The Vajrayāna, or Adamantine Vehicle,
The Vajrayāna, or Adamantine Vehicle, is the school of Mahāyāna Buddhism prevalent in Tibet, Bhutan, Sikkim, Ladakh, and Mongolia. A highly practical form of mysticism, it affords precise techniques for attaining that wisdom whereby man’s ego is negated and he enters into the bliss of Liberation (Nirvāza). For more than a thousand years, these techniques — developed at Nālandā monastic university in India at the time of the Roman occupation of Britain — were handed down from teacher to disciple and carefully guarded from outsiders. A little over fifty years ago, tragedy struck Tibet, sending its people fleeing by the tens of thousands across its borders. As a result, the Lamas came to recognize that, with the systematic destruction of Tibetan culture in its homeland, the sacred knowledge might decline and vanish. Hence, they have been eager to instruct all who sincerely desire to learn. In this one aspect, Tibet’s tragic fate has been the world’s gain.
Mysticism, or the search for the divine truth within, has always existed among small groups everywhere; but the Tantric mystical techniques have few parallels in other religions or even in other schools of Buddhism; many of them are totally unique. Besides being of interest to students of Buddhism (especially Zen) and of psychology, a study of them will reward everyone who seeks to lift aside the veil of appearances and penetrate to the very source of all divinity and wisdom.
The way of the Vajrayāna is the Way of Power that leads to the mastery of good and evil. It is also the Way of Transformation, whereby inward and outward circumstances are transmuted into weapons by the power of mind. It goes without saying that progress in conjuring so vast a transformation is not easy and not to be accomplished by liturgies and sacred formulas. Here, as everywhere, Mind is the King. Who, without adamantine strength of will, can attain Liberation in this very life? The whole of the adept’s being, experience, and environment — good and evil — must be harnessed to this purpose.
The first requirement is indomitable resolution; the second is a teacher who teaches not only from sacred texts but also from experience and an illumined mind. In the West, such men are still exceedingly rare; but, among the Tibetan refugees who have poured into India, Sikkim, and Nepal, there are enlightened Lamas from the great monastic seats of learning and accomplished yogis driven from their mountain fastnesses. Of these, a small number have made their way to Europe and America to work in universities or to found gompas in lonely places. Already, Samye Ling, a gompa on the Scottish moors, has attracted a group of Lamas and more students than it can accommodate. In America, the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and Namgyal University in Ithaca, New York, offer a full range of courses in Buddhist studies.
Once a sufficient number of Lamas have mastered European languages, we may expect, from their pens, authoritative works setting forth the teachings more openly than ii Foreword
was ever done in Tibet, because already they have come to realize that maintaining the ancient safeguards would be to threaten the Vajrayāna with extinction. Not all their pupils will be Buddhists, for others may find it fruitful to adapt the Tantric techniques to their spiritual life. In the meanwhile, it behooves us Western followers of the Vajrayāna to introduce the subject as best we can. Hence this book. I hesitated over writing it for some ten years, feeling that my knowledge is inadequate and knowing that it is usually best to be silent until our spiritual progress allows us to speak with authority; my decision to write it was taken at last, because I believe there is a growing interest in the Vajrayāna, and because it is high time to clear up the grotesque misunderstandings about Tantric Buddhism found in previous writings on the subject by several ill-informed Western authors.
In Tibet, the vital oral teachings, without which Tantric works are enigmas, are accompanied by an injunction not to speak of them without permission. To allow a halffledged medical student to practice as freely as a qualified physician would be less dangerous than to permit novices to set themselves up as the teachers of techniques able to transform, not merely thought, but the mind itself. Wrongly applied, they could lead to insanity and even worse than insanity. This book barely touches upon the history, development, and present status of the Vajrayāna, and upon the different schools and sects. It is chiefly concerned with Tantric method — the means of achieving the extraordinary results that flow from training the mind and the negation of the ego. Believing the Vajrayāna to be one of the loveliest flowers of man’s spiritual achievement, I am sure I have failed to do it justice. It is my sincerest hope that this book will encourage others to enter upon the Vajrayāna path to Liberation.
