Outer, Inner and Alternative Cycles
Now, let’s talk even more technically in terms of Kalachakra. Kalachakra means “Cycles of Time,” and it presents the external, internal and the alternative cycles of time. Externally we have the environment, and internally we have the inhabitants of the environment. These are the basis to be purified, since they’re “tainted” with confusion and they cause true problems; that’s how I translate the word “contaminated.” The alternative level includes both the path that purifies and the result of the purification. We had basis, path and result. Kalachakra speaks of the external and internal levels (that’s the basis), and of the alternative level, which is the path and the result. The three are analogous and work by the process that was just described. Thus, the external, internal and alternative cycles of time are analogous to each other, because we’re talking about a basis to be purified, a path and a result, and the analogy works the same.
Externally, for instance, we have the year going through a cycle of 12 zodiac houses or 12 months; 60 hours in a day (we call it hours because we don’t have another word, but the unit of time that they have is one-sixtieth of a day, so we’ll call it hours); 30 days in a month, which is 1,800 hours in a month. Then 12 months of 1,800 hours comes up with this great number, 21,600 hours in a year. Now, the calendar that developed out of Kalachakra is also a 60-year cycle with 360 days in each year, so that also makes 21,600 days in the calendar cycle of 60 years, so you get the same number in the astronomy. That’s externally.
Internally, one day is made up of 12 shifts of breath from one nostril to the other. Remember I was talking last year about how you breathe predominantly through one nostril or another? By the way, that doesn’t mean that you’re breathing 100% through one nostril and absolutely nothing coming out of the other nostril; it’s where it’s predominantly coming out of. Each of these 12 shifts also has 1800 breaths, so again we have the same numerology of 12 times 1800. We had 12 months of 1800 hours each month, so we have 12 shifts of breath with 1800 breaths in each one, which again comes up to 21,600 breaths in a day.
Thus, we have an uncontrollably recurring shifting of winds on an external and an internal level. These are the winds that are moving the sun and the planets through their cycles, the external thing of 21,600 hours in a year and so on. And we have an uncontrollably recurring shifting of the internal winds that are going through our internal breathing, and they mark off measures of time in units of 12 times 1800, or 21,600: 12 shifts, 1800 breaths, 12 months, 1800 hours. What are these winds due to, on both the external and internal levels? They’re due to our disturbing attitudes and karmic impulses, our old friends, karma and delusions, or I should say our old enemies.
The environment and its cycles of time come about as the dominating result of collective karmic impulses. You remember the teachings of karma: there are ripening results, the results similar to the cause and the dominating results. The last ones are the environment and all this sort of thing, what you experience. The environment comes about as a dominating result of collective karmic impulses of everybody; it’s the external Kalachakra. And one’s own body and its cycles, the internal Kalachakra, are the ripened result from individual karmic impulses and disturbing attitudes. The ripened result of our karma is a rebirth in a joyless realm (hell realm) or a rebirth as a human being; the dominating result is the environment that we are born in.
Both the external and the internal cycles come from karma. The external world and the internal world come from the karmic winds, these compulsive energy-winds and the disturbing attitudes that mark them. That causes the external and the internal cycles: the passages of winds moving the planets and moving our breaths. The external cycle marks the passage of years, months, days and so forth. The internal marks the passage of the breath system within the body, and the passage of time marked by them becomes the cause for death and rebirth of limited beings. Because after a certain number of breaths or a certain number of years, one’s body ages, gets sick, falls apart, and one dies. This is inevitable, and it recurs uncontrollably.
In Kalachakra, we’re speaking of the causes for what we want to get rid of: the external and internal cycles, the basis – the external environment with all its craziness that it goes through, as marked by the planets moving around, and the internal garbage that is marked by the breaths going through its cycles. Both of them are coming about because of karmic breaths, karmic winds, which are marking the passage of time, and it describes the whole process that is called all-pervasive suffering in the context of the different types of suffering: that we have aggregates and simply by their nature they fall apart, degenerate, attract sickness and so on. The passage of time describes the inevitability of our aggregates falling apart and having death and then rebirth.
Regardless of what type of bardo we have, these two are the basis for purification: death and rebirth under the influence of shifts of wind. Now we’re taking shifts of wind on another level: the moving of the winds through these cycles. This is talking about death and rebirth as what we want to purify on both an external and an internal level, the external and the internal cycles – the birth and death of the universe and the birth and death of the individual, under the influence of this collective karma or individual karma. Excuse me, there’s a tremendous amount of material. If you want to get into Kalachakra, it’s going to be a lot, no matter how you approach it, no matter from what angle; it’s always going to be a lot. So, you want Kalachakra, here’s Kalachakra! Otherwise, we do the Mickey Mouse sadhana!
Basis, Path and Result as Being Analogous to Each Other
The result of the purification, which is in analogy to the basis to be purified, is the mind and body of a Buddha-figure. The mind is analogous to death in terms of the clear light mind, and the body is analogous to rebirth in terms of its appearance. The appearance of the Buddha-figure, the result that we want to achieve, is something that is similar to the basis that we want to purify. For instance, the Buddha-figure has 12 shoulders, which are analogous to the 12 months and the 12 shifts. Because everything we want to get parallel: we want to have our number one and our number two be analogous to each other. Our number one here was birth and death, not only in terms of individual but in Kalachakra in terms of external and internal – through all its cycles that it goes through, so its cycles of 12 months and 12 shifts of breath. And likewise, our number two, the result that we want to get, is going to be involved with the same numerology type of thing, with all these numbers. It’s going to have 12 shoulders, for instance, to be analogous with that. I’ll go through the symbolism tomorrow when we get to the Buddha-figure.
Thus, the path that purifies is analogous to both the basis and the result. This we had already: our spy’s going to go in and imitate – it has to be analogous, has to wear the same costume. The unchanging blissful awareness of voidness is analogous to death and the mind of a Buddha, and the devoid form is analogous to rebirth and the body of a Buddha.
When we achieve this devoid form and this unchanging blissful awareness on the complete stage, which is the second stage of practice, then with them what we do is we stack 12 groups of 1800 drops. There we have the same set of numbers, and that’s for 21,600 drops of white and red energy-drops: it’s both white bodhichitta and red bodhichitta that we’re stacking. Once we get on the path, which is the devoid form and the unchanging bliss, then with that as a combination we start to stack these drops. And again, it’s the same numerology:
- 12 times 1800, like we had 12 months of 1800 hours
- 12 shifts of 1800 breaths
- 12 groups of 1800 drops making 21,600 drops
- And on this basis, we get 21,600 moments of unchanging blissful awareness of voidness, which has as its appearance the devoid form.
On the basis of the 21,600 drops, we get 21,600 moments of the combination of unchanging blissful awareness, and it is appearing as a devoid form. Through this, one stops the 21,600 winds of karmic impulses. Since the external cycle is the cycle of 21,600 in the course of the year, for things to make a complete circuit of a year, and likewise in the body for it to make a complete circuit of the breaths going through all the channels and so forth, 21,600, we have this cycle of 21,600 energy-winds, which is an analogous situation. What we want to do is to get rid of the 21,600 energy breaths or winds that are causing the external shifting, are responsible for the external cycle and the internal cycle, so as an alternative we get the 21,600 moments of unchanging bliss, and with the devoid form. We want to get these 21,600 moments of unchanging bliss with the devoid form to stop the 21,600 energy-winds, the karmic winds.
Through that process, we remove all the obscurations to omniscience, and we deplete all the corporeal matter of our old body, because in the process what happens is that the body dissolves, disappears. That happens only at the very end by the way; it’s not a gradual process. The cause is gradual, but the actual process of the body dissolving just happens at the very end. We manifest the Dharmakaya mind of a Buddha, when all the obscurations are eliminated through this process of the 21,600 moments. What’s going on is basically 21,600 moments of zapping, because we’re having unchanging blissful awareness with the form of a Buddha appearing, the devoid form of the couple.
We have to work at getting rid of the stains, these obscurations from the clear light mind; it just doesn’t go away by itself. It’s going through in terms of zapping at it 21,600 times, like we had with the energy-winds that are underlying the universe and underlying our own breath cycle and stopping the 21,600 in this way of hitting 21,600 times; so that in the end process the obscurations are finished, because the winds and everything else are all finished. The clear light mind then becomes the omniscient mind of a Buddha, with all its limitations removed, and the devoid form becomes the body of a Buddha. When the devoid form becomes the body of a Buddha, in that process what happens is our old body disappears like a rainbow. We’re just left with this devoid form body.
That’s the basic path that’s going to do it. It’s 21,600 moments of unchanging blissful awareness that eliminates this tendency to want to get out of bliss, get out of the clear light. That’s the actual path that’s on the complete stage, unchanging blissful awareness and devoid form. Now in more detail, let’s go over it again.
Generation and Complete Stages in Kalachakra
The path of anuttarayoga has two stages: the generation stage and the complete stage. A lot of people call it the completing stage, and I used to call it that myself. However, it doesn’t really mean that; it’s not that we’re completing the process that was started before. Rather, the connotation of it is that it’s the stage when everything is complete, so that now we have the actual ability to make the winds enter the central channel, and as the reflection of that consciousness to get a devoid form. Everything’s complete: we’ve done all the stuff, and now we can work with the complete system. And it’s not artificial: it’s actually happening, the winds are actually going into the central channel, and we’re actually getting a devoid form as a reflection of that; whereas in the generation stage it’s all in imagination, and it’s not through actually getting the winds to enter the central channel. The basic difference between the generation and complete stages is that with the generation stage, it’s in your imagination, it’s artificial, whereas in the complete stage it’s for real, it’s not artificial: the winds are actually entering, and these things are actually happening in terms of your subtle energy system.
Once we have the winds enter the central channel, and the reflection of that consciousness in that situation being the devoid form, then, continuing that process, what happens is that we get the winds that are associated with the six aggregates and the six elements of the body, and that are responsible for the 12 shifts, to completely enter, abide and dissolve in the six chakras in the central channel. In Kalachakra, we speak about six aggregates and six elements, so there are winds in the body that are associated with the aggregates and with the elements, and they’re responsible for the 12 shifts.
I don’t want to go into too much detail, but it has to do with the navel chakra and the channels within the navel chakra, the element winds and the aggregate winds each being associated with one of the channels as the breaths go through its whole cycle of passing through the channels of the navel, which is where it’s counted off in terms of the shifting of the breaths. Once you get the winds to enter the central channel, and it’s reflecting as a devoid form, then we continue this process of getting it to enter more and more. We have these 12 shifts, so there are winds which are responsible for these 12 shifts – the six aggregate and the six element winds – and we’re getting them to enter, abide and dissolve in the central channel.
Where in the central channel? It’s in the six chakras of the central channel: that’s the forehead, the throat, the heart, the navel, the crown of the head and the pubic region; there are six chakras there. Unlike in the whole Guhyasamaja side of anuttarayoga practice, it’s not that we want to get everything to dissolve in the central channel in the heart chakra. In Kalachakra, once we get it to enter, we’re working to get them to dissolve into the six chakras, not just one.
These six chakras are associated one each with the six elements, so the navel chakra is earth element and so forth. But symmetry is stupid, so there’s no one-for-one correlation of, for instance, the earth wind dissolving only in the navel chakra, which is the chakra associated with the earth element; it’s not that. All the winds are dissolving in all of them. But you do have an association of the chakras with elements.
As a result of these winds dissolving into the six chakras, we get a clear light mind, which is appearing as a devoid form and is actualized as an unchanging blissful awareness of voidness. Then on the basis of that, by dissolving all of them, we get down to the clear light mind. The devoid form is a reflection of that clear light mind, but it doesn’t have to have all the winds dissolved for a devoid form to appear; they just have to enter the central channel. But when we really want to perfect it, we have to get all the winds eventually to dissolve in the channel, into the six chakras. When they’ve all dissolved, we really get down to this clear light mind appearing fully as the devoid form. That’s what it means when they say that the devoid form gets more and more excellent. Of course, it has the understanding of voidness and so forth, and on the basis of that we stack in the central channel 21,600 drops as a basis for 21,600 moments of unchanging great bliss.
And we have two groups of 1800 drops stacked between each of the six chakras, making 12 groups. We have six chakras, so in between each of the six chakras there are two groups of 1800 drops, so that makes 12 groups of 1800 drops; and the numerology repeats throughout. That makes 21,600 drops, like we had 12 months of 1,800 hours and 12 shifts of 1,800 breaths, and now we’ll get 12 groups, two each between the six chakras, of 1,800 drops each. Through this process, we then further dissolve the 21,600 breaths or winds of karmic impulses into these six chakras.
Dissolving the winds takes a long time. There’s a lot of winds, so to get down to the full clear light mind and the step of the complete stage where we have unchanging bliss and the devoid form, where we start to stack the 21,600 drops, before that we’ve dissolved all the element winds and aggregate winds into the six chakras. But now, once we start to stack the drops, we dissolve the 21,600 karmic winds which are in addition; it’s more things to dissolve. By that process, we remove all the obscurations and deplete the matter of our body, and we achieve from this unchanging bliss and the devoid form – the mind and the body of a Buddha.
In short, the complete stage practice of the devoid form and the unchanging great bliss, with all its dissolutions of the winds into the six chakras (the six chakras are very important here), is analogous to the basis to be purified, that’s the death and rebirth both of the universe and individuals, and to the result of the purification, that’s the body and mind of a Buddha. And it purifies in the sense of eliminating the causes for the basis, eliminating the causes for number one, and it itself acts as the cause to bring about number two, the result of the purification.
The complete stage with this devoid form and unchanging bliss with its 21,600 moments of dissolving into these six chakras is what’s really going to zap the basis from being able to produce these energy-winds and so forth, the 21,600, that’s responsible for the external shifting of the planets through collective karma, the internal shifting of the breaths through individual karma, which mark the passage of time, which then is responsible for the uncontrollably recurring phenomenon of death and rebirth. It gets that out and instead acts as a cause for the body and mind of a Buddha.
To ripen into this complete stage, we have the generation stage. Now it’s starting to finally get down to our sadhana. We have the generation stage, and as Nagarjuna said in his Five Stages [of the Guhyasamaja Complete Stage], these two are like rungs of a ladder. Thus, we have to do the generation stage first. Kedrub Norzang Gyatso, who was the tutor of the Second Dalai Lama and wrote a commentary on Kalachakra, and who seems to be one of His Holiness’s favorite commentators, has said that the generation stage is for purifying the rough faults of the outer and inner situations. This is the basis to be purified. It purifies the rough faults of it, so that on the complete stage we can purify the subtler ones, really get down and zap the faults of the external and internal cycles in terms of the winds and the energies of them.
Benefits of the Generation Stage
Tsongkhapa explained in his text A Lamp for Clarifying the Five Stages, which is a commentary on the Guhyasamaja complete stage, what the benefits of the generation stage are. This is where our sadhana’s on.
[1] The first is that each point of the generation stage has a profound dependent-arising relation of being similar with and giving rise to a realization on the complete stage. In other words, how are we going to get this unchanging bliss, and how are we going to get a devoid form? How are we going to get the winds dissolving into the six chakras, and how are we going to get all these various things happening of arising as the Kalachakra couple and so on? It’s not going to happen just out of the blue for no reason at all.
This is the thing that’s so important with the generation stage, with the sadhana. Every single point of it is for a purpose. There’s nothing arbitrary in it. Every point is designed to act as a cause to ripen into something on the complete stage, by being similar to it, by being in terms of something in the imagination. We’re always visualizing all sorts of Buddha-figures on our six places, and that’s to gain some sort of awareness of the six chakras, of those places in our body. By visualizing them at the six chakras, it accustoms us to having the mind focused there, and where the mind goes then the wind goes. And we’re never going to get access to this subtle energy system unless our mind is focused on it. And it’s focused on it starting here by visualizing OM AH HUM HOH, for instance, on the four chakras or visualizing the six dhyani Buddhas at the six chakras.
It’s all to ripen into the complete stage, where we are going to get the winds to dissolve into the six chakras, so that we get this whole process of the spy being able to zap number one and get number two. It sets up a whole frame of mind. What is the Buddhist frame of mind really? I think when you get down to it, again it falls back to the four noble truths: the way of thinking is in terms of cause and effect. If you have problems and you want to get rid of them, you find out their causes and get rid of the causes, and that brings about the elimination of the problems – the first two noble truths. But also, if you want to bring about an effect, you have to bring about the causes for it. If you want to go to India, you have to bring about the causes of getting the money together and getting the plane ticket and all these sorts of things.
Likewise, if you want to get the complete stage, if you want to get rid of your problems, if you want to get the resultant stage of a Buddha, what’s the cause? The cause is the complete stage, this devoid form and unchanging bliss in this process of stacking the drops, in the Kalachakra system. What’s going to be the cause for that is the generation stage, all these practices in the sadhana. If you’re constantly thinking of the sadhana in terms of “I’m doing this in order for it to ripen into this point or that point on the complete stage, because that’s really what is going to get rid of the root of samsara,” then the whole thing makes sense, rather than just a technical Walt Disney world of “Now I’m visualizing this Buddha-figure up my nose and that one under my arm,” and so forth. There’s no point in that; one can just do any sort of exercise. But if you realize that you’re doing it for a purpose, “I have to do this so that it will ripen into the next step that will actually get rid of my problems,” then the whole thing becomes very meaningful. You know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Each point of the generation stage has a profound dependent-arising relationship with the complete stage, being similar to it and giving rise to its realization.
[2] The second point that Tsongkhapa makes is that by practicing the generation stage one gets brightening inspiration of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas on one’s mental continuum. “Brightening inspiration” is my latest version of the word “blessings.” I often call it inspiration, but then you can’t use it when His Holiness explains what the word means, which is “to brighten, to transform something into a brighter condition.” You get the brightening effect or inspiration or blessings of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas.
That means you get a tremendous amount of inspiration from visualizing the Buddhas and bodhisattvas, visualizing the gurus and so forth. That’s a benefit of the generation stage of working with imagination: by being mindful of all these Buddhas, bodhisattvas and so forth you get the inspiration or brightening from them; it brightens you, brightens up your mind, brightens up your whole outlook on things. Rather than just seeing grime and punk culture or whatever around you, it brightens you in terms of seeing everything as clear radiant light and these Buddhas and so on.
[3] The third point that Tsongkhapa makes is that one is taken care of by the Buddha-figures or exceptional meditative deities (yidams) in all one’s lives. By making a strong impression of all these Buddha-figures, these forms and so forth, then throughout all your lives that impression is there, and one continues to have a connection. Also, it’s very calming, it’s very helpful to have these sorts of images on your mind rather than images of nightmares of a big spider coming and eating you, that sort of thing, which might come from strong connection of having been an insect. Rather than that, we are going to have strong impressions in our dreams of Buddha-figures such as Tara and all sorts of nice things coming.
[4] The fourth point Tsongkhapa makes is never being separate from the continual mindfulness of the Buddhas. By doing the sadhanas each day, this generation practice, you’re always mindful of the Buddhas so you never feel lost. You know how sometimes we go through life, and some crisis comes up and we panic, “I have nothing to turn to, nobody to turn to,” we are empty. The whole sort of existentialist absurd trip – trip in terms of the absurdity of life. By doing these sadhanas each day, we won’t be separated from continual mindfulness of the Buddhas.
[5] Fifth, Tsongkhapa says, we’re easily able to complete the networks of positive force and deep awareness through making offerings and praise, because we’re constantly doing offerings in these sadhanas and that builds up tremendous positive force, and we’re constantly imagining a million beings around us and giving them flowers and incense, so it again builds up a tremendous amount of positive force and a tremendous amount of deep awareness, because in theory we’re supposed to be aware of voidness throughout the sadhana.
[6] Another advantage is not being harmed by interferers. In other words, there are all sorts of protection practices that one does in the sadhanas, and that’s one level of not being harmed by interferences; another level is just by being constantly aware of everything as being the play of voidness and bliss, blissful awareness of voidness. The main interferer is grasping for true existence, freaking out. Something happens, and you freak out, you put a big black line on it, “Oh my God, there’s a sound in the sky,” thunder – was it last night or the night before? – and immediately, “It’s Colonel Gaddafi.” Whereas if you’re constantly aware of the sadhanas and seeing everything as the play of bliss and voidness, then it’s the crash of cymbals, heavenly music, whatever, and it protects you from being harmed by interference, the paranoia of Gaddafi.
[7] The next one that Tsongkhapa points out is that we are able to achieve the actual attainments of pacifying and so forth in this lifetime. Through the generation stage practices, through all these visualizations of sending lights out and pacifying people’s problems and helping stimulate them to increase and so forth, one is able even through the generation stage to get that type of attainment, actually, in this lifetime.
[8] The next advantage Tsongkhapa mentions is that the generation stage acts to overcome ordinary appearances, that is, making things appear in an ordinary fashion and grasping at them as existing as such. Because what we tend to do is make things appear in an ordinary fashion, “Oh I look so ugly today in the mirror,” and that sort of thing, and grasp at it, “Ooh, I’m horrible, I’m ugly,” or whatever. The generation stage acts as an opponent to that in terms of we visualize ourselves as a Buddha-figure and we hold the self-esteem of that.
The former, visualizing ourselves as a Buddha-figure, contributes to overcoming the obstacles to omniscience, discordant appearance-making, giving rise to things appearing as inherently existent. As an opponent to these obscurations to omniscience, we work with making things appear in a pure form.
Holding the divine pride, or self-esteem, or dignity of the deity, contributes to overcoming the obstacles that are the disturbing attitudes. Because if we feel that we are Kalachakra, able to handle all sorts of situations and everything is integrated in our life, then that helps overcome the disturbing attitudes of “I can’t cope, it’s too much for me,” this sort of thing which is so common for all of us.
[9] Also, the generation stage is where we develop the stilled and settled state of mind (shamatha) through all these visualizations. And through the visualization of things being emanated out of the central channel, we develop the exceptionally perceptive state of mind (vipashyana). Vipashyana, by the way, doesn’t have to be on voidness. It’s an exceptionally perceptive state of mind, which most of the time is developed through cognition of voidness, but also can be generated in terms of this generation stage, of all these incredible visualizations of things going in and out and multiplying, and one vajra on your nose making two, making four, making eight and back, in and out, this sort of stuff also can develop an exceptionally perceptive state of mind. On the generation stage, you’re able to do that much more quickly – not much more quickly, but it’s a very good opportunity to be able to do it, and for many people it is much quicker to be able to do it through the generation stage. And the generation stage is what our sadhana is found on.