The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 4 (16 page)

Receiving abhisheka is not the same as collecting coins or stamps or the signatures of famous people. Receiving hundreds and hundreds of abhishekas and constantly collecting blessing after blessing as some kind of self-confirmation has at times become a fad, a popular thing to do. This was true in Tibet in the nineteenth century as well as more recently in the West. That attitude, which reflects the recent corruption in the presentation of vajrayana, has created an enormous misunderstanding. People who collect successive abhishekas in this manner regard them purely as a source of identity and as a further reference point. They collect abhishekas out of a need for security, which is a big problem.

Jamgön Kongrül the Great, a Tibetan teacher who lived in the nineteenth century, was raised and educated as an enlightened student of vajrayana. Because he received so many transmissions, it might seem that he was doing the same thing—collecting abhishekas. But in his case it was an entirely different process because he felt, he experienced, and he understood what he studied. After he finished his basic training, he studied under and received all the teachings from more than one hundred and thirty-five teachers. Then he initiated a reformation of Buddhism in Tibet, which he called the Ri-me school. The term
Ri-me
literally mans “without bias,” an “ecumenical approach.” The Ri-me school brought together the various contemplative traditions of Tibetan Buddhism to create a powerful practicing lineage, which we ourselves belong to. My predecessor, the tenth Trungpa tulku, also belonged to that lineage.

The Ri-me school made an enormous impression. For one thing, it generated a great deal of sarcasm and jealousy on the part of some practitioners: “Why make a big deal out of nothing? Why can’t we just go on as we were and continue to buy abhishekas? What’s wrong with what we are doing?” But Jamgön Kongtrül had seen that something was wrong with the tradition and practice; something was wrong with receiving a succession of abhishekas purely as collector’s items. He pointed out that problem by saying that if we have no understanding of the practicing lineage then we are just collecting piles of manure, and there is no point in that. A pile of manure may be ripe, smelly, and fantastic, but it is still a pile of shit. If we were manure experts, we could utilize it. But when we are actually collecting such manure to try to make it into food, that is out of the question.

This kind of spiritual materialism was present in Tibet from the nineteenth century onward. Tibet had lost its communication with the outside world and was no longer hosting great teachers from other countries. It had become just a little plateau, a little island that had to survive by itself. Consequently, it became too inbred. In that atmosphere spiritual materialism began to develop. Abbots and great teachers were more concerned with building solid gold roofs on their temples, constructing gigantic Buddha images, and making their temples beautiful and impressive than with the actual practice of their lineage. They sat less and they did more business.

That was the turning point of Buddhism in Tibet. Tibet began to lose its connection with dharma, and it slowly, very irritatingly and horrifically, began to turn into ugly spiritual materialism. Jamgön Kongtrül the Great was like a jewel in a pile of manure. His wisdom was shining. He saw that it was necessary to call upon the eight great traditions of Buddhism in Tibet—which included the Geluk tradition, the Sakya tradition, the Kagyü tradition, and the Nyingma tradition—and bring them together: “Let us unite; let us work together within this contemplative tradition. Let us experience this tradition for ourselves, instead of inviting hundreds of artists to build glorious shrines. Let us experience how it feels to sit on our meditation cushions and do nothing.” This reintroduction of practice, which had long been forgotten, was the focus of the contemplative reformation of Tibetan Buddhism during the nineteenth century.

As part of his effort to revitalize the contemplative tradition and bring together practice and experience, Jamgön Kongtrül compiled and edited many collections of the sacred teachings of the practice lineage of Buddhism in Tibet. One of these works is entitled
Dam Ngag Dzö
, which literally means “The Treasury of Oral Instructions.” In it he describes how a person can properly experience abhisheka. In this commentary he also describes how tantric students should be treated in such a ceremony of empowerment. It is not purely that the ritual and ceremony should inspire awe in the students. In fact, they may be awed simply because they have no idea how to behave, how to handle themselves, or how to handle their state of mind in that situation. Consequently they become bewildered and feel overwhelmed. Jamgön Kongtrül explains that this mixture of inadequacy and awe is not the experience of the meeting of two minds.

You cannot take advantage of students if they do not know how to deal with the ceremony. When students feel freaked out, they have no handle or stepping-stone, so they should be treated gently, freely, and kindly. They should have some understanding of the steps in the process they are about to go through: “This ceremony has such and such levels. First you relate with this, and then you can go on to the next level.” Students should be guided as a mother raises her infant. She starts out by nursing her child, then she feeds him milk from a cow, then she feds him broth, and finally she begins to introduce solid food. When the infant has been raised into a proper child, he knows how to drink liquid and how to chew and swallow meat. He even knows how to drink soup and eat vegetables at the same time.

Initiating tantric students in an abhisheka is precisely the same process. At the beginning of the ceremony the students are not capable of doing anything; they simply experience oneness. They are like infants who have not yet learned to drink cow’s milk instead of their own mother’s milk. Then the students begin to realize that their openness allows them to relate to the world and to emotions. At that stage they are fascinated by the ceremony and fascinated by the tantric tradition altogether. Finally, the students begin to feel that they are actually grasping the teachings and that the teachings make sense. They mean something personally, experientially. The students then can relate with the principles of the five buddha families. At that point in the abhisheka, the teacher presents, or confers, what are known as the five abhishekas of form, which are directly related to the five buddha families. Each one is an empowerment, and together they make up the first abhisheka.

This presentation of the first abhisheka is based on the tradition of anuttara yoga, which is the pinnacle of the three lower tantric yanas. According to the tradition of anuttarayoga, the first abhisheka of form is the abhisheka of the jar or vase. Actually, this abhisheka is symbolic of bathing. According to the custom in medieval India, when a person wanted to bathe himself, he would go out into a river with a jar, scoop up a jarful of water, and pour it over himself. So the jar abhisheka is a process of purifying. We are cleaning out the hidden corners of the body, seeing that our ears are clean and our armpits are clean. Any hidden corners in our basic makeup have to be cleansed.

In this case, the purification is obviously psychological. Psychologically we have smelly armpits that generate lots of odor for our neighbors and ourselves. We begin to dislike that psychological odor, and our neighbors might begin to dislike it as well. In fact, we feel completely revolted, which is a very positive step at this point because we actually have the means to clean up properly.

You may remember that the word
abhisheka
literally means “anointment.” Through the vase abhisheka, we are cleaned out completely. It is similar to the Christian tradition of baptism or christening, which also makes use of water as a symbol of psychologically cleansing oneself. If we go to the bathroom just before we have lunch, we wash our hands. That is a basic and sensible law of human conduct: We should taste our food rather than our excrement when we eat. The vase abhisheka is the same kind of sensible approach. It is connected with the vajra family. Water is a symbol of the sharpness and the clarity of vajra, which cleanses us of any psychological dirt. Then, when we are cleaned out and fundamentally purified, we can put on our clean clothes.

In an abhisheka, the students are regarded as princesses and princes who are coming to court. They are just about to sit on the throne and relate with their subjects, that is, with their subconscious gossip, their mind, their samsaric world. So the idea of abhisheka is receiving royal treatment. The Tibetan word for abhisheka is
wang
(
dbang
), which simply means “empowerment.” The student is empowered as the royal ruler, the majestic one.

Before he gives an audience to the public, a king first bathes and puts on his clothes. Then he puts on his crown. That is the second abhisheka, the crown or coronation abhisheka. In this abhisheka, the student is presented with a crown which has five prongs and is inlaid with jewels. Each prong represents a different buddha family: vajra, ratna, padma, karma, and buddha. Finally we are coronated: We are made into a tantric master, or at least a confident practitioner, a confident person. The crown abhisheka is connected with the ratna family. There is a sense of being enriched and a sense of plentifulness, lack of threat, openness, and generosity.

At this point in the abhisheka we are like a young king who is very ambitious and youthful, but still does not know how to handle his subjects. Although we have been coronated, our hands are just resting in our lap and we have nothing to hold on to. In that condition we could feel quite self-conscious: there is a big crown sitting on our head and we are dressed up in robes but our hands are just loose. We could pick our nose or scratch our chin, but we still feel awkward. At this point we are presented with the third abhisheka, the abhisheka of the vajra. The idea is to give a royal toy to this little prince or princess. The first toy we receive, which should be given to us in the right hand, is the vajra scepter, or dorje, which we discussed earlier as the symbol of indestructibility. It represents immense power. Seven qualities characterize the vajra: It cannot be cut, it cannot be disintegrated, it cannot be obstructed, it is penetrating, it is fearless, it is open, and it is utterly destructive. According to tradition, the vajra is a weapon as well as a scepter. Each time the king throws the vajra, it goes out, it fulfills its deadly purpose, and it comes back into his hand.

The abhisheka of the vajra is related to the padma family. Padma here is the sense of being a beautiful lover. In this abhisheka you are acknowledged as a powerful person and at the same time you are told that you can make love without destroying somebody else. Rather, you could create by making love. So holding the vajra brings a feeling of compassion, warmth, and hospitality.

In the next abhisheka, the abhisheka of the bell, not only does the student have a scepter in the right hand, but as a royal personage, he or she also receives a musical instrument, a bell, in the left hand. The musical instrument signifies that we are not only concerned with our own compassion, our own crown, or our own cleanliness, but we have something to say. Rather than playing by ourselves with all our toys, we have something to proclaim. The bell, or
ghanta
in Sanskrit, is a karma family symbol, and this abhisheka is connected with the karma family. Karma is the fulfillment of action. Here, it is the utterance of sound which cannot be blocked, sound which can be heard by anybody anywhere. If we are around the corner we can hear it; if we are far away we can hear it; if we are close by we can hear it. The karma sound of this bell is unobstructed: We cannot hide underneath our chair pretending we did not hear anything. The bell is heard and understood completely and thoroughly. It pierces our ears. The sound of this bell is also very high-pitched, which invokes wakefulness: We cannot fall asleep anymore, because the sound of the bell is too penetrating to our ears.

The fifth abhisheka also uses the vajra and bell, but in this abhisheka the bell and the vajra are fastened together at right angles with a silk ribbon. The king already has a clean body and beautiful clothes; he has a crown; he holds a scepter as a sign of power; and he has a bell for proclaiming—so what is lacking? He does not have a name. We do not yet know which king we are. Who are we? That is a problem: If we do not know who we are we have very little to say. We may try to say something but we have no idea what our name is or what our status is—whether we are literate or illiterate, or even whether we are actually a human being.

The first thing we usually say to people is, “How do you do?” which is like ringing the bell. Then we introduce ourselves: “My name is Jack Parsons, Julie Smith, or whatever.” Similarly, in this abhisheka we introduce ourselves to the world. So this abhisheka is called the abhisheka of name. In this abhisheka our vajra master rings the bell with the vajra attached to it above our heads, and at the same time as the bell is rung, we are given a tantric name, which is traditionally known as our secret name. This name is not publicized as is our ordinary name, but when we need to use our power or to wake someone up, we say our vajra name, our tantric name. The name abhisheka is connected with the buddha family. It is the sense of complete spaciousness and openness that comes when we finally, thoroughly, take our place in the vajra mandala.

These five abhishekas make up the abhisheka of form, which is the first of four levels of transmission that traditionally make up the complete ceremony of empowerment in anuttara yoga. When we have received the abhisheka of form, there is a sense of enormous psychological progress and psychological change. We have gone through a whole process of being accepted and acknowledged: We have our scepter, we can proclaim, and now we know our name as well. We actually become a ruler of some kind.

A problem with many religious traditions is that they make a point of condemning us. They talk about how wicked we are or how terrible we are and how we have to pull ourselves together. And if we do so, they promise us some candy or reward. But the vajrayana is an entirely different approach. The tantric tradition builds us up so we do not have to relate at the level of a donkey reaching for a carrot anymore. The donkey has the carrot already, so the donkey should feel good.