Main Features of Tantra
The practice of the tantric teachings is something graded into four classes of deity practices. Unless you have a little understanding of what these four classes of deity practice are, it will be quite difficult to suddenly jump to the most advance one, the anuttarayoga, or peerlessly integrated deity practices, and gain some understanding of Kalachakra. Therefore, I will explain a little about the four classes of deity practices, so that Kalachakra will make more sense in that context.
The word “secret mantra,” the term “hidden measures to protect the mind,” in the connotation of the Sanskrit word “mantra,” means something to protect the mind. What do you have to protect your mind from? You have to protect it from the ordinary appearance of things and your obsessive attachment to the ordinary appearance of things. This is what you must protect your mind from. It is extremely important then to protect your mind and cease your obsessive attraction to ordinary appearances. You stop yourself from seeing things in an ordinary manner and rather try to see in terms of all beings as deities. Wherever you are, you see the environment as a celestial mansion or mandala of these deities. This is one of the important points of the deity practices.
In addition to that, there are the practices of being able to take bliss as a pathway. It is extremely important to view things in terms of a pure appearance. You should try to see yourself and likewise all things and beings around you in terms of a pure appearance. Literally, “to wear the sky on your head and the clouds around your neck.” It is very important to be respectful of others and to see others in a pure manner, as you never know who others are or what is actually going on. Therefore, it is extremely important to know about these techniques for stopping your obsession with the ordinary appearance of things.
The difference between the paths of sutra, or themes of practice, and the path of mantra, or hidden measures to protect the mind, is a factor of quickness. The sutra paths are slower, whereas the tantric paths are quicker. There is no difference, however, in terms of the discriminating awareness with which you realize the nature of reality or the absence of the fantasized. There is no difference in any level of profundity between the sutra system and the tantra system. There is discussion of voidness, or absence of the fantasized with respect to beings, phenomena, the twelve types of voidness, the sixteen types of voidness and many other different discussions. In all of these, in terms of the actual realization, there is no difference, as it is presented in the sutra or tantra systems.
When you develop the discriminating awareness of voidness, or the lack of true identities, it can be done in terms of either wishing to get rid of all problems for oneself or in terms of helping all others. If you gain such a discriminating awareness with the aim of removing your own suffering, then you can attain a state of liberation with this and become an arhat or liberated being of the shravaka (listener) class. If this understanding is conjoined with love and compassion, the very strong wish to benefit others, you attain the most superlative achievement, namely that of omniscience.
The difference between Hinayana and Mahayana is a difference of vastness of scope. Those who follow Hinayana are those who see that the disturbing attitudes are the root of all faults and therefore, work to rid themselves of these disturbing attitudes for themselves alone. They see that these disturbing attitudes destroy and harm oneself, they destroy and harm others, they are the root of all faults, and therefore they work to overcome or get rid of them. The shravakas or listeners can see that a dedicated heart of bodhichitta is a greater attitude.
Bodhisattvas also see the disturbing attitudes as the root of all faults and as an enemy, but they also see that one can make use of these disturbing attitudes in order to benefit others. For instance, when you have a field and you think in terms of manure or fertilizer – though manure is something you normally want to get rid of or throw away – nevertheless, through fertilizing the field, it is something you can make use of. Likewise, the bodhisattvas look at the disturbing attitudes, and among them desire or infatuated attachment is recognized as having many faults to it. Just as if you drop oil on a piece of paper, it is hard to remove the stain; likewise, desire is very difficult. Dharmakirti has said that even though ignorance is the root of all suffering and the uncontrollably recurring problems of samsara, he will discuss it in terms of craving as being the root. Tilopa said to Naropa that desire is something which has great fault, and the example of flies and honey was used. When flies land on honey because of their great craving for something sweet, they get stuck in the honey and are unable to fly off. Likewise, the same is true of our craving or desire.
The bodhisattvas are aware that desire has faults, but nevertheless are willing to make use of it in order to benefit others. These bodhisattvas are extremely courageous and are willing to make use of desire in order to benefit others. An example would be a king who takes a thousand wives and would father a thousand children. The king does this in order to have five hundred children to be trained in diplomacy and worldly things so that they could be rulers of various regions, and the other five hundred would be trained to be great practitioners and then would become highly realized beings who would explain the Dharma to others. In this way, a king would use desire to have many offspring who then could fulfill all the mentioned purposes in order to benefit others. Likewise, bodhisattvas are willing to make use of desire to benefit others.
If you have the dedicated heart of bodhichitta, as was previously described, you cherish others solely and you ignore your own selfish needs, then with that type of attitude you can make use of desire in order to actually benefit others. Therefore, if you have a dedicated heart and this is something in your mind-stream, you can use these types of methods to quickly achieve a state of enlightenment. All of us can tell where our minds are and what type of realizations we’ve had. If we haven’t had even the slightest bit of a dedicated heart, yet we pretend to be a bodhisattva and engage on this basis in these advanced practices, then it will become a very quick and speedy method for being able to achieve one of the worst states of rebirth. If someone is not actually the chief official of a land but pretends to be and carries out many activities with lies and deceit, then at some time this person will be caught and punished severely. Therefore, there is a great difference in terms of the type of practice between someone who follows Hinayana and someone who follows Mahayana.
In terms of Mahayana, there are two divisions: the vehicle of far-reaching attitudes (Paramitayana) and the vehicle of the hidden measures to protect the mind (Tantrayana). In terms of these two types of vehicles of mind, there is no difference in the understanding of voidness, the absence of the fantasized. In fact, the discriminating awareness with which you realize voidness is something that those of Hinayana likewise develop, and it enables them to cut the root of all their compulsively recurring problems and to attain liberation. In the same way, this type of discriminating awareness is also developed by those following Mahayana. Although there is no difference from the point of view of the object that is understood, and no difference in terms of the absence of the fantasized itself, nevertheless from the point of view of the type of consciousness that realizes this total absence, there is a difference.
In the diamond-strong vehicle of practice, the Vajrayana practice, what is involved is the mind or consciousness that understands this total absence and that is a very blissful consciousness. This is something that you don’t have in the practices of the vehicle of the Paramitayana. In terms of this blissful kind of consciousness, there are four levels of it. Because there are these four levels of blissful consciousness that can understand this total absence of the fantasized, there is the presentation of the four classes of deity practices of tantra. The basis for this kind of presentation is that in the anuttarayoga you have the highest type of blissful consciousness taking this total absence as its object. Therefore, using this type of presentation as a basis for making four classes of tantra gives you one way of explaining the difference among them.
The four levels of blissful consciousness are described in terms of a couple or partner. First is the bliss that comes from looking at each other. Greater than that is the bliss from smiling at each other. The third is the bliss that comes from holding hands. The fourth is the bliss that comes from a sexual embrace.
Therefore, if you take the type of bliss that would arise from looking at a partner, such as a beautiful goddess, and you take that type of bliss from merely looking at her as a path of mind that is then going to induce the understanding of voidness, and take this type of integrated practice or yoga as your main object with which to train, then you have what is known as the practice of kriya tantra, or ritual deity practice. If you take the blissful consciousness that arises from a goddess smiling at you and use that to gain a definite understanding of voidness, then this is behavioral deity practice, or the practice of charya tantra. If you take the blissful consciousness that would arise from holding hands with a goddess and use that as the consciousness for understanding voidness, and perform a yoga within that context, this is known as yoga tantra, or integrated deity practice. If you take the type of blissful consciousness that arises from the meeting of the two organs of this deity couple and use that as the type of consciousness for ascertaining voidness, and take that as a path, this is the path of peerlessly integrated deity yoga, or anuttarayoga tantra. Using the analogy of a type of termite that is born inside a piece of wood or a tree and eats it out, you have this practice of being born within the context of desire, yet eliminating that desire and becoming enlightened.
Four Classes of Tantra
In addition, there is another way of explaining the difference between the four classes of these deity practices, which is in terms of the general presentation of the deity practices. If we speak in terms of ritual deity practice or kriya tantra, this has three Buddha-families of deities. There is the Tathagata family or authentically transformed family, the lotus family and the vajra family. Within the Tathagata family, there are such deities as the Sitatapatra, the White Umbrella Goddess. In the Lotus Family is Avalokiteshvara. In the Vajra Family, an example would be the practices of Vajrapani.
If you engage yourself in one of these types of ritual deity practice of one of these deities, this will be a type of practice that, out of outer activities or inner types of integration or yoga, puts the main emphasis on outer ritual behavior. This emphasis on outer ritual activity is what distinguishes kriya tantra. It puts its main emphasis on outer behavior or rituals as opposed to inner integrated practices. If you are involved in any of these kriya tantras, the way that external behavior is made very prominent in their practice is that the practitioner does a great deal of ritual bathing according to proper procedures. You have to wash many times according to certain ceremonial procedures. In terms of diet, there is great emphasis on eating foods such as the three white foods and the three sweet foods. You are not permitted to eat meat, eggs, garlic or onions. You have to wear especially clean clothes, and you must pay special attention to cleaning the place where you perform your practice. Regardless of the specific type of retreat that you are doing, this emphasis on external ritual behavior would be extremely prominent. This is what is involved in kriya tantra. Therefore, out of external behavior and internal yogas, that which places the emphasis on external behavior is kriya tantra.
When you have an equal emphasis on external behavior and internal integrated practices, this is known as charya tantra. In terms of external behavior and internal integrated practices (yogas), the tantras that put the main emphasis on internal integrated practices are known as the yoga tantras. When the technique involves peerlessly integrated practices, or the highest types of yoga, then it is known as anuttarayoga tantra. This is a general presentation of the differences among the four classes of deity practice. When you have a presentation of the nine yanas, or vehicles of the mind, although it will classify these different tantras or deity practices with different names, it’s only a matter of using different nomenclature, because what they are referring to is the same.
Within the system of anuttarayoga tantra, which is the highest and most advanced vehicle of mind, there are two divisions, mother and father deity practices. Some authors will present three divisions: mother, father and nondual tantras. I will explain today in terms of one tradition of presentation. If you ask what the difference between mother and father deity practices is, in order to achieve enlightenment, it is necessary to have two things that are most prominent in these practices. One is the achievement of an illusory body, and the other is the achievement of a clear light consciousness. The deity practices that put the most emphasis on indicating the different ways to develop the clear light consciousness are known as mother tantra. The deity practices that put the emphasis on indicating the various methods for achieving the illusory body are known as father tantra. Therefore, this difference in classification is made in terms of which receives the main emphasis in the practices – either illusory body or clear light.
We have the division of anuttarayoga tantra into father and mother practices. Within the father tantras, this can be divided into three: those that take anger as a method, those that take desire as a method and those that take ignorance or close-mindedness as a method. For those tantras that take anger or deep hostility as a path, there are the divisions of Red Yamari, Black Yamari and Vajrabhairava. Within Vajrabhairava, there are the classifications of the one with six faces, the wrathful black one and so forth, and these are divided into the various types of Yamantaka or Vajrabhairava. This entire group of deity practices dealing with Vajrabhairava type of deities would be tantras that take anger as a method. The different deity practices dealing with Yamantaka-type of deities put the main emphasis on various forceful or wrathful methods for getting rid of difficult situations, getting rid of interferences and as methods for being able to accomplish various special devices and mechanisms that can be used to overcome hardships.
As for the deity practices that use desire as a method, the main one is Guhyasamaja, the Amalgam of Hidden Factors. This was taught specifically to the King Indrabhuti. King Indrabhuti was someone of extremely sharp wit, and the Buddha, being extremely skillful and compassionate, taught him a method by which he could, without abandoning his royal kingdom and possessions, make use of them and benefit others. Having King Indrabhuti mainly in mind, he taught the Guhyasamaja Tantra that takes desire as a pathway. Guhyasamaja is known as the king of all the deity practices. Therefore, without having to give up his royal offspring, wealth, possessions and so forth, he could practice this type of method. The celestial palace for Guhyasamaja is something constructed in a manner that is very conducive to the splendor that the king was used to. Likewise, around this celestial mansion there are no cemeteries or cremation grounds, as you find in some other mandalas or round symbolic universe of a deity. In the mandala of Guhyasamaja there are no cremation grounds.
As for the tantras that take ignorance or close-mindedness as a method, the main one for this is the practice of Vajra Arali. In this, there is a great presentation of the practices that can be done involving sleep. This is an example of a type of practice that takes ignorance as a pathway.
As for examples of mother tantras, we have Chakrasamvara or Heruka, Hevajra and also Kalachakra. Within the practices of Chakrasamvara, which put emphasis on body, speech and mind, there are three different lineages. These would be the lineages of Luipa, Drilbupa (Ghantapada) and Nagpopa (Krishnapada). As for the time when the Chakrasamvara Tantra was taught, it was a time when Shiva and his wife Parvati had come to take control over the world, and they were causing a great deal of problems and hardship. At that time, it became obvious that it was necessary to tame and subdue Shiva and his wife, and to put an end to the bad influence they were having on everyone. The Buddha manifested the mandala of Chakrasamvara or Heruka on top of Mount Meru. There he manifested the full mandala with sixty-two deities, and the deities took on the form of the disciples to be tamed, and likewise the names they were given were names in terms of the disciples to be tamed. There are various holy places where this tantra is manifest, and these are specifically the temples and holy places of Shiva. It is there that the mandala of Chakrasamvara is superimposed on top of these Shiva holy places.
There are twenty-four holy places of Shiva where Shiva and his consort were presiding and causing a great deal of hardship and difficulty for everyone around. Therefore, the Chakrasamvara mandala is manifested superimposed on top of these twenty-four places as a method for subduing and controlling these forces of Shiva and his consort. This is why these twenty-four places are blessed with the inspiration and blessings of Chakrasamvara and are considered very holy places in terms of the male and female celestial beings (dakas and dakinis) of the mandala who are manifest at these places. Although these twenty-four places primarily correspond to twenty-four parts of the body of the deity, these places are found in India and are given names in terms of the subcontinent. It is also said that all twenty-four places are complete in any great landmass. For instance, here in America, you would say as well that a complete set of the twenty-four holy places is present. Therefore, if we practitioners of mother tantra, whatever area or country we are practicing in, such as here, the dakas and dakinis of this area will bestow inspiration and blessings. Among the great highly realized practitioners of India and likewise those found in Tibet, there were many who took this mother tantra of Chakrasamvara as their main practice.
Out of the mother and father tantras, Kalachakra falls in the category of mother tantras. Although Kalachakra is within the category of mother tantras, nevertheless its manner of explanation and presentation is something that is different from that of Chakrasamvara, for instance, in the mother tantra category, and of Guhyasamaja in the father category. Now, within the context of Kalachakra, there is a presentation of an outer Kalachakra or Wheel of Time, an inner Kalachakra and an alternative or other Kalachakra. Another way of distinguishing the sutra from the tantra practices is that normally we have a body, environment, things we enjoy and make use of, and we have activities. We take as the basis for what must be purified: our body, the things we make use of, our environment and our activities. We block the ordinary appearances of these four things, and we try to develop having these four things arise in a pure form.
The way that we do this, for instance, the way that we develop and cultivate having a perfect body, a pure body, is to purify our ordinary self-image and instead imagine ourselves as having the appearance of whatever deity we happen to be practicing. We hold the dignity and pride of being that deity. In terms of the environment – the area in which we are living or staying – we block the ordinary appearance or image of the place where we are living, and instead we imagine that wherever we are is a celestial mansion or mandala of the deity we are practicing. The same thing applies in terms of what we enjoy, experience or make use of. Normally we enjoy food and drink, but what we must do is block the ordinary appearance or image of what we have, bless and purify it with the syllables OM AH HUM, and then imagine it to be a nectar or ambrosia of deep awareness, completely unassociated with any confusion or uncontaminated. Then we make use of and enjoy these objects in their aspect of being ambrosia of deep awareness unassociated with any confusion. That is why during the initiation or empowerments of the other day, there was the making of offerings. This was not the offering of ordinary objects, but these were transformed into objects completely unassociated with any confusion. You were presented with offerings that had been transformed in this way and that were unassociated with confusion. This laid various instincts and propensities for you to actually be able to enjoy things without confusion or contamination.
There was a great practitioner named Phagmodrupa Dorje Gyalpo. Milarepa had two great disciples – one like the sun and one like the moon. This was the great physician Gampopa, and the other disciple was Rechungpa. Of these two disciples of Milarepa, Dorje Gyalpo was a disciple of Gampopa. He was born in Kham and was very learned. He was such a learned person and was so highly skilled that he would not accept just anyone as his teacher. He met someone who was a disciple of Gampopa, as he was preparing to leave to go back to his homeland. The two of them became close Dharma friends. His friend told him, “You must meet my teacher Gampopa, as he was a disciple of Milarepa.” He took him to the monastery of Daglha Gampo, which was where Gampopa was living.
Since Dorje Gyalpo was such a learned person, when he met Gampopa he didn’t make prostrations but just went in to meet him. He said to Gampopa, “I don’t have anything to ask you in terms of anything I don’t know already. I want to ask you something that will give me a deeper understanding of something I already know. I’ll ask you something I don’t fully understand.” Gampopa said to go ahead and ask him anything, as he had received full understanding from Milarepa. The question he asked was: “I can’t cut the root of samsara.” The answer Gampopa gave him was: “Only if you take as the object to oppose your compulsive obsession with the ordinary appearance of things and cut that will you cut the root of your compulsive existence.” On hearing these words, he gained great realization, as he was such a proper vessel for being able to receive that. He said that he had asked this question to many spiritual masters before, but Gampopa was the first to answer his question in a way that brought him such benefit. He then requested further teachings.
He meditated a great deal and built up the teachings as a habit of mind and did this extremely well for many years. After a while, he wanted to go on a pilgrimage to India. He said he wanted to go visit the great holy places of the dakas and dakinis, the great cremation grounds such as the Cool Grove and make offerings. He had a disciple – the great accomplished one Lingrepa who was a very great master. He said there was no need to go to the fearsome cremation grounds in India, as the cremation grounds are in terms of our minds, our own superstitions, and wandering around in the fearsome cremation grounds of our own minds are the zombies of the eight worldly feelings. If we can get rid of these zombies, we can overcome the fearsomeness of the cremation grounds, the superstitions of our own minds. Within the city of the subtle energy body that we have, dwell all the dakas and dakinis. Therefore, if we wish to make an offering to them, it can be performed within our own body. There is no need to go to India.
It is very important to do this type of practice that was mentioned – of consecrating your food with OM AH HUM and transforming it into a great nectar of deep awareness unassociated with any confusion. Then you make an offering of this nectar to all the various dakas and dakinis that dwell in the various parts of your body. By the process of just eating this food, which is consecrated and transformed in this manner, you build up a great positive potential, and it is a great offering of tsog. This is what the great Milarepa meant when he said, “Just in my ordinary eating I have the instructions for making that a great Dharma practice, because I transform the food into an offering to the circle of beings within me.” In the tantras there are methods for having pure enjoyment of various objects, because you transform these things you make use of into nectars of great bliss unassociated with any confusion or uncontaminated. You enjoy and make use of them in this way, and in the process build up a great store of positive potential. This accounts for the speediness of these paths.
As for having pure activities or pure deeds, this is in terms of imagining now that we do the type of activities and deeds that a fully enlightened Buddha does. We imagine, for instance, that from the three syllables OM AH HUM arranged at the three places on our body, we emit light rays and nectars that go out and purify the body, speech and mind of others. With these emitted lights, we perform the various activities of pacifying things, causing situations to increase, gaining power and influence over situations and so forth. The Buddhas are able to do these types of great deeds of benefit to others in this way every single moment. When we speak in terms of purifying our actions or activities, it means imagining that now we are able to perform the deeds that a Buddha does, such as emitting lights and affecting everything around us in a positive manner. Therefore, to take as a path practices of imaging now that we have a pure body, pure environment, pure enjoyment of objects and a pure way of acting is a special characteristic found only in the tantric deity practices. It is not something found in the sutra practices.
The Necessity of Keep One’s Practice Private
There are many reasons and necessities for practicing these hidden measures of tantra in a secret or private way. Although you are putting all these teachings on your tape recorders, this is really not completely proper. All of you who have come here have taken time off from your work and earning a living and have come here with great interest. Therefore, it would not be right for me to say that you could not do that. If you take these tapes and spread them around and let just anyone listen to them, that is quite improper. These tantric practices are something to be applied for gaining realizations, and you keep this private when you practice them. When you have any questions, you ask them to the spiritual master. If you take these various teachings that are tape recorded and spread them around, it will be extremely difficult for you to ever gain realizations, because these hidden measures are not things that are meant to be just openly advertised or publicized in any old manner.
Although these hidden measures are not meant to be explained in a casual manner to just anyone, if you go to the other extreme and don’t explain it to anyone, there is the danger of the teachings dying out. If you explain too much, there is the danger that the blessings and inspiration from the dakas and dakinis will degenerate. Also, there is the danger of the dakinis and Dharma protectors causing difficulties to arise from being too loose in explaining. Therefore, it is necessary to be very skillful and tread a middle path of neither explaining too much nor explaining nothing at all. Even though I am not skilled in being able to teach in this middle way, nevertheless, since you invited me from so far away and since you all have such great interest in these teachings, it would not do for me not to explain anything at all. But if I explain too much to you, there is the danger that you will spread these teachings and make them public, and that would cause damage to the teaching themselves. You have great geshes here, and you should ask them questions about these teachings in terms of applying them to your own personal practice. You shouldn’t take these teachings and think in terms of publishing them and making them widespread; that would be incorrect. Rather, you should think in terms of practicing them under the guidance of your great teachers here.
A wise person once told me that the tantric teachings are something that do not lack power. The fault is that with all your tantric implements – your rosary, vajra and bell – you act casually and show them to everybody. It is because of this that you feel the tantric methods don’t have power. From the point of view of the teachings themselves, it is not that they lack power, but the fault lies rather in the casual way you treat your tantric implements. Therefore, thinking that this was quite true, in India I would not walk around with my rosary. In the tantric colleges in Tibet, the practice was to have a tiny rosary and carry it in your pocket, not around your wrist. In terms of the vajra and bell, which are used in ceremonies, you would have a set to use in public rituals, but the actual ones you use in your own practice would be kept covered and hidden away so that no one could see them.