THE SECRET MANUAL REVEALING THE INNERMOST NATURE OF SEEING REALITY OR THE SOURCE OF ALL ATTAINMENTS - 8
From the depth of my heart I bow with folded hands to and take refuge in the venerable Gurus of unbounded compassion, the great saint dbEn-sa-pa and his disciples as well as in their spiritual succession. I pray that I may be supported at all times by those who are full of love and compassion and that by their favour I may quickly become spiritually mature and free.
At this moment, when we have found a human life with its advantages and opportunities for enlightenment, so hard to find and so significant when found, the best means to make life worth-while is to exert ourselves by action suited to the winning of supreme enlightenment where all emotional states within us as well as their latent potentialities have been
completely eradicated. Moreover, it has been said that this world with its three spheres does not pass beyond a state of unsatisfactoriness and misery which is like tortures experienced when one falls naked into a pit of flames ; and that whatever appears now as bliss is but a fancy about it, because some previous unhappiness has subsided for the moment, and actually is not bliss. Therefore, unless we are able to conquer the emotional upsets they will dominate, and whatever we do will be dictated by them. Having come under the power of karmic acts and emotional states there is no independence left to us, and transitoriness is revealed in the momentary changes so that a person's mind is unable to find stability. Since to roam about powerless in Sarp.sara is the ultimate nature of
misery, we will be able to understand that Sarpsara is just misery when we start thinking as indicated above. The root of all misery in the world is the emotionally upsetting unrest within us, and its root is the belief-in-an-ens. This belief takes an appetitive object 1, though actually not existing, as existent and thereby becomes completely mixed up with it. As a matter of fact, since beginningless time our mind has fallen a prey to this straying mode of un-knowing and has developed the idea of an 'I' about the affect-arousing constituents of our being, be they single or assembled. Even in our dreams we have this idea of 'I', 'I'. It is therefore imperative to understand how, in thinking of the assemblage of the affect-arousing constituents as an 'I' due to the straying mode of our mind, this phenomenon of existing as such regarding the constituents has come about. Let us take an example. When at night by the light of a lamp we see the shadow of some sweepings we may have the illusion of a scorpion moving about and feel frightened. When we then examine the phenomenon we find that we do not feel that this is a creation of our mind 2, but that a fearful insect actually is moving towards us. When we cannot get rid of this illusion terror strikes us and unhappiness arises. Similarly, it has been said, through the power of karmic acts the idea of an 'I' regarding the affect-arousing constituents in their totality, though being a creation and projection of our mind, does not appear as such a creation but as if the 'I' comes from the constituents, plain and simple. Due to this illusion we develop various emotions such as love for ourselves and hatred towards others. Through these emotions we perform various actions and it is because of them we roam about in Sarpsara with :no independence left
1 Buddhism distinguishes between pure sensation, a situation where a certain sensum such as a coloured patch or a noise is intuitively apprehended but where there is no external reference, and an ordinary perceptual situation where, together with the intuitive apprehension of a sensum, certain emotions and feelings of expectation ('appetites') are excited, all of which enter into a specific kind of relation which gives the situation its external reference. C.D. Broad, The Mind and its Place in Nature, p. 215 speaks in this connection of the "quasi-Belief about the Sensum". The Buddhists call it an 'appetitive objective situation' where our expectations and our appetance combine.
2 'Creation', here, does not mean that something new (not existing before) is being projected, but that there is a cognitive union with the object that exists already which assimilates and reveals it as it already is but in the light of expectations. This peculiar process which does not happen in pure sensation, is described as 'the straying of the mind into the belief of things as existing in truth'. It is a deviation from that which is given actually.
to us and experience all sorts of misery. Thus, on the one hand, we must understand what is meant by the statement that in order to dispel this illusion or belief in a self, there must be an unbiased viewpoint and meditative practice, and on the other, we must remember the dictum that such an unbiased pure mode of seeing does not come about without smashing our emotions.
The method of dispelling this illusion is similar to the one given in the example above. When at night we have the illusion that there is a scorpion while there actually is none, and when with the help of a very bright lamp we search with our eyes open in order to see whether there is a scorpion or not, and when we have become certain that there is none, we are convinced that apart from the process of appearing due to un knowing there is really nothing whatsoever. By that time all the fears due to an illusion and all their attendant misery subside and become quiet by themselves. Similarly when, with the eye of knowledge aided by the light of the Guru's instruction, we investigate the illusion of the 'I', permeating the affect-arousing constituents of our being, we become certain that there is nothing as it appears and we are convinced that apart from the process of appearing due to un-knowing at that time there is actually nothing so to appear. This conviction is called the 'profound middle view'. When we have this outlook, all actions and emotive states such as love and hate instigated by this illusion of the belief in an 'I' as well as the misery generated by them, subside. While a man of keen intellect and with a previous disposition to such an outlook will gain it merely by recognizing this belief in an 'I' for what it is and as the root of Sarpsara, the logical refutation is as follows :
If this 'I' as conceived by a mind concerned with the 'I', 'I' exists with regard to the constituents of our being, it must be either identical with or different from them. There is no other alternative. If this 'I' is identical with the constituents it must be terminable because the constituents having come from father and mother are finally discarded at death. This mere 'I', however, has been interminable since beginningless time. The mind being concerned with the 'I' has continued to associate with a body since beginningless time due to the power of karmic acts. Having left one body it has taken up other ones. Since it has taken that body to be the 'I' it has through the power of this illusion taken each combination of the affect-arousing constituents as the 'I' and has roamed about in Sarpsara. Hence it is certain that the 'I' is not identical with the constituents. On the other hand, if the 'I' as it appears as 'I' is assumed to be different from the constituents, this cannot be the case because if
it existed apart from them it ought to be pointed out as 'this is the I' and, when the body is touched by fire and we have the feeling which we express by saying 'I feel the heat', then, if the 'I' and the body were different from each other there would be no necessity for the 'I' to be affected when the body is touched. For instance, since a pillar and a jug are two different things, the jug is not automatically touched when the pillar is. It is therefore an established fact that the 'I' as it appears in the belief in an 'I' is not something apart from the body. When we are thus certain that the 'I' is neither identical with nor different from the psycho-physical constituents we develop the firm conviction that apart from the process of appearing there is no entity whatsoever existing in truth.
Further, when a person suffering from jaundice sees a white conch as yellow, it is safe to say that the yellow is not in the conch but merely appears to be there due to the patient's affected vision. So, while due to our affliction by un-knowing we have the idea of an 'I' with regard to the psycho-physical constituents, we can be fully convinced and certain that there actually is nothing existing so in truth. Also in the case of other individuals the assemblage of a physical aspect, the flesh and the bones derived from the fertilizing and materiality-producing forces of father and mother, and a mental aspect, con sciousness, appear in various guises such as a human being, a donkey or a horse and so on, and we take it for granted that such and such an aggregate of aspects is a man or an animal without having the idea that this is but a projected creation of our mind's working. Since various emotions, such as love and hate, arise within us with reference to those aggregates and since karmic acts are accumulated and performed through them, this root of all appearance processes straying into the belief in concrete existence, must be eradicated inasmuch as it is the cause of all misery.
While we believe our projections to exist in truth, thinking that a certain aggregate of conditions is a man or taking a shadow of some sweepings as a scorpion or a distant scarecrow as a man, we must develop certainty by knowing that actually there is nothing existing in truth. In short, whatever comes before our senses does not exist in truth but appears to do so and is like a magic show; any assumption of that which is not something to be something is a form of bluff; the non-existence of any essence is like a bubble ; and the stray appearances due to sundry causes and conditions are like an echo. Again and again we have to develop this certainty by clearly and decidedly thinking that whatever appears 132 now does not exist in truth. To put it concisely once more, we have to win the certain knowlegde that there exists nothing in truth apart from all appearances being but a projection and creation by our mind. When we have won this certain knowledge that, although not existing in truth, the appearance of pleasure and sorrow, of good and evil, is due to various conditions such as karmic acts and emotional states, we can attempt the path which unites fitness of action and intelligence by relying on the fact that appearance and no-thing-ness are mutually compatible. To consolidate this conviction that by following this path the goal or the unity of the two patterns 1 will be achieved, is the very essence of practising the 'middle view'
Further, when we have convinced ourselves that whenever this idea of an 'I' arises regarding the psycho-physical constituents there is no reason to believe in them as an 'I' and to overevaluate them because this body, having been derived from father and mother, in the end will be discarded, we should settle our mind in a condition of seeing the existentiality of all that is. We should think that the virulent poison of hatred becomes utterly ineffective and in a moment turns into enlighten ment when, by dismissing our preoccupations with the body from our mind and turning then over to countless demons and evil spirits, these obnoxious elements merely smell and taste the blood and flesh while eagerly devouring it. Then we should become composed in a condition which is like the empty sky with nothing to be perceived because this mass of flesh and blood of our body has been eliminated. And when we arise out of this composure we should try to understand all that appears as delusive and errant. My Gurus have said that even if we think so once in a while, it needs great effort actually to repel the attack of evil spirits and in addition to destroy the belief in an 'I'.
When demoniac forces such as illness and others afflict the body we should utter the mantra phat and dismiss the idea of our body from our mind as if it had turned rotten. Our mind which then assumes the radiant and bliss-saturated form of Heruka, turns into an ocean of nectar when by the mantra Otfi a! hurtt the material body consisting of flesh and blood has been eliminated. By making this nectar available to all persons, ordinary and saintly, they will be honored by this oblation. Then we should think that at that very moment the beings of the six forms of
1 The cognitive pattern or Dharmakaya and the operational pattern in its division into being with others, Sambhogakaya, and being in the world, Nirmal).akaya. 2 On this term see note 3, p. 106.
life 1, the demons and evil spirits and others, have been satisfied by the taste of this nectar and that as soon as it permeates us, all emotional upsets together with their latent potentialities become purified by being awakened to enlightenment in the reality of Heruka. vVe should thr.n experience a strong feeling of joy in thinking that our goal will be achieved because the whole of Sap.sara becomes empty when we think of i he world as a divine realm and thus both the world and the beings in it become transfigured and pure. This whole vision gathers in a brilliant light and dissolves in us. We ourselves dissolve in light which then gather::; in the heart-region and becomes translucent like empty space with nothing appearing in it. Then certain of the previously developed unbiased outlook, our mind, radiant in a co-emergent awareness which itself is great bliss, takes no-thing-ness, the existentiality of all that is, as its objective reference. This experience must be taken hold of. When we come out of this composure we should have the implicit faith that this awareness in which bliss and no-thing-ness are individible, being
motility and mentation, will rise in the shape of the male-female Heruka, and we should feel intensely proud that we are this co-emergent great bliss-awareness of all Buddhas that thus rises in an operational pattern. Heruka is the symbol for co-emergent bliss-awareness and his spouse, theyogini, is the symbol for existentiality or no-thing-ness 2• The meaning of the union with the Female in close embrace is that our mind, coemergent great bliss-awareness, has become of one value with and insepa
rable from existentiality or no-thing-ness. By being conversant with this symbolism our mind, becoming great bliss, can concentrate on existentiality, no-thing-ness. When we arise out of this state we must think of all that appears as a divine pattern and in addition that it is our mind, the awareness of no-thing-ness in bliss, that rises in this divine shape. To put it concisely, we must disengage ourselves from wordly affairs by thinking that in this world there is nothing to be relied upon and that we, each for himself, must strive to become able to deliver all beings who are like our aged mother. For this purpose we must develop an enlightened attitude which is the thought that we certainly will reach the citadel of Buddhahood, and then we must develop a middle view and become convinced that our mind is of the nature of great bliss by thinking that
1 Men, gods, demons, animals, spirits, and denizens of hell. 2 It is important to note that there is no swalling up into an Absolute. The cognitive situation remains relational and intentional in structure.
all appearances are but the projections of our mind and that there is nothing existing in truth 1. If there is any appearance it will be our mind rising in the shape of Heruka in Male-Female form, and again and again we must think that the whole world and its inhabitants are pure and in a state of transfiguration.
This method, or the essence of the ocean of the Guhyamantra, realized by the saint dbEn-sa-pa and his disciples, is more secret than secret. However, I have written it down in a few words as clearly as possible.
May I ever be watched over until I am enlightened By the venerable Gurus, gracious beyond compare,
Who embody the Compassion of all Buddhas And as lords protect us pitiable people.
May I be favoured to expel from my heart the foe,
