The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness

by Chogyam Trungpa

  THE TURBULENT RIVER AND THE FLAME

  Anuyoga is connected with the epitome of prajna, the wisdom flame. So the style of relating with the phenomenal world in anuyoga is very passionate, like a flame. Ordinary passion is like water that is sweeping you along uncontrollably. But fire is clean-cut passion. In anuyoga, instead of drinking water to satisfy your thirst, you drink fire. All that we put in the fire is burnt. It does not leave behind any garbage, whereas water does leave garbage. When a flood comes along, you have driftwood or dead bodies, and it is very messy.

  One of the realization songs connected with anuyoga says that practitioners would see that “the flame is like the river.” I think it was sung by Shri Simha, one of the great teachers. The whole experience of visualization, with the earth shaking, and space quaking, and death and everything, is summed up in that verse. The river is not just a river, but it is a turbulent river. It is a big river, not just a little brook. That river is like a flame; it is an expression of passion. So water is passion, and fire is also passion.

  You could say that these two images of passion are fighting each other, that the turbulent river and the flame are at war. The water is related with space and the flame is related with wisdom, but they both are images of passion. When the ordinary passion of the river is transformed into flame, it becomes lively passion. At that point, it is no longer ordinary passion, but tantric passion. The river is a blander version of passion. But the anuyoga experience of passion, the flame, is superior passion. The whole continent is on fire.

  1. Shentong (“empty of other”) is the view that the nature of mind is stainless and empty of all that is false, but is not empty of its own inherent buddha nature. Rangtong (“empty of self”) is the view that each phenomenon is empty of itself, what it seems to be—period.

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  Anuyoga: Empowerment

  In the anuyoga abhisheka, or empowerment, having gone through the realms and yanas, you are also initiated into the realm of the one hundred deities of anuyoga: the forty-two peaceful deities and the fifty-eight wrathful deities. These deities are the same deities that are seen in The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

  THE ABHISHEKA JOURNEY

  In the anuyoga abhisheka, you are led through a journey that starts by going through the samsaric realms, and continues by going through the stages of the path.

  Going through the Samsaric Realms

  On the first part of this journey, you go through all six realms, starting with the realm of hell. You are given a series of painted pictures or cards with various symbols on them, symbolizing that you are now properly in hell, now properly in the human realm, now properly in the realm of the gods, and so on. You start with the most gross level of the lower realms: the hell realm and the hungry ghost realm. Then you move on to the animal realm, and to the higher realms: the human realm, the jealous gods realm, and the gods realm. So the level of your state of mind is progressing somewhat. In this process, extreme pain and extreme indulgence in pleasure are like two poles.

  When you are in the realm of hell, it is very definite, but when your pain at being in hell begins to become slightly lighter, you begin to get hungry. You feel that there is a gap where you might get some relief or get a break. As soon as you get a break from the torture chamber, you pick up cigarettes to smoke or a cookie to eat, which is usually what one does for a break. Now you are in the hungry ghost realm. Beyond that, you go completely stupid and berserk. You enter the animal realm, and you just crawl on the floor, or growl at somebody or groan.

  And then, when you get a little bit more intelligent, you begin to look for an object of passion, which is the human realm. Then you keep trying to improve your livelihood. You think that if you have gotten what you wanted, you should make it better. And beyond that, once you have made something better, you should defend it. You keep a very tight hold on the whole thing. At this point, you are dealing with the realm of the jealous gods. And when you get rid of that, you go completely berserk in another way, which is the higher realm counterpart of the animal realm: the realm of the gods. You are dazed in your love and light. You feel so good, and you couldn’t care less about anything. That kind of god realm is also an obstacle.

  So in this initiation, you are introduced to the realm of hell; from there you begin to transcend hell and make steps toward the hungry ghost level; then you transcend the hungry ghost level and move into the animal realm; and from there you go to the human realm, the jealous god realm, and the realm of the gods. You go through the process of actually experiencing your own world. You have not had a proper glimpse of it before, so the initiation into the pure samsaric world is regarded as very important.

  Going through the Stages of the Path

  Having experienced the six realms, you then experience the stages of the path, starting with the path of accumulation. You start with the shravakayana and the pratyekabuddhayana paths. To receive the essence of those particular yanas, you receive ordination. But in this case, instead of receiving ordination as a monk or nun as you would in the actual hinayana tradition, ordination is turned into an abhisheka.

  After the hinayana abhishekas, you also receive the bodhisattva abhisheka. The difference between the bodhisattva vow and the bodhisattva abhisheka is that a vow is just a promise. By promising certain things, you feel you have committed yourself to this particular system. In an abhisheka, you not only make a vow or promise, but you begin to connect with the magical aspect. The magical quality begins to enter into your system so that you actually become a bodhisattva.

  The anuyoga abhisheka also includes going through the lower tantric yanas of kriyayoga, upayoga, and yogayana, as well as the higher tantric yanas of mahayoga and anuyoga. In the anuyoga abhisheka, everything leading up to the maha ati level and the path of no more learning is combined together: the path of accumulation, the path of unification, the path of seeing, and the path of meditation. The point of the anuyoga abhisheka is to make you into a professional rather than a layperson. So you actually become a bodhisattva or an arhat on the spot.

  In this abhisheka, technically you are going backward, but experientially you are collecting more richness. It is like visiting your parents. When you visit your parents, you do not say you are going backward, but you say you are going home. When you do go home, you learn more about what you were, which is educational. You do not actually go backward. It is like life: You cannot go backward in life or reduce yourself into an infant, but you can return to places you left and refresh your case history. You do not undo things as you go backward by trying to unlearn everything and start right from the beginning. What you have learned cannot be forgotten, so from that point of view, you are still going forward.

  So if you are doing anuyoga practice, and you include kriyayoga as part of your practice, you are not going backward. Instead, anuyoga is being adorned with the kriyayoga approach. You are collecting more things, rather than going backward.

  Upayoga and mahayoga and even anuttarayoga have a tendency to be snobbish, in that the other yanas are rejected or not even seen. But looking ahead to the final yana, or atiyoga, we see that it is a very considerate yana. It has consideration for the other yanas, going down to the kriyayoga level. Atiyoga is quite rightly like a benevolent dictator or king who has consideration for everything. It takes into consideration the lower yanas, including the hinayana and the mahayana. Anuyoga has a hint of that as well, and anuyoga abhishekas are also connected with that approach. It is good to relate with somebody who has a view of the rest of the world, rather than just purely being soaked up in their own ideas.

  Being Initiated into the One-Hundred Deity Mandala

  In the anuyoga abhisheka or empowerment, having gone through the realms and the yanas, you are also initiated into the realm of the one hundred deities of anuyoga: the forty-two peaceful deities and the fifty-eight wrathful deities. These deities are the same deities that are seen in The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

  THREE CONFIRMATIONS

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p; Having received these abhishekas, you develop what are known as the three types of confirmation.

  Great Confirmation

  The first confirmation is called the great confirmation. Now you are what you are; you are known as “Vajra Master So-and-So.” You have actually joined the vidyadhara family, the crazy-wisdom-holder family.

  Great Protection

  The second confirmation is called the great protection. Having already received the great confirmation, you also have the authority and empowerment to transmit this to others.

  Great Energy

  The third confirmation is called the great energy, or the completion of energy. With the energy confirmation, you are able to deal with the phenomenal world and the direction in which the phenomenal world is approaching you. You are actually able to see it and play with it in a nondualistic, unbiased way.

  THREE MANDALAS

  In anuyoga and in atiyoga, all existence is seen as a mandala, and the whole universe is turning into a gigantic mandala principle. The inanimate and animate realms are seen as a mandala, as a charnel ground. All thought processes are seen as the thoughtlessness or unbornness of the mandala, and all the elements and activities, which manifest as various deities, are seen as the self-existence of the mandala.

  Three types of mandala exist in anuyogayana. Such mandalas are experiential rather than the kind of physical setups that existed in the previous tantric yanas.

  The Mandala of Isness

  The first mandala is the unborn mandala, or the mandala of isness. The Tibetan term for this mandala is ye chi-shin-pe kyilkhor. Ye means primordial, chi-shin-pe means “as it is” or “isness,” and kyilkhor means “mandala”; so ye chi-shin-pe kyilkhor is the “mandala of primordial isness.”

  This mandala is based on seeing all dharmas as the expressions of mind. Therefore, mind is unborn, simple, and without limitation. Without limitation is referred to as Samantabhadri, or actually the boundless and limitless cervix of Samantabhadri, the feminine principle. All the world comes from that. The phenomenal world is created from that, and returns to that. Therefore, this mandala is known as primeval or primordial isness.

  The metaphor of returning to the cervix may be unfamiliar according to our conventional norms, but here it is combined with the idea of the charnel ground. The indivisibility of cervix and charnel ground makes the whole thing one ground: a place to die and a place to be born. The place that you are born is a gigantic cervix that keeps on giving birth. The place where you die is like a gigantic vacuum cleaner that sucks you up into death. Your body dissolves into the elements in this gigantic vacuum system.

  The Mandala of Self-Existence

  The second mandala is the unceasing mandala or the mandala of self-existence, which is referred to as lhündrup kyi kyilkhor. Lhündrup means “self-existence” or “spontaneous presence”; so lhündrup kyi kyilkhor means the “mandala of self-existence.”

  This mandala is represented by Samantabhadra, the masculine principle. Everything that happens is the unceasing play of phenomena. This unceasing activity takes place without any particular bias as to which activity should be acted out first. So phenomenal experience is a natural flow, rather something that you censor based on which activity would be best to create first or second. Everything we experience in our world is free-flowing, a constant flowing process.

  The Mandala of the Awakened State of Mind

  Because the first two mandalas are the feminine and the masculine principles, the third one is called the son of great joy. The prince that Samantabhadri and Samantabhadra give birth to is a very joyful prince, with no depression. This prince is a crossbreed of samsara and nirvana. If you had children of samsara all the time, you would finally end up with apes of some kind, and if you had children of nirvana all the time, they would end up being too ethereal. So with this prince, you have a product of both samsara and nirvana. You have a cross between two races. But the birth of this prince still takes place on nirvanic or vajrayana ground.

  In Tibetan, this mandala is called changsem kyi kyilkhor. Changsem refers to the awakened state of mind. The idea is that the awakened state of mind is born from its mother, the unborn, originated simplicity, and its father, the unceasing, unbiased approach to life. Between the two, the phenomenal world exists, and the mandala is produced and developed. So the indivisibility of space and wisdom produces the son of great joy.

  That is the basic principle of the three mandalas. So in talking about the three mandalas, we do not mean physical mandalas, but purely and simply mandalas as levels of perception. Openness, energy, and the indivisibility of the two make up the three mandalas that the student is experiencing or has already experienced.

  The anuyoga abhisheka is a complete journey that incorporates the six realms of samsara as well as the stages of the path from the hinayana refuge vow and the mahayana bodhisattva vow through the tantric yanas. On this journey you are introduced to the one-hundred deity mandala, and to the principles of Samantabhadra and Samantabhadri, indivisible space and wisdom.

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  Anuyoga: Practice

  In anuyoga, we refer to self-existing femininity as the lover, and self-existing masculinity as the lovemaker. In this tantra, there is a lot of reference made to karmamudra practice; but in anuyoga, karmamudra is more a practice of dissolving ourselves into space. So this yana teaches us to realize the indivisibility of space and wisdom, or ying and yeshe.

  VISUALIZATION

  In anuyoga the visualization of the one hundred deities arise from open space suddenly and dramatically, like a fish leaping from water.

  Creating Space

  The characteristic of visualization and sadhana practice in anuyoga tantra is getting closer to the maha ati approach, which emphasizes sampannakrama, or formless meditation. The basic principle is that visualizations are accompanied by the meditative experience. Sampannakrama is the basis of the whole thing. Because you are able to create a space that is not connected with trying to explain anything to yourself in logical terms, or trying to structure things in any way at all, there is a feeling of positive hopelessness. You feel that it is not worth manufacturing anything, trying to produce anything, or trying to develop any idea, attitude, or principle. That creates the maha ati type of basic space. So there is a great emphasis in anuyoga on the need for meditating on nonmeditation.

  Nonmeditation is very important. You simply do it; you just pretend that you are there. You do not pretend because you are so stupid that you can only pretend, but because you are so awake that nothing is real except pretense. Usually, when you pretend to be somebody or something, it means that you are trying to cheat somebody. But in this case, pretense does not mean cheating. It is just self-existence. You are. You are as you are. Therefore, you might be so. That is pretense. You pretend to be a nonmeditator by meditating, if you can make heads or tails of that.

  In discussing all this, there is not very much to say, since there is nothing to be said and no one to say anything to anybody. Nevertheless, we could pretend.

  Creating the Mandala

  Having created basic space, creating the mandala is a sudden process. The deity and its house arise from uttering certain seed syllables—and as soon as you utter the seed syllables, the deity appears. In the texts, this is described as being like a fish jumping out of the water. It is as if suddenly the jack-in-the-box pops open, and the samayasattva and jnanasattva principles arise simultaneously. You do not have to bring the energies of samayasattva and jnanasattva together at this point. Once the openness is there, and once it is sparked by the sound of the bija mantra, suddenly that brings this great vision of deities.

  In anuyoga, sudden visualization can arise even without using bija mantras, or seed syllables. In sudden visualization and sudden realization, you see the yidams and become one with them immediately, without using seed syllables and without a gradual buildup of images. It has become very personal. You have a very direct relationship with the yidam; you are almost becomin
g one with the yidam. You are no longer you; you are the yidam. Because yidams do not exist, they do not need any sustenance, which is why we talked about unborn and unoriginated. The jnanasattva that you invoke is nonexistent. That is the aspect of wisdom.

  Having visualized the deity, the deity’s body is adorned with the syllables OM AH HUM. The HUM aspect is akin to the samadhisattva, meaning that the samadhi principle is still in you, so you cannot get carried away with the visualization, thinking that now you are united with the jnanasattva and everything is going to be okay. A faint touch of awareness is still required.

  The One Hundred Deities

  The central deities in anuyoga are the one hundred families of tathagatas. There are fifty-eight wrathful deities and forty-two peaceful ones, which makes one hundred deities in all. That mandala of peaceful and wrathful deities has been described in The Tibetan Book of the Dead. The Tibetan Book of the Dead speaks of yidams very much in psychological terms rather than deifying them. It describes how if you miss the first boat, you have another chance. Basically, the wrathful deities come from your head or brain, as an expression of vajra intellect, and the peaceful deities come from your heart, as an expression of padma sybaritic hospitality and intuition. All the deities are regarded as tathagatas.