Kalachakra Sadhana: The Methodology of Kalachakra as an Anuttarayoga Tantra

After the Buddha attained enlightenment, he set flow three rounds of transmission of the Dharma; that’s what the expression “to turn the wheel of Dharma” means. First, he taught the four noble truths, the facts that are seen as true by the highly realized beings. In terms of the different levels of scope outlined in the lam-rim teachings, on an initial level there are the true problems, and the true problems are all the various sufferings of the worst rebirths – as creeping creatures (animals), different kinds of clutching ghosts and creatures of the joyless realms (hell realms). The true causes of these problems that you have in these lower rebirth states are the various destructive actions, the ten destructive actions. Then the Buddha taught what is true stopping of these types of problems, and a true stopping would be to gain liberation from these worse states of rebirth and to get a better state of rebirth; and the true pathway minds (true paths) that lead to that goal are the pathway minds of taking safe direction of refuge and following the ten constructive actions.

You can take it on another level, which is the level of the intermediate scope. His Holiness has given a very good guideline in terms of how to present the Dharma in terms of the three scopes and the four noble truths, and I’m following His Holiness’s guideline here. On an intermediate level, the true problems can be thought of in terms of the problems of samsara in general: the uncontrollably recurring problems of old age, of birth, sickness, death, unsatisfactory situations, all this sort of stuff; and the true causes for them are in terms of the various disturbing attitudes that we have and the compulsive behavior, karma and so forth. These are the obscurations preventing liberation, the first set of obscurations, and those would be the disturbing attitudes and the impulses and the seeds for these, and grasping for true existence, unawareness and so on. The true stoppings of that would be liberation from samsara. The path to that, the true pathway minds, would be the strong determination to be free from your problems (renunciation) and the three higher trainings in ethical self-discipline, concentration and discriminating awareness or wisdom.

I’ll go through all of this very quickly because I’m sure all of you are very familiar with lam-rim. But also, it’s the tradition that you have to cover the basic lam-rim before you start anything, so that’s the way that we should do things.

The second round of transmission of the preventive measures of the Dharma that the Buddha gave was the Prajnaparamita Sutras, dedicated to the far-reaching discriminating awareness (the perfection of wisdom). In these, the Buddha explained the paths and the stages much more specifically, and likewise he taught more specifically the teachings on voidness, absence of the fantasized, in terms of the Prasangika school as the absence of inherent findable existence and likewise introduced the various Mahayana themes.

We can take the four noble truths on the advanced level of motivation as well. On an advanced level, we can think in terms of true problems or true sufferings in terms of the true sufferings of everybody, not just myself in lower realms, not just ourselves in general but of all sentient beings, and in terms of our inability to help them.

The true causes for that is self-cherishing and the obscurations to omniscience, in other words the various propensities within our mind, or instincts, which cause us to not only grasp for true existence, which means cognize appearances of truly established existence and take them to correspond to reality. These obscurations cause our mind to give rise to these deceptive appearances. 

[Added by Dr. Berzin in 2026: The obstacles to omniscience prevent us from seeing the two truths in one package, which means both manifest in one moment of cognition. It is not possible for the mind, in one moment of cognition, to give rise to both conventional truth, which means these deceptive appearances of true existence, and deepest truth, which means the voidness or absence of these appearances. It is possible, however, to cognize in one moment the manifest voidness of both truths, which means the voidness of the deceptive appearance of all phenomena and the voidness of the voidness of that deceptive appearance. To cognize the voidness of anything, you must first cognize the object to be refuted and then refute it. That means to cognize the voidness of all phenomena, we need to cognize the deceptive appearance of all phenomena. Only an omniscient mind can do that. The obstacles to omniscience prevent this.] 

Not being omniscient prevents us from being to know all the skillful means and so forth and deal with other beings in the fullest way in order to bring them to enlightenment. These are the true causes of our problems, in terms of being able to help everyone. The true cessation of that, or the true stopping of that, would be with the attainment of enlightenment. And the true pathway minds leading to that would be in terms of the far-reaching attitudes, the perfections, and especially gaining a stilled and settled state of mind and an exceptionally perceptive state of mind, shamatha and vipashyana. This is our standard background or context within which we follow all the various teachings and practice them.

In the context of the third round of transmission, the Buddha taught the factors that allow for our achieving enlightenment, in other words Buddha-nature. This was taught in terms of the naturally abiding factors of the voidness of the mind and the evolving factors of the mind’s clarity and awareness. There are various presentations of the third round of transmission, but if we speak about it in a more general way, it refers to these aspects of Buddha-nature in terms of the voidness of the mind and the clarity and awareness of the mind, which allow us to be able to evolve fully and become a Buddha. Likewise, there are basic factors of the networks of positive potential and deep awareness on the mind, which are also evolving factors, and they likewise will bring about the bodies of a Buddha. 

Although tantra is not formally included in these three rounds of transmission, yet the third round hints at an anuttarayoga-tantra level of discussion of these factors that allow us to become enlightened. In other words, the Buddha-nature is usually not presented in terms of the third round as a tantric teaching, but one can infer a tantric explanation of it. When in the third round it speaks of the source as clear light, which it does, then this doesn’t only have to refer to clear light as the voidness of the mind, which is clear light as an object; nor does it have to refer only to clear light as a general name for the clarity and awareness of all levels of the mind in general; but it also suggests an anuttarayoga level of interpretation of clear light as the subtlest clear light mind as well, and that’s something that you only get in anuttarayoga tantra. 

In anuttarayoga tantra, they speak about the three different levels of consciousness:

• Rough consciousness, which is the sensory consciousness
• Subtle consciousness, which refers to mental consciousness, and particularly conceptual mental consciousness, although it includes all types of mental consciousness
• Subtlest level of consciousness, namely the clear light mind, which underlies each moment and provides the continuity into future lives through death and also the continuity to Buddhahood. 

The subtlest level is this finest level that underlies everything, which is slightly different from speaking of the clarity and awareness of mind in general, in terms of the clarity and awareness which is the feature of all three levels. We have to make a slight differentiation there, and I certainly found that quite confusing to differentiate between the subtlest mind and between mere clarity and awareness as the definition of mind. 

The subtlest mind is not the definition of mind; it’s one level of mind. Whereas “clarity and awareness” is the characteristic of all levels of mind. Just as when you speak about basic mind, or pure mind, in dzogchen, that likewise is slightly different because the subtlest level of mind, although it underlies each moment, is still stained by the various obscurations, particularly the obscurations to omniscience – the seeds, propensities and so forth. But when you talk about the basic or pure mind in dzogchen, that’s speaking about the unstained mind itself, not only clear light mind but the clear light mind free from all its stains. There’s a subtle difference being made with these three terms, which as I said I always found quite confusing. 

The subtlest mind is the clear light mind that underlies each moment. It provides the continuity through death and provides the continuity into Buddhahood, and it’s to grosser minds like a laser beam is to diffused light. It’s just a bare stream of continuity of something, of the clarity and awareness, and it can be discussed as a source for the omniscient clear light mind of a Buddha, since it’s the obtaining cause for it. In other words, it’s out of that clear light mind that one makes the omniscient mind of a Buddha. And since that’s something which underlies each moment, that’s a source within us, a type of Buddha-nature that would allow us to become enlightened and to have the mind of a Buddha.

We have the sources within us for the mind of a Buddha. In addition to all the discussion of them in the sutra, we speak in tantra in terms of the clear light mind being a source. As for a source of the Form Bodies (Rupakaya) of a Buddha, we can speak not only of the network of positive force, the so-called merit, which is the sutra side of the source for a body of a Buddha, or bodhichitta and all these other things as a source, but also this whole discussion of Buddha-nature suggests on an anuttarayoga-tantra level one of two further implications:

[1] We have several systems of tantra: we have the system of Kalachakra, which is what we’re talking about, but we also have the system of Guhyasamaja, Yamantaka, Heruka (Chakrasamvara), which form one system with its subdivisions. Guhyasamaja is the main of these three and the one that Tsongkhapa wrote the most about, and it is called the King of Tantras, and it is the first one that the Buddha taught.

What’s suggested there in terms of a source for the bodies of a Buddha is that the subtlest wind that is the mount of that subtlest clear light mind is a source for the Form Bodies. We have the wind underlying the clear light mind, and that subtlest wind is the thing out of which we make the Form Bodies. Because when we speak of the Form Bodies of a Buddha, in terms of arising from illusory body as a cause (because Guhyasamaja gives the whole presentation of illusory body), that’s explained as having the subtlest wind as the obtaining cause. In other words, we can make a Form Body of a Buddha in two ways, and one of the ways that you can make it is out of the wind underlying the clear light mind, and that’s taking the path of what’s called illusory body. So, Guhyasamaja is one source that we can speak of for a method to attain a Form Body of a Buddha.

[2] Or we can speak in terms of Kalachakra itself, which is what we’re involved with here, that the subtlest clear light mind itself is also a source not only for the mind of a Buddha but also for the Form Bodies of a Buddha. When we speak of the Form Bodies in terms of arising from the devoid form as its cause, which is what we’re doing in Kalachakra, these devoid forms are explained as having the clear light mind as their similar family cause. It’s a similar family cause since the devoid form is just described as being the appearance aspect of the clear light mind, it sort of takes on an appearance, like, it says, something appearing in a magic mirror, mirror on the wall type of thing. It’s not reflecting something, but the thing itself just appears.

Last year when I was introducing these things, I described it in terms of how when we have a picture taken with a flash camera, later we have an afterimage of a blue dot or something like that that we see, and the devoid form is not made out of atoms, is not reflecting anything at the time, but it’s something which is just sort of an appearance aspect of the mind. So that has the clear light mind itself as its similar family cause, in other words what’s the same sort of thing as that appearance.

Thus, in Kalachakra the clear light mind itself is taken as a source for both the mind of a Buddha and the body of a Buddha. These devoid forms are the natural appearance of the clear light mind once the grosser winds have been made to enter the central channel. In other words, we don’t have to have dissolved all the winds in order to get this devoid form to appear. It’s not like illusory body in which we have to get all the winds to dissolve, and then we get the illusory body. It’s just a reflection of that clear light mind once the winds begin to enter the central channel.

I’ll sort of give you a hint of what is coming on because everything in the sadhana practice that we’re doing is aimed to bring all these things about, so you have to know what we’re aiming at and what are the various things that we’re working with in a sadhana. 

In anuttarayoga, the clear light mind is emphasized as the main cause for the mind of a Buddha, specifically when it’s made manifest in one package with its being a great blissful awareness and a deep awareness of voidness. In other words, we want to get three things together. We want to get not only just an understanding of voidness all by itself; we don’t want to get just a blissful awareness all by itself; we don’t want to get just a clear light mind all by itself. Because you get the clear light mind at death, and that doesn’t bring you enlightenment; or you get a blissful awareness also through various Hindu yogic methods, but that doesn’t bring you enlightenment; and you get the understanding of voidness in sutra or even in the Hinayana, and that doesn’t bring you all the way to enlightenment.

What we are aiming for in anuttarayoga tantra is to get the three of these together in one package, or in one mind. We want it to be the clear light mind, we want it to be the subtlest level, we want that to be generated as a blissful awareness, and we want that to be the mind with which we understand voidness. Because if it’s a deep awareness of voidness, it acts as the direct opponent to the obscurations on the clear light mind. We want to work with the clear light mind because that’s what we’re going to make the mind of a Buddha out of. We want to have it be an understanding of voidness, so that it can remove the stains from that clear light mind – the seeds and instincts for grasping at true existence and so forth, which prevent liberation and omniscience, and which are the stains of that clear light mind. Also, we want it to be a blissful awareness because if it is blissful, then, as in the classic example that the stronger the fire, the more easily it burns something, so too the more blissful the mind that realizes voidness, the more intense and powerful it is for eliminating obscurations.

We want it to be a clear light mind, because that’s what you make the mind of a Buddha out of. We want it to be an understanding of voidness so that it can get rid of the stains on the clear light mind. And we want it to be a blissful awareness because that will add to the intensity of it so that it will be able to get rid of the stains or these obscurations more quickly and more powerfully. What it’s analogous to is the fact that, just as if the deep awareness of voidness is held by the force of bodhichitta, then likewise that becomes stronger for being able to act as an opponent to get rid of the obscurations.

We have the understanding of voidness both in Hinayana and Mahayana. What’s the difference? Why is the Hinayana only able to get rid of the first set of obscurations and not the second? The difference is because in Mahayana it’s held by the force of bodhichitta. Because it’s held by the force of bodhichitta, it’s more intense, more powerful, so it has a stronger driving force to knock out the second set of obscurations. Still, it can’t get rid of the very subtlest of those things, and so analogous to it we have to enter into the anuttarayoga path, and if it’s a blissful awareness on top of all of that, it has even more of the energy to knock through everything and clear away all the stains from the clear light mind.

That’s the main cause for the mind of a Buddha – this combination package that we have here of clear light mind, voidness and bliss. Then, the main cause for the Form Body of a Buddha is either, according to Guhyasamaja, the subtlest wind, that’s in the same package with that clear light and great blissful awareness of voidness. So, the Form Body will come from the energy underlying that type of mind; or, according to Kalachakra, the main cause for the Form Body of a Buddha will be that very same clear light great blissful awareness of voidness itself that was the main cause for the omniscient mind of a Buddha.

We take the same package of clear light, voidness and bliss, and that’s not only the main cause for the mind of a Buddha in Kalachakra but also the main cause for the body of the Buddha, because the body of a Buddha is just going to be the appearance aspect of that clear light mind, based on the strong impression and so forth that you’ve done through all these practices of the sadhana, of visualizing the Buddha-figure and other practices. It’s like the big flash that we had with the flash camera, which afterwards allows the mind to appear sort of with this aspect of a blue dot; likewise, with all the practice that we do with the sadhana, with the visualizations and so forth, and then the various working with the energy system of the body on the complete stage, then when we get down to that clear light mind, with the understanding of voidness, with it being blissful so it becomes supercharged and energetic, that’s going to appear then, like this blue dot image that I’ve been using, in the aspect of the form of Kalachakra because that’s made such a big impression on our mind. That’s how we get the body of a Buddha in the Kalachakra system. 

We were talking about true problems, their causes and the true pathway minds that lead to their true stopping: the four noble truths. We’ve seen that the true pathway mind is the realization of voidness, which overcomes the obscurations preventing liberation, namely the disturbing attitudes and grasping for true existence as well as the seeds for both. When this understanding of voidness is held by the force of an expanding heart of bodhichitta, it can overcome as well the obscurations to all knowable phenomena: that’s the obscurations preventing omniscience, which are the propensities or instincts for grasping at true existence. But actually, just that much can’t quite get us the entire stopping of these obscurations to omniscience, because we must have all of this with the subtlest clear light great blissful awareness and with some sort of facsimile of a Form Body of a Buddha, either a devoid form or an illusory body.

That’s in general what we’re working with in anuttarayoga, and specifically in Kalachakra we’re working with this clear light mind. We’re trying to get to the clear light mind, which means dissolving the winds. We’re trying to have it be an understanding of voidness, which we’ve done beforehand with the sutra method and of course with bodhichitta. We’re trying to make it blissful, which is also done through various methods of working with tummo (inner heat practice) or the various other practices. And we’re trying to make some strong impression in terms of visualization of deities or Buddha-figures, so that the clear light mind will appear in the form of these Buddha-figures, which is what we want to get the body of a Buddha out of, because we want to have the body of a Buddha as well, not just the mind of a Buddha.

Now in general, let’s talk about the method that’s used in the sadhanas. There are many methods in Buddhism to rid ourselves of problems. First of all, there is the method of applying opponent forces, like meditating on ugliness in order to overcome attachment or meditating on love in order to overcome anger. That’s referred to as applying opponent forces.

Then another method that we use in Buddhism is to change our attitudes and turn negative circumstances into positive ones. For example, when we’re suffering or having problems, we can look at it as depleting our past negative karmic forces and say, “Good, I’m suffering, so it gets rid of having to go to a worse rebirth state,” which is a very effective way of dealing with it actually. Or when we have problems, we can think of them in terms of taking on the sufferings of others, “By my hepatitis may nobody else have to suffer hepatitis,” or “By my headache may nobody have to suffer a headache,” and so on. “By my going into the gladiator ring may nobody else have to go into the gladiator ring.” Anyway, that’s changing our attitudes and turning negative circumstances into positive ones.

Then a third method that’s used in Buddhism is to apply the exact opposite way of thinking. This is because we can’t hold two opposite ways of thinking in the same mind or have one mind take the same object in two contradictory, mutually exclusive ways at the same time, such as grasping for true existence and the realization of there being an absence of true existence. If I look at this watch, I can’t look at it in terms of it being truly existently five minutes to twelve and also seeing the absence of true existence of it – that it doesn’t really matter that it’s that time and I just can relax. There are two opposite ways that we can look at the same object, and we can’t do that at exactly the same time with the exact same mind.

The fourth method that can be used in Buddhism is to meditate in analogy to what we want to purify and what we want to achieve. Thus, there are four methods:

• Applying opponent forces, like ugliness for attachment
• Changing our attitudes and turning negative circumstances into positive ones
• Applying the exact opposite way of thinking
• Meditating in analogy to what we want to purify and what we want to achieve. 

What we do with the fourth one is we imitate like a spy the natural tendency of what happens, so that we can get to the weakest vital point of it, destroy it and the substitute something for it, so as to bring about the results that you want. Serkong Rinpoche loved to use that image.

Sometimes I also use the analogy of a mental judo. We imitate the natural tendency of what happens: we sort of go in there and imitate it so that we can get to the weakest point of it, destroy it, flip it and substitute for it what we want to get in terms of the results. This is the method that we use in anuttarayoga tantra.

We always speak in terms of a basis to be purified, a path that does the purifying and a result of the purification: basis, path and result. These are all analogous to each other: the basis that we want to purify, the path that’s going to do the purifying and the result of the purification. Because we’re going to use the path as a spy, to imitate the basis that we want to purify, and in doing that, when we zap it and get rid of its problems, then our spy will substitute something for it, which is also analogous to it, and which will bring about the result.

To understand it better, let’s look at the example of uncontrollably recurring death and rebirth, since that’s something that causes us a tremendous number of problems and that’s really what we’re working with in our sadhanas here and in anuttarayoga tantras in general: to get rid of death and rebirth under the influence of karma and disturbing attitudes. To understand this, to get further into what’s going on in anuttarayoga tantra, let’s look at the different possible meanings of purifying death and rebirth. We always hear about “the basis for purification, the path that does the purifying and the result of the purification.” Well, what does purification mean?

There are many possibilities of what purification can mean. First of all, when we talk about purifying death and rebirth, it’s not purification in the sense of removing stains from something, like purifying the mental continuum of fleeting stains. We always talk about purifying the mind of its stains, and when we purify death and rebirth, it’s not the same type of thing. It isn’t that we have an everlasting continuity of death and rebirth, and we work to make it free of stains, to just have a nice death and rebirth without stains. It’s not that type of purification.

Second of all, it isn’t to purify or cleanse in the sense of chasing away interferences from it, like chasing away spirits or disturbing qualities of flowers that make you sneeze. We always chase away the interfering things in a sadhana, with all sorts of figures coming out of us and chasing away these interferences to purify things. It’s not doing that so that we can get rid of disturbing qualities and enjoy something purely. We’re not working so as to enjoy purely death and rebirth free from confusion. That’s not the type of purification that’s involved.

Third, it isn’t purification in the sense of making the later moments of continuity of it better, like we speak of developing an exceptional resolve. His Holiness refers to it as universal responsibility, which means to expand your heart further and further, so that the exceptional resolve becomes more and more pure or better and better. We’re not trying to make the continuity of recurring death and rebirth better; it’s not that type of purification. 

Fourth, it isn’t purification in the sense of making later moments of the continuity of something be of different quality, like instead of eating food with attachment we imagine ourselves as a Buddha-figure, and we’re making offering to the Buddha-figure and enjoying the food unassociated with confusion. It’s not that type of purification. We’re not striving to continue to die and be reborn, but instead of as an ordinary person, as some sort of pure deity who dies and is reborn more nicely in some paradise without so much suffering and confusion. It’s not that kind of purification either, which is the purification of making the later moments of continuity be of different quality. 

Rather, it is a fifth type of purification, in the sense of ending its continuity, in other words, eliminating the cause for uncontrollably recurring death and rebirth, so as to make them stop continuing and never occur again. It’s that type of purification: that we want to end it, we want to stop this continuity, not just change its continuity, not make it better, not remove the stains from it, not chase away interferences from it, but just stop it. 

And this can be done in various ways. Buddhism is filled with a variety of methods, so it’s helpful to have some idea of all the various things that are used in Buddhism; otherwise, everything becomes the same. We talk about purification so much, and purification really involves many different ways that are used in Buddhism.

Now, this type of purification, of ending a continuity of something, is not in the sense of merely burning the seeds for them, like in Vajrasattva purification for negative karmic forces or potentials. What we do in Vajrasattva practice is purify ourselves of these negative potentials in the sense of we burn off their seeds so that the circumstances won’t arise for the various negative potentials to ripen. It’s only the understanding of voidness that gets rid of the seeds completely. The mantra of Vajrasattva just scorches them, as it says, so that although they’re still there, the circumstances won’t arise for them to ripen.

We’re not just working to scorch the seeds of death and rebirth so that the circumstances don’t arise for them to happen again; we’re not doing that type of purification. Rather, we want to root out the causes altogether, to purify in the sense of eliminating birth and death. We’re not opposing it directly, so we’re not using an opponent for death and rebirth such as some sort of elixir of immortality, which some people could conceive of as being the way to get rid of death and rebirth, which would be similar to when we oppose hatred with love. And we’re not using an exact opposite of birth and death to end it like we were using the realization of voidness, the absence of inherent existence, to be the opponent of grasping for inherent existence. We’re not meditating on something that is the exact opposite of death and rebirth as the way to purify ourselves of it and to end it. 

Rather, we’re working to break the continuity of death and rebirth by meditating on paths that are similar to death and rebirth. Specifically, these are analogous paths that get to the heart or the foundation of death and rebirth, the mechanism that’s underlying death and rebirth, and root it out, like the spy that was imitating and getting down to the weak point. We meditate in terms of paths that are similar to death and rebirth, which get down to the heart or the foundation of it, root out the causes at this foundation level for their generation. At the same time, not only do they root out the causes for death and rebirth at the foundation, but they act themselves as the causes for the mind and body of a Buddha to arise instead from that same foundation.

In structural form, what we have is a basis and a result that are analogous. The basis is death and rebirth, and the result is the body and mind of a Buddha. Both of them are analogous to each other, and both arise from the same foundation. If you call the basis one and the result two, both one and two come from the same foundation. What we’re doing is we’re using a path that’s analogous to both one and two; it gets down to that common foundation of one and two, and when it gets down there, it has a dual function. It acts as an opponent to eliminate the causes in that foundation to give rise to number one, so it zaps out the ability of the foundation to give rise to number one, which it normally does all the time, and acts as a cause for the foundation instead of giving rise to number one, to give rise to number two, which is analogous to number one.

The foundation is clear light mind, and instead of that giving rise to number one, death and rebirth, we make it give rise to the body and mind of a Buddha. That’s the technique that’s followed in anuttarayoga. The basis to be purified is death and rebirth. The result of the purification is the mind and body of a Buddha, and they’re analogous to each other. Death and the mind of a Buddha both involve the subtlest level of the mind, made manifest by the dissolution of the winds. Death involves the subtlest level of the mind when all the winds dissolve at death, and the mind of a Buddha also involves this subtlest level of mind when all the winds dissolve; they’re analogous.

Both rebirth and the Form Body of a Buddha involve that subtlest level of the mind having an appearance. You get down to the subtlest level of mind when you die, and then that comes to have some sort of appearance when you’re reborn again. Likewise, the mind of a Buddha: it’s coming down to the subtlest level of mind, and when you have the body of a Buddha that has some sort of appearance. This is what the two have in common, the analogy between number one and number two.

Both number one and number two, number one being the death and rebirth and number two being the body and mind of a Buddha, have this common foundation. They arise from what’s called the foundation for all. In Kalachakra it’s called – our old friend, to add confusion to the picture – the alayavijnana, the alaya actually it’s called, the foundation of all, and it doesn’t at all have the meaning that it does in Chittamatra, the Mind Only school. Here, when they talk about the alaya, the foundation for all, it’s referring to the clear light mind. It’s the foundation for both number one and number two, for the basis and for the result, samsara and nirvana; they only talk about it like that in Sakya terms. The path that purifies the basis and brings about the result is analogous to both. 

Now, what’s the path? The path in Kalachakra is what’s called the unchanging blissful awareness of voidness, and the appearance of it is a devoid form couple. I assume you’re a little bit familiar with these terms, from last time and from His Holiness’s talks. This path likewise gets down to the foundation of all, the subtlest clear light mind, through being a path involving the dissolution of the winds. Because to get this unchanging blissful awareness and to get this devoid-form couple you have to have the winds enter the central channel, dissolve them and so forth, so it likewise is analogous to number one and number two because it likewise gets down to the clear light mind.

Our spy is going to go down the foundation to get to the weak point and to zap its ability to give rise to number one and have it instead give rise to number two. The causes that make it give rise to number one, to death and rebirth, are the seeds and propensities on it, which give rise

• To the grasping for true existence
• To the disturbing attitudes
• To the karmic impulses, or karma.

It’s because of the seeds and propensities for karmic impulses that the consciousness impulsively takes a rebirth. Due to the seeds for disturbing attitudes, it goes in it with a whole bag of garbage of various problems. Also, it goes into it with grasping for true existence: “I’m going to get secure by latching on to this sperm and egg and having a new body.” As emphasized in Kalachakra, the seeds and propensities for the emission or the shifting of winds out of blissful clear light act as a mount for that grasping for true existence, those disturbing attitudes and those karmic impulses. It’s very central to Kalachakra. 

In other words, when we’re in the state of clear light at the time of death, it’s the propensities that make us want to leave clear light. We can speak of it in terms of blissful clear light: there is a propensity to emit that bliss, to have emission of the winds out of that state of bliss, so that the winds come out of clear light, to act as the mount or the energy for the grasping for true existence, for the karmic impulses and for the disturbing attitudes. According to Kalachakra, that is the root cause of samsara really. Of course, it also speaks of grasping for true existence, but that’s looking at it from one point of view. From another point of view, it’s the propensities for the energy to come out of the blissful clear light to then act as the energy that will support this whole grasping for true existence and this whole play of samsara.

Now, the paths of devoid form and the unchanging blissful awareness of voidness act as the opponents to eliminate the propensities for emission or shifts from the great bliss of clear light mind. The path of unchanging bliss acts as an opponent for this propensity, because it’s unchanging bliss, it’s unshifting bliss, with all the connotations of that. It also acts as an opponent to eliminate the propensities for grasping for true existence. This is because it’s an awareness of voidness, and it’s also a devoid form, which builds up a tremendous amount of potential to allow the understanding of voidness to get rid of the stains, to get rid of the obscurations. 

What we’re talking about was our spy coming in, going down to the foundation that gives rise to one and two – death and rebirth, and also to the body and mind of a Buddha. What’s the weak point that’s causing the clear light mind to give rise to death and rebirth, to one and two? Now, the causes for it are the stains on that clear light mind, the propensities for the energy to leave clear light and then to go as the foundation for grasping at true existence, karma, delusions and all that, which is then the next step in our chain that gives rise to samsaric death and rebirth.

How does it act as an opponent to make it stop doing that? Well, what’s the first thing that we want to stop? We want to stop the tendency to want to leave the clear light, to want to have emission out of the blissful awareness of clear light. What acts as an opponent to that is unchanging bliss, this whole thing of the stacking of the drops and of staying in the bliss. And what acts as the opponent to the grasping for true existence is, of course, the understanding of voidness.

Now, the understanding of voidness you even have on the Hinayana path, so it has to be super strong. It’s super strong through being with bodhichitta, super strong through being with a blissful awareness; and in the sutra, it had to be super strong by having a tremendously developed network of positive force, the so called “merit.” What acts as not a substitute but an implementation to produce a tremendous amount of positive force is the devoid form, because with your devoid form you can do a zillion things at the same time. Our path of unchanging blissful awareness of voidness and a devoid form gets down to this foundation and gets rid of the causes within it that would give rise to death and rebirth in that way. And not only does it do that, but at the exact same time the unchanging blissful awareness acts as the cause to be the mind of a Buddha. Like I was saying before: clear light mind, voidness, being blissful plus the devoid form, all of that acts as the cause to be the Form Body of a Buddha. It’s fantastic; incredible. That’s the crux of what we’re doing in anuttarayoga tantra.

What happens is that instead of giving rise to death and rebirth because of these propensities to come out of clear light and to grasp at true existence, that clear light foundation acts as the cause for the body and mind of a Buddha.

It’s a cause for the mind of a Buddha because the clear light mind is what the mind of a Buddha is made out of, and with the voidness it gets rid of the stains. And it’s the cause for the body of a Buddha because the appearance aspect of it will be the devoid form, the Kalachakra Buddha-figure. By getting down to this foundation through the path of unchanging bliss and devoid form, we’re able to get down to the weak point here, which would give rise to birth and death, so we zap it of the stains, we get rid of these causes of death and rebirth; and instead, that clear light mind will become the omniscient mind of a Buddha when all its obscurations are eliminated, as it naturally has that tendency – let’s get back to Buddha-nature, that’s what it’s talking about. It naturally has that tendency; we just need to get rid of the stains. It becomes the omniscient mind of a Buddha, plus its reflection appears in the form of a body of a Buddha, which can then do all the things that the body of a Buddha can do. 

Likewise, by this process, instead of the clear light mind giving rise to environment and various aggregate factors of the body, its elements, the energy-channels and so on, all associated with confusion, the clear light mind gives rise to the pure environment of a Buddha and to a whole array of enlightening forms as male and female Buddhas, bodhisattvas, forceful Buddha-figures and so on. This is an analogous substitute for ordinary persons being actually made up of a conglomeration of a whole array of aggregates, elements, energy-channels, sensors and so forth.

In other words, what are we? We are a conglomeration of five aggregates, elements, the senses, the channels, the winds – a tremendous number of things. Instead of clear light mind giving rise to all of that, all those many little parts, which all come together and are woven together in terms of what we think of “me” with a big black line around, instead of it doing that, it gives rise to all the Buddha-figures in the mandala, which likewise are “me” as this whole conglomeration of all these things. Instead of giving rise to this or that channel, it gives rise to this or that Buddha-figure. That’s what it means to purify your aggregates as the deities. 

We see this in the sadhanas all the time: now you visualize that your aggregate of consciousness is pure and is in the form of Akshobhya. Well, what does that mean? That means that through the methods we get down to the clear light mind, so that instead of it giving rise to something associated with a lot of confusion, like our mind for instance, we have it give rise to Akshobhya, plus all the things that Akshobhya stands for in terms of different types of deep awareness, aspects of omniscience and so on.

If you think that 722 Buddha-figures are too much, you should give some consideration for how many actual things you have inside your body: it’s far more than 722. And we feel that we’re this whole thing of all these parts in our body. So likewise, analogous to that, is being the whole mandala with all these Buddha-figures. That’s what it means to purify the aggregates into the male Buddhas, the elements into the female Buddhas and so forth. It means to meditate on a path in analogy with them, in the sense that a whole mandala is analogous to having a whole body full of all these parts and channels – so that the foundation for them, the clear light mind, rather than giving rise to these things, which are associated with confusion and give problems, like our attitudes or our channels, gives rise instead to all these various enlightening forms unassociated with confusion.