training and experience in shamatha and vipashyana, and also from softening yourself by means of tonglen practice and developing compassion. Having had those experiences already, you will then be able to experience these five types of wisdom.

  1. The five wisdoms, or the awakened aspects of the five buddha-families are the wisdom of all-encompassing space (dharmadhatu), mirrorlike wisdom, the wisdom of equanimity, discriminating-awareness wisdom, and the wisdom of all-accomplishing action. The five kleshas are ignorance, anger, pride, passion, and envy.

  2. Sometimes the East (vajra family) is blue and the center (buddha family) is white; at other times the center (buddha family) is blue and the East (vajra family) is white.

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  The Outer Mandala

  When you experience total sacred outlook, there is no grudge against any situation and no overindulgence in possessiveness and wanting. Physical existence and the forms you see in the outer world are seen as the heavenly realm of the deities; speech is experienced as mantra; and the psychology of the world is experienced as awakened clarity.

  THE MANDALA principle is threefold: outer, inner, and secret. Of these three principles, the first we encounter is the outer mandala, or the mandala of the phenomenal world. The outer mandala includes our country, our province, our district, our immediate household, and so on. It is the world of our projections.

  FOUR STYLES OF ENTERING INTO REALITY

  The phenomenal world is conducted or perceived by the media of the sense faculties, by the ayatanas and dhatus. We then make use of cognition, and going further, a deeper form of perception.

  Ayatanas

  The ayatanas are the sense faculties: the sense organs and their objects. In Tibetan, the word for ayatana is kye-che. Kye means “being born,” and c
he means “flourishing” or “burning”; so kye-che means “being born and igniting.” An ayatana is like a fire that ignites and flourishes. The twelve ayatanas are comprised of the six sense organs of eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind; and the six sense objects of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touchable objects, and mental objects. They are your mental and physical capabilities.

  Altogether, the ayatanas make it possible for us to propagate our physical being. Because of the ayatanas, we can eat and drink and smell and see and feel. It is all happening right now. If you feel uncomfortable with the temperature in the room, you might open a window; that is the ayatanas in action. It is because the ayatanas are functioning that you are able to project the outer mandala, or the world outside. That world outside is your projection; it is a projection of sight, sound, taste, smell, and so forth. So in the outer mandala experience, your projections begin to work as they should work. They work in the sense that you can see or hear. But beyond that, they do not work. Later, at the level of the inner mandala, you begin to see that your projections do not actually work.

  Dhatus

  The eighteen dhatus are comprised of the same six sense organs and the same six sense objects, with the addition of the six corresponding sense consciousnesses: seeing consciousness, hearing consciousness, smelling consciousness, tasting consciousness, touching consciousness, and mind consciousness.