The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness

by Chogyam Trungpa

  The only example I can think of is at the end of the first Godfather movie, when Don Corleone put an orange in his mouth and started to frighten the little boy. There was an enormous kind of free-flowing big joke in that, because at the same time as he was well-being, he was just about to die. So there was a sense of both death and well-being. The child got scared, and Don Corleone didn’t seem to care. But he did care, and he chased the kid around. It was very precise. I heard later on that the whole scene was not written in the script, but was purely improvised by Marlon Brando.

  That is well-being. Something is actually there, but at the same time it is challenging and not challenging. It is a kind of carelessness, and at the same time it is very careful and premeditated. That seems to overcome the myth of “I” as unborn, unoriginated, and empty. In fact, what we are trying to do with the unoriginated emptiness of “I” is to bring forth the bornness, originatedness, and fullness of “I.” And what we are trying to do with the unceasing quality of “other” is to bring forth the ceasingness or deathness of other. So we are working backward from the usual approach of samsaric people who are looking at nirvana. We are reversing it: we are making formulas for people in nirvana who are looking at samsara. So we are regressing, we are misreading it. Instead of saying “Dracula,” we say “Alucard.”

  That is why the relative world is so important in this tantra. The other day I was working with the Tibetan Book of the Dead (although it doesn’t belong to this tantric level), and the term khor-de rulok. Khorwa is “samsara,” de is “nirvana,” and rulok means “turn upside down”; so khor-de rulok means “samsara and nirvana turned upside down.” Usually the idea is that nirvana is above and samsara is on the bottom, so the idea is to turn it around. In order to develop a complete and proper understanding of nirvana and samsara, you tip it over.

  THE IMPORTANCE OF SHAMATHA PRACTICE FOR ALL FOUR YOGAS

  Going back to the original practice of shamatha is important for these four yogas of mahamudra. Even at the level of nonmeditation, you still do not give up the technique and the style of shamatha and vipashyana discipline. You use the same technique, have the same posture, and the same sense of uprightness all the time.

  In order to maintain the one-pointedness of the first yoga, it is important to concentrate on mindfulness and awareness. Shamatha is also important for the second yoga, simplicity, since it is still necessary to give up any possibility of having some kind of ground to hang on to. It is important for the third yoga of one taste, for through shamatha practice you begin to realize that you are not using your technique as a saving grace. Therefore, at the level of the fourth yoga, or nonmeditation, you begin to realize that sophistries such as meditating or not meditating are all used up. Because you have overcome the habitual patterns of your original backache and your original grandmother problems and your original “what have yous,” you begin to develop a sense of freedom. From that point of view, shamatha practice is quite practical.

  Shamatha is always important. You have to maintain a shamatha-like precision of body and speech. You have to be in that state all the time. In Tibet we used to have calligraphy lessons. First we wrote very slowly, making big letters; then we wrote at a medium pace; and finally we tried to write the cursive letters very fast, using the same format. In that way we learned to do excellent calligraphy, and even our cursive handwriting became elegant.

  If you had seen the Buddha giving his teachings, you would have seen that he sat upright. Even in vajrayana sadhana practices, we visualize the various deities in precisely prescribed postures, which are the product of shamatha practice. They may be holding symbols and scepters and so on, but they still have their form. It is a mark of ultimate training, a mark of being noble. Further accomplishment is referred to as the royal attainment. More accomplished people always have a quality of regalness. They eat properly, and they deal with things properly.

  Over time, the shamatha technique becomes ingrained. So even when you have attained nonmeditation, you do not just collapse and you do not become an idiot. You always carry your dignity. But at this point, you have realized what is known as coemergent wisdom.

  1. The mother luminosity, or ground luminosity, is the clear and luminous nature of the mind of all beings, which for ordinary beings dawns at the moment of death. Child luminosity, or path luminosity, is the luminosity experienced in meditation.

  2. See volume 1 of the Profound Treasury, chapter 40, “Mindfulness of Life.”

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  Fruition Mahamudra: Realizing One’s Mind as Buddha

  When you drop your unnecessary things, you finally can swoop and fly in vast space. It is so blue, so bright, so nice, so airy and fresh. You can stretch your wings and breathe the air. You can do anything you want. At that point, you experience what is known as bliss, or fruition mahamudra.

  COEMERGENT WISDOM AND BLISS

  According to Jamgön Kongtrül the Great, “Fruition mahamudra is the realization of one’s mind as buddha.” This mahamudra principle is based on what is known as coemergent wisdom or lhenchik kye-pe yeshe. Lhenchik means “together,” kye-pe means “that which is born,” and yeshe means “wisdom”; so lhenchik kye-pe yeshe means “wisdom that is born together” or “coemergent wisdom.”

  With coemergent wisdom, there is a sense of oneness. In the analogy of the captured fish, it is as if you have been thrown back into the water and you are happily swimming around, but at the same time you have the feeling that you are departing from somewhere or other, and that you are entering somewhere or other. That feeling is somewhat vague at the beginning, but with an understanding of ordinary mind, or thamal gyi shepa, you find that you are actually experiencing being split from the heavy, gross level of your neurosis into the more refined situation of highest awareness and wakefulness.

  This feeling is connected with the fourth abhisheka, the abhisheka of That. You are splitting from this to That. The reason it is called That is because it is not here, but there. It is not ego’s point of view; therefore, it is That.

  Coemergent wisdom is like an eagle that has been kept in a cage and then freed. Human beings have been trying to put a hat, a coat, and boots on the eagle; they have been trying to make the eagle into an anthropomorphic symbol. But finally they let the eagle go. It is taken to a cliff with its hat and clothes still on, and a person throws the eagle off the cliff, and it begins to fly. As the eagle flies, it drops its hat and its coat and its boots down below. As this eagle flies, it is so naked. It is free from all those hats and boots and coats that were imposed on it.

  Coemergent wisdom is like a kernel of grain: you drop the husk, and then you have the pure grain. It is like being born: you and your placenta are coemergent. The idea is that things coemerge, but they co-drop at the same time.

  FATHOMLESS FREEDOM

  When you drop your unnecessary things, you finally can swoop and fly in vast space. It is so blue, so bright, and so nice, so airy and fresh. You can stretch your wings and breathe the air. You can do anything you want. At that point, you experience what is known as bliss, or fruition mahamudra. You have experienced cheerfulness and joy, and finally the bliss of freedom occurs in you. You are like the eagle without its hat, coat, and boots.

  Such freedom is measureless, unspeakable, fathomless. Your samsaric clothing has been dropped; therefore, you can fly higher. This is the final and ultimate appreciation of the guru mandala principle, and the ultimate appreciation of devotion as well. Having the strength to fly and explore the depths of fathomless sky comes from your joy and appreciation of the vajra master, and it comes from sharing the vajra master’s vision. The vajra master can also fly; your teacher can fly along with you. So you are finally sharing the vast, expansive space of the vajra master, together, coemerged.

  As we have said before, wisdom is in some ways the same idea as freedom. In mahamudra, you experience cheerfulness, freedom, and upliftedness. Moreover, you experience fathomless space and complete freedom, which produces great joy. Th
is type of joy is not conditioned by the experience of freedom alone, but it is self-born, innate. You begin to experience the trust and openness of the situation altogether.

  Through intense discipline, intense sitting practice, you begin to give up any hope of attainment. It is very basic, ordinary, and simple: you lose your heart. Because of the years and years and years of practice, because of the hours and hours you have put in, because of your group and individual meditation retreats and everything, you give up hope. At the same time, you begin to take pride in how much you have worked and learned. This is called coemergent wisdom. Appreciation, sadness, and devotion take place in you at the same time as you are losing heart. These two experiences are coemergent; they are born together.

  I know from personal experience that both things could happen. You keep wondering and you think you may not make it, but at the same time, there is so much going on. In the play between the two, something usually happens. That is what is meant by coemergent wisdom.

  EXTRAORDINARY RELAXATION

  Coemergent wisdom is the expression of the great discipline that you have put into your practice, along with the tremendous learning that you have put into it. At a certain point, there is extraordinary relaxation. Finally you have made friends with the teacher and with the dharma. At the same time, there is extraordinary frustration. You are expecting things to happen right away, but they never do. You always feel that you have been turned down, that nothing has happened. That combination of relaxation, appreciation, and frustration gives birth to the opening up of your mind—all at once!

  It is as if you have been wanting to sneeze for a long time, but when you try to sneeze, it never happens—and when you do not try, it also doesn’t happen. But then somehow, between the two, you catch yourself sneezing. Or we could use the analogy of being constipated. You either sit on your toilet for a long time, or you try to forget about the whole thing. Then in between the two, usually when you are free from too much self-consciousness, there it comes. That is why this is called ordinary mind. It is not cultivated; therefore, it is ordinary.

  First we develop shinjang experience, which is the beginning of cheerfulness. Then we go beyond that with further mindfulness and awareness. We consistently perpetuate our sense of connecting body and mind together all the way, until we reach the level of bliss. From this point of view, the practice of hinayana is very important. Exchanging oneself for others is another source of bliss. Friendliness brings a feeling of not being hassled; therefore, it also produces bliss of some kind. When you learn how to pour tea into your teacup properly, that could be the product of shinjang, and at the same time, there could be bliss as well. There are coemergent possibilities everywhere. That is why we call it ordinary mind.

  EXPERIENCE AT THE BORDERLINE

  The experience of coemergent wisdom is at the borderline between lower tantra and higher tantra, between mahamudra and maha ati. It is not all that extraordinary. However, coemergent wisdom is very dangerous to talk about. It is an extremely powerful wisdom. Why is that so? Because with this wisdom, you are binding together samsara and nirvana. You are creating a bond in which samsara and nirvana become one taste, so that pain and pleasure are one, darkness and light are one, everything is one.

  Why do things come together? What came along with you originally? Coemergence means that wisdom came along with you. But at your very first moment, you were confused and did not realize the primordial mind. You did not realize what was happening at all. None of us realized what was happening, including myself, of course. We did not realize what was happening, and we got so confused. Something happened in the bardo, and then we clicked into something or another. Some people clicked into primordial mind and were liberated, people such as Samantabhadra and Vajradhara. But Lord Buddha did not click into it; therefore, he went on to take birth as a human and become the Buddha. None of us clicked into it, so we too took birth as humans.

  That first clicking point was like landing from an airplane journey and coming into an airport that had two exits, so that people could go this way or that way, to the right or the left. People got confused, and some of them went to the left and some of them went to the right. Coemergent wisdom happened at the very moment that the two groups parted: it happened the moment some people went right and other people went left. At that point, coemergent wisdom came along. But actually, it existed already. Coemergent wisdom had already actually happened. People do not want to be hassled with too much brilliance. If you turn right, there is too much brilliance; if you turn left, there are neon lights instead. So ordinarily, all of us go toward the neon light, including the Lord Buddha, Shakyamuni, Mr. Siddhartha. He also went in that direction.

  Coemergent means emerged together, but “parted together” would be a much more accurate way of saying it. After having landed in the airplane, we went out and we separated. We parted together. That parting is what is known as one taste. When we parted together, we experienced the reality of parting; we experienced the separation from outer space. Before we did that, we were at one with space, which is known as vajradhatu. Vajradhatu space is what we all came out of, but then we landed and parted. We separated.

  From this point of view, we cannot actually call this parting coemergent wisdom. We probably should say coseparated wisdom, but that goes against the texts, which say lhenchik kye-pe, or born together. Born together means that when two people walking shoulder to shoulder get out of the airplane and end up in the airport, one person says, “Well, this light is too brilliant for me. I’ll go toward the neon light,” and the other person says, “This light is delightfully brilliant. I’ll go toward that.” At that point, the parting takes place. Coemergent wisdom is born at that very point, that very moment of parting in which one person walks that way and the other one walks this way.

  This is a very vivid description of the whole thing. When you are about to turn one way or the other, that very turning point is where the actual wisdom is being born. Coemergent wisdom could be demonstrated by literally walking together two by two and then parting and going in opposite directions. At the point where the two people’s shoulders turn against each other so that they are back-to-back, there is wisdom coming about. After the separation, if you are intelligent you look ahead, rather than back; and having looked forward, you discover what you are looking at. You begin to develop wakefulness.

  When the shoulders pull apart, something begins to click. It happens at that moment when there is space. At the parting of that and this, wisdom begins to happen, and reality begins to happen. In coemergent wisdom, things come together and are separated at the same time—and at that very point, a breakthrough of mahamudra takes place.

  In mahamudra, one can stay at that point of click, when the shoulders touch and part, all the time. So it is just click, click, click, always. But as you continue on to the higher yanas, that is not good enough, because you have to maintain that clicking somehow. Before the click you are not clicking; during the click you are somewhat clicking, which creates numbness; after the click, there is some kind of celebration. It is the idea of being there and not being there at the same time. Before the click, you do not exist; when you click, you exist totally; after you click, you are confused. There is no other choice but to stay in the click. That is why it is called mahamudra—the great trick. So from that point of view, mahamudra could be translated as the great trick.

  I hope this makes sense to you. It can be frustrating to try to tell you what I have experienced myself, and what it actually means according to the texts. It is so gut level, such a real experience, which makes me sad and happy at the same time. The nostalgia of coemergent wisdom is very powerful and very hard to contain in one’s heart. The reason this is so is because coemergent wisdom should be communicated to people, and you are the only people I can communicate with at this point. You should be very experienced by now, and you should feel grateful for what is happening. It is a vomit of blood, the heart blood of the vajra master, which is somew
hat powerful and very genuine. Excuse me for being so corny.

  SEVERING THE HEART OF RUDRA

  At that coemerged point, what is the experience? Nothing particularly extraordinary. You do not see deities or divinities, nor do you bliss out. When those two things coemerge or coseparate together, what you actually get is an empty heart. It is as if that emerging has become insignificant or nonexistent. At that point, there is no substance, no reality. Just empty heart. The whole thing becomes so direct, so much on the point of the breakthrough.

  We could use an analogy for that. When your knife is extremely sharp and you are using it to cut a piece of meat, it feels soothing when you first strike the raw meat with your knife. The knife goes down so soothingly, and the result is that the soothing knife is executing the parting of one side of the flesh from the other. You feel delighted and good that your knife is so sharp that you do not have to struggle. You just strike very slowly, and it makes a sort of hissing sound as you cut. The meat is full of tendons and fat, so there is some kind of hiss. And it is soothing as the knife goes down, as if that particular knife were making love to the flesh, to that particular meat. It becomes a very beautiful experience.

  That image is the closest I can come to the idea of coemergent wisdom, where intelligence is looking ahead and beginning to strike. It is what you are actually doing when you focus on a particular situation like your own neurosis. You project and reflect, and there and then, that and this begin to come apart. The situations that are separating do not necessarily have to be good and bad, samsara and nirvana. You are simply severing the cosmic energy, the cosmic existence of your life altogether, which is a very powerful experience. There is such satisfaction and such a beautiful, genuine mahamudra experience in severing the heart of Rudra. Immense delight and beauty begin to take place at that point.