Preparation before Receiving an Empowerment
This is an appropriate time for us to have some questions and hopefully some answers. What questions do you have or particular points that you might like me to try to explain?
I would like some advice on how to practice Kalachakra at home without having received the initiation. Is this possible?
In theory, one needs an initiation in order to visualize oneself as one of the Buddha-figures. Without receiving the empowerment, to practice Kalachakra by oneself at home would not include visualizing yourself as Kalachakra, obviously. However, there are certainly many practices in sutra that focus on a figure in front of us for attaining, for instance, better concentration. It’s very commonly done, particularly in Mahayana, to visualize a small Buddha in front of us as a method for eventually gaining a state of shamatha or at least improving our concentration. In terms of meditation, one could certainly visualize a small Kalachakra couple. It doesn’t have to be in the full form; it can be in the simple form with two arms. This could be used for gaining concentration.
However, in general, we should think in terms of preparation for eventually receiving a Kalachakra initiation. This means to really put a great deal of effort into laying the foundation as we have discussed in terms of refuge, renunciation, bodhichitta and the understanding of voidness. Also, study and try to understand how tantra works and gain some confidence in the method. When we receive an empowerment, one of the very important things is to have confidence in the tantra method and some idea of how it works. In this case, you can also study and familiarize yourself with the theory of Kalachakra and there is plenty of material about it on the website.
The Importance of Empowerment
In connection with this, what does the empowerment change? What is the importance of an empowerment? Also, what is the difference between an initiation and an empowerment? What is the procedure with a protector?
The most important thing in an empowerment is actually taking and receiving the vows. Without receiving the vows, we haven’t received the empowerment. There are the bodhisattva vows, and it is possible to take these vows without a teacher. However, at least in the beginning, it is more commonly done with a teacher. In order to receive these vows, as Atisha points out, we need to have some basis in the pratimoksha vows, at least the lay vows of a householder. We also need to receive this from a teacher. For the two higher classes of tantra, there are the tantric vows, and for that we need a tantric master to confer them and to receive them.
We establish the connection and relation with the tantric master during the empowerment. The main purpose for that is not just for guidance, because in many cases we don’t have personal contact with the teacher. However, it is for inspiration.
However, we do need guidance for the practice. It might not be the tantric master who gives the empowerment, but other teachers can give instructions. It’s very important to follow the instructions of a qualified teacher; otherwise, we can make a lot of mistakes particularly in terms of dealing with the energy system and so on. This can really mess a person up.
Also, as we have discussed in terms of Buddha-nature, the networks of these factors can be stimulated, inspired and uplifted. This occurs during the empowerment, when these various factors, the networks of positive force and deep awareness, are stimulated. The tendencies that are there are strengthened through the ambiance, the visualizations and what we are imagining. Remember we aren’t just talking about some visual image, but this also includes our understanding of what is going on during the process.
As explained, during the empowerment, we need to try to have a conscious experience at some level of the understanding of voidness or emptiness with a blissful mind. We also need some generation of bodhichitta during the empowerment. The presence of the teacher, the ambiance of the entire situation makes an environment that is very conducive for having some level of experience. That experience is what strengthens these so-called seeds within us and plants more. The process of receiving an empowerment is very active. We have to participate and do something during it, and not just sit there passively like a baby.
As for the terminology, the words “initiation” and “empowerment” are just two different ways of translating the same word. “Empowerment” is literally the Tibetan word. The meaning of the Sanskrit word is “to sprinkle,” as in sprinkling seeds and watering the seeds that are already there. There is a difference between the empowerment and the permission, which is actually subsequent permission because it comes after the empowerment. Serkong Rinpoche, my teacher, explained that the empowerment is like giving us a sword and the subsequent permission is the sharpening of the sword.
In regard to the protectors, this is the subsequent permission. This means that first we need to have the empowerment as a yidam, a Buddha-figure that can command the protector. As a Buddha-figure in a mandala, a palace, we are like the master of the house. We could stand at the gate and chase away interferences. We are capable of that; however, why do that if we can get a large dog? The protector is like a large dog that stands by the gate to chase away interferences. This is how Serkong Rinpoche used to explain it. Of course, we would have to be very powerful to control the dog. We would also have to feed the dog. If we don’t take care of and feed the dog, it will attack us. Think of a large Tibetan Mastiff dog, a wolf or a bear. We have to be careful with Dharma protectors. It’s not something to be done lightly in practice.
Keeping our Tantric Practices Private
Why are tantric practices kept secret?
The word that is translated as “secret,” might be more helpful to translate as “private.” These practices need to be kept private. It also has the connotation of something being hidden. We want to keep the practice hidden or private, so it remains something sacred to us. If we make it open to other people, we are opening ourselves up to invalidation, ridicule, accusations of being involved in something crazy, and so on. It takes all the sacredness out of it. We have to defend ourselves all the time. Taken to the extreme, to make a joke of it, it’s like having a Kalachakra ashtray. We don’t want to bring it all down to such a mundane level that people treat it like something not special at all.
Types of Purity
What is pure perception?
In tantra, we speak of four types of purity from the conventional and deepest points of view: pure body, pure enjoyment, pure environment and pure activity. From a conventional point of view, all of these appear in a non-ordinary form. They appear in a form, as we have been discussing, that can appear as a forerunner or facsimile of what we would have as a Buddha.
The body appears as a facsimile of a body of a Buddha that is not born out of karma but born out of compassion to be able to benefit others. Also, the way that we enjoy things is not generated from positive karma, the karma that is never going to last, never satisfies and so on; it’s the type of karma in which we always want more. It isn’t mixed or deriving from confusion and ignorance. It’s not samsaric happiness, the suffering of change. That isn’t the type of way we want to enjoy things.
The environment that we experience also isn’t in its ordinary form, again as one of the ripening of karma. Instead, the environment we experience is one in which everything is conducive to attaining enlightenment, like a Buddha-field. It isn’t some place where everything is polluted with violence and other societal ills. Our activity and how we interact with others isn’t the ordinary type driven by the compulsiveness of karma. We aren’t compulsively acting in a negative way or on the positive side, being a perfectionist, compulsively as a do-gooder interrupting even when no one wants our help. It isn’t this neurotic way of trying to help. Instead, it is generated purely from compassion, like a Buddha. That’s the conventional level of these four types of purity.
On the deepest level, it’s not just the understanding of the voidness of these four. Also keeping in mind that these aren’t self-established and they don’t exist in a self-established way. It’s not an ordinary appearance that appears as though it’s encapsulated in plastic and – boom – there it is. It doesn’t appear like that. The appearance is dependently arising. We try to imagine all of these things not being concrete, being like an illusion, to put it in a simple way. These things don’t exist in the way that they might appear to an ordinary mind as being self-established, all by their own power.
A very good example of a deceptive appearance and of something being self-established is a website. We press some buttons, and it comes. There it is, and it seems that it’s established by itself. There’s no appearance and not even an understanding of the unbelievable amount of work, tens of thousands of hours, by a huge team of people to make it possible, let alone the millions of hours that went into making the Internet or a computer. It just appears as though, bang, there it is. If it takes more than 0.3 seconds to appear, we feel impatience. This is a very good example.
The pure appearance on the deepest level doesn’t exist like that in this self-established way. It can’t be established that something exists simply because it appears. It exists because of dependent arising not just because it appears. Self-established existence isn’t the way it is.
All of this is pure appearances based on everything that we have discussed in this series of talks – Buddha-nature, bodhichitta, aiming for our not-yet-happening enlightenment, and so on. This is the basis upon which there can be these pure appearances. We can also see this in terms of everybody else and the environment around us based on everybody’s Buddha-natures.
Understanding Not-Yet-Happening, Presently-Happening and No-Longer-Happening
Do you understand not-yet-happenings? Is there such a thing as tomorrow? Yes, such a thing exists. Is it happening now? No, but it exists. It’s not happening somewhere else; however, there is such a thing as tomorrow just as there is such a thing as yesterday. Yesterday is also not happening now. Just because it isn’t happening now doesn’t mean that it never existed. We can remember it. We can plan for tomorrow.
Is tomorrow happening somewhere else? No. It’s not happening now but that doesn’t mean that there is no such thing as tomorrow. It’s not as if we traveled faster than the speed of light, we would get to tomorrow now. Yesterday isn’t happening somewhere else either.
We can remember yesterday and plan for tomorrow. In Buddhism there are two different words for something that exists and something that is happening. To exist means that it can be validly knowable. Something that isn’t happening now can still be known like yesterday and tomorrow.
Is it like a perception or knowing?
It’s not perception in that we don’t see yesterday or tomorrow. We can see a picture or representation of yesterday or a simulation of what might happen tomorrow; however, knowing isn’t just seeing. We can remember yesterday accurately or incorrectly. It’s not that we know that yesterday was yesterday. We can know what happened yesterday. We can remember that we ate this for lunch and spoke to this person and so on. I can remember that, but that isn’t happening now. We don’t speak about past, present and future in Buddhism. That’s a Western concept of time. Instead, we speak about not-yet-happening, presently-happening and no-longer happening.
Don’t think of it in terms of future enlightenment as if it’s sitting there self-established in the future. There is no such thing as “in the future.” That would mean that somewhere sitting out there is our enlightenment. The future doesn’t exist anywhere and isn’t happening anywhere. All that is happening is what is presently-happening; however, imputed on today, there is a no-longer-happening yesterday and a not-yet-happening tomorrow.
We can aim for enlightenment and validly cognize it. We might not know all the details, but we can focus on it as an object of cognition, just like tomorrow can be an object of cognition. That is all that is happening now, and it’s all in terms of cause and effect. What’s happening now is the result of what is no-longer-happening. On the basis of that result we can impute that there was a cause. Today is the result of yesterday, and on the basis of today we can impute that the cause was yesterday. That cause isn’t happening now, but obviously we can impute that there was a yesterday. Today is the cause of tomorrow. It isn’t happening now, but we can impute that there will be a result.
When we are focusing on bodhichitta with our not-yet-happening enlightenment, this is what we are talking about. The networks that we have now are the cause and there will be a result. We don’t want the result to be more samsara. We have to put something more into it so that it won’t give the result of more samsara and will give instead the result of nirvana, enlightenment.
Bodhichitta is so important, and yet it’s not always very clear what it means and how we meditate on this. Often people think that it is just the same as compassion. It’s not. In tantra, in order to focus on the not-yet-happening enlightenment, we utilize the graphic form in terms of the body of a Buddha and in terms of the blissful understanding of voidness. When we focus on ourselves as one of these Buddha-figures, we are doing this with bodhichitta. In tantra practice, this represents our not-yet-happening enlightenment as the body and mind, and the speech with mantra.
To put it very simply, although it is far more complex, in our tantra practice we are combining renunciation in that we no longer have our ordinary appearance; bodhichitta as what we are aiming to achieve for the benefit of all; and the understanding of voidness in that this is not self-established and the attainment will come about from causes and conditions. Without these three principle paths – renunciation, bodhichitta and voidness – tantra practice truly is strange and makes no sense.