The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness

by Chogyam Trungpa

  The kind of interaction that happens between mind and perception is regarded as sacred and natural. It is sacred because it is natural, almost mechanical. Fire burns; water creates moisture; wind blows; space accommodates. Situations that occur naturally are not regarded as threats. Fundamentally, they do not possess any evil, negative, or samsaric qualities that lure us into the confused world.

  Mind and its projections are innocent. They are very ordinary, very natural, and very simple. Red is not evil, and white is not divine; blue is not evil, and green is not divine. Sky is sky; rock is rock; earth is earth; mountains are mountains. I am what I am, and you are what you are. Therefore, there are no particular obstacles to experiencing our world properly, and nothing is regarded as problematic.

  If you look at mind and its projections simply, thoroughly, and ordinarily, you discover ground mahamudra, which already yearns for, or is directed toward, path mahamudra. In order to do that, you need a vajra master. You need someone who sees mind and mental projections in that ordinary way. The vajra master describes the mind and its projections to you in this ordinary way, and when you look at these things, you also begin to see them in this simple and ordinary way.

  When the teacher has instructed you and pointed out the ordinary quality of the world to you, the texts say that it is like meeting an old friend. You realize that it is no big deal. It is simply nice to meet an old friend again. There is nothing extra happening, and you do not have to analyze anything. It is just natural and straight and ordinary.

  RESTING IN NOWNESS

  That natural, ordinary state has to be cultivated and worked with in three ways. The first way is by not preparing too much. It is by cutting off our preconceptions from the past. The second way is by not expecting a greater flash. It is by cutting off our preconceptions of the future. The third way is by not holding on to our present flash experience. It is by cutting preconceptions of the present. We simply rest our mind, this very ordinary mind of nowness.

  This resting of the mind can be achieved by natural techniques. The posture that you have developed through shamatha discipline, and the awareness techniques that you have been using, such as following the breath, still apply. As a result of such techniques, you begin to notice that there are moments of gap, moments of fresh outlook, moments of letting go, and moments of a natural sense of existence. There are moments of pagyang, or natural relaxation. At those points, you perceive glimpses of mahamudra. That is the practice.

  The practice of mahamudra cuts through any habitual tendencies, any thought processes that could create problems. It cuts altogether any further creation of the samsaric world of love and hate, and of this and that.

  When you are able to establish that type of meditation practice, you do not have to declare how hard you have worked and how much stress you have endured. You do not have to cry out, “I have put in so much effort, and now finally I’ve got it!” And you do not need to say, “I have studied so many texts, and now I finally know!” Instead, by realizing this ordinary and definite, simple and straight vajrayana essence in your mind, you begin to appreciate your teachers much more. You appreciate your root teacher, and you also begin to appreciate your lineage.

  APPRECIATING OUR TEACHERS

  As Kagyüpas, we begin to appreciate our root teacher. We regard the root teacher as Vajradhara, the primordial buddha, in human form. We also begin to take pride in the Kagyü lineage holders. We take pride in famous Tilopa, who received the secret treasure of the dakinis, which is this mahamudra mind. We also begin to appreciate the pundit Naropa of Phullahari Monastery, who was able to control his mind and transform the movements of his mind into mahamudra experience. We begin to appreciate Marpa Lotsawa, the translator, who brought Buddhism to Tibet. We appreciate the journey that he made in order to receive the teachings. We begin to appreciate Milarepa, who actually followed the command of his teacher, practiced meditation diligently, and attained enlightenment on one spot. We begin to appreciate Gampopa, who expounded the teachings to us in his books. We realize the vastness of his vision in introducing mahamudra to us and in mapping out the teachings of the Kagyü lineage.

  We also appreciate the teachers of the four great and the eight lesser traditions of the Kagyü lineage, who attained enlightenment by doing the practices we have discussed. Their experience is the same as what we have been describing, almost to the very words. The only difference is that earlier practitioners spoke Indian languages such as Pali or Sanskrit, the later practitioners spoke Tibetan, and now we are speaking English. That is the only difference; the contents have never changed. The contents are very precise, very ordinary, and very straightforward.

  We appreciate our history, our tradition, and our discipline because we realize that our lineage has never missed one inch or one stitch. We realize that everybody has received it. Everybody got it. That is the basic point. Such a thing can only happen and can only be appreciated when we have greater trust and faith and understanding of the lineage ancestors, who have worked hard for our benefit.

  In our appreciation of our teachers, there is a quality of unconditional and unrequited love. You do not get anything back from what you have done. If you kiss somebody, they don’t kiss you back. If you hug somebody, they don’t hug you back. In prostration practice, when you visualize all the people on the lineage tree, you do not see them coming up to you and hugging you and telling you how great you are. The more you begin to realize ground mahamudra, the more unconditional, unrequited love takes place. You begin to appreciate that there is a ground as well as a path, simultaneously and at once.

  You cannot have complete devotion without surrendering your heart. Otherwise, the whole thing becomes a business deal. As long as you have any understanding of wakefulness, any understanding of the sitting practice of meditation, you always carry your vajra master with you, wherever you go. You have the vajra master with you all along. That is why we talk about the mahamudra level of all-pervasive awareness. With such awareness, everything that goes on is the vajra master. So if your vajra master is far away, there is really no reason for sadness—although some sadness can be useful, because it brings you back from arrogance.

  As an example, I am far away from my master, Jamgön Kongtrül of Shechen, right now. He is not here. That situation seems to be very basic and ordinary. At the same time, that absence becomes presence all the time. I do not particularly miss my vajra master, but I long for him quite a lot. Actually, what I long for is to be able to introduce my students to him so that he could see how great they are doing. That is the only thing. I wish he were right here so that I could introduce my students to him, show him their faces, show him how their discipline is coming along, and let him know that everything is fine. I wish I could show him that. Apart from that, it seems to be very much the case that the presence of my teacher is right here, right now. Otherwise, I would not be teaching.

  The key point is that you have to love the teachings more. We are not talking about the Superman concept or about R2-D2; we are talking about the truth. When somebody speaks the truth, you can appreciate it, because it is so true. You can understand the truth, and therefore see that the author of this truth is also real. Even the fact that fire burns and water runs downhill could be seen as an expression of devotion. It could be seen as a demonstration of the truth of the instructions that you have received from your teacher. We are talking about things being genuine.

  Things just happen that way, and you do not question them. Because you have received teachings from a direct witness, from your teacher, you see things as your teacher sees them. Therefore, things make sense, from an ordinary point of view. At the same time, it is good to ask questions. But when you begin to ask questions, your mind may go blank. That is what is called nonthought. You may have a long list of questions to ask, but when you meet your teacher, you cannot think of any of them. Your questions are all gone, not because your memory is bad, but because the teacher’s mind has no questions. When you come i
n contact with that particular situation, your questions run away from you. It is a joyous situation.

  When the world is ordinary, it is always wonderful. Always! It is not the bad-good kind of wonderful, but when the world is so ordinary, it is it. Therefore, there are no questions, and there is no laboring. You are upright, and you have a natural sense of head and shoulders. When you sit, you have good posture; when you walk, you have a good gait. There is something eternally happening, so it is wonderful without being wonderful. Just make sure that you do not misuse it.

  1. Chapters 56, 57, and 58 are a commentary on sections of “The Song of Lodrö Thaye,” which is printed in its entirety in appendix 2. Jamgön Kongtrül Lodrö Thaye was one of the preeminent scholars of nineteenth-century Tibet, and his song presents the essence of the mahamudra teachings in less than three hundred lines of verse.

  57

  Path Mahamudra: The Experience of Meditation

  In the final mahamudra experience, any phenomenal experience you involve yourself with is seen as a working basis. Sights, smells, touchable objects, and mental contents are all seen as expressions of your particular deity or yidam. There is complete, total involvement, total openness beyond any limitations or hesitations. Therefore, you do not have to meditate. . . . Because everything is so vivid already, it is self-existing meditation.

  INSIGHT AND RELIEF

  The second stage of the mahamudra experience is path mahamudra. According to Jamgön Kongtrül the Great, “Path mahamudra is the experience of meditation.” Path mahamudra is connected with greater awareness or the mahavipashyana experience. We are not abandoning the shamatha-vipashyana principle here, but we are bringing it along, maturing it further. With mahavipashyana awareness, you witness that the physical environment is the creation of the guru, or vajra master. Because of your awareness, you also realize that speech and sounds are the utterance of the vajra master. And finally, you realize that any thought patterns that occur are expressions of the guru mandala. This kind of awareness, which is connected with the body, speech, and mind principles, means that the world is pliable.

  We started with ground mahamudra, with appreciation and intense devotion, which provided cheerfulness. Then, having experienced and worked through all that, we come to the second stage, or path mahamudra, which provides joy. In path mahamudra, there is a feeling of tremendous relief, a sense of transcending imprisonment. Entering into the guru mandala, you feel like a fish that had been caught and put into a bag, and is suddenly thrown back into the water. You feel great appreciation and relief that finally you can breathe again. You appreciate that you can get back to your egoless world at last. So joy is beginning to take place.

  When you have processed your mind by means of mindfulness and awareness, you begin to appreciate the natural state of unconditional alaya. Out of that, you begin to develop scholarship. You have at least a basic idea of the map of the dharma. You know how your mind works, how the five skandhas function, how the natural states of neurosis and freedom from neurosis develop. You begin to have an understanding of the path from the hinayana level up to the vajrayana.

  As you practice more, your sitting practice begins to give rise to personal experience. Your state of mind is no longer regarded as purely flickering thoughts or discursive wanderings, but you actually begin to experience some kind of steadiness. You find that the preoccupations of pain and pleasure are no longer a big deal. Instead, there is a fundamental quality of dharmic gentleness, genuineness, purity, and healthiness, even at a minute level.

  This experience is said to be the adornment of insight. It is the beginning of insight and the possibility of insight. Insight in this case is rikpa, a term that can refer to cognitive mind and also to ordinary mind. In this context, it means the best intelligence. A connection begins to occur between absolute bodhichitta and you. You realize that you possess buddha genes, and that you are not as hopeless as you had thought. You also begin to realize that the so-called fantasies or stories you have heard about realized people are not myths, but real.

  THE FOUR YOGAS OF MAHAMUDRA

  In mahamudra practice, you go through several levels of discipline. Personal experience and discipline are combined, with the help of intense shamatha, intense tonglen practice, and intense physical discipline, including having good posture in your sitting practice. That diligent practice leads to some kind of intelligence or insight. You realize that your cognitive mind is picking up messages about how you are doing with your practice.

  At that point, what are known as the four yogas of mahamudra occur. The Tibetan term for the four yogas is naljor shirim. Naljor is “yoga,” shi means “four,” and rim means “stages”; so naljor shirim is the “four stages of yoga.”

  The progression of the four yogas is basically an organic process, but there are particular instructions in terms of how to go about each one. However, at this point I am simply giving you a map of the area.

  One-Pointedness

  The four yogas begin with the realization that the nature of your mind is basic and unfabricated. It need not be changed; it is simple and good. Realizing the nature of your mind, there is a kind of déjà vu experience, in the fundamental sense. You feel as if you had met yourself before. People often think: “I have been in this state of mind before. When did I have such an experience?” If you try to look back, you may not remember the experience, but it did happen. Maybe it happened at the moment you were born; maybe it happened when you had a high-level orgasm; maybe it happened just before you lost your temper; or maybe it happened just before you had a car accident. In any case, there is a sense of suddenly seeing yourself. You are suddenly looking at yourself, meeting yourself, being with yourself.

  That kind of recognition of your very ordinary, very basic mind is the first yoga of mahamudra, which is known in Tibetan as tsechik. Tse means “point,” “sharp point,” or “dot,” and chik means “one”; so tsechik is “one-pointedness.” It is the one-pointedness of recognizing yourself; it is like meeting yourself again.

  In many cases, you are shocked by this recognition. You gasp, “Is that it? Wow!” However, the experience does not need to be all that sensational; that is just the second thought. It is more as if in the midst of a green lawn, you suddenly see a red plastic dot out of the corner of your eye.

  THREE LEVELS OF ONE-POINTEDNESS. The first yoga is divided into lesser, medium, and greater levels.

  Joy and clarity. At the lesser level, while you are still maintaining the shamatha-style practice of following the breath, you begin to experience joyfulness and clarity. Those two may happen simultaneously or in alternation.

  Naturalness. At the medium level, you attain a state of resting in samadhi. You begin to feel physically soothed and relaxed. At this level, the sitting practice of meditation is no longer a struggle, but it is somewhat natural and comfortable. Occasionally, your resistance to discipline may come up. Nonetheless, when your sitting practice actually happens, you find yourself in a natural, good, and comfortable situation.

  Luminosity. At the greater level, this relaxation begins to alternate with the experience of luminosity. You see that the phenomenal world is vivid and self-descriptive.

  Simplicity

  This brings us to the path of meditation at the tantric level, which is the second yoga, or simplicity. In Tibetan this yoga is called trödral. Trö means “complications” or “elaborations,” and dral means “without”; so trödral means “without complications.”

  After experiencing one-pointedness, you begin to realize that your previous experiences of joy and luminosity have no root. Having no root means that you cannot manufacture these experiences, and you cannot make them go away. Therefore, there is a quality of spontaneity. Because of that, trödral is free from complications. It is simplicity. Because mind has no root, there is an experience of further simplicity.

  THREE LEVELS OF SIMPLICITY. The second yoga is also divided into lesser, medium, and greater categories of experience.
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br />   Realizing that arising, ceasing, and dwelling are empty. First, we begin to realize that arising, ceasing, and dwelling are empty. When a thought occurs, it comes out of nowhere; when it dissolves, it dissolves into nowhere; and when it dwells or lingers, it has no ground to linger on.

  Freedom from fixation on appearance or emptiness. Therefore, at the medium level, we experience a sense of spaciousness. We are free from the ground and root of fixating on appearance or emptiness. Our experience does not have to be registered or jotted down in our notebook. We have no desire to psychologize anything.

  Resolving the complexity of all dharmas. Finally, a sense of greater freedom takes place, and we are able to resolve the complexity of all dharmas. Our prajna, our understanding of the logic of the dharma from hinayana to vajrayana, comes up in a flash.

  At the level of simplicity, you begin to realize that hatha yoga is a way of seeing with greater openness. It is as if you were writing a book about revolution, and in the midst of sitting at your desk writing the book, you looked outside and found that the revolutionaries were already marching outside on the street. That is what is called simplicity. It is very simple. You are writing about it, but it is actually already happening. You find that one-pointed mind is taking place outside, that things are taking place beyond your imagination.