Bonding Practices for Mother Tantra

Mother, Father, and Nondual Tantra

According to Gelug and some Kagyu masters, anuttarayoga tantra has two divisions – father (pha-rgyud) and mother tantra (ma-rgyud). The former emphasizes practices involving the energy-winds for arising in subtle forms known as illusory bodies (sgyu-lus), which are the immediate causes for achieving a Buddha's Corpus of Forms (gzugs-sku, Skt. rupakaya; Form Body). The latter gives more detail about practices to access clear light mental activity ('od-gsal) and focus it with blissful awareness on voidness, as the immediate cause for achieving a Buddha's omniscient awareness or Dharmakaya (chos-sku).

Examples of father tantra are Guhyasamaja (gSang-ba 'dus-pa) and Vajrabhairava (rDo-rje 'jigs-byed), also known as Yamantaka (gShin-rje gshed). Examples of mother tantra are Chakrasamvara ('Khor-lo bde-mchog), Hevajra (Kyai rdo-rje), and Vajrayogini (rDo-rje rnal-'byor-ma). According to this classification scheme, Kalachakra (Dus-'khor) is also a mother tantra.

Sakya and some other Kagyu masters divide anuttarayoga into three divisions – father, mother, and nondual (gnyis-med rgyud). Depending on the textual tradition, nondual tantra either places equal emphasis on methods for achieving both a Buddha's Corpus of Forms and omniscient mind, or stresses the fourth empowerment, which plants seeds for realizing the two simultaneously. In this scheme, either Kalachakra, Hevajra, or both are nondual tantras.

Receiving an empowerment for a mother tantra entails, in addition to taking the bodhisattva and tantric vows, promising to keep certain practices that bond us closely (dam-tshig, Skt. samaya, bonding practice) to mother tantra. Maintaining them helps us to remain on course for achieving blissful awareness of voidness with clear light mental activity.

[For the difference between a vow and a bonding practice, see: Auxiliary Bonding Practices]

Since Kalachakra practice takes clear light absorption on voidness as the similar-family cause (rigs-'dra'i rgyu) for the immediate causes for both a Buddha's Corpus of Forms and a Dharmakaya, there is no contradiction in asserting that Kalachakra practice entails keeping the close bonds specific to mother tantra, even when Kalachakra is classified as a nondual tantra.

The Gelug tradition enumerates ten bonding practices for mother tantra. When eight are listed, the first two are counted as one and the eighth and ninth are counted as one. When the Rime tradition, as elaborated by the 19th-century master Kongtrul ('Jam-mgon Kong-sprul Blo-gros mtha'-yas) and followed in the Kagyu traditions, lists only eight, it omits the second and ninth from this list. It explains the others with only minor variations in a few cases.

Here, we shall follow the Gelug presentation. The 20th-century Gelug master Pabongka (Pha-bong-kha Byams-pa bstan-'dzin 'phrin-las rgya-mtsho) included the list when he expanded the Fourth Panchen Lama's Extensive Six-Session Yoga (Thun-drug rnal-'byor rgyas-pa) by adding the recitation of the lists of vows. This was perhaps because of his wish to shift the focus in Gelug to Vajrayogini. If practicing only father tantra, it is not necessary to recite or keep these bonding practices for mother tantra.

[See: Extensive Six-Session Yoga]

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