Tantra: The Dissolution of Winds

However, we follow the sutra path as Buddha taught, put in a great deal of effort and gain all the realizations as outlined not only in the lam-rim, the graded stages of the path, but also in the mind training texts, as well as in the extensive explanations of what we actually practice on the five paths as explained in the Filigree of Clear Realization, Abhisamaya-alamkara, and we practice all of these over three countless eons – that “countless” is just the largest number possible, so three zillion eons of building up more and more positive force. In other words, we are strengthening this network and gaining more and more deep awareness of voidness specifically, the voidness of the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths to be more specific. If we do all of this, then we can attain enlightenment. Instead of these two networks giving rise to samsaric rebirth, they’ll give rise to the enlightening bodies of a Buddha. Parallel to how these networks give rise and ripen into various aspects of a samsaric rebirth, they will give rise to parallel type of things, such as an enlightened being – the body, speech and mind of a Buddha. It’s unlimited.

Instead of this unsatisfying type of happiness, we’ll have blissful awareness. Instead of compulsive behavior, we’ll have enlightening activity or behavior, which is motivated purely by compassion and accompanied by wisdom. We’ll create around us a pure land, in the sense that everything will be conducive in our presence for others to make speedy progress on the path. How will we be able to bring about that transformation, so that these Buddha-nature factors will give rise to enlightenment? Of course, we need the understanding of voidness that will abide and continue as our Nature Body, so that with the understanding of voidness, we fully understand dependent arising and all the various things that we need to do, such as the causes for being able to bring about the attainment of enlightenment as their result. We won’t have any naivety about any of that. We’ll understand how it will all function, and we’ll have confidence in it. Understanding doesn’t just mean intellectual knowledge and thinking, “You know, how great I am because I know all the facts.” That’s not the point. With understanding comes self-confidence. With self-confidence and trust in the path, we can put our hearts fully into it.

And, of course, we need bodhichitta. We need to aim for our enlightenments, which have not yet happened, but which can happen on the basis of our Buddha-nature factors. In order to focus on our not-yet-happening enlightenments, we need to have some object that represents it. There are many, many objects that we can use, such as the visualized image of a Buddha, or more extensively, the three of objects of refuge, and focus on that with combined refuge and bodhichitta. We can focus on them without something actually appearing, but in a little bit more what’s called unaimed type of way, on the nature of the mind, the pure nature of the mind either only the deepest nature or both the conventional and deepest nature of the mind, as we would do in mahamudra or dzogchen type of practices; that represents our not-yet-happening enlightenment, so we can focus on that with bodhichitta.

Benefit of the Tantra Path

However, if we look to tantra, then we can focus on ourselves already in a form with all these characteristics of body, speech, mind, enlightening activity, blissful awareness, pure land, etc. as a Buddha-figure. This is what we do in tantra. It is something which can be generated from our Buddha-nature factors, and it’s very efficient, because it’s very similar to the result we aim to achieve. It’s very efficient for many different reasons. For instance, if we look at an object for attaining single-minded concentration, what we would want to focus on, if we focus on our own ordinary bodies, for instance, then that’s not a very stable object of focus, because our body is changing all the time: We get pain in our knees, we get an itch, we feel hungry, etc. All these sorts of things are changing all the time. 

If we want to focus on the voidness of the body, our concentration is also going to be affected by the object we concentrate on, by the basis of voidness. It’s not very stable. This is particularly significant when we’re focusing on the voidness of the body, that the basis is changing all the time, and not only is it changing all the time, with an itch or a pain in our knees, but also we tend to have all sorts of negative projections about our bodies, thinking, “I’m fat, I’m old, I’m not pretty enough,” and so on, which also in a sense infect our meditation on voidness. Because obviously it’s going to be conceptual to start with, and it’s going to be infected by these other concepts that we have about our body.

Whereas when we focus on ourselves appearing in the form of one of these Buddha-figures, these yidams and deities, then this figure never changes. We even say that it’s affected by causes and conditions, it’s an impermanent phenomena in that sense, but it always remains the same. For example, Chenrezig doesn’t get an itch, get hungry, doesn’t grow old, doesn’t get fat and all of these sorts of things. When we focus on the voidness of the appearance of ourselves as Chenrezig, we have a very stable object to always come back to every time we do the meditation. That basis for voidness doesn’t change in this sense, so it’s more conducive for attaining perfect concentration.

When we speak about trying to get compassion and wisdom together in one moment of cognition, one type of cognition, then that’s very difficult in terms of sutra, because compassion is focused on others’ suffering. The way of taking that is wishing “may it be gone,” whereas with voidness we are focused on “no such thing,” on the absence of an impossible way of existing, since it doesn’t correspond to how things exist. These are two quite different types of mind, and we can’t put both of them together in one mind, one type of consciousness.

We can have different types of consciousness at the same time. We can see and hear simultaneously. However, we want to get method and wisdom together in one consciousness and both explicit. That’s very difficult. It’s not possible by simply using compassion and non-conceptual cognition of voidness.

We’re talking about method and a cause for a body of a Buddha, an appearance of a Buddha. Compassion and conventional bodhichitta are very important. We have that implicitly. In other words, the object of it is not appearing in our cognition in sutra. When we focus on voidness, it’s sort of underlying and accompanying, but it’s not explicit, which we want to have as a Buddha. In tantra, we have a way for putting cause for a body and a mind of the Buddha explicitly in one moment, in one type of consciousness. How is this possible? 

Now it becomes very interesting when we start to analyze. If we were to focus on the voidness of our ordinary body, for example, our ordinary body isn’t a cause for a body of a Buddha. So that does not work as a method. Although in tantra first we focus on the voidness of the ordinary body, then we focus on space-like voidness, and then we arise in the form of a Buddha-figure and we have illusion-like understanding of voidness. The voidness of that Buddha-figure – that’s not exactly what’s referred to as having method and wisdom in one mind, because there, understanding of voidness is implicit, as it’s not appearing. What would appear with voidness is a total absence of any appearance.

If we look at the texts, they say that we want at the time of non-conceptual cognition of voidness that the mind appears as the deity. What does that mean? If it’s appearing as a body of the Buddha, this Buddha-figure, it’s going to appear with an appearance of truly established existence. Furthermore, because we’re not yet Buddhas, we can’t have explicit cognition of both, in other words, both the appearing body of a Buddha, which is going to appear as truly existent, and voidness, which is the absence of true existence. We can’t have both at the same time.

When I asked my teachers about that, they explained that, as we’re focusing on voidness, we imagine that we have non-conceptual cognition of voidness. At that time, we have a body, don’t we? That body is visualized as a Buddha-figure. It’s simultaneous with that cognition of voidness, despite the fact that it doesn’t appear. It’s not an ordinary body, because the ordinary body is not something that’s going to be a cause for enlightenment; so it’s the body of a Buddha-figure instead. 

Serkong Rinpoche used a very down-to-earth example. He asked, while we’re sitting here and having this lesson, are we wearing clothes? Yes. Are we actually thinking about the clothes we’re wearing and what we look like? No. Nevertheless, we’re wearing our clothes, while we’re sitting here and meditating or listening. It’s the same type of thing in tantra, in which we practice having method and wisdom together in one moment explicitly. Even though the clothes are not appearing, even though that body is not appearing, but it’s explicit in that moment. Because while we’re focusing on voidness, we do in fact have that body as a Buddha-figure. This is a very efficient method for being able to attain that as Buddha.

There are many benefits of working with these Buddha-figures and we can study deeper and deeper if we wish. This is in addition to the Buddha-figures being infographics that we can weave on all of their arms, legs, faces and so on, or on all the different realizations on the path that they represent. Let that sink in for a moment.

[Pause]

Different Levels of Consciousness

In the new tradition of tantra – Nyingma is the old tradition tantra, the Kagyu, Sakya and Gelug are the new tradition of tantra, and in those tantras we have four different classes of tantra and in the highest class of tantra, the anuttarayoga – we work with the subtlest level of mind. This is called the clear light mind. Here we’re talking about how we have different levels of subtlety of consciousness. We’ve coarse consciousness (rough consciousness, gross consciousness, or however we want to call it), which is sensory cognition. Then we have our mental cognition, which can be either conceptual or non-conceptual. There are levels of subtlety to that, like when we’re awake, asleep, under anesthesia, in coma, etc., in which the mental consciousness is further and further withdrawn from the body, from the sense cognition. When we’re asleep, we can be woken up by a noise of an alarm clock. When we’re in an anesthesia having an operation, we don’t wake up because of any noise, so consciousness is more withdrawn.

Clear Light Mind Is the Subtlest Level of Consciousness

The most subtle level of consciousness, if it is completely withdrawn, not only from the sense cognition but also from these levels of mental cognition, is called clear light mind, and this is something, which continues all the time through each rebirth, the whole death process and into enlightenment as well. The Buddha has only this type of consciousness. This type of consciousness has many advantages over other types of consciousness. First of all, it’s automatically non-conceptual. The conceptual mind is grosser than this level of mind. It doesn’t make appearances of truly established existence and doesn’t believe in them either, that they correspond to how things actually exist. It’s more subtle than that. 

However, it doesn’t necessarily understand voidness. It’s not necessarily blissful or anything like that and it manifests at the time of death. Death consciousness is not blissful, it doesn’t have any understanding of voidness, but it’s the most subtle level and it’s not conceptual. However, if we can access that level of consciousness in meditation, then we can make it into a blissful mind and we can make it as a blissful mind take as its object voidness. If we can do that, it will automatically be non-conceptual. This is what we try to do with the practices of anuttarayoga, the highest class of tantra. It’s in this class where we find Kalachakra, Guhyasamaja, Vajrabhairava, Chakrasamvara and Vajrayogini. All of these are anuttarayoga practices. There are other figures as well, but these are the main ones that are practiced in the Gelug tradition.

Methods for Accessing the Clear Light Mind

There are many methods for attaining access to that clear light mind. Nonetheless, we don’t have to go into all the different types of methods that are used in anuttarayoga tantra. If we look at the samsaric situation, remember these networks of positive force and deep awareness under the influence of ignorance, karma, disturbing emotions, etc. that give rise to uncontrollably recurring rebirth, which means in between each rebirth there is going to be death and after death is there going to be bardo, in which we appear in some subtle form, and there’s going to be rebirth. This is analogous to what happens every time that we go to sleep. We go to sleep, there’s a withdrawal of consciousness, not going down all the way to clear light mind, but similar to that, then we have an appearance in dreams and then we wake up. It’s analogous.

What we want to do is to follow a path in our practice, which is going to be similar to what happens in our ordinary samsaric type of life, but when we go down to that clear-light level, then – at least in our imagination – it’s like going down into the basement of a house that has two rooms and the stairs, and the electricity going up to one room is the samsaric rebirth room and what we want to do is go down to the basement and change the circuit. So, instead of the electricity and everything going up to that samsara room, it goes up instead to the other room to enlightenment. This is what we do. We want to get down to that clear-light level and then change the circuitry, in other words, get an understanding of voidness. Of course, there’s bodhichitta, which is why we want to go down to the basement to start with. Then, we imagine that we first arise as a subtle form and then as a gross form, Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya, like a dream and being awake or like bardo and rebirth.

We have two stages in anuttarayoga tantra practice. In the completion stage, we’re actually able to generate the subtle winds into the form of these Buddha-figures. We’re actually doing something, which will be the immediate cause for creating something, the attainment of the bodies of the Buddha. In the generation stage, we just imagine that happening. By imagining that, it builds up causes for it to actually happen with the energy winds, the subtle winds, and by practicing with the subtle winds, then we’ll eventually be able to have that happen on the subtlest level, with the attainment of enlightenment.

This is a very brief explanation of how the whole anuttarayoga tantra path fits into what we’ve been discussing, because out of these Buddha-nature factors we can generate the various features of a samsaric rebirth and we can generate all the features of a Buddha-figure. With imagination, we can generate all of these aspects of a Buddha-figure with these subtle-energy system and we can generate all of it in terms of that clear-light level as a Buddha. All of these levels and all of it is working on the basis of the Buddha-nature factors and its ability to give rise to these things.

These Buddha-nature factors are able to give rise to all of these, because they lack self-established existence, because of their voidness. Because of this that means that they can be affected by all sorts of other factors like bodhichitta, correct understanding, all the positive things we do and so on. Because they are not self-established, they’re affected by all these other things. And because they are affected by all other things, then dependent on that we have as a dependent arising all these either samsara level, imagination levels, energy level or Buddha level as what these Buddha-nature factors will give rise to. That understanding of voidness as meaning dependent arising is very essential for being able to be confident with our practice, with what we’re doing and gaining confidence that it’ll work.

One last piece of advice is about how we actually visualize. It’s very important to understand what the process of visualization actually is, because throughout the day, we’re instructed to imagine ourselves in the form of Buddha-figures, imagine everything around us as a pure land and everybody else being Buddha-figures as well. How do we do that? Of course, the most difficult thing is to remember to do that, which means being mindful. In this case, mindfulness is the glue, that mental glue that holds on to the visualization and doesn’t let go. We have to remember, though, that it’s incredibly difficult to do. However, when we do remember to do that, then first of all we need to understand that this is conceptual, which means that we need to understand how conceptual cognition works.

We have first of all the categories, conceptual cognition. The category is static and it doesn’t change. Let’s say that category is going to be “Chenrezig.” Anytime we think of Chenrezig, it’s always going to fit into the same category. We think of Chenrezig whether it’s small, large or how clear it is – it does not matter. Like we have the category of “dog.” No matter what dog we see, what it looks like doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what kind of dog it is, we just fit it into that category of “dog.” Being static, it doesn’t change, doesn’t grow old, doesn’t do anything in terms of the category. The category has no appearance, no form. Then we have something that represents it, some form that represents Chenrezig, just as when we think of the dog, each of us has some different mental image of what a dog would look like to us. Through that category and what represents it, the mental image, a mental hologram basically, then we see through that an actual dog, if we think in terms of this example of a dog.

We see with sense cognition the ordinary things that we see. Otherwise, when we try to visualize ourselves as Chenrezig, we could be hit by a car trying to cross the road. We see our ordinary world, our ordinary selves, but we see it through the mental filter of this concept, this category “Chenrezig.” It’s sort of a mixed type of thing that I see this person and in my mind I see them through the filter of a mental image of Chenrezig. We can think of ourselves like that. This is how we visualize.

We don’t try to use our eyes for visualization, as that’s a big mistake. It’s not visual cognition at all. We certainly don’t have visual cognition of ourselves unless we’re looking in a mirror. We’re not really thinking in terms of what we look like, for instance, wondering, “What does my face look like at the front of my head?” Generally, we have no idea what our face actually looks like. Try to imagine your face in front of your head. That’s not very easy, is it? It doesn’t matter what we’re seeing when we visualize it. The point is not to put a great deal of attention on what we’re seeing unless we want to cross the street. But if we’re just sitting in meditation, then we’re not really paying attention to seeing the wall in front of us. Nevertheless, we’re seeing the wall.

We can imagine, in our mind’s eye, as it were, ourselves or other beings having the image of Chenrezig. That’s how we visualize; it’s a multi-layer type of thing. Then it doesn’t matter in terms of what’s in front or behind the visualization. With our eyes, we can’t see what’s behind the back of our head. However, in the mental hologram, we can have that, because it’s not visual.

Could you please tell something about lucid dreams, what would you recommend about that?

Remember, we said that just as we have death, bardo and rebirth, which are analogous to basically Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya in terms of the attainment of Buddha, likewise, we’re asleep, dreaming and awake. During that dreaming process, if we can become aware that we’re dreaming, then it’s very conducive for two types of meditation practice. That’s what we want to do – use the dreaming in order to do meditation practice in the dream.

We would want to do our sadhana practice in the dream because we don’t have the distraction of sense consciousness. Doing the visualizations and all the practices of the sadhana would be with much better concentration and would be much more vivid in the visualization during the dream than it would be while awake. Obviously, we have to be very well trained in the sadhana for it to happen during our dream. Then, we would do voidness meditation in the dream, first space-like voidness – although the dream appears to be truly existent, the image is void of that and we focus on the absence of that – and then, the dream appears again with ourselves as a Buddha-figure in the dream that is like an illusion; because we’re aware that it’s a dream, it’s much easier to be aware that it’s like an illusion. 

This lucid dreaming practice is incredibly advanced if we do it properly. If we’re just aware that we’re dreaming – so what. I can fly and have all sorts of fun in my dream. That’s not the point. The more familiar we become with the appearances in the dream being like an illusion that they appear to be truly existent, but they’re not, it then will help us to be more aware of that while we’re awake. The most difficult part of this dream yoga is at the beginning how to avoid waking up when we realize that it’s a dream. Because usually when we realize that it’s a dream, we wake up. How to stay dreaming, without just pretending that we’re dreaming but actually we’re awake. That’s very, very difficult.

As far as I understand, it’s recommended first to study the outer tantras – kriya, charya and yoga tantras – and then go to anuttarayoga tantra. Here, we mostly hear the explanations about anuttarayoga tantra. If I want to begin with kriya tantra and so on, which tantric system would you recommend to study?

Tsongkhapa himself, in one of his short texts – sometimes called Lines of Experiences – recalls his own spiritual path, and Tsongkhapa pretty much studied anything that was available at the time with teachers from every possible tradition. He says that he first studied kriya tantra, then charya tantra, then yoga tantra and then only on the basis of studying and practicing these, did he really appreciate the depth and profundity of anuttarayoga tantra. Most of us don’t have the capacity to do that. If we look at the way how most Tibetans practice, they don’t practice just anuttarayoga tantra, they usually practice some sort of kriya tantra as well. It’s quite rare that we find any Tibetan master, who is proficient in charya or yoga tantra, but they would know the theory in terms of the tantra paths. 

In kriya tantra, we find that almost all the Tibetans will do some sort of Chenrezig practice, that’s kriya tantra. They’ll do some sort of Tara practice, especially long-life White Tara practice, which is also kriya tantra. They’ll also do some Manjushri practice. These are the most commonly practiced forms in kriya tantra. And although there are anuttarayoga tantra forms of Chenrezig, Tara and Manjushri, nevertheless, they will practice kriya tantra forms of them. Then, we would have to ask them for the instructions. 

Of course, in kriya tantra they have what’s called the “stage with signs” and the “stage without signs.” It’s just the names of the stages and how many of the Tibetans actually will practice the full path of kriya, all the way to the stages right before the attainment of enlightenment, that’s hard to say. But if they do kriya tantra practice, they would probably mostly be focused on the stage with signs, which refers to the equivalent of the generation stage, in other words the visualization practices.

What precisely do you refer to when you speak about the third aspect of Buddha-nature factors, our ability to get inspiration and uplifting from our teachers? Do we speak about the capacity, the ability itself or what exactly does it refers to?

Basically, they say that this factor is an imputation on the mental continuum that can be affected by the so-called inspiration or enlightening influence, sometimes translated as “blessings of a Buddha.” It’s an imputation. 

If we want to get terribly technical about that, since I think you like technical things, then we would say we have a mental continuum, five aggregates, and as an imputation on that – the conventional “me.” As an imputation on the conventional “me,” we have the positive force and the tendencies, and as an imputation on them, we have a network of these and whether we speak in terms of the network or we speak in terms of the individual items within that network, we can say that this imputation has an aspect of its not yet giving rise to a result. An aspect of it is the ability to give rise to a result when the conditions are complete. Further, because all of this is devoid of being self-established, all of these things can be affected by causes and conditions – not only what we do, but also through the enlightening influence of our teacher or Buddha. Because these forces and potentials have an aspect of the ability to give rise to an effect, and they also have an aspect imputed on it of not yet giving rise to that effect, they can be affected. In terms of the voidness and depending arising of it, therefore, they can be influenced by the enlightening influence of a Buddha. That’s if we want to get a very technical analysis of how it works.

You’ve mentioned the four Buddha-bodies. I always have problems with it and get confused. Maybe you can give us some easy examples, an analogy or easy way explanation so that I can finally understand this.

A Buddha appears in a huge variety of forms. When we talk about Form Body, “body” means a “body of literature” or a “body of knowledge.” It’s a network of many, many things. The analogy that’s used in the traditional texts is that the Buddha is like the moon and that moon can be reflected in all sorts of different bodies of the water. Likewise, a Buddha will appear in each person’s mind, in terms of a mental hologram that arises when they perceive the Buddha, in all the different forms, like the moon appearing in reflections in all sorts of lakes and puddles of water and so on. That’s the analogy that’s used in the classical texts.

If we want a more modern analogy, how a website can appear in thousands and thousands of different computer screens and cell phones at the same time? Or a television show – same thing, it will appear on many, many different televisions. The television show that appears on all our televisions is an emanation of the people in the studio. This is a modern-day example.

The term enlightenment might sound mystical In Russian, and also it might have some technical connotations. I remember the term is used in optics when we make an image manifest after taking photos. What’s the connotation of this word in English? How is it used? What does it mean? Do you have some alternative translation?

I think that’s not so relevant what the English word means. The English term “Age of Enlightenment,” for example, is also used in terms of the history of philosophy in the West and so on. We need to look at the connotation of the word in Tibetan and Sanskrit. The Sanskrit word “Buddha” comes from a root which means “to be awake,” awake from the sleep of ignorance. Sometimes people translate it as the “totally awakened one” or “totally awakening,” which is OK. However, we can also think of it like we’ve drunk a lot of coffee and now we’re totally awake. The Tibetans elaborated on that. If we look at the word “Buddha,” the Tibetans translated it with two syllables. The first means “to clear out, cleared of all obscurations, all limitations,” and the second syllable means that a person has attained all the full potential of positive qualities. This is how the Tibetans translated it. When I’ve tried to come up with a more precise English translation for the first syllable “clear,” in English it’s “cleared out”; it’s clear, it functions perfectly. And it’s “evolved,” since it has evolved fully the potential. Thus, it’s “the clear evolved one” or “the clear evolved stage”. Although I’ve used that in my earlier translations and sometimes I use that in some explanations when the Tibetans will explain each syllable of the word, in general, it’s easier to use the word “enlightenment” when we’re actually speaking, so people understand. “Enlightenment” just means “a light has gone on,” which is a little bit of a silly term. 

The Tibetans use this system of translation in which they broke many of the Sanskrit words into two syllables in order to convey the connotation of one original word. The way they would transmit it was in the way they understood. A little bit similar to how it was done in Khotan, the Middle Asian kingdom the Tibetans had contact with. As Serkong Rinpoche said, we need to be able to milk the meaning out of the term like we milk a cow. Then, we get the full connotation of the word, but on a practical level it doesn’t work to use this in general explanations or translations, because people are not used to that. We can use that method initially to explain what the word means, but then there are our conventions and people are already familiar with the conventions, like the word “Buddha” and the word “enlightenment.” In order to communicate with people who are familiar with this connotation and in order to be found in a Google search, we need to use these conventional terms. Google rules all, unfortunately.

We end with a dedication: Whatever positive force, whatever understanding comes from this, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause for everyone to attain the enlightened state of a Buddha for the benefit of all.