The Path in Action Tantra: Divine Body
In order to appreciate how tantric systems could possibly claim to bring about radical purification of defilement, it is necessary to comprehend the full breadth of the path that deity yoga encompasses. Tantric practices came to be absorbed in a highly systematized culture of internal development that reached acmes of development in Tibet and Japan, and since we are concerned with claims of efficacy, in this chapter we will continue the examination, begun in chapter two, of a highly developed tradition within Tibetan Buddhism.
Research into the historical origins of such systems would take us in a different direction that in the end would indeed enrich our understanding of the meditative cultivation that is our focus, but, in the infant stage of knowledge of these traditions outside of Asia, each inquiry must define its own field in order to avoid attempting too much and achieving nothing. Thus, here we shall not be looking backward to origins but will examine a path-structure within a
developed tradition. To do this, the context of a spiritual pathstructure that, within Tibet, provides the background for appreciating the significance of these practices must be made explicit. To accomplish this, I will synthesize these elements, not out of the arrogance of assuming possession of an all-encompassing, superior perspective but with considerable trepidation at attempting to communicate a meaningful portion of a highly complex, multifaceted spiritual culture that provides a context of reverberation of nuance and value.
Deity yoga in Action Tantra is not just imagination of oneself as an ideal being but, as was mentioned briefly at the beginning of chapter two, is organized in an increasingly profound series of multiphased meditations called the meditative stabilizations of exalted body, speech, and mind. Imagination of oneself as a deity (described in chapter two) is the heart of the first of these, the meditative stabilization of exalted body. One of the problems in understanding the steps of these meditations is that there exists a plethora of vocabulary for the stages of the path even just in Action Tantra that must have developed over
centuries and was co-opted and amalgamated under a single system. For instance, mention has been made of the meditative stabilizations of exalted body, speech, and mind which provide a basic framework for the entire path, but another framework, “concentration with repetition [of mantra]” and “concentration without repetition [of mantra]” is also used. One would expect that repetition of mantra would be confined to the meditative stabilization of exalted speech and that “concentration without repetition [of mantra]” would not involve mantra sounds, but neither of these seemingly innocuous assumptions is true, as will be detailed below.
Also, how do these rubrics fit together with other ones such as the cultivation of calm abiding and special insight? Or yoga with signs and yoga without signs? Or prior approximation, effecting achievement of feats, and activities? Or the five paths and ten grounds? These sets of vocabulary, which seldom involve equivalent terms, offer a variety of intertwining approaches for viewing the path of Action Tantra that enrich and foster appreciation of its complex structure. By immersing ourselves in the detail of this path with its intricate and overlapping terminology, the boundaries of which are often in question,a we will advance discussion of the issues raised at the end of the last chapter.
As sources for an exposition of Action Tantra, I am primarily using texts stemming from the delineation of the path of Action Tantra found in Tsong-kha-pa’s Great Exposition of Secret Mantra. There, he presents the general mode of procedure of Action Tantra, applicable to deities of all three Action Tantra lineages—One-GoneThus, lotus, and vajra. This division into general and specific modes of procedure mirrors a division of the tantras in this class into two types, general ones that present the path and surrounding activities in a manner that is suitable for all three lineages and specific ones that are concerned with a particular deity and lineage.
Tsong-kha-pa draws his exposition of the general meditation from what his student Ke-drupb identifies as the four general Action Tantras—the General Secret Tantra,c the Questions of Subāhu Tantra,d
For a chart of this Action Tantra meditation as well as a meditation manual extracted from Tsong-kha-pa’s text see chapter 7. b Lessing and Wayman, Mkhas Grub Rje’s Fundamentals of the Buddhist Tantras, 134.23. Ke-drup reports that the list is in terms of their respective lengths, the first being the longest.
c spyi’i cho ga gsang ba’i rgyud, sāmānyavidhīnām guhyatantra; P429, vol. 9. d dpung bzang gis zhus pa’i rgyud, subāhuparipṛcchātantra; P428, vol. 9.
the Susiddhi Tantra,a and the Concentration Continuation Tantra.b As the late-fifteenth- and early-sixteenth-century Ge-luk scholar Paṇchen Sö-nam-drak-pac says:d
[The Action Tantras of the three lineages in general] are the General Secret Tantra, the Susiddhi, the Questions of Subāhu, and the Concentration Continuation. The first of these teaches the maṇḍala rites of Action Tantra in general, ranging from the rite for the place [where initiation will be conferred] through the bestowal of initiation. It also sets forth the three thousand five hundred maṇḍalas related with the three lineages.
The Susiddhi Tantra teaches the approximation and the achievement related with the fierce Susiddhi, the details of his activities, and those topics in the presentation of initiation in the General Secret Tantra that need supplement. The Questions of Subāhu teaches the measure of [having completed] approximation of the deities indicated in the General Secret Tantra and the Susiddhi as well as how to achieve limitless activities.
The Action Tantra Concentration Continuation teaches the mode of progressing on the paths in Action Tantra in general—the concentrations of the four branches of repetition, abiding in fire, abiding in sound, and bestowing liberation at the end of sound as well as what to do before and after those, rites for [achieving] yogic feats, rites of burnt offering, how to practice, in what sort of place, and so forth. Tsong-kha-pa briefly cites the General Secret Tantra in connection with initiation, which is the main topic of that tantra, and cites the Questions of Subāhu only a few times—with regard to how to repeat mantra, qualities of calm abiding, and achieving feats—but his presentation is mainly structured around copious usage, cited and
a legs grub kyi rgyud, susiddhitantra; P431, vol. 9.
b bsam gtan phyi ma rim par phye pa, dhyānottarapaṭalakrama; P430, vol. 9.
c paṇ chen bsod nams grags pa, 1478-1554.
d Presentation of the General Tantra Sets: Captivating the Minds of the Fortunate (rgyud sde spyi’i rnam par bzhag pa skal bzang gi yid ’phrog), as cited in Deity Yoga, 246-247.
See also the translation in Panchen Sonam Dragpa, Overview of Buddhist Tantra, trans. by Martin J. Boord and Losang Norbu Tsonawa (Dharmsala, India: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1996), 28-29. uncited, of the Concentration Continuation and the Susiddhi, with their commentaries by Buddhaguhyaa and Varabodhib respectively. The Concentration Continuation and Buddhaguhya’s commentary present the actual meditations very clearly but do not detail the preliminary rites, the pledges, and so forth, which Tsong-kha-pa takes from the Susiddhi and Varabodhi’s formulation of it into a daily practice rite called a “means of achievement.”c Almost all of Tsongkha-pa’s presentation can be found in these two tantras and two commentaries. His creative innovation was to interweave them into a complete system of practice of this class of Tantra.
Structure of the Action Tantra path
The practice of deity yoga is employed in order to become close to, or approximate, the state of a deity—a pure, ideal being—and hence it is found, but not exclusively, in a phase called “prior approximation”d within the triad of prior approximation, effecting achievement of feats, and activities. “Prior approximation” is a prerequisite to techniques, such as making offerings in fire or performing special series of repetitions of mantra, to induce achievement of unusual yogic feats.e These feats are in three categories:
1. pacification g such as avoiding untimely death, illnesses, epidemics, harmful influences, and contagion
2. increase h such as lengthening life span, youth, magnificence, power, qualities of realization, and resources
3. ferocity i such as killing, expelling, or confusing harmful beings.
These accomplishments—which also include clairvoyance, the
sangs rgyas gsang ba; eighth century. His commentary is bsam gtan phyi ma rim par
phye ba rgya cher bshad pa, dhyānottarapaṭalaṭīkā; P3495, vol. 78. b In Tibetan, his name is usually byang chub mchog, but Dül-dzin-drak-pa-gyel-tsen calls him ye shes mchog. Also called Vilāsavajra, he flourished in roughly the same period as Buddhaguhya, the eighth century, and his commentary is legs par grub par byed pa’i sgrub pa’i thabs bsdus pa, susiddhikarasādhanasaṃgraha; P3890, vol. 79.
c sgrub thabs, sādhana. d sngon du bsnyen pa.
e dngos grub, siddhi.
Deity Yoga, 174. g zhi ba. h rgyas pa.
capacity to understand all treatises immediately upon reading them, and so forth—are sought in order to enhance the power of the yoga that comprises prior approximation. Thus, although the triad of prior approximation, effecting achievement of feats, and engaging in altruistic activities suggests a movement from the first to the last, the yoga that constitutes the first phase is the most important. The feats that allow a practitioner to perform special activities for the benefit of others bring about merit that further enhances the capacity of this same yoga so that Buddhahood can be achieved. Let us turn to the many steps of the yoga of prior approximation.
Prior approximation
As Tsong-kha-pa’s student Ke-drup clearly says in his Extensive Explanation of the Format of the General Tantra Sets, the phase of prior approximation is divided into two parts—concentration with repetition and concentration without repetition. The first also is called the “four-branched repetition,” the four branches being (1) imagination of a deity in front of oneself, (2) imagination of oneself as a deity, (3) imagination of a moon disc sometimes at the heart of the deity in front and sometimes at one’s own heart, and (4) imagination of the written letters of the mantra, set upright around the edge of the moon disc. Repetition of mantra is eventually performed within constant maintenance of these four elements, and thus the entire first phase, much of which does not involve repetition of mantra, is called the “four-branched repetition.”
The concentration with repetition is preceded by many activities that serve as preparations for it, conveniently included within the concentration with repetition by dividing it into two parts— preliminaries and the actual four-branched repetition. Since the actual yoga is our main concern, the preliminaries will be discussed only briefly here.
Preliminaries to concentration with repetition
The preliminaries are in four parts, concerned with establishing the motivational and the physical context in which the yoga will be conducted. They precede imagination of a deity in front of oneself and involve extensive preparation for the visit of a deity, who is treated like a guest. Practitioners establish themselves in humility, altruism, self-sacrifice, and pure perception in the first phase and then bathe and enter the sacred place of yoga. Offerings are
cleansed of obstructors (including autonomous complexes) and then blessed into a state of magnificence. The practitioners themselves as well as the place are similarly protected from the interfering influence of obstructors. The overall structure is that first mostly mental adjustments in motivation, attitude, and perception are made, after which external adjustments, enacted both physically and mentally, are taken.
Tantric systems often treat as external forces what many other psychologies would consider internal; in Jungian terms, the wisdom behind this tantric externalization is that autonomous complexes are thereby confronted in a manner preventing identification with them and thus being overpowered by them. Also, the contemporary psychological exaggeration in which complexes are considered to be “mine” as if they were somehow within one’s sphere of control becomes
impossible. On the negative side, excessive projection onto the environment could lead to misidentifying as external the source of what are actually internal problems with the result that one becomes paranoically concerned with outside forces—be these beings on a different plane or just other people in one’s environment—which are actually projections of one’s own afflictive emotions. Indeed, some practitioners seem caught in a process of external projection that
they seek to relieve through the performance of rites. Still, I do not want to fall into the arrogance of the assumption that only projection is involved; I by no means feel justified in assuming that there are not harmful (or helpful) external entities on a subtle level.
Let us list the preliminaries to concentration with repetition:
What to do initially in the place of dwelling
Making the seal and reciting the mantra of the general lineage
Homage to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas
Offering oneself
Refuge and altruistic mind generation
Protection through mantra and seal
Reflection on purity
Going outside
How to bathe outside and enter the place of practice
Bathing
Picking up earth
Self-protection
Expelling obstructors in the body
Creating vajra armor
Dispelling obstructors
Mantrafying the earth
Ablution
Protecting and tying up the hair
Mantrafying, circling, and rubbing earth on the body
Stirring the water
Offering to the Three Jewels
Pouring water on the head
Inviting the deity and bathing his/her body
Entering the temple and engaging in the pledges
Having dressed and sat on the cushion, blessing the offerings
Removing contamination
Sprinkling the cushion and sitting
Putting on the circlet, kusha grass sprinkler, head binder, and image of the crown protrusion
Dispelling obstructors
Generating magnificence
Protecting oneself and the place
Self-protection
Making a seal and reciting a mantra for expelling obstructors in the body
Repeating the mantra for all activities into scented water and sprinkling it on yourself, dispelling obstructors
Place-protection
Sprinkling
Creating the ritual dagger
Fumigating
Binding obstructors
Creating a fence
Creating a latticework
Closing off the area
Many of the steps are concerned with cleansing the environment and oneself of “obstructors”—these being protection through mantra and seal, self-protection, expelling obstructors in the body, creating vajra armor, dispelling obstructors, removing contamination, again dispelling obstructors, self-protection, and the seven steps of place-protection. The number of times that such rituals are performed suggests that we live in a world bombarded with counterproductive forces,
whether their source be external or internal, and that ordinary life is buffeted and swayed by them. When these are understood to include autonomous complexes (as I think they should be), the picture is of a mind subject to a continuous barrage of influences of its own making, much like Freud’s depiction of the unconscious as a seething cauldron of repressed impulses seeking expression, necessary to be held in check, constantly afflicting one’s perceptions and interactions but, for the most part, working unseen havoc. The practitioners themselves, their place of practice, the water with which they bathe, the dirt (like a soap) they use to wash their bodies, their hair, the deity to be invited, and the offerings to be given to the deity are cleansed of the contamination of these forces. At the end of the preparations, all obstructors in the area are bound, and then in what would be redundant were it not for the near uncontrollability of such contents (remember Jung’s reference to their “impishness”), a fence is erected to keep out obstructors. This not being enough, a roof
of interlaced vajras is erected on the fence, and a blazing mass of fire outside all of this closes off the area. Now that elements causing interference and interruption have been put at bay, the meditation can begin.
It is said that on the night before the dawn of his enlightenment Shākyamuni Buddha conquered with the meditative stabilization of love a host of demons, attractive and unattractive, that appeared to him. At this point in tantric meditation, however, a massive defense-structure to keep demons away is erected, albeit within a motivation of love and compassion. Perhaps these defenses are used to create a space in which a basically diseased mind can begin to create
positive mental forces, but it is also possible that they are used within a context of projection and denial and are aimed at forestalling recognition of their origin within oneself. It is not difficult to imagine that someone attempting this yoga could become a rather nasty person to live with, constantly projecting inner impulses onto the environment and fighting against others in order to ward off evil forces that actually are that person’s own afflictive emotions.
Still, the quasi-otherness with which these forces are treated constitutes recognition that despite the basic Buddhist doctrine that contamination is from within, the extent of this contamination is so great, so difficult to face, so intimately associated with our being and, when it becomes close to consciousness, so liable to overpower the personality, that it is necessary to treat them under the guise of otherness. Earlier, we saw how Jung’s descriptions
of the problems attendant upon inflation revealed the enormity of the enterprise of deity yoga; here, from within this traditional system itself, we gain a sense of the condition of the ordinary mind as swamped in a sea of karmically created forces. Again, a picture of the enormity of the task of purification that is at the heart of deity yoga is painted.
Actual concentration with repetition
“Concentration with repetition” refers to meditation that eventually involves repetition of mantra but does not necessarily do so at all times. Repetition is performed within continuous and intense concentration on oneself as a deity and a similar deity in front of oneself. As was mentioned earlier, it is called “four-branched” because it requires maintenance of four factors:
1. imagination of a deity in front of oneself, called “other-base”
2. imagination of oneself as a deity, called “self-base”
3. imagination of a moon disc sometimes at the heart of the deity in front and sometimes at one’s own heart, called “mind”
4. imagination of the written letters of the mantra, set upright around the edge of the moon disc, called “sound.”
The forms of the mantra letters standing around the edge of the moon are not sounds but are called “sound.” The Action Tantra that Buddhaguhya uses as the prime source for the mode of meditation, the Concentration Continuation (which Ke-drupa says is called this because it is a continuation of or supplement to the Action Tantra called the Vajroṣhṇīṣha),b refers to these four by condensing the two
Lessing and Wayman, Mkhas Grub Rje’s Fundamentals of the Buddhist Tantras, 136.18. b Buddhaguhya (P3495, vol. 78, 73.2.5) also says that it is called “Concentration Continuation” because of presenting the later concentrations, that is, those following the initial practices explained earlier in the Vajroṣhṇīṣha (rdo rje gtsug tor gyi rgyud). Thus, in my translation of the title, the word “Continuation” can refer either to
“bases” into one and reversing their order, most likely for the sake of euphony: “Flow to sound, mind, and base.”a The Concentration Continuation itself does not explain what these four are, since they were explained earlier in the Vajroṣhṇīṣha Tantra (which is no longer extant in the original and was not translated into Tibetan but is known through Buddhaguhya’s commentary on the Concentration
Continuation). As Buddhaguhya says:
The characteristics of the branches of repetition and so forth, such as sound, mind, and base, are not explained here because they were explained in this Tantra [the Vajroṣhṇīṣha] at the beginning. The characteristics that were explained there are these: “Sound” is [the forms of ] mantra letters. “Mind” is the manifestation of a moon disc that is the base of the mantra. One “base” is the entity of a One-Gone-Thus’s body. The second base is one’s own [[[appearance]] in the] form of a deity.
The same format of four branches is used in what has come to be considered the chief Performance Tantra, the Vairochanābhisambodhi:c “Letter” is the mind of enlightenment [appearing as a moon].
The second [“letters”] are called “sounds” [the forms of the letters on the moon].
“Base” is to imagine one’s own body As that of one’s deity.
That called the second base
Is a perfect Buddha [[[imagined]]
this tantra’s being a continuation of the earlier tantra or to the concentrations that are continuations of those explained in the earlier tantra; the two meanings are indeed compatible. According to the latter etymology, it could be translated as the “Later Concentrations.” As Buddhaguhya says (Deity Yoga, 55), the Vajroṣhṇīṣha explains the four branches, and the Concentration Continuation explains the remaining steps.
sgra dang sems dang gzhi la gzhol; P430, vol. 9, 55.3.4. Buddhaguhya’s commentary is P3495, vol. 78, 73.2.7 and 73.4.1. In Deity Yoga (55 and 141), I have made the line more accessible by translating it in the order of meditation, “Flow to the bases, mind, and sound.”
Ibid., 56 and 192. Buddhaguhya cites the passage in his commentary on the Concentration Continuation, P3495, vol. 78, 73.3.3. In front], the best of the two-legged.
The deity imagined in front and the deity as whom one imagines oneself are called “bases” because they are the places where the mantra letters are imagined on a moon disc—they are bases for the moon and the mantra letters.
When the central activity is meditation, the imagination of a deity in front is performed first, at least by beginners. This is because it involves a variety of activities related with inviting the deity and thus would be distracting to one-pointed meditation on one’s own divine body that is to be done within stopping even the breath.a As the Concentration Continuation Tantra says:
The intelligent who dwell in yoga
Contemplate the presence of a One-Gone-to-Blissc Only having first made offerings To the image of a deity’s body.
First, offerings and so forth are made to a deity imagined in front of oneself, and then one meditatively imagines oneself to be a deity, that is to say, contemplates oneself as being a Buddha. “Offerings” are just illustrative; all of the other preliminary practices are to be done prior to self-generation by those “intelligent,” that is to say, competent, practitioners who are fully capable of deity yoga
First branch: other-base—a deity in front
A principal reason for inviting a deity is to serve as a recipient of virtuous activities such as making offerings, praising, and worshipping the deity as well as to witness the virtuous activity of one’s cultivating an altruistic attitude. Thus, the external deity—not oneself imagined as a deity—is called a field, or basis, for the accumulation of merit, that is to say, a context for the development of internal power producing beneficent effects. A basic Buddhist perspective is that all pleasurable and painful circumstances and feelings are produced through the force of internal potencies established by former actions; here one is exerting influence on one’s own future experiences by intentionally engaging in positive activities of body,
a Tsong-kha-pa’s explanation in Deity Yoga, 113. b Stanza 8; P430, vol. 9, 53.3.2; see Deity Yoga, 103. c bde bar gshegs pa, sugata. d In Deity Yoga, this stage is described on 19-20, 115-138, and 215.
speech, and mind. To heighten the force of these activities, one imagines that they are done in the presence of a divine being, the enhanced force probably coming both from increased attention (such as when receiving a high official) and also from the fact that the deity subsists in accordance with reality, and thus the deity’s existence is founded, not on the distortions of desire, hatred, and ignorance, but on wisdom and compassion. Also, imagining a deity separate from oneself aids in the process of imagining oneself with divine body, speech, and mind, much as merely perceiving our companions (or actors in a movie) has an influence on how we perceive ourselves.
Neither the Concentration Continuation Tantra nor Buddhaguhya’s commentary on it describe the practices involved in imagining a deity in front of oneself; therefore, Tsong-kha-pa draws his explanation of these from the Susiddhi Tantra and Varabodhi’s formulation of it into a rite of daily practice called a Means of Achievement.
Imagining a divine residence.b The deity will arrive with his or her own palace magically coming together with the resident, but one imagines such a residence in front of oneself into which the actual palace of the deity will merge when the deity arrives. To help in imagining the residence and the deity, practitioners often hang up a painting or set up a statue in front of their place of meditation. They meditate on emptiness and then imagine that all the features of the divine residence appear from within emptiness.
The divine residence is not just a palace but also a land of jewels of cosmic proportions covered with grains of gold, in the middle of which is an ocean, white like milk, adorned with flowers. Birds that are as if made of jewels fly over the ocean. In the middle of the ocean is the great square Mount Meru with stairs on all four sides, made respectively of gold, silver, sapphire, and topaz. The mountain is covered with wish-granting trees, themselves adorned with
thousands of flapping victory banners. On top of the mountain is a huge lotus—its stalk adorned with jewels, petals made of jewels, a gold corolla, and topaz anthers. On the lotus is an empty inestimable mansion, a palace imagined either as appearing together with the land and so forth, or as emerging from the transformation of the Sanskrit syllable bhrūṃ, standing upright in the middle of the lotus. In the middle of the palace is another lotus, this one serving as a seat for the deity, yet to appear. Instantaneously, a huge canopy appears over the palace.
If done sequentially, practitioners imagine this grand setting in four phases—first the ground, then the ocean with flowers and birds, then the mountain with lotus and residence, and finally the canopy. After the first three phases, the practitioner makes what have been imagined more magnificent by blessing them with mantra—oṃ calavī hūṃ svāhā recited once for the ground, oṃ vimaladhaha hūṃ recited once for the ocean with flowers and birds, and namaḥ sarvatathāgatānāṃ sarvathā udgate spharaṇahimaṃ gaganakhaṃ svāhā recited a hundred times for the mountain with lotus and residence. With the mantra recitation, the objects imagined become even brighter. (One need only do this to recognize its value as a technique for enhancing visualization.)
From a Jungian point of view, practitioners are being asked to utilize not creative imagination but the results of another person’s creative imagination, in which a certain visionary content has appeared, reflecting that person’s own psychic situationality. The effectiveness of the visualization could be questioned from the viewpoint that it does not allow a meditator to develop his or her own particular expressiveness, essential to unlocking the passageway to deeper
layers of mind. This qualm is difficult to answer, but it seems to me that this type of meditation with its grand dimensions, its reliance on basic elements—land, ocean, mountain, flower, and palace—as well the richness of imagery ranging from its size to the substances are evocative of basic psychic forms, archetypes. Also, there is room for much personal adaptation of the imagery, but indeed not of the basic variety that Jung’s depiction of creative imagination would yield.
The formality of this Action Tantra system of meditation also stands in stark contrast to the Nying-ma practice of the Great Completeness in which, in a phase called “spontaneity,” the mind is allowed to display appearance upon appearance to the point where, as the Nying-ma lama Khetsun Sangpo said, the whole cosmos becomes like a giant movie screen. Though this Nying-ma practice has similarities with Jungian creative imagination, it is markedly different in that the
meditator is not seeking to become involved in the imagery but is, instead, using the practice to allow the latent fecundity of the mind to develop in manifest form. The aim is to bring this display of appearances to its fullest peak by not getting involved with it, after which the display naturally subsides, leaving direct perception of reality. The meditator of the Great Completeness is looking not for a central image to develop as in creative imagination but for the imagistic power of the mind to completely ripen into manifest perception of the the noumenon (ultimate reality). Here in Action Tantra visualization practices, on the other hand, the mind is being gradually opened to new levels through systematically proceeding through carefully framed steps.
Inviting the deity. The meditator has previously prepared an oblation, like a drink to be offered a visitor; the substance of the vessel (gold, silver, stone, wood, and so forth) and the contents (barley and milk, sesame and yogurt, cow urine and rice, and so forth) are determined by the feat that one is seeking to receive from the deity after completing the meditations. Now the practitioner blesses the oblation into a magnificent state and is ready to invite the deity.
In his commentary on Tsong-kha-pa’s text, the Dalai Lamab explains that form bodies of Buddhas can appear instantaneously to a faithful person and thus do not have to come from one place to another but that for persons bound by the conception of inherent existence it is helpful to imagine inviting a deity from a Pure Land and to treat the deity in a manner modeled after the reception of a special visitor. That actual divine beings can appear anywhere at any time suggests
that our minds are closed—by the conception that objects exist solidly from their own side—to the fecundity of reality, that we are bound, closed, and shut off from the richness of our own situation. In the process of breaking out of the prison of oversolidified conception, we may need to use the rules of the confines, inviting a deity to come, with palace and full retinue filling space, from a distant land.
The invitation is done through making a beckoning gesture with the hands, called a “seal of invitation” (such gestures are called “seals” most likely because, like a seal that guarantees a promise, they do not deviate from their specific symbolization, which in this case is to invite the deity). The practitioner says:
Due to my faith and [your compassionate] pledges Come here, come here, O Supramundane Victor. Accepting this oblation of mine, Be pleased with me through this offering.
A mantra appropriate to the invited deity is recited, and the practitioner assumes a posture corresponding to that of the deity— standing, sitting, bent to one side, and so on—and holds up the oblation to entice the deity to come. If the proper ingredients have not been obtained, the practitioner begs the deity’s pardon, much as we do when we have not been able to provide the full complement of food and drink at a dinner party.
The deity arrives and is offered a seat either with the appropriate hand-gesture and mantra or by reciting:b It is good that the compassionate Supramundane Victor has come.
I am meritorious and fortunate.
Taking my oblation,
Please pay heed
[To me] and grant [my request].
The guest is clearly not an equal but a superior powerful being who can grant favors. Practitioners curry favor with the deity, who is an appearance of a superior level of their own minds projected externally. That such projective techniques are used indicates the difficulty of achieving enlightenment—that the conscious mind must be manipulated out of its adherence to a limited state.
Displaying hand-gestures. The mind has been heightened through imagining the arrival of an ideal being, and it is probably for the sake of making this firm that the practitioner now recites once the mantra śaṃkare samaye svāhā, displaying the pledge vajra seal and then the hand-gesture appropriate to the lineage of the practitioner along with the lineage essence-mantra—jinajik for the One-GoneThus lineage, ārolik for the lotus lineage, and vajradhṛk for the vajra lineage, the three lineages corresponding to three levels of practitioners. The hand-gestures at this point seem a bit like the private handshakes of fraternal clubs, indicating recognition of the other person and identifying oneself as being of the same club, as well as being means of keeping interlopers away.
The invitation to a divine being has provided an avenue for the practitioner to come into contact with positive forces deep in his or her mind, but it also has opened the way for obstructive contents to appear; so, one drives them away by circling the great pledge handgesture of one’s lineage. As Tsong-kha-pa says: This is said to afford great protection from all evil deeds by obstructors who arrive after [the achievement of deities due to one’s own karma and conceptions], and so forth. That when one’s mind has become opened, both greater good and greater evil arrive suggests that a prime reason for an ordinary person’s being shut off from the amazing potential of the mind is that we employ dullness as a defense mechanism to keep evil tendencies at bay. We are locked within a stultified mode of operation of mind, not just out of inattention to our potential but out of fear and a need to control forces lurking within.
Here in this ritual, by imagining a pure being the current psychological system-level is enlarged; a higher system-level is tapped, requiring a different type of defense against corresponding forces of evil. This is the problem with gradualistic expansion and development; it is not a mere adjustment of perceptions but an opening up of previously unused layers of mind not under one’s control; one arrives like a vassal in a kingdom with new and different rulers. Unlike the
manifestation of the fundamental innate mind of clear light in Highest Yoga Mantra which is beyond the combat between good and evil and which itself is the resolution of all conflict, the gradualistic opening up of the mind toward that level (for those who cannot immediately manifest the most profound level of mind) requires that the present system-level become gradually re-educated and re-organized in order to handle the forces unleashed with each enhancement. As the tantric abbot Ngawang Lekdenb put it, “With each advancement, there is a corresponding strengthening of bad forces.”
Offering to the deity. Not only is evil thwarted with various techniques, but also the good is reinforced with devotional acts. Offerings are presented, most likely to strengthen one’s commitment to the right and the pure through committing resources to it.
The practitioner rids the offerings of obstructors, cleanses them, and blesses them into a magnificent state, these ritual activities again suggesting that objects of common perception are overlain with autonomous images obstructing perception of their actual nature. The false solidity of objects into which our perceptions are mired is composed of imagistic overlays incited by correspondences with past perceptions and eliciting places for suppressed and repressed
contents to find expression. The ritual removal of these encrustations is a forerunner of the force of wisdom realizing the absence of inherent existence that first makes afflictive emotions impossible and then removes the appearance of objects as if they existed concretely from their own side. As a precursor of wisdom through a correspondence of activity, the repeated performance of such ritual cleansing and enhancement must also help to induce wisdom.
The articles offered are the oblation already mentioned, a footbath, a bath through pouring water on an image of the deity in a mirror, clothing, adornments, music, perfume, flowers, incense, food, and lamps. These are performed with hand-gestures and recitation of a stanza appropriate to the particular article as well as a mantra at the end. For instance, the flower-offering is made with:
I offer with faith these flowers Of auspicious divine substance, Grown from the clean, most clean.
Receiving them, be pleased with me.
Āhara āhara sarvavidyādhari pūjite svāhā.
As the Dalai Lama says: The offerings prescribed are distinctly Indian, being gear
ed to receiving a guest in a hot country—cool water for the feet, a cool drink, a garland for the head, fragrant perfume for the feet, sprinkling of water, and so forth.
The process of visualizing a visit by a special being in his/her palace is reminiscent of a child’s imagining a doll-house and then engaging in all sorts of marvelous activities that teach the child how to act—family roles and so forth.
Praising. The practitioner raises up songs of praise, first for the Three Jewels—Buddha, his doctrine, and the spiritual community— and then for the lords of the three lineages, these being Mañjushrī who is the physical manifestation of the wisdom of all Buddhas, Avalokiteshvara who is the physical manifestation of
the compassion of all Buddhas, and Vajrapāṇi who is the physical manifestation of the power of all Buddhas. This triad of wisdom, compassion, and power mirrors the three principal qualities of Buddhahood, the character-traits that practitioners are seeking to develop. Praising the three deities with lines extolling these very qualities serves to strengthen the practitioner’s commitment to their development.
Homage also to Mañjushrī,
Bearer of the appearance of a youth, Vividly adorned with the lamp of wisdom, Dispeller of the three worlds’ darkness.
Homage to the always merciful,
Whose name is Avalokiteshvara, Composite of all excellent qualities, Strongly praised by all the Buddhas.
Homage to Vajrapāṇi,
Powerful and fierce,
Virtuous king of knowledge-mantra, Tamer of the hard to tame.
By imagining in front of oneself beings who have wisdom, compassion, and power to their fullest degree, practitioners mix their minds with states currently beyond them, thereby exerting a pull toward these qualities.
The directionality suggested by this practice is a far cry from the abject, amoral submission to unconscious forces that Jung warned Westerners against in undertaking “Eastern yoga.” We can see that this system is replete with techniques, positive and negative, for developing what Jung sought—a strong ego that can mitigate the demands of expression of the unconscious and the requirement that one’s conscious mind not become enslaved by the contents that manifest.
Worship. These techniques take quintessential form in the seven-branched service—disclosure of ill deeds; taking refuge in Buddha, his doctrine, and the spiritual community; generating altruism; admiration of one’s own and others’ virtues; entreaty of the Buddhas to remain teaching; supplication to them not to withdraw physical appearance so beneficial to the world; and prayerwishes. The first is to confess or, more literally, to disclose previous ill deeds, to cease
hiding them, for it is wisely said that when ill deeds are hidden, their force increases daily, no doubt due to identifying with them. Fear of disclosure usually comes from not wanting to have to identify with one’s deeds, but actually it appears that disclosure allows one, after the pain of open identification, to cease identifying with those deeds.
The practice involves being regretful for what has been done and being committed not to repeat the activity in the future and is accompanied by the enactment of a specific virtuous action aimed at atoning for the misdeed. It is a technique for releasing oneself from the sway, the autonomous force, of past negative actions. The Susiddhi Tantra, from which Tsong-kha-pa takes his text for the seven-branched service, prescribes disclosure this way:
Ones-Gone-Thus residing in all
Directions of the worlds,
Foe Destroyers,a and Bodhisattvas,
dgra bcom pa, arhan. With respect to the translation of arhan (dgra bcom pa) as “Foe Destroyer,” I do this to accord with the usual Tibetan translation of the term and to assist in capturing the flavor of oral and written traditions that frequently refer to this etymology. Arhats have overcome the foe which is the afflictive emotions (nyon mongs, kleśa), the chief of which is ignorance, the conception (according to the Consequence School) that persons and phenomena are established by way of their own character.
The Indian and Tibetan translators were also aware of the etymology of arhant as “worthy one,” as they translated the name of the purported founder of the Jaina system, Arhat, as mchod ’od, “Worthy of Worship” (see Jam-yang-shay-pa’s Great Exposition of Tenets, ka, 62a.3). Also, they were aware of Chandrakīrti’s gloss of the term as “Worthy One” in his Clear Words:
sadevamānuṣāsurāl lokāt pūnārhatvād arhannityuchyate (Poussin, 486.5), lha dang mi dang lha ma yin du bcas pa’i ’jig rten gyis mchod par ’os pas dgra bcom pa zhes brjod la (409.20, Tibetan Cultural Printing Press edition; also, P5260, vol. 98, 75.2.2): “Because of being worthy of worship by the world of gods, humans, and demigods, they are called Arhats.”
Also, they were aware of Haribhadra’s twofold etymology in his Illumination of the Eight Thousand Stanza Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra; in the context of the list of epithets qualifying the retinue of Buddha at the beginning of the Sūtra (see Unrai Wogihara, ed., Abhisamayālaṃkārālokā Prajñā-pāramitā-vyākhyā, The Work of Haribhadra
I ask you to heed me.
Whatever ill deeds
I have committed in any lifetime,
Or, disturbed by the power of desire,
Stupidity, or anger in cyclic existence
In former lives or in this life,
Whatever ill deeds I have done,
Asked others to do, or admired even a little,
Even slight ones unconscientiously done
To Buddha, doctrine, or spiritual community,
Or gurus, father and mother,
Foe Destroyers, Bodhisattvas,
Or any object of giving,
Or to other sentient beings— Educated or uneducated—
Having mentally collected all these,
[[[Tokyo]]: The Toyo Bunko, 1932-5; reprint ed., Tokyo: Sankibo Buddhist Book Store, 1973], 8.18), Haribhadra says: They are called arhant [=Worthy One, from root arh “to be worthy”] since they are worthy of worship, of religious donations, and of being assembled together in a group, and so forth (Wogihara, 9.8-9.9: sarva evātra pūjā-dakṣiṇā-gaṇa-parikarṣādy-ārhatayārhantaḥ; P5189, 67.5.7: ’dir thams cad kyang mchod pa dang // yon dang tshogs su ’dub la sogs par ’os pas na dgra bcom pa’o).
Also:
They are called arhant [= Foe Destroyer, arihan] because they have destroyed (hata) the foe (ari). (Wogihara, 10.18: hatāritvād arhantaḥ; P5189, 69.3.6: dgra rnams bcom pas na dgra bcom pa’o).
(My thanks to Gareth Sparham for the references to Haribhadra.) Thus, we are not dealing with an ignorant misconception of a term, but a considered preference in the face of alternative etymologies—“Foe Destroyer” requiring a not unusual i infix to make ari-han, ari meaning enemy and han meaning to kill, and thus “Foe Destroyer.” Unfortunately, one word in English cannot convey both this meaning and “Worthy of Worship”; thus, I have gone with what clearly has become the predominant meaning in Tibet. (For an excellent discussion of the two etymologies of arhat in Buddhism and Jainism, see L.M. Joshi’s “Facets of Jaina Religiousness in Comparative Light,” L.D. Series 85 [Ahmedabad: L.D. Institute of Indology, May 1981], 53-58.)
To the perfect Buddhas and their children
Manifest before me now
And disclose individually
And repeatedly my mistakes
With pressed palms and saddened mind.
Just as the perfect Buddhas know The ill deeds that I have committed, I make individual disclosure.
Henceforth I will not do such.
The meaning of the last stanza is that, not being omniscient, one does not know all the ill deeds that one has done over the beginningless course of lifetimes, and thus one also makes a general disclosure of all the ill deeds that omniscient beings know one has done. Implicitly, the important message is communicated that it is impossible to hide ill deeds.
Given that one of the most pernicious defenses against inner forces is denial, the general Buddhist notion that over the course of lifetimes we have committed every possible misdeed and have, in our mental continuums, forces predisposed to committing these again provides a healthy perspective, certainly not
preventing denial on all levels (since the depths of our own depravity are not easy to recognize) but opening the way to conscious recognition of what lies beneath the surface. To disclose, to confess all of these ill deeds is to affirm their presence, thereby weakening the force of denial and strengthening the ego as the arbiter, rather than the victim, of these forces.
To speak of these seven practices in brief: Refuge in the Three Jewels establishes the long-term perspective that help will be sought by incorporating the doctrine through practice. Altruistic mind generation makes compassion the basis of relationships with others. Admiration of one’s own and others’ virtues reinforces commitment to those activities; unlike pride which shuts off development of further qualities, admiration of virtues (or nonvirtues) promotes their
continuance and development. Entreaty for continued teaching and supplication for spiritual teachers to remain in the world reinforces connection with the sources of doctrines that when attempted in practical implementation, conflict with tendencies acquired over lifetimes and thus are uncomfortable, causing counterproductive wishes that the teachings and teachers of such doctrine not remain. These counterproductive wishes are countered through praying that the
Buddhas and their teachings remain forever in the world. Complexes are being put on notice that one will persist in practices that compromise their autonomy. In the last phase of the seven-branched service, prayer-wishes are made or, more literally, planted. Wishes, as a form of meditation, are powerful techniques for influencing the unfolding of the future, for they direct the course of one’s mind—they shape, they order the future. Wishes for the well-being of all
persons, oneself included, are to be made within what Tsong-kha-pa calls “onepointed attention to the meaning”; thus, wishes are not mere whims, mere passing fancies of what might be, but are cultivated repeatedly and concentratedly. The prayer-wishes that Tsong-khapa draws from the Susiddhi Tantra are:
Just as the earlier Buddha children
Made prayer-wishes, I also with a virtuous mind Plant prayer-wishes in that way.
May all beings have happiness, Peace, and freedom from disease.
May I be capable in all activities And also possess all good qualities.
May I be wealthy, generous,
Intelligent, and patient,
Having faith in virtue, memory
Of former births in all lives, and mercy.
Since wishes shape the manifestation of virtuous forces, one makes them both for others’ prosperity and for one’s own. In addition, because both consciously and unconsciously our perceptions of others serve as models for our own development, wishes for others’ success also have an advantageous effect on our own future.
Cultivating altruism in the presence of the deity. Prayer-wishes are followed by cultivation of the four immeasurables—compassion, love, joy, and equanimity. Nāgārjuna speaks of the great power of love in his Precious Garland:
Even three times a day to offer
Three hundred cooking pots of food Does not match a portion of the merit In one instant of love.
Though [through love] you are not liberated
You will attain the eight good qualities of love,
Gods and humans will be friendly,
Even [[[nonhumans]]] will protect you,
You will have mental pleasures and many [[[physical]]] pleasures,
Poison and weapons will not harm you,
Without striving you will attain your aims, And be reborn in the world of Brahmā.
Love has the power not only to make others be friendly but to grant protection even from poison and weapons. During lectures at Harvard University in 1981, the Dalai Lama similarly spoke of the power of love when asked about the meaning of a certain class of demon:
Devaputra demons are classified among the six categories of gods in the Desire Realm, specifically in the class called “Those Enjoying Control over Others’ Emanations.” We ourselves have formerly been born in that type of life within cyclic existence. All of us have acted as horrible demons, all of us! With regard to techniques that can be employed if one is being bothered by such a demon, in the Mantra
The more usual order is with equanimity last; however, Kensur Ngawang Lekden, abbot of the Tantric College of Lower Lhasa (rgyud smad) before escaping Tibet in 1959, frequently taught that equanimity is practiced first among the four immeasurables in Great Vehicle practice. Tsong-kha-pa (Deity Yoga, 136) has a different order—compassion, love, joy, and equanimity—with equanimity meaning cultivation of the thought, “May they [all creatures stricken with suffering] pass from sorrow with the unsurpassed nirvāṇa of a Buddha.”
His Holiness the Dalai Lama, The Dalai Lama at Harvard, trans. and ed. by Jeffrey Hopkins (Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion Publications, 1989), 153. system there are meditations of a wheel of protection, but the best of all techniques is to cultivate love. When Shākyamuni Buddha, from among the twelve great deeds of his lifetime, performed the deed of taming demons the night before his enlightenment, he did it by way of cultivating the meditative stabilization of love.
Sometimes, when one has a bad dream or nightmare and awakens, even if one repeats mantra or meditates on a wheel of protection, these will not help, but when one cultivates love, it cures the situation. This is the best technique.
Altruism has such great power probably because love and compassion—wishing for all equally to attain happiness and overcome suffering—as well as the ability to take joy in others’ achievement of happiness do not separate one off from others, but through sympathy and empathy bond one to them. This bonding takes from unfriendly objects such as the ghouls of nightmares the autonomous power that fear has granted them.
The stanzas drawn from the Susiddhi Tantra that Tsong-kha-pa uses for this practice are rich with wishes for bringing beneficence to all beings:
In order to pacify the suffering
Of limitless realms of sentient beings,
To release them from bad transmigrations,
Liberate them from afflictive emotions,
And protect them completely
From the varieties of sufferings
When the discomforts of cyclic existence crowd in,
I will generate an altruistic intention to become enlightened.
May I always be a refuge
For all destitute sentient beings,
A protector of the protectorless,
A support of those without support, A refuge for the unprotected, Maker of the miserable happy.
May I cause the pacification
Of all sentient beings’ afflictive emotions.
May whatever virtuous actions
I have accumulated in this and other lives Assume the aspects of the collections That are called merit and wisdom.
May whatever effort I make
By way of the six perfections
Without there being any exception.
Making effort until enlightenment,
I will strive at actions temporarily
And limitlessly over lives so that, in short, All the afflictive emotions of all sentient beings May be pacified and they be freed.
This single-pointed dedication to the welfare of others comes not from a Sūtra practice brought over to Mantra but from the Susiddhi Tantra itself. Still, the techniques for the practice of altruism are laid out in greater detail in the Sūtra system, and to get a sense of their impact the Dalai Lama advises readers to turn to a description of them. Without intimate exposure to one’s own hatreds that these practices force and a clear perception of the value of persisting at the development of positive attitudes, it is impossible to understand how the tantric enterprise could succeed. Tsong-kha-pa emphasizes the need for the development of such altruism prior even to attainment of tantric initiation.b
With cultivation of the four immeasurables, the practices of the first of the four branches of repetition, called “other-base,” are now complete. It is clear that a deity is invited into one’s presence in order to heighten virtuous activities by moving the mind to another level. The extensive cleansing of the place before the practice and the high reception of the guest serve to heighten the mind, generating a sense of the unusual, of the special, of awe, with the result that succeeding activities are done with more intensity, more feeling.
This first branch from among the four branches of repetition is the tantric equivalent of the first step mentioned earlier (40) in relation to meditating on selflessness in the Sūtra system—taking refuge and re-adjusting the motivation in an altruistic direction. The fact that practice begins with cultivation of a compassionate motivation is evidence that this Tantra system is by no means a turn away from the high altruism of the Sūtra systems but is founded on such altruism in its own right. In this formulation of tantric practice following the Susiddhi Tantra and the Concentration Continuation Tantra and the commentaries by the Indian scholars Buddhaguhya and Varabodhi, altruism is integral to Mantra.
Second branch: self-base—oneself as a deity
It will be remembered that we are describing the phase of prior approximation and, from within that, the meditative stabilization of exalted body. Now that the many activities involved in imagining a deity in front of oneself have been completed, the practitioner can imagine him/herself as a deity. The Concentration Continuation Tantra says:
Afterwards, freed from the limbs,
[[[Suchness]] is] not discriminated,
Thoroughly devoid of discrimination, and subtle.
Unmoving and clear, mental analysis remains in its presence.
“Afterwards,” that is, after making offering and so forth to the deity invited in front of oneself, one meditatively cultivates the ultimate deity, the first of the six steps involved in self-generation. One reflects on one’s own suchness, which is “freed from the limbs,” or senses, in that the senses do not ultimately exist. Also, one’s own suchness, being formless, is not apprehended by others and thus is not “discriminated” by others, and it itself does not
apprehend forms and so forth and thus is “Thoroughly devoid of discrimination.” One’s own suchness is an absence of inherent existence, and this absence also does not inherently exist; hence, it is “subtle.” “Mental analysis,” or examination with wisdom, reveals one’s own emptiness of inherent existence and in this sense “remains in the presence” of one’s final nature; this analysis should be “unmoving”—endowed with stability free from excitement—and “clear,” that is to say, free from laxity.
The six-step process of imagining oneself as a deity, called the six deities, is described in detail above in chapter two, and thus, here I will merely list the six with brief identifications.
1. Ultimate deity: meditation on oneself and the deity as the same in terms of being empty of inherent existence.
2. Sound deity: the appearance of the mind of wisdom—realizing emptiness—as the sounds of the mantra reverberating in space.
3. Letter deity: the appearance of the forms of the mantra letters around the edge of a flat moon disc in space.
4. Form deity: the moon and mantra letters transform such that a hand-symbol also appears on the moon. Then, from all of these emanate rays of light from which myriad forms of the deity emerge. The deities emanate great clouds piled with offerings that they offer to already enlightened beings. The deities also emanate great clouds from which a rain-stream of ambrosia descends, cleansing and satisfying all other beings. The rays of light, as well as the myriad forms of the deity, return and enter the moon disc, hand symbol, and mantra, which transform into the full form of the deity.
5. Seal deity: blessing into a heightened state important places in the divine body with hand-gestures.
6. Sign deity: meditation on the divine body with clear appearance and divine pride.
Let us consider two points of terminology:
• In the second step, the sound deity, the mind of wisdom realizing the sameness of oneself and a deity in terms of final nature appears as the sounds of the mantra of the deity as whom one will emerge later in the fourth step, but the sound deity does not involve what is termed “repetition of mantra,” even though the mantra is resounding repeatedly in space. This is because none of these six steps involves any voiced, whispered, or mental repetition. Still, the meditations of the six deities are part of what is called the “concentration with repetition” not because they themselves involve repetition of mantra but because they form the foundation of eventual repetition, as will be seen in the next chapter.
• During the cultivation of “self-base” through the rite of the six deities, the mind is mainly held to one’s own body imagined as a deity. Thus, up through the first two of the four branches— these four being the causal conditions that form a base for the repetition of mantra—the meditations are called the “meditative stabilization of exalted body.”
Practitioners have imagined a deity in front and then themselves as a deity; at this point, they repeat the rites of offering and praising but this time to themselves, since they are now deities. To imagine that oneself is being made offerings and is being praised might seem to be egregious self-aggrandizement (positive inflation in Jung’s terms), and indeed one of the purposes is to heighten and enhance one’s sense of a pure self acting in relation to other beings
but within the context of an emptiness of inherent existence. Offering and praising oneself bring home the point that emptiness, far from implying nonexistence or nonfunctionality, is the key for existence and functionality. Offering and praising vivify the mind, awakening potential in the face of emptiness yoga, which, when not understood in its fullness, can lead to self-abasement and even stultification (negative inflation in Jung’s terms).
One might expect the meditation to proceed with imagining the other two of the four branches—mind (moon) and sound—but, since those are concerned with mantra repetition and thus with the meditative stabilization of exalted speech, one does not continue on to imagine a moon disc and the “sounds,” the latter actually being the letters of the mantra set around the edge of the moon disc at the heart. Rather, one remains meditating on one’s own divine body. As Dül-dzin-drak-pa-gyel-tsen says:b
After having cultivated the six deities—the form deity and so forth as explained above—you should one-pointedly take cognizance of the firm pride of being a deity and observe the clear divine form and also bind the inhalation and exhalation of breath, [thereby] achieving a firm meditative stability free from laxity and excitement.
Let us consider this pithy statement of the process of meditation in detail, but first, what is to be done with the deity imagined in front of oneself? Tsong-kha-paa indicates that one possibility is to cause the invited deity (who, being the actual deity, is called a “wisdombeing”) to enter oneself (who, being only an imagined deity until this point, is called a “pledge-being”).
With the entry of the wisdom-being, one becomes the actual deity, in the context of which one meditates on the clear appearance of one’s body as an actual divine body. Then, from time to time, one again visualizes the deity in front and holds the mind on that divine body, within maintaining a less emphasized observation of oneself as a deity.b Tsong-kha-pa does not say why switching to meditating on the deity in front is done, but it can be extrapolated from later explanations that it is for the sake of keeping the mind alert. It also brings the increasingly strong perception of purity into a relationship with another being.
For the meditation to be successful, two factors are needed— clarity and the stability of being able to stay on the object. Clear appearance is achieved through a style of meditation called here “concentration” (bsam gtan, dhyāna), c which involves observing many aspects, either the six deities themselves or the specifics of the divine body—the color, the hand symbol, the shape of particular parts of the body—and correcting their appearance by adjusting clarity and so forth. Then, stability is achieved through a style of meditation called “meditative stabilization” (ting nge ’dzin, samādhi), which involves dwelling one-pointedly either on the divine body in general or on a particular part.
This usage of the term “meditative stabilization” is not to be confused with that in the term “meditative stabilization of exalted body,” for even the phase called “concentration” is included within the meditative stabilization of exalted body. Similarly, this usage of the term “concentration” is not to be confused with that in the term “concentration with repetition,” for even the style of meditation called “meditative stabilization” is included within
Deity Yoga, 137-138. b Tsong-kha-pa implicitly suggests that a meditator could forego the step of causing the deity in front to enter oneself, and proceed with reflecting on one’s own divine body within the sense that the deity in front is present but not as an object of attention; then, after a considerable period of meditating on one’s own divine body, one would switch to putting the emphasis on the deity in front.
concentration with repetition.a
The Concentration Continuation Tantra describes these two types of meditation:
Having set oneself thus,
Meditate with the mantra minds.
Restrained, dwell in meditative stabilization. Thoroughly restrain vitality and exertion.
The “mantra minds” are the six deities. “Meditate” means that one’s mental continuum is to be suffused with these six through the style of meditation called “concentration,” which is to contemplate in series the various aspects of the divine body, adjusting their shape, color, and so forth. “Dwell in meditative stabilization” indicates the other style of meditation, which is to fixate on either the divine body in general or one aspect of it within restraining “vitality” (breath) and “exertion” (distraction).
Thus, first a meditator scans through the entire divine body in the phase called “concentration”; since one is noticing and adjusting the appearance of the various parts of the divine body, this is called “analytical meditation.”c Then, when one fixes one-pointedly on either the general body or a particular part in “meditative stabilization,” the type of meditation is called “stabilizing meditation.”
As Tsong-kha-pa says:
Concerning this, initially it is necessary to generate a composite of clarity of the divine body and dwelling for a long time on it. Therefore, clear appearance must be achieved by means of concentration having many aspects because it arises from repeatedly putting in mind the aspects with which one is familiarizing, as is the case with conditioning to desire or fright [whereupon their objects appear vividly to the mind. Also,] if [the mind] is not set one-pointedly [on the divine body], then even though clear appearance arises, one cannot remain on a single object of observation as
It will be remembered that the concentration with repetition does not involve repetition of mantra at this point. b P430, vol. 9, 53.3.3; Deity Yoga, 109 and 110.
much as one wishes. Thus, it is [also] necessary to fixate by means of one-pointed meditative stabilization.
The examples given for the way that “concentration”—which is repeatedly to put in mind the various aspects of an object—brings about clear appearance of the object are the processes that occur when becoming desirous or fearful; in both cases, features of the object, be they attractive or repulsive, are taken to mind again and again, whereupon the object stands, so to speak, in front of oneself, compelling attention.
Once the object appears clearly, it is necessary to fixate on it, considering not many aspects but only one, which can be either the divine body in general or a particular part such as the head. To assist in this, a meditator employs breath control. Even though both “concentration” and “meditative stabilization”
require the “binding of the inhalation and exhalation of breath” as Dül-dzin-drak-pagyel-tsen words it, “meditative stabilization” requires an intense form of the practice of breath control, and thus prāṇāyāmaa—the restraining of vitality b (which means breath or wind) and exertionc (which means distraction)—is usually explained in the context of “meditative stabilization.”d
In the term prāṇāyāma, prāṇa is taken to mean vitality, which means not just breath but also the wind (or energy) that enters and emerges through the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, navel, sex organ, anus, and hair-pores. The wind or energy on which consciousness rides moves through these openings, and thus to control
the mind, the wind that moves through these pathways is to be reversed and held inside. Also, yāma e is taken to mean “exertion,” which, in turn, is glossed as mindfulness, not in the good sense of keeping in mind a virtuous object but in the bad sense of distractedly taking something else to mind (it seems to me the tradition is enjoying playing with the vocabulary); distraction also must be restrained. Putting Buddhaguhya’s description of this process into his own words,
Āyāma means stretching, extending, restraining, stopping, which yield etymologies for prāṇāyāma in other contexts as “extending life” (srog sring ba) and “stopping breath” (srog dgag pa); here, my guess is that the etymology is drawn from yāma as in vyāma (rtsol ba), “exertion.” Tsong-kha-pa says:a
Bind these two in this way: Stop the exhalation and inhalation of breath; withdraw inside movements of the breath throughout the body like a turtle’s retracting its limbs and like like drinking water drawn up with the tongue by means of the upwards-moving wind.b Also, withdraw inside the usual intense movement of the nonequipoised mind out through the senses. Nevertheless, leave your eyes a little open, raise your face a little, and set yourself in onepointed meditative equipoise, observing your own body clarified as a deity. The observation should be done like that of a person dwelling in a cave and looking outside.
The meditator withdraws the winds that travel throughout and outside the body, like a turtle withdrawing its limbs or like drinking water with your tongue, sucking it inward—the images giving a sense of what it feels like to withdraw these energies. The meditator has the sense of being within the divine body, most likely at the heart region, viewing the divine body much like a person in a cave looking outside, not outside the body but at the insides of the body from a vantage point—the image of looking from a cave conveying a sense of containment but not utter withdrawal as into sleep.
T
his etymology of prāṇāyāma with prāṇa being taken as wind and yāma as mindfulness, with the implicit understanding that these are to be stopped, accords with a passage in the Vairochanābhisambodhi Tantra that says:c
“Prāṇa” is explained as wind, “Yāma” as mindfulness.
In another etymology, however, prāṇa is taken as wind, and āyāma is taken as meaning “stopping”; the compound prāṇāyāma is thus taken to mean “stopping wind,” or ceasing exhalation and inhalation.d Despite the different etymologies, the term comes to have the
c Ibid., 56 and 192. The actual passage is cited in P3495, vol. 78, 78.3.3. d The term has, in general, been translated into Tibetan as srog rtsol in accordance with the first etymology. My usage of “vitality and exertion” as a translation equivalent can create difficulties in those instances when an author views it as meaning “stopping wind” (srog dgag pa).
same meaning. In Highest Yoga Mantra, however, prāṇāyāma has a different meaning, for it refers to stopping the movement of the winds in the right and left channels in order to cause them to enter, remain, and dissolve in the central channel, whereupon subtler levels of consciousness dawn. The form of prāṇāyāma specific to Highest Yoga Mantra is performed during its second and last stage, the completion stage, whereas here in Action Tantra it is performed during the
early stages of holding the mind on the divine body. This type of prāṇāyāma, as opposed to that specific to Highest Yoga Mantra, is also required during early phases of the practice of Highest Yoga Mantra when meditation on a divine body is performed. Here in this Action Tantra practice, meditators hold the breath
while observing one part of the divine body, and then when no longer able to hold the breath, let it out gently, relaxing by viewing their general divine body, and then they return to viewing the same specific aspect within holding the breath. Viewing the general body when exhaling is a technique of resting within intense meditation; it differs from other forms of resting done when tired, a principal technique there being to repeat mantrab (though still not to be
confused with later, more advanced phases of meditation in the concentration with repetition that call for repetition of mantra within specific visualizations). The process of holding the breath while viewing a specific part of the body and of exhaling while viewing the general body is continued until
immovable clear perception of the divine body in all situations, both in and out of formal meditation, is gained along with the firm sense of the “pride” of being the deity. One is seeking to stop the “pride” of ordinariness—that is to say, taking pride in being ordinary, the sense of having an ordinary mind and body and the sense of being an ordinary person designated in dependence upon ordinary mind and body.
Imagination is used in order to replace limited and stultified mind and body with superior forms of these, whereby a new sense of selfhood develops—compassionate, wise, and pure. Realization of emptiness clearly is not seen as a way to obliterate the self; it is just the opposite; it is a means to unleash the innate capacity for pure motivation and expression. This can only be done if the meditation is clear and steady, “a firm meditative stability free from
laxity and excitement,” as Dül-dzin-drak-pa-gyel-tsen says. This requires a level of meditative one-pointedness called “calm abiding,”a which is achieved in complete form in the meditative stabilization of exalted speech, to be discussed in the next chapter, but is begun during the meditative stabilization of exalted body. As a technique aimed toward achieving calm abiding, meditators employ the stopping of breath and distraction, dwelling as much as possible on the
appearance of divine form and the sense of being an ideal person. From within prior approximation, we have now finished discussing cultivation of the meditative stabilization of exalted body, which comprises the first two of the four branches of concentration with repetition: other-base, self-base, mind, and sound.
