Upaya: Skillful Means and Buddha-mind

In Buddhism there is a concept, called upaya, which is usually translated as "skillful means."

The term has different interpretations, even in Buddhism.

One understanding of it is that a Buddhist teacher, a Zen master or a lama, manipulates students into achieving Enlightenment, sometimes even lying to them or tricking them into it.

There is a scene in the film Circle of Iron (which is a delightfully bad movie from 1978), in which the Zen Master played by David Carradine (who looked old even then) is traveling with his new protege (who is the main character of the film, played by Jeff Cooper).

They come upon a beautiful youth who is vain and arrogant, and whose parents and everyone around him seem to bow to his every wish.

The Zen Master walks up to the beautiful youth, and plants a flat palm right in his face, breaking his nose.

Cord, the Jeff Cooper character, is appalled.

Later in the film, the Zen Master explains that the boy and his family were slaves to his beauty, that it was a cause of suffering in their lives though they didn't see it because they were so devoted to his beauty.

He said he had liberated all of them from the boy's beauty, including the boy himself.

"Upaya" is Sanskrit for "skillful means" or "method."

It can refer to any activity, skill, experience or practice that helps someone toward the realization of enlightenment.

For example, ritual can be a upaya.

Upaya is sometimes translated "expedient means."

In some circumstances even lies and trickery can be upaya, if they help someone wake up to realization.

Upaya also refers to the ability of a bodhisattva to help others realize enlightenment.

In Buddhist literature, upaya often is paired with "prajna," meaning "wisdom," particularly the wisdom of shunyata. Upaya is the activity of prajna, which manifests as compassion (karuna).

In Pure Land Buddhism, upaya, prajna and karuna are called the Three Gates to Liberation.

While an extreme example (and not one I particularly approve of either), this passes as the understanding of Upaya or skillful means in some Zen circles.

Tibetans have a slightly more complicated understanding of Upaya. Lamas teach that the use of mantras is, in fact, skillful means.

The mantra, when empowered by its use, is a spell.

And that spell has real power to shape reality.

Thus the more devotedly you do the mantra, the more powerfully the effects of the mantra manifest in your life.

If the mantra is good, then as its power begins to shape your life and your path, you will find yourself moving step by step towards the goal embodied in the mantra.

This is, essentially, the use of magick to deliberately bring yourself to Enlightenment.

Skillful means also has another meaning.

A realized god-being, who has achieved universality, can manifest circumstances which lead a person, step by step, towards a particular goal (whatever that might be).

While one cannot consciously think of every random event which might be required to bring someone to a particular understanding, such conscious understanding is not even necessary.

The universe which you have become one with is an organic living thing-- it is your own greater self.

Your universal self.

It's illusory just as your personal self is, but it is not delusory, which is to say its at least as real as your personal self is while remembering that none of it is real.

And the Universe responds intimately to your Will once you've transcended the personal self.

This means that you don't have to know how it will happen.

You just Will or command the universe to bring that person to that particular goal, and all of the events necessary will fall into place.

Then, it is possible for you to look and know how it will happen (although even that's not necessary).

But a thousand little details you could never have thought of consciously all fall into place, making the reality you have dictated take shape.

Thus when you ask God, or Goddess, or a bodhisattva or a god for something, this is how they manifest it.

The results are assured.

As long as you have consented to a particular outcome (and in some cases where it doesn't violate the Law of Free Will, events to which you haven't consented) all come to be exactly as necessary to produce the outcome.

Thus when you leave home, if you have called upon God or another to give you aid, your path to achieving your goal becomes assured, by the organic wisdom of the Universe rather than the contemplations of a single, and limited, mind.

This is skillful means.

This is also a clue into Buddha-mind.

The Universe thinks without thinking. There is no conscious thought.

And yet when translated through an individual, there is understanding because there is a Buddha-nature which perceives the beingness of the Universe which is that understanding.

Thus, achieving the Universal is to come into direct contact with yourself as pure consciousness, without need of actual thought.

Since your concept of self exists only in thought-- achieving Buddha-mind means learning to allow the Universe, as it manifests as you, to be your consciousness, without interference by your mind along with its false concepts of self.

Those who realize god-nature have learned to transcend their thinking mind in order to access their Universal consciousness.

Thus are they gods.

But their personal mind yet exists-- they still have a sense of self, which motivates them.

The cultivation of Buddha-mind is training that thinking personal mind to think without reference to the self, either personal or universal, except as a figure of speech.

This is very hard to do. Buddhism uses two techniques to achieve this, which I like to classify as "horse before cart" and "cart before horse." Horse before cart techniques involve monastic life, living your life in such a way as to train yourself to not think of the self.

This is done by vows of chastity, vows of poverty, etc.

This is Horse before Cart--where the horse pulls the cart along in the normal fashion.

This is a slow path to Enlightenment.

All of my practices are Cart before Horse-- where the cart pulls the *horse* along.

When you follow these teachings, giving up your possessions or sex or other such things is no longer necessary.

Normal Buddhist practices involve using tantra and mantras to manifest Enlightened characteristics in your being and your mind.

So you manifest the Cart first through tantric meditation, and then over time, because of that, you slowly change to actually embody these things (Horse)-- which we call realization or actualization.

Tibetan Buddhism encourages us to use both techniques.

Any of these methods qualifies as [[]]skillful means.

Skillful means: the universe can figure out things which even you can't.

That universal consciousness is actually yours.

When you achieve it, all those things which define your "self" as you've chosen to create it will still be there.

But that consciousness that is the Universe, is God's consciousness.

This is what we mean when we say atman=brahman. The Goddess taught me this:

In all the Universe there is only One, One Heart which Loves, One Breath of Life, One Shining Radiant Light which is the Becoming of All Things.

When you achieve Buddha-mind, what you achieve is the full realization of yourself as a unique manifestation of God/Vajradhara.

All of us are just different versions of God, existing in relation to himself.

That one we call the Father, the Creator who is the First Causality, is simply the original.

Source

www.zagreus.com