Is Deity Yoga Buddhist?

The Philosophical Foundations of Tantric Practice


by Brian T. Hafer

Duke University
Department of Religion
Latin Honors Thesis
April 30, 1997
HTML Version: May 17, 1997


      The various schools of Buddhism differ widely in their philosophical tenets and in their practices. For example, the family of practices known as deity yoga is unique to Tantric Buddhism and is very different from other types of Buddhist practice. Not surprisingly, other schools of Buddhism often respond skeptically to the practices of Tantra, to say the least. In the words of one Theravada bhikkhu the author interviewed on this topic, “I don’t see the purpose.” Although the purpose of Tantra, as will be discussed later, may be well-defined, viable objections remain as to the ontological status of the myriad forms and beings that are visualized during Tantric sadhanas and as to the fruitfulness of such practices as tools for attaining enlightenment. This paper will explore the question, “Is deity yoga Buddhist?” and investigate the philosophical foundations of Tantric practices as well as the objections to them which have been raised by other Buddhist schools.
      According to the Tibetan Mahayana, the schools of Buddhism are classified according to the Triyana, or Three Vehicles: the Hinayana or “Individual Vehicle,” the Mahayana or “Universal Vehicle,” and the Vajrayana or “Indestructible Vehicle.” In some systems of classification, the Vajrayana is considered as a subgroup of the Mahayana, and Buddhism is separated into only two main divisions: the Hinayana and the Mahayana. However, since the current paper is concerned with the unique deity yoga practices of the Tibetan Mahayana, the Triyana classification will be used as a basis for explanation. Regardless of whether one considers the Vajrayana as a subgroup of the Mahayana or as a separate division of its own, it is important to realize the close historical and philosophical affiliation of the two.

The Hinayana
      The Hinayana school of Buddhism has been called the way of self-benefit and of negation. Adherents of the Individual Vehicle of Buddhism engage themselves in trying to fix their own shortcomings and in negative ascesis, that is, refraining from committing acts which are considered to accrue bad karma for oneself. Hinayana practice has been likened to refusing a cup of poison, that is, ceasing to commit acts of body and mind which cause direct or indirect harm to oneself. The goal of Hinayana practice is to reach the stage of an arhat, one who has rid oneself of the defilements of ignorance (avidya), attachment (raga), and aversion (dvesha) with the aid of a teacher.
      The Mahasanghika, to which the rise of the Mahayana is apparently deeply indebted, and the Sthaviravada, from which the modern Theravada school arose, both were descended from a common form of primitive Buddhism.1 The Hinayana that is often criticized in the texts of the other two vehicles as having fallen into the trap of reification of the dharmas is also descended from the Sthaviravada. This criticism is specifically targeted at the Sarvastivadin school of Buddhism, which had stagnated and petrified the Abhidharma into a list of inherently existent dharmas. It is important to realize, however, that the modern Theravada school of Abhidhamma developed independently and did not fall victim to this reification. The Theravada system is an open-ended, dynamic philosophy which does not reify the teachings of the Buddha as information, but instead recognizes that the Buddha Dharma is transformation. The Buddha’s teaching of anatta (the lack of inherent self-existence) is seen by the Theravada to apply to both the existence of the personal self and to the existence of the dharmas.

The Mahayana
      The Mahayana school of Buddhism has been called the way of other-benefit and compassion. The culmination of Mahayana practice is different from that of the Hinayana. The Mahayana claims that becoming an arhat is only a partial achievement of the goal characterized by an excess of wisdom and a lack of compassion. The true goal, they say, is to become a Buddha, a self-enlightened one. To do this, Mahayana practitioners take the Bodhisattva Vows to fully utilize the three karmas (body, speech, and mind) to help others until all sentient beings have been freed from samsara. This emphasis on compassionate benefit of others is a key distinction between the Mahayana and the Hinayana.
      Mahayanists maintain that since the distinction between pure and impure or good and bad is a creation of dualistic thinking, and since dualistic thinking is a manifestation of ignorance of the true nature of reality, then this type of distinction must not actually exist at the level of ultimate reality. The consequence of this is that when the passions (kleshas) are viewed from pure perspective, no distinction can be made between pure and impure. Thus, according to the Mahayana, the negative ascesis (avoiding impure actions) of the Hinayana serves to strengthen dualistic thinking and further mire the mind in samsaric misperception of reality. The followers of Mahayana strive to strengthen the modes of being known as wisdom (mahaprajña), which correctly perceives the ultimate nature of reality, and great compassion (mahakaruna), which strives to benefit all sentient beings. Because of this, the Mahayana has been likened to taking sips of poison, that is, being able to use the overriding principles of wisdom and great compassion to act skillfully to benefit others, which may, at times, mean performing actions that the Hinayanist would consider contraventions of the Vinaya rules regarding moral conduct (shila). However, the positive rule of compassion takes precedence over the negative prohibitory rules.

The Vajrayana
      The Vajrayana school of Buddhism has been characterized as stopping ordinary perception. If the Hinayana and the Mahayana correspond to refusing a cup of poison and taking sips of poison, respectively, then the Vajrayana corresponds to drinking poison and transforming it into nectar. The practitioner of Vajrayana is able to use the energy generated by the passions as an aid on the path to enlightenment. This is done by adopting a standpoint of having already achieved the goal and of one’s already being a Buddha as opposed to striving along the path towards enlightenment. Practices involving the adopting of “the goal as the path”2 are called Tantrayana, or the Effect Vehicle. Obviously, the practice of Tantra is not for everyone, as practitioners must have a solid foundation in wisdom and compassion before attempting to use passion in the path or they may experience negative consequences such as rebirth in the Vajra hells, which are said to be below even the Avici Hell (i.e. the Hell of Uninterrupted Pain). The practices of Tantra are referred to as deity yoga because of the adoption of the viewpoint of having already achieved the goal (i.e. one’s already being a deity).

Bodhicitta: The Heart of the Mahayana and Vajrayana Teachings
      To be able to understand the controversy regarding deity yoga, the similarities and distinctions between Mahayana and Vajrayana must be carefully examined. The heart of the teachings of both schools is the practice of cultivating the two levels of enlightened mind (bodhicitta), the conventional and the ultimate. The conventional bodhicitta is the mind of great compassion (mahakaruna) that is the desire to work for the benefit of all sentient beings. Recognizing, however, that physical means of benefit are temporal and impermanent and that only an enlightened being can provide lasting benefit by dispelling ignorance, the conventional bodhicitta gives rise to the altruistic desire to achieve enlightenment as the most expedient way of exercising compassion. The ultimate bodhicitta is the bodhisattva wisdom cognizing emptiness. The cultivation of conventional bodhicitta is requisite for the attainment of ultimate bodhicitta. The ultimate bodhicitta operates in a non-dual mode of perception in which good and bad, pure and impure, or extra-samsaric and intra-samsaric do not have independent self-existence. The ultimate bodhicitta perceives the emptiness (sunyata) of inherent existence of all phenomena.
      The doctrine of emptiness is one of the most important teachings of Mahayana Buddhism and one of the most difficult to understand fully. Madhyamika, the philosophy of the Middle Way, employs a system of reductio ad absurdum which slips between all extremes of “this” and “that” in order to show that emptiness is the ultimate nature of reality. There are two standard lines of reasoning by which one cultivates an understanding of emptiness.3 First, nothing has independent self-existence because everything is made of parts. Since all things are dependent on their parts, they cannot have independent self-existence. Second, nothing can be said to have independent self-existence as a group of many individual things because all of the component parts are shown not to have independent self-existence by the first line of reasoning. If the parts of the whole are dependent upon their parts, then the whole cannot be independently self-existent.
      However, the philosophy of Madhyamika does not deny the existence of things on the relative level. This misunderstanding of the Middle Way teachings would lead one to assert one of two wrong positions. The first is nihilism, in which one would have found nothing left on the relative level of truth by which to recognize things and would dismiss all conceptions or understanding of things on the relative level as being untrue. This might lead one to conclude that emptiness, as misunderstood to assert the lack of inherent, independent self-existence of things on the relative level, was itself incorrect. According to the Mahasmrtyupasthanasutra, abandoning sunyata would cause one to be reborn in the Avici Hell.4 The second wrong position would be to accept emptiness on the ultimate level of truth, but to see all things on the relative level as mere mental conceptions which are mistaken by the mind as being real. This could cause one to abandon Dharma teachings and practices such as meditation and taking refuge which bring good karmic effects. Both of these positions are misunderstandings of emptiness and would lead individuals to believe that they had attained everything when in fact they had attained nothing at all.
      A correct understanding of the teaching of emptiness is the ability to hold both truths, the relative and the ultimate, in the mind at the same time without seeing any contradiction between them. Ashvaghosa has said, “You should never ignore the relative level of truth because of sunyata. Rather, you should understand that the relative level of truth and sunyata on the ultimate level work in harmony with each other.”5 For this reason, the Madhyamika philosophy is said to steer a middle course between eternalism and nihilism.
      Nagarjuna, the dialectical master of the Madhyamika school, uses a cyclic strategy to discredit the assertions of his opponents and to support the doctrine of emptiness. He begins by accepting the notion of own-being (svabhava) and then showing the absurdities implicit in such a “realistic” view point. His attack on these metaphysical propositions is that they do not provide the knowledge they claim to. Nagarjuna shows that they cannot possibly fulfill their promise because “words and expression-patterns are simply practical tools of human life, which in themselves, do not carry intrinsic meaning and which do not necessarily have meaning by referring to something outside the language system.”6 By disproving all extreme views of “this” and “that” without offering a viewpoint of his own, Nagarjuna allows the wisdom of emptiness to manifest itself. Since emptiness cannot be described due to the limitations of language just mentioned, this method is the only way to truly share a profound understanding of emptiness. By using this strategy, Nagarjuna consistently replaces apparently common sense notions which are in fact highly metaphysical with apparently metaphysical notions which are in fact common sense. For instance, Nagarjuna responds to the following objection in the Madhyamikaprajnamula:

          “If everything were ultimately void of any true independent self-existent nature, then there would be no creation and no destruction, and it would follow that there would not be even the four noble truths. How do you explain that? In answer to this objection that if everything were ultimately void of any true, independent, self-existent nature, then there would be no distinction between those things binding you to samsara and those liberating you from it, I would say precisely the reverse. Both creation and destruction are dependent functions, arising from their causes according to the law of dependent arising. Therefore it is only if everything were not ultimately void of any true, independent, self-existent nature (in other words, it is only if things did have true, self-existence, independent of their causes) that it would follow logically that there would be no creation and no destruction of things and that there would not be even the four noble truths.”7

      Thus, it can be seen from this example that far from denying the existence of reality, emptiness actually saves reality from the brink of extinction! For without emptiness, conventional interdependent reality as we observe it could not exist. However, even the doctrine of emptiness has the danger of being reified as independently self-existent. To prevent this, one must apply the doctrine of emptiness to itself in order to remember “the emptiness of emptiness.” The enlightened mind holds the conventional and the ultimate truths of reality in mind simultaneously; there is no other way that the conventional bodhicitta (mahakaruna) and the ultimate bodhicitta (mahaprajña) could coexist simultaneously. Therefore the simultaneous cultivation of wisdom and compassion is the first step of Mahayana practice, and the perfection of this cultivation marks the culmination of Mahayana practice.

Two Truths: The Relationship of Samsara to Nirvana in Madhyamika Philosophy
      Important ontological dilemmas arise as a result of maintaining this position of reality as ultimately non-dual. Paramount among them is the question, if reality is non-dual, how can samsara and nirvana be ultimately different? Nagarjuna makes the following statements in his Mulamadhyamakakarika (MMK), the “Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way,” regarding the ontological relationship of samsara and nirvana:

    “Samsara is nothing essentially different from nirvana.
    Nirvana is nothing essentially different from samsara.

    The limits (i.e. realm) of nirvana are the limits of samsara.
    Between the two also, there is not the slightest difference whatsoever.”8

      These eloquent couplets quickly reject the validity of any attempt to discriminate ultimately between samsara and nirvana. In fact, it is precisely the discriminating nature of mind which creates the illusion of ultimate difference between samsara and nirvana and hence creates conventional suffering. The basis of discriminating mind is the tendency to attribute inherent existence to objects and phenomena. For in order to say that two things differ, one must first establish a set of properties which each inherently possesses and then must establish that these sets of properties differ. It is in the first step that Nagarjuna states that perception has erred and misperceived reality.
      This must be understood, however, within the context of emptiness, for as Nagarjuna states in a previous stanza: “Indeed, nirvana is not strictly in the nature of ordinary existence for, if it were, there would wrongly follow the characteristics of old age-death. For, such an existence cannot be without those characteristics.”9 Therefore, when Nagarjuna says that there is nothing at all different between samsara and nirvana, he is not characterizing them as sharing some sort of mystical identity, or oneness. Instead, he is saying that they are identical in the sense that they have the same ultimate nature, that is, emptiness, the absence of inherent self-existence. Therefore, one should not conceive of the world as empty and of nirvana as some alternative inherently existent realm. Likewise, one should not conceive of both as different inherently existing realms between which one attempts to change residence, for if both were truly independent and self-existent it would be impossible to pass from one to the other. Instead, nirvana is attainable immediately and in one’s current surroundings by correctly understanding the emptiness of one’s immediate circumstances and current surroundings.
      According to Madhyamika philosophy, the tendency to perceive the duality of samsara and nirvana as ultimately meaningful reflects a lack of understanding of the two truths regarding the nature of reality (i.e. the conventional truth and the ultimate truth). If samsara and nirvana were truly dual, then beings would have no hope of ever reaching nirvana. However, if the two were ultimately identical, there would also be no hope of achieving liberation from suffering. Therefore, both of these views must be abandoned if one is to attain enlightenment (i.e. awakening to the true nature of existence). Nirvana and samsara must differ conventionally, but they must share the same characteristics of emptiness enabling beings to attain nirvana from samsara.

The Doctrine of Tathagatagarbha
      The doctrine of tathagatagarbha (Buddha-essence) appears to have emerged independently of the Madhyamika school of Mahayana, although its historical origins are not clearly understood.10 It is reasoned that the Truth Body (rupakaya) of the Buddha is transcendent and eternal, yet must also be omnipresent and immanent in every atom of limitless existence. Therefore, when viewed from the perspective of a Buddha, all beings are seen to be immersed in the realm of the truth body (dharmakayadhatu). They continue to suffer, then, only because they fail to perceive their actual situation. But because all beings are present in the dharmakayadhatu, all sentient beings have within them the inherently pure Buddha nature, but it is present in an obscured, tainted state. Thus, the cultivation of wisdom is, in fact, “the removal of the obscurations of the Buddha essence and the revelation of the natural luminosity of the Buddha realm.”11 The tathagatagarbha, translated tathagata-embryo or tathagata-womb, is the essence within each being which makes enlightenment possible.
      The tathagatagarbha writings go further than Nagarjuna’s Madhyamika approach in asserting the oneness of samsara and nirvana. The Srimaladevisimhanada Sutra refers to the tathagatagarbha as the permanent, steadfast, and eternal substratum of samsara.12 This ground of being is said to be the dharmakaya when viewed from the enlightened perspective. The realization of the inherent purity of this substratum is nirvana, while the appearance of it as defiled is samsara. The existence of the tathagatagarbha as intrinsically pure and never defiled despite its apparent defilement being the cause of bondage is said in the Srimala Sutra to be a mystery which can only be understood by the Buddhas and advanced bodhisattvas. Thus, this sutra suggests that an element of faith is required from beginning practitioners who hope to discover the nature of the tathagatagarbha.
      Not all the schools of Buddhism accept the doctrine of tathagatagarbha. The Gelugpa school and others reject it as teaching monism and will approach it only in terms of the two truths (i.e. the conventional and ultimate levels of understanding) taught by Nagarjuna. The different interpretations of this viewpoint have led to a division along the lines of those Buddhists believing the path to enlightenment to be gradual versus sudden. This topic will be revisited shortly after a comparison of the Mahayana and Vajrayana.

The Distinction Between the Mahayana and Vajrayana
      The Vajrayana is often viewed as part of the Mahayana since they have so much in common. Both share the goal of Buddhahood as the fruit of practice, and the cultivation of bodhicitta as just described is central to the teaching of both. The Mahayana and the Vajrayana both differ from the Hinayana in terms of view and method. In terms of view, the Hinayana can be said to teach the lack of inherent existence (i.e. emptiness) of the self but the inherent existence of the dharmas. The Mahayana and the Vajrayana teach the emptiness of the self and of the dharmas. In terms of method, the Mahayana and the Vajrayana teach the necessity of positive ascesis (i.e. actively benefiting sentient beings) as opposed to the negative ascesis taught by the Hinayana.
      However, significant differences exist between the Mahayana and the Vajrayana, and it is viewed by the Gelugpas as a third vehicle. In fact, the adherents of the Gelugpa school sometimes speak of Buddhism as consisting of only two vehicles: Sutrayana and Mantrayana. Sutra (or sutta) refers to the term used by all schools to refer to the basic Buddhist scriptures, while Mantra refers to the secret, Tantric teachings which are unique to the Vajrayana. The difference between the Vajrayana and the Mahayana is said to reside in upaya, or skillful means.13 The Mahayana and the Vajrayana both have practices for achieving the dharmakaya (Truth Body) of a Buddha. The dharmakaya is the culmination of the perfection of wisdom; therefore, in order to develop the dharmakaya, one needs to follow a path of wisdom in which one cultivates a similitude of the dharmakaya. This is done by meditating on emptiness. According to the Vajrayana, however, meditation on emptiness only removes the conception of inherent existence and all the afflictions that are based on it. However, other practices are needed to achieve the rupakaya (Form Body) of a Buddha. The physical perfection of the Form Body must be established using “vast methods” of meditation which cultivate a similitude of the rupakaya. These practices, called Tantra (i.e. deity yoga), are not contained in the method of the Mahayana. They are unique to the Vajrayana, who maintain that the complete method for achieving Buddhahood quickly relies on the cultivation of a path of deity yoga in which the pride of being a deity is established.
      Broadly, yoga means “union,” and therefore deity yoga refers to forms of meditation in which the practitioner experiences a realization of union with a deity. The deity represents the goal, or effect, of Buddhist practice, and therefore, Tantra can be said to take the goal as the path. It is therefore referred to as the Effect Vehicle and contrasted to the Cause Vehicle in which the causes of enlightenment are cultivated in order to reach the goal.
      The importance placed upon the rupakaya by Vajrayana practitioners is two-fold: first, its cultivation is essential for the achievement of complete Buddhahood, and second, its capacity to perform altruistic activities is limitless. According to the Mahayana, wisdom cognizing emptiness must be joined with conventional bodhicitta and practice of the perfections in order to achieve complete removal of the obstructions to omniscience (i.e. the dharmakaya). The ten perfections are giving (dana), moral conduct (shila), patience (kshanti), vigor (virya), meditation (dhyana), wisdom (prajña), skillful means (upaya), resolution (pranidhana), strength (bala), and knowledge (jñana). When joined with wisdom they produce the causal collection of wisdom. The causal collection of method is produced through the practices of deity yoga which cultivate the rupakaya. When both causal collections are complete the rupakaya and dharmakaya are simultaneously attained. Neither can be obtained singly since only a Buddha can possess them and because a Buddha possesses both of them. At the attainment of Buddhahood, the collection of wisdom formed from the practice of the perfections manifests as the achievement of a Buddha’s Form Bodies (rupakaya) which perform limitless altruistic activities.
      Of course, the duality between wisdom and compassion only exists at the relative level of reality; at the ultimate level, wisdom and compassion are inseparable. Nagarjuna made the statement, “Emptiness is the essence of compassion,”14 showing the ultimate indivisibility of compassion and the wisdom cognizing emptiness. In fact, it is the realization of this indivisibility that the Tantric sadhanas attempt to engender in the organic symbolism of sexual union. Indeed, at the ultimate level all absolutist dualities are seen to be false: wisdom and compassion, the Truth Body and the Form Body, and samsara and nirvana are all seen not to be ultimately different.
      The doctrine of tathagatagarbha seems to form a fundamental part of the foundation of Tantric practice. Indeed, as shall soon be seen, the visualization of a mandala involves elements of practice which actively cultivate a realization of the omnipresent, immanent Buddha-nature. However, due to what will be argued to be political motivations, some schools of Tantra deny the validity of the doctrine of tathagatagarbha. Before examining such matters, though, one should have an understanding of what exactly is involved in the performance of a Tantric sadhana, or liturgy.

The Practice of Deity Yoga
      Deity yoga in the Gelugpa and Kagyu traditions will be discussed here since these schools share many similarities in the Tantric practices. The Nyingma school has several significant differences and will therefore not be discussed for the sake of space. First and foremost, Tantric practice in the Gelugpa and Kagyu traditions presupposes a firm foundation in the practices of shamatha, or mind stabilization. Historically, the practices of Tantra have been guarded with extreme secretiveness, and all potential practitioners must take extensive vows in which they promise, among other things, to maintain the secrecy of the practices or face rebirth in the Vajra Hells. To Westerners this religious secrecy may seem incomprehensible or even offensive; however, it is rooted in very sound reasoning. As has been mentioned already, the potential for karmically harming oneself or others is very great if Tantric practice is not performed properly. Because desire is used as an aid to the Tantric path, albeit in a specialized and controlled way, there is always the risk that the practitioner will lack the wisdom or upaya to keep it properly controlled. Indeed, desire is an extremely potent force; it is held to be the root force which keeps samsara going. In order to ensure, then, that desire will be used for the purpose of bodhicitta and not for its own ends, Tantric practitioners must complete lengthy training in meditation on emptiness and compassion. These two elements of consciousness must be sufficiently cultivated to ensure that the pride of being a deity which gives Tantric practice its great potency is not misunderstood or misused. For if practitioners are lacking in an understanding of emptiness, they may perceive themselves to be inherently a deity and others to be inherently not deities. This would lead to the arousal of a pride of ego-grasping which would only serve to mire one further in the delusion of samsara. Likewise, a firm grounding in the desire to benefit all sentient beings is required to make sure that the enormous power of the deity is used for compassionate and not selfish ends.
      The preliminary practices which are a prerequisite to receiving Tantric initiation are collectively known as ñöndro, and consist of the Four Ordinary Foundations and the Four Special Foundations. The Four Ordinary Foundations establish a thorough revulsion with samsara and a strong sense of urgency for escaping it. The Four Special Foundations consist of four sets of practices to be performed 111,111 times each. The first practice is taking refuge and engendering the bodhicitta. This grounds the practitioner solidly in the desire to benefit all sentient beings. After repeating the first practice 111,111 times, the practitioner begins the second practice, the repetition of the 100 syllable mantra of Vajrasattva which purifies harmful deeds and removes obscurations. The third practice is the mandala-offering which perfects the two accumulations of merit and awareness. The fourth practice is called guru-yoga and is a six-line prayer which rapidly confers blessing. After completing the ñöndro (which can take years to do), one is ready to receive initiation to perform the visualization of a mandala. (In the Nyingma school, practitioners may begin their practice with the mandala visualization.)

Kalachakra Tantra Sadhana15
      There are many different Tantric sadhanas, or “means of accomplishment,” which can be performed, each involving the visualization of a different mandala (i.e. the palace of a deity). In the Gelugpa tradition, there are four categories of Tantric practice: Action Tantra, Performance Tantra, Yoga Tantra, and Highest Yoga Tantra. These divisions differ in the way in which desire is used as an aid to the path.16 The Highest Yoga Tantra division is the highest division, reserved for the most advanced practitioners for whom it is appropriate to use the desire generated by the touch of union. The Kalachakra Tantra, one of the Highest Yoga Tantras, will serve as an example to explore the structure of a typical Tantric sadhana. Before beginning the sadhana, the practitioner must take the triple refuge, arouse the bodhicitta, and receive the seven initiations.
      The sadhana itself consists of two stages, the generation stage and the completion stage. Broadly speaking, in the generation stage, the practitioner generates himself as the deity and makes offerings, and in the completion stage, he performs the six yogas which culminate in complete enlightenment. The sadhanas presuppose an understanding of the Tibetan system of anatomy. It would not be practical to explain the system in detail here; in essence, the system consists of winds (prana) which travel through the right, left, and center channels of the body and modulate the various physical and psychological processes of the body and mind.
      The generation stage begins with the performance of preparatory offerings and meditations and with the creation of a protective circle. The protective circle is a purified (i.e. non-samsaric) space in which the mandala can appear. It is during the generation stage that one visualizes the mandala based upon the description given by the teacher or based upon a painted depiction. A common error committed by those not familiar with Tantra is to confuse the painted mandala with the actual mandala. The painted mandala is a two-dimensional schematic figure representing a three-dimensional visualization of the actual mandala. When the visualization has been successfully performed, the actual mandala appears of its own power. It is the antithesis of anything samsaric and is thus non-referential; that is, it cannot be referred to in terms of having a size or location. It is unconditioned reality.
      After the mandala has been generated, the practitioner generates himself as Kalachakra and his consort, Vishvamata, in union representing the oneness of wisdom and compassion. These visualized deities are called samayasattvas (pledge beings) and are not yet “real.” The practitioner makes inner (i.e. imagined) and outer (i.e. actual) offerings to the self-generation. This is accompanied by the repetition of the 100-syllable mantra of Vajrasattva and certain verses to increase the stores of merit and gnosis. The next step is called the “supreme victorious mandala” in which Kalachakra/Vishvamata and eight protective shakti deities are generated from the root syllable “HAM” that is the mingling of the winds, the mind, and the white and red bodhicitta drops. Then the remaining mandala deities are generated from the womb of Kalachakra/Vishvamata. This is followed by the “supreme victorious activity” in which occurs the dissolution of the jñanasattvas (gnosis beings) into the samayasattvas, making the generation “real” (i.e. non-samsaric).17 This is accompanied by the five wrathful protectors being drawn down to grant all of the deities the seven initiations.
      This concludes the generation of the visualization, and the practitioner now begins the “yoga of the drops.” In the first step, the practitioner experiences the four joys as the white (male) drop is melted by the heat of Kalachakra/Vishvamata’s union, and passes from Kalachakra’s crown, down the central channel, to the tip of his vajra (i.e. in organic symbolism, penis). The “subtle yoga” follows this in which the practitioner has an even deeper experience of the four joys as the white drop is drawn back up the central channel to Kalachakra’s crown. This concludes the generation stage. However, the divine identity and destruction of the defilements which one has undertaken at this stage are still held to be preparatory and symbolic.
      A true, final, and nonimaginary transformation of oneself into Kalachakra can only be brought about following a manipulation of the subtlest winds found at the heart chakra. This manipulation is only possible through the psycho-physical procedures that are mastered in the completion stage, consisting of the six yogas which culminate in enlightenment as an empty shell. The first step is the “yoga of withdrawal” in which the practitioner dissolves the winds into the central channel and generates a small semblance of the empty shell of Kalachakra/Vishvamata at the forehead chakra. In the “yoga of stabilization,” the practitioner concentrates on the empty shell with the divine pride of one’s being that empty shell. The “yoga of breath control” follows, in which the practitioner moves the empty shell to the navel chakra. Through the use of vajra-recitation and vase breathing, the vitalizing and downward-voicing winds are brought together there. The winds ignite the inner fire (gtum mo) which melts the white drop at the forehead. The melted drop moves down the central channel, creating the experience of the four joys. During the “yoga of retention,” the drop moves back up the central channel, and the four joys are experienced as a basis for the realization of the inseparability of bliss and gnosis. In the “yoga of mindfulness,” an actual empty shell is generated at the navel. A real or visualized consort is used to generate great bliss through the stabilization of the white drop at the tip of the vajra and the red drop at the crown. In the final “yoga of samadhi,” the 21,600 white (male) drops and the 21,600 red (female) drops are stacked in the central channel. The stacking of each drop entails the experience of bliss and the cutting off of one of the winds that form the basis of cyclic existence. When all the drops have been stacked, one is enlightened; that is, one is a Buddha in the empty shell aspect of Kalachakra/Vishvamata.

Objections of the Theravada
      Reading this description of a Tantric sadhana, it is not surprising that the Theravadins would respond in disbelief to these “Buddhist” practices. First, it is recorded in the Theravada scriptures that the Buddha, while preparing to enter parinibbana, stated, “I have not taught you with a closed fist,” meaning that there were no teachings or practices which the Buddha had kept a secret from his followers. Clearly, the secrecy associated with Tantric practices would cast doubt on their status as legitimate teachings of the Buddha in the eyes of Theravadins. More importantly, though, the practices and beings described in Tantric texts cannot be found anywhere in the Theravada scriptures. Since the Buddha did not teach “with a closed fist,” the Theravadins assert that the Tantric practices are a fabrication created by others to look like teachings of the Buddha. They point to the deities involved in the visualization as proof that these teachings are not authentically Buddhist. According to the Theravada view, if these beings were liberated they would not still be visible by beings in samsara. The fact that they are still around in samsara is evidence that they are not Buddhas. Therefore, the benefit to be derived from practices centered around such deities is dubious at best; clearly it would be more beneficial for beings to devote their energies to the genuine teachings of Buddha Shakyamuni himself.
      This explanation is obviously an oversimplification, as not all Theravadins would subscribe to the beliefs just enumerated. In fact, when the Theravada tradition is examined, one discovers that it contains some esoteric practices which bear many similarities to the key features of deity yoga as just described. Obviously, the imagery found in the Theravada scriptures is very different from that of the forms and deities found in the Tibetan Tantric tradition. However, there exist allusions in the Theravada scriptures to seeing the transformation of reality as being full of light and color. For example, at the Buddha’s birth and following his enlightenment, it is recorded that vibrant lotuses sprang from the ground beneath his feet as he walked. These events were referred to as lokutara, meaning “outside of this world,” which seems similar to the notion of their being extra-samsaric. In addition, some of the physical marks of the Buddha clearly do not belong to ordinary samsaric reality. In the Theravada tradition it is believed that people can see the marks of a Buddha only if they know what they mean. Therefore, only those people with sufficient development of consciousness can see these marks, seen as though peeking through a mystical window to non-samsaric reality. An example of such a physical mark is the urna, or “eye of Dharma” that sees what is invisible to physical eyes and which is depicted as an eye placed vertically in the middle of the forehead. These references and others in the Theravada scriptures show that the seed of an idea of there being something present in samsara other than desire, suffering, and decay can be found in the Theravada tradition as well. However, these ideas were not developed into a formal liturgy by the Theravadins as they were by the Tantrikas (practitioners of Tantra). The Theravada also does not usually take the philosophical next step and assert the ultimate non-duality of samsara and nirvana as the Mahayana and the Vajrayana do.

Gradual Versus Sudden Enlightenment
      The early forms of Buddhism taught the attainment of enlightenment as a gradual process by which individuals slowly ripen their mental continuums and overcome ignorance and the hindrances bit by bit. Samsara was taught as “here,” the realm of suffering, and nirvana was “there,” the goal which one strived to reach. The early scriptures are replete with extensive hierarchical descriptions of the meditative states of jñanic absorption and of the levels of attainment through which one passes on the way to achieving the final attainment. This understanding of the Buddhist path of spiritual practices was primarily influenced by the law of cause and effect. Certain practices were thought to be causes that were beneficial to the attainment of enlightenment, while other practices were thought to be not beneficial or to have harmful effects for the practitioner’s development. The concept of the early Buddhist practitioner can be likened to that of an artist or tradesman who works toward mastering a skill. The Buddhist practitioner worked to master the skills of meditation and restraint and to use this mastery to conquer ignorance and desire and to realize the truth of anatta, or absence of the existence of an inherent self. Once one had become sufficiently proficient at this practice, the individual was said to become an arahat (Sanskrit: arhat), or Worthy One. This was viewed as the final endpoint at which it could be said that one had achieved the goal.
      With the development of Mahayana thought came the criticism of early Buddhism for not emphasizing the compassionate helping of others. Philosophically, it was claimed that the Hinayana notion of Buddhist practice reified samsara and nirvana. The Buddha had taught anatta (lack of inherent, independent existence) as being the true nature of the self. If the personal self is not self-existent independent of the dharmas, then it stands to reason that the dharmas are not independently self-existing either. The Mahayana doctrine extended this personal absence of inherent self to include all phenomena, renaming it sunyata in the process. Thus the interdependence of all phenomena became a key feature of a true understanding of reality. From this arose the importance of striving to alleviate the suffering of others as if they were one’s own, for indeed, in some sense one’s own suffering and the suffering of others are interrelated. Thus, the arhats came to be viewed as selfish for being content to merely alleviate their own suffering and to vanish from samsara leaving the rest of all sentient beings behind to suffer. Furthermore, the claim of an arhat to be enlightened was seen as fraudulent as no true understanding of reality could allow one to be untroubled by the suffering of others. Thus, the Mahayana came to view the “enlightenment” of the arhat as a partial one resulting from a surfeit of intellect (prajña) and a paucity of compassion (mahakaruna).
      This radical reinterpretation of enlightenment and the path to attaining it was a foreshadowing of the body of teachings that would later develop into the Madhyamika school and the doctrine of the two truths. Over time, the Mahayana supplanted all the Buddhist schools except the Theravada, which had also extended the doctrine of anatta to include the lack of inherent existence of the dharmas. Sometime during this period, the doctrine of tathagatagarbha emerged in the Mahayana tradition. Some schools, especially those developing in the Indian subcontinent, rejected it as being monistic and turned instead to the Madhyamika or Chittamatra (mind-only) explanations of samsara and nirvana. Other schools, primarily those developing in China, absorbed it, and as a result their teachings on the relationship of samsara and nirvana developed a radical new approach known as Subitism, or sudden enlightenment.
      The Subitist schools maintain that if the dharmakaya pervades samsara, then all beings in samsara are immersed in the Buddha-essence already. It is ultimately nonsensical, then, for one to conceive of the path to enlightenment as a gradual process by which practitioners attain a novel mode of consciousness or of being. Instead, the attainment of nirvana is viewed ultimately as an awakening to the true nature of one’s existence, which is characterized by the Buddha-essence. In this sense, then, enlightenment can be viewed as a sudden awakening to one’s true reality instead of a gradual transformation of it.
      The Buddhist traditions of Mo-ho-yen and early Dzogchen are characterized by this Subitist teaching of sudden awakening. An examination of the similarities between these traditions and of the apparent reversal of the later Dzogchen position on enlightenment will be helpful in understanding the debate regarding the ontological status of the Tantric mandala visualizations.

The Teaching of Mo-ho-yen
      One of the most radical positions on the side of sudden enlightenment in the sudden versus gradual enlightenment controversy was that of the eighth century Ch’an Master Ho-shang Mo-ho-yen, whose name means Mahayana Teacher. When a council was called in Tibet to settle the debate over sudden versus gradual enlightenment, Master Mo-ho-yen was called as the representative of the Subitist Mahayana schools. This topic will be revisited later after the teachings of Master Mo-ho-yen have been described.
      According to Master Mo-ho-yen, good and bad acts lead to rebirth in the heavens and hells, respectively, and therefore, as long as one carries out good or evil acts one is not free from transmigration. He likened acts to clouds which obscure the blueness of the sky regardless of whether they are white or black themselves.18 Master Mo-ho-yen identified the root cause of samsara as the mental construction of false distinction (vikalpa-citta). This type of thought is moved by beginningless habits, and its movements affect our perceptions of the world and our actions in it. In this sense, all sentient beings plus the Buddhas are generated from vikalpa. According to Master Mo-ho-yen, the way to stop samsara is to stop discriminating mind. He taught that not thinking, not pondering, non-examination, and non-apprehension of objects is the immediate access to liberation and is identical to the tenth bodhisattva stage (bhumi).19
      The path according to Master Mo-ho-yen is understood to exist solely in the elimination of vikalpa. However, according to the teaching of Mo-ho-yen, the abandonment of vikalpa is not achieved by actively suppressing it, but rather by acknowledging its presence.20 This practice is referred to simultaneously as “looking into one’s mind” and “not thinking.” Mo-ho-yen defines the state of Buddhahood as the abandoning of the conceptions and shows that the three poisons are perceptual modifications which all arise from the root cause of conceptualizing. Therefore, Mo-ho-yen taught a method of “contemplating the mind” which consists of turning the light of the mind toward the mind’s source.21 It does not involve reflection on thoughts, impermanence, emptiness, etc.
      However, Mo-ho-yen’s position is so radically non-dual that it would be impossible for him to not make concessions for the realities of human psychology at some point. Therefore, he taught that the gradual approach (of right conduct and right action) is appropriate for those who cannot enter directly into this practice of “not thinking.” He taught that those who are not able to practice “not thinking” should dedicate their merit to living beings, so that all may attain Buddhahood. Thus, in Mo-ho-yen’s system, the gradual schools were delegated to the status of inferior disciples not capable of practicing the superior sudden approach.

Early Dzogchen
      The Tibetan tradition of Dzogchen can be linked to the Ch’an tradition of China.22 However, it also has several important conflicts with the Ch’an tradition as shall soon be seen. One early Tibetan Dzogchen text of the Atiyoga tradition is the Kyun byed rgyal po’i mdo, the history of which cannot presently be traced back beyond the eighth century at the earliest. This text presents itself as a dialogue between Reality-As-It/He/She-Is and Vajrasattva. Reality-As-It/He/She-Is is called The All-Creating Sovereign, Mind of Perfect Purity, and the Consummation of All (Tibetan: chos thams cad rdzogs po chen po byang chub kyi sems kun byed rgyal po).23 In general, the Tibetan term byang chub sems corresponds to the Sanskrit word bodhicitta, which is associated with the practice of compassion and the understanding of emptiness. However, in the Kyun byed rgyal po’i mdo, this term differs significantly. The “mind of enlightenment” is something that beings are implied to generate as they begin the bodhisattva path. However, the All-Creating Sovereign says in the Kyun byed rgyal po’i mdo, “My own being is the bodhicitta,” and, “Everything is made, all is generated in the bodhicitta.” Therefore, in the Kyun byed rgyal po’i mdo, bodhicitta is reality, and it could not be generated by sentient beings. It is not dependent on anything and is immutable and timeless.24 It is referred to as the mind of perfect purity and is repeatedly said to possess ten characteristics:

          “The mind of perfect purity is like the sky. This mind itself, i.e. the Reality, is like the sky and therefore [it is said]:
          (1) No doctrine is to be contemplated.
          (2) nor vows to be observed.
          (3) The salutary acts (phrin las)25 are without effort and
          (4) pristine awareness is without obscuration.
          (5) There is no practising of the [ten] bodhisattva stages (bhumi) and
          (6) no path to proceed on.
          (7) Things are neither subtle (phra ba chos med),
          (8) nor dual, nor dependent.
          (9) There is no sacred institution firmly established except for that about the mind.
          (10) There is no definition of the instructions except that they are beyond praise and dispraise. This is the [right] view of the great perfected mind of perfect purity.”26

      The expression “All-Creating Sovereign” is a metaphor to describe what is held to be the ground of the universe, i.e. an intelligent and intelligible potency.27 It is described as immutably one yet omnipresent in the many in the following passage:

          “This intelligent ground is called the one. It is one, yet manifest in all. This, however, does not mean that its nature is divided into many individual entities. Wherever it is (and there is nowhere it is not) it is there in its totality. Like the sky in its endless reach it encompasses all and permeates everything but remains the immutable one. The intelligent ground is self-originated pristine awareness (rang byung ye shes) which abides in its own lucid nature. It is not dependent on anything. The ground’s oneness is its decisive characteristic but it presents itself in a threefold way. These two statements are not mutually exclusive but complementary. The intelligent ground is one, immutable and timeless, but it is present in all that exists in such a way that we humans can speak of its three aspects or three natures. Both statements are equally true and valid.”28

      The three natures or aspects are:

          “(1) The own being (rang bzhin) of the intelligent ground as pristine awareness;
          (2) the actuating force or essence (ngo bo) inherent in the intelligent ground and which is the factor responsible for the existence of the universe;
          (3) compassion (snying rje) which is the sole force determining the interaction among the different components of the world.”29

      The first nature of own being leads to the absence of a path or practice leading to nirvana. The All-Creating Sovereign is non-spatial and non-temporal; it is present everywhere at all times. Therefore, the notion of a practice leading to its attainment is nonsensical. This is repeatedly stated throughout the Kyun byed rgyal po’i mdo. For instance:

    “The true nature which is non-intelligible and transcends intelligibility. . . . . abides in [a state of] as-it-is, free of intelligibility. This leads to buddhahood via a path which cannot be walked on.”30

    “Beside [this mind of perfect purity] there is neither a path to make progress on nor a place to exist in. No one ever walked the path of the sky by progressing.”31

      However, in addition to the own-being of the mind of perfect purity (which alone would make it imperceptible), it also has the nature of an activating potency. This potency is a force which arouses pristine awareness to become manifest, tangible, perceptible, and thinkable and, thus, creates the manifest universe. In a parallel manner, the “no-practice” used for coming to know the mind of perfect purity is not an absence of practice. Instead, it is a specialized practice of “no-practice” much as in the teaching of Mo-ho-yen. The following passages in the Kyun byed rgyal po’i mdo explain the nature of such a “no-practice”:

    “The non-existence of wishing to seize anything is the best [way of] seizing meditation.”32

    “The main point of not thinking (bsam du med pa) is to abide from the primordial in a sky-like [state].”33

      The practice of this “no-practice” is what allows one to directly perceive the mind of pristine purity. This practice does not teach a regimented set of prescribed morals such as that encountered in the practice of the perfections because all attempts to enumerate a system of ethics based upon the mind of pristine purity merely obscure its third nature, that of a natural ethics of compassion. The Kyun byed rgyal po’i mdo states, “Those who attempt to alter this suchness will try to alter the mind of perfect purity. Those who try to alter the mind of perfect purity will actually only achieve the samsara.”34 This natural ethics is not a lack of ethics, but it cannot be described by a system of precepts; it must be experienced by perceiving the mind of perfect purity. Only then can one know its natural ethics of compassion.
      The world view arising from an understanding of the Kyun byed rgyal po’i mdo is very different from the ordinary Buddhist world view of suffering and impermanence. The mind of perfect purity as the intelligent ground of existence leads one to view creation as a wonder and a cause for joy. Thus, the enlightenment described by the early Dzogchen is a sudden awakening to the ultimate immanence or nirvana in the midst of what is ordinarily misperceived as samsara.

The bSam-yas Debate: Banishment of the Subitist Schools
      The two methods of reconciling samsara and nirvana have been described: the two truths of Madhyamika philosophy and the tathagatagarbha doctrine of the Subitist schools. The divergence of view ensuing based on the adoption of one or the other of these doctrines has been shown to be extremely wide. During the reign of Khri-srong lde-btsan in Tibet, Tibet’s contact with the Buddhist nations from the Indian subcontinent and China intensified. The schools of Buddhism on the Indian subcontinent had primarily developed along the lines of Nagarjuna’s Madhyamika school and advocated a gradual path (lam rim) towards enlightenment while those of China had developed along the lines of the Subitist approach and advocated a sudden view of enlightenment. The wide disparity between the two views resulted in the development of tensions between the masters of the Indian subcontinent and their followers and the Chinese masters and their followers. The tensions reached a climax in approximately 775 C.E. when a debate was held between representatives of both camps at the first Tibetan monastery at bSam-yas. Henceforth, the debate would be referred to as the bSam-yas debate, and its impact on the development of Tibetan Buddhism would be profound.
      The Subitist representative to the debate was the Chinese Ch’an Master Mo-ho-yen. Mo-ho-yen offered his first thesis that as long as one carries out good or evil acts, one will not be free from transmigration. Mo-ho-yen’s second thesis offered was his alternative to the path of action: the “no-practice” of non-thinking leading to immediate access to liberation. The Indian masters Kamalasila, Srighosa, and Jñanendra, the spokesmen for gradual enlightenment, took issue with both theses. For them, there could be no direct access to liberation; to leap into a practice of “no-thought” was to become indifferent and insensitive. They maintained that non-conceptualization (avikalpa) was the result of specific causes which had to be cultivated gradually. Further, they maintained that these causes must be able to be discerned and rationally defined and must have distinct moral and practical implications.35
      The masters of the Indian subcontinent were declared victorious in the debate, and the Subitist teachings were banned throughout Tibet. It is said that Mo-ho-yen walked out of Tibet barefoot, leaving his sandals behind as a symbol of the effect his teachings had already had and would continue to have on Buddhism in Tibet despite his banishment. For the school of Dzogchen, the outcome of the bSam-yas debate resulted in the immediate need to either adopt the gradual viewpoint or to face persecution. The teaching of Dzogchen following the bSam-yas debate took on a markedly different character than the early teaching. This matter will be examined shortly, but first it will be helpful to look at two Subitist schools from later Japanese thought in order to see how their teachings are similar to and different from those of Mo-ho-yen and early Dzogchen.
      The Buddhist traditions of Shin and Soto Zen are descended from the Tendai tradition, which is the Japanese transmission of the Chinese T’ien-t’ai tradition. The Tendai and T’ien-t’ai traditions are compendiums of a large variety of Buddhist practices. The Shin and Soto Zen schools are different responses to the overwhelming diversity of doctrine and method contained in the Tendai tradition. These schools selected the elements of Tendai Buddhism which they thought were the key or essential practices or teachings of Buddhism and discarded the rest.

Shin Buddhism
      The element of faith in the tathagatagarbha doctrine was reinterpreted by Shinran (1173-1262 C.E.) who decided that it was this element that was central to achieving enlightenment. For, if sentient beings are mired in samsara, they really can have no hope of attaining nirvana, the complete removal of all of their defilements. Samsara is characterized by defilements through and through, and it would be impossible to remove these defilements using one’s own efforts alone. This vicious circle would be like trying to clean a glass with muddy water; no matter how much the glass is washed with the muddy water, it can never be made clean. Therefore, sentient beings must rely on aid from the Buddhas who are already purified of all defilements to purify them of the defilements. The Buddha Amitabha has the power to liberate beings because of his taking of the “Primal Vow” (Japanese: Hongan) or Bodhisattva Resolve when he was a brahmin named Dharmakara. The power of the Hongan was established gradually through the long accumulation of merit performed by Dharmakara Bodhisattva. The Hongan, then, is viewed by Shinran as the grace of Amitabha Buddha itself by which beings are liberated. According to Shinran, only this reliance on the other-power (Japanese: tariki) of Amitabha Buddha is efficacious for achieving enlightenment.
      Nembutsu practice in accordance with the Hongan was understood in a new way by Shinran. Prior to Shinran, liberation was seen to occur as a result of the performance of the practice of the recitation of the Nembutsu; however, this understanding of the Nembutsu practice causes it to rely on self-power (Japanese: jiriki), and thus Shinran saw that it could not be effective. Shinran realized that the Nembutsu was identical with the Hongan itself so that, in fact, all practice is actually performed by Amitabha. Therefore, the Nembutsu symbolizes the non-duality of one’s desire for enlightenment and Amitabha Buddha’s ability to liberate one’s defiled mind. Since the teachings of Shinran rely completely on other-power for achieving liberation, there is said to be no attainment and no path. The moment of enlightenment is described as:

    “Sudden, in contrast to gradual;
    Crosswise, in contrast to lengthwise;
    Leaping across, in contrast to fording.”36

      This does not mean that nothing needs to be done, however, for the reality of sentient beings’ experience of suffering is not denied. What is denied is the efficacy of striving for a goal. Instead, what needs to be done is the “no-practice” which aims for “no-goal,” that is, an abiding in the mind of Amitabha Buddha.
      According to Shinran, the practices of striving towards a goal (i.e. the practices of the gradual enlightenment schools which rely on self-power) are an upaya for those whose karma is not properly prepared for the practice of Nembutsu. Thus Shinran speaks of the One-Vehicle, the Buddhayana, the Hongan. All other practices are said to prepare one karmically to engage in the Nembutsu, at which point, the self-manifestation of reality is said to occur spontaneously.
      In the Shin tradition, the element of faith mentioned earlier in relation to the doctrine of tathagatagarbha is reinterpreted as the total non-duality of Amitabha Buddha’s pure mind and the defiled mind of sentient beings. A notable feature of the Shin Buddhist enlightenment is its depiction as a sideways leap as opposed to a gradual progression forward. In the moment this leap occurs, the practitioner “does” nothing, in the sense that the karmic preparations have been made by the grace of Amitabha Buddha for the omnipresent Buddha-essence reality to self-manifest of its own power to the practitioner. The practitioner has not attained a goal; indeed, nothing at all has changed from the perspective of Buddha-nature.

Soto Zen
      The Tendai school of Buddhism taught the notion of original awakening (hongaku) as opposed to acquired awakening (shikaku). Original awakening is the doctrine stating that everyone is originally enlightened. Tendai Buddhism rejects the doctrine of acquired awakening at the level of the “perfect” or “round” teaching, which is said to be taught in the Nirvana and Lotus Sutras, because this doctrine necessarily implies that enlightenment can only be acquired as a result of a sustained practice.
      The young Dogen (1200-1253 C.E.), an important Zen Master in the Soto lineage, doubted the validity of the Tendai doctrine of original awakening. If all beings are endowed with Buddha nature and are originally awakened to their nature, then why should the longing for awakening arise in people, causing them to engage in religious practice and discipline? Indeed, why did the Buddhas engage in ascetic practice? However, as Dogen later realized, this line of questioning presupposes a conceptualization of Buddha nature as inherently existent and beyond the limitations of time and space. This is a different understanding of Buddha nature than that of Buddha nature as the ground of awakening for all sentient beings with resolve/practice being the indispensable condition or cause for awakening.37 However, the latter understanding of Buddha nature generates another question, that of how Buddha nature can be fundamental if it requires resolution/practice as a condition.
      With this dilemma seated squarely in his mind, Dogen set out to China where he studied under many teachers and practiced for many years before he overcame all idealization and conceptualization of the Buddha nature. It was at this time that Dogen made the famous statement, “The practice of Zen is body and mind casting off.” He realized that the Buddha nature is omnipresent in every being, but without practice it is not manifested, and without realization it is not attained.38 Thus, it can be said, that there is not the slightest gap between resolution, practice, enlightenment, and nirvana (i.e. practice and attainment are one). The relationship between practice and attainment is a dynamic one because the Buddha nature is not realized as the Buddha nature unless one becomes a Buddha, but at the same time only because one is already endowed with the Buddha nature can one become a Buddha. Therefore the realization of the Buddha nature and its attainment must occur simultaneously. Hence Dogen’s statement that one sits not to become Buddha but because one is Buddha already.
      Both attainment (i.e. enlightenment or the Buddha nature) and practice (i.e. discipline or becoming a Buddha) are indispensable. However, the former is the indispensable ground or basis whereas the latter is the indispensable cause or condition. In this sense, the irreversible distinction between them can be seen: attainment is more fundamental than practice but not the other way around. However, attainment is not something substantial or objectifiable. Therefore, by realizing the insubstantiality of its ground, practice as a condition is realized as something real in terms of the ground.39 By going beyond the irreversible relationship between attainment (Buddha nature) and practice (becoming a Buddha), these two aspects come to be seen in terms of a reversible identity.
      As can be seen here, in the Soto Zen tradition, the doctrine of tathagatagarbha is incorporated in a different way than in Shin. Grace is not central to the practice of Soto Zen as it is for the Shin tradition. Instead, the central practice which Soto Zen distilled from the Tendai tradition was that of zazen (i.e. sitting meditation). Through this practice, one potentiates the Buddha nature; thus, one does not actually attain anything, and Soto Zen can be said to share the goal of “no-goal” with Shin Buddhism. Soto Zen can also be said to share a practice of “no-practice” with Shin, for the practice of zazen is the dynamic abiding in the Buddha nature which is already present; nothing is cultivated or pursued in this practice.

Is the Gradual Teaching an Upaya?
      Having seen the different ways in which the Subitist schools incorporate the doctrine of tathagatagarbha, one is ready to return to the dilemma facing the Dzogchen school following the bSam-yas debate. Faced with the choice of adopting the gradual viewpoint or facing persecution, Dzogchen began to change the way in which it spoke of enlightenment. Later teachings taught that the “Great Perfection” was divided into three aspects: the base, the path, and the fruit. Although the Great Perfection is said, in fact, to be the “single great sphere,” the three aspects are spoken of for convenience.40 It seems quite possible that this adaptation developed to allow the Dzogchen school to clothe their Subitist teaching in a protective shell that appears to proclaim a gradual path. The path is spoken of as being a gradual one involving the development of the skills of meditation; however, it is also asserted that when the final stage is reached, the stages must be given up. Thus, the gradual path is taught as an upaya for the realization of an enlightenment which is ultimately sudden.
      If it is true that the Dzogchen school developed a form of gradual teaching as an upaya for their ultimate doctrine of sudden enlightenment because their sudden teaching had been misunderstood by the arbiters of the bSam-yas debate, then this creates interesting implications for the interpretation of the gradual teaching of the other Tibetan Buddhist schools. Is the situation faced by Dzogchen following the bSam-yas debate not fundamentally the same as that encountered by a Buddha who must explain enlightenment to beings who are not enlightened and who will not be able to understand what he knows? Is it possible that the gradual teaching as found in the other schools of Tantric Buddhism is also an upaya for an enlightenment which is ultimately sudden?
      To examine this possibility, it will be helpful to limit one’s analysis to one Tantric school and then to attempt to extrapolate any conclusions drawn to the other schools. The logical choice for this focus would be the Gelugpa school because it adheres most staunchly to the view of enlightenment as gradual. If it could be shown that the gradual teaching of the Gelugpa has elements of upaya in it, then it would be reasonable to suggest that the other schools do as well.
      It must be remembered that upaya refers to skillful means in teaching and to the need to tailor the teachings one offers in order to make them suitable for the particular inclinations and potentials of each individual. The notion of upaya arises from the view that the primary objective of Buddhist teaching is the transformation of consciousness as opposed to the transfer of information. Since reality is ultimately indescribable, attempts to convey it by transmitting information about it do not help the individual to directly grasp ultimate reality. In fact, the transmission of information without the intention of producing a transformation of consciousness which allows one to directly perceive ultimate reality for oneself can even be detrimental since it may cause the person to hold reified conceptual views. The most effective method of achieving a transformation, then, is to force the individual to abandon concepts and to reject their reified ideas.
      The Vajrayana claims to do this as shown by how it characterizes itself as “stopping ordinary perception.” The Vajrayana path claims to enable practitioners to view reality from “pure perspective.” At this level of perception, dualities are seen to be ultimately meaningless. Thus, although the Gelugpa proclaims the Vajrayana to be the supreme vehicle for realizing Buddhahood, at the highest levels of practice one is required not to discriminate between it and the other vehicles. Among the Root Tantric Vows taken by potential practitioners is the vow against “despising Sutrayana or making discriminations between Sutrayana teachings and Tantrayana teachings.”41 Violation of the Root Tantric Vows is said to result in one’s rebirth in the Vajra Hells.
      The fact that at the higher levels of practice one must not discriminate between the vehicles suggests that the Gelugpa teaching of the Vajrayana’s superiority must be taken as an upaya intended for those with lesser ability to grasp the true relation of the vehicles. Thus, when it is said by the Gelugpa school that the Hinayana, the Mahayana, and the Vajrayana correspond to increasingly advanced levels of practice through which practitioners progress as their understanding becomes more developed, this gradual teaching cannot be said to be true from the “pure perspective.” Therefore, one could argue that elements of Subitist thought are embedded in the upayic structure of the lam rim tradition.
      This creates an interesting parallel between the gradual and sudden traditions. It will be recalled that the Subitist schools assert the usefulness of the gradual path as an upaya for those who are not yet ready to enter upon the “no-practice” of direct perception of the ground of reality. This leads to the conclusion that the Triyana or other Buddhist divisions are not ultimately meaningful. In the Shin tradition, it is stated:

    “In the great vehicle, there are no ‘two vehicles’ or ‘three vehicles.’ The two vehicles and three vehicles lead one to enter the One Vehicle. The One Vehicle is the vehicle of the highest truth. There is no One Vehicle other than the Buddha-Vehicle, the Vow.”42

      This is very much like the Root Tantric Vow taken in the Vajrayana tradition in which making distinctions between the vehicles of Buddhism is repudiated at the level of pure perspective. Thus, the Subitist and the Gradualist schools are seen to share two common traits. Both utilize the teaching of the path as upaya which must finally be given up, and both teach that the many vehicles to lead to a state in which there is seen to be ultimately only the One Vehicle.

The bSam-yas Debate: Philosophical or Political Confrontation?
      The discovery of this partial philosophical congruence of the Gelugpa and Subitist schools leads one to wonder why the Subitist teachings were banished following the bSam-yas debate. Could there have been other political elements at work in Tibet during the time of increasing conflict between the Indian and Chinese masters? Is it possible that the bSam-yas debate represented a political victory for the lam rim schools more so than a philosophical one? Some credence is lent to this possibility when one examines the Gelugpa school more closely.
      Certain objections have been raised against the Gelugpa school by Stephen Batchelor following his eight-year training as a monk in that tradition suggesting that political forces may be deeply entrenched in the doctrines of the Gelugpa, preventing an honest and open exploration of the Dharma.43 According to Batchelor, reason is subordinate to faith in the Gelugpa tradition, and the tradition of debate, far from being an analysis of the truth or falsity of Buddhist and non-Buddhist propositions, is in fact merely a setting out to prove what one has already decided to believe.44 The “correct” conclusion to arrive at in any Gelugpa debate is inevitably the Prasangika-Madhyamika position; the weakness of the logic used in reaching this conclusion is not so important as the conclusion itself.
      It appears that once the Gelugpa tradition had decided upon the truth of Prasangika-Madhyamika philosophy, it thenceforth forthrightly rejected all other doctrines or assertions not belonging to that tradition. The doctrine of tathagatagarbha is a notable example of this tendency. In rejecting the tathagatagarbha doctrine, the Gelugpas may have believed it was aligned with the Subitists; however, it seems to be implied in the Tantric mandala visualizations of the Gelugpas themselves. The Tantric scriptures instruct the practitioner to cultivate an awareness of all aspects of reality as manifestations of the bodhisattvas. Thus, all sounds heard are to be perceived as emanations of the mantra of the deity, all physical objects are to be seen as manifestations of the mandala space, and all beings encountered are to be thought of as form bodies of the deity. This practice could clearly be interpreted in terms of the doctrine of tathagatagarbha as an awakening of one’s consciousness to perceive the Buddha nature which is present in every aspect of reality or to perceive the omnipresent and immanent mind of perfect purity of the early Dzogchen tradition.
      However, the Gelugpa tradition refutes any interpretation such as this which would suggest an affiliation with Subitist teachings. In addition, the Gelugpa sadhanas lack formless meditations, which are thought to be extremely important by other traditions in order for one to gain a solid understanding of emptiness. Such an understanding is crucial when performing deity yoga so that one intuitively bears in mind the emptiness of the visualized forms. Thus, formless shamatha (stabilization) meditation practice is an important prerequisite to Tantric practice in the Dzogchen and Kagyu traditions. However, since formless meditations were the methods employed by Subitist schools, the Gelugpas interpreted them to be highly suspect following the bSam-yas debate. Thus, the Gelugpas came to rely on debate instead of formless meditation to develop an understanding of emptiness. According to the Gelugpas, debate teaches the mind an intuitive insight into the emptiness of the forms visualized during the Tantric sadhanas.
      The Gelugpa school has been dominant in Tibetan Buddhism since the time of the Mongols and the third Dalai Lama, and its viewpoints have thus affected the other Tantric disciplines as well. However, the Kagyu tradition managed to preserve a relic of formless shamatha meditation. Following the mantra repetition section of its Tantric sadhanas, the Kagyu practitioner is instructed to let the mind rest in the mind. Although this practice appears to be influenced by the Subitist schools, it is possible that it escaped attention because it is located in the middle of the Kagyu sadhana. Based on this fact, the argument for the upayic nature of the gradual path teaching is even stronger in the Kagyu tradition than it is in the Gelugpa. In addition, the Kagyu tradition preserved the shamatha practice of breath counting as an important meditative training to be practiced before entering upon the Tantric path. For the Gelugpa, however, shamatha was reinterpreted not as the formless practice of stabilizing the mind on no object, but as the ability to stabilize the mind on the pure form of the mandala visualization. Thus, formless shamatha meditation has been lost from the Gelugpa tradition.

Conclusion: The Relation of Deity Yoga to Other Buddhist Schools
      This paper has explored the tensions between the deity yoga practices of the Vajrayana and the other schools of Buddhism. In responding to the objections of the Theravada school, it was seen that the presence of extra-samsaric elements within samsara is a concept that dates back to the earliest forms of primitive Buddhism which recorded the miraculous events of the Buddha’s lifetime and the mystical physical marks of the Buddha. In the end, many compatibilities can be seen between the Theravada and the Vajrayana traditions (e.g. between anatta and sunyata, between cittaprabhasa (shining mind) and clear mind, and between the dharmakaya and the notion of nirvana as omnipresent). However, the Theravada school might still maintain that the Tibetans have distorted these ideas too much.
      The later development of the doctrine of tathagatagarbha created an organized framework explaining how the extra-samsaric Buddha nature could be omnipresent and immanent within samsara. This doctrine led to the development of a variety of schools of Buddhism characterized by a teaching of enlightenment as a sudden awakening to this true nature. The attainment of this enlightenment is, in fact, “no-attainment” and the practice conditioning it is a “no-practice.” However, for those who are not karmically suited for this “no-practice,” the Subitists taught that the lam rim, or gradual path, practices involving the development of the compassionate bodhicitta and the practice of the perfections were helpful methods. The various vehicles, though, were all seen to feed into the One Vehicle, the Buddhayana.
      The Subitist schools which held these beliefs, such as those of Mo-ho-yen and early Dzogchen, began to experience tensions with the Gradualists who subscribed to the two truths of Madhyamika philosophy. The Gradualists held that the relationship between samsara and nirvana was not a monistic unity but a oneness of characteristics at the ultimate level only. The consequence of this viewpoint was the teaching of the path to be a gradual progression corresponding to the conventional nature of reality. However, at the level of ultimate reality, the Gradualists say that the stages have to be given up and discrimination between the vehicles must be stopped.
      Despite the many similarities between these viewpoints, tensions developed between the Subitists and the Gradualists, perhaps due to external political concerns. The bSam-yas debate was called to settle the dispute and resulted in the Subitist teaching being banned from Tibet. This appears to have resulted in the development of a Gelugpa tendency to compulsively adhere to the Prasangika-Madhyamika viewpoint and to deny any foundation of the Tantric practices in Subitist thought.
      The Dzogchen tradition, on the other hand, adopted an upayic shroud of lam rim teaching to conceal its Subitist teaching of the mind of perfect purity. It appears that the adaptation of the Dzogchen teachings can serve as a model by which to examine the other Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions. When this is done, it is seen that the other traditions fit within a similar framework comprised of all these elements. The practices of deity yoga share elements of Subitism and Gradualism with the Mahayana schools. Underlying the Tantric sadhanas, there appears to be a presupposition of the doctrine of tathagatagarbha, but at the same time, the sadhanas are rooted in the Madhyamika doctrine of the two truths which can also be seen in various teachings of the Mahayana schools. Finally, the practices of deity yoga and the teachings of the Mahayana schools reflect a non-dual view of the division of vehicles as being simultaneously a meaningful division and one which ultimately collapses into the One Vehicle.

References

      1 Bareau, André. “Buddhism, Schools of: Hinayana Buddhism” in Eliade, Mircea (editor). The Encyclopedia of Religion. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1987, Vol. 2, pp. 444-457.
      2 Sopa, Geshe Lhundub, Jackson, Roger, and Newman, John. The Wheel of Time: The Kalachakra in Context. Madison, Wisconsin: Deer Park Books, 1985, pp. 94-95.
      3 Batchelor, Stephen (editor). The Jewel in the Lotus: A Guide to the Buddhist Traditions of Tibet. London, England: Wisdom Publications, 1987, Ch. 3.
      4 Ibid., P. 196.
      5 Ibid., P. 198.
      6 Streng, Frederick J. Emptiness: A Study in Religious Meaning. Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 1967, P. 139.
      7 Batchelor, pp. 199-200.
      8 Inada, Kenneth K. Nagarjuna: A Translation of his Mulamadhyamakakarika with an Introductory Essay. Tokyo: The Hokuseido Press, 1970, P. 158.
      9 Ibid., P. 155.
      10 Williams, Paul. Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations. New York: Routledge, 1989, P. 96.
      11 Thurman, Robert. “Tathagata-garbha” in Eliade, Mircea (editor). The Encyclopedia of Religion. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1987, Vol. 14, P. 355.
      12 Williams., P. 101.
      13 H. H. the Dalai Lama, Tsong-ka-pa, and Hopkins, Jeffrey. Tantra in Tibet. Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 1977, pp. 115-116.
      14 Thurman, P. 354.
      15 This section is heavily indebted to Sopa, pp. 113-115.
      16 H. H. the Dalai Lama, P. 162.
      17 Sopa, pp. 120.
      18 Gómez, Luis O. “The Direct and Gradual Approaches of Zen Master Mahayana: Fragments of the Teachings of Mo-ho-yen” in Gimello, Robert M. and Gregory, Peter N. (editors). Studies in Ch’an and Hua-Yen. Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 1983, P. 70.
      19 Ibid., P. 71.
      20 Ibid., P. 76.
      21 Ibid., P. 93.
      22 Neumaier-Dargyay, E. K. The Sovereign All-Creating Mind--The Motherly Buddha: A Translation of the Kun byed rgyal po’i mdo. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1992, P. 4.
      23 Ibid., P. 51.
      24 Ibid., pp. 28-30.
      25 Phrin las is the Tibetan translation of the Sanskrit term sila, which is usually translated into English as ethics or conduct.
      26 Ibid., P. 73.
      27 Ibid., P. 28.
      28 Ibid., P. 30.
      29 Ibid., P. 31.
      30 Ibid., P. 125.
      31 Ibid., P. 164.
      32 Ibid., P. 167.
      33 Ibid., P. 108.
      34 Ibid., P. 141.
      35 Gómez, P. 71.
      36 Ueda Yoshifumi (editor). The True Teaching, Practice, and Realization of the Pure Land Way: A Translation of Shinran’s Kyogyoshinsho. Kyoto, Japan: Hongwanji International Center, 1983, Vol. 1, P. 135.
      37 Abe Masao. “The Oneness of Practice and Attainment: Implications for the Relation between Means and Ends” in LaFleur, William R. (editor). Dogen Studies. Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 1985, P. 101.
      38 Ibid., P. 102.
      39 Ibid., P. 106.
      40 “Bonpo Dzogchen” homepage of the Ligmincha Institute. http://www.comet.chv.va.us/ligmincha/educ/bondzog.htm
      41 “Kalachakra Initiation, Madison 1981.” Madison, Wisconsin: Deer Park, 1981, P. 76.
      42 Ueda, P. 148.
      43 See Batchelor, Stephen. The Faith to Doubt: Glimpses of Buddhist Uncertainty. Berkeley, California: Parallax Press, 1990.
      44 Ibid., P. 12.

Additional Bibliography

      Corless, Roger J. “Beginning at the End: ‘No-Practice’ in Shin and Early rDzogs Chen.” The Pure Land, 12, Dec. 1995, pp. 253-265.
      Corless, Roger J. The Vision of Buddhism. New York: Paragon House, 1989.
      Dge-’dun-grub, Dalai Lama I and Mullin, Glenn H. (translator). Selected Works of the Dalai Lama I: Bridging the Sutras and the Tantras. Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 1985.
      H. H. the Dalai Lama, Tsong-ka-pa, and Hopkins, Jeffrey. The Yoga of Tibet: The Great Exposition of Secret Mantra - 2 and 3. London, England: George Allen & Unwin, 1981.
      Hopkins, Jeffrey. The Tantric Distinction. London, England: Wisdom Publications, 1985.
      Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai Lama. Hopkins, Jeffrey (translator). Kalachakra Tantra Rite of Initiation, Revised Edition. London, England: Wisdom Publications, 1989.
      Shantideva, Acharya. Batchelor, Stephen (translator). A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. Dharamsala, India: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1981.

Author Note

      Brian T. Hafer, Department of Religion, Duke University.
      I thank Dr. Roger J. Corless for guidance in exploring this material, for reading the manusript, and for guidance in making revisions. This manuscript was written in partial fulfillment of the Latin honors thesis requirements of the Department of Religion.