The Significance of Tantra

Then in 1799 the word Tantra was introduced into the English language, it was used with reference to a certain kind of literature that in many ways has remained baffling to those who have tried to fit it into the general, highly idealized and therefore utterly misleading, picture of Indian philosophies, which were assumed to be of one piece. Since the word Tantra occurred in both Hinduist and Buddhist book titles, these writings were first lumped together and then

dismissed as inadmissive of 'clear' statements. The alleged obscurantism of this literature, however, was but a reflection of the shocking parochialism of those who had access to it and who assumed that what was not of Western origin consisted merely of a welter of myths and poetry, religion and superstition, and hence was negligible and contemptible. Moreover, since this literature included topics which were excluded from the 'respectable' domain of 'philosophy', assumed to be a repository of deep, clear and high ideals with little bearing on the harsh realities of actual life except in so far as it concealed them, a

curious ambivalence resulted. Either the literature was said to reflect a sad state of intellectual and moral degeneration, or it was believed to contain the keys to a world of power and sex, the two basic notions that haunt all those who are lacking in the one or the other and especially those lacking in both. Although the degeneration theory has been largely abandoned, the assumption that power and sex are the primary concern of Tantrism is still widespread, for it is easier, and possibly more lucrative, to perpetuate ignorance than to gain and disseminate knowledge. The fact that in the Western world the word Tantra is almost exclusively used with reference to a TANTRIC VIEW LIFE power- and sex-inflated esoteric teaching and not at all in its broader connotation of 'expanded treatise', is highly illuminating as far as Western thinking is concerned, but it does not throw any light on what Tantra means in itself.

The word Tantra is used differently, and hence does mean different things to Hindus and Buddhists. This is also borne out by the underlying metaphysics so that Buddhist and Hinduist Tantrism are quite distinct from each other, and any similarities are purely accidental, not at all essential. Hinduist Tantrism, due to its association with the Sãmkhya system, reflects a psychology of subjectivistic dominance, but tempers it by infusing the human with the divine and vice versa; Buddhist Tantrism aims at developing man's cognitive capacities so that he may be, here and now, and may enact the harmony of sensuousness and

spirituality. Dominance or power has a strong appeal to the ego, as it enables the ego to think that it is the master of its world. Dominance also strikes a resonant chord in us who live in a mass society that threatens to annihilate the individual. Again it is power that seems to compensate for the inner feeling of despair. But unaware of the fact that the acceptance of power as the supreme value is the surrender of one's true individuality, a person who feels insecure

and is afraid of becoming himself may turn to anything that seems to promise him the attainment of power. Because of this slanted view and because the word fakti 'creative energy', frequently used in Hinduist Tantra, but never in Buddhist Tantra, could be understood as 'power', the word Tantrism has almost exclusively become synonymous with Hinduist 'Tantra', and more is known about it than about Buddhist 'Tantra' which stresses individual growth and tries to realize the uniqueness of being human.

In Buddhism, Tantra means both 'integration' and 'continuity', as is stated in the Guhyasamajatantra

" 'Tantra' is continuity, and this is threefold:

Ground, Actuality, and Inalienableness.'

Tantrism begins with the concrete human situation of man's lived existence, and it tries to clarify the values that are already implicit in it. Its gaze is not primarily directed towards an exSIGNIFICANCE TANTRA ternal system which is passively received by observation and then dealt with as an object of some kind; nor does Tantrism speculate about a transcendental subject beyond the finite person. Rather it attempts to study the finite existence of man as lived from within, without succumbing to another kind of subjectivism. Man's existence as it is lived in the concrete is quite distinct from the limited horizons of more

'objective' reason and science which have their distinct values but are not the only values; and it is known in a different way. The world of man is not some solipsism (subjectivism at its peak) nor is it the sum total of all the objects that can be found in the world; the world of man is his horizon of meaning without which there can neither be a world nor an understanding of it so that man can live. This horizon of meaning is not something fixed once and for ever, but it expands as man grows, and growth is the actuality of man's lived existence. Meanings do not constitute another world, but provide another dimension to

the one world which is the locus of our actions. In this way, Being is not some mysterious entity, it is the very beginning and the very way of acting and the very goal. It is both the antecedents of our ideas and what we do with them for the enrichment of our lives. The emphasis Buddhism places on knowledge (ye-shes, jñãna) and on discriminative-appreciative awareness (shes-rab, prajñã) is the outcome of the realization that the human problem is one of knowledge and that knowledge is not merely a record of the past but a reshaping of the present directed towards fulfilments in the emerging future. This, then, is the meaning of Tantra as 'continuity'. Its triple aspect, as outlined in the aphorism from the Guhyasamãjatantra, is explained by Padma dkar-po as follows : "The actuality or actual presence of all that is, ranging from colour-form to the intrinsic awareness of all observable qualities, is called 'concrete existential presence'. Since this is unalterably present, like the sky, (in everything) beginning with sentient beings and ending with Buddhas, it is termed 'Tantra as actuality' because of its continuousness. 2 "It is a way because it has to be travelled by (means of our) actions which mature and become pure in this unsullied Being, and it is a gradation because it continuously TANTRIC VIEW LIFE proceeds from the level of the accumulation of knowledge and merits to the level of a Sceptre-holder. Hence it is called a 'gradation of the way'.a

"Since it is the ground from which all virtues grow and in which they stay, it is called 'Tantra as ground', and it is called 'Tantra as action' because it is the concomitant condition for becoming enlightened.'

"Goal is the attainment of the state of a Sceptre-holder who is the source of 'being-for-others', characterized by being free from incidental blemishes, and since (the process of) becoming enlightened continues as long as there are sentient beings as inexhaustible as the sky, there is gradual emergence (of fulfilment) and this gradual emergence of the goal is called 'Tantra as Goal'. Since this is characterized as an overturning of the obstacles set up by experientially initiated potentialities of experience, and as not incurring the loss of 'being-for-others' as in the case with a Nirvana, in which awareness ceases, it is 'Tantra as Inalienableness .

There is thus no escape from Being, and what Tantra is telling us is that we have to face up to Being; to find meaning in life is to become Buddha—'enlightened', but what this meaning is cannot be said without falsifying it. Therefore, also, the knowledge on which Tantrism insists is not knowledge of this or that, of nature, society, or of the self, but the knowledge that makes all these kinds of knowledge possible. Similarly, the action it advocates is not an action which fits a person effectively into the context of a preconceived scheme but an action which is selfdisciplinary and responsible. Responsibility is not merely action, rather it is a view of the one real world from another perspective, which as the goal is the realization of what we have been all along, because it is no less Being than the ground or starting-point. The passage from the hidden presence of the existential values to their existence is openly recognized.

It is in tune with the practical nature of Tantrism that it is centred on man, though not in the sense that 'man is everything', which is to depersonalize and to depreciate him as much as to

SIGNIFICANCE TANTRA

SIGNIFICANCE TANTRA subordinate him to a transcendental deity. The problem is not man's essence or nature, but what man can make of his life in this world so as to realize the supreme values that life affords. If there is any principle that dominates Tantric thought, it is so thoroughly a reality principle that nothing of subjectivism in contrast to an 'objective' reality remains. In the pursuit of Being there is a joyousness and directness which appears elsewhere to be found only in Zen, that is, the culmination of Sino-Japanese Buddhism, not the dilettantism of the retarded adolescents of the xvvest, which in certain quarters at least is already on the way out. By way of comparison, Tantrism can be said to be the culmination of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism.  The Body as On-going Embodiment

ANTRA, divested of its mystifying accretions, has been shown to signify what we, for want of a better term, refer to by the word 'Being' or 'Existence', and its concrete presence is manifested in what we are accustomed to call body and mind. So we read in the Ahapramãna-samyak-nãma-dãkini-upadefa

"The concrete presence (of Being) is twofold:

Presence of body and of mind."

It seems as if Tantrism here merely repeats our own customary dualism and implicitly restates our evaluation of these two aspects of our existence. In order to dispel any misconceptions about Tantric intentions due to a seemingly similar wording and presentation, it may be worth while to survey the development of our dualistic approach and its innate evaluative character. Starting from Orphic-Dionysiac ideas, Plato removed first the soul out of the material world and

changed the latter from being a divine whole to a realm of evil. This concept of two antagonistic and irreconcilable opposites proved itself so influential over the centuries that until recent times the dualism of body and soul was considered as being almost self-evident. It was only natural that on the basis of such reasoning the body should lose its value completely and even become an object of aversion. "The body is a tomb" (soma sema) says Plato in his Gorgias,

taking up an expression that had previously been used by Philolaus. However, the condemnation of the body and its accompanying devaluation does not ensure the spirituality and undisputed value of the soul, since the soul contains ideas and thoughts, impulses and desires, of a material kind. Therefore the soul, too, had to be purged of the corporeality residing in it. Again it was Plato who depreciated not only the body but also the soul which, although participating in

the higher realms of Ideas, pertains to the lower world of becoming. Superior to the soul was the spirit, a completely immaterial power. In this gradation, spirituality becomes synonymous with hostility towards the world and contempt for all mundane ties. Two contrary conclusions were drawn and both had (and still have) their respective representatives: the ascetic and the libertine. Asceticism is animated and sustained by fear. It grows on a strict dualism and takes the

danger of contamination of what the ascetic believes to be the 'best' in man, his eternal element or whatever else he may call it, very seriously, and it attempts to render the contaminating power harmless, to oppose its operations, even to torture it, so that the soul or spirit may free itself and reign supreme. Asceticism is thus a search for power and pleasure by inverted means (deriving pleasure from torture). Although not all ascetics are psychopaths and lustful perverts, many have been and now still shine in the galaxy of saints.

The alternative to asceticism is libertinism. But unlike asceticism it is not based on fear, but on contempt. The utmost contempt for the body and for the world as a whole consists in dismissing it even as a danger. The body, and matter in general, is not only evil but so evil that the best thing to do is to raise oneself miles above it and in reckless bravado to do what one likes with it. Although libertinism often appears as a revolt against asceticism, both are of the same root. The one repudiates the body by non-use, abstention, the other by indulgence, overuse. Both are alike in their indiscriminate negativism. In the course of history, asceticism has usually been favourably commented upon, simply because its negativism lends itself admirably to institutionalization. Its depreciation of natural values may conceive itself as productive ofa positive quality—purity, although in the ascetic framework it is essentially a rejection and merely develops a code of negative 'virtues'. On the other hand, libertinism has always remained the privilege and the prerogative of the 'elect', the pneumatics (spiritual ones) as contrasted with the psychicals and hylics. From this negativism inherent in asceticism

and libertinism it is only a small step to utter nihilism—modern Western man's predicament. In terms of asceticism this means, 'destroy in order to save' (what or whom?), in terms of libertinism, 'hand in the body-count'.

The devaluation of the body and the rejection of the world as exemplified by asceticism and libertinism, reaches its climax in the idea of transcendence. Conceived as something other, yet not standing in any positive relation to the sensible world, it is the negation and cancellation not only of the world but also of itself. This nihilism is not countered by a so-called transcendental meditation, which is merely a restatement of the nihilism in non-Western terms. What is really transcendent is beyond being, and not a cause that gives certain properties of itself to its effect. It does not help us to understand ourselves or our world, but it apparently makes nihilism and nothingness palatable.

The depreciation of the natural world and of natural values accounts for the fact that little attention has been paid to the body, although without our body we would be nowhere, and, on the basis of such depreciation, the significance of the body cannot be understood. Nor is this possible by returning to a 'cult of the body' as it was practised in the pre-Christian world, particularly in Greece, where the passionate scrutiny of the naked body was subordinated to the intellectual interest in geometry and dealt with by way of 'proportion', which ultimately contributed to the rejection of the body as lived by a person. Nor is it possible by the allegedly therapeutic body groping, as this is merely the bestowal of an aura of respectability on what people all over the world have been doing all the time mostly and mainly clandestinely.

Body and mind, which for us are a set of opposites with mind having a 'higher' value, are in Tantrism interdependent and interpenetrating; the encompassing is also the encompassed. This is beautifully illustrated in the Hevajratantra:

"How could there be bliss if the body were a non-entity? It would be impossible to speak of bliss. Bliss encompasses (pervades) the sentient beings, In a manner of the encompassing being the encompassed. As the fragrance of a flower Could not be known without the flower, So bliss would be a non-entity If form and the like were non-entities.'

The body is of primary importance, and this is indicated by the fact that the text speaks of its 'concrete presence'. This presence is an availability, a potency, which involves a kind of knowledge that differs from any intellectual or other construction which may be set up by way of scientific or other hypothesizing activity regarding the body. Thus the body is not some thing that man has, but man is his body. This has many implications. Therefore the Ahapramãna-samyak-nãma-däkinï-upadeýa continues

"The presence of the body means that It is knowable in a gradation of coarse, Subtle, and very subtle, generally indivisible."

With the exception of the phrase 'generally indivisible', which has found different explanations, there is agreement that the triple gradation refers to what is ordinarily meant when we talk about body, speech, and mind. The 'coarse', is both a 'collocation', or 'assemblage', and a 'continuum'. As a collocation or assemblage it comprises the five psychophysical constituents, i.e., colour-form as the epistemological object in a perceptual situation, feelingjudgment, sensation and concept-formation, motivation, and abstractive, categorical perception ; the four elementary forces, i.e., solidity, cohesion, temperature, and

motility; the six interactional fields, i.e., of the senses with their objects and of the mind with its ideas; the five sense-objects, i.e., colour, sound, fragrance, flavour, and texture; as well as the major and minor limbs. It is these which we would consider as making up the body as a 'thing' among other things. The other constituents we would consider as functions. The 'continuum' is set up by the encounter of the senses with their respective objects, sustained by appreciative discrimination, perspective, (subjective) disposition, unknowing, latent tendencies, desire, and the many emotions. This latter definition points to the individual's life-world with the body as an orientation centre with respect to which other objects are organized, cognized and valued

in the spatio-temporal surrounding world. The life-world, the world of lived existence, is, as can be seen from the above definitions, neither wholly subjective (a mind) nor wholly objective (a body-'thing'), but both together in one. In this connection it is perfectly legitimate to speak of a 'human world' in which the body plays a very significant role; it does so because it is an animate organism, a complex (self-) structuring system in action. The 'subtle' is the whole system of communication by means of linguistic patterns. It is midway between the 'coarse' and the 'very subtle' as it may be both a pattern, as for instance the sequence of the letters d-o-g, and a meaning as when I utter the word 'dog' to draw someone's attention to something.

The 'very subtle' is the unity of 'three manifestations', i.e., a dimming of the radiant light, a diffused glow, and a settled gloom 9 which as concepts or 'constructs of the mind', 'emotions', and 'actions', set up what is known as Samsära, the world, not so much in the sense of a container but as a movement from one situation to another, each demanding a solution which itself is most often just another situation. These 'three manifestations' do not act on the body from outside; they are, as the technical term indicates, its 'very subtle' aspect. As Padma dkar-po points out:

"Its (operation) is not like that of a potter having made a jug which then continues without the potter, but like that of clay turning into a jug. On this view the body is a certain ensemble of 'potencies' and through it the body becomes the primal condition for the existence of the world. Not only do 'actions' issue from the body, but also the things perceived are orientated to this centre which thus is a kind of 'synergetic' system by which data of the

most diverse kinds become unified and intended as pertaining to one identical state: I see a red rose, smell it, touch it, like it—the 'it' being intended as one and the same object by means of one and the same centre, the body. When in this context I speak of an 'I' doing all the above actions, this 'I' is not some entity added to the on-going process of singling out which permits me to speak of 'my body' by means of which there is 'my world'. Thus my body is indeed unique among all other bodies. My body is the only one in which I experience in an absolutely immediate manner the self-embodiment of my psychic life, i.e., a sensing, feeling, categorizing, and so forth. The body is thus present (and uninterruptedly presents itself) as the bearer (rten) of this or that psyche or life-force (brten-pa), and as an exterior presence which has within it the interior force (the psyche) which 'expresses' itself therein. This does not imply a hypostatization of the psyche (mind) as is done by the speculative idealistic-mentalistic philosophies. Tantrism is concerned with Existence which, in order to be meaningful as this or that kind of individual existence, must participate in absolute Being or Being-as-such, for which the Tantric texts use different

terms; one that is most generally used is 'radiant light'. The presence of the body which, as the above analysis has shown, is a continuously on-going self-embodiment and self-expressiveness of psychic life by one body singled out as peculiarly 'its' own and felt and understood as 'my' body, is therefore 'indivisible' from this Being, the 'radiant light'. 'Radiant light' ('od-gsaÔ is a term for the excitatory nature of a living organism, by which is meant the capacity to increase or decrease its level of lumination. It does not imply a change from inertness to responsiveness. We, too, speak of a person glowing with

joy, shining with happiness, radiating well-being. The luminousness of Being is the absence of all obscurity and its radiancy is its power to illumine, rather than a quality ascribed to it. The 'radiant light' belongs to us in our Being, but it diminishes in direct proportion to our being as circumscribed by categorical thinking. To the extent that we are 'lit up' we are happy and feel transported, blissful; but to the extent that 'the light goes out', we feel bored and depressed. sGam-po-pa has clearly stated this intimate relationship between 'radiancy' and 'bliss':

"Radiancy is of two kinds, a cognitive radiant light and a radiant light that just is. The cognitive radiant light is not like the noetic principle, self-validating, self-luminous and absolutely real as claimed by the mentalists, but rather like a flame in a pitcher. The radiant light that just is, shines independently of another illuminating agent. The radiant light that just is, is, furthermore, happiness, but it is not an ordinary happiness that breaks, but absolutebliss.

Since existence, Being-as-such, is an absolute value, my body, in so far as it shares in existence, is a value in its own right, regardless of the speculative ideas I may have about it as being this or that kind of object. Even on the basis of the traditional negative attitude towards the body, the claimant will cherish his body and is usually unwilling to part with it. This reveals a split we entertain between insight and opinion. Insight is concerned with Being, it

sees what really is; opinion merely clings to what seemingly is, and loses itself in judging appearances. Opinion can never appreciate what is. Insight thrives on truth and understands it as absolute; opinion, too, clamours for truth, but replacing it by its own fictions, it is tied to dogmas which it tries to force on others because it is uncertain of itself and attempts to conceal this uncertainty by aggressiveness. To be is to let one's life be guided by insight, not by opinion. Applied to the body problem this means that insofar as I am my body which is the self-embodiment and self-expression of my psychic life, to the extent

that my psychic life is guided by insight I really am, to the extent that it is (mis)guided by opinion I conceive of myself as having a body (which is despicable, or, in a milder form, more or less negligible) and a soul (that is to be saved). In a broader context the human situation turns out to be a quest, an emergency; man is a being who, in his being, is in search of his Being. Thus his Being is not only precious (rin-po-che) but also the very mystery (gsang-ba) of life as a problem involving man for whom it is a problem. It is so for me as an embodied being and so the Vima snying-tig speaks of four aspects of the body

"The body is fourfold: (a) the body as a jewel and a mystery: this is Dharmakãya, Sambhogakãya and Nirmãr)akãya together. 13 (b) the body as pure awareness and apparitionalness: this is Sambhogakãya. Or, if the body as a jewel is Dharmakäya, this one is Rüpakãya. (c) the body as a conceptual system and tendencies: this is the sentient beings. (d) the body as mere cognitive possibility: this is the state of suspension of mental activities and one at the level of formlessness.

Once it is realized that the human situation is a quest based on the question whether insight and true being is realizable, the answer that this is possible is already anticipated, and the concomitant question, of how this situation in which I find myself has come about, is asked. The Ahapramãna-samyak-nãma-dãkiniupadeýa declares

"From the radiant light (comes) a great blankness, From this both enactment and appreciation come in a plurality (of life-forms) (Which in turn is) five awakenings, Structure, motility, and bodhicitta."

The first point to note is that the human individual, in his quest, knows himself to be the subject of his quest, and this initial and original knowledge is the pre-supposition for the way he is going to judge himself in experiencing himself as the subject of his actions. The fact that the subject judges himself is not identical with the fact that the subject is, or knows himself to be. Judgment is not knowledge. It is made possible by knowledge, but it also is the nature

of judgment that it replaces knowledge by its constructs. While in knowledge the subject 'knows', but does not judge, in judgment the possibility of meaningful life in and through knowledge is present as a challenge which makes any judgment dubious. Usually, this possibility of meaningful life is ignored, and true subjectivity is perverted into a self-defeating subjectivism, of which so-called 'objectivity' is its worst manifestation. It is on this distinction between Being-as-such, being knowing-subject, and the process of self-judgment, or subjectivism, that Tantrism bases its view of life.

Absolute Being, Being-as-such, present in the human situation as true subjectivity, is given many designations in Tantric texts ; 'radiant light', 'great bliss', 'Mahãmudrã', and 'Tathãgatagarbha' are the most common ones. It is the nature of subjectivity to function, which means that the subject 'thinks' of its object as this or that, and in so doing soon 'judges' its object. This functioning-as-such is termed 'a great blankness' which is more specifically circumscribed by ma-rig-pa (avidyã). This is not so much ignorance, but a departure from and modification of the original knowledge through its

functioning. It is still a blankness because the judgments have not yet been formulated, although they are there as possibilities. This blankness is, to use a simile, like the clear sky, in which at any moment clouds may appear. It should be noted that this blankness has nothing in common with the Lockean idea of a mental substance which is capable of consciousness when material substances affect it. Locke's idea fails to take into account the spontaneity and creativity of the living process, paramount in Buddhist thought, and attempts to reduce the nature of mind to mere passivity and receptivity.16

The possibility of appearance is termed 'enactment' (thabs) which then can be appreciated (shes-rab) and in this way lay the foundation ofthevarious forms of life. More precisely, 'enactment' refers to the principle of action required in dealing with the world around us, including persons. The course of action required is specific for each living species, and in the realm of human beings it entails responsibility. But responsibility is something that most people are reluctant to assume. The recognition of the fact that life, existence, not non-existence, death, is the ultimate standard of value, determining the course of action, is also its 'appreciation' (shes-rab) and realization, because it is the capacity to discriminate between facts and fictions. The plurality of the various forms of life is still halfway (bar-do) between pure possibility and an embodied state. However, the trend to become embodied in this or that particular existence continues to assert itself in the 'five awakenings' which result in our having and being our body. Therefore, when Tantrism speaks about the body, it actually speaks about embodiment which implies a certain structure, an on-going process or motility as the vehicle of psychic life.

At the same time, embodiment in a particular form is a spiritual impoverishment in the sense that true subjectivity succumbs to the common subjectivism ofordinary existence. The term 'awakening' is purposefully ambiguous. We can awaken to our true Being and we can wake up to find ourselves in a situation which demands a solution. In awakening to Buddhahood each of the 'five awakenings' corresponds to one of the five original awarenesses, but in awakening to a situation the absolute knowledge of subjectivity is lost sight of and so there are only four.

We have seen that the body as conceived in Tantrism is a complex of several strata. In one of them the body represents an orientational point as the centre of a particular ('my') milieu which, structured in terms of its own intentions, is actualized by means of its bodily activities, all of which are organized and oriented around the centre. 17 Another point to note is that the body is a sense-organ in the sense that my sensations are not mere 'sense-data', but

components within a specific context of bodily activity. 18 The body thus is the bearer of localized fields of sensations (ãyatana), (they appear [Skye] if the organism is, for instance, touched and they appear or spread [mched] over the area where they are). Further, the body is itself co-experienced or co-intended simultaneously with the co-perception of the body as the means by which I perceive and as that by means of which what is perceived is perceived. This is technically known as 'togetherness' (sahaja), which applies to all strata.

While the body is the most immediate actualization of the on-going process of embodiment, that which embodies itself is termed bodhicitta, which literally translated means 'enlightenmentmind', but connotates what we would call 'life-force' or 'energy' operating through our 'body' or 'matter'. In order to prevent any misunderstanding it should be mentioned at this point that no relationship between a 'mind' and its 'body' is involved; rather, subjectively lived

experiences as such are indicated. These experiences are viewed in terms of the indivisibility of the intentive processes (the intending and the intended). The intending as such is known as karunã 'compassion' and the intended as .fänyatã 'openness', or va?3 and e respectively. This explains the often repeated statement that bodhicitta is the indivisibility of .fünyatã and karunã. Or it may be viewed as 'creativity' for which the most obvious symbols are 'semen' (khu-ba) and 'blood' (rduT), indicative of maleness and femaleness, and since creativity is a functioning, and since functioning means not to be at rest, to

vary continuously, any one pole in this male-female polarity may be in the ascendancy. This, with reference to the body, means that sexuality is itself a mode of being of the person in question. In terms of the old body-mind division this would indicate that sexuality is as much physical as it is mental and, what is more, it is at once an object for others and a subject for me. Again, masculinity and feminity are indivisible, when the one is dominant the other is recessive and vice versa. 19 Lastly, as lived experience the bodhicitta is all-pervasive; it is, so to speak, both myself and my

milieu.

This bodhicitta, which embodies itself and expresses itself in the body, is commonly referred to by the term 'mind' (sems), which is not so much 'consciousness' in our sense of the word, with distinct contents, but an 'original pristine awareness' in action. The Ahapramãna-samyak-nãma-däkini-upadeýa says

"The concrete presence of mind means That it resides in the centre of the body as E-VAM, Being of the nature of enactment and appreciation."

Here again it is pointed out that the body is the centre of my actions and this centre has as its centre the bodhicitta; in other words, the bodhicitta or 'mind' is fundamental. In the symbolism of EVA M another very significant point has been noted. The vowel E is according to the Sanskrit language indicative of the locative case and an inflection of the vowel A which, as the first letter of the alphabet, stands for original fünyatã (openness) which by virtue of its

association with prajñã 'aesthetic appreciation' we can correctly understand as the open dimension of the perceptive field. MTithin it, that is, strictly within, as indicated by the locative case E, perception can move from one aspect of perfection to another and there are no limits to the richness of the perceptive field. The prajñã therefore roams over the whole of ýinyatã and it can do so because it is not tainted by any bias which obstructs intrinsic perception and aesthetic appreciation. This 'cognitive' process is supported by a continuous delight, symbolized by VAM. This continuous delight is an

inalienable component of aesthetic perception and therefore the symbol EVAM is used. Each component seems to make the other more possible; the more a person is able to appreciate what there is, the more he feels contented, and the more contented he feels, the more he will be able to appreciate. There is in such an experience both depth and brightness, which contrasts sharply with the ordinary shallowness and dullness of our perception. But although we may speak of depth and brightness in aesthetic perception and aesthetic experience, they are not two, but inseparably together, and this togetherness (sahaja, yuganaddha) is the

fundamental 'original and pristine awareness' (ye-shes) which we lose when we perform abstracting acts by attending to parts of things, by seeing the object not so much per se but as an instance in a larger category, in brief, by conceptualizing and indulging in the fictions of our own making about what there is. The continues

"This is the fundamental awareness present in the body, It is the abolition of all fictions."

The above analysis of the body-mind problem in Buddhist Tantrism has shown that the body is the embodiment and thereby also the expression of an awareness whose body it is. Hence, all my bodily activities are experienced by me simultaneously as corporeal and subjectively lived. The awareness which embodies itself in and animates my body is thus fundamental. It is essentially an existential awareness in the sense that to be is to be aware. sGam-po-pa makes the following statement which literally translated would run

"(With) Mind-as-such (sems-nyid) together (Ihan-cig-skyespa) value-being (chos-kyi sku)— "(With) Appearance (snang-ba) together (Ihan-cig-skyespa) value-being's light (chos-sku'i 'cd)." In our own diction it would say: "Mind-as-such is coterminous with Being-as-such as value, Appearance is coterminous with the light of Being-as-such as value,' and in this coterminousness lies the spontaneity of life.

Appearance (snang-ba), which is another key-term in Tantrism,

is not an appearance of something other than itself, a pitiable reflection as in Plato's thought, but the way in which an identical thing appears in its variations which are functionally correlated to the centre of the perceptive field. The light of the sun is not different from the sun, but is the sun as it appears to the beholder.

Buddhist existential awareness must not be confused with the subjectivism of modern existentialist philosophies. It is, to use the terminology of Abraham H. Maslow,28 both a peak and plateau experience which carries its own intrinsic value with it and is not in need of a value-assignment. Existential awareness means that the mind, as a potential for this or that kind of experience, is directed towards values which through it become embodied, while in ordinary perception categories are the dominant feature. It is here that the split between subject and object occurs because 'subject' is as much a category word with certain presuppositions as is 'object'. The point is that both kinds of being or becoming aware are rooted in Being-as-such which is synonymous with Awareness or Mind-as-such, and man's problematic situation is that he can be his Being or his fictions. In whichever direction he moves, his problem will always be one of embodiment, which at the same time constitutes man's life-world.

The process of embodiment itself is illustrated by Karma Phrin-las-pa, commenting on Rang-byung rdo-rje's cryptic statement : "From the absoluteness of fundamental awareness Mind-as-such, a radiant light, (comes) the motility of original awareness; The pervasive stratum with the emotionally tainted egocentred mind is spatiality, Motivation is motility, feeling temperature, Sensation cohesion, colour-form solidity. In this order we speak of product-process.

Karma Phrin-las-pa uses the images of deep sleep, the restlessness of dream, and the event of waking up to illustrate the embodying process .25 "In deep sleep all cognitive functions are gathered (suspended) in the pervasive stratum, and Mind-as-such, itself a radiant light, is not moving. It is like a cloudless sky, Since the obscurations of the thought-constructions have not yet appeared, this mind radiant in itself is called 'motility of original

awareness'. This does not mean that there is actual motility, but it is potentially there. It is like a great blankness. From this light there comes some darkness, that is to say, the light becomes slightly dim and, when sleep gets lighter, there is the stirring of the pervasive stratum with the emotionally tainted ego-centred mind, but as it is not recognized as what it is, it is spoken of as the motility of spatiality. From this dim light there comes diffusion, which means that darkness has become thicker and this means that from the pervasive stratum the egocentred mind with its motivations rises. Since these

motivations are stirring, as in a dream, there is the motility of motility. From the diffusion comes the settling (of final darkness). Motivation has become even more hardened. It is just like when we wake up, when feelings, sensations and perceptions corresponding to warmth, cohesion, and solidity, each exert their own motility. In brief, three kinds of motility in their order of dimming, diffusion, and darkness, derive each from the other or they manifest themselves as the five psychophysical constituents. This is meant by product-process."

In a similar vein Padma dKar-po describes embodiment as a loss of a peak or value experience. He quotes the bDe-mchog rdo-rje mkha'-'gro : "The encompassed, the encompassing, a great openness, Ever-present, irreducible,

Very open, plainly open. This is without mind, there is no falling asleep And no waking up. There, there is no manifestation whatsoever. and then explains:

" 'The encompassed' is the concrete presence of the body, and 'the encompassing' is the radiant light. It is a 'great openness' as it is undivided like the flower and its fragrance.

It is 'ever-present' because it is like the sky everywhere. It is called the 'central pattern' because it serves as the bearer of its own presence in which the subject-object aberration of ordinary beings does not rise; it is called a nonconceptual motility because it is not diminished by something; it is a creative point because it is given as a spark of light. Since body, speech and mind cannot be split, it is 'irreducible'. As long as there is a moon, it will be

reflected in the pool of the mind; thereby absolute non-existence is repudiated and since it does not appear as being (this or that) for ever, absolute existence is repudiated. It appears in dependent origination from its antecedent. Built up by various experientially initiated potentialities of experience since beginningless time, we may speak of it as 'mind', but as long as it is not free from the potentialities of actions and emotions it is a consciousness of all seeds, and therefore an 'appropriating consciousness'. The incessant splendour of what is called 'original awareness' is as the objective situation, the 'very open' ; and as the owner of the objective situation 'the plainly open'. Since these three (aspects) are the reason for all that appears, the treatise says :

From the brilliant light a great blankness,

From this both enactment and appreciation come in a plurality (of life-forms).

Although in each individual there is this state of nonconceptuality (rug-med) to be experienced, its nonrecognition is like not recognizing the owner of a house when seeing him. The object, i.e., the owner of the house, and the subject, i.e., the beholder, are both not mistaken, and so the confusion of not recognizing the owner of the house is not tied to the object or subject. Therefore what exists does not appear to the beings and what does not exist appears. So Nãropa said

Ah, how wonderful, though non-existent (in themselves) The things of the three worlds appear. Because there is appearance of what does not exist ðer se (the text declares) :

THE BODY AS OX-GOING EMBODIMENT Without mind, there is no falling asleep

And no waking up. When confusion sets in, and this confusion is recognized for what it is, it submerges in the radiant light, like clouds in the sky dispersed by the wind. (Therefore)

There, there is no manifestation whatsoever.

It is significant that this process of embodiment is said to be the quintessence of Samsãra. This shows that by embodiment not only my phvsical body is meant but my whole physical world as well. Samsära is not something into which man has been 'thrown', an existentialist dictum that through Pascal's "Cast into the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant and which know me not, I am friõhtened" goes back to gnostic ideas; Samsära is the continuously on-going

act of embodiment, the existence or presence of my body being the primal condition for the existence. and presence of the physico-cultural world. By means of its own organism, the mind experiences some particular milieu as structured in terms of its own particular intentions which are actualized by means of its bodily activities and always oriented towards the 'body' as the centre of this milieu. Since embodiment in the world is felt as a loss of Being, it can be retrieved, not by becoming absorbed in the source from which embodiment as a deficiency started but by rising abovc it; to use figurative language, by

embodying Being. Embodied Being is termed sku (kãya), embodied loss of Being lus (deha). The English language has only one word for both terms : 'body'—a constant source of misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Tantric positive thought. The Mind and the World of Appearance

N the same way as there is a difference between the body as lived by me, and the body imagined to be this or that kind of object for the various disciplines of science, there also is a difference in awareness between that for which we use the word 'mind' and that which often has been claimed to be a mysterious faculty in order to explain equally mysterious 'meanings' that were believed to be eternal essences or forms capable of being grasped by the 'mind'. But what is termed

'mind' in Tantrism is the recognition of an immanent power informing the wholeness of the universe and present everywhere together with it. It is not like the mentalistic postulate of a mind from which our world of appearance can be deduced. Emphasis is laid on experience which may come in many ways. Hence there are many terms, each of them indicative of the specific and subtle nuances which the experience may exhibit. We can understand some of these terms from a comparison of two broadly different types of perception. We can perceive anything and any person alternately in two different ways, sometimes as if he or it

were the whole of all that is, but more often we perceive him or it as a part of the universe and related to the rest of it in complex ways, that is, we compare, contrast, approve, disapprove, categorize, classify. But we all resent being treated in this way, which we feel as a detraction from our being, and, precisely because we are in need of being recognized for what we really are, we try to command and extort this recognition which, of course, eludes us and merely reinforces the ego-centredness of ordinary perception ; in the end it leads us farther and farther away from insightful perception and understanding and

appreciation of what there is. sGam-po-pa indicates this by stating that "mind (sems) is ego-centred perception; a sentient being (sems-can) (is a term for) all beings (because they engage in ego-centred perception); but Mind-as-such (sems-nyid) is unceasing value-being (chos-sku).

This distinction between 'mind' and 'Mind-as-such', which is 'in' the body though not a derivative of it, does not endow the phenomenal universe or, in the narrower sense, the body with a 'spiritual' quality, but merely indicates the fact that man demonstrates in his own nature the potentiality of actualizing his Being which is 'absolute' in the sense that it cannot be reduced to some other kind of being, but not in the sense that it is something 'behind' or 'above'

man. This innate pressure towards fuller and fuller Being is termed bodhicitta which, as we have seen in a previous chapter, is the very subtle in and of the body; it is simultaneously that which man is and that which he yearns and strives to be. Again, sGam-po-pa says:

"If in order to attain Buddhahood the bodhicitta must precede it as cause-factor, in which cause-factor does this bodhicitta rest? In order to actualize the latter in ourselves we have to develop compassion and kindness. When we have become accustomed to them, the bodhicitta cannot but grow in us."29 Although sGam-po-pa speaks of a 'cause-factor' he does not understand by it some outside force that implants in man the ability to grow and 'press forward' his

Being. The 'cause-factor' is the immanent and sustaining force that permits and helps what exists as a potentiality, to become actual. To understand 'mind' is 'to be' in an absolute sense and such being is an absolute value (chos-sku). Since Buddhahood is the realization of value-being, technically termed Dharmakãya, and since Dharmakãya is the realization of Mind-as-such, Buddhahood is the understanding of Mind-as-such. The growth of this understanding and awareness sGam-po-pa illustrates by the following simile:

"Although the first phase of the moon is the moon, it is not capable to illumine (fully); although a lion cub is a

lion, it cannot yet overpower the other (animals); and although a child is a human person, he has not yet the fullness of stature and strength "30 When Mind-as-such as a self-validating awareness is present, it carries its own intrinsic value with it, and the person who has it has a greater sense of being

'all-of-a-piece', of really being. In this way not only are Mind-as-such or absolute Awareness (sems-nyid) and Being-as-such-as-value (chos-sku) indivisible, so that it is correct to say that at this moment man is not divided against himself, but the awareness is of a field within which the parts exist to be subsequently discriminated by name; however, their existence is a free-floating 'let-be'. In other words, there is Being-as-such (chos-sku) with Mind-as-such (sems-nyid) with (its) field of Appearance-as-such (snang-ba). It is this unity of BeingAwareness-Appearance that sGam-po-pa is concerned with. He begins with

Awareness and Appearance, the two poles in experience, and then gives them their existential interpretation of Being. 31 " Mind-as-such and togetherness are the two (poles). (With) Mind-as-such together value-being (chos-kyi-sku); (With) Appearance together value-being's light (chos-sku'i 'od).32 '(With) Mind-as-such together value-being' means that (what we are concerned with) is beyond verbalizations, without colour and form, in itself uncreated. It cannot be objectified; it is all-encompassing like the sky; it is without conceptual fictions, unchanging, and (even) devoid of the

voidness of an essence. '(With) appearance together valuebeing's light' means that, (while absolute Being) is without causes and conditions and without the ripple of the self-rising conceptual fictions, this (being together with appearance) constitutes the multitude of positive, negative and neutral fictions, which come incidentally.

"Are these two (poles) one or different? Although they seem to be different to those who do not understand, they are one for those who understand through the instruction of the teacher. It is with them as with sandal wood and sandal-scent, sun and sun beams, water and waves. Although the scent of sandal wood spreads

into all directions, it does not part from the sandal wood ; although the rays of the sun travel into the ten directions, they do not part from the sun; the waves do not part from the water. Similarly appearance does not part from Mind-as-such, nor does the latter from the former.

"There are three explanatory instances. One has to know (1) that the plurality (of the phenomenal universe) has risen from a source that is nothing in itself; (2) that although there is the plurality (of the phenomenal universe), this is nothing in itself; and that (3) when one understands it one cannot speak even of non-duality.

"Here the source that is nothing in itself is Mind-assuch being together (with appearance). The presence of the plurality (of the phenomenal universe) is Appearance being together (with Mind-as-such). Although there is this plurality (of the phenomenal universe) which is nothing in itself, nevertheless there does exist a plurality of conceptual fictions which are not realities in themselves. Not to be able to speak of non-duality when one understands it, means that

the understanding of appearance and of its understanding as not being two cannot be represented in words, like the dream of a mute or a small child. "There are three aspects in experiencing this. First, to relax in body and mind by not making strenuous efforts, then to rest in a state of genuineness by not harbouring doubts, and lastly, to recognize all feeling-supported fictions as 'unborn'.33 When one actually goes about (this realization), body and mind are relaxed due to the absence of strenuous efforts, and when one has become without the fiction extending over the three aspects of time due to the absence of

doubt, one is settled in the genuine presence (of Reality), and in the subsequent awareness whatever fictions appear are known as a former acquaintance, which is to say, one knows them as 'unborn'.

"In view of the necessity of 'sealing' (one's view of life with this experience) there are three supporting instructions: Since what is (called) 'togetherness existing in the Being of all beings', exists in its own right (in ourselves), it need not be searched for elsewhere. Since value-being, i.e., great bliss, in which no frustration is found, is a selfvalidating awareness, it is nowhere else (but in its awareness). Since the phenomenal universe is one's own mind, one's mind need not be afraid of itself and so one can dismiss anxiety and timidity.

"Furthermore, that which exists in (and as) the Being of all beings applies to all six kinds of beings and since the awareness of togetherness is all-encompassing, it need not be searched for anywhere else. 'No frustration' means that the frustration (inherent in) Samsãra has dissolved in the realm of the absolutely real; since absolute Being, great bliss, is (our) self-validating awareness, there is nothing else but Mind-as-such. Since the phenomenal universe is our mind, one (can) know everything as mind, and this as a radiant light, and this as the absolutely real. When one stays in the sphere of mind (as) the absolutely real, even if all beings were to become devaputramãtas,U they would not find a chance to harm us, because the harming devaputramãra is the absolutely real itself and the absolutely real cannot harm itself. Therefore look at anxiety and timidity as the absolutely real."

From a purely philosophical point of view sGam-po-pa's statement, that the phenomenal universe is mind, is hardly tenable and many objections have been raised against it. Certainly, an experience may be a mental event, but what I experience is not for this reason mental. However, the philosophical objection against sGam-po-pa's statement detracts from sGam-po-pa's intention. He points to the experience of Being, but does not reduce its vividness to categories of discursive treatment. The 'is' in his statement therefore is not the 'is' of identity. He refers to the 'intuitive' or aesthetic aspect of perceiving which is 'timeless' since only the discursive treatment of the parts in and of the vision is subject to time. There would be no world if it were not for this power of seeing things together, and 'together' means more than just the parts of some object, it also means to be brought face-to-face with the world: I am with my world.

Significantly sGam-po-pa points out that in this experience the individual is free of the past and of the future in the special sense of an 'all-now' and 'all-here' and that this experience is felt to be characteristically positive. The standard term for this positive feeling is 'great bliss' (mahãsukha) where

'great' means that nothing could be greater than this. So also the character of light indicates a glow from within, but 'within' is merely a manner of speech since here the distinction between'within' and 'without', 'behind', 'above' are metaphors, not metaphysical entities. Another aspect is the complete loss of anxiety and fear which implies that perception is more open and less distorted and that the feeling of frustration has gone into abeyance. Lastly, until the ordinary way of perceiving reasserts itself and we begin to see everything, ourselves included, embedded in relationship with everything else and judge

everything in relation to our selfcentredness, whatever we perceive is perceived in the same way as when we meet a friend. There is no hostility whatsoever involved.

It is a sign of deep insight that when the 'three manifestations '85 begin to operate and to constitute our ego-centred psychic life, the first 'quality' is hostility (zhe-sdang), for hostility or, in a less pronounced way, resentment functions as a strengthening of the sense of I-ness and sets the subject against

the object, destroying their togetherness. Hostility also is the compelling force of every kind of dominance psychology, to gain power over others. There is a good deal of ambiguity in such hostility, as it may masquerade as 'possessive love' ('dod-chags) which, of course, is not love at all because in its possessiveness it denies the very Being of the other. While hostility generates the urge to conquer the 'object', possessive love generates the dependence of

the subject on the object which is chiefly something to be clung to. And in the end there is the actual human situation (rang-bzhin), where everything has become a problem and frustration prevails, so aptly termed Samsära—'moving in circles'.

Another term used in this connection is 'khrul-pa (bhrãnti), often translated by 'error'. But unlike our 'error', the IndianTibetan term does not imply any culpability; it refers to a movement away from the real, a going astray into the world of appearance'. It seems as if here again the same distinction is made as we do when we speak of 'appearance' and contrast it with reality'. But there is no such thing as 'appearance' and 'reality' The world really is what

experience shows it to be. When we say that something is 'apparent' we are contrasting it with what would be or is disclosed in other experiences. For instance, I know that what I perceive in aesthetic experience of a table is In some sense the same table about which I may reflect intellectually. It is this latter way of perceiving that is termed 'khrul-pa, which means to contaminate my aesthesis with intellectual abstractions, and therefore is a confused way of perceiving. While most of what 'appears' is in ordinary perception entangled with 'error', it is nevertheless possible to make the following distinction: all

'error' entails appearance, but not all appearance is 'error', because there is aesthetic immediacy, pure and uncontaminated (dag-snang). In this immediacy, what I perceive, be it a thing or a person, I perceive as meaningful, embodying significations of a determinate kind: it is in the blush that I perceive shame, in the pallor fear, and in the smile cheerfulness. There is no inferring from something presented (colour-form) to something not presented (shame, fear, cheerfulness). But not only do I perceive others, aesthetically and intellectually, I also perceive myself as perceiving with and by means of my body which, as

we have seen, is an orientational centre for the spatio-temporal world. It is not a mere pun when it is said that appearance has an apparitional character: "In seeing appearance as an apparition, there is an apparitional body; by knowing that an apparition is 'open' (nothing in itself), there is the radiant light.

These two are not two different things but form a unity 36 says sGam-po-pa. Actually, the difference between 'appearance' and 'apparition' is that the former is more descriptive, while the latter indicates how we experience appearance. Togetherness is the key to understanding the unitary character of whatever experience we have. At one and the same time we have three separate ideas:

aesthetic experience is the ground, and the terminus a quo, for all experience;

1 1 aesthetic experience is the path which distinguishes within itself the aesthetically convincing from the aesthetically unconvincing;

111 aesthetic experience is the goal. Unlike (i) which may exist only at the first instant in consciousness, easily lost in a 'downward pull' this (iii) is a definite attitude towards life. Emphasis on aesthetic experience must not mislead us into the assumption that Tantrism is a kind of aestheticism by which a person or the world is placed on a mysterious pinnacle that does not exist. Aesthetic perception does not reveal 'mysterious' entities, but individual

realities. These are termed chos-nyid or 'the absolutely real'. It is, so to speak, the whole of Being, and it is seen as if it were all there is in the universe, and it is fully attended to in its intrinsic uniqueness. This ground from which we can develop not only a greater aesthetic perception but also a kind of rubricizing-categorical perception, is termed Mahãmudrã 37 and sGam-po-pa discusses the three aspects of aesthetic experience as follows

"There are here three phases: the ground in its uncontaminated (state), the path in its uncontaminated (operation), and the goal in its uncontaminated (attainment). The first is the 'absolutely real' (chos-nyid), uniquely pure. The second is to make togetherness-awareness the path, and the third is the indivisibility of the (aesthetic) field and its awareness.

"In order to make this uncontaminated and far-reaching state our way (of spiritual development) the 'Lotus' instruction is offered. The reference to the 'uncontaminated' is the mind in its state of being uncontaminated by (the postulate of) a subject and an object. The instruction in making the 'far-reaching'

our way is to make the path proceed from the starting-point (ground) which is the attainment of uncontaminatedness. This is like a lotusflower. Although it grows in the mud, its stem, leaves and flowers are not affected by the mud. Similarly, having the ground, uncontaminated and being a togetherness, brought into perspective (Ita-ba) by attending to it and making an experience of it, the path, uncontaminated and being the radiant light, is travelled, and the goal, uncontaminated and being value-being (chos-sku), is attained. The 'Lotus' instruction which is the means has four topics :

"(i) The adoption of the Mahämudrã as a perspective through which the Mahämudrã is seen as uncontaminated and far-reaching. That is to say: the whole universe has risen as appearance through 'togetherness-awareness'. This (togetherness) is of three kinds : (a) 'outward togetherness', (b) inward togetherness, and (c) mystical togetherness.

"(a) All that appears as the objects for the six perceptual processes (sensory and intellectual) of an externalized world is together with the 'absolutely real', and the 'absolutely real', which is nothing-as-such, is together with appearance. These two are together in the sense that neither is earlier or later and that neither is concretely good or evil. Thus Saraha said :

Understand appearance to be the teacher;

Understand the plurality (of the phenomenal world) as having one flavour;

Let things be together.

As long as we do not understand this togetherness we harbour ideas (fiction) that external objects are there to be grasped (by a mind), but when we understand it we speak of this (awareness) as togetherness-awareness in its intrinsic nature, that is an aesthetically perceptive awareness of a plurality in terms of objective situation and owner of the objective situation.

"(b) The internal cognitive process exists together with the radiant light, which is nothing-as-such, and this Mind-as-such, the radiant light, nothing-as-such, exists together with the internal cognitive process. These, (too), are together in the sense that neither is earlier nor later and that neither is

concretely good or evil. As long as this togetherness is not understood there is the idea (fiction) of an internal cognitive process but, when it is understood, we speak of togetherness-awareness in its intrinsic nature, that is an aesthetically perceptive awareness of a plurality in terms of objective situation and owner of the objective situation. Similarly Saraha said:

The fictions are absolute awareness;

The five poisons are medicine;

The concept of an object and the concept of a subject are both Vajradhara.

"(c) The cognitive act that does away with overevaluation and underestimation exists together with the absolutely real aesthetic field. As long as it is not understood, we have (still the idea of a) togetherness-awareness but, when it is understood, the last trace of any conceptual fiction in intrinsic awareness is removed by the onset of this field-awareness. This indivisibility of aesthetic field and awareness is variously termed 'pure awareness' or 'con ceptless awareness'. Actually there is nothing that might be termed 'awareness'.

So also Saraha said:

'No path, no awareness'."

This last statement is meant to abolish any attempt to conceptualize Being-as-such which, as we have seen, is synonymous with absolute Awareness or Mind-as-such. The moment we attribute a certain predicate to Being or Awareness, we are conceptualizing it; we have a concept of something and we attribute to Being

the characteristic of which we have the concept. Actually, therefore, we can say nothing at all about Being, and all that we say can only be a means to help us to find out Being, and this is to travel the path. It is equally clear that this aesthetic awareness is not determined by its content; as a matter of fact it

does not matter what the content is. Similarly, sGam-po-pa's statement that this togetherness is neither good nor evil shows that the state of a moral agent's mind does not matter, but only what he does in a moral situation. There is of course a connection between what we may call aesthetic and moral awareness in Tantrism. The point is first to see the other in his or her Being, not through the distorting opinions that are the loss of Being-

THE awareness, be this of oneself or of others. Thus again it is insight and knowledge that is of primary importance, and whether we like it or not because of vested interests, morality is still grounded in knowledge. I am morally responsible only for having done what I know I ought not to have done and for not having done what I know I ought to have done. Just as opinion is the travesty of knowledge, so morality based on opinion with its dogmatism is a travesty of

morality. Man not only is, he also acts, and in order to act according to his Being he has to attend to it. Therefore sGam-po-pa continues "It is not enough to bring the things of this world into perspective as being together (with our awareness of them), we have to experience their (being) by fully attending to it. This is 'to know how to make the radiant light which is uncontaminated the way (of one's spiritual development)'. That is to say, the

whole phenomenal universe has from its very beginning been the actuality of the radiant light, nothing-as-such, unborn, absolute value-being, free from the limitations of assertions about it. As has been said in a Šütra,

'Profound, peaceful, wordless, radiant, uncreated.' When the universe is thus understood as unborn, one settles in the sphere where no subjectivism obtains, since one has freed oneself from the contaminations such as attention, non-attention, existence, non-existence, and so forth. The Great Brahmin (Saraha) declared :

'The absolutely and uniquely real is without words,

Let (its) cognition be without conceptualizations.' And,

'Let the fresh cognition be (spontaneous) like a child.' '

While man demonstrates in his own nature a pressure towards realizing his Being, there is another force pulling at him, leading to stagnation, repression, fixation, and, above all, frustration. This opposing force is 'unknowing' (avidyã, ma-rig-pa) which, as sGam-po-pa informs us, is the obverse of the 'togetherness awareness'.41 This means that 'mind' is a potentiality that may move either way. Graphically this would be:

This unknowing is itself the outcome of inveterate tendencies which find their expression in concepts (rnam-rtog)42 which are due to our actions and our emotional responses, leaving traces that themselves are potentialities of similar experiences. This is characteristic of the ordinary person who is 'tossed about' by the storm of his emotions. Specifically, concepts curtail the possibility of fully cognizing by abstracting from the immediate experience, by

selecting some attributes, rejecting others, and distorting still others. They also tend to relate the aspects of the object to our linguistic system which is, of course, unable to deal with the ineffable. This, if it is forced into words, is at once changed and made into something other than it is. However, when an

ordinary person looks at a tree, he engages in both aesthetic and conceptual activity, but he does not keep these two activities pure, and since his life is largely superficial and little more than what he can talk about, the conceptual framework is all he cares about. But the concepts are not something over and above 'appearance'. Thus sGam-po-pa correctly observes

"All that appears and can be talked about is (dealt with by) concepts. Without concepts there cannot be any 'appearance' ; concepts are the mind. The mind is un born, and the unborn is openness (nothing-as-such)." Openness is the absolutely and uniquely real. The absolutely and uniquely real that is not something or

other is the presence of the plurality (of the phenomenal world). When this plurality is present, it has not parted from what is nothing-as-such. When you understand how the two truths (absolute and relative) are indivisible, you have brought the things of this world into perspective. When you maintain this perspective, you are fully attentive. The result is the abolishment of hope and fear.'

Any presentation, whether philosophic, scientific, or instructional, is a body of propositions, and a body of propositions is a set of concepts. If it were not for concepts we would be unable to communicate and even to know." Moreover, there are different kinds of concepts and each, in a certain sense, is an

'abstraction' because the immediately apprehendable lends itself to 'abstractions', that is, constructs of the mind." Usually we tend to restrict concepts to the differentiations in and abstractions from the totality of the aesthetic presence, and therefore we have failed to recognize that from which the

abstractions have been made. When the idea of pure perception is said to be 'without concepts' (mi-rtog-pa), this does not imply an utter blankness or the proverbial emptiness of the mind, rather the full appreciation of the totality from which subsequently abstractions can be made as if they were the only

reality, enmeshing us in a self-proliferating and self-frustrating game of hide-and-seek; but the same concepts may also be helpful and pointers to what is ever-present, the self-creativity of the mind which I experience as embodying itself in my body or in the concepts or constructs of the mind. The full appreciation and awareness of Being is not reducible to and caught in the abstractions, and it is this irreducibility that is indicated by 'concept-less awareness' (mi-rtog-pa'i ye-shes). sGam-po-pa has this to say about the concept as the mind's manifestation in the same way that the mind is a manifestation of Being

"Concepts are to be seen as a benefactor, not as dispensable. They are to be seen as a necessity, as a beloved. Concepts are just concepts. They are friends ; they are the way; they are fuel to appreciative discrimination. (a) They are not discovered by looking for them (in some hidden place) and by ferreting them out; (b) they do not take up residence somewhere ; and (c) they are not (subjective) interpretations.

"(a) This means that whatever rises in reason (blo) is to be considered as concept; concepts are to be considered as the working of the mind (sems); and this working which is unborn is to be considered as absolute Being (chos-sku).

"Beginners should use positive concepts to banish negative ones, but (the following should be borne in mind): If the sun is covered by clouds, these may be white or black. Similarly, if a person is fettered, he may be fettered by an iron chain or a gold chain. By way of analogy, one may be fettered by positive concepts and by negative ones. Both kinds are to be considered as the working of the mind, and this working, unborn, is to be considered as absolute Being.

This is openness in action.

"(b) When by examining all concepts the noetic capacity has exhausted itself, concepts do not take up their stay in death, or in man, or in openness. All these conditions are to be considered as concepts, and these are to be considered as the working of the mind, and this working, unborn, is absolute Being.

"(c) This means the (concepts) must not be interpreted as suchness, as the way, or as the goal : not even as perspective, attention, or enactment. Reason (blo) falling in with (concepts) is (in itself) an utter openness.

This means that

(a) concepts can be overcome the moment they arise,

(b) they can be overcome later; and

(c) they can be like a spreading fire.

"(a) This is like meeting a former acquaintance—the moment a concept rises it is recognized as absolute Being.

"(b) This is like meeting an unknown person, or like snow falling on a lake. The moment the snow falls on a lake it does not melt, only afterwards. Not knowing the concept one may first seek it out and later one will know it.

"(c) This is like a forest fire. As long as it is small, the wind and so on will kill it, but the bigger it grows, the wind, however powerful, will aid it.

Similarly one should attend to concepts as if one had been grossly insulted, as if one had been infected by leprosy, or as if one has met a great misfortune. (In so doing) one should consider them as concepts; the concepts as the working of the mind, and this working, unborn, as absolute Being. Attention to them in this way, is devotion (to turn the negative into the positive), no-erring, and an opening of the door to reality by appreciative discrimination.

" 'Devotion' means: When one knows one concept to be absolute Being, one knows all concepts to be so. Just as when one has drunk the water of one lake, one knows the water of all lakes; or when one knows one cane to be hollow, one knows all canes to be hollow; or when one knows one germ to attack the marrow, one knows all germs to do so. 'To turn the negative into the positive' means: when one has purified one's mind as if by a raging fire, all unfavourable conditions become one's friend.

No-erring' means that as long as one has not recognized the concepts for what they are, there is erring. When one has gone to the root of the concepts, and recognized them as absolute Being, there is no reason for going astray anymore. " 'Opening the door' means: like brandishing a lance in the open air, everything is understood as being identical with itself."