The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness

by Chogyam Trungpa

  We are not talking about a mysterious force or energy. It is your receptivity, your state of being, that determines how transparent the jnanasattva could be. If you are self-conscious, if you are holding on to your ego and your defense mechanisms and are a clumsy old fool, the jnanasattva will be a clumsy old fool in the disguise of a jnanasattva. Such a jnanasattva is very difficult to dissolve. It just drops into the water, and if you drink that water, probably you will get indigestion. So the more purified and open your state of being, that much more smooth and flexible is the jnanasattva. It is you who gives it life. It is your own life, very much so—as much as the sun is your sun, and the moon is your moon.

  In tantra, there are no visualizations without the samayasattva and the jnanasattva. We should be very clear about that. The samayasattvajnanasattva relationship destroys the clinging of ego. Without that, the visualization becomes purely imagination. In fact, it has been said in the tantras that if you visualize without the jnanasattva descending, or if you visualize without the awareness of shunyata, you achieve rudrahood, the building up of ego. The result of the samayasattva being visualized without the jnanasattva is that you become highly centralized in your ego, and you begin to make a more than necessary big deal of yourself.

  Your yidam becomes a valid yidam when the samayasattva receives the jnanasattva. That is when it becomes a one-hundred-percent yidam instead of a fifty-percent one. If it weren’t for the samayasattva and jnanasattva, your visualization could become an ego trip, because you are just imagining yourself to be a yidam, which you are actually not. There is nothing to give and nothing to open to. In samsaric-style visualization, you would like to visualize something good. You would like to visualize yourself as some kind of god, and you would like to keep your territory intact, whereas the jnanasattva coming to you cuts down the possibility of keeping any territory of your own making. It cuts the misunderstanding that the visualization is made by you alone. So the visualization has greater, more open, and more spacious qualities.

  Visualizing Yourself as the Yidam

  The samayasattva is a samsaric projection of yourself. But if you were actually visualizing a samsaric projection of yourself, you would not visualize yourself as a yidam, the symbol of enlightenment. Instead you would visualize yourself indulging in an enormous meal in a restaurant, or having a big orgy, or dancing, or drinking yourself to death, or driving a sports car, or anything else that you can think of. Those are the kinds of common visualizations everybody has.

  However, visualizing yourself as a yidam is a really eccentric visualization. You are visualizing somebody who has an entirely different mode of behavior. A yidam behaves either in a completely angry form or a completely peaceful form. Yidams hold various scepters, like monarchs do, and they emanate all kinds of good vibrations, even though they may be frightening or terrible or overpoweringly good. It is for that reason that such images as herukas and dakinis developed, and you can visualize them. They represent the basic philosophy of tantra, which is the idea that your basic makeup is like that of the herukas and dakinis.

  When you study the five buddha-families and realize what buddha-family you are, this gives you enormous hope that your style of being messed up could actually be related with the wisdom of enlightenment. It is not just a vague hope, or the idea that you are going to be okay eventually; but it is the belief that your particular hang-ups are connected with certain types of wisdom. There is actually a link. Some kind of dialogue was taking place before you knew who actually was holding the dialogue. Your absentminded mind and your nonexistent enlightenment potential had a dialogue before you knew where you were, and they decided to make you into a yogi, or practitioner.

  If you have any knowledge of the buddha-family principles, even at the neurotic level, it is a stepping-stone. You realize that there is something happening that is more than just samsara alone. For instance, if you think you are karma family, that automatically means you are going to become the yidam Amoghasiddhi. That is what you are actually saying. When you identify yourself with a certain family, it is not like having an astrological chart made for you that determines what fate you might have as you go on with your life. You are actually saying something fantastic: you are saying that you belong to a particular family, and therefore you are going to become one of the five buddhas. In fact, once you identify yourself with one of those buddhas, you are actually one of them already. On one hand, that is somewhat presumptuous; but on the other hand, it is not presumptuous, because you are identifying with your neurosis at the same time. As long as you have those elements of neurosis, you are naturally bound to get the other side as well.

  PROPER VISUALIZATION

  In order to visualize properly, there needs to be some kind of mental training at the beginning. You need to have some reconciliation with your thoughts and emotions, and you need to allow them to come through. In vipashyana experience, anything that occurs in your mind is not rejected and not accepted. The basic accommodation of free-flowingness, carelessness, or detachment has developed. Having developed that—not necessarily constantly, but having had an occasional glimpse of that—then the visualization becomes less a collection, and more a matter of things developing in the space within that awareness. So visualization depends on a person’s previous training in the three yana disciplines.

  Visualization is a catalyst for seeing the phenomenal world in an enlightened way. But this does not mean that you see blue Vajradharas walking down Wall Street. It is much more subtle than that. When you visualize, you are visualizing your particular version, concept, and understanding of a particular deity. Therefore, a philosophical and spiritual understanding of that deity is important. Otherwise, you are just throwing yourself into a foreign culture. Without having some idea of the deity’s significance, you have no way of relating with it. So before you visualize, you have to come as close as you can to knowing the complete story of the figure in question.

  For instance, if you are visualizing Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, you need to have some feeling about compassion, and what compassion actually means. You have to know what the Buddhist tantric view of compassion is all about, and how this differs from the ordinary understanding of compassion. Once you understand that and begin to have a feeling about it, you are then in a position to visualize Avalokiteshvara. A similar process applies to all the rest of the visualizations in vajrayana practice.

  The idea of visualization is to catch a glimpse of personal feeling and an environmental feeling, not just of the objects of visualization themselves, but also what surrounds those forms. By visualizing in that way, you begin to develop some understanding of the deity you are visualizing. You understand the physical and psychological environment of that deity, and the tradition out of which that practice comes.

  The Purpose of Visualization

  The purpose of visualization is not to re-create longing concepts, or concepts that have to do with what you want to happen. It is not like when you are hungry and you visualize chocolate cake or a fat steak. It is much subtler than that. Visualization is simply the active mind putting its attention toward and identifying with basic sanity, symbolized in the forms of various deities. It incorporates your own personal emotional experience.

  For instance, if somebody has been lecturing you, saying the same things over and over again, you might express that feeling visually as somebody dressed in gray clothes droning on in a monotone and putting you to sleep. If you feel angry, you might have a visual sensation of blazing fire. If you feel lustful, you might picture yourself swimming through cool water with a tinge of sweet in it. Your emotions play a part in visualization in this way.

  The kinds of visual perspectives that exist in your ordinary life continue in visualization practice. But visualization is not a matter of your feeling dingy, dark, wet, and cold, and since you feel you need bright sunshine, you suddenly picture tropical isles and the seaside. It is not as simple as that. But often people do think about v
isualization in that way. In particular, there are examples of that approach among people who are trying to visualize on the basis of only elementary training in the tantric tradition of either Hinduism or Buddhism. Such students try to visualize great, beautiful, and glorious things, but that approach is based on simply wanting to escape. These students want to get rid of their problems, so they try to visualize the opposite of them. That is actually more a neurotic problem than an insightful technique.

  There is always that problem of trying to use visualization as a way of calming down, or as a way of feeding your expectations with a complete dream world. If you feel thirsty, you visualize a Coca-Cola bottle or a nice cool drink. If you feel cold and wet, you visualize a nice, warm house with a nice fire in the fireplace, or a nice down jacket. If you feel terribly poor, you visualize making lots of money. Those are little tricks we play when we don’t like what is happening. They are the ordinary visualizations arising out of boredom, neurosis, and pain that many Americans experience. The creation of Disneyland is a dream come true, a visualization come true. In Disneyland, there are lots of rides and you can get into all kinds of funfairs. But that is not quite what we are talking about. We are not talking about a vajrayana Disneyland, or simply trying to quell our neurosis or quench our immense thirst.

  It is possible to regard the deities as completely beyond the trikaya, as simply the energy of outer space, simply part of human consciousness. When you visualize, the whole idea is that you are trying to break through something. Eventually, you are supposed to transcend the deities that you visualize. The deities are not regarded as objects of worship or objects of accomplishment. It is the same with shamatha practice: eventually you are supposed to transcend your focus on the breath. So a visualization is a kind of temporary measure, another Band-Aid. It may be a colorful one, but you are still supposed to take it off when the wound is healed. A visualization is a kind of prop or trick. That is why we refer to it as upaya, or skillful means.

  The best way to prepare for visualization is through regular sitting practice, rather than by playing with your perceptions or with phenomena. The only exception would be cultivating a sense of humor. Humor makes you begin to see the world in a different perspective. You see the differences between being in a retreat hut and coming into the city. This perspective on the colors and powers that exist is natural and obvious. It has a powerful impact on you. But apart from that, I wouldn’t recommend anything other than just sitting meditation.

  GIVING BIRTH TO THE VISUALIZATION

  Visualization practice is connected with the realization of things as they are in terms of symbolism. In this practice, you have a sense of the presence of the particular deity—and at the same time, the absence of the deity is also the presence of the deity.

  You start with formless meditation, or dzogrim. In formless practice, you empty yourself out completely into the charnel ground, which is the birthplace and death place of everything. You begin with a basic understanding of shunyata, which is called the shunyata deity, and from there the visualization takes place in stages.

  Next, having contemplated and meditated on shunyata, you visualize and experience the seed syllable, or bija mantra. This step is called the divine principle of letter, character, or written form.

  So first you visualize the bija, or seed syllable, and from there you transform yourself into a deity. This is like human birth: when you are first conceived, there is an egg, or bija, and from there you have to develop. So bija is connected with birth and with the evolution of life; bija is the seed or the egg of your birth. In visualization practice, you are dealing with different types of birth and purifying them. You are purifying birth from an egg, birth from a womb, birth from moisture, and spontaneous birth.1

  Bija mantras can also be used as a spell. Once you have achieved a particular sadhana and identified with the deity, you can use the bija mantra as a creative or destructive spell.

  Next you visualize the divine sound principle, sending forth rays of light from the bija mantra that you have visualized, and fulfilling all the actions of samsara and nirvana.

  Having heard the sound of the bija mantra, which could be OM, AH, HUM, or anything of that nature, that is then transformed into visual symbolism. For instance, you might have the symbols of the five buddha principles: the vajra for the vajra family, the jewel for the ratna family, the lotus for the padma family, the sword or crossed vajra for the karma family, and the wheel for the buddha family. Some symbol of that nature occurs in your mind.

  So the bija mantra is much more than just a word, it is an onomatopoeic symbol. And that symbol then turns into an anthropomorphic image. So there are two stages of creating an image. When you hear the word sword, for example, you first hear the sound sword, and having understood the sound, you simultaneously get a picture of a sword in your mind.

  In the final stage of the visualization process, a particular form takes shape from the symbol or seed syllable. You create the visualization itself. This is called the divine principle of form.

  Then various mudras, symbols, or scepters are placed in the hands of the visualized deities, which is called the divine principle of mudra.

  Once the visualization is complete, you practice the repetition of a mantra in which you bless or consecrate yourself as a complete mantric being or mantric principle. This is called the divine principle of mark or sign. At this point you are completely involved in the practice, which is a question of becoming an actual deity rather than purely a principle. You have twenty-four-hour awareness of what you are and who you are in that particular practice.

  When you have completed a session of visualization practice, everything is dissolved back into the charnel ground.

  After your meditation, you remain in the charnel ground continuously. You practice meditation in action. At this point you do not need to continue the repetition of the mantra. In postmeditation, you should have an awareness or imprint of the mantra repetition taking place as part of your thought process, rather than actually doing it on the spot.

  THE IMPORTANCE OF MENTAL CLARITY IN VISUALIZATION

  In visualization practice, there is a quality of total awareness and clarity. That is one of the most important points of this practice. If you have mental clarity, you will automatically pick up on hang-ups. You do not pick up on only the good aspects, but you pick up on the heavy-handed and confused ones as well. You work with the confused aspects the same as you work with the good ones. It does not make any difference.

  Visualization is not a matter of thinking: “I would like to visualize Vajradhara,” and suddenly—wham!—he’s out there holding his bell and dorje. That seems to be much too crude and illiterate an approach to visual perception. It lacks dignity and a sense of process. Usually in vajrayana disciplines you do not have sudden visualizations, except in the highest levels of tantra. In the earlier yanas, it is a training process. In order to have form, there first has to be the potential of form. The potential of form leads to the possibility of form, and after that the actual form appears. The potentiality is the seed syllable, the possibility is the symbol, and the fruition of the process is that the actual visualization occurs.

  You might think this is unnecessary red tape or some kind of dogma, but that’s not true. This is how our mind usually works. We have a sudden insight, very sudden and direct, and if we are very speedy, we just flash on that idea. But if we actually dissect our process of thinking in slow-motion, we see that the process of suddenly flashing on an idea is actually very gradual. First there is the seed of the idea, the seed syllable or sound; then that begins to develop; and finally there is the full image. And then we begin to operate on the basis of that image.

  As an ordinary example, if somebody says, “How are you?” we condense that whole phrase into a single little unit of sound and meaning—“howareyou.” We have some idea of that person asking, “How are you?” Then we begin to formulate that into a shape or a symbol. It becomes visual, or imagery.
And finally we have the whole picture very fine and clear, so that we know how we are going to react to that person. Depending on the situation, we might say, “I’m fine, thank you” or “Not doing so well.”

  The mental process always takes place in stages. It is like taking a photograph. When you press the button, the first exposure of the film to a particular object is like the bija-mantra level. Then the type of film and the length of the exposure work together, creating a definite impact on the film, and finally the picture has been taken fully. This is the kind of three-stage process that we always go through. This is not dogma; it is actually how we handle our mind.

  It is very precise and extraordinarily beautiful how the vajrayanists studied human perception so completely. They made the way we handle our world into transcendental wisdom. They made the way we perceive into a vajra religious-type approach, and then translated it back to us, so we could learn in the manner that we are describing here. So this three-stage process is not to be regarded as superstition or just doctrinal—it is personal experience that develops spontaneously. The seed, the mudra or symbol, and the form develop in that way, and the relationship of the practitioner to the visualization harmonizes with this approach.

  You develop immense concentration when you begin to visualize in that way. Very strict concentration begins to develop, and having developed greater concentration and realization, you begin to attain the level of crazy wisdom, the vidyadhara level. You begin to attain a glimpse of Vajradhara, the tantric name for Buddha as the teacher of the vajrayana. At the same time, you continue to practice shamatha-vipashyana along with visualization practice, which helps you to visualize properly. One of the important tantric vows is not to look down upon such loweryana practices.