Utilizing the Clear Light Mind to Realize Voidness
In the practice of Kalachakra, and any other anuttarayoga tantra, there is a special way of meditating on voidness (emptiness) in which we meditate not just on the actual meaning of voidness, but we also try to simulate doing this with a clear light mind. This we do because the clear light mind – which is the subtlest mind that we have and that actually provides the continuity from lifetime to lifetime and into enlightenment as well – is the most efficient level of mind for gaining the non-conceptual cognition of voidness. This is because this level of mind does not have any grasping for truly established existence, and it also doesn’t even make an appearance of truly established existence.
According to the Gelug tradition, all levels of mind grosser than the clear light mind make appearances of truly established existence. However, this level of mind is much more subtle than that and is totally free of all disturbing emotions, disturbing attitudes and unawareness. In fact, this level of mind is the only level of mind that is capable of cognizing the two truths simultaneously and manifestly. It’s this level of mind that actually becomes the omniscient mind of a Buddha, not any of the other grosser levels of mind, which are all samsaric.
This clear light level of mind is something that we all have underlying our cognitions every moment of our entire existence, but it only becomes manifest on our basis level in very special situations. The main situation in which it becomes manifest in an actual definitional way – not just something similar to it, but in a definitional way – is during the phase of death existence. That’s not just one moment; it could be a slightly longer period before bardo occurs. But that doesn’t mean that in order to achieve enlightenment, all we need to do is kill ourselves. Death existence, of course, is still samsaric. It’s not that easy. This clear light mind at death existence still has, imputed on it, which means tied to it, the habits of grasping for truly established existence.
This word “grasping” that’s used in “grasping for truly established existence” actually has two meanings. “Grasping” isn’t the best translation, but it’s very difficult to find a word that covers both meanings. The Tibetan word is dzin (’dzin) and the Sanskrit word is graha, and this has two meanings. One is to cognize, to take something as an object, and so here we’re talking about making an appearance of truly established existence and just perceiving it. Taking it as an object. That’s one meaning. The other meaning, which is more like the English word “grasp,” is to actually believe that this appearance of truly established existence is referring to something real and believing in it. Thus, it has these two meanings.
At the time of manifest clear light death, those habits are not producing an appearance of truly established existence and so they are not producing a perception of it. They’re not producing the belief that such an appearance is true, and they are not, in theory at least, preventing cognition of the two truths simultaneously. Nevertheless, those habits still persist as imputation phenomena tied to the basis of that clear light mind because all these things that they produce will recur with the attainment of bardo existence and then rebirth. They’re still present. In addition to that, this clear light mind of death does not have any understanding. Although it’s capable of perceiving the two truths, and although it produces an appearance that is similar to the appearance that would arise with the understanding of voidness, it has no understanding of voidness.
What we want to do is to make that clear light mind into the instrument that will cognize voidness and to make that clear light mind into a blissful awareness, which will be a blissful awareness of voidness. When it is like that, then that clear light mind will be the immediately preceding cause for an omniscient mind of a Buddha. Whereas the clear light mind on the basis level, which is the point of view from which Gelug explains it, is not blissful because if it were, then death consciousness would be blissful, and it is not blissful. When Sakya explains the clear light mind as blissful, they’re speaking from the point of view of the path because it can be transformed into a blissful consciousness. When Nyingma and Kagyu speak of it as blissful and as having innate deep awareness, they’re speaking from the point of view of the result, what is the case with a Buddha. We have to understand these different explanations from the point of view of the analysis that is given by Katog Kyentse Jamyang Chokyi Lodro: that these different traditions in Tibet speak from the different points of view of basis, path and result.
What does it mean that the clear light mind is able to cognize the two truths simultaneously. Clear light mind does not make an appearance of truly established existence. Grosser levels of mind do make such a deceptive appearance according to Gelug. If we want to be technical, everybody says that non-conceptual cognition of voidness with a grosser level of mind does not make an appearance of truly established existence. However, non-Gelug says that non-conceptual sense cognition and non-conceptual ordinary mental cognition, like with ESP, also does not make an appearance of truly established existence, whereas Gelug says that it does.
When the mind makes an appearance of the truly established existence of the conventional truth of something – in other words, the appearance of something – it can’t possibly also cognize voidness – “no such thing as truly established existence.” With the grosser levels of mind, there are only two possibilities. Either there is no appearance of truly established existence, which is only when non-conceptually totally absorbed on voidness, or there is appearance of truly established existence. There can’t be both at the same time with these levels of mind.
The clear light mind does not make an appearance of truly established existence, and therefore it is capable of cognizing the two truths, but it ordinarily doesn’t cognize them. It’s capable of it because it is capable of the non-conceptual cognition of the voidness of the two truths simultaneously. The two truths share the same essential nature of voidness, but their conceptual isolates are different because the basis for that voidness is either deepest truth or the superficial conventional truth of all validly knowable phenomena. To cognize the voidness of anything, you need to first cognize its basis and only then the voidness of that basis. Only a Buddha is omniscient and thus can cognize the superficial conventional truth of all validly knowable phenomena. Thus, only a Buddha can focus non-conceptually on the voidness of the two truths simultaneously.
Meditating in a Similar Way to the Cycle of Death, Bardo & Rebirth
The natural cycle of samsara (Skt. saṃsāra) is that we go through life with the grosser levels of mind and, when we die, the mind withdraws from the gross physical body. The mind naturally gets more and more subtle, and the gross levels of mind cease to function – cease to arise from the clear light mind – and we get to this clear light mind of death. Because there are still the constant habits or instincts of grasping for truly established existence and the habits or instincts of karma, what happens is that the mind leaves this most subtle state and gets to a medium subtle state (which would be a bardo) with subtle appearances of truly established existence, and then will go to a grosser state (which is the state of rebirth) with our usual appearances of truly established existence. We experience this same type of cycle when we fall asleep, go to deep sleep, and then the dream state with subtle appearances, and then wake up.
Although the Three Bodies of a Buddha are attained simultaneously and always occur simultaneously, nevertheless, we could look at the Three Bodies of a Buddha as having the same type of structure. Dharmakaya (Skt. Dharmakāya) is similar to the most subtle level without appearances – that’s the mind of a Buddha. The Svabhavakaya (Skt. Svabhāvakāya), the Nature Body, which is part of Dharmakaya, in the systems other than Kalachakra is the voidness of the omniscient mind of a Buddha and the true stoppings on it, while in Kalachakra, it’s the blissful awareness of the omniscient mind of a Buddha. This Dharmakaya is similar to the clear light mind of death, and then Sambhogakaya (Skt. Saṃbhogakāya) is a subtle movement and appearance-making of the subtlest energy-wind associated with that. In sutra (Skt. sūtra) – and, I believe, in the lower tantras, though I can’t remember exactly; I think that they agree with sutra here – Sambhogakaya is the subtle appearances of a Buddha that teach arya (Skt. ārya) bodhisattvas Mahayana (Skt. Mahāyāna) in the pure land realms, forever, with all the major and minor signs of a Buddha. In the other anuttarayoga tantra systems besides Kalachakra, Sambhogakaya is the speech of a Buddha. In Kalachakra, Sambhogakaya is both these subtle appearances and speech. So, this is similar to bardo. Then the Nirmanakaya (Skt. Nirmāṇakāya), which are the grosser appearances of Sambhogakaya, are similar to the rebirth state.
The heart, or the essence of anuttarayoga tantra, including Kalachakra, is that we meditate in a manner that is similar to this cycle and, in doing that, we transform it so that instead of this rhythm producing a samsaric situation, it produces an enlightenment situation. We do this on the generation stage – that’s the first of the two stages of anuttarayoga practice: generation stage and complete stage – by working with our imagination. Then, on the complete stage, we do this by working with the subtle energy system.
We go through a process that is similar to what happens with bardo and rebirth while, at the same time, in our imagination – in other words, conceptually – we have a conceptual cognition of voidness and imagine it is non-conceptual. We also imagine that we have a blissful awareness. We always want to try to have a blissful awareness of voidness in anuttarayoga tantra because a blissful awareness is the most conducive for getting to the most subtle level. It’s not necessarily itself subtle, but it is a gateway that makes it much easier to get to a subtle level. We also imagine, in the generation stage, the appearances that appear to the mind – or that the mind produces – as it gets more and more subtle, going down to the Dharmakaya-like death state, and then the appearances that would arise with bardo, and Nirmanakaya instead of rebirth.
In all the anuttarayoga tantras other than Kalachakra, we do this process with getting down to the Dharmakaya-like state by simulating the appearances that occur in the eight stages of dissolution of the gross levels of consciousness. The mind progressively withdraws from having the four gross elements of the body – earth, then water, fire and then wind – as its physical support, then the white bodhichitta (Skt. bodhicitta) creative-energy drop descends to the heart, the red bodhichitta creative-energy drop ascends to the heart, the two drops come together and enclose the subtlest energy and mind inside them, and then clear light. During this process, the energy-winds that support the mind and its appearance-making get progressively weaker. We imagine that the strength of our grasping to the appearance of truly established existence also gets weaker. Although it doesn’t say this in the texts, but I wonder if we could also imagine that the appearance of truly established existence itself gets thinner and thinner in these eight stages as the appearances become like smoke, like an illusion, like sparks and like a point of light. Although it doesn’t say this specifically in the texts, that seems to make sense.
In Kalachakra, the dissolution process occurs in ten stages and, as His Holiness explains, they encompass subtler stages than those described in the other anuttarayoga systems. They begin after the mind has withdrawn from having the four gross elements of the body as its basis. I don’t know whether the white and red bodhichitta creative-energy drops also join at the heart in the Kalachakra system, since in Kalachakra we get these two drops to secrete 21,600 drops each that stack up and down in the central channel. In any case, the ten stages refer to the withdrawal of the subtle energy wind from flowing out from the heart chakra through the ten channels that extend from this chakra. During the first four stages, the winds no longer project appearances onto the particles progressively of the four elements through the cognitive sensors of the senses. Although it doesn’t say in the texts, I wonder if the yellow, white, red and black appearances that occur next correspond to the subtle wind stopping making appearances through the subtle drops of the four occasions – bliss, awake, dream and deep sleep. This makes sense to me. When I asked His Holiness about my hypothesis, he said he didn’t know, but I would need to find a textual reference for this assertion. I must admit I have not pursued that.
Then, in the anuttarayoga tantras other than Kalachakra, after focus on voidness, there arises a subtle type of appearance, or a simple type of appearance, to represent Sambhogakaya. It could be a seed syllable; it could be a simpler form of a deity; it could be a drop. It’s different in each of the different tantras. Well, I wouldn’t say a symbol, because it could be like Manjushri (Skt. Mañjuśrī) in Yamantaka (Skt. Yamāntaka). Then, for Nirmanakaya, we have the full deity.
How Kalachakra Meditation on Voidness Differs
Kalachakra is slightly different. First of all, instead of eight stages in the dissolution, as I have explained we have ten. Secondly, we don’t have this Sambhogakaya stage similar to bardo. The Kalachakra texts explain that it is unnecessary because by purifying death and rebirth, automatically we purify bardo; it’s not necessary to do it as a separate step. Of course, there is a much deeper reason for this, and this concerns the type of body that we will achieve on the complete stage when we are working with the subtle energy systems that will act as the obtaining cause (nyer-len-gyi rgyu) for such a body; in other words, what will transform into the Form Bodies of a Buddha. An obtaining cause is that which transforms into the result and no longer exists at the time of the result.
In the other anuttarayoga tantras, we have in general what’s known as the illusory body; that’s primarily discussed in father tantra. In mother tantra, we have a presentation of a rainbow body, which is slightly different. However, in the general discussion of anuttarayoga theory, one usually just generalizes in terms of illusory body. Illusory body practices are done only on the advanced stages of the complete stage, when we have attained first conceptual and then non-conceptual total absorption on voidness. The total absorption on voidness is when we are focusing on the voidness that is like space. We’re just focusing on “There’s no such thing as truly established existence.” When that total absorption is conceptual, we attain an impure, or unpurified, illusory body during the subsequent attainment period of our meditation. It appears with truly established existence, but implicitly we cognize its voidness. The subsequent attainment phase is sometimes translated as “post-meditation,” but that’s extremely misleading, because we’re still meditating. It is the cognition of voidness that we attain subsequent to our total absorption on voidness – total absorption with joined shamatha (Skt. śamatha) and vipashyana (Skt. vipaśyanā). When that total absorption is non-conceptual, we first attain the unified pair of a purified illusory body and the abandonments of the emotional obscurations and then, during the non-conceptual total absorption, the unified pair of a purified illusory body and the clear light mind, where the purified illusory body does not appear to have truly established existence.
Meditating on the illusory body in the other anuttarayoga tantras is similar to Sambhogakaya, a subtle form of body, whereas, in Kalachakra, we don’t meditate in this manner. Instead, the obtaining cause for a Form Body of a Buddha – in other words, what transforms into the Form Body of a Buddha – is what is known as the “devoid form.” It’s a form that is devoid of particles. Although Gyaltsab Je asserts otherwise, the word “devoid” here is not referring to “void of truly established existence,” because everything is devoid of truly established existence. It is devoid of being made of subtle particles. When we speak about these devoid forms, these devoid forms are what naturally appear when the energy-winds start to enter the central channel, whether or not we make them enter. These energy-winds don’t have to be fully dissolved at the heart chakra, they just need to enter the central channel.
The other tantras say that the winds never go into the central channel while we are awake; well, they say that they never go into the central channel at all before we reach a clear light state, but Kalachakra disagrees with that. It says that the winds shift back and forth between one nostril and another twelve time during the course of a day and a night. When they make that shift, there are a few breaths that actually do go into the central channel. They’re called the deep awareness breaths, and at that time, even on the basis level, devoid forms arise. We have devoid forms not only at the basis time, but also at the path time when we actually, in our meditation, cause the winds go into the central channel by first withdrawing them from the sensory cognitive sensors as we do in Guhyasamaja (Skt. Guhyasamāja).
Since devoid forms automatically arise when the energy-winds enter the central channel, then in Kalachakra practice we do not need to imagine that, like an illusory body, they only arise when we craft them out of the energy-winds when we arise from conceptual total absorption on voidness. In Kalachakra, once the energy-winds are stabilized in the central channel, devoid forms will arise even during conceptual total absorption on voidness.
Throughout the entire process of any tantra practice, we need to always be aware of voidness. Everything is done within the context of voidness. In fact, one of the most important and perhaps one of the most difficult of the tantric vows is to remind ourselves of voidness six times a day so that we refresh our understanding, whatever our level of understanding of voidness might be. However, when we are doing a specific practice of tantra, then we need to merely reaffirm our understanding of voidness as part of this process of meditating on transforming death into Dharmakaya. We do this in a sadhana (Skt. sādhana). A sadhana, drubtab (sgrub-thabs) in Tibetan, is literally a method for actualizing ourselves here in our imagination as a Buddha-figure.
Six-Session Kalachakra Practice
The six-session Kalachakra guru-yoga practice that people do as part of the beginning level of Kalachakra practice in the Gelug tradition has many aspects of a sadhana included in it, but it’s not a full sadhana. A full sadhana has more parts than that. Although for doing a retreat on Kalachakra on a very simple level, people do it in the basis of this six-session practice, but please don’t confuse it with a standard Kalachakra retreat, which always must be followed by the Kalachakra fire puja (Skt. pūjā).
A six-session practice is a practice that fulfills the nineteen close bonding practices (or samayas) with the five Buddha families. The usual six-session practice, composed by the Fourth Panchen Lama, that we do is not a guru-yoga. The Six-Session Kalachakra Guru-Yoga, composed by Yongdzin Ling Rinpoche, combines a six-session practice with a guru-yoga. It’s a guru yoga because it includes the visualization of His Holiness as Kalachakra and the recitation of His Holiness’s name mantra. The usual six-session practice also has our guru visualized as a deity couple but does not include recitation of the guru’s name mantra. But both the usual six-session practice and the Kalachakra one have the guru dissolving into us, which helps us to generate a blissful mind. We follow it with a meditation on voidness, and then we arise as Kalachakra ourselves.
Most commentaries on the six-session practice by the Fourth Panchen Lama say that when we focus on voidness and then arise as a Buddha-figure, we do both of them instantaneously. We enter into the understanding of voidness without going through a whole dissolution process and then arise instantaneously from that. In Pabongka Rinpoche’s commentary to this six-session practice, he says that it’s possible at the point of entering into the understanding of voidness to do the taking death as Dharmakaya practice, which entails the dissolution in eight stages (or in Kalachakra, it would be ten stages). If we want to include in this six-session practice more elements from the sadhana itself, then we would do that full meditation at this point in the Kalachakra six-session practice. Once the guru dissolves into our hearts, we can imagine the ten stages of appearances, going down to clear light mind, and then focus on voidness. That can be added here, and usually it is, in the explanations of this Kalachakra six-session text. This is suggested by the fact that for arising as Kalachakra, we do so with the same steps as in the sadhana.
Some people disagree with Pabongka regarding adding the dissolution into the regular six-session practice. This is because we don’t have anything similar in it to arising as Sambhogakaya as bardo, so they say this is a bit artificial. Nevertheless, here in the Kalachakra six session, it fits quite well.
Voidness Meditation: The Four Gateways to Liberation
Now, when we do any tantra practice, whether it’s a sadhana or a six-session practice, we need to have done all the thinking and meditating on voidness beforehand so that now we can just remind ourselves of our understanding and generate that understanding without having to go through all the extensive lines of reasoning. We have to be very careful because it’s very easy to just skip any lines of reasoning, and not really have any understanding of voidness, and just pretend that we do. We have to be very careful not to make this voidness meditation here trivial and meaningless.
The way in which the voidness meditation is done here is in terms of the four gateways to liberation. There’s a difference between mother and father tantra here. Mother and father tantra are divisions of anuttarayoga tantra. In Gelugpa, Tsongkhapa explained that mother tantra puts the emphasis on clear light, and father tantra on illusory body, and since Kalachakra does not have an illusory body practice, by default it is a mother tantra.
In mother tantra, first we recall our conceptual understanding of voidness and then, with that understanding of voidness, we imagine that the mind gets more and more subtle with the dissolution process. In father tantra, like Guhyasamaja, we do it the other way round. We imagine that the mind gets more and more subtle with the dissolution process, and then, at the end of it, with that subtle mind, we generate our cognition of voidness, which in a sadhana and a generation practice is necessarily conceptual.
In the sadhana, there is a verse from Vimalaprabha (The Stainless Light), a commentary to The Abbreviated Kalachakra Tantra, with which this meditation is done. It also appears in Guhyasamaja as well. We don’t really have time to go through the verse and give a word-for-word commentary on it of its different levels of meaning. The verse has a literal meaning, and it also has a general meaning which is common to sutra and tantra, and it’s in this general meaning that we find the verse interpreted according to three gateways to liberation in Guhyasamaja and four gateways to liberation in Kalachakra.
If we follow the order in the verse itself, then first comes the gateway of the void nature itself. It is interpreted in the commentaries to the sadhana, particularly the commentary by Detri Rinpoche, as referring to the understanding of the voidness of voidness. If we take voidness as something truly existent, which is how it appears in conceptual cognition of voidness, then that’s not proper meditation – that’s not correct – so we have to understand that voidness doesn’t have truly established existence. There’s nothing on the side of voidness itself that establishes it as voidness, even in conjunction with the mental label “voidness.” By extension from this explanation, the way that it is practiced, the way that Serkong Rinpoche explained it, is that in addition to this, we apply this understanding of voidness to the appearances during the ten stages of dissolution that will follow this meditation. None of these signs, none of these appearances that will occur in the dissolution have truly established existence. These appearances are devoid forms, which are known as voidness with form, whereas voidness itself is known as voidness without form. So, the voidness of voidness can be understood as referring to voidness both with and without form.
Then, the second gateway is the gateway of signlessness – no sign – and that’s referring to no sign of a truly existent cause. Here we have to remind ourselves what the causes are for achieving enlightenment. What are we doing to bring about our attainment of enlightenment? We are practicing compassion, bodhichitta, these sorts of things – and Buddha-nature if we want to bring that in, although Gelugpa doesn’t emphasize that so much, but other traditions do. None of these have truly established existence in terms of the causation process. Here we have familiarized ourselves with the analysis of the lack of the truly established existence of causes, that the cause is not truly existently the same as the result, nor truly existently different from the result.
We might make that mistake in terms of thinking of Buddha-nature as the truly existent cause for enlightenment and that it is the same as enlightenment – we are already truly enlightened. That certainly is not the case. We could also include compassion here as part of Buddha-nature. Or we could make this mistake in terms of one of the other causes for enlightenment, which is our generation of bliss from our guru dissolving into us. We could then misconceive that our guru, as a cause for enlightenment, is truly existently separate from the result.
The third gateway is the gateway of no hope, and this regards the voidness of the result that we’re trying to achieve: There is no hope of a truly existent result. Here we are aiming, of course, for enlightenment as the result of our practice, but it is very important not to grasp at the truly established existence of that enlightenment. For this, we need to remind ourselves of the line of reasoning – at least in Madhyamaka (Skt. Mādhyamaka) – that the result neither truly exists nor totally not exists at the time of the cause. At the time of the cause (which is now, while we’re practicing), it’s not that enlightenment truly exists already, and it’s just a matter of quieting down and manifesting it – that it’s there already, truly, but unmanifest. That’s incorrect. On the other hand, at the time of the cause, it isn’t the case that enlightenment is truly nonexistent. If it was truly, from its own side, nonexistent now, it could never come about. This is what we meditate on and remind ourselves of here with this third gateway of no hope.
The fourth gateway is the gateway of no affecting action. An affecting action would be an action that would be the means for attaining the result, so the voidness of the means. It refers to the voidness of the method for achieving the result. It’s the action that we will do that will affect the change that brings about the result. Here, according to the commentaries, this is explained as understanding the voidness of the three spheres involved in the practice – the voidness of the meditator, what is meditated on and the meditation itself – these do not exist in any of the four extremes: truly existent, truly nonexistent, both, or neither.
This is the presentation of the four gateways to liberation, how we meditate on voidness. Basically, as I said, we’re reminded that if we are going to do this practice, we need to be very familiar with all of this from the study of, for instance, the ninth chapter of Shantideva’s Bodhicharyavatara (Skt. Bodhicaryāvatāra) (Engaging in Bodhisattva Behavior) or Chandrakirti (Skt. Candrakīrti)’s Madhyamakavatara (Skt. Madhyamakāvatāra) (Engaging in the Middle Way), in which we get these various lines of reasoning used in Madhyamaka for understanding the voidness of cause and effect, the nature of things, the dependent arising of three spheres, and so on. There are very detailed and wonderful presentations of voidness in these texts. Here we remind ourselves of them and then do the dissolution of the ten signs.
Questions
Can you say something about the specific form of the main Kalachakra figure? Is it a problem if I visualize it slightly differently, if I can’t visualize all the points and stuff?
According to the tradition, when Buddha was teaching the Prajnaparamita Sutras (far-reaching discriminating awareness or the perfection of wisdom) on Vulture’s Peak, he simultaneously manifested in the stupa (Skt. stūpa) at Amaravati, in South India, and appeared in this form of Kalachakra and taught the four classes of tantra from the four faces – each class from one of the faces.
The form is very specific, and it’s not proper at all to change it, because each element in it, each detail in it, has many levels of what it represents. Just as an example, there’s no time to go through all the details of what it represents, but the 24 arms would represent, in a year, the 24 phases of the moon. There are 12 lunar months, and each month is made of a waxing and waning phase of the moon, so there are 24 moon phases in a year. That’s on the external Kalachakra level, in terms of the world system. On an internal level, we have 12 phases of the shifting of the breath from one nostril to the other during the day, so that’s 24 half shifts, and that’s on an internal level of Kalachakra. Both of these we want to purify because both external and internal Kalachakra cycles are occurring under the force of karma and disturbing emotions; in other words, they describe samsara. We can also include in here the distorted view of the Samkhya (Skt. Sāṃkhya) philosophy, which divides primal matter into 24 factors, so it represents that as well. These are the 24 hands; they represent those 24.
Then, on the level of the alternative Kalachakra, which is the practice that will purify this whole samsaric level in Kalachakra, there is a presentation of the 12 bhumis, very advanced levels of mind, and each of those are divided into halves, so we get 24 phases. There are also 24 phases in terms of the stacking of drops that are associated with these bhumis. There are many, many levels that these 24 represent; it is like that for everything.
Can you say a bit more about bliss? I don’t understand what exactly “bliss” refers to when we say blissful awareness, etc.
When we speak about blissful awareness, we are not talking about ordinary physical happiness or the bliss of orgasm, certainly not that. Rather, we’re speaking about a very, very subtle level. Once we have actually gained mastery over the subtle winds and we have managed to get those winds to go into the central channel, then we experience a blissful awareness. It’s in the category of bliss or happiness that is experienced with a subtle level of mind on the basis of the winds being in the central channel. It has to do with things like tummo (gtum-mo) practice (the inner heat practice), in which certain drops and substances are moving within the central channel and not at all being released, and we have complete control over the energies. Well, tummo starts once the winds have been gathered as the preliminary to light the flame. By experiencing that, and there are many, many stages of it, and so on… This blissful awareness is a method for getting the winds to actually dissolve in the various chakras in the central channel so that we can get to the clear light level. It’s an incredibly advanced stage, and not our ordinary usual experience.
On the creation stage, we don’t use this notion of bliss?
On the generation stage, we imagine that we have this, but the actual blissful awareness is achieved on the complete stage when we actually have managed to gain control of those subtle energy winds. On the generation stage, everything is practiced in terms of imagination.
When the guru dissolves into us, for example, we imagine that the guru goes down the central channel to the heart chakra; it’s called the melting of bodhichitta in the central channel, and it’s done in tummo. It is similar to that and acts as a cause for being able to eventually achieve that, and not just in our imagination. Because we have a strong feeling toward the guru, it is a happy experience that the guru joins with us. We’re not talking about any sexual thing.
Could you give some advice for the Kalachakra retreat? Would you do reciting 100,000 mantras? Any specific advice?
If one can do a retreat, of course, that’s wonderful. Westerners have started doing the retreat – and it’s been authorized, it’s okay – on the basis of the six-session practice. That’s not a traditional retreat of Kalachakra because, as I said, it’s not the full sadhana, and it’s only working with the mantras of the central figure and the figures in the first ring around them, the powerful ladies or shaktis. However, there are practices like that, even with the sadhanas, with only that number of deities. If we can do that, that’s wonderful, but we need very, very good instructions in order to able to do such practice. Within the traditional form of practice that’s done in the Gelug tradition, the shortest retreat is with the full mind mandala (Skt. maṇḍala), which is 46 deities and all of their mantras, and with the fire puja at the end of it, and so on.
I’m not sure whether, with this new custom of doing a retreat on the basis of this six-session practice, they do the fire puja at the end. But I would be surprised if, on the basis of doing a retreat on this text, we would then be permitted to do the self-initiation afterward. Maybe that’s authorized, but I would be surprised. I would think we’d have to do a full sadhana. The self-initiation, by the way, is unbelievably complicated. Doing it at top speed – I mean, really, really top speed – the way that His Holiness’s monastery does it, takes them six hours nonstop. For us, it would take forever.
I’ve heard that in the Kalachakra Tantra, there’s a specific chapter on Manjushri-nama-samgiti that one can use as a separate practice, that particular chapter. Can you say a few words about that?
I translated it as A Concert of Names of Manjushri; it’s actually what the Sanskrit word means, and that’s not actually a chapter of the Kalachakra Tantra; it’s a separate text within the Kalachakra tradition. Samgiti is something that’s sung together in a group, literally. The Tibetans translate it with the word “praise,” which has nothing to do with the Sanskrit word. By the way, I have that translated on my website. It’s a very important text. It is speaking about all the qualities of the deep awareness of the clear light mind – the clear light mind’s deep awareness – as manifested as Manjushri. Basically, it’s all about the clear light mind.
[A Concert of Names of Manjushri]
It has many levels of meaning and interpretation. The best text on it, His Holiness always refers to, is the commentary by the Second Dalai Lama. It has a huge literature of commentaries, both in India and Tibet. It can be understood on a literal level, on a level of yoga tantra, on a level of general anuttarayoga tantra, and on a Kalachakra level. As a practice, it is usually done in terms of a yoga tantra practice, but it’s not necessarily limited to that. When I say as a yoga tantra practice, what I’m referring to is the visualization of the mandala or whatever that we would visualize while reciting and thinking about the meaning. However, then it wouldn’t actually be a yoga tantra sadhana, and it’s certainly not a Kalachakra sadhana. The way that it is most commonly done, according to Gyume Khenzur Rinpoche Ugyen Tseden, would be that we would visualize ourselves as White Manjushri, and we would visualize White Manjushri in front of us and recite or chant it, while of course, trying to be mindful of the meaning. It becomes a very profound meditation on the clear light mind and the deep awareness and various aspects of the clear light mind, but it requires a tremendous amount of teachings to understand what it’s talking about.
Naropa (Skt. Nāropa) said that without understanding this text, the Concert of Names of Manjushri, there’s no understanding of Kalachakra or of tantra. Undoubtedly, the vast, vast majority of monks in all four traditions memorize this text. I don’t think that we can make a statement that absolutely everyone, but it is a standard part of the training of any monk, in any of the four traditions, that they memorize this thing. It’s 167 verses, and it is an extremely helpful practice, even if we don’t understand it terribly well, to read it or recite it every day, if we have the time and are really serious. At least it’s nice to read it or listen to it once. On my website, I have it not only in written form but also an audio file of me reading, so you can hear it.
If you don’t know the symbolism behind all the implements and attributes of Kalachakra, for example, or any other tantric deity, would it still be beneficial to visualize it?
As a start, it is beneficial to visualize it, but it’s important to try to learn what it means, what they represent. You see, visualizing these deities is pretty weird, if we think about it, with all the things that they’re holding. “So what?” is what we would normally think. “So what, I can visualize all these arms and all these various implements.” Just leaving it on that level becomes incredibly trivial and fairly meaningless. What one wants to do is to use this as a method for keeping in mind all the things that they represent.
You see, we’re training to become omniscient. Tantra is an advanced stage in which we have developed, one by one, so many different things in the sutra practice – the perfections (the far-reaching attitudes), compassion, concentration, and all these sorts of things. In tantra, what we are trying to do is to put them all together and have them all in our awareness simultaneously, so we represent them in a graphic form – with all these arms and faces and legs – because it’s easier to hold all of that in one moment of consciousness than it is to just try to do this abstractly. It’s a method for being able to get simultaneously so many things in our awareness which will then act as a cause for becoming omniscient. It’s a very profound method.
Of course, we need to study what all of this represents, and we need to know at least some of the things that they represent so that we can start to put them together. Even if we don’t have that to work with here, we are trying to open up our minds to be aware of many things at the same time. That’s a very helpful thing. However, as Tsongkhapa said, when we do these visualizations, the method is to first get a general, vague mental picture. Don’t worry about the details. As our concentration improves, the details will automatically come into focus. The big mistake when people work with visualizations is that in the beginning, they worry so much about all the details: What does this piece of jewelry on this deity look like?
There’s a famous story of one practitioner, one Westerner, asking, “Does Yamantaka have a belly button?” This type of question is just a hopeless, ridiculous way of looking at these visualizations. Don’t get too fixated on these details because then we’ll get very frustrated and give up because there’s no way that we can do all the details in the beginning. I love that story.
Can you maybe give us a short list of texts that are a must for tantric practitioners to start?
The “must” would be Shantideva’s Bodhicharyavatara (Engaging in Bodhisattva Behavior), which would give us the Mahayana basis for doing any tantra practice. That’s the most important.