The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness

by Chogyam Trungpa

  That is why we can actually breathe in and out when we have a shamatha experience. We are beginning to transcend our small and limited world a little bit; we are beginning to go slightly beyond. Sometimes students find that they are regressing, because for the first time they are beginning to measure their realization of time and space. But if we go beyond that and begin to measure less, we get a greater quantity. We begin to feel less passionate, less measured, and less heavy. So we are going slightly beyond always keeping track—at the beginning, we do this just slightly, but in the end, we do it entirely.

  But this does not necessarily mean that you lose the context of those measurements or limits; they are still included. It is like having a gigantic mound of sand in your storage bin. You know every grain of sand, and you also know the mound as a whole, but you are neither belittling each small grain of sand, nor are you giving greater credit to the larger pile of sand. You are bringing the two all together, which makes you both free and joyful. It makes you smile.

  When you come to the fourth or formless abhisheka, real wisdom is transmitted. The teacher’s mind and the student’s mind actually meet together properly, completely, and thoroughly. With the fourth abhisheka, the mind of the teacher and the mind of the student become one, and the student is able to have a direct glimpse of dharmakaya.

  The fourth abhisheka is known as the abhisheka of That with a capital T. You do not have to dwell on the past, present, or future. You could just wake yourself up on the spot. That particular spot is very ordinary; it is often called ordinary mind. Your mind is opening into ultimate sacred outlook. But at the same time, with ultimate sacred outlook, there is nobody to flash sacred outlook, and nobody to open to sacred outlook: the doer and the doing are dissolving into one. There is a feeling of basic shock; the possibilities of conventional mind are dissolving into nothing. Wakefulness is a choiceless state. You cannot help but be wakeful, as long as you do not try to follow it up or to sustain it.

  However, in discussing the vajrayana, I think I had better not elaborate too much. You need to experience it yourself, personally. That is much better than having it told to you. The vajrayana has to be a firsthand experience. For instance, if you were told about the process and the stages of orgasm by a professor, then when you had a date with your lover for the first time, you would be looking for all those things. You would be completely confused, rather than having a real orgasm of any kind. So in the same way, I would prefer not to talk too much. But I will indicate that there is definitely a situation that is free from space and time—and it makes you smile.

  ABHISHEKAS WITH AND WITHOUT ELABORATION

  Abhishekas are said to be with or without elaboration. The Tibetan term for “with elaboration” is trö-che. Trö means “complication” or “elaboration,” and che means “with”; so trö-che means “with elaboration.” The term for “without elaboration” is trö-me. It is the same trö to begin with, but instead of che we have me, which means “without”; so trö-me means “without elaboration.” Trö-che usually refers to the first three abhishekas, which require you to visualize lots of things. Trö-me refers to the fourth abhisheka, the one without elaboration.

  The idea is that first you must have trö-che, or abhisheka with elaboration, in order to be able to experience the contrast, or trö-me. So first you must be educated and trained in trö-che, and then you begin to get something out of it. After trö-che, you have trö-me, or the abhisheka without elaboration, which is the fourth abhisheka of That. Capital T—That! [Trungpa Rinpoche opens his hand suddenly, palm up, as he says, That!] It is very ordinary.

  1. Trungpa Rinpoche also sometimes refers to the four main abhishekas as outer, inner, secret, and That.

  Part Nine

  VAJRAYANA PRACTICE

  38

  Visualization and Sadhana Practice

  Visualization is simply active mind putting its attention toward and identifying with basic sanity, symbolized in the forms of various deities. . . . Visualization is a catalyst for seeing the phenomenal world in an enlightened way.

  SADHANA PRACTICE

  Taking part in an abhisheka is like receiving meditation instruction, and sadhana practice is like meditating. In an abhisheka, you are being initiated by the guru into a mandala. So first you receive an abhisheka, and having received that abhisheka, you are then allowed to perform certain sadhanas, or practices.

  Sadhana means “practice” or “sacred act.” A sadhana is a discipline of some kind; it means doing things completely. For instance, you could have the sadhana of cooking, which means that from the time you start cooking until you serve the food, you have not finished your sadhana. If you are a good cook, you complete your sadhana by cooking a good meal. If your sadhana is laziness, you complete it by going to sleep.

  A sadhana has a beginning, a middle, and an end, so the whole thing is a complete job, whatever job that might be. In vajrayana sadhana practice, from the time you begin your practice by taking the refuge vow until you finish the whole thing, that sadhana is your practice, your situation. So sadhana is a constant commitment.

  The texts of some sadhanas are sixty pages or longer, with the whole practice taking many hours to perform, and other sadhanas are short. Ideally, the practitioner would know the contents of the sadhana they were practicing precisely. But unfortunately—for instance, in Tibet—the whole thing can become a matter of just reading through the text and trying to finish the pages without really understanding it. That is the kind of corruption that naturally takes place.

  The collection of abhishekas edited by Jamgön Kongtrül the Great consists of sixty-three volumes in Tibetan, and includes something like seven thousand different mandalas, sadhanas, and deities. All of them are categorized according to the six levels of tantra: kriyayoga, upayoga, yogayana, mahayoga, anuyoga, and atiyoga. So there is an infinite number of abhishekas. Before Jamgön Kongtrül edited and compiled these books, he received an abhisheka for each individual practice from each lineage, and he performed each individual practice in its entirety.

  In sadhana practice, you have the root guru; you have the yidam; and you have the protector deities, or mahakalas, appropriate to the school or the particular buddha-family that the deity comes from. For instance, the six-armed protector Mahakala is connected with the Kalachakra sadhana.

  VISUALIZATION AND NONVISUALIZATION

  There are two stages of vajrayana practice: the visualization or creation stage, and the nonvisualization or completion stage.

  Visualization: The Creation Stage

  The first stage of vajrayana practice is visualization. Visualization practice is called kyerim in Tibetan. Kye means “manufacturing” or “making something,” and rim means “level” or “stage”; so kyerim means “level of manifesting” or “stage of manufacturing.” The Sanskrit equivalent is utpattikrama. Utpatti means “giving birth” or “creation,” and krama means “stage”; so utpattikrama means “creation stage.”

  Visualization practice is based on imagining a certain image, figure, or person in your mind. This image or being that you are visualizing is the highest ideal of its type that you could possibly come up with. This being, or yidam, is sparkling clean and dressed in an elaborate costume or outfit, adorned with all kinds of ornaments, and holding scepters or other items. The idea is to identify with such figures and to work with them as if they actually existed individually. The yidam brings the experience of the unoriginated, unborn quality of you, which is completely unconditional, neither good nor bad.

  Although the idea of a central deity or yidam is not exactly the same as the theistic concept of divinity, there is still a tangible object of your visualization. Your visualization is tangible in the same way as your lust is tangible when you are horny, or your aggression is tangible when you are uptight. So the visualization is tangible in the way lust and anger are tangible, rather than being anything outside of you. When we are highly lustful, we do not usually believe that we are controlled by somebody el
se. Rather, we experience our own lust developing within ourselves. When we are very angry, we do not think in terms of being possessed by somebody else, but we experience our own uptightness in the buildup of our own emotions. We should understand that the visualization of deities is the other end of that same stick. It is just our vision or our insight being formed into a particular format, picture, or image in our mind.

  Nonvisualization: The Completion Stage

  The second stage of vajrayana practice is nonvisualization, or formless practice. It is called dzogrim in Tibetan, and sampannakrama in Sanskrit. Dzogrim means “completion stage.” Dzog means “final” or “completion,” and rim, again, means “stage.” In the Sanskrit term sampannakrama, sam means “completely,” panna means “gone,” and krama means “stage”; so sampannakrama means “complete practice.”

  Dzogrim is the absence of visualization. It refers to a meditative state that is a sophisticated form of shunyata experience, probably on the level of mahamudra. So in vajrayana practice, we have both utpattikrama and sampannakrama, or kyerim and dzogrim, the creation and completion stages.

  THE ROLE OF THE YIDAM

  A yidam represents your particular characteristic, your basic being. It is something that you can identify with. For instance, depending on whether you have an attachment to food or to entertainment, depending on whether anger, pride, passion, envy, or ingorance is your basic characteristic, the corresponding yidam will be situated in the center of the mandala, so you have that connection.

  The choice of yidam is made during the abhisheka by throwing a flower onto a specially created mandala with conviction. This process is like flipping a coin with confidence. With such confidence, if you constantly say that it is going to be heads in your favor, it happens that way. You cannot make a mistake, because you are getting into the energy level of what you are, who you are, and where you are, all at once.

  Your particular view of the world can also be seen in terms of the five buddha-families. Depending on the buddha-family to which you belong, you will have a certain innate emotional style. The function of the yidam is to bring out that style—to bring out that desire, ignorance, aggression, pride, or envy. The yidam represents the clear or vajra form of your emotions, and your actions become an expression of that process. But the yidam might also include your negative, confused aspects, because that might be the only available medium you have. Your yidam is predominantly an expression of your own buddha-family, but at the same time each yidam has elements of all five buddha-families.

  Emotions are usually an expression of dullness or confusion, and you are usually drugged by your emotions. But in relating with the yidam, you are developing a different approach. You are revealing the wisdom aspect of the five buddha principles by means of discriminating awareness. So the yidam is more sympathetic to your particular style in the confused world, while the activities of the five buddha principles represent a more glorified version of you.

  The tantric yanas are not quite linear, but as far as the practitioner is concerned, you are supposed to receive your own basic yidam first, and that allows you to practice the rest of tantra. The yidam you receive is usually connected with your guru. That is, your guru has their own yidam, and is highly accomplished in the practice associated with that yidam, so their students also supposedly have a karmic connection with that same yidam.

  Furthermore, throughout the whole path, from the hinayana up to the mahayana level of vipashyana practice, you have been churning out your emotions onto the surface. Your teacher has been seeing you a lot, completely, in your very real nakedness. That allows you to be given a yidam appropriate to your emotional style or destiny.

  First you receive your own basic yidam, and then you may be introduced to other yidams. For example, to develop knowledge, you may relate to Manjushri, and to develop long life, you may receive White Tara. But to begin with, you have your own basic yidam. That yidam stays the same—and traditionally, you keep it a secret.

  Two Aspects of Yidam: Samayasattva and Jnanasattva

  There are two aspects of the yidam: the samayasattva and the jnanasattva. The samayasattva is the image visualized by you. Sattva is “being,” and samaya is the “discipline of tantric practice”; so the samayasattva is your version of the deity that you have visualized. Samayasattva is what you create with your visualization

  The jnanasattva is what legitimizes your visualization by descending into it. Jnana means “wisdom,” and sattva again means “being”; so jnanasattva means “wisdom being.” In visualization practice, you invite the greater wisdom forces to descend into your visualization. Both aspects of the yidam, the samayasattva and the jnanasattva, are given to you by the guru. Before you get into the full practice of sadhana, you first identify your yidam as your guru; you look up to the yidam as the guru. Then at a certain point, you view your yidam at eye level, and your yidam becomes less than a guru. But each sadhana has to begin with guru yoga, with guru devotion.

  The samayasattva is like creating merchandise, and the jnanasattva is like finally putting a price tag on it and selling it. Or we could say that the samayasattva is like being born into a rich family, and the jnanasattva is like finally inheriting the money from your parents. Because of the descent of the jnanasattva, the samayasattva is legitimized. It has real value, real responsibility, and real goodness.

  The jnanasattva is a final confirmation. But again, I would like to make it clear that the jnanasattva is not regarded as external, outside, or even subtly or semi-outside. It is not as though a divine being were entering into your system, or as though you were being possessed by the Holy Ghost. The jnanasattva is a very basic and subtle thing; your own sanity begins to possess your visualization. In some sense, we could say that when you begin to visualize, you are on a trip; you are just imagining all sorts of colors and forms. But finally, when the jnanasattva descends, you are “untripped.” Your trip is transcended. You are finally confirmed and blessed, so you do not have to imagine anymore. What you have imagined becomes a real vision, rather than a fantasy. So the difference between the samayasattva and the jnanasattva is the difference between a trip and a vision.

  With the samayasattva, you are trying to visualize as well as you can, but the visualization is still made by you. Because the visualization is homemade, you might feel that there is some kind of dirt from your hands on this sacred object. The samayasattva is somewhat related with a guilt complex. You are still a wretched person trying to visualize this ideal, so it is an imperfect ideal. The ideal is imperfect because it is connected with guilt and an element of the fall of humanity.

  The jnanasattva is a replica of what you have visualized. It is the unvisualized form that descends on you, the pure form of the deity. When the jnanasattva enters into the samayasattva, it takes out all the doubts. It legitimizes what you are doing completely. The jnanasattva makes it so that this particular vision or inspiration is no longer homemade, but heavenly made. The jnanasattva is not made by you or by anyone. It just comes to you. From where? From nowhere. It comes from under, from the side, from above, from everything, from everywhere.

  The jnanasattva descends on you from the realm of what is called kye-me, or “unborn.” It has no makeup, but it still has a form. As the jnanasattva descends, it then becomes one with you. This is possible due to the encouragement of the lineage, who have a relationship with the jnanasattva and who authorize you to bring down those things that come from nowhere. And when the jnanasattvas descend, they don’t come down on diamond stepladders, but they come down like snowflakes falling into a lake and melting.

  It is important in tantric practice to understand the meaning of samayasattva and jnanasattva. It is an important point for tantric practice. The jnanasattva is anything that makes your ordinary little mind exasperated. It is like an explosion from inward. It is just there—unmade, unborn, unoriginated. The jnanasattva is the transcendental aspect of the deity; it is shunyata and wisdom. It embodies the five wisdoms and an
ything good that you think of.

  The jnanasattva is not a spirit, and it is not exactly shunyata. If it were purely shunyata, there wouldn’t be anything or there would be everything, so it would be very confusing. And in the absence of confusion, it would still be very confusing. If it were an external deity coming down, it would be very difficult to dissolve it like a snowflake melting into a lake. Something would still be left. So jnanasattva is quite different from the idea of spirit, and it is different from the idea of God descending or, for that matter, the Holy Ghost functioning.

  The jnanasattva is a result of your wakefulness. Because you are so awake, you begin to see things very sharply. For instance, if you are awake, feel good, and have good health, you see everything vividly. You have good eyesight, so you don’t need glasses; you have good hearing, so you don’t need a hearing aid. You don’t need any of those things. You are a healthy human being, very sharp and interested. With youthful exuberance, everything is penetratingly sharp. You are not sleepy, either. You are awake, and you begin to see that things are very vivid and clear, and at the same time you see that these things are a part of your world.

  There is no question about that, and no alienation. There is no particular grudge against anybody. That is the kind of state we are talking about. We could describe it in another way by saying that it is like being a person who is falling in love. When you fall in love, you even lose your sense of possessiveness because you begin to melt like butter on a stove. You don’t exist, and that doesn’t exist—you just melt. You tingle with pleasure at even the thought of the person you are in love with. This is another example we could give; falling in love is a valid analogy for dissolving the jnanasattva into the samayasattva.