The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness

by Chogyam Trungpa

  This abhisheka is, again, a water abhisheka. In this case, the guru sprinkles water all over your body. He pours water over your head, and he gives you a portion of the water, which you are expected to take back to your home as protection water. He may also give you a protection cord.1

  It may seem that when you receive this water protection abhisheka, not a great deal happens. But there will definitely be communication and connection transmitted. In particular, at the level of the water purification abhisheka, you are relating with a magic potion of some kind. It may be your imagination or your psychological state, or it may be because you are receptive to suggestion, but at the same time it is somehow very real. It is real because you have opened your mind to that situation. You are afraid of it, and at the same time you hope you might get something out of it.

  That simultaneous mixture of fear and hope produces enormous openness. With that combination, you are open to the virus of kriyayoga. So the people who get hit the hardest, in terms of receiving some kind of message or energy, are the people who are afraid and open at the same time. Things have more effect on them than on people who are fully afraid or fully open.

  After the water and crown abhishekas, a very feeble but well-meaning watcher is left.2 But when you receive the water protection abhisheka of kriyayoga, quite possibly your watcher is the target. This abhisheka is to protect you from that watcher, to purify you from that watcher. The vajra master has the power to dispel your watcher. And in this case, at the level of the water protection abhisheka of kriyayoga, you are pacifying evil spirits—and the watcher is an evil spirit, if you would like to put it that way. Psychologically, once you receive this abhisheka, you feel that you have been washed. You feel as if you have been stripped, and completely and utterly cleansed.

  ENRICHING ABHISHEKA. The final kriyayoga abhisheka is the enriching abhisheka. Having purified everything and having given up everything, you still need to have a roof over your head, and you still need food to eat. There are still physical needs. Therefore, you need the power to make yourself comfortable, so that poverty does not hassle you in your life. In order to provide that power of enrichment, the same eight types of ingredients that were presented to the Buddha by various people at the attainment of his enlightenment are presented to you by the vajra master. The ingredients given to the Buddha were a kind of insurance so that having attained enlightenment, he did not have to suffer from poverty, and the offerings given to you in this abhisheka are a continuation of that tradition. With this abhisheka, you are provided with that magical power of enrichment.

  The eight ingredients are usually presented to you as pictures. It would be preferable to have the real things, but generally nobody takes the trouble to do so. But whether you are presented with the ingredient itself or with a picture of it, this is saying the same thing, since whatever you see is a color postcard in any case.

  EIGHT INGREDIENTS OR OFFERINGS. The first ingredient presented to you is a milk drink, which is in the form of a picture that the vajra master puts in your hand.3 The next ingredient is a kusha grass mat, symbolizing the spot where Buddha sat after he was given the milk drink. The third ingredient is a sesame seed, which gives protection from evil spirits. The fourth ingredient is the gallbladder of an elephant, which has all kinds of medicinal powers, such as reducing high blood pressure. The fifth ingredient is litri, or red lead, a mineral or orange-colored stone that is ground and used quite widely in India. Litri has the power to reduce high blood pressure; it also acts as a laxative and cleanses the circulation. The sixth ingredient is bamboo. It is not hollow bamboo but solid bamboo, which is very strong, and which is also used for medicinal purposes. The seventh ingredient is a kind of fruit known as a wood apple. This type of fruit is used more as an ornament than as actual food. The eighth and last offering is a mirror, symbolizing the mirror that was presented to the Buddha by a goddess as a confirmation of his health. If you feel sick and you look in a mirror, you may very well look sick. But once you have taken all these ingredients and you feel good, when you look in your mirror, you look good.

  EIGHT AUSPICIOUS SYMBOLS. Having received the eight auspicious ingredients, the quality of wealth developed in this abhisheka is enacted through the presentation of the eight auspicious symbols: the lotus, for speech and for purity; the knot of eternity for your heart, for your awareness, and for harmony; the umbrella for protection; the conch shell for proclamation; the victory banner for overcoming obstacles; the golden fish for fearlessness; the dharma wheel for knowledge and realization; and the treasure vase for prosperity and long life.

  Having already stripped away all doubts and washed out any dirt you had on you, you are finally confirmed. You are given fundamental wealth or richness. It is as though you had washed, abandoned your rags, and finally are given a royal costume. However, although you have been given a royal costume, you are not yet enthroned as a king or queen. There is no notion of actually becoming royalty at this point. This empowerment is still very much concerned with making you a good citizen in the tantric tribal setup.

  KRIYAYOGA SAMAYA

  The samaya process in kriyayoga is very direct and safe, in the positive sense that you could be ideally healthy, both psychologically and physically. In kriyayoga, the samaya vow is connected with surrendering, while in later yanas, samaya involves an identification with all the deities, which gives you a quality of vajra pride.

  The commitment in kriyayoga is related to purification, so it involves a task or action. You may feel that as a burden, but this burden is good. It is a journey. Even in the experience of enlightenment, or complete purification, if you have enough compassion you will still have this sense of burden. However, if you regard enlightenment as a good vacation, then you are far back on the path.

  1. A protection cord is a colored string with a special knot in it that has been blessed by a vajrayana teacher. It is worn around the neck or kept in a special place as a form of protection, and as a reminder of one’s practice and one’s link with the teacher.

  2. The watcher is a reference to the self-conscious factor in sitting meditation, that which keeps track. For a discussion of the watcher, see volume 1 of the Profound Treasury, part 3, “Meditation / Samadhi,” in the section entitled “The Four Foundations of Mindfulness.”

  3. This offering mirrors the milk drink offered the Buddha by a milkmaid at the crucial turning point in his path, when he decided to drop the practice of austerity and sit by himself under the bodhi tree until he attained realization.

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  Kriyayoga: Practice

  Kriyayoga is the first yana beyond mahayana, and it is a great exposure to the vajra world, which is fantastic. But you need to keep it cool. The idea is to be humble.

  CREATING THE MANDALA

  The basic principle of kriyayoga is spotlessness. In Sanskrit this is vimala, or “purity.” Spotlessness is a quality of the peaceful deities, since dirt can never perch on such deities. According to kriyayoga, there is definitely such a thing as a clean mind, and it is very possible to achieve that pure mind. Spotlessness does exist, and you could achieve it. There is absolute purity.

  In kriyayoga, you need to be completely cleansed and purified. You should radiate purity. As we mentioned earlier, vegetarianism is important in kriyayoga because it is thought that taking in anything impure is very improper, and eating flesh is considered to be a form of taking in impurity. So vegetarianism in kriyayoga has nothing to do with the principle of nonviolence toward animals. It is simply a form of tantric kriyayoga chemistry. Kriyayoga also shares the Hindu idea of the sacredness of the cow. So in creating the physical mandala of kriyayoga, you purify the ground of the mandala with what are called the five ingredients of a cow: dung, urine, milk, snot, and saliva.1

  Kriyayoga is one of the most meticulously ritualistic yanas. Ritual is the basis of kriyayoga’s connection with tantra, and it is also a basic philosophy of kriyayoga. One example is the sand mandala. The details of creating elaborate colo
red-sand mandalas were transmitted to Tibetan kriyayoga practitioners directly from India by the tantric kriyayoga masters. Some people say that the Tibetans have a cultural link with the Native Americans, because native people also make sand paintings. However, such a link is more wishful thinking than reality.

  In a kriyayoga empowerment ceremony, the space in front of you will usually be organized as a shrine, with a mandala created out of colored sand, which is the prescribed form of a mandala in kriyayoga. The various ritual objects that are connected with kriyayoga principles and deities are then placed upon that mandala. The kriyayoga tantra says that it is necessary to understand the proportions and colors of the mandala properly. Upon that mandala the various ritual objects, the objects connected with kriyayoga principles and deities, are placed.

  In the lower tantric yanas, a sand mandala is considered the best mandala to use. If you cannot do that, you can use a painting of the mandala, and if you cannot manage that, you can arrange heaps of grain in the shape of the mandala. In the higher tantric yanas, it is the opposite. According to the three higher tantras, the best way to create a mandala is by arranging heaps of grain; the second-best way is by using a painting; and the third and worst way is by creating a sand mandala. So in the lower tantric yanas, a more meticulous approach is best; and in the higher tantric yanas, which lean toward simplicity, less elaborateness is best.

  FAMILIES OR BUDDHA PRINCIPLES

  Kriyayoga does not yet have five buddha-families. It is too early on the tantric path to get into that level of sophistication. Here there are six families divided into three transcendent and three worldly families. The three transcendent families are the tathagata family, the padma family, and the vajra family; the three worldly families are the family of jewels or wealth, the family of prosperity,2 and the family of the ordinary.

  Three Transcendent Families

  In terms of correspondence with the five buddha-family principles, the tathagata family corresponds with the buddha, ratna, and the karma families jumbled together; the padma family corresponds with the padma family; and the vajra family with the vajra family. The reason kriyayoga does not include the ratna or karma families as separate families is that the kriyayoga mentality and approach is so puritanical and cleanliness oriented. It has not developed the power of ratna or the speed of karma. Therefore, you only have three transcendent families in kriyayoga: the tathagata family, the padma family, and the vajra family.

  As for the principal deities or inhabitants of the transcendental world, the tathagata family includes all the buddhas, although at this point they are not named as the five buddhas, but are just a collection of buddhas. For the padma family, you have the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, and for the vajra family, you have the bodhisattva Vajrapani.

  Three Worldly Families

  The three worldly families represent the lower realm, the worldly shadows of the previous ones. The jewel family is related to the tathagata family, the prosperity family to the padma family, and the ordinary family to the vajra family. The jewel family is connected with the Vaishravana, the god of wealth. The prosperity family is connected with the hungry ghosts, or the feeling of poverty, and also, according to the books, with seeking for joy. The ordinary family is connected with any sort of brahmaloka, or god realm, which is the traditional dwelling place of Hindu deities such as Brahma and Krishna, as well as mythical beings such as garudas (birds), gandharvas (messengers), and all the rest. You also have a touch of the tathagatas and of Avalokiteshvara and Vajrapani, but the sense of the transcendental families is not quite complete.

  ENTERING THE MANDALA

  In kriyayoga, you enter the vajrayana mandala from the front door, which is in the East, according to the mandala principle. The East is connected with the vajra family, so you start with the vajra family. That is definitely the first family you come across. Kriyayoga seems to be particularly suited to the vajra family, because it has so much to do with water. Akshobhya is the buddha of the vajra family, and his consort is Mamaki, who in this case is connected with the earth, or with enriching.3 So kriyayoga has a lot of connections with the vajra family.

  MANDALA DEITIES

  In a mandala, the principal deity appears in the center, and is called the owner or proprietor of the mandala. Surrounding the central deity are the proprietor’s consort and the protective deities, or bodyguards. There are wrathful gods and goddesses, as well as masculine and feminine messengers, and masculine and feminine servants. Those are the general categories of deities found in a mandala, and it is the pattern of deities that we have in kriyayoga.

  As an example of a kriyayoga mandala, if you study the Mahavairochana mandala of the Japanese Shingon tradition, you will see that there are something like forty-two gods, including wrathful gods, peaceful gods, messengers, servants, and so forth. All of those deities are connected with the six buddha principles: the three transcendent and the three worldly families. The central figure is connected with one of the three transcendent families: the tathagata, padma, or vajra family. The other figures, such as the servants and messengers, are connected with the three worldly families. They are from the jewel, prosperity, or ordinary families, and may include worldly gods, garudas, Vishnu, Shiva, and others.

  DEITIES AND CLEANSING

  In kriyayoga tantra, the central deity of the mandala is a peaceful one. The deity manifests a peaceful state of purifying, tranquillizing, and opening—a pacified state of being. The yidam’s consort, the feminine principle, represents enriching. Symbolically, the combination is like having a massage after taking a shower. Once you have thoroughly bathed or showered and steamed yourself in order to purify yourself, all the oils that exist in the pores of your skin are completely cleansed and washed out, as if you had gone through a washing machine. Therefore it is necessary to have yourself massaged with oil.

  So cleanliness alone is not the way, but you have to regain the energy of the purity that comes from such cleanliness. That energy has to be re-created. For example, if you give a bath to a corpse, it gets clean, but it does not shine with liveliness or cleanliness. However, if you give a bath to a living person, their healthiness shows. The principle of bathing and then being massaged with oil also represents the magnetizing quality of the consort. So the consort of the deity represents both the magnetizing and enriching qualities at this point.

  The peaceful and enriching central kriyayoga deities are accompanied by several wrathful deities or protectors. The wrathful principle in kriyayoga is not quite the same as in the other tantric yanas. Here the idea of wrathfulness is just extra coloring, which creates a definite boundary or territory. It is as if, having bathed and properly massaged your body with oil, you put your bright clothes on. The wrathful principle is protection against dirt; the wrathful deities are saying that this is an area of purity that no one can touch.

  VISUALIZATION PRACTICE

  Visualization practice is a way of actualizing or experiencing certain realities by following the specific instructions given to you. In kriyayoga visualization practice, proper preparation and trust are essential.

  Proper Preparation

  Kriyayoga includes the practice of visualization, but there is a danger if you try to jump into this form of the creative use of imagination before you have developed shamatha and vipashyana practice, which makes you more peaceful and aware. Without shamatha-vipashyana, visualization practice could be a very big ego trip. Unless you have some understanding of mind control or ego control and the experience of relating with neurosis and boredom and so forth, none of these tantric practices will actually be workable at all.

  You would go completely haywire if you just started with visualization. You might be floating in the air, doing offerings and uttering your mantras, but so what? What does that visualization mean to you? Visualization practice is supposed to be good for you, but where does the goodness come from? Unless there is an understanding of basic goodness and basic sanity, unless you can actually relate with your
sanity properly, there will be no goodness coming out of anywhere. The whole thing will be chaos and aggression.

  It is necessary for you to acknowledge your journey as a solid journey. It is necessary that you know your breath, that you know your body, and that you know your thoughts. This is an enormous relief. It is a relief to know that your breath makes sense, and that your thoughts make sense or do not make sense; when you know this, then the whole thing becomes less of a dream. That is very important, otherwise you cannot take the true kriyayoga approach to reality. You cannot take part in the water abhisheka, let alone the crown abhisheka. You cannot take part in any of those abhishekas unless you have an actual understanding of things directly and thoroughly as they are.

  We had a lot of problems in Tibet with people collecting abhishekas and initiations. They would just extend their hands, get the blessed water, drink it, and then leave. If you asked them, “What was that abhisheka all about?” they would reply, “I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. It was given by a great teacher, and I managed to drink the water, so I don’t have to be particularly careful about what commitment I’m making.”

  Externalizing Trust

  A particular characteristic of visualization practice in kriyayoga tantra is that you do not visualize yourself as one of the deities. Instead, you worship the yidams as external helpers. This is similar to what you find in Hinduism, where you visualize external deities as objects of worship. So although Buddhist kriyayoga is a nontheistic approach, there is a still quality of reverence. A Buddhist practitioner of kriyayoga still carries with them a quality of externalized trust from the day that person took the refuge vow. They maintain the idea of taking refuge in the Buddha as an example. So in kriyayoga visualization practice, it is felt that you personally cannot identify yourself with a particular yidam.