The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness

by Chogyam Trungpa

  One of the outstanding qualities of mahamudra is its eternally youthful quality. It is eternally youthful because there is no sense of repetition, no wearing out of interest because of familiarity. Instead, every experience is new and fresh.

  1. Gongpachen is often translated as “implied” or “intended,” and gongpa mayinpa as “not implied” or “not intended.”

  2. This pair is also translated as “provisional” and “definitive.”

  3. This pair is often translated as “explicit” and “not explicit.”

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  Uniting with Open Space

  The importance of anuttarayoga yoga is that you are no longer hesitant in any situation at all. In the hinayana, you regarded yourself as a little ascetic person, a mendicant or a monk. In the mahayana, you were a hardworking social worker. In the vajrayana, you finally become a royal personage. You deserve to be enthroned.

  SEEING THE GURU AND YIDAM AS ONE

  In anuttarayoga, guru yoga becomes very important, not only due to the practice itself, but due to the enormous commitment and devotion involved. This is connected with the idea that in samaya, you are sandwiched between your guru and yidam by a diamond nail; you are joined together as one. You see that the guru is none other than the yidam, and that the guru can grant you siddhis of all kinds. The guru is the embodiment of all the yidams and the central figure of the mandala. Guru yoga is that kind of awareness.

  Having related with the guru as your object of devotion, you begin to expand beyond that to also view the yidam as an object of devotion. At first, the yidam is represented by the guru or embodied in the guru, so the yidam is not yet independent, as in higher tantric practice. Instead, at this stage the yidam is a part of your guru. You slowly expand from there to see that the guru is your yidam. So at first, your connection to your yidam is through your guru. Then slowly, you begin to realize that your yidam is also your guru. You gradually expand, impersonalizing the guru as a fixed object of worship.

  BECOMING A FULL-FLEDGED HUMAN BEING

  The analogy for giving an anuttarayoga empowerment or abhisheka is that it is like giving your own inheritance to your child. In fact, according to the Kalachakra Tantra, it is like bringing up a child. As soon as a baby is born, the baby is bathed, which is like the water abhisheka, the empowerment of purity and vajra nature. After the child is cleansed, it gets dried with a towel, which is the idea of coronation. Then the baby is clothed and adorned with all kinds of paraphernalia, which is an enriching kind of thing. At this point you give the child an appropriate name, which is like the name abhisheka.

  Having been bathed and clothed, the child begins to make sounds and noises. The baby begins to develop a need for the phenomenal world in order to entertain itself. Introducing the baby to the world is like giving the child a vajra and a bell. In turn, the child begins to react and to make noises of appreciation or acknowledgment. Then the child begins to be educated. You expose the child to visual and touchable objects and to the sense perceptions. You bring it toys and information about this world. That is like the abhisheka of a vajra master. And with that abhisheka, you become a full-fledged human being.

  ANUTTARAYOGA EMPOWERMENTS

  There are four empowerments in anuttarayoga: the outer abhisheka, the secret or inner abhiskeka, the prajna-jnana abhisheka, and the formless abhisheka.

  Outer Abhisheka: Identifying with the Yidam

  In anuttarayoga, the first or outer abhisheka consists of the same five abhisheka principles of form that we discussed in the earlier yanas: water, crown, vajra, bell, and name. However, in talking about the five outer abhishekas, we are not referring to being confirmed by the tathagatas alone, but by the herukas. The idea is that the herukas have already confirmed you in the vajra water, vajra crown, vajra vajra, vajra ghanta, and vajra name. So there is an extraordinary vajrayana quality to the whole thing. The outrageousness of not keeping with conventional realities allows you to identify your body and any physical experience as the form of your yidam. You are physically identifying with your yidam.

  Secret Abhisheka: The Yidam and Consort in Union

  The secret or inner abhisheka is based on the union or copulation between the masculine yidam and the feminine yidam. As a result of their union, the yidam and consort together produce what is called amrita, or anti-death potion, and that amrita is received in a skull cup.

  This form of visualization changes your perspective on the contradictions or dichotomies between your body and your mind. It solves the problem of your body and your mind being unsynchronized. The problem we usually have in the samsaric world is that the body and mind are slightly out of sync. That is the seed of neurosis. It is like playing bad music at the wrong speed, or watching a movie with the sound track off. We speed too much, and there is no synchronization of body, speech, and mind.

  The secret abhisheka synchronizes the body and mind in the form of speech. It allows us to practice mantras or sacred sounds, and it gives us complete confidence in the mantra. Mantra is a way of protecting the conscious awareness of the body and mind. You have enough understanding that the body is body and the mind is mind, so both are synchronized. There is no fear of either going too extremely to the body, which would destroy the mind, or going too extremely to the mind, which would destroy the body. Mind here is not purely the mind alone, but the mind as consciousness. So with mantra, there is protection of the consciousness. It is protecting basic awareness.

  Prajna-Jnana Abhisheka: Sexual Union

  The third abhisheka, or prajna-jnana abhisheka, is connected with karma yoga or karmamudra. This abhisheka is unusual and special to this particular yana. In tantra, there are said to be two doors or two exits: the upper and the lower. The upper door to enlightenment is through the practices of meditation and visualization and so forth, and the lower door to the attainment of enlightenment is through sexual union.

  In sexual union, your partner is regarded as a spokesperson of the phenomenal world—or they are regarded as actually the phenomenal world. Your partner is Nairatmya, who is egoless or formless, and at the same time seductive. This is not a chauvinistic approach. Your partner could be male or female, so we are talking about the seduction of both sexes. The yogini’s practice is not different from the yogi’s. In either case, the idea is that sexual union is used as a way of awakening yourself and opening.

  The third abhisheka is related with finding, either physically or psychologically, your partner, who is traditionally described as a sixteen-year-old. The idea is that in sexual communication, the object is not desire, but reducing oneself and one’s complications into one dot. That one dot is joy. It is isness or secretness. There are no further complications. It is one-dotness, in which the different stages of orgasm could be experienced. In this case, orgasm could be interpreted as a physical, ordinary orgasm, or it could be interpreted as a psychological understanding of the pleasure of orgasm, which could be experienced at the same time.

  In the later generations of our lineage, this abhisheka has been given purely through pictures and symbols, or the psychological approach. I have heard that in the past, maybe ten generations ago, the vajra masters initiated oral abhisheka, but I have not experienced it myself, personally.1

  THE VIEW OF SEXUALITY AS ABRAHMACHARYA. Working with the wakeful quality at the moment of orgasm is a controversial topic. According to some teachers, physical orgasm and letting out your semen are considered to be sinful. I suppose from a medical point of view, it is true that you are wasting or destroying those eggs or sperm. In sexual intercourse, millions of sperm are fighting with each other, trying to survive. They are trying to get into the egg, which has a life of its own, and there seems to be a lot of chaos and fear. All the rest of the sperm are killed in order for one sperm to survive, the one who actually finds a home in the egg. So sexual orgasm actually destroys some kind of life; it is a form of murder. That is why sexual intercourse is regarded as unhealthy or unwholesome.

  For this reason,
sexual intercourse is referred to as abrahmacharya. A is a negation, brahma in this case means “complete,” and charya means “action”; so abrahmacharya means “incomplete action.” In contrast, with brahmacharya, or celibacy, where you are not destroying any life, you are living a complete life, a life that is full.2

  ORGASM AND THE EXPERIENCE OF NONTHOUGHT. In the third abhisheka, the idea is that in orgasm you are making a relationship with your innate nature. At the moment of orgasm, there is an experience of no mind, no thought. There is a meeting point taking place between you and your partner.

  The third abhisheka is referred to as the abhisheka of prajna, because it is so intelligent. You are not just doped up in your lukewarm sexual pleasure, in which you are uncertain whether you are coming or going, but some intelligence takes place, even wisdom.

  This abhisheka goes beyond solving the conflict between body and mind, and it goes beyond the introduction of mantra practice. It goes into an area where we have no idea what we are getting into, which is called the confused world. Supposedly, we are not really confused; we know how our body functions, we know how our mind functions, we know how our speech functions. But where we are functioning is uncertain, and this causes hallucinations, fear, and confusion.

  The reason the image of orgasm is used in this abhisheka is because frigidity is related with that quality of bewilderment. We have our functions within us completely and totally, but we have no idea of our partner as a vajra king or queen. So when we begin to relate with the environment and to expand out, the vajra king or vajra queen is not acknowledged, which seems to be a form of psychological or physical frigidity. The reference to orgasm has to do with not being afraid of opening into outer space experience.

  MAKING FRIENDS WITH THE PHENOMENAL WORLD. The prajna-jnana abhisheka can also be referred to as secret, because it cannot be understood without the previous abhishekas. This abhisheka can be shown to you only if you sense that the external world is no longer a mystery or a sheer drop off a cliff, but workable and loving, inviting, soft, and warm, as your consort might be. The point is that you have been afraid of your consort. You have been so afraid of your partner that you do not know what you are going to do with them. Even if you find a consort, you are completely frozen.

  The idea of the third abhisheka is that your partner is no longer a vampire or a demon or a leech. Your partner is open space. In that totality of space, there is room and there is sympathy, and communication can take place if you are willing to submit yourself to it. That is how to relate with the pure abhisheka experience. The actual practice seems to come later on.

  Formless Abhisheka: Transcending Reference Points

  Of all the special practices that exist in anuttarayoga, the third abhisheka is regarded as one of the hottest points, but by no means does this imply that you should disregard the fourth abhisheka. The fourth abhisheka, which is the formless abhisheka, is the actual experience of what happened to you at the level of the third abhisheka. The formless abhisheka is the total introduction of dharmata, or tathata.3 All the forms and images dissolve into you, and any reference point seems to be needless. As a result of the first three abhishekas—which you receive successively, one, two, three—when you receive the fourth abhisheka, there is a sense of having totally transcended.

  THE ARISING OF SPONTANEOUS WISDOM

  Another aspect of the anuttarayoga abhishekas is the arising of spontaneous wisdom. In the third abhisheka, we experience example wisdom, and in the fourth abhisheka, we experience actual wisdom.

  Example Wisdom

  What occurs in the third abhisheka is that after the voidness of orgasm, there is a gap. There is a feeling of openness in which you automatically see what is called peyi yeshe, the yeshe of example, or “example-wisdom.” So you are using the mechanistic force of the physical body to approach the experience of no mind. You are physically cranking up your body and manufacturing wisdom. That is why this is called the wisdom of example. It is an example; you are copying from something. With the wisdom of example, you are manufacturing an experience at the factory level, so to speak.

  Actual Wisdom

  The fourth abhisheka, the real experience, does not depend on machines. In this abhisheka, there is a flash or a gap of no mind taking place all the time. You have instantaneous orgasm or nonthought happening constantly throughout the day. It is not dependent on chemicals or machines, but you actually possess it within yourself. It is beyond all that. So after the experience of peyi yeshe, you receive what is called töngyi yeshe, or “actual wisdom.”

  Peyi yeshe is the after-experience of the joy of union. With that kind of pleasure, the mind is completely blown into nothingness, into complete bliss, which is called the wisdom of example. Then, having taken that as your confirmation for future practice and the path, the wisdom that shows you how you can proceed with your practice is töngyi yeshe, actual wisdom, or the wisdom of meaning.

  The third and fourth abhishekas play a very important part in anuttarayoga, and the same pattern continues until the level of maha ati. From now on, in each yana there are basically the same four abhishekas, but there are different ways of looking at them. We do not need to add any further ones, because there already seem to be a large variety of abhishekas. The New Translation tantras love to add all kinds of new rituals and new abhishekas of this and that, so you have hundreds of millions of sub-abhishekas. But from the point of view of maha ati, or even the true mahamudra level, that seems to be a bit of a joke.

  BEING ACKNOWLEDGED AS A KING OR QUEEN

  The details of the anuttarayoga abhishekas, such as enthroning you as a master and giving you royal auspicious symbols, are similar to the previous abhishekas we discussed. Those details are not very important; they are just the inherited practices of the earlier tantras. Until we get to the three higher tantras, the tantric yanas tend to collect the previous rituals and formats as an inheritance rather than rejecting anything, which makes for longer and more complex abhishekas. But in anuttarayoga, there are just four principle abhishekas, which are extraordinarily powerful.

  When you receive the anuttarayoga abhishekas, you are regarded as already being a prince or princess. At this point, due to the greater power and immense composure that you have acquired, you are ready to be acknowledged as a king or a queen. Since loneliness has been realized already through the hinayana, and compassion has been experienced already in the mahayana, and dignity has been developed already through appreciating kündzop properly, you are now an ideal person to be crowned king or queen. So you are enthroned and given a crown; the scepters of vajra and bell are put in your hands; and you are anointed with all kinds of royal perfumes. You have finally decided to become a real king or queen.

  The importance of anuttarayoga is that you are no longer hesitant in any situation at all. In the hinayana, you regarded yourself as a little ascetic person, a mendicant or a monk. In the mahayana, you were a hardworking social worker. In the vajrayana, you finally become a royal personage. You deserve to be enthroned and to be adorned with all kinds of ornaments. There is no conflict with this world and that world anymore. The idea of being enthroned as a king or queen may be based on a Tibetan cultural approach, but it seems to be a very sane cultural approach.

  1. This seems to be a reference to the use of actual physical union in tantric practice. But when Trungpa Rinpoche was asked at the 1973 Seminary about the meaning of oral abhisheka, he replied “I think your guess is as good as mine.” To which the questioner responded, “I doubt it.”

  2. Brahmacharya generally means “moving in the Brahman,” that is to say, keeping one’s mind directed toward the absolute.

  3. This abhisheka is also referred to as the “word abhisheka.”

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  The Challenge of Keeping Samaya

  According to Atisha Dipankara, keeping the vajrayana samaya vow is impossible. It is like putting a well-polished mirror in the middle of a room. A few seconds later, you recognize that dirt and dust have
collected on top of the mirror, because it is so well polished. . . . Keeping samaya is very much a matter of your attitude and your state of meditative experience. It has to do with whether your meditative experience of totality is working or not. If it is not working, you are breaking the samaya vow.

  VAJRA BODY, SPEECH, AND MIND

  In anuttarayoga, the samaya vow is largely based on the vajra qualities of body, speech, and mind. In taking the vajra body samaya, all forms are regarded as the vajra heruka mandala; in taking the vajra speech samaya, everything you hear is vajra heruka speech or sound; and in taking the vajra mind samaya, all the thoughts that occur are the vajra mind of the herukas. Identifying your body, speech, and mind with your vajra master, or vajra guru, is a part of that as well.

  KEEPING SAMAYA THROUGH CONTINUAL AWARENESS

  According to Atisha Dipankara, keeping the vajrayana samaya vow is impossible. It is like putting a well-polished mirror in the middle of a room. A few seconds later, you recognize that dirt and dust have collected on top of the mirror, because it is so well polished. This encourages the vajrayana practitioner to develop continual awareness, which is called path mahamudra. Keeping samaya is very much a matter of your attitude and your state of meditative experience. It has to do with whether your meditative experience of totality is working or not. If it is not working, you are breaking the samaya vow.

  Path mahamudra is based on developing complete command and vajra pride, which at this stage of your awareness is no longer coming from a source. Your awareness does not originate from ordinary awareness, and you do not develop awareness in order to be good, accurate, clear, wise, or anything at all. You simply tune yourself in to samsaric mind. In turn, samsaric mind comes to you, and you find it a reminder, rather than something you have to subjugate. So samsaric mind itself acts as a source of awareness. Whenever there is confusion, anger, passion, jealousy, or pride, those thoughts act as reminders. Whatever occurs in the realm of your mind becomes awareness.