Review of Previous Sessions
We are studying this letter that the great master Tsongkhapa wrote to his friend and disciple the meditator Konchog-tsultrim in which he answers the request to write some practical advice on how to practice sutra and tantra, specifically the anuttarayoga tantra system (that’s the highest class of tantra). We have been starting all our classes with a brief review of what Tsongkhapa says already in the letter, and that’s sort of a standard way of starting and is, I think, helpful, although perhaps it’s a bit repetitious that we do it all the time, but it is helpful for keeping in mind the context of what we’re doing and where it’s leading.
Tsongkhapa mentions that we are all in a very fortunate situation. We need to appreciate that. We have a precious human rebirth, we’ve met with the teachings, we have teachers, we have the intelligence to discriminate between what’s helpful and what’s harmful. Given that situation, we need to engage ourselves with the teachings, not just have them available and attend, but actually engage (’jug) means to enter into it. It is the same word — it’s very interesting — it’s the same word that translates the Sanskrit word avatar, and an avatar in Sanskrit is an embodiment of some being or something like that, so to engage or enter really means to somehow embody the teachings ourselves.
For this we have to rely on guidance from a properly qualified teacher, who knows what are the various states of mind that we need to develop, what are the ones that we don’t (that we need to get rid of), doesn’t add anything, doesn’t leave anything out, and knows their proper order for developing these things that we want to develop. The teacher has to have been trained himself or herself by a qualified teacher in a way that accords with the classics, the great Buddhist classics written in India and Tibet. Since all the teachings derive from the classics, they’re not something which is separate.
The way that we begin any practice is in terms of taming our minds, and that means to have the proper motivating mental framework. This is important when we often might hear that we start our teachings, or start anything, with what’s called the preliminary practices. The preliminary practices — ngondro (sngon-’gro) in Tibetan — they’re also intended to help us to build up the proper motivating mental framework. But without that motivating mental framework… To just start with the so-called special preliminaries of prostration and so on without a proper motivation usually can become… it goes quite astray from what we would like to do, and it can be for very non-Dharmic reasons that we engage in them. We have to be very careful, as Tsongkhapa says. We need to start with having the proper motivation for whatever type of training that we’re doing.
This motivation is not something that one develops just instantaneously, that automatically we have the most advanced and pure motivation. That’s not going to be the case, and so we need to work ourselves up, in graded levels, to have a deeper and deeper motivation. Motivation means what we’re aiming for and why we’re aiming for that (what is the emotion behind it?). What we are aiming for needs to not just be in words, that “I’d like to be able to benefit all beings,” etc., but we sincerely need to feel that. That’s not so easy. That’s why he says we need to really meditate: we need to really build these things up over and over again until they become sincere.
We have the usual — not the usual, but a very common — progression of developing our motivation, which is called the graded stages, the lam-rim in Tibetan, which initially we’re working for improving our future rebirths (the idea that we need to continue to have precious human rebirths), then to gain liberation from uncontrollably recurring rebirth altogether (that’s liberation), and then to reach the enlightened stage of a Buddha so that we can help everybody else overcome this situation, if we just explain these in brief.
In each sense, we are referring to, as the frame of mind that we want to develop, a certain type of renunciation. This is renunciation… I mean, you have this in Sakya presentation of parting from the four types of clinging (zhen-pa bzhi-bral).
- We want to turn ourselves away from, or renounce, interest in just this lifetime, which means turning to future lives, but also it means giving up destructive behavior. In other words, acting on the basis of disturbing emotions, acting out anger and greed and attachment and naivety, and so on. Renunciation — we’re determined to be free from that — and we give that up, and we turn to a state which would be free of that, which would be always engaging in constructive behavior, getting better rebirths.
- Or we think in terms of the renunciation of all types of samsaric rebirths, which means renunciation, or determination to be free, of the disturbing emotions themselves, which are the cause for uncontrollably recurring rebirth, based on unawareness of how we exist and how everything exists, and aiming for liberation.
- Then turning that renunciation from being aimed just at our own suffering of uncontrollable rebirth and all the things that are involved with that (and the causes for it, etc.), and aiming that in terms of everybody’s situation and developing this universal compassion for everyone — it’s called great compassion (snying-rje chen-po) — and then renouncing just working for our own liberation, although of course we still want to achieve our own liberation, but working for enlightenment so that we can bring about the liberation of everyone.
We have this progression. Instead of clinging to this life, turning away from — parting from — the clinging to this life; think in terms of future lives. Part from clinging to samsara (Skt. saṃsāra); think in terms of liberation. Part from clinging to our own interest and turn to the interest of others. Then part from clinging to impossible ways of existence in terms of our understanding of voidness and turn to the understanding of voidness. We have this presentation of parting from the four clingings. There are many, many different ways of presenting the graded motivation.
In order to sincerely develop these motivations, we need to build them up as beneficial habits, which means to meditate, and then Tsongkhapa explains how to do that: We need to know what are the stages that one goes through in order to develop each of these states of mind, what is it supported on, what would be detrimental to it, what we would need to focus on when trying to develop this state of mind, how would our mind take or cognize or relate to that object that we’re focusing on, etc., etc. We have this presentation, very, very helpful presentation, that Tsongkhapa gives. Then Tsongkhapa goes on to say that once we have developed these motivations, we need to be sure that we maintain them, we have them throughout our meditation sessions, and not only throughout our meditation sessions but all the time.
Then Tsongkhapa says: once we have these motivating frameworks, this very firm basis in the sutra teachings, then if we want to go on to the practice of tantra, then the main thing that we have to understand and keep as the foundation for that, in addition to the motivation, is discipline, ethical discipline. This means vows and following the various sets of vows. There are the pratimoksha (Skt. prātimokṣa) vows for individual liberation, that can be taken on the level of either a layperson or a novice or a fully ordained monk or a nun. We’ve gone through the lay vows. Then there are the bodhisattva vows of what we need to avoid that would prevent us from being of best help to others. These dealt with what we need to avoid in terms of developing the far-reaching attitudes, or perfections, and so on. We’ve gone through all of that, and now we are in our discussion of the tantric vows.
The Fourteen Common Tantric Root Downfalls (continued)
Tantric vows are… We vow to avoid certain actions that would prevent us from following the tantric path successfully, I suppose would be the easiest way of saying that. There are the root downfalls, or the root vows, which are a set of fourteen negative actions that we are going to try our best to avoid, and then eight secondary vows — or literally they’re called thick actions (sbom-po) — that we would also need to avoid.
Remember, when we’re talking about avoiding these things, it’s like when we spoke about the ten destructive actions and the constructive actions; there are two situations: There’s a situation in which we’re not being challenged by a situation in which we might break this vow, and so we simply just don’t do it. Like we don’t go fishing, for example. But then there’s the other situation, which is when we are tempted to act contrary to these vows, and at that point when the impulse would come up to do something contrary to the vows, then we restrain ourselves. Remember, we’re talking about here about a vow being a restraint from a downfall, for example, from an action that we have said that we are going to avoid. That’s important to know.
[5] Giving up bodhichitta
We have discussed the first four of the root tantric downfalls, and now we’re up to the fifth, which is giving up bodhichitta (Skt. bodhicitta). This is the same as the 18th bodhisattva root downfall. It amounts to giving up the aspiring state of bodhichitta. We have the aspiring state (smon-sems). That’s the wish to achieve our future enlightenments, the enlightenment that we’ve not yet achieved. We want to achieve that in order to benefit others. And then there’s the engaged state (’jug-sems). Here we’re talking about giving up the wishing state. We’re not going to wish — we’re not going to aspire — to achieve enlightenment. This is giving that up because we think that we’re incapable of attaining Buddhahood for the sake of all beings.
Why would that be... I mean, we can understand that that’s against the bodhisattva path. But why would that be included here in tantra? Why would that be contrary to tantra practice?
Participant: We treat it as the basis for our tantric practice. If we deny bodhichitta, we give up…
Dr. Berzin: OK. You say it’s the basis of our tantric practice. If we give up bodhichitta, we give up tantric practice. But why? What is the connection?
Participant: What are we doing it for?
Dr. Berzin: What are we doing it for? Yes. That’s one point. What are we doing it for? But can we get a little bit closer here? I mean, it says here in the commentary, “because we think that we’re incapable of achieving enlightenment.” We’re talking about the enlightenment that we’ve not yet attained but which is possible to attain on the basis of Buddha-nature. It’s on that basis that we visualize ourselves in the form of a Buddha, which represents that not-yet-attained enlightenment, and we mentally label me on the basis of that not-yet-attained enlightenment represented by this visualization, although we know that we’re not there yet. But the point is that then we practice now as if we were there in order to build up the causes to achieve that enlightenment, to make a presently-happening enlightenment occur (it’s not that the not-yet-happened one transforms into a presently-happening one).
But in any case, if we don’t think we’re capable of achieving enlightenment, that means that we don’t think that there is such a thing as a not-yet-happened enlightenment that could be labeled on our mental continuum. So when we’re visualizing ourselves as a Buddha-figure, what in the world does that represent? Then we might as well visualize ourselves as Donald Duck or Napoleon or Cleopatra. Doesn’t mean anything. It’s really insanity, crazy. If we give up the wish to achieve enlightenment, that’s the wish to make this Buddha-figure (not just a visualization) representing what I haven’t achieved yet but what I could achieve. If you think “I can’t achieve it” then the whole point, the whole thing, is absurd, of what we’re doing. Also, as a Buddha-figure we are imagining that we’re sending out lights and all sorts of things to benefit everybody. That’s what we’re doing in the visualizations. Again, it doesn’t make any sense if we don’t really want to do that. “I don’t want to just do it in a visualization. I really want to be able to do that, to benefit others.”
This whole facet of bodhichitta is something which is not just “Why am I doing this?” It’s much, much deeper than that. It’s really totally… that and voidness, understanding of voidness, and renunciation of our ordinary situation, our present uncontrollably recurring situation: it’s just going to go on forever if we don’t do something about it. Without that, tantra doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. If we give up bodhichitta, we really have given up the tantric path.
Participant: How does it differ (or does it differ significantly?) if one doesn’t give up on bodhichitta but when one feels discouraged that we have such a long way to go before becoming enlightened? How does that relate to general discouragement at times in your everyday existence, not during particular meditations or visualizations, but occasional discouragement? Because you haven’t given up on bodhichitta, but one may be discouraged, and then what would that indicate?
Dr. Berzin: She’s asking about discouragement and what we feel in terms of how we deal with discouragement.
For those who are listening, there is a beetle or a cockroach or something on the floor. Oh, it’s a fly, it’s a very large fly, which is just sitting there listening to the teachings, and we are all welcoming the fly.
Participant: It’s good for him.
Dr. Berzin: Very good for the fly, but... Now, that would be a case where we could really be discouraged, if we were reborn as a fly.
Participant: We have a lot of work to do.
Dr. Berzin: We have a lot of work to do. That poor fly. That is actually what Shantideva recommends, isn’t it? He says: if even a fly or a worm can achieve enlightenment on the basis of Buddha-nature, why can’t I as a human being with a precious human rebirth? When we get discouraged, as we all do, then it’s important to fight it, not wallow in it feeling sorry for ourselves: “Poor me. I’m never going to get anywhere.” There are all the various teachings on how to deal with when we need a break, for example. If you push yourself too hard then you can get discouraged, so you have to know when to take a break. You also have to know not to treat yourself as a baby either.
We also have to be very realistic. His holiness the Dalai Lama always says these teachings that say one can achieve enlightenment through tantra in three years and three months and three days are basically propaganda, and that although theoretically it is possible, one in a hundred billion can achieve it in that amount of time. Actually, the number that is specified here has to do with a Kalachakra teaching in terms of how many breaths one takes in a hundred-year-long lifespan, breaths that go through the central channel (because in each cycle of breaths there’s a certain number of breaths that go through the central channel in each day). So it’s a theoretical number that has little to do with a three-year retreat, which is just done with that number of days as an auspicious number to be done.
One has to be realistic about Buddhist practice and tantra practice. Although it says you don’t have to build up positive force for three zillion eons, still it’s not going to happen in three years either in most cases. Therefore, if we actually think in terms of a very, very long time — His Holiness says that he always gets inspiration from thinking in terms of three zillion eons — and when we realistically accept the fact that until we achieve liberation (which means we’re an arhat), we’re still going to have the ups and downs of samsara (sometimes feeling happy, sometimes feeling unhappy, sometimes feeling encouraged, sometimes feeling discouraged), we need to develop equanimity toward that, which is the big attitude of “I’m feeling discouraged. I’m feeling terrible. So what? What else is new?” and just not give in to it...
Participant: That’s not a downfall?
Dr. Berzin: That’s not a downfall. That’s not a downfall.
Then deal with it with whatever way we can while recognizing what it is that I go for refuge to. This is an interesting point. When I’m feeling low… It sounds almost like the beginning of a rock-and-roll song. But when I’m feeling sad and blue, what do I do? Do I take refuge and meditate on all sentient beings and their suffering, and do tonglen (gtong-len, giving and taking)? Or do I go to the refrigerator or call my friends or have a bottle of beer? Do I take refuge in chocolate, or do I take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha? This is an interesting question.
Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha might not be as gratifying to our sense tastes as chocolate might be, but if we do go to the chocolate, as some of us do — I confess here, I am fond of chocolate — but at least be aware “This is not my refuge. I don’t expect stuffing my face with a bar of chocolate is going to alleviate all my problems,” and try to build up the beneficial habits. We know, if we’ve been studying Dharma for a while, what is it that will help us when we’re feeling discouraged. Meditate on precious human rebirth, meditate on Buddha-nature, meditate on how less fortunate other people and other beings are. We know what the antidotes are to that; it’s just a matter of do we actually apply them, and that’s not always so easy. That’s why one needs to build these practices up as a beneficial habit — it’s called meditation — familiarize ourselves so often with them that it really becomes a habit. As I say, the equanimity of “So what if I’m feeling discouraged or I’m feeling not like doing anything?” Just do it.
Now, do we get discouraged? Another situation of discouragement is when we have acted on the basis of a disturbing emotion — I got angry with somebody, I yelled at somebody, I acted selfishly, I was greedy — and we can get discouraged in that situation. That’s different from just feeling “I don’t feel like doing anything,” that type of discouragement. We have all the teachings on applying the opponent forces, admitting that I made a mistake — “I regret it. I will try not to repeat it. I’m certainly not happy about it. I reaffirm the positive direction I’m going in in my life” — and I do something positive to counteract it. If it involves apologizing to someone, we apologize. But then it’s necessary to — pardon the expression — flush the toilet and let go, and not just hold on to “Oh, I’m so terrible, and what I did was so bad,” and never let go, and then identify with “I’m so bad, and what I did was so bad.” That’s guilt. That we need to let go of.
Or another situation is that somebody we know is suffering very, very badly. A close relative — a close friend, a dear friend — has had an accident or is suffering in one way or another, and we feel terrible. Not only do we feel terrible but, especially if it’s with our own child, we feel responsible. “If only I had not done this or that.” I mean, I’ve even heard people say, “If only I didn’t marry this person, then this child...” I’m thinking of an example of somebody that married an alcoholic and then the child inherited some sort of proclivity to alcoholism and drug addiction. “If only I had not married such a person, then my child...” I mean, this is fruitless, pointless. In this type of situation, then one... Again, Dharma gives perfect answers for this. Whatever happens is a result of a million, million different causes and conditions, not just one. (We have this in the teachings on causality.) And although I may have contributed a few of those twenty million causes, that’s only a few out of twenty million, and so that diffuses this whole issue of blame. It’s absurd to blame ourselves for what happens to anybody or anything. It’s not that we are in control: “I’m the only thing that matters in the universe, and whatever I do is the sole influencing factor on everything that happens.” This is absurd. It’s impossible. One has to think about such things.
If I’ve acted under the influence of anger or greed or selfishness or whatever — well, come on, what do I expect? From beginningless time, I’ve been under the influence of anger and greed and selfishness, so it’s not going to be so easy to overcome that. I will try to minimize it, and I will try to catch myself as soon as possible and either stop it, if I can, before it happens or try to remedy it very quickly as soon as possible afterwards. Or at least what I find is that your heart isn’t really into it when you get angry or you act under the influence of greed; the energy is less. It’s sort of out of almost an inertia, literally out of a habit. Our habit is to, let’s say, snap back at our partner when they do something that we don’t like, or to be critical, to criticize. That’s very common in a couple relationship or a friendship relationship. You get into this syndrome of criticizing always what the other person says or does, or making fun of it, and then it becomes a habit. When you realize that it’s a habit, still it’s not so easy to break, but at least your heart isn’t in it when you do it, and so slowly the energy becomes less. But it’s hard to break really deeply embedded habits. That again, we have to get realistic about it and not get discouraged.
Always remember samsara goes up and down. That is the nature of samsara. Sometimes it will be better, and it could be going well for a couple of months, and then all of a sudden it gets worse. No big deal. That’s the way samsara is. It’s one of the disadvantages of samsara, isn’t it? One isn’t surprised and one just continues. As I say, the attitude of equanimity is an attitude of “So what?’ No big deal. Nothing special.” There’s no reason to be discouraged, and that has nothing to do with breaking the vows.
OK. Let’s go on. I’m sorry that I go on and on and on about such a topic, but I think that that’s important, something that is practical. I think we all experience discouragement, for one reason or another.
[6] Deriding our own or others’ tenets
The next one is deriding our own or others’ tenets. This is the same as the sixth bodhisattva root downfall (forsaking the Dharma) and refers to proclaiming that any of the Buddhist textual teachings are not Buddha’s words. Others’ tenets refer to the sutras of shravaka (Skt. śrāvaka), pratyekabuddha, or bodhisattva vehicles (that’s the sutra teachings), and our own are the tantras.
Saying that these are not Buddha’s words, how would that... Why is that repeated here in the tantric vows? Why was that included in the bodhisattva vows? Because, if you remember, there are a lot of nasty words which are spoken by people who say Mahayana (Skt. Mahāyāna) is not the teachings of the Buddha. Shantideva goes into a big discussion to say that the Hinayana (Skt. Hīnayāna) teachings are also on the same footing as the Mahayana teachings: they may have been written down earlier, but they are based on oral tradition, and any reason why you say that the Mahayana is not valid, I could use the same reason for saying that Hinayana is not valid; therefore, any reason that you use for saying that Hinayana is valid also applies to Mahayana. This is his basic argument if we put it in very simple terms.
Why is this especially important in tantra that it has to be repeated here? If the sutra teachings of Mahayana are questioned, how much more so the tantra teachings? Where did they come from? Someone had a revelation. Somebody went to a Buddha-field and were given these teachings by some Buddha-figure and they came back down. Somebody found them in a wall, written in dakini (Skt. ḍākinī) language, and then revealed them. Someone got them in a pure vision. Come on! For sure, one would start to question the validity of such teachings.
If we’re actually practicing those teachings, then you don’t want to start questioning whether or not they actually are the words of a Buddha. Whether it’s Shakyamuni Buddha when he lived or not, that’s irrelevant, because as I’ve explained many times, we have to understand Buddha as a source of these teachings as defined in the teachings. The way that a Buddha is defined and described in the Hinayana teachings is different from the way a Buddha is described in Mahayana sutra, and that’s different from the way a Buddha’s described in tantra. It’s only fair, when they say it’s taught by a Buddha, that it’s taught by a Buddha as given in its own teachings, what it itself understands as a Buddha. But if we don’t have confidence that these teachings that we’re following, and this method that we’re following, are the words of an enlightened being and that if I practice them, they will lead me to enlightenment, what in the world are we doing? How could you possibly have success in following the teachings? No way.
That becomes a very difficult issue. How in the world do you accept that some teachings, a lineage, came from someone who went off to Dakini Land or whatever and got these? How in the world do you accept that as being valid?
Participant: But one can also take a stand and say it doesn’t matter so much if it’s really the word of a Buddha, you know? One can take a stand and say that and say it sounds really plausible to do that practice, also it sounds helpful, and then do it on that basis.
Dr. Berzin: OK. You’re saying that it really doesn’t matter whether it was taught by a Buddha or not. We could...
Participant: Because, anyhow, you can’t prove it.
Dr. Berzin: Because we can’t prove it. It would just be matter of faith, I suppose? Blind faith. Buddhism never encourages that. But we find it helpful, and OK… I think one has to avoid...
Participant: It makes sense.
Dr. Berzin: It makes sense, right. But let’s not have it degenerate into “Well, but it’s cool,” and so I want to practice it because it’s really cool and neat. It’s not that it’s cool, or far out, or any of these other things, but it needs to fit within — I mean, this is again given in many teachings — that it needs to fit within the context of...
That’s remarkable, this fly. It’s injured?
Participant: It just died.
Dr. Berzin: It just died. I see. It never flew away.
Participant: No, but I think it’s very odd that we were discussing him so much and he just dropped dead. It makes you wonder.
Dr. Berzin: Om mani padme hum. Funny. What I was saying was that...
Participant: A peaceful death.
Dr. Berzin: Yes. The fly had a peaceful death, that’s true. Nobody stepped on it.
The point that I was making was that the teachings in the tantra practice have to make sense and be consistent with the other teachings of the Buddhist path. This is what Dharmakirti (Skt. Dharmakīrti) had emphasized.
Participant: This is the four seals?
Dr. Berzin: The four seals? Yes. Or just the general themes, the most general themes. In any tantra practice, there is refuge, there is reaffirming bodhichitta, there is voidness meditation, there is imagining benefiting all others, etc. It fits within the context of general Buddhist practice. When one studies tantra theory then one gains more confidence. I think this is what is quite important, is that if we’re going to practice tantra — if we’re going to even receive a tantric empowerment — it’s important to have some understanding of what tantra is all about. His Holiness the Dalai Lama always spends a great deal of time explaining the theory of tantra before he gives any empowerment, because one needs to have confidence that this is a valid path, and I want to be involved with it not just because it’s cool or far out but because I’m very convinced that it is a very valid and worthwhile practice, and I understand a little bit, at least, how it works. Otherwise, it’s very easy to just get tired of it after a while and just say, “This is crazy.”
Participant: It could be a bit of a weak criterion to say that this sounds good or sounds right, because you can make up a lot of teachings that, in a way, sound right. But isn’t the most, most important thing that they must have produced enlightened beings?
Dr. Berzin: Right. This is another point, a very important point. It’s not just that it needs to sound right, but it needs to have a lineage, that over time it has actually worked. This is true for most of the teachings. But there are — not only in the Nyingma school but primarily in Nyingma — what’s called revealed treasure teachings (gter-ma). More new tantra material is being revealed over time, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said there’s no reason to say that there won’t continue to be more termas in the future. There’s no reason at all to say that there won’t, so there will be.
It’s interesting — if I may add — he says that the reason that there will be more revealed teachings is that tantra methods become too public, and when they are too public then they become trivialized and they lose their sacredness. One of the reasons for things beings kept private in tantra — I mean, usually called secret, but private I think is a better way of understanding the concept here — is that if it’s too public and you have, as I always take it to the extreme, Kalachakra ashtrays and so on, then it is really just degraded, trivialized, and diluted through advertising, through merchandising, through all this other stuff, and it loses any sacredness to it. It’s very important that tantra practice be something really sacred and special to us. For that reason, as His Holiness would say, Vajradhara would reveal further tantra practices and so on in order to revitalize the sacredness of tantra. That’s one of the reasons why it needs to be kept public [private], so that the baby doesn’t come along and take your vajra and bell and stick it in their mouth and throw up all over it and so on.
Participant: I think it is difficult to grasp the meaning of tantra sometimes. Not everybody can understand it. When you read it, you can’t understand it.
Dr. Berzin: Right. As she says — and you bring up a very wonderful point — that it’s not so easy to understand. You read about it, and it’s difficult. It is purposely written that way in the texts to ensure that you don’t do what we would call do-it-yourself tantra, read the instruction book and just do it yourself, but it is purposely made in confusing language and difficult so that you have to rely on a teacher to explain it to you and to guide you. Again, one has to be prepared. You can’t just start with tantra, because it’s all based on at least renunciation, bodhichitta, and voidness, not to mention refuge and concentration and all these other things. All of that is involved.
But when people just imagine that they’re practicing tantra when in fact what they’re doing is just a ritual and playing, basically, with musical instruments and chanting in a language they don’t know — particularly when they do it like that — then it’s very hard to say that they’re really benefiting very much from it. His Holiness always discourages that type of practice.
Participant: Yes, but we’re straying from the point.
Dr. Berzin: Right. We’re straying from the point. The point here being that one needs to have confidence in the teachings.
Participant: We need to be convinced that it’s the teaching of the Buddha.
Dr. Berzin: Right, the teachings of the Buddha — the teachings of an enlightened being. The Buddha, as I said, the Buddha would be, in tantra, basically clear light mind (’od-gsal). I mean, this is my understanding of a Buddha. When we talk about going to a Buddha-land and so on, we’re really talking about entering into full absorption and concentration on the clear light mind, which is the subtlest level of mind, and the clear light mind — if you think in terms of Buddha-nature and so on — will, in a sense, reveal the teachings. Somebody in a state of clear light mind meditation or something can, all of a sudden, from previous instincts of teachings — this is what they say, a terma hidden in the mind — something will come up. It’s like what we would explain in the West as inspiration. Sometimes there are authors who write something and they just... inspiration came. They don’t know from where. They write or they compose something, and they say, “How could I possibly have done that?” This is an occurrence that happens — maybe not so frequently, but it certainly happens. I think that these revealed tantra teachings and so on, whether we’re talking about somebody in ancient India who said they went to a Buddha-land and came back down or whatever, or a terma revealer in more recent centuries — I think that that has to be the concept of a Buddha, not Shakyamuni Buddha who was a prince and so on.
For the general Mahayana teachings, someone who was enlightened billions of years before and just manifests being a Buddha and, at the same time as teaching on this sphere, is manifesting in countless other Buddha-lands and teaching simultaneously to millions and zillions of beings in all realms, and in every tiny pore of the Buddha is another Buddha-land with a million other Buddhas and so on. That is the Mahayana vision of what a Buddha is. That kind of Buddha could teach Mahayana sutras. One has to understand a system within its own context and not feel uncomfortable about it. That’s the problem. When we feel uncomfortable about — “Oh, come on! In every pore there’s a million Buddha-lands?” and so on, and then you want to dismiss that, then you’re going to have a lot of difficulty proving or gaining confidence that Buddha is the author of the Mahayana sutras. Same thing in terms of the tantras. “Buddha manifested on the stupa (Skt. stūpa) at Amaravati as this deity or that deity and from each of the faces taught the different classes of tantra, while simultaneously being on Vulture’s Peak and teaching the Prajnaparamita Sutras? Come on!” This is the description of Buddha who was the author of the tantras.
Now, what becomes difficult is when you see a historical development of various ideas and so on. You have a scholarly analysis of the history of Buddhism, and there’s a general evolution of ideas which come out. That’s a very interesting question. His Holiness the Dalai Lama always speaks of Avalokiteshvara (Chenrezig) having a grand plan for the Dalai Lamas, so that he sees an evolution, from the First Dalai Lama onwards, of a general plan for Tibet that Chenrezig had, with the Dalai Lamas being a manifestation of Chenrezig. His Holiness, in this way, puts together historical developments with a general, more orthodox Buddhist explanation. We can also look at historical development of the teachings in a similar type of way. Do we feel comfortable with that or not? That’s something else.
Participant: Did I hear it correctly that our starting point was that we deride other tenet systems, not our tenets, and it’s not tantra?
Dr. Berzin: No. It says here the vow is to deride our own or others’…
Participant: Our own or others’. OK.
Dr. Berzin: Right. Others’. If you say the sutra is no good and we’re practicing tantra, this is clearly absurd, because tantra practice is based on sutra. If we say that “My tantra is OK, but your tantra is not OK,” this also is a bit absurd. But then there was the problem of... In Tibet, there were many tantras that were not included in the collections, and then the criterion was: was there a Sanskrit original or not?
Participant: Does that also refer to Indian Hindu tantra, that you should not deride that, or only Buddhist tantra?
Dr. Berzin: Does this refer to… whether it’s Hindu tantra or not? Here, it says in the commentaries, others’ tenets refer to the sutras — shravaka, pratyekabuddha, or bodhisattva. Within Buddhism.
Participant: But it doesn’t refer to tantra?
Dr. Berzin: Our own are the Mahayana tantras. We’re not speaking here about non-Buddhist systems. His Holiness of course — not His Holiness, but everybody — says one needs to respect all religions, but that doesn’t mean to say that the Hindu tantras were taught by Buddha. You can’t say that the Hindu tantras are Buddhist.
Participant: There was a lama who told me once that some particular thing I was looking for in the teachings — he said I would probably have to go to India to find a sadhu. He said, “Tantra is tantra.” He said there’s nobody in the West that teaches what I was talking about. I said, “A sadhu? That’s Indian.” He said “Right,” and he said, “Tantra is tantra” — that they’re generally the same, and then you would adapt it to Buddhist.
Dr. Berzin: OK. Now she brings up a point that someone, one teacher, mentioned that to learn a certain thing in the tantra teachings, she would need to go to India and study with a sadhu in Hindu tantra, and that tantra’s tantra, and then when she learned this then it could be adapted into a Buddhist context. There is a tremendous amount of material, not only in tantra but in sutra as well, which is shared in common by all Indian traditions. Teachings on how to develop concentration — you find them everywhere. Shamatha, vipashyana… You find it everywhere. It might not be focused on voidness, as taught in Buddhism, but the method for developing that state of mind is perfectly common.
Participant: With karma they’re very similar too.
Dr. Berzin: Teachings on karma are fairly different in the different systems, but certainly the belief in rebirth is there. But here we’re talking… In tantra, when we speak about working with the energy systems… Now, the explanation of the chakras is quite different in most of the Hindu tantras from what we find in Buddhism. The explanation of the chakras in Kalachakra is different from what we find in the other Buddhist anuttarayoga tantra systems as well. You find more than one system. But there may be certain methods in general yoga, if we can call it yoga, that we find in the Yoga Sutras going way, way back to Patanjali (now we’re going back to the — when was that? — the first or second century of this era) that you would find as a common basis in not only Hindu and Buddhist tantra but also in the various types of yoga.
For certain technical things, one could learn from other systems, but we have to be careful to say that this was not taught by Buddha. Otherwise, you’d have to say that Buddha taught everything in the universe, that all knowledge derives from Buddha. If you make that Buddha into Shakyamuni Buddha, you’re in trouble. Nobody’s going to accept that. Then if you start to say, “Jesus was an avatar of Buddha, and everybody was an emanation of Buddha,” that is very chauvinistic, to put it mildly, to say that everything is Buddhist.
There are various teachings that we find (it’s in Kalachakra) that point out certain things in the Vedas and say that “You could understand it on a deeper level.” This has to do with cow sacrifice and stuff like that — that there is a deeper level of meaning to this, and they’re not talking really about going out and slaughtering bulls, but they are talking about slaughtering various energy-winds within the body and so on. They take it to a different level. One has to be very careful in looking at such teachings and not convey it in such a way that “We Buddhists know better than you what your scriptures mean.” That, I think, would be very arrogant to say that. I perhaps am being overly generous here, but I think that what it is suggesting is that here are teachings that you have that could form a bridge if you wanted to get into Buddhist teachings, but that could be understood in a different way. You know, like the gospels could be interpreted as a Buddhist teaching. But you can’t say that Buddha taught the gospels.
Participant: That’s not close enough. Indian tantra is not close enough is what you’re saying. It still falls in the category of “any other kind of religion.”
Dr. Berzin: What I’m saying is: for this vow, it’s not talking about non-Buddhist teachings; it’s talking within Buddhism.
Participant: Within Buddhism. To not deride other Buddhist tenets.
Dr. Berzin: Right. It’s interesting when we talk here about… All of this is really speaking about Indian Buddhism. Then, as followers of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, what about our attitude towards Pure Land teachings in East Asia? What about Nichiren Buddhism in Japan? How do we regard those? Are they the teachings of Buddha? I think that it is important to be respectful of these other forms of Buddhism and try to, rather than approach it from an attitude that already has decided that “My form of Buddhism is correct, and this form of Buddhism is not correct,” or rubbish or whatever, to have the mind that says that “These must be proper Buddhist teachings, and I want to try to understand how this fits into the general teachings of Buddha.” You give it the benefit of the doubt.
Does that mean that we accept absolutely everything as being Buddhist? I’ll give an example. How about Theosophy? The Secret Doctrine of Madame Blavatsky.
Participant: No, absolutely not.
Dr. Berzin: It’s very interesting. Sinnett, who was a... I forget what his position was in the early Theosophy movement, but he wrote a book claiming that The Secret Doctrine actually came from Tibetan lamas, and Madame Blavatsky refuted that very strongly and said, “No, they don’t,” even though in her writing she says they come from the “tchang-chubs,” which is the Tibetan word for bodhisattvas (byang-chub). But she says, “No. They came from masters in the Himalayas,” and she left it like that — her “mahatmas.” But where do you draw the line? Are these Buddhist teachings or not? At least Madame Blavatsky herself said no, which is fine.
Participant: I would think not. That doesn’t fall under the very clearly defined schools of Buddhism.
Dr. Berzin: Right. There are clearly defined schools of Buddhism with traditions and so on. Right. What I’m saying is that here we don’t just come in very arrogantly and say, “This isn’t correct Buddhism.” One has to be respectful. But I think the most relevant thing here, in terms of tantra practice, is confidence that our teachings are actually the teachings of a Buddha. If you start to doubt that, then you’re in trouble.
Let’s go on. We haven’t gotten very far here. Do we really have time? There’s only five more minutes.
[7] Disclosing confidential teachings to those who are unripe
The next one is disclosing confidential teachings to those who are unripe. This is a difficult one. This has to do with the secrecy of tantra. The explanation here is that confidential teachings, or private teachings — confidential is another good word, rather than secret — concern actual specific generation (bskyed-rim) or complete stage (rdzogs-rim) practices for realizing voidness that are not shared in common with less advanced levels of practice. We’re talking about very special teachings that are not shared in common with other practices. They include details of specific sadhanas and details of specific techniques for actualizing a blissful deep awareness of voidness with clear light mind, clear light mental activity. It’s referring to those things. Those who are unripe for them are people who have not received the appropriate level of empowerment, whether or not they would have faith in these practices if they knew them. At least they have to have the empowerment.
The root downfall is if you explain any of these unshared, confidential procedures in sufficient detail to someone whom we know fully well is unripe (you have to know that they’re unripe) so that he or she has enough information to attempt the practice, and the person actually understands the instructions (they have to understand it as well). That constitutes the root downfall.
The only exception in this, His Holiness always says, is when there’s a great need for explicit explanation, for example to help dispel misinformation and distorted antagonistic views about tantra. That’s why, when there’s all this misinformation about tantra — that it’s just sexual orgies and drunken get-togethers and so on — that to dispel that type of information, then, it may be necessary to give more explicit detail about what all of this is really concerning.
Explaining general tantra theory in a scholarly manner, not sufficient for practice, is likewise not a root downfall. This is something that many of us translators have always tried to clarify with His Holiness. To explain theory is fine because there’s so many books that are about it. What you don’t want to do is write a do-it-yourself book on tantra. That’s the whole point. Of course, the effectiveness of the practice is weakened the more information becomes generally public, and it becomes just sort of commonplace.
But His Holiness also says that there’s no fault in disclosing these confidential teachings to interested observers during a tantric empowerment. This is always a problem, an issue. You open up these empowerments to a large group of people — even if it’s just 100 people, let alone 10,000 people — there’s no time or situation for the lama to know everybody individually and is this person really qualified (ready) or not. There are many people who come as interested observers. As His Holiness says, you should be at least a neutral observer: don’t come with an antagonistic outlook. Because people come just as observers. The people who come as observers, I think, are spared here, basically because the person has to understand the instructions, and usually they can’t understand anything that’s going on if they just have no background and come as an observer. Of course, what one wants to avoid is that they get a bad impression, that “This is really weird stuff,” and they come out with a negative impression. That’s not too good.
But usually during an empowerment if there are any specific instructions given, they are just specific to the ritual itself, of what you visualize or what you imagine, and not specific in terms of a practice afterwards. When His Holiness gives teachings on a specific practice, a specific sadhana (Skt. sādhana) or something like that, then there usually is the commitment to do it every day for the rest of your life. This is the traditional way. If you’re going to go and get the instructions, the only reason for going is because you fully intend to do the practice. There’s no other reason why you should have the instructions.
Participant: That’s what I’m wondering. Even if somebody understands, but if they don’t practice it, and if they’re really serious to practice, then it’s… I can’t imagine that anybody who is not really absolutely interested can practice it, because it is real work, you know. It’s really hard.
Dr. Berzin: Right. I mean, you’d have to really want to practice it in order to practice it. But there are people who go to these discourses just because it’s being held and it’s very high and very special and they want to go and be special. And there are people who take these commitments and then it becomes a torture for many years, because they feel very guilty if they don’t do it, and so they do it, but it takes them so long to do. I know many people who did it only at night before they went to sleep, and they would constantly nod off while they were trying to do it, and it was a torture staying up to just get through it, and they went on like this for years and then they finally gave up. This is not good. One has to be very realistic about these tantric commitments if one is really going to be sincere, and you have to realize that in the beginning it’s going to take you much longer to do the practice than when you get familiar with it.
Participant: [in German]
Dr. Berzin: Right. If I understand correctly, she was saying that you have a similar process with children going to school, that likewise in the beginning everything seems so difficult and takes so long and it is a torture, but as they progress things get easier, basically, to just summarize what you said. Yes, that’s true.
But as tantric practitioners, presumably we are entering into the practice as mature adults, and we... Because you were saying about discouragement as well, that in the beginning a practice that might take us two hours to do, eventually, when we become used to it, could take fifteen minutes. That is what will happen after some years when you get very familiar with it. So when we’re taking a lifelong commitment, one has to be realistic about it and not be, on the one hand, overwhelmed with fear, but on the other hand know what’s going to be involved. I’m just saying that a lot of people had...
How do you deal with these commitments? They’re serious, and one should not take them on lightly. To take it and then ignore it… At some point we may have to just put it on the shelf, as the expression goes, but you do that respectfully. His Holiness explains it like that. “I can no longer keep this commitment. I respectfully…” — we’re talking figuratively here not literally — “put it back on the shelf, and I pray that in the future I’ll be able to get back to it.” You don’t curse it as having been stupid or a waste of time or anything like that. But Shantideva — we go back to dear Shantideva — he says it’s better to examine from the beginning “Am I capable of doing this?” and if I find that I’m not capable, better not to even start than to start and give up in the middle, because then that becomes a habit of giving up in the middle and you never accomplish anything. Very, very wise advice.
Participant: Conventionally, you think it will go linearly.
Dr. Berzin: Right. What you say is absolutely true, that the development of people is not linear. This is why I said samsara goes up and down: sometimes our practice will go well, sometimes it will be unbelievably boring and seem utterly stupid to us. As I said, the equanimity attitude here is “So what?” We just do it and try to develop whatever motivation we can and not get discouraged.
OK. This thing of not revealing the teachings. If somebody is sincerely interested and they have not yet received the empowerments but fully intend to receive the empowerment when it’s available, then you can explain. But again, not specific details, that “Here are the instructions of how to do a practice.” But those who are sincerely interested, in full intention — I’ve heard it explained that it’s OK to explain to them, but again more on a theoretical level. It’s always good (although not so easy for many of us Westerners, myself included) to explain things in an unclear way, because there will be many students — we won’t mention nationalities here — who will utterly demand that things be absolutely clear, and that is not the tantra way (it’s not the Buddhist way in general). The tantra way is to make things purposely unclear — what’s called twilight language, hidden language, and so on — so that the student has to really ask again and again, and develop more and more perseverance and stronger and stronger motivation, to get deeper and deeper teachings. You just don’t give everything all at once. Again, it loses its sacredness. But that is difficult, I know, for many Westerners, myself included.
Participant: Then there’s also, after prolonged periods of time, or years or whatever, of meditation, combined with receiving teachings, that some of these answers will come to you somehow. You actually don’t have to keep asking again and again. If you’re diligent and if you keep practicing, it hits you, and then you realize “Oh OK, now…”
Dr. Berzin: Right. That is exactly the way it should be.
Participant: That’s another reason why it’s twilight language, because in fact it cannot be literally explained. It simply cannot. Some of these things cannot be so literally and logically explained.
Dr. Berzin: Right. What she’s saying is that eventually, through enough practice — building up enough positive force it’s called, the two networks or two collections — you build up enough force and it will come us, what something means: we will understand it. That is the proper process, that we figure it out ourselves. And then the teacher is the one that we check it with to make sure that we got it right, and the teacher will often say, “You’re in the right direction, but...” Like that.
Participant: Still not quite.
Dr. Berzin: Still not quite. A lot of this cannot be understood or explained very clearly, because they are dealing with many experiences that are very difficult to put into words, for example, and many things which are not so easy.
Participant: If you don’t experience them from within then you can’t simply read about it and understand it.
Dr. Berzin: Right. If you don’t experience it from within, you can’t experience it. The example is: How do you explain the taste of sugar to somebody? That is the classic example. Sugarcane, I think, is used. Yeah. I mean, what’s difficult is when students have the attitude of “I paid my money and so I demand a clear explanation, a clear answer to my question.”
Participant: Like in the U.S.A.
Dr. Berzin: That’s very American, that’s true. “I want my money back.” It’s not just in America; I’ve had that in other places as well. They want their money back. One has to appreciate the differences of cultures. No Asian would ask that in a traditional Buddhist country. “I gave an offering for this teaching, and I didn’t get what I want. Give me my money back.” No. That would not happen.
Participant: I’ll sue you.
Dr. Berzin: “I’ll sue you.” That’s right. That also would not happen. But it requires great skillful means to teach with each culture in a way that will benefit them and not compromise the teachings. That’s the real challenge. It was done in the various Asian cultures: Chinese culture is as different from Indian culture as Western culture is different from it. It requires very skillful transmitters.
Let’s end here with the dedication. We think whatever understanding, whatever positive force has come from this, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.