The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa: Volume 4 (41 page)

TR:
Yes, a reverse. Definitely so. In the Buddhist tradition, basically you have the sutra teaching, which consists of the hinayana and mahayana. And then there’s the teaching of tantra in six yanas. Tantra is the reverse of everything that happened before, including the hinayana approach. Tantra believes in duality, whereas mahayana believes in nonduality, the middle way. Tantra believes in extreme paths. For instance, you have the four orders of tantra, which are the father tantra, the mother tantra, the neutral tantra, and the transcending tantra. Those are the aggression tantra, the passion tantra, the ignorance tantra, and the tantra transcending ignorance and aggression and putting all of them together. These are very gutsy, if I may say so. Very straight-forward.

S:
I have one more question. Before his enlightenment, Buddha was practicing asceticism, and he almost destroyed himself fasting. In its reverse asceticism, its extremism, does tantra have the danger of being self-destructive?

TR:
Yes. Unless you proceed according to the whole three-yana principle and have gone through hinayana and mahayana beforehand. I have been saying that constantly, again and again. You cannot practice tantra unless you start from hinayana and mahayana. Unless you have gone through hinayana and mahayana, you can’t get into tantra at all. Without that, tantra becomes like a spiritual atomic bomb.

Student:
How does tantra relate to the teachings of the Buddha as they’ve been passed down through sutras and so on? Can tantra actually be considered Buddhism? What is the connection between tantric philosophy and the teachings of the Buddha as they were presented?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I think they are the highlight of it. The tantra is Buddha’s teaching. Buddha as Shakyamuni was purely a physical manifestation. His speech and mind are represented in the two stages of tantra. Any expressions of crazy wisdom or basic sanity can be related with the Buddha’s teaching. To begin with, they are not deceptive; and moreover, they are workable. They are in accordance with all the yanas that Buddha presented. As I said, if you become a good hinayanist, you become a good mahayanist. If you become a good mahayanist, you become a tantric practitioner. Following along with that logic, Buddha himself is a heruka or the dharmakaya principle.
⁸
There is the story about Buddha being invited to teach by King Indrabhuti. King Indrabhuti was having his bath on the rooftop of his palace. He saw some orange birds flying in the sky, and he asked his minister what they were. The minister said, “Those are not birds; they are Buddha and his disciples flying by [wearing their saffron-colored monastic robes].” And the king asked, “How can I invite them to my palace to teach me the truth?” And the wise minister said, “Just invite them, prepare a seat and food, and they will come.” The king did so, and the Buddha came. The first request for teaching King Indrabhuti made was: “I cannot give up sensory pleasures, because I cannot give up my kingdom. I want you to teach me something that will enable me to transmute my pleasures into wisdom.” The Buddha responded, “That’s fine. First I would like to kick out my orthodox disciples, the arhats.” So they were kicked out of the place where the Buddha was teaching. Then Buddha transformed himself into a heruka. He created the Guhyasamaja mandala and gave instructions for seven days on how to transmute basic ordinary energy, confused energy, into wisdom energy.
⁹
That seems to be the basic story of tantra. Buddha was not interested in just banning the whole thing [the energy of confusion], but in relating with that as well as he went on with his teaching.

Student:
Where does enlightenment come in? Is there a point at which it’s said that you can’t continue with such-and-such a yana unless you’re enlightened? Is there a place for enlightenment in this?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
It depends on what you mean by enlightenment. That changes as the yanas change.

S:
Buddha speaks about the point at which the wick in the lamp burns out. That seems to be some kind of definition.

TR:
If you think enlightenment is something secure, there’s nothing. There’s no wick, there’s no burning, there’s no lamp. If you think of enlightenment as something that continues like the flame in a lamp reestablishing its position again and again, constantly, as a spark of electricity, then there’s always room for enlightenment. But it doesn’t have to be nursed as too precious to let go. It comes and goes, comes and goes.

Student:
What was that word you used that you equated with ever-present energy?

Trungpa Rinpoche:
I don’t remember.

Student:
Chandali.

Trungpa Rinpoche:
Chandali. Chandali is energy force. It literally means the consumer, that which consumes the universe.

S:
It means the universe itself consuming itself?

TR:
No. That which eats up the universe.

S:
What does that?

TR:
What doesn’t?

S:
Nothing. That’s why I say it’s the universe itself consuming itself.

TR:
That’s it, yeah. You got it. Gesundheit.

SIX

Introduction to Tantra

O
NTO THE DISK
the autumn moon, clear and pure, you transplant a seed syllable.
¹
Cool blue rays of the seed syllable radiate immense, cooling compassion beyond the limits of space, which fulfill the needs and desires of sentient beings. They radiate basic warmth, so that the confusions of sentient beings may be clarified. Then, from the seed syllable you create a buddha, Mahavairochana, while in color, with the features of an aristocrat, with the appearance of an eight-year-old child: beautiful, innocent, and pure, with a powerful royal gaze. He is dressed in the royal robes of the Vedic age or the medieval Indian royal costume. He wears a golden crown inlaid with wish-fulfilling jewels. Half of his long dark hair is made into a topknot, and the other half floats over his shoulders and back. He is seated cross-legged on the lunar disk with his hands in the meditation mudra, holding a vajra in his hand that is carved from pure white crystal.

Now, what do we do with that?

The whole setting is uncomplicated, but at the same time immensely rich. There’s a sense of dignity, and also a sense of infanthood, of purity. The whole image is irritatingly pure, irritatingly cool. At the same time, one feels good even to think about such a person. This is a symbolic image from the kriyayogayana, the first tantric yana.

As I described Mahavairochana, his presence seemed real in our minds. Such a situation could exist. There could be such a royal prince of eight years of age sitting in a dignified way on the lunar disk. He was born from the seed syllable.

The basic principle of the kriyayoga is purity, immaculateness. Now that the practitioner has discovered the transmutation of energy, has discovered all-pervading delight, the kriyayogayana prescribes that there is no room for impurity, no room for darkness. The reason is that there is no doubt. Finally, at last, we have managed to actualize tathagatagarbha, buddha nature. We have managed to visualize, to actualize, to formulate a most immaculate, pure, clean, beautiful white, spotless principle. This is absolutely necessary from the point of view of the kriyayoga tantra, because the rugged, confused, unclean, impure elements of the samsaric struggle have gone a long way from us. At last we are able to associate with that which is pure, clean, perfect, absolutely immaculate.

Interestingly, the effect of this is that we do not have a chance to turn our visualization into pop art. Such a visualization is quite different than, for example, if we confiscated a street sign in Paris and brought it back to America and pasted it on our wall. It might say “Rue Royale” or something like that. There is something quite crude about that.

Therefore the first tantric introduction to any practice is majestic and fantastically precise and pure, clean, and artful as well. In some sense we could say that the kriyayoga tantra is the tantric equivalent of the Yogachara approach of artfulness. There is that appreciation of purity and cleanliness.

One of the problems that comes out when we try to introduce tantra is that even if we do accept samsara as a working basis, we regard it as pop art. The crudeness is the fun. This is true with regard to sexuality, aggression, or whatever tantric element we might want to talk about. The general attitude we find is that the tantric view of sex, the tantric view of aggression, or the tantric view of ignorance is acceptance of the crudeness as a big joke, good fun.

This is one of the basic points we should understand through the example of kriyayoga tantra. Tantra does not begin with the idea that we have to live with death and make the best of it. Tantra is a self-secret teaching; therefore the teachers of tantra are not all that desperate to con us with the idea that we have to take the mess of our confusion as something livable and workable. Tantra is not telling us to cover up our pile of shit and think of it as nice fresh earthy soil that we’re sitting on. There seems to be a misunderstanding about tantra that it came into being out of desperation: We can’t handle our fucked-upness or the shit we are in, and tantra enters as the saving grace. Shit becomes pictorial, artistic, pop art, and tantra at last formally and legally acknowledges that we should put up with it.

Such an approach simply presents another problem. If tantra is simply willing to put up with these problems—without seeing their purity and cleanness—then tantra would just be another depression. It would also be uncompassionate. Still, a lot of people hold this view about tantra. They think its function is to accept the crudeness and clumsiness logically and legally into the spiritual picture. Because of tantra, we can be crude and dirty. In fact, we could jump into tantra by being crude and dirty and taking pride in it. Then we could freak out with crazy wisdom, and so forth.

However, just as bodhisattvas or those traveling on the bodhisattva path are good citizens, tantric yogis are also good citizens, equally good citizens, extremely good citizens. They are by no means to be regarded as the freaks or hippies of society, if I may use such terms.

We also have a problem about visualization practice and formless meditation in tantra, which it might be a good idea to bring out here at the beginning of our discussion. Visualization, in tantra is not a matter of fantasizing about a form, image, or object. Also, the students have to have a clear idea about which tantric yana they are involved in, whether it is the kriyayogayana, the upayogayana, the yogayana, the mahayogayana, or one of the others. There is a definite attitude and understanding appropriate to each one of these. The students’ visualization practice has to undergo some growth, an evolutionary process [as they pass from one yana to the next].

Before we discuss the kriyayoga tantra approach to visualization, let me point out that the student of kriyayogayana, needless to say, has to have acquired the hinayana understanding of suffering, impermanence, and egolessness from the shravakayana level. Moreover, they must have some understanding of the structure of ego from the pratyekabuddhayana. The student of kriyayogayana should also have an understanding of the shunyata principle and its application in the six paramitas practices. By no means is the student expected to have reached perfection in any of those levels, but at least he should have had glimpses into all these things. He must have worked on those other stages of the path before he treads on the path of tantra. This is absolutely necessary.

One Nyingma teacher said that relating with tantric visualization practice is like going to bed with a pregnant tigress.
²
She might get hungry in the middle of the night and decide to eat you up. Or she might begin to nurse you and create a warm, furry space. The kriyayoga tantra text, the
Vajramala
, speaks of those who have mistaken views about visualization. Instead of attaining Vajrasattvahood,
³
for example, they attain Rudrahood, the highest attainment of egohood, they attain the level of the cosmic ape, the cosmic monster.

A lot of tantric scriptures warn us about the difference between a mistaken approach to visualization and complete, proper visualization. In the case of the mistaken approach, the visualizations are related to purely as mental objects—you create your own image out of wishful thinking. In the middle of your ordinary meditation practice, you might get sexual fantasies of all kinds and decide to go into all the details of these fantasies: stage one, stage two, fourth stage, fifth stage, trying to make the details as entertaining as possible. The same thing can happen in tantric visualization. Even if you are visualizing a simple Mahavairochana, a child sitting on a lunar disk, you might have the same problem. You simply re-create your own mental image, which results in the end in the cosmic ape. You say, “I am Mahavairochana. I am one with him, therefore I could become him.” You take the [defiant] approach of “I am what I am.” There is a sense of the beast, of a powerful chest, the cosmic gorilla.

Visualization practice has to be inspired by a sense of hopelessness, or egolessness, which amounts to the same thing. You can’t con yourself, let alone your friends. There is a sense of desperation about losing your territory. The carpet has been pulled out from under your feet. You are suspended in nowhere. You have an understanding of egolessness, impermanence, and so forth, as well as a sense of nonduality—the barrier between you and other doesn’t exist. You need not have complete comprehension of this all the time, but if you have at least a glimpse of it, then you can flash your nonexistence, shunyata, egolessness, and then visualize. This is extremely important.