Introduction to Tantra: The Transformation of Desire (16 page)

TAKI NG ADVANTAGE OF OUR H UMAN FORM

Turning the experience of death, bardo, and rebirth into the path to enlightenment is not a fantasy. Because we have the type of body we do, we can definitely accomplish this great aim. According to the sutra teachings, our present physical body is viewed largely as a hindrance. It is decaying from moment to moment, prone to sickness, and attracts misery in the way a magnet attracts pieces of iron. In fact, the most succinct way of defining the first noble truth of suffering is to say it is the body itself. But the tantric teachings take the opposite view. Far from being a hindrance or obstacle, the human body is regarded as something most precious because it contains all the necessary equipment for reaching enlightenment in one lifetime. It is made up of the four elements of earth, water, fire, and air and the energies (prana) associated with them. And because it is born from the womb, it contains the red and white drops—from the mother and father respectively—needed for arousing the blissful energy of the kundalini experience.

We are fortunate to have this type of body and should not waste the precious opportunity it gives us to realize our full potential. We should not be like those people who do not know how to use their natural resources properly. For example, I know of some Nepalese farmers who cut down mango trees for firewood. It takes so many years for a mango tree to grow and its fruit is so precious, but these people do not seem to appreciate this. Instead of making good use of what they have, they destroy these precious trees, lose their land through erosion and are left with nothing. If we neglect to use our body’s precious energy for the attainment of enlightenment, and squander it instead on the meaningless pursuits of this life, then we are far more ignorant than those farmers. Rather, we should be like those ingenious scientists who know how to extract energy from everything—from sunlight, the tides, wind, and so forth—and who also know how to put this energy to constructive use. In other words, we should be skillful, and the highest skill involves transforming our present body from a source of pain and dissatisfaction into the blissful path to unsurpassed happiness for ourselves and others. This is the ultimate goal of all tantric practice.

TH E P ROCESS OF DYI NG

When the totality of one’s enlightened nature is realized, the dharmakaya, sambhogakaya, and nirmanakaya are achieved simultaneously. But in terms of tantric practice, these three kayas, or bodies, gradually evolve in a sequence mirroring the natural unfolding of death, the intermediate state, and rebirth.

So, as was indicated earlier, first we should understand how the process of death and so forth ordinarily occurs; then we can understand how they are transformed into the three bodies of enlightenment.

Death is the separation of the mind from the body. This separation may take place over several hours or days, as is generally the case in a death from natural causes, or it may happen rather more suddenly, as in an accident. But in either case there are certain definite stages in the dying process. The body does not lose its ability to maintain consciousness all at once, but does so gradually with each element of the body—earth, water, fire, and air—losing its supportive ability in turn.

The tantric texts dealing with the dying process describe the first four stages of death in vivid terms. They say that first the earth element sinks, or dissolves, into the water element and that then the water element sinks into the fire, and fire into the air, and the air element into consciousness itself. Such a description is useful for meditation but should not be taken literally. For example, when it is said that the earth element “sinks” into the water element, this means that as the solid portions of the body are gradually losing their ability to function and are becoming less intimately interconnected with the dying person’s mind, the liquid elements appear stronger and more evident.

As these various physical elements become stronger and weaker in turn, the dying person experiences certain external and internal signs associated with each stage of the dissolution process. As these signs are listed in great detail in other texts, it is not necessary to mention them all here. However, it will be helpful to point out some of the visions that typically occur.

When ordinary people die they are out of control. Because they have not trained themselves during their life, they are overwhelmed by the experience of death and bewildered as their bodily elements go out of balance and cease functioning harmoniously. It seems to them as if they were in the middle of a violent earthquake and it is therefore very difficult, if not impossible, for them to remain calmly aware of what is happening. Death is thus experienced as a series of frightening hallucinations, a nightmarish disaster. Yet for someone who is prepared, the same visions that cause panic in others can bring an extraordinary peace. And for those advanced practitioners who have trained their minds well, each stage of the dissolution process brings ever-increasing clarity and insight.

According to Buddhist psychology, whether an object brings satisfaction or not depends upon a decision made beforehand by your consciousness. Even before you see a particular thing, your mind has already decided, “This will make me happy.” Then when you actually contact it with your eyesight you think, “Oh, this is very nice!” The same is true for a negative reaction. If your consciousness has already decided that you do not like a certain person, then when you actually meet him you will see nothing but an unpleasant person. In other words, all the seemingly real good things that we like and bad things that we dislike are, in fact, creations of our own mind.

How is all of this related to our death experiences? Buddhism teaches that the way to experience both a happy life and a happy death is by recognizing exactly what is happening without being misled and confused by appearances.

During our life we experience one dissatisfaction after another because we mistakenly believe that what appears to us as good or bad truly exists in this way. We therefore spend all our time and energy running after this and away from that. During our lifetime we build up such a strong habit of relating to things in this alternatingly greedy and fearful way that it is only to be expected that at the time of our death, when everything seems to be falling apart, we will be overwhelmed by great confusion.

The solution is to learn to see all things as mere appearances to the mind, as lacking even one atom of independent self-existence. We need to understand that, in this respect, all things are like illusions. The same understanding should be applied to the visions that appear one after the other as our consciousness goes through the dying process. We should become familiar with what to expect when we die so that we can deal with these illusions instead of being overwhelmed and confused by them. The key, during both life and death, is to recognize illusions as illusions, projections as projections, and fantasies as fantasies. In this way we become free.

DEATH AND DH ARMAKAYA

First of all let us consider what might happen to us if, totally untrained and unprepared, we were to die in a state of great anxiety and bewilderment.

Desperately holding tightly onto a supposedly solid sense of “I” for security, we panic as the basis of our ego-identity— our body itself—begins to disintegrate.

As the earth element of our body deteriorates and the water element seems to grow stronger, our mind is filled with the hallucination of a shimmering, silver-blue mirage. We feel trapped and suffocated, as if our body were buried in the earth or caught in an avalanche. Then the water element sinks into the fire element and a vision of swirling smoke appears. As this is happening we may feel as if we are drowning or being carried away by violent currents of water. Next, the fire element dissolves and our body gradually grows colder; we perceive a vision like that of sparks dancing over an open fire at night. During this process some dying people cry out, thinking that their body is being consumed by flames. Finally, the air element dissolves, our breathing grows shallow, and we may feel that we are being blown about like a leaf in the wind.

Along with this experience comes the vision of a dying flame in a darkened room. As is the case when a candle is about to go out, the flame suddenly grows brighter as if exploding in a final burst of energy. Our breathing, which has been getting more and more difficult, now comes to a complete halt. To the outside world we now seem to be dead (and this is often the signal for those gathered around us to burst into tears).

But we are not dead yet. The four gross elements and the conceptual minds associated with them have ceased to function but there remain subtle levels of consciousness still to be absorbed. This happens as the subtle white drop received from our father at conception and located during our life at the crown of our head and the red drop received from our mother and located at our navel come toward each other and eventually meet at the level of our heart.

As the white drop descends we perceive a vision of empty space pervaded by whiteness, and as the red drop rises we perceive a similar vision of empty space, this time pervaded by redness. Finally the two drops meet, forming a sphere enclosing our very subtle, fundamental consciousness and its associated wind at our heart, and we experience the blackness of a completely darkened room.

This darkness becomes blacker and blacker until we eventually fall into total unconsciousness.

But still we are not dead. Within this sphere at our heart center resides our very subtle consciousness and its associated subtle energy wind. After some time—which can be as long as three days, even for an untrained person—this sphere opens and our mind is illuminated. The very subtle mind awakens and nothing appears to it but the vision of empty space, clear and luminous. This clear light consciousness is the last and most subtle of all the states of mind experienced during this lifetime.

For an ordinary person all these absorptions—from the appearance of the mirage-like vision to the dawning of the clear light—are uncontrolled. They happen one after the other but we are barely conscious of them; our mind is too confused and distracted. But those who have trained themselves well beforehand maintain clear awareness of everything that is happening during this process. They know which vision will come next and understand that everything they are perceiving is merely an appearance to their dying mind, empty of all independent self-existence as something truly out there. Because of this understanding they are not frightened by what they see. Instead, as their mind grows more and more subtle, their awareness of the emptiness of true existence becomes more and more penetrating. Finally, with the arising of the clear light, this very subtle mind mixes indistinguishably with emptiness in an experience of inexpressible bliss. For such a person, death has become the precious opportunity for perfecting the wisdom of nonduality. By means of this clear and unobstructed wisdom the trained practitioner has transformed the ordinary death process into the enlightened dharmakaya experience.

The dharmakaya experience of nonduality is beyond words, beyond expression, beyond concepts. When someone speaks about this experience, therefore, there is always the danger of being misinterpreted. So you should not trust my words; they are only the false words of my superstition. No matter how skillful they may be, words still come from the limited conceptual mind and are understood by the same limited mind. What is necessary is to touch the experience itself and thus go beyond the words used to describe it. That is why tantra puts such emphasis upon action rather than theory.

Although it is a good thing to study the various Buddhist texts and commentaries and learn to analyze them with a sharp and critical intelligence, we should understand that there are times when this analytical approach is actually harmful. One of my meditation masters once told me, “At a certain point you have to abandon the philosophical way of understanding things.

You must go beyond debate, beyond argument.” That shocked me! I was a young, enthusiastic student at the time and liked to analyze and criticize everything I heard. But I eventually understood what he meant: remaining caught up in intellectual preconceptions can prevent us from entering profound meditational experiences. So, it is important to know when to relax, let go, and allow the mind to settle into its natural state of clarity.

Truly qualified masters of all traditions always stress that there are certain times when you should not be doing analytical or intellectual activity at all.

For instance, it would be a great mistake to engage in analytical thought during the advanced completion stage practices of highest yoga tantra. Why?

Because when you use your intellect, it is natural for all sorts of superstitious concepts to arise. Your mind becomes overly busy and vibrates with the fragmented energy of such concepts. Then, since every state of mind is associated with its own wind energy, your subtle nervous system will also become busy vibrating with various conflicting wind energies. This not only interferes with the control you are trying to gain over your nervous system through these completion stage practices, but it can also easily lead to a painful condition the Tibetans call lung, meaning frustrated energy at the heart. As with all aspects of the spiritual path, there is a time to use the intellect and there is a time to put it aside.