Introduction to Tantra: The Transformation of Desire (15 page)

A major difficulty facing us is that we naturally have a much easier time accepting the reality of our gross sensory experiences than we do believing in the reality of our visualizations. It is common to feel, “Although I can see myself as made of light, this is just a game that I am playing with my mind. It is not real. But my physical body is real; I can actually touch it and see it in a mirror.”

What we have to learn is that the experiences we have through our imagination and those we have through our senses are actually the same!

Both exist only for the particular mind experiencing them; they have no ultimate reality from their own side. A major difference, however, is that our ordinary sensory experiences keep us bound to the circle of continually recurring dissatisfaction and suffering while our visualizations of conscious bodies of light, and practices such as the absorption of the guru, introduce us to the very subtle, fundamental level of our being. With this very subtle mind of clear light we can break out of the prison of our ordinary gross conceptions and experience the unceasing happiness of full enlightenment.

If you have not yet tasted the bliss of your fundamental mind, and have not seen for yourself how you can achieve a state of penetrative awareness and openness far surpassing what you now feel is possible, naturally you will be very skeptical. You probably think that the pleasure you feel, say, when you eat your ice cream is real, and that whatever bliss you might experience during meditation is just an illusion. The only way of overcoming such skepticism is by becoming more and more familiar with your own inner reality until eventually it is undeniable. And it is by practicing guru yoga, and the other transformative methods that follow from it, that familiarity with the deeply blissful character of your own mind is achieved.

Ente ring Highe st Ta ntric Pra c tic e

TH E VAJRA BODY AND RESI DENT MI ND

ACCORDING TO HIGHEST YOGA TANTRA, our body and mind exist not only on the gross level we are normally familiar with but also on subtle levels about which most of us are completely unaware. Our ordinary physical form, composed of various material elements, is subject to the inevitable sufferings of sickness, decay, and death: merely possessing it binds us to the recurring miseries of our ordinary existence. But within the boundaries, or atmosphere, of this body is another, far more subtle, body: the so-called vajra body, “vajra”

having the connotation of indestructible. Just as our gross and perishable physical body is pervaded by the ordinary nervous system, this subtle vajra body is pervaded by thousands of channels
(nadi)
through which flow the energy winds
(prana)
and drops
(bindu)
that are the source of the bliss so vital to highest tantric practice.

As is true of our essentially pure and blissful mind, this subtle conscious body exists within us right at the present moment, and the job of the tantric practitioner is to discover and make use of it. Once we have made contact with this clear, conscious body of light through meditation our gross physical body will no longer be a problem for us for we will have transcended it. Physical limitations are just another symptom of ego-grasping and once we merge with our essentially pure nature all such restrictions will be overcome. At that point, the attainment of the radiant light body of the deity ceases to be merely a visualized goal and becomes a reality.

This is not the place to discuss the vajra body and its channels, winds, and drops in detail, but it will be helpful to mention the central channel (
avadhuti
o r
shushuma
) at least briefly because it is of particular importance. This channel runs in a straight line from the crown of our head down to an area in front of the base of our spine, and along it are several focal points known as
chakras,
or energy wheels. Each one serves a different function in the practice of tantra. Depending upon which tantra we are following and which stage or function we are focusing upon in our meditation, we turn our concentrated attention toward and penetrate a particular center. It is not a matter of guessing which center to choose; these things are described in precise detail in the tantric texts and their commentaries and are explained to the qualified practitioner by the spiritual guide.

The most important chakra, however, is the one located at the level of the heart, for the heart chakra is the home of our very subtle mind: the priceless treasure of all tantric practitioners. This very subtle mind has been with us from conception; in fact, together with its supporting energy wind, the continuum of this mind has been with us for lifetimes without beginning. As the fundamental consciousness abiding at our heart center throughout this life, the very subtle mind is sometimes referred to as our resident mind.

However, although it has flowed continuously from life to life, it has rarely had the opportunity to function. What prevents it from becoming activated— and from performing its most valued function: penetrating the universal nature of reality—is the continual arising of our numerous gross states of mind. These are like tourists, temporary visitors who come and go in constant movement, and they completely overwhelm the stationary resident mind.

The activity of all types of mind, both gross and subtle, depends upon their supporting energy winds and upon where these winds are traveling. As long as they flow through any of the thousands of channels other than the central one, these winds activate the gross tourist minds that repeatedly give rise to superstition and confusion—our ordinary life experiences. But when these winds enter, abide, and dissolve into the central channel—as happens naturally at the time of death, for example—these gross minds subside and the very subtle mind of clear light arises instead.

With the dissolution of the energy winds into the central channel, the environment in which our gross minds normally function automatically disappears, the tourist department is closed and our superstitious thoughts can no longer come and go. In the resulting quietness our original, fundamental consciousness—the resident mind—awakens.

This entire process happens automatically during the death process but very few people are trained to take advantage of the very subtle clear light consciousness that arises at that critical time. In fact, few people even recognize it. But the tantric yogi and yogini train themselves not merely to recognize this blissful consciousness at the time of death but to awaken this penetrating clear light mind during their life in meditation, thereby gaining complete control over it. By cultivating a profound concentration on the vajra body in general and upon the central channel in particular, they are able to cut through the gross levels of mental functioning and make contact with their original mind. They can use this powerfully concentrated mind to meditate on the emptiness of self-existence and penetrate the ultimate nature of reality, thereby freeing themselves of all delusions. At the same time that this total absorption into the clear space of nonduality takes place, they experience an explosion of indescribably blissful energy. The unity of great bliss and the simultaneous comprehension of emptiness (the tantric experience known as
mahamudra,
the great seal) is the quickest path to full enlightenment.

CH ANGI NG OUR VI EW OF DEATH

The dissolution of our vajra body’s energy winds into the central channel is crucial to advanced tantric practice, and because this dissolution takes place naturally when we die we should become as familiar as possible now with the process of death.

Many of us, however, have a great reluctance to examine, or even think about, death. We are frightened and find the whole subject extremely distasteful. But it is essential for us to know how our mind operates, not only during the day but while we sleep and at the time of death as well, and this requires educating ourselves about things that we have often avoided up until now. If we examine these matters we will find that death, instead of being a horrifying black hole that is waiting to suck us in and devour us, is a potential source of great comfort and even joy.

We generally think that dying is something negative, but this is just our projection. In fact, dying can be a lot better than the experiences we ordinarily think of as pleasurable because these ordinary experiences cannot give us tremendous bliss and peace. A beautiful flower, say, can give us something but not the extraordinary bliss and peace that the death experience can. A boyfriend or girlfriend may be able to give us a certain amount of pleasure or bliss but cannot solve any of our fundamental problems; they can give only a temporary solution to some of our more superficial emotional problems. But at the time of death all our emotional problems and all our anxiety end. As all the conflicting concepts of this and that naturally disappear into space, the way is open to experience extraordinary penetrative insight. What we have to realize, therefore, is that death is not a sudden and terrifying annihilation but a gradual process during which our mind grows more and more fine and subtle.

If we want to practice highest tantra, or even if we merely want to prepare for what we must all eventually encounter, we should become as familiar with this gradual process as we can now. If we wait until the moment of death itself, it will be too late.

DEATH , I NTERMEDI ATE STATE, AND REBI RTH

The sutra and tantra teachings diagnose the problems of cyclic existence in different ways, and also offer different solutions to these problems. According to sutra, the root of samsaric suffering is ego-grasping: the wrong view that holds onto a mistaken belief in a self-existent “I,” or ego-identity. The antidote for this ignorant conception is found by cultivating a completely opposite view. Instead of ignorantly assenting to our instinctive belief in self-existence, we are taught how to generate an insight into emptiness: the total negation of all notions of independent self-existence. Thus in sutra much emphasis is placed on removing our wrong view and replacing it with the opposing correct view.

While the lightning path of tantra does not deny what sutra has to say, it offers a different, more radical approach to the problems of our life. According to these more advanced teachings, all difficulties are rooted in our ordinary uncontrolled experiences of death and what happens after death. By dying in an uncontrolled manner we are forced to enter an uncontrolled intermediate state
(bardo),
and from there we experience uncontrolled rebirth leading to yet another uncontrolled life and death. In this way the wheel keeps spinning, dragging us from one unsatisfactory state of existence to another.

It should be emphasized again that death is anything but a problem; it is a precious opportunity. For the person who is well prepared, the dying process offers an unequalled opportunity to experience what he or she has always been searching for: the subtle, penetrating, and supremely blissful mind of clear light. However, although such a blissful mind arises automatically during the death process, most of us are unable to take any advantage of it at all. Our death, like our life, goes by without conscious, clear-minded control, and what could have been the gateway to liberation becomes instead a passage into yet another lifetime of confusion.

The cure for such uncontrollably recurring confusion is a type of meditation in which we transform our ordinary experiences of death, bardo, and rebirth into the enlightened experience of a buddha. The tantric antidote, therefore, is not something that is the opposite of the problem—the way that the wisdom of emptiness is the opposite of the ignorance of ego-grasping—but rather something that is similar to it. Because the cure is similar to the disease, forces that ordinarily lead to confusion and suffering can be used to bring about clarity and self-fulfillment instead. This is one of the reasons why tantra is such a speedy and, if practiced incorrectly, dangerous path.

TH E TH REE ASP ECTS OF BUDDH AH OOD

In order to understand how tantra handles the problems of death, bardo, and rebirth, we need to know something about the three so-called bodies
(kaya)
of a buddha. When all the veils currently obscuring our mind have been removed and when all of our positive potentials have been developed to their utmost, there is the simultaneous achievement of the truth body (dharmakaya), enjoyment body
(sambhogakaya),
and emanation body
(nirmanakaya)
of a buddha. The dharmakaya is the unlimited and unobstructed mind of an enlightened being while the remaining bodies are the two levels on which this mind manifests itself in order to benefit others. (It is said that the dharmakaya represents the accomplishment of one’s own purpose through the attainment of unexcelled qualities of mind, while the sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya represent the accomplishment of others’

purposes through a buddha’s spontaneous manifestation in forms to which unenlightened beings can relate.)

The experience of these three kayas is the experience of total enlightenment.

As unenlightened beings we do not have this experience yet, but we can have something similar to it. It is not only true that we can have it, but according to the resultant path of tantra, we should have it! Such an ambitious attitude accords well with an attitude prevalent in the West: “I want the best and I want it right now!” The difference is that ordinarily we are striving mainly after material things, but when we practice tantra we are seeking to bring the blissful experience of full conscious control over every aspect of our life into our present reality.