Review of Previous Sessions
We have been going through this text. We’ve had a little bit of a pause and so, as always, it’s good to review a little bit what we have covered.
Reliance on a Qualified Spiritual Mentor
Tsongkhapa was requested by a friend (who was also a disciple and who taught him various things) to give some practical advice on sutra and tantra practice in a letter form. After saying that he has nothing much to say, nevertheless Tsongkhapa goes on and points out that we have all the things together that enable us to be able to practice: we have the excellent working basis of a precious human rebirth, and we’ve met with the teachings, and we are taken care of by great teachers, and we have the intelligence and power of mind to discern between what’s to be practiced and what is to be rejected. Everything just depends then on engaging ourselves in the teachings, getting involved with them.
For that, we need to rely on the guidance of somebody who knows how to do that. Like in Tsongkhapa’s presentation of the lam-rim, he always emphasizes the relation with a fully qualified spiritual teacher as the root from which everything will grow. This teacher needs to be someone who knows exactly what are the states of mind that we need to develop and what are the ones that we need to get rid of, needs to know the exact count of it (which means not to add anything, not to leave anything out), and also knows how to teach them and apply them in the proper graded order for each of the disciples (knows how to accord it with our level of understanding and experience). And that teacher needs to have gained certainty about that from having been led himself or herself through this whole course of training by their own spiritual master. Tsongkhapa emphasizes that that course of training needs to be based on the scriptural texts. There’s no disharmony between the scriptures and the actual personal instructions of how to practice.
The Motivating Mental Framework
Then as for how to begin our practice, the first thing we have to do is to have the proper motivating mental framework. This framework is something that we need to build up. It’s not something that comes so easily or automatically. The most common graded way of building it up is described in the graded stages of the path, lam-rim. This has an initial, intermediate, and advanced level.
- On the initial level we turn away from our main interest being in this lifetime and take interest in the future lives. The main emphasis is to ensure that we continue to have a precious human rebirth, which means that we need to avoid acting in destructive ways, and when disturbing emotions come up that would give rise to an impulse to act in a destructive way, to exercise self-control and restrain ourselves.
- On the intermediate level, then, we think to turn away from our interest in future lives or in anything dealing with uncontrollably recurring rebirth and to attain liberation on the basis of having full renunciation. For that we need to understand the four noble truths in their fullest form: the actual deepest level of suffering (our uncontrollably recurring rebirth), the true causes for that (our unawareness about how we and everything exists), and be convinced that a true stopping of that is possible, and understand the pathway of mind that will lead to that based on higher ethical discipline, higher concentration, and higher discriminating awareness.
- Then on the advanced level we think about how everyone is in the same situation, not just ourselves. We’re completely interconnected with them. We develop love and compassion for them and the bodhichitta (Skt. bodhicitta) aim to achieve enlightenment to be able to benefit them fully. We’re aimed at our own not-yet-happened enlightenment, which can happen on the basis of our Buddha-nature factors, primarily the basic purity of the mind (that the mind is not inherently stained by the disturbing emotions, unawareness, or the habits therefrom).
These motivating mental frameworks need to be something that we have in a very sincere, deep way. It’s not sufficient just to have kind thoughts, but we need to meditate and build all of these up as a beneficial habit.
How To Meditate
Then Tsongkhapa describes how to actually build them up as a beneficial habit. In other words, how to meditate on them. For this we have to know quite a few things in order to be able to generate a certain state of mind or focus on a certain object. We need to know, first of all, what are the causes, what are the things that the state of mind depends on, what is the process for building it up, what are the factors that are helpful for it and support it, what are the factors that are detrimental and that harm it that we have to avoid. We also have to know what the function of that will be, of developing that state of mind, what beneficial things will it result in and what detrimental things will it get rid of. Then we also need to know what exactly to focus on, all the different aspects of it, and how our mind needs to relate to that object or to that state of mind.
This is very, very helpful information about how do you actually meditate, how do you develop love or compassion or bodhichitta, etc. It specifies the state of mind very, very precisely and how to generate that state of mind. These are unbelievably helpful practical instructions (personal guidelines we call them). Then Tsongkhapa says that it’s important to develop these motivating mental frameworks not just at the beginning of a meditation but throughout the meditation session, and not just throughout a meditation session but try to have it at all times.
The Ethical Self-Discipline of Keeping Vows
Then with this as our first basis, which is a basic type of training that we get in sutra, then if we want to enter into tantra practice, the first thing that we need to rely on, on top of this sutra training, is our ethical discipline. The ethical discipline entails, first of all, having some level of pratimoksha (Skt. prātimokṣa) vow, the vows for individual liberation, either as a layperson or as a monk or as a nun. Then we need to, on the basis of that, take the bodhisattva vows if we are going to be involved in Mahayana (Skt. Mahāyāna) practice. And then if we are going to involve ourselves with the two higher classes of tantra, we need to take the tantric vows. We’ve gone through all of those vows, and we have specified them and also what are the various causes for transgressing them, what are the conditions that are involved in transgressing them, what are the different levels of transgressing them, and if we have transgressed or weakened them, how we can restore or revitalize them. Tsongkhapa goes into a great deal of detail about that.
The ceremony or ritual within which we take these vows — specifically here in tantra the bodhisattva and tantric vows — is an empowerment. An empowerment is — we’ve spoken a little bit about that — an empowerment, sometimes called an initiation, is a ritual with a fully qualified spiritual master that entails taking vows, and it entails basically entering... A tremendous visualization process of the spiritual mentor is generating himself in the form of the Buddha-figure that is involved in the tantra practice, and we ourselves are visualizing ourselves in a similar form. We’re entering into the world of this Buddha-figure (called the mandala), and we are undergoing a process in which various seeds are planted. In other words, seeds are planted, and seeds that are there are stimulated to grow.
This is referring to Buddha-nature factors, the various factors within us which will enable us to achieve the enlightenment of a Buddha. During the empowerment, from various imagined experiences that we have — they don’t necessarily have to be imagined; they could actually be “real” (if we put the word real in quotation marks) — but understandings of voidness with a blissful awareness, realization of Buddha-nature, etc., these type of things that we’re asked to try to experience during the empowerment, that this is going to stimulate the Buddha-factors that are there to grow (it awakens and stimulates them) and plant seeds of new experiences. That’s the whole point of the empowerment, is to activate the various Buddha-nature factors that we have. And a great deal of this is done through the inspiration of the spiritual mentor. That’s why it’s very important that not only is the spiritual mentor fully qualified but is somebody that inspires us. There can be someone who is very well qualified, but we feel nothing with this person, no connection, and in that type of situation it will be very difficult to feel any inspiration.
Then Tsongkhapa points out again the importance of the vows. He says that for entering into tantra it’s absolutely necessary that we have some level of pratimoksha vows; that would be at least, minimum, as a householder, but it would be best if we are either a novice or even best would be fully ordained as a monk or a nun. This is true even for receiving and holding the bodhisattva vows, that the strongest basis for that is being a fully ordained monk or nun, and we discussed why that might be the case.
The Proper Order of the Generation and Complete Stages of Anuttarayoga Tantra
Then Tsongkhapa goes on to discuss how we actually practice tantra, and here he’s speaking specifically about the highest class of tantra. We started that discussion last time. Let me read the paragraph from Tsongkhapa’s text that we were discussing that we’re in the middle of. He says:
There is the statement, “The Fully Enlightened Buddha has said to those who would be well-established on the generation stage and those who would wish for the complete stage
That’s the name of these two stages of practice, generation and complete.
that this method (of practicing the two stages) is like (climbing) the rungs of a ladder.” (This means) that just as we must depend on climbing the lower rungs of a ladder in order to proceed to the higher ones, (likewise) we must travel (the pathway minds to enlightenment) by meditating on the generation and complete stages in their (proper) order. It will not do to (practice them) in just any order of understanding or to leave out the generation stage. As (this is what Buddha) has said, we must first meditate on the generation stage.
Even though there is no certainty that (while on its stage) its (practice) will smooth away the undesirable occurrences that occasionally befall us (such as sicknesses) or bring us the subtle actual attainments we desire (such as clairvoyance), yet it is a fact that the generation stage can bring us to the attainment of peerless enlightenment. This point has been well-established clearly from the tantric texts of scriptural authority and well-attested to by learned masters who themselves are valid sources. Therefore, I beg you, please, practice (first this generation stage) in the circle of a mandala.
Obviously Tsongkhapa is emphasizing this point of the necessity of practicing the generation stage first because there are many people — there were many people at his time, and I would dare to say many people nowadays as well — who just want to get to the complete stage practice, which involves working with the chakras and the channels and the winds and this type of stuff, without having any sort of preparation, because they think that “This is the highest stuff. This is what tantra is all about.” And so they enter into that type of practice totally unprepared, not having any of the various things that are necessary for being able to get any success in the practice, and in the end what they manage to do is at minimum just completely mess up their energy-winds and experience tremendous physical difficulties and health difficulties and, on that basis, emotional and mental difficulties, not to mention deeper consequences. The generation stage is very important.
We started our discussion of what actually the generation stage is and what the complete stage is. This is going to take us a little bit of time to actually get an understanding since Tsongkhapa doesn’t go into a detailed description or definition of what they actually are.
Methods to Rid Ourselves of Problems and Their Causes
We started our discussion last time with the various methods that are used to rid ourselves of problems and their causes. We saw that everything in the Buddha’s teachings is structured according to the four noble truths — true problems, their true origins or causes, true stopping of them, and the true pathways of mind that will lead to that — and the tantra method that’s used in the highest class of tantra, anuttarayoga, certainly falls in that category. And so obviously in all the various levels of Buddhist practice, what is the ultimate, deepest, true pathway of mind that we need to develop is the understanding of voidness (absence of impossible ways of existing) with regard to ourselves, with regard to others, with regard to all phenomena.
There are various ways for being able to gain that understanding of voidness that we can follow. In the highest class of tantra we use one type of method. In addition, there are various levels of mind with which we can understand voidness. We can understand it with our grosser levels of mind. That doesn’t mean sensory consciousness. It’s going to have to be mental consciousness at least, and that mental consciousness can be conceptual or nonconceptual, but that’s our usual mental consciousness that we’re talking about. Within that level of mind, within the context of that level of mind, we can have our ordinary mind (that has a lot of mental wandering and stuff like that) to try to understand voidness. That would of course be restricted to a conceptual understanding of voidness. Or we could try to develop what is known as shamatha (zhi-gnas) and vipashyana (lhag-mthong).
Shamatha is a stilled and settled state of mind that has absolutely perfect concentration with no mental dullness, no flightiness of mind or mental wandering or anything like that, and has in addition a sense of fitness that is an exhilarating but nondisturbing sense with which the mind feels fit and the body feels fit to be able to concentrate perfectly on any object that we want for as long as we want and the body is perfectly fit to sit there without moving or anything like that for that period of time. That’s a stilled and settled state of mind, shamatha (Skt. śamatha).
Then on top of that we would develop vipashyana (Skt. vipaśyanā). Vipashyana means an exceptionally perceptive state of mind. It is a mind that, on the basis of already having shamatha and that sense of fitness to be able to concentrate on anything, has a second sense of fitness of being able to discern anything. It can be built up by discerning voidness, discriminating between what’s the actual way of existing from the way in which it does not, but there are many other ways in which can be developed as well. But this is a much more active state of mind. The shamatha state of mind is a more passive state of mind.
And we could focus on voidness conceptually with this combined state of shamatha and vipashyana. That’s called yogic perception (rnal-’byor mngon-sum tshad-ma), and that can be... No, that’s not called yogic perception. I’m sorry. That’s combined shamatha and vipashyana. That could be conceptual. When a combined shamatha and vipashyana becomes nonconceptual, that’s called yogic perception. In any case, we could develop our understanding of voidness with that type of mind. That’s what we do in sutra. Then of course we have to become accustomed to this, get this over and over and over again so that we can sustain it all the time.
Or we can try to gain that understanding of voidness with the subtlest level of mind. That’s known as the clear-light mind (’od-gsal), which is a level of mind or awareness which underlies all moments of experience. It is there no matter what we are experiencing — it could be in a coma, sleep, whatever. That is there even at the time of death, the moment of death. That is what goes on from one lifetime to another. That level of mind or awareness is normally not manifest. However, it is possible to get it to be manifest and working, not just at the time of death, when it automatically is manifest, but in meditation as well.
There are many advantages to activating that level of mind. For one thing, it is so subtle that it is more subtle than any conceptual state, so it is automatically nonconceptual. It is more subtle than any type of disturbing emotion, so it is an unstained state of mind, to a certain extent, in the sense that it does not have the disturbing emotions, does not have unawareness, and it does not make appearances of impossible ways of existing. It’s free of all those things. It however is not free of the habits and tendencies for all of this. This is why, if those aren’t removed, then when we come out of the clear-light state (as with rebirth) then unawareness and deceptive appearance-making and so on recurs.
The point is we want to understand voidness with that level of mind. If we can understand voidness with that and generate that state of mind in a blissful type of awareness, this will be the most powerful tool as a true pathway of mind (supported by bodhichitta and all these sort of things) to attain a true stopping and achieve enlightenment. This is the main point in the highest class of tantra, and so there are various methods for being able to access that state of mind that we want to use. Also, what we want to do is to build up causes for achieving the body and a mind of a Buddha together, so we’re working more closely with causes for achieving the physical bodies of a Buddha in tantra than we are in sutra.
Now, we went through, last time, many different types of ways that are used for getting rid of the disturbing emotions and unawareness in the Buddhist repertoire, just to be quite clear of what we are doing in tantra.
Applying Opponent Forces
We spoke about applying opponent forces. For instance, when we have attachment to the body of somebody, we focus on the various things that are underneath the skin, inside the stomach, the bowels, etc. This is a temporary solution. It doesn’t get rid of the problem forever.
Turning Negative Circumstances into Positive Ones
We can also turn negative circumstances into positive ones. When we are experiencing some type of suffering, we can change our attitude toward it and say, “This is great. This is burning off negative potentials for something much worse to happen.” We can practice tonglen (gtong-len, giving and taking) of taking on similar sufferings from everybody else. We can do that even with disturbing emotions when we are experiencing them — that if we’re experiencing strong jealousy, to imagine “May everybody’s jealousy come on me,” and then to dissolve that jealousy and give everybody freedom from that. That also is a temporary way of dealing with it.
Dissolving Disturbing Emotions into the Underlying Conventional Nature of the Mind
There are other ways of dealing with it. We can use a mahamudra (Skt. mahāmudrā) method. I didn’t mention this last time. We can try to focus, when we have a disturbing emotion, on the basic structure of the mental activity, which is the giving rise of a mental hologram and some sort of cognitive engagement with it — with that happening without there being a separate mind or me that’s making it happen or observing it. That was, in one sense, mahamudra. I won’t go into great detail about that.
This is not an easy method whatsoever to use. It means turning our attention from the content of a moment of experience that could be colored with a disturbing emotion, so not focusing on who we’re jealous of, or who we have a tremendous longing desire for, or on the feeling of the longing desire, but focusing instead on the structure of that mental activity. All that’s happening is there is a mental hologram arising of a mental image of this person, a mental hologram arising of an emotion, and the cognitive involvement with it is imagining this person, feeling the emotion, this type of thing. That’s all that’s happening. There’s no little box in our head called mind that it’s coming from, and there’s no little me behind it observing it or making it happen. It’s just a mental event. And in that way, it takes all the energy out of that moment of a disturbing emotion. That also is a very helpful method.
Dissolving Disturbing Emotions into Underlying Deep Awareness
We could similarly deconstruct the disturbing emotion into one of the five types of underlying deep awarenesses. That’s another type of mahamudra practice, also done in dzogchen, with which we see the basic structure on another level of what’s going on with the disturbing emotion. For instance, with longing desire that’s focused on one person, what’s underlying that is individualizing deep awarenesses. In other words, just specifying one thing from everything else. That’s the basic structure. We add on to that of course unawareness, that rather than just specifying this individual, we anticipate something really special, exaggerate the good qualities, and then the disturbing emotion takes over: “I have to have it,” if I don’t have it, or “I don’t want to let go,” if I do have it. That’s attachment. By deconstructing the disturbing emotion and getting to the underlying structure of the deep awareness that is there, that also diffuses the disturbing emotion.
Applying the Mutually Exclusive State of Mind
There are many methods. There is also the deepest method, which is applying a mutually exclusive state of mind. In other words, instead of focusing, grasping — grasping means to perceive an appearance of impossible ways of existence and believe in it, that it corresponds to reality — we apply the exact opposite state of mind, which is that “There is no such thing,” a total absence of this. That really is the deepest method for getting rid of the unawareness that underlies the disturbing emotion.
Meditation in Analogy
Here in tantra we’re going to ultimately use that method of applying a mutually exclusive state of mind, but the way that we are going to get to that, or approach it, is by meditating in analogy. We didn’t go into too much detail with that yet. Basically, that is speaking about how we always have a three-level analysis of things: the basis, path, and result. Here we are speaking of these three being analogous to each other. The basis here is death, bardo, and rebirth. The result is the three Buddha bodies. And the path of mind that we follow is going to be in analogy with these three in order to purify the basis, in order to generate the result. We will discuss that in a great deal of detail in a little while. But this is the method that is going to be used. It’s quite a different method from the other methods that we find in sutra, or we find in mahamudra or dzogchen.
The Meanings of Purification
The last thing that we spoke about last time… I am going rather quickly, I’m sorry, but this is a review. I hope that you remember, or at least have a vague recollection, that we’ve discussed all of this already. Your facial expression doesn’t reveal a tremendous recollection of it. But in any case, we also spoke about what it means to purify the basis here — death, bardo and rebirth — and first of all what it’s not. What it’s not is:
- We’re not trying to purify it in the sense of removing stains from it. It’s not that, on the basis of our mental continuum, we want to get rid of the stains that are making a nasty experience of death, bardo, and rebirth so that we have a nice experience of them. That’s not what we’re trying to do.
- We’re not trying to purify it in the sense of chasing away interferences from death, bardo, and rebirth so that we don’t have any interruption in experiencing it.
- We’re not purifying it in the sense of making later moments of its continuity better. For instance, when we talk about love, we want to generate better and better love, purer and purer love. We’re not talking about making death, bardo, and rebirth better.
- It’s not that we are trying to make later moments of its continuity be of a different quality — rather than death, bardo, and rebirth as an ordinary person, making it death, bardo, and rebirth of some sort of Buddha-figure. Not that sense at all.
But what we’re trying to do is purify it in the sense of ending the continuity of it by eliminating its true cause. That fits in with our four noble truths.
That was as far as we had discussed last time. I’m a little bit afraid to ask is that all clear. But we’ve been at this for quite a long time, for at least a year.
Participants and Answers
Participant: When you spoke about the method to do the opposite of grasping, when you try to deconstruct it, you said that… You gave a pretty advanced definition, for me, of grasping, and then you said, “OK, the opposite of it is that you just deny it.” You just deny it if I understood it right. But can you please explain this a bit more?
Dr. Berzin: OK. He’s asking a very important question, which is to elaborate a little bit more on applying a mutually exclusive state of mind to grasping for true existence, truly established existence, which is an impossible thing. The term from Tibetan, coming from Sanskrit, that’s involved here is usually just translated as “grasping for true existence” (bden-par ’dzin-pa), this word grasping (’dzin-pa, Skt. graha). Grasping, however, is not a very good translation (but I can’t think of any better one), because it [’dzin-pa] implies two things that are going on, and when we get rid of grasping, we get of rid first one part of it and the other part is still there. Underlying this grasping for true existence is that, due to the habits of that grasping, our minds make appear an appearance of impossible ways of existence, as if there was something on the side of the object that by its own power is establishing it as its existence and its identity as what it is, independent of anything else.
For instance, when we see an elderly person, the appearance is that they’re just an elderly person, that’s it, from their own side, as if being old was established just like that. We don’t think in terms of their entire life, the whole aging process, all the experiences that they’ve gone through. What is considered old in one society… I have a student, a friend, one of these very enthusiastic Dharma practitioners, that I met when he was fourteen years old. I’ve met a few of them that come to a Buddhist center. They are the most enthusiastic, they ask the best questions, they are the sharpest, and so on. And I have continued to correspond to this guy. Now he just had his twenty-first birthday, and I exchanged “Happy Birthday” email with him, and he was complaining that now he’s so old, at twenty-one, and so from his point of view he now is an old person. Then I wrote him back that “In a few weeks I’m going to be sixty-four,” and from my point of view that’s a rather odd perception of what it means to be old.
Anyway, it seems as though somebody’s old just from their own side. OK. That’s impossible, but our mind makes it appear like that. So, there are two things that are involved here. One is to perceive that appearance, that impossible appearance, and the other is to believe that it corresponds to reality. Grasping, this word grasping, dzinpa (’dzin-pa) in Tibetan, means literally “to take” or “to hold.” To take or hold in a cognitive sense means just to perceive it, but also it has the additional meaning of believing it. How do you translate a word like that? Very difficult. First we have to get rid of believing that it corresponds to reality, but still we’ll perceive it because we haven’t gotten our minds to stop projecting it. When you achieve liberation, you don’t believe in this garbage that the mind produces, but the mind still produces it. Because you don’t believe in it, you don’t react to it, and so you don’t get any disturbing emotions, and then eventually you get the mind to stop producing it.
The opposite of that — what’s mutually exclusive — is the understanding that there’s no such thing. That’s voidness. And when you focus on “No such thing” what appears is nothing. You don’t have an appearance of this impossible way of existing, and you don’t believe that it refers to anything real as well. It is the mutually exclusive state of mind, the total opposite, of both perceiving an impossible appearance (deceptive appearance we call it) and believing in it. That’s why it’s very important to understand what it actually means to focus on voidness. It doesn’t just mean to have a blank mind.
Participant: I have a question about these two aspects of grasping. You mentioned that when you reach — did I understand it correctly? — when you reach liberation, you’ve already stopped believing these appearances. Is that true according to Prasangika (Skt. Prāsaṅgika)?
Dr. Berzin: Right. According to Prasangika, we stop believing in these…
Participant: Even as an arhat?
Dr. Berzin: As an arhat you are free from unawareness; you’re free from ignorance. I mean, there is a distinction here. They are not totally equivalent, grasping for true existence and unawareness. Unawareness is a disturbing emotion, so it’s a mental factor. The grasping could be either a primary mind or a mental factor. When it has the meaning of just perceiving deceptive appearance then it’s not unawareness.
Participant: That’s the only facet that would still be present?
Dr. Berzin: That’s the only facet that would still be present. Yes.
Participant: Which facet?
Dr. Berzin: Perceiving the impossible way of existing.
Participant: When one attains liberation, one still perceives that?
Dr. Berzin: You’re not free of the cognitive obscurations. Cognitive obscurations are the habits of that grasping which still make that appearance, and you still perceive it…
Participant: This is Prasangika?
Dr. Berzin: Prasangika.
But you don’t believe it: “This is garbage.” But because you perceive it, the way things appear is — what I have used several analogies for — one analogy is that it seems as though things are encapsulated in plastic; the other one is periscope vision. We can’t see the interconnectedness of everything. Because you can’t see the interconnectedness of everything, particularly in terms of cause and effect, and particularly in terms of the three times [i.e. we invalidly impute a continuum on a result that is not yet happening, a result that is presently happening, and a result that is no longer happening], then you don’t know what are all the causes for this individual person’s problems and what would be the effect of anything that I teach them so that I can choose what would be the most effective thing to teach. Therefore, if you want to become a Buddha, you have to get your mind to stop making these impossible appearances so that you can perceive all at once the interconnectedness of everything. Because what you teach one person will have an effect not only on that person but on the way that that person interacts with everybody else for countless rebirths and how they will respond to other people. I mean, it mushrooms out, the effect of anything that we do.
That is ultimately what we want to do, is to gain that nonconceptual cognition of voidness. When we have a conceptual cognition of voidness then we are understanding it through a category, a fixed category. A fixed category is like a fixed idea that we have of voidness. Then we understand it through the medium of that fixed idea and of course understanding it through that medium of a fixed idea makes voidness into a thing, and so you have to get rid of that.
Participant: Just a question. Maybe it’s a stupid one. I don’t know. But how do you see interconnectedness? OK, so you teach me something and it changes my life, or it has an effect on me, and I spread the effect further, to other people, with my behavior. But where does it start and where does it end? I mean, of course it can take several lifetimes or so. But where does the interconnectivity start? If, let’s say, I walk down the street, but you stay teaching here, do we have any interconnectivity? Or does it need something more (let’s say sitting here in a Sangha to get a teaching)?
Dr. Berzin: Right. The question is: When we are trying to gain the omniscience of a Buddha, where does the interconnectivity or interdependence start? How immediate does it have to be? Not at all. We’re talking about the interconnectedness of everything, with no beginning and no end. That obviously is, to use the terminology, inconceivable, what that actually would appear like.
I wrote a very long, detailed, and admittedly extremely difficult article on my website — those who have tried to read it are now giggling — called What Does a Buddha Perceive When a Buddha Sees the Past, Present, and Future?
Participant: I’ll have to read it. I’ll have to try it.
Participant: Good luck.
Dr. Berzin: “Good luck,” you wished him. Thank you. You have to read... There’s one article right before it in the menu of the website, which is Time is a Temporal Interval — the Buddhist concept of time is talking about a temporal interval — without that as the basis, then it’s a little bit more difficult to understand the article. I mean, that’s one of the most difficult things to understand, is what actually is going on in terms of a Buddha perceiving the three times, and are they real, is it existing somewhere, does it imply predetermination — what does it imply? Something that one has to work on. I can’t pretend that my article is 100% correct and definitive, but anyway I pestered some of the greatest learned masters in India to try to get a more precise understanding of it, so there it is. Right. Anything else?
We want to gain that understanding, that nonconceptual understanding, with the clear-light mind, which is automatically going to be more subtle than any level on which we would perceive things through categories, or it would be accompanied by disturbing emotions, or the mind would make appearances of false existence. It’s more subtle. It doesn’t necessarily understand anything by itself though. You have to generate it into an understanding of voidness. If that weren’t the case, then all you would have to do is die in order to gain liberation and enlightenment. It’s not so simple.
Methods for Purifying Ourselves of Something We Want To Be Rid Of
Now the next thing to clarify is that to purify something so that we can be rid of it completely is… Again there’s a variety of methods that are used in Buddhism. We have to see what we are not doing.
- One method would be that we’re not trying to end the continuity of death, bardo, and rebirth in the sense of merely burning the seeds for them, like we do in Vajrasattva purification to rid ourselves of negative karmic potentials (you sort of burn the seeds so that they are inactive). We’re not trying to do that.
- We are not opposing death, bardo, and rebirth directly, like having some elixir of immortality that would prevent us from having anymore death, bardo, and rebirth.
- And we’re not using a mutually exclusive exact opposite of death, bardo, and rebirth to end them. (It’s hard to actually conceive of what would be exact opposite of death, bardo, and rebirth.)
Rather we are working to break the continuity of death, bardo, and rebirth by meditating with a pathway mind that is similar to the three. This is a very, very tricky and clever method, but it is the key to understand what we’re actually doing in tantra, and so this is important to try to understand. What we’re trying to do... We are generating a pathway mind — in other words, we’re doing something in meditation — that is going to imitate death, bardo, and rebirth (it’s similar to it) in order to get past certain blockages to get down to the foundation of the three. It accesses the mechanism that underlies death, bardo, and rebirth, and gets rid of the cause that’s causing death, bardo, and rebirth, and instead has that basis generate the three bodies of a Buddha. That, in one sentence, is what we’re trying to do.
Explanation of the Anuttarayoga Method in Structural Form
Now we have to explain in much more detail what we’re talking about here. In a structural form, we have a basis and a result that are analogous to each other. With death — if you think of the structure with death — we go down to the subtlest level of mind. With bardo, then we have an appearance from that subtlest level, which is subtle, in the bardo (the in-between state). And then we have a gross appearance with rebirth. We have a similar structure in sleep: You have deep sleep, in which you go down to a very subtle level; you have dreams, in which you have a subtle appearance; and then you have the awake state, where you have grosser appearances. It’s the same type of structure. Dream yoga, sleep yoga, is all done on the basis of this being analogous.
Similarly, when we talk about the three bodies of a Buddha, the three corpuses of a Buddha, the Dharmakaya… Here we’re talking about a “corpus that encompasses everything.” It’s the omniscient mind of a Buddha and the voidness of that mind — let’s just leave it at the mind of a Buddha. The omniscient mind of a Buddha is also this clear-light mind. It’s the subtlest level, like what you have manifest at death, but it’s generated as omniscient — get rid of all the habits of grasping for true existence and all that sort of stuff. By the way, in the clear light at death, those habits are there but they are not actively producing an appearance of true existence, but they’re still there; so they’re not actively functioning.
Then within Dharmakaya (Skt. Dharmakāya), within the state of Dharmakaya, there are the subtle appearances of Sambhogakaya (Skt. Saṃbhogakāya), a “corpus of bodies of full use” that are... The way that it’s described in sutra is that these are very subtle forms that only appear in pure lands, Buddha realms, whatever they are, these pure realms that are filled with arya (Skt. ārya) bodhisattvas (bodhisattvas who have nonconceptual cognition of voidness), and it is teaching them just Mahayana, and they have all the physical signs of a Buddha, the thirty-two and eighty, and they remain until the end of samsara (Skt. saṃsāra) of everybody, which means a very, very long time. These are very subtle forms.
In tantra, Sambhogakaya is referred to as the corpus, or collection, or network of Buddha’s speech, enlightening speech, which also is a subtle appearance. When we talk about appearance, it doesn’t have to be visual; it’s just something arising as an expression of the omniscient mind. The expression of the omniscient mind can either be in subtle forms or it can be in a movement of speech.
I guess I didn’t explain this, but when we talk about mind, talk about mental activity… Mind in Buddhism is referring to mental activity, activity that’s going on from moment to moment to moment, and that activity can be described from a physical point of view, and it can be described from a subjective, experiential point of view. When we talk about mind, usually we’re talking about the experiential, subjective point of view of the mental activity. But from another point of view there’s something physical going on, and on a gross level we can speak of brain activity and all that sort of stuff. But on the subtlest level, there is the subtlest energy. There’s an energy aspect to this mental activity. This subtlest energy is the energy that... One of its characteristics is that it radiates, and so it — you have this term in dzogchen — it will spontaneously establish appearances (lhun-grub). On one level it establishes subtle appearances, so it can either be like the Sambhogakaya in sutra, these subtle forms, or it could be speech, which is also a subtle movement of wind, of energy-wind. And so we have this subtle speech. That’s how it’s described in tantra — highest class of tantra, I should say (anuttarayoga).
Then we have Nirmanakaya (Skt. Nirmāṇakāya), which is called a “corpus of emanations” (it’s emanations of the Sambhogakaya literally). Then these subtle forms in sutra emanate grosser forms that somehow will have their basis in terms of grosser bodies that people with the karma to meet with them can meet with them, like Buddha Shakyamuni. So we have these grosser appearances.
These three are not sequential — Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Nirmanakaya — the way that death, bardo, and rebirth are sequential. The attainment of them is simultaneous. Nevertheless, the structure is there of something very subtle, then subtle appearances, and then grosser appearances. These two are analogous. What is the basis for both of them? In Sakya systems we refer to the two of these things that I just described as the appearances of samsara and the appearances of nirvana (Skt. nirvāṇa). Or in other terminology they can be called pure and impure appearances. There are many different ways of referring to them. But the basis for it is our individual clear-light minds. Everybody has their own individual continuity of a clear-light mind.
Participant: The foundation for the basis and the result.
Dr. Berzin: That is the underlying foundation for the basis and the result, right, and will be for the pathway as well. When that foundation, clear-light mind — and now we’re talking about Buddha-nature factors that enable us to become a Buddha — when that foundation, the clear-light mind, is mixed with unawareness or confusion, then it will generate death, bardo, and rebirth, as is described with the twelve links of dependent arising and all this sort of stuff that we learn about in sutra. In the highest class of tantra there’s a whole description of how the death process occurs, etc., and how the rebirth process occurs, in very fine detail.
When the mental continuum of that clear-light mind is free of unawareness and free as well of the habits of unawareness — now we get into technical differences of opinion of at what stage, but let’s speak in terms of free of all these stains (both the unawareness and their habits) — then it gives rise to the three bodies of a Buddha. What we want to do is to get down to that clear-light mind and get rid of the habits of grasping for true existence. If we can get down to that clear-light mind level and rid it at that level, with that state of mind, of the habits of grasping for true existence, then it will no longer give rise to death, bardo, and rebirth, but instead the natural tendency of it will be to then give rise to Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Nirmanakaya.
Participant: A structural question. Can you really say that the clear-light mind is the basis for the three kayas, or is it that the clear-light mind of a Buddha is actually the Dharmakaya?
Dr. Berzin: Can we say that the clear-light mind is the basis for the Dharmakaya of a Buddha or is it the Dharmakaya? That would be a question for debate. When we say clear-light mind, what you would have to say is the clear-light level, because the clear-light level has both the subjective, experiential side as well as the energy side. From the so-called mental side, we would get the Dharmakaya. From the energy side we would get the Sambhoga- and Nirmanakayas. I’m not talking about the Kalachakra system and all this sort of stuff. Let’s stay with the simple... with the main system. Basically, it has to be the same, no matter what system we’re talking about, even if they don’t explain it in these terms.
The clear-light mind is not pervasive with the Dharmakaya. We call the clear-light mind the clear-light mind whether or not it has imputed on it the habits of grasping for true existence. And when we speak about rigpa (pure awareness) in dzogchen, that’s speaking about just the unstained clear-light mind. Those two are not pervasive, clear-light mind and rigpa. Clear-light mind could be stained or unstained. Rigpa, pure awareness, is the unstained aspect of it. However, even rigpa is not pervasive, mutually pervasive, with the Dharmakaya, because rigpa has to be made to recognize its own face (rang-ngo shes-pa) it’s called, which means that it has to understand its own nature. It has to understand voidness. It doesn’t automatically understand that, so it has to be activated in a way that understands it. They have all sorts of different classifications within rigpa. What happens is that the clear-light mind is generated into a Dharmakaya, but it is not already a Dharmakaya on the basis level. OK?
We have the basic structure: Subtlest level, subtle appearance, gross appearance. Death, bardo, rebirth. Deep sleep, dream, awake. Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, Nirmanakaya. What we want to do is meditate in analogy with that, with both a basis and result, to enable us to get to that foundation, that clear-light level, so that at that clear-light level we can apply the understanding of voidness to, in a sense, to turn the switch so that instead of giving rise to the samsaric situation, it gives rise to the Buddha situation.
What we do on the generation stage is work with our imaginations. We imagine that appearances dissolve in stages similar to the type of dissolution of appearances that we have at the time of death. We imagine that we are experiencing the clear-light mind. We apply our conceptual understanding of voidness. Then we arise in a simple form, which could be as a seed syllable, it could be as a simple figure, it could be as a shaft of light, it could be as a dot. Depending upon which system we’re practicing, it will take many different, various forms. It really is irrelevant which form or which system we are practicing in terms of the basic structure. The simple appearance, and then a full appearance (with tons of arms and legs and faces and a whole assortment of various figures around us). That is the basic structure which is similar to death, bardo, and rebirth and is going to be a pathway mind for achieving the Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Nirmanakaya. It’s called taking death as a pathway for attaining Dharmakaya, taking bardo as a pathway for achieving Sambhogakaya, and taking rebirth as a pathway for achieving Nirmanakaya. That’s the basic structure that we have.
In the generation stage we do this with our imaginations. And on the complete stage, once we have perfect concentration — that means shamatha and vipashyana, which are achieved through special methods in the generation stage with these visualizations (incredibly complex visualizations and visualizations on a microscopic level and so on) — once we gain mastery of that then we have the tools… That’s why we call it the generation stage; we’re generating all of this in our imaginations through visualization. On the complete stage… It’s called complete; it doesn’t mean completion, the way that it is usually translated. It’s not that we’re completing the process. It’s that all the tools are now complete for being able to do the real thing, the real analogy, which is the get down to the clear-light state of mind, to actually get down to the clear-light stage of mind, by working with the subtle energy-systems, and so dissolving the winds and so on (there are several methods which are used). But it’s only at this stage, when we have perfect concentration and laser-beam type of concentration on a microscopic level, that we can visualize the subtle energy-system and actually move the energies within it. This is why if you don’t have the laser scalpel to be able to move them, etc., and then you start to do various exercises to try to work with them, all you’re going to do is really mess up the energies.
Then you move the energies in such a way that they actually do dissolve, and you get to the subtlest level. We get to that subtlest level but not completely to the subtlest level — it’s still slightly conceptual — but from that then we have access to these energy-winds. We actually generate it in some sort of subtle form, called illusory body (sgyu-lus), and then can generate it in a grosser form, which is called emanation body (sprul-sku) in tantra. Eventually we want to get that to be the actual clear-light state of mind so it’s nonconceptual — in all these cases we’re applying the understanding of voidness here — and within that state then generate a pure illusory body (dag-pa’i sgyu-lus), which is still not a body of a Buddha, because we still haven’t gotten rid of the habits of grasping for true existence. But we generate a pure illusory body, a pure emanation body, of the path, and that will act as what’s called the obtaining cause (nyer-len-gyi rgyu) (in other words, the immediately preceding cause) from which we will obtain the actual bodies of a Buddha.
This is the process. The generation stage is what will prepare us for actually doing the complete stage.
The Analogy of the Prisoner in the Cell
I made a cute — I hope it’s not too cute — analogy for the whole process. Let me read it to you.
There is a house with two rooms, one and two, which share a common basement. Room one is a prison cell. Room two is the palace chamber of a Buddha. (You get it? A samsara one and a Buddha state.) Each room is connected to the basement by its own elevator. The electricity for both elevators comes from the basement, but now it is only connected to elevator one, the elevator to the prison cell. Elevator two to the palace chamber has no electricity. Because of that, only elevator one works; elevator two doesn’t function. We are a prisoner in the cell. We have an endless lifespan and are locked in the cell forever. Every hundred years, we take the elevator down to the basement, get a change of clothes, and go back up to our prison cell. This is the prison routine.
Our aim is to sabotage the electric system of the house so that we cut off the electric supply to elevator one and connect it to elevator two. If we accomplish our mission, the elevator to room one will go out of order, and the elevator to room two will start working and we can use it to enter and live in the palace chamber. To carry out our mission we have to get to the basement. Although we normally make a trip to the basement once every hundred years, we can’t wait that long. Our misery in prison is awful, but even more unbearable is the suffering of the countless other prisoners who are each locked up in their own cells.
In order to break into the basement from our prison cell, we need to follow the customs of both rooms of the house: we need to access the basement by taking an elevator. To do this and get past the guards, we need to wear a disguise. Someone from the palace chamber in our house comes to help us. He comes for a visit and secretly gives us a palace uniform and instructs us on how to get to the basement on our own. If we pretend to be from the palace, we can fool the guards, activate the elevator in our cell, and reach the basement.
We follow the instructions. First, we practice in our imaginations going down to the basement, carrying out our secret operation of reconnecting the electric wires, and then coming back up into the palace chamber via elevator two. Once we are able to visualize the operation perfectly and have practiced sufficiently, we are then able actually to break into the elevator in our prison cell and use it to go down to the basement. After many trials of taking the elevator down and almost reaching the basement before having to come back up again, we finally succeed in reaching the basement. There we disconnect the electricity from the elevator that goes to the prison cell and reconnect it to the elevator that goes to the palace chamber. Having accomplished this, we then take elevator number two up to the palace chamber and from there help all the other prisoners to escape.
In this more extended analogy, the prison cell is samsara. The basement is the subtlest level of our continuum — our clear-light mind and subtlest energy-wind. The guards are our emotional and cognitive obscurations. Going from the prison cell down to the basement occurs with death, being in the elevator going back up to the cell is bardo existence, and being back in the prison cell is rebirth. The palace chamber is the enlightened state of a Buddha.
When we are in the elevator to the palace and it is in the basement, this is Dharmakaya. Being in the elevator going up to the palace is Sambhogakaya, and being in the palace chamber is Nirmanakaya. This part of the analogy is not exact, since Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Nirmanakaya are simultaneous, not sequential. What is analogous is that the appearances of the three enlightening corpuses of a Buddha have three levels of subtlety.
The visitor from the palace chamber is the tantric master. Giving us a disguise is conferring a tantric empowerment. The disguise is as a Buddha-figure. Wearing the disguise and practicing the operation in our imaginations is generation-stage practice, during which we visualize ourselves in this Buddha-form. Actually, taking the elevator and eventually succeeding in reaching the basement while wearing the disguise is complete-stage practice.
The electric connection to the elevator going to the prison cell is held in place by our grasping for truly established existence. What disconnects it from there and reconnects it so that the electricity flows to the elevator going to the palace chamber instead is the nonconceptual cognition of voidness. Finally reaching the palace chamber of a Buddha is our attainment of enlightenment.
Cute, clever — I hope not too clever. But anyway, I think that describes the process fairly accurately.
Participant: That’s on your website?
Dr. Berzin: It is in an article called Methods Used in Buddhism to Rid Ourselves of Problems and Their Causes. I think that’s what it’s called. Anyway, that’s what I have it labeled here. You can find it in the English section New Materials. It’s one of the newer articles that’s up there. [Now called The Purification Method Used in Anuttarayoga Tantra.]
Participant: We go in the Buddha elevator to the palace.
Dr. Berzin: The Buddha elevator, right.
This is what we’re doing in tantra, in anuttarayoga tantra. I mean that’s the core of the practice. Then there are various things around it that fill it out, but we’ll discuss that next time. Any questions? But I think this makes it fairly clear why the generation stage practice is absolutely necessary for complete stage practice. And next time I’ll go through — I have a list that Tsongkhapa wrote of the advantages and the benefits of the generation stage, of what are the essential factors that we gain from it.
Participant: I have a question about the thing that you mentioned earlier when you explained the vows. There was one of meditating on voidness every day. Is there some sort of recommendation, a traditional one, of how long at least that should be? What’s the measure of properly doing that?
Dr. Berzin: We have in one of the tantric vows to meditate or be mindful of voidness six times a day, which is a euphemism, I suppose, for trying to be aware of it all the time. But at least remind ourselves of it. How much do we actually meditate on it? I mean, this is hard to say, because it depends on the individual, really depends on the individual. His Holiness always says that when we generate an understanding of voidness…
We get a little bit of insight into this from the Gelug Prasangika analysis, or presentation, of ways of knowing, lorig (blo-rig). In this we have inferential understanding — I mean as the valid ways — inferential understanding (rjes-dpag) and straightforward cognition (mngon-sum). (Here it’s different from the other systems, where it’s bare cognition. I call it straightforward in this case because it’s defined differently.) Inferential means that we rely on a line of reasoning, and there are the various lines of reasoning — neither one nor many, etc. Initially we need to rely on that line of reasoning in order to generate a state of conviction. In other words, focus on it with certainty. It’s a state of mind that is both correct, or accurate, and with conviction. I mean, you can be convinced in something that’s wrong. It has to be accurate. It could be accurate but you’re not sure. So it has to be both. It’s going to be conceptual, through a category: voidness.
When we have hearing, thinking, and meditating, the difference between thinking and meditating is that with thinking we are not yet convinced that it’s true. We don’t have certainty. We’re going through it again and again, the analysis and so on, the line of reasoning, to become convinced that this is really so. A little bit of indecision here. In other words, what we want to get through the thinking process is both the accuracy (the correct understanding) and the certainty that it’s correct: we’re convinced. Then the actual meditation is to absorb that, to integrate it. What’s called analytical meditation (dpyad-sgom, discerning meditation) is to go through that line of reasoning again but just to generate freshly the valid inferential cognition. When we still need to go through that line of reasoning in order to get that final inferential understanding, and then you let it sink in, so you have the... What do I call it? I forget what I call it, but the stabilizing meditation (’jog-sgom) where you just focus on it. Then you have to do that over and over again. And that’s conceptual.
Now, in the non-Gelug, non-Prasangika schools you only have that and then you have nonconceptual cognition (that’s called bare perception). In the Gelug-Prasangika system it differentiates, and we have what’s called straightforward cognition. Straightforward cognition is the same term in Sanskrit and Tibetan as bare cognition, but it has two phases (one is conceptual, one is nonconceptual). The main characteristic of it is that you don’t have to rely on the line of reasoning in order to generate the focus on it that’s accurate and with conviction. That means you can just go to it like that [snaps fingers], but it’s still conceptual, so still through a category. And then eventually it becomes nonconceptual.
Participant: But the same word is used for this?
Dr. Berzin: Same word is used as bare.
Participant: Whoa!
Dr. Berzin: Whoa is right. That’s why you have to know the definition in the system that you’re talking about, because the definitions differ.
You ask: How much do we have to spend on trying to get some sort of understanding of voidness? It depends what stage we’re at. If we are at the thinking stage, we probably need to spend quite a bit of time thinking about it. If we’ve already understood it and we’re convinced, then the question is: How deeply do we have to understand it and how deeply do I have to be convinced? That’s very difficult to measure, that really is. How accurate is my understanding? We also have a bodhisattva vow, I think it is, of never be satisfied with our understanding: it can always go deeper and deeper. Never think you’ve meditated enough, until you reach the stage of no more training (mi-slob lam), obviously. That’s really hard to say. And I must say, from my own faulty experience, that it’s very easy to say, “OK, I have some understanding of it,” so I just sort of instantly focus on voidness without really going through the line of reasoning. It’s very easy to do that, especially if you’re in a hurry. You just sort of “OK, now voidness.”
Or at least what’s helpful is, in the sadhanas themselves, each sadhana (Skt. sādhana) will have some sort of verse or line for its meditation on voidness at this point where you’re doing the practice of death, bardo, and rebirth as the three kayas it’s called. At that point there is a verse — and it’s going to be slightly different in each sadhana system — and that is very useful. Because for that at least it says, for instance, the voidness of causes, the voidness of effects, the voidness of… it will list things like that (or you need to understand what the line means, that it’s referring to that) so that you can just vaguely go through at least the line of reasoning. In the actual sadhana practice, you’re not supposed to stop and start to do an analytical meditation of thinking about it and coming up with examples and stuff like that, because that would break the continuity of the sadhana practice.
Sadhana (sgrub-thabs), by the way, is the name that’s given to this whole practice on the generation stage, basically like an opera — a visualization where you recite step by step what you’re doing. It comes from the word “to establish.” You are establishing yourself as the deity, as the Buddha-figure.
In the six-session practice, there is a part where you get down to voidness and then generate yourself… the guru dissolves into you and then you arise as the Buddha-figure. There you’re supposed to think in terms of voidness. Even if you’re not doing a sadhana, you would do it there.
It really is optional. What I do, what most people do, is if you’re doing it three times together in a row in the morning and three times in the evening, that one of the times, the first time, you have it a little bit more going through a line of reasoning, and then the other times you remind yourself of it. In my own personal practice, I do quite a lot of sadhanas, and in each of those sadhanas it has the voidness meditation, and I find that personally very nice, because each of them approaches it in a slightly different manner, so it looks at voidness from a different type of angle. At least one would try to remember voidness (even if you don’t go through a line of reasoning) to try to bring it back up. It’s called mindfulness, the same word as remember.
This is an important point. When you focus on voidness, meditate on voidness, there is the voidness which is like space (nam-mkha’ lta-bu’i stong-pa nyid) and the voidness which is like an illusion (sgyu-ma lta-bu’i stong-pa nyid). Space-like voidness is when, through a line of reasoning, you get to the thing of “No such thing,” so then there’s no appearance of anything, an appearance of nothing, with the understanding that there’s no such thing as truly established existence. Then when you come out of that — what’s often translated as the post-meditation, which is terrible (because you’re still in meditation), but the subsequent attainment, or subsequent realization is literally what it means — so subsequently, when you come out of that deep absorption, then the realization that you attain is that the mind makes these appearances again but it’s like an illusion: it doesn’t correspond to anything that’s real.
What you have to avoid is skipping the space-like voidness part and just doing the illusion-like part. Because that’s very easy to do. You’re sitting there and you’re doing your visualization and so on, and then you remember that everything is like illusion, and you think that that’s enough, that it appears to be truly existent, but it isn’t. That’s not enough. The subsequent attainment (rjes-thob) — the word subsequent is very important, subsequent — first you have to dissolve the ordinary appearance, and that’s very much specified in the sadhana practice: dissolve ordinary appearance, focus on “No such thing,” and then illusion-like. It needs to be in that sequence. Otherwise, it’s not really building up the habit of your mind having what’s called in the Gelug system explicit focus (dngos-su rtogs-pa) on voidness. We have instead, with the illusion-like voidness, implicit focus (shugs-la rtogs-pa) on voidness. It’s not the explicit thing that appears to the mind, and you want to have it explicitly appearing to the mind so that it builds up the habit of not giving rise to an appearance true existence. This is emphasized very much, that you need to have the space-like voidness first when you’re doing voidness meditation. Clear?
Participant: Lots of difficult points, but I have a vague outline.
Dr. Berzin: I mean, you get the idea now. To actually implement it is difficult, but the instructions are the important part. OK?
I think that brings us past the end of our class. Let’s end here with the dedication. By the way, next week we won’t have class. I have to go to Poland to give some teachings at a conference. But the following week we’ll have class.
We end with the dedication. Whatever positive force has built up from this, whatever understanding, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause to reach enlightenment for the benefit of all.