WSW 27: Calling Yamantaka to Free Us from Karma & Disturbing Emotions

Verses 53-55

Recap

We’re here studying what I’ve usually translated in the past, in the old translation, as Wheel of Sharp Weapons, in the new translation Throwing Star Weapon, because that’s actually literally what it is: a throwing star. It’s in the genre of what’s called in Tibetan lojong, which means attitude training or mind training. It’s not so much mind training in the sense of training our intellect or powers of concentration but basically cleansing ourselves of negative attitudes and developing positive ones. The text is probably the oldest in this genre. This text speaks about, primarily, tonglen which is a practice known as giving and taking in which we take on the suffering of others and give them happiness. This is basically about overcoming what’s called the “demon” here, which is grasping for a “true self” – in other words, imagining that we exist as the center of the universe, the most important one. We imagine that there’s some sort of solid entity inside my head which is talking all the time and has to have its way and that everybody has to pay attention to me. This is basically the deepest troublemaker that causes us all our problems. Because we identify ourselves with this, we build up all sorts of negative karma through destructive behavior based on disturbing emotions like longing desire – “I have to get something in order to make that me secure;” or “I have to get something away,” so anger, in order to protect that “me.” It’s on the basis of this belief that we exist in this way that we have selfishness and self-cherishing, with which we consider ourselves the only one that counts; we’re the only one that we take care of, we don’t care about anyone else and this again causes so much of our problems and suffering.

The author here calls upon the image of Yamantaka. Yamantaka is the very forceful form of Manjushri. Manjushri is the embodiment of the Buddha’s wisdom, clarity of mind and clear discriminating awareness to know reality: to discriminate between what is false and what is correct. We do exist, of course; the conventional “me” exists. I’m here, I’m talking to all of you. But we don’t exist in this impossible way as this “true self” that is so solid and seems to be so central in our thought and in our experience. Yamantaka, then, is a very forceful form of Manjushri, used to smash through the confusion with which we identify ourselves with this my “true self.” 

Basically, a “true self” is an inflation of the conventional “me” that does exist – I’m here, I’m doing things and so on. Why do we feel this way? Why do we inflate it? Because naturally it feels as though there’s some solid “me” inside me. That’s what’s so horrible about samsara: it feels as though there’s some solid entity “me” inside our head which is the author of the voice that’s talking there all the time and is the focus for our worries. I’m worried about me: “What do people think of me?” “What should I do now?” whereas in fact all that’s occurring in each moment is the arising and knowing the various objects – the five aggregates basically explains that. It’s just many things changing all the time: awareness, consciousness from different senses, feelings, etc. The way to put it all together in terms of a stream of continuity is “me” – the conventional “me” – but not some solid “me” which is either identical with some part of it or the whole of it or separate from it. We believe in it basically because it feels as though that’s how we exist in this impossible way. Everybody feels that way, including animals; it’s quite instinctive. That’s one of the really nasty things about samsara. It tricks us, it fools us – Dharmarakshita uses that type of terminology.

We’ve gone through the first half of the text already, in which the author points out all sorts of different suffering problems that we might experience and points out their karmic cause in our previous behavior. We want to change that behavior and act in a more positive type of way. We think in terms of ourselves: we accept the problems, accept responsibility for the suffering that we have, based on the causes that we’ve built up. It’s the weapon of karma coming back at us from what we’ve done. We resolve not to repeat it. Then we do a process of tonglen, of identifying on a much larger scale with everybody. Everybody has this problem and we’re one of the people that have this problem and so it needs to be addressed in terms of everybody. We do tonglen: we take that problem on ourselves and try to dissolve the disturbance and the suffering in terms of the voidness of the mind and waves settling on the ocean. Then we give happiness to others: the solution, discipline, change of behavior, etc. 

We are up to, in the new translation, verse 53. What we’ve been doing is also looking at the old translation which I did in 1973, which is a poetical translation – the one that was published as Wheel of Sharp Weapons by the library in Dharamsala with Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey’s commentary. It is a very loose poetical translation that incorporates a lot of the commentary from Geshe Dhargyey. That is the reason why it was necessary to do a new translation which is just literally what actually Dharmarakshita says. 

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