The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness

by Chogyam Trungpa

  RELATING WITH THE TEACHER

  In our approach to the vajrayana, we also relate to both absolute and relative truth. We begin to relate with reality very literally and directly. In fact, at the early level of vajrayana practice, we do not try to provoke or invoke any form of magic. We simply humble ourselves, and the only way to humble ourselves is to have devotion to the teacher, to the guru. At this point, there are possibilities that our whole egotistic scheme could collapse.

  As we progress to the next stage, we might begin to talk about how to relate with the world, but we first need to relate with what we have discovered from practicing ultimate and relative bodhichitta. We have to put ultimate and relative bodhichitta together; we need to become very pragmatic and practical.

  When we enter the vajrayana, ideally we will have gone through such good training already that we will have run out of any resentments or doubts. We will have a solid understanding of the path, and be fairly certain that what we are doing is right. We may still feel that we are always stumbling and stuttering—there is always that kind of awkwardness happening—but at the same time, we begin to feel thankful and appreciative of the lineage. We are particularly appreciative of our own personal teacher, who has managed to bring us up, and who has had enough patience to watch us through our ups and downs, through our complaints and whatever else. So there is an appreciation of our teacher, our spiritual friend.

  At this point, the teacher begins to become much more than purely a spiritual friend. We begin to appreciate their profound authority in the teaching situation, as well as their teaching style and skillful means. We begin to really appreciate the dharma that our teacher has taught us, and the upbringing that they have given us so far. We begin to feel very appreciative of all that. Therefore, we are ready to turn to the further extension of mahayana, which is tantrayana. But if there is no discovery of the root guru, a personal teacher with whom we can relate, entering the vajrayana is said to be like a blind man seeing the sun: it is impossible.

  By the time we encounter the vajrayana, we have learned to appreciate the teachings as precious. We have understood that it is a unique situation to come across a teacher, and we realize how important it is to relate with a teacher who has both methodology and patience. Therefore, as we enter the vajrayana, in order to learn how to be humble we practice what is known as the four means of discipline, or the four reminders.

  REVERSING YOUR ATTITUDE

  The Tibetan term for the four reminders is lodok namshi. Lo means “attitude,” dok means “reversing,” namshi means “all four”; so lodok namshi means “four ways of reversing one’s attitude.” Dok in particular refers to reversing your previous naiveté, your belief that you just happened to come across such a thing as Buddhism haphazardly, and that the reason you are practicing is purely by chance. With that point of view, there is no appreciation. But your encounter with the dharma is not purely by chance. Therefore, there is this practice of reversing that naiveté.

  Precious Human Birth

  The first reminder is to realize that your precious human birth is free, well-favored, and difficult to find. The Tibetan for this is taljor nyeka. Tal means “free” or “having time,” jor means “plentifulness” or “everything coinciding at the right time,” nye means “finding,” and ka means “difficult”; so taljor nyeka means “free and well-favored, difficult to find.”

  FREE. You are free because you are not subject to any handicaps. According to The Jewel Ornament of Liberation, being free means that you are not hampered by the eight unfavorable conditions, and therefore you are free to practice.1 “Free” is the basic idea of how and why you are able to practice. Your physical body functions perfectly, and you have no obstacles to hearing and practicing the dharma.2

  WELL-FAVORED. Along with being free, you are well-favored, which refers to the circumstances that brought you to the dharma. According to The Jewel Ornament of Liberation, there are ten positive circumstances.3 We could add an eleventh, one extra: you are brought to the dharma because of the Chinese communist invasion of Tibet. So we should practice sending and taking for old Mao Tse-tung.

  DIFFICULT TO FIND. The basic point of the first reminder is that the reason you meet up with the dharma is by no means purely an accident. In a way, it is predetermined that you are encountering the dharma and you are able to practice it: each situation is brought about by a cause, in terms of cause and effect. At the same time, there is a quality of accident, in the sense that things just come together. This is what is called auspicious coincidence, or tendrel. You have the basic situation, which is not purely an accident, but somewhat predetermined; then, in order to light up that predetermined situation, you have a seeming accident. It is quite natural. If you buy a stove with a pilot light, when you turn on one of the burners and the flame goes up, it seems to be an accident. But the only reason you can turn on your stove is because there is a pilot light.

  A free and well-favored human birth is very difficult to find. There are millions of people who have not had the unique opportunity of hearing and practicing the teachings, and actually being able to do so properly and thoroughly. You may try to jump over or avoid this portion or that portion of the discipline. Nonetheless, whether or not you are trying to bypass something, your opportunity is still magnificent and extraordinary.

  One of the first things that anybody who practices the vajrayana should realize is how extremely unusual this situation is, how difficult it is for us to find, and how fortunate we are. We could discover the measure of our good fortune by looking back to before we even heard the vajrayana teachings. If we look back, we can see how well-trained we were in the practices of hinayana and mahayana. We can see that we have been well prepared. Because of such preparation, our situation is so good that now we are ready for the vajrayana. So we are appreciative of the whole path.

  Appreciating our human birth is the first means of reversing the naiveté of our attitude of smugness or arrogance, thinking that since we have our free and well-favored human birth, we can just take our time. Earlier, in the presentation of the mahayana teachings, we spoke about the naiveté of pagyang as simple, carefree, or loose. That kind of naiveté is more path oriented. Here, naiveté is different altogether; it has possibilities of arrogance. Because we feel that our human situation is quite fine, we think that we can drink and have a good time instead of listening to the teachings. We take our human birth as a casual thing. Some people even say they are resentful that they were born. I heard a story about a young man who took his parents to court in order to sue them for giving birth to him. But in the case of the first reminder, it is completely the opposite: we are grateful for our human birth.

  Death and Impermanence

  The second reminder is chiwa mitakpa in Tibetan. Chiwa means “death,” mi is negation, or “not,” and takpa means “permanence”; so chiwa mitakpa is “death and impermanence.” Just because we have been able to get ourselves into such an unusual situation due to our previous karma and our own fortunate existence, we cannot simply take it easy. You cannot just relax and say, “Isn’t it wonderful that I have a free and well-favored human birth? Now I can relax.” But it is impossible to relax, because our fortunate situation might vanish. We could be struck by sudden death at any time. We could choke to death right now from laughing at this discussion.

  For more than twenty years after I left Tibet, I had no news at all about my family. Then one day, I received the news that my mother, my brothers, and my sisters were alive and well. I heard that from a Tibetan gentleman who traveled to Tibet and then returned to the West. He had visited a place near my mother’s village and learned that she was still alive. He also brought me a letter from one of the monks in my monastery, who said that everybody was alive and well. But when I read the letter, I thought, “This letter was written six months ago. Anything could have happened since then. Maybe my mother is no longer alive. Maybe all of them are dead.”

  That may be a gloomy way of looki
ng at things, but when we begin to think of the preciousness of our good fortune, we should feel even more the importance of not losing that opportunity. When we handle diamond chips wrapped in a piece of paper, we are very careful not to let the paper pop up because we don’t want the diamonds to jump into the rug and get lost. In the same way, we have to be very appreciative and careful of our precious human birth.

  The situation is perfect now for you to practice, but anything could happen. You cannot relax in this situation. One phone call from someone or other, and your whole life could be turned upside down. Your situation may suddenly become unfree and un-well-favored. Anything could happen. You might make one visit to the doctor for a physical checkup, and they might have bad news for you: “You are going to die tonight or tomorrow or maybe next year.” You might take one nice pleasure ride down the road, and you could meet with a bad driver and be finished on the spot. You could drop dead in the middle of your sentence.

  During an early visit to California, I was in a car with my wife and child, the driver, and one other person. We were going to visit Alan Watts, and we were quite happily driving down the street.4 In fact, we were talking about mindfulness. The driver was asking me about the four foundations of mindfulness, and suddenly there was a boom! Our car hit something. Apparently, while the driver was talking about mindfulness, he ran through a red light and crashed our car. For a few minutes I couldn’t speak. My ribs had been completely fractured, all of them. I was going “Hoo hoo”; I couldn’t breathe. And people were asking me, “Are you all right? Are you all right?” I could not even answer them. I was not all right.

  Anything could happen. Such a pessimistic attitude is necessary and good—in fact, excellent. We do not want to lose this very precious situation that we have. We do not want to lose this wonderful opportunity. There are excellent descriptions of impermanence in The Jewel Ornament of Liberation, which are very helpful to study. The point is that death is always imminent. For that matter, change is always imminent. That is the second reflection practice, or chiwa mitakpa.

  The second reminder is also connected with the mahayana dialectical studies of shunyata, and with the mahayana and vajrayana practices of realizing egolessness. We cannot cling to our ego all the time. Shunyata, or emptiness, means that there is no real substance to hang on to. Everything could be and would be and should be subject to decay and change.

  The term for form, or existence, is rupa in Sanskrit and suk in Tibetan. The definition of form is something that is perishable; otherwise, you cannot have form. Everything is manufactured in one way or the other. Anything we see, anything we perceive in our entire world—including our own mind, space, and outer space as well—is a form. Forms accommodate each other; they exist by coexistence or by coincidence. By making reference points with each other, things begin to become suk, to become rupa. Things assemble themselves together, but then they decay; because they decay, therefore they can exist. In other words, anything that we perceive in our life, including thought patterns, is all subject to decay. There is no eternity of any kind.

  The reality of impermanence is one of the strongest and most interesting arguments for the falsity of theism. According to nontheism, you cannot attain a state of eternity, and you cannot relax in so-called heaven. Whether things are modernized these days or not, you are still subject to decay. Theists say that you can attain eternal life: they say that first you are a regular noneternal person, and at death you are suddenly transformed and attain everlasting life. But nobody can change objects into space, or space into objects. Since accommodation and existence cannot be reversed—it has never happened—the theists’ logic is wrong. They have forgotten the vision of impermanence and have become involved in a race to eternity. Such logic can be exposed by understanding the wisdom of impermanence. The wisdom of impermanence is the essence of the teachings, because it reveals the truth of egolessness and the truth of nontheism. It also allows the possibility of practice and the attainment of enlightenment.

  Karmic Cause and Effect

  The third reminder is the appreciation of karma, or cause and effect, which in Tibetan is le gyu dre. Le is the Tibetan word for “action,” gyu means “root” or “cause,” and dre means “fruition”; so le gyu dre means the “cause and effect of actions.” It is the understanding of the root and fruition of karmic possibilities.

  We cannot avoid karma as long as we have continual thoughts and continual subconscious gossip. As long as we have a liking-and-disliking state of mind happening all the time, we cannot avoid karma at all. It is quite straightforward. The idea of karma is that virtuous actions, or good karma, produce good situations, which are somewhat predetermined; and bad actions, or bad karma, produce bad results, which are also predetermined. But at the same time, we can prevent sowing further seeds of karma altogether by realizing that there is a level where karmic seeds are not sown, which is the nonthought level. That is why we meditate. It has been said that sleeping, dreaming, and meditating, or developing awareness, are the only states in which we do not sow further seeds of karma.

  The cause-and-effect mechanism of karma is very accurate and extremely precise. In fact, it is much more precise than our bank account. Sometimes tellers or even bank managers make mistakes, but karma always provides tit for tat, constantly and naturally.

  The Torment of Samsara

  The fourth reminder is realizing the torment of samsara, which is due to bad karmic situations. The Tibetan term for this is khor-we nyemik. Khorwa means “turning around,” “circling,” or “spinning around.” It is a vicious circle—khorwa, khorwa, and khorwa. Replacing the a on the end of khorwa with an e makes it “of spinning around.” Nye can mean “ill intention,” “wrongdoing,” or “bad planning.” It also sometimes means “sin,” but I prefer not to use that term, because it has theistic connotations of good and bad, which is somewhat misleading. Mik means “reflecting” or “conception.” Altogether, khor-we nyemik could be translated as the “wrong purpose of samsara.”

  The torment of samsara is a natural situation, one which happens to us all the time. Whenever we engage in misconduct, we get direct feedback always. Even though the situation may be quite innocent and clear, and even though there are no problems, we suddenly begin to indulge in our habitual patterns or our kleshas. When we get into certain situations, we would like to have a so-called good time. Strangely, we might have a semi-good time, but after we indulge, we begin to be hit by all sorts of sudden neurotic attacks, or döns; we get hit by all sorts of punishments.

  Such punishment results from violating the sacredness of the world. Appreciating the sacredness of the world is a fundamental point that I have been stressing in my presentation of the Shambhala teachings.5 In the Buddhist tradition, although the texts do not quite say it directly, there is also the idea of sacred world. It is taught that you have to realize and respect that world.

  Not only should you respect the world, but fundamentally and above all, you should respect karmic cause and effect as it is taught in hinayana, which is also very much applicable in the vajrayana. This process of karmic punishment is very direct and ordinary. It is the result of not taking care of ourselves properly. Appreciating our existence as human beings is sometimes a hassle: eating properly can be a hassle, and even taking a shower may be a hassle. We sometimes forget to do those things. We begin to abuse our body and mind just to get a temporary kick out of something or other. But patterns of misbehavior of any kind will result in immediate feedback. Overindulgence always gives you feedback.

  Beyond that, greater overindulgence in the samsaric world of passion, aggression, and ignorance always has the result of sending you down to the lower realms. You find yourself being scorched in the hell realm, hunger stricken in the hungry ghost realm, and made stupid in the animal realm. The hungry ghost realm and the hell realm are states of mind in which you are locked in certain situations and you cannot even get out. You are stuck in your particular vacuum. Because of your intense de
sire to maintain your habitual patterns, you replay your own cassette tape again and again.

  This kind of realm is not necessarily a literal colony that has been set up and run by somebody. It is more that you are in a state of existence in which you are stuck, and you cannot come back to the human realm, or even the animal realm. Even the animal realm would be better, in some sense, but you are stuck in the hell realm or the realm of the hungry ghosts. I think some people might get a glimpse of those possibilities by taking psychedelic drugs: you find yourself locked in your mind, and you create your own world.

  When you are stuck, you also find that your old friends are in that particular state of being stuck as well. You and your cronies are both stuck. You see each other, and you are stuck together in that state of blockage, very intensely replaying your trips, again and again. You could live in such a state for thousands of years, because you have missed the possibilities of practicing dharma, changing your karmic seeds, and not planting further karmic seeds in this life.

  Once you begin to avoid any kind of discipline, once you neglect your discipline, once you begin to feel that practice and discipline do not need to be respected and that the command of your teacher does not need to be respected, you are blocked. It is like being in an eternal washing machine that cannot be opened by anybody.

  In the hell realm, you are being scorched and cooked. You watch yourself being cooked and scorched, but you cannot even manage to faint. You cannot pass out for the very reason that you may no longer even have a body You are stuck with your own mind; it is a mental creation. If somebody is being highly tortured on the physical level, they will obviously pass out, faint, or collapse, which is a tremendous relief. But in this case, that is impossible. The hungry ghost level is similar: you have tremendous hunger and thirst, and nothing at all can satisfy you.