No More Learning

? ?
The next step that led to the present work happened during my completion of the Essence of True Eloquence. I was getting a lot of help from an excellent commentary written by a certain Losang Puntsok (bLo
bZang Phun tshogs). While studying that commentary, I came upon a statement by that lama scholar saying that he also was going to write a commentary on Tsong Khapa ' s Brilliant Illumination of the Lamp of the Fi,? e Stages, the Tantric equivalent of the Essence of True Eloquence. It analyzed the five stages of the perfection stage of the Unexcelled Yoga Tantra. focusing on the Esoteric Community noble tradition descending from Nagarjuna. The moment I read that, I formed the resolve to trans-
late this Tantric master-treatise of Tsong Khapa's.
In 1978, I applied again to the American Institute of Indian Studies
to spend a year in India to study the Unexcelled Yoga Tantras through this text. I thought that, in order to understand this great treatise, I would have to complete the Esoteric Community studies which I had begun long before when I was a Buddhist monk. During that year in India, I began the study and translation of the work, producing also drafts of a number of associated works. Consultations with His Holiness the Dalai Lama on this second big text were extremely rewarding, as to be expected. How- ever, toward the conclusion of that year of studies, I decided not to rush
to publish it, due to the esoteric nature of its teachings. His Holiness' senior teacher, the Ganden Throne-holder Kyabjey Lingtsang Rinpochey, transmitter to him (and me) of various Esoteric Community teachings, was strongly opposed to the general publication of such works.
Clearly I have not rushed to publish this work, begun thirty years ago. I do so now, since almost all the main practices of Unexcelled Yoga Tantras have been described and published-with varying degrees of clarity and explicitness-though the huge variety and immensely rich and sophisticated detail of their millennial sciences are like an ocean still largely unexplored. His Holiness the Dalai Lama has reasoned that misunderstanding of Tantra already abounds, and so it is desirable and even necessary to be fully transparent about the authentic teachings. Also, in a project to make available the Complete Works of Tsong Khapa and Sons, a large percentage of them do concern the Tantras, so one cannot avoid them. Some esoteric secrets keep themselves: they are incredible to
some, incomprehensible to others, and often are approached as the roman- tic fantasy or science fiction of a far away ancient culture. Further, a deter- mined researcher will find almost anything nowadays. if they look hard enough. Thus, it is my hope, and my intention in publishing this book now, that they should find authentic and accurately clarified information about the amazing "mental" or "inner" science of the Indian and Tibetan masters, scientists, and yogT/nTs of the Unexcelled Yoga Tantras of Universal Vehicle (Mahayana) Buddhism!
In regard to the various sub-series to be included in our Treasury of the Buddhist Sciences list, we are hereby delighted at long last to add another: the Complete Works of Tsang Khapa and Sons, each of which builds upon the Indian works in the Tengyur. As mentioned above. it was planned at the very beginning of the idea for the Tengyur translation project. As it is decades behind schedule, it is a great relief to launch it with this book. The Essence of True Eloquence was my first translation of one of Tsong Khapa's key books. The publication still remains with the Princeton University Press, and they licensed an Indian edition to
Motilal Banarsidass publishers in Delhi. Eventually, I hope to improve that work further and bring it back into this series.
I have many people to thank. First of all I thank the Tibetan and Mongolian scholar lamas who opened to me the treasury of the Esoteric Community: the late Venerable Geshe Ngawang Wangyal, who read to me the Panchen Rinpochey's summary of the path and its scope during early morning sessions in 1964; the late His Holiness Kyabjey Lingtsang
Rinpochey, who admitted me first into the Community mandala universe; His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who has so generously given of his kind friendship, and transmitted more than I yet know, especially the special tradition of this text at Thegchen Choling in Dharmsala in 1984; the late Venerable Tara Tulku Rinpochey, for his learning, insight, patience and humorous brilliance; the late His Eminence Serkhong Tsenshab Rinpo- chey, for his generosity and kindness; and my friend and cheerful lama,
Gelek Rinpochey, for his elegant teachings of the practices. Among academic benefactors, I thank the late Professor Masatoshi Nagatomi, with whom I first read parts of the Shrr Guhya Samaja in Sanskrit; the late Professor Alex Wayman, my predecessor in Buddhist Studies at Columbia, who was the first American scholar to go deeply into the
Author's Preface? xiii
xiv ? Author's Preface
Esoteric Community literature; Dr. Lozang Jamspal, whose tireless, careful work contributes so much to the Tengyur Translation Initiative, and who went through the translation, checking line by line; Dr. Thomas Yarnall, my esteemed colleague, for his indispensable expert and meticulous assis- tance on all levels, from the scholarly insight and editorial revision, to
the design expertise, to the publishing technicalities; Dr. Paul Hackett, another younger colleague, for his careful and laborious finding of the sources in the Tengyur that verified Tsong Khapa's many quotes, bring- ing their variants and Sanskrit where available into the annotations to the critically edited Tibetan text, published as a companion volume in a lim- ited edition and in an e-book,? as well as for flagging remaining errors in
the translation; Ms. Annie Bien who helped enormously with editing and polishing; Mr. Jason Dunbar of the Asian Classics Input Project, who worked originally with the Asian Classics Input Project on the digitiza- tion of Tsong Khapa's works, and later significantly improved the Tibetan edition of the text; and finally my fellow translator, Dr. Geshe Thupten Jinpa, whose interest in this text gave me the impetus to get it finalized at long last. With all of this excellent assistance and support, all delays, errors, and remaining imperfections remaining are entirely my fault.
Finally, among financial benefactors and supporters, I thank the American Institute of Indian Studies, for the senior grant thirty years ago that enabled me to live in India from 1979-1980 to study with the authen- tic lamas of the noble tradition and begin this work; Mr. Joel McCleary for his generous help and steady encouragement; Ms. Lavinia Currier of the Sacharuna Foundation, whose generous donations and grants enabled
the work at a crucial time to advance to the penultimate stage; to Mr. Marc Benioff and Mrs. Lynne Benioff for their generous, world-changing support down the home stretch; and Mr. William T. Kistler, Mrs. Eileen Kistler, and Mr. Brian Kistler of the Kistler Foundation for their vision- ary recognition that amid the many crises and catastrophes afflicting the multitudes of suffering beings around the world, the recovery and transla- tion needed to open the door for the modem mind to the inner or spiritual
? The companion volume of the critically edited Tibetan tex. t, annotated with the found quotes from Tengyur and Kangyur tex. ts in Tibetan und Sanskrit where available, will soon be published in u limited edition, and subsequently made more widely available to specialists on our website and as an e-book.
? Author's Preface ? xv
science of the Buddhist tradition remains a high priority for the awakening of humanity; perhaps essential to empower us to rise to the challenges we all face together at this critical planetary moment.
Finally my ever immeasurably increasing gratitude goes to my best friend and wonderful wife, Nena von Schlebrugge Thurman, who has given her unstinting support and inspiration over these many years.
Robert A. F. Thurman (Ari Genyen Tenzin Chotrag)
Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies, Columbia University;
President, American Institute of Buddhist Studies; Director, Columbia Center for Buddhist Studies; President, Tibet House US.
Ganden Dekyi Ling
Woodstock, New York
February 25, 2010 CE
Tibetan Royal Year 2137, Year of the Iron Tiger
SOURCES, CONVENTIONS, AND ABBREVIATIONS
Primary Textual Sources
The study and translation of Tsong Khapa's Brilliant Illumination ofthe Lamp ofthe Five Stages (Rim lnga rab tu gsa/ ba'i sgron me) con- tained herein was produced with reference to a combination of several different sources. The primary sources were the following:
Derge The Derge (sde dge) recension of the root text (Delhi, 1 982)
Zh T h e Lhasa Zh o l Parkhang printing of Tsong Khapa's Col lected Works (gsung 'bum). Gray citations in square brackets embed-
ded throughout the translation are references to this edition. TL A reproduction of the Tashilhunpo (bkra shis /hun po) print-
TKSB
ing and the Kumbum Jampaling (sku
printing: Tsong-kha-pa Blo-bzang-grags-pa, The Collected
'
Tsong-kha-pa Blo-bzang-grags-pa, The Collected Works (gsunR 'bum) of the Incomparable Lord Tsong k. ha pa Blo bzang grags pa. vol. JA. Sku-'bum: Sku-'bum-byams-pa- gling. 2000
Works (gsun 'bum) of Rje Tson
vol. II. New Delhi: Ngawang Gelek Demo, 1978
ACIP
based upon the Derge and Zh
Electronic files from the Asian Classics Input Project (ACIP),
xvi
-
kha
-
bum byams pa gling) pa Blo-b:. an-grags-pa.
Sources, Conventions, and Abbreviations? xvii
Also consulted were the two published editions of the Tibetan translations of the root text of Nagarjuna? s Five Stages. as well as the excellent Sanskrit edition in the former work:
MIMAKI MIMAKI Katsumi and TOMABECHI Toru. Paiicakrama. Tokyo: Center for East Asian Cultural Studies for UNESCO (1994)
Chengdu Bstan 'gyur dpe bsdur ma. Chengdu: Chengdu Peoples' Publishing House (1998-2005), vol. 18
The large number of canonical citations herein were located and checked against the Derge recension of the Kangyur and Tengyur; and often the Narthang, Lhasa, Peking, and/or Chone recensions were consulted as well. Both the index and bibliography herein list the Derge sources, with English translations of the titles and with the corresponding Tohoku numbers. In addition, the bibliography, sorted by English title, gives the full citation information (Sanskrit and Tibetan titles, author names, location, and so on) for these Derge sources. Similar citations for non- canonical sources will likewise be found herein.
The precise locations of quoted passages, as well as text critical annota- tions regarding significant variants and so on, are given in our critical edition of the Tibetan text, forthcoming in print and in electronic format.
Typographical Conventions
We have strived generally to present Tibetan and Sanskrit names and terms in a phonetic form to facilitate pronunciation. For most Sanskrit terms this has meant that-while we generally have kept conventional diacritics-we have added an h to convey certain sounds (so s, $, and c are rendered as sh, sh, and ch respectively). For Sanskrit terms that have entered the English lexicon (such as "nirvana"), we use no diacritical marks. In more technical contexts (notes, bibliography, and so on) we use full standard diacritical conventions for Sanskrit, and Wylie translitera-
tions for Tibetan.
xviii ? Sources, Conventions, andAbbreviations
Abbreviations
The following abbreviations have been used in various places throughout the present work:
f237al
*
Skt. Tib. Toh.
Small gray citations in square brackets embedded throughout the translation are references to the folio number and side of the Zh edition. These same citations are embedded in our forthcoming Tibetan edition. Zh citations are also used in the Topical Outline (sa bead) included herein as an Appendix.
An asterisk before a Sanskrit word or phrase indicates a hypothetical reconstruction from the Tibetan.
Sanskrit
Tibetan
Tohoku catalog (1934, Sendai, Japan) of the Derge canon.
Christian Wedemeyer, ed. and trans. A. ryadeva's Lamp that Integrates the Practices (Caryamelapakapradfpa). New York: American Institute of Buddhist Studies, 2007. Tsong Khapa herein frequently cites this text by Aryadeva; hence we herein frequently cite the Skt. or Tib. editions (or the English transla-
tion) of this text contained in CW.
CW
INTRODUCTION
Introduction
1. What is a "Buddha Vajradhara," the Goal of this Tradition?
Ablaze in glory ofwondrous signs and marks, Forever playing in the taste ofthe bliss-void kiss, Recklessly compassionate, free ofextremist calm- I bow to the Victor with the seven super-factors! 1
To study this work fruitfully, we need first of all to understand what the author thinks is the goal of the practices described within it. That is to say, we need to imagine what Tsong Khapa imagines is the kind of being called a "buddha vajradhara"-what a buddha really is-whether viewed from the Tantric perspective or not. What he thinks a buddha-being is, is so utterly fantastic, even preposterous, from the perspective of our philo- sophically materialist modem culture, it takes a real effort of imagination, a nearly sci-fi exercise in openness of mind. We don't have to agree that in reality there is such a thing, but to understand the work at hand, it is fruitful to place ourselves in the position of Tsong Khapa's audience. To catch a glimpse of where he is coming from, we have to review the parameters he sets up for our imagining. This is an effort required to understand any form of Buddhism, but it is particularly important in the
Tantric or mantric context, since a lot of the work of mantric practice involves contemplative deployment of the structured imagination.
It is also quite probable that Tsong Khapa feels he should salute Vajradhara Buddha in this technical way because even his own Tibetan Buddhist contemporaries and successors might not so easily imagine what a buddha is, in its inconceivable reality. Tsong Khapa himself said
-after what he referred to as his coming to complete clarity about the uttermost subtleties of the realistic view, and what others refer to as his perfect enlightenment-that it was the opposite of what he had expected it to be, indicating that even a great scholar such as he had not fully been
? 3
1 Tib. rGyal ba yan lag bdun ldan. These are the components of a Buddha Vajradhara's
material body: 1 ) it has the auspicious signs and marks; 2) it is in embrace of a wisdom- intuition consort (being both the male and the female); 3) its mind is always super-bliss; 4) such bliss is ever aware of voidness; 5) its compassion avoids extremist calm; 6) its bodily continuum is uninterrupted; and 7) its enlightened deeds are unceasing.
4 , lntmd11ction
able to imagine what the buddha-uwareness was really like. When even a Buddhist thinks of enlightenment. she thinks of a kind of awareness far greater than her habitual own, but still it is difficult to imagine a being whose consciousness is at once infinitely expanded and minutely detailed, who feels him- I her- I it-self a timeless eternity of utter freedom ecstatically blissful. and whose multi-sourced presence can manifest in relation to
countless individual beings as countless different relational beings at once. To try to express the inexpressible, from the three buddha-body theory perspective, a buddha is a being who is not restricted to having to be enclosed in a single separate embodiment that faces an "other" universe and yet who does not neglect the countless beings who persist in feeling that they are separate, and are facing him, her, or it as an "other. " When a buddha completes its, her, or his wisdom store in the buddha-truth-body (Skt. dlumnakiyi a), it viscerally experiences itself as indivisibly one with all realities, and other beings and things and the spaces and energies within and around them are felt to be part of its body. This feeling feels those beings, things, and energies as configurations of a limitless bliss, as the truth body is simultaneously a bliss body, the buddha-beatific-body
(Skt. sambhogakiyi a). This bliss feeling does not anaesthetize the buddha being from also feeling what the beings feel of suffering; in a way the bliss energizes the ability to remain aware of the others' feelings of dis- satisfaction and pain. Indeed, the awareness of others ? dissatisfaction and pain in tum stimulates the spacious cloudlike truth-beatitude-indivisible buddha-body to manifest or emanate limitless forms of embodiment (Skt. nirmlif)Qkiyi a) as beings or things that can be perceived by the suffering beings and that perfectly mirror to them, according to their perceptual capacities, their potential freedom from suffering and their potential aware- ness of their own natural bliss.
Although this description of the inconceivable, amazing cognitive- dissonance-tolerant, dichotomy-reconciling nature of buddhahood is ultimately ungraspable in linear binary terms, we can imagine it with the help of limiting concepts such as voidness, freedom, nonduality, and the elaborated theory of the three bodies of buddhahood. Imagining it, we can aspire consciously to evolve toward achieving it for ourselves and those with whom we want to share it, in case it is really possible and not just a Buddhist fantasy. At any rate, the mantric or Tantric path is pre- sented as the science and art of accelerating such conscious evolution by
Introduction ? 5
employing a supremely subtle technology of spiritual genetic engineering of a buddha mind and buddha bodies.
A point that should be clarified here is that the buddha mind is referred to in the theory as a "body of truth," and the buddha bodies of beatitude and emanation are referred to as a "material body" (Skt. rapa- kiiya, often wrongly translated as "form body"). This may be a hint in the exoteric Universal Vehicle of the esoteric doctrine of the nonduality of body and mind at the ultimate or supremely subtle level.
To such an end of stimulating imagination and inspiration, Tsong Khapa embeds in his opening salutatory verse a standard formulation of the seven super-components of the material body of a buddha vajradhara (inconceivably indivisible from his and all buddhas' infinite truth body, itself completely interpenetrating all other embodied beings and discrete things).
There are seven super-components of a buddha vajradhara's material body.
1. IT HAS THE AUSPICIOUS SIGNS AND MARKS
There are traditionally thirty-two auspicious signs and eighty auspi- cious marks which a buddha vajradhara's material body has in common with other buddhas such as Shakyamuni and so forth. Nagarjuna in his
Jewel Rosary details these 112 signs and marks, explaining in brief how each one is the evolutionary (karmic) result of specific deeds in the many lives leading up to buddhahood (see below).
The final body of a buddha is the truth or reality body, which is infinite and timeless and indivisible. The individual expands always em- bodied awareness to encompass the ultimate reality of infinite worlds and beings, both enlightened and unenlightened, mental and physical. At the
same time, the individual momentum of positive engagement with others -the love and compassion that drives a being to evolve into the ability of providing happiness to countless others-persists in the physical omni- presence of a buddha in an equally infinite beatific body that infinitely enjoys having all reality as its body, and simultaneously encompasses the awarenesses of the infinite others who suffer due to their failure to realize their oneness with such a universe. This awareness automatically and effort- lessly then manifests as infinite seemingly discrete embodiments, called "emanations. " For their own evolutionary benefit, self-alienated migrating beings can interact with these emanations. Therefore, a buddha vajradhara
6 ? Introduction
is not just one individual, beautiful, divine embodiment, separate super- being in a desire realm heaven - that manifestation is just one of countless manifestations, but it is the one that best expresses to the evolutionary psychonaut, or adept, the ideal and goal he or she is aiming for.
Regarding the emanation bodies, there are said to be three kinds: artistic, incarnational, and supreme. The artistic emanation body consists of all representations of buddhas and their deeds by artists whose aim is to help beings imagine the supreme evolutionary state all beings can achieve. The incarnational emanation body is all the manifestations a
buddha can create to interact with alienated beings in order to help their development, including inanimate objects such as buildings, continents, even planets, in addition to plants and animate beings. The supreme ema- nation body is a buddha like Shakyamuni Buddha, who manifests descent from heaven, conception, birth, and so on (the twelve deeds with which we are familiar). It is such a supreme emanation that manifests a body that carries on it the graphic demonstrations (the signs and marks) of all his or her evolutionary achievements. In this way all emanation bodies are themselves teachings for specific beings in specific evolutionary times
and places.
In his Jewel Rosary,2 Nagarjuna gives a summary of the marks and
their causes in a buddha's evolutionary past:
Through proper honoring of stupas, venerables, noble ones, and the elderly, you will become a universal mon- arch, your glorious hands and feet marked with wheels.
0 King, always maintain firmly your vows about your practices: you will then become a bodhisattva, with very level feet.
By giving gifts, speaking pleasantly, fulfilling beings' wishes, and practicing what you teach, you will have hands with glorious fingers joined by luminous webs.
2 Here I quote a number of verses to give a taste of the specifics of the biological theory of karmic evolution (Jewel Rosary, vs. 177-197).
? Introduction ? 7
By always generously giving the finest food and drink, your glorious hands and feet will be soft, and along with your shoulder blades and the nape of your neck, seven areas will be broad, and your body will be large.
By never doing harm and freeing condemned persons, your body will be beautiful, straight, and tall, your fingers will be long, and the backs of your heels will be broad.
By spreading spiritual disciplines, you will have a good complexion, a good repute, your ankles will not pro- trude, and your body hairs will stand upwards.
Due to your enthusiasm in propagating the arts and sciences, and so on, you will have the calves of an antelope, a sharp intelligence, and great wisdom.
When others desire your wealth and possessions, by disciplining yourself to give them immediately, you will have broad arms, an attractive appearance, and will be- come a world leader.
By reconciling friends who are in conflict, you will become supreme, and your glorious private organ will retract within [like a stallion].
By bestowing upon others excellent dwellings, your complexion will be soft, like stainless refined gold.
By granting to others superior powers and dutifully fol- lowing your teachers, your each and every hair will be your ornament, including a special tuft of hair between the eyebrows.
By speaking pleasantly and meaningfully, and by acting upon the good speech [of others], you will have curving shoulders and a lion-like upper body.
By nursing and healing the sick, the area between your shoulders will be broad, you will live in a state of ease, and all your tastes will be excellent.
Introduction
By conducting your affairs in accord with the Dharma, your skull dome will be beautifully elevated, and [your body] will be symmetrical like a banana tree.
By speaking true and gentle words over a long time, 0 lord of men, your tongue will be long, and your voice like that of Brahma the creator.
By always speaking truth continuously, your cheeks will be lion-like, glorious, and you will be hard to overcome.
By being carefully respectful, serving others, and doing what is proper, your teeth will be shining, white, and even.
By always speaking true and non-divisive words, you will have forty glorious teeth, set evenly and wondrous to behold.
By gazing at beings with altruistic love without desire, hatred, or delusion, your eyes will be bright and blue, with lashes like a hull's.
Thus in brief know well these thirty-two signs of a great lion of beings, together with their [evolutionary] causes.
Nagarjuna then goes on to mention the eighty auspicious signs, not listing them, saying it would take too long; but the lists are common in the Sotras. This list gives us the feel of the Buddhist worldview. Life is evolutionary. The acts we perform of body, speech, and mind in any given life produce their result in the future of this life or in a future life. The patterns cited in this specific case of attaining the thirty-two auspi- cious marks of a superbeing (mahapuru? ha) connect moral actions with biological results.
A point to be emphasized is that this counts in the Buddhist culture as a " scientific" explanation of the physical characteristics of a "supreme emanation buddha body," such as that of Shakyamuni. Therefore, less evolved beings who have some physical marks resembling these thirty- two have bene committing acts of the same type. Thus if you are tall, with long fingers, and the backs of your heels are broad. you have been rela- tively less harmful to other beings in many previous lives; in numerous
8 ?
Introduction ? 9
life-forms, and in previous human lives you have saved lives and par- doned condemned beings.
Anything in these directions-height and breadth and beauty of body, nature of hands and feet and limbs, shape of eyes. length of tongue, beauty of cheeks, and so on-all these physical traits come from past evolutionary actions of body and speech and mind. The Darwinian theory of "survival of the fittest"-meaning increase of the survival-enhancing qualities of a species (not individuals) due to the physical propagation of the offspring of better equipped individuals generation after generation, producing mutations that cope better with the environment, that are transmitted by physical genes, and so forth - is somewhat parallel to the Buddhist theory. But added here to that picture (of the mutations of species over countless generations in coordination with environmental changes) is the individual's own personal evolution. That individual carries the results of his or her own evolutionary actions encoded in a
mental gene (Skt.
gotra) that goes from one coarse flesh and blood em- bodiment to another, meeting the physical genes of fathers and mothers in human or other animal forms born in mammalian womb, reptilian or avian egg, insect moisture, or magical environment.
Once persons encounter such a "karmic" biological worldview and come to think of it as realistic, either through cultural conditioning in a Buddhist culture or through historical and internal scientific investiga- tion, they adapt their lifestyles to consciously cultivate that mental gene through skillful evolutionary actions, considering that cultivation to be
the prime priority of their lives, since its results will determine the quali- ties of their inevitable lives far into the future. The ultimate change of lifestyle is precisely the Tantric one, where individuals decide that they cannot wait for countless rebirths of gradual progress to reach the summit of positive life experience for self and other that is defined as buddhahood. And so they enter the Tantric path of self creation and self perfection, compressing all those deaths and rebirths into a single intense lifetime or
a few lifetimes in order to get to the highest goal as soon as possible. Tantric art and contemplative technology is thus a form of genetic engineering. The main tool is the highly concentrated and stabilized crea- tive imagination, which uses the patterns of the mandala environments and the divine embodiments (themselves derived from meritorious actions and scientific insights) to shape the spiritual gene of the practitioner. This shaped gene then simulates, in the virtual reality of the lucid-dream-like
10 ? Introduction
1. '"0ntemplative performance (Skt. slldhana). the death, between, and rebirth processes; first as a rehearsal of out-of-coarse- or subtle- body perform- ances; and then as actual mind- and shape- shifting transformations in the
evolutionary direction of buddhahood.
2. IT IS IN EMBRACE OF A WISDOM-INTUITION CONSORT
(AS BOTH THE MALE AND THE FEMALE)
The highest pleasure in ordinary life is generally conceded to be the release experienced in sexual orgasm, wherein an individual melts his or her normal bodily rigidities and feels intense rapture through a blissful inner flooding of pleasurable energy. In Buddhist neuro-biology, this is explained as the bodily energies (or vital winds) dissolving away from their normal functions in the limbs and muscles and nerves (including the
brain) and concentrating in the central channel of the nervous system, said to run through the body from mid-brow up to crown of head and down in front of the spine to the tip of the genital organ. These energies take with them endocrine drops that anchor blissful feelings and concentrate them into a powerful force that carries the mind with it into release from all mental and physical preoccupations. The most powerful bliss experience of this kind occurs in a "normal," egocentrically-wired being only at death, as the mental energy is released from preoccupation within the coarse body. That experience dissipates as that mental-subtle-energy continuum arises as a subtle dreamlike body in a "between state. " This fairy-like "between being" (Skt. gandharva) migrates in its state of separateness throughout all the optional forms of existence in the vast universe other than it. When eventually the gandharva being itself is attracted to the coupling of a male and a female of some species, it melts into their state of self-expanding passion and is drawn into its next coarse
embodiment in a womb, etc.
Therefore, that a vajradhara buddha is always in embrace with a
wisdom-intuition consort indicates that this embodiment is not a coarse, non-blissful, ordinary one. It is perpetually indivisible from the bliss of orgasmic freedom, experiencing the male and female complementarity of orgasmic wholeness and contentment at all times. This gives a hint that such a being is nothing but a manifestation of the infinite bliss-void- indivisible of the infinite truth and beatific bodies, where every atom and subatomic energy is experienced as orgasmic release in creative magical emanation.
A very key point to note here - to clear up a general scholarly mis- apprehension about Tantra, namely that it is essentially a male chauvinist tradition-is that a vajradhara buddha is both the female and the male in the embrace, not just the male exploitively wrapping himself in some sort of subservient female as a mindless accessory. On simpler levels, the male is universal compassion and the female transcendent wisdom; the male is superbliss art and the female is profound voidness wisdom; or the male is the magic illusion body and the female the clear light transparence of the total voidness.
3. ITS MIND IS ALWAYS SUPER-BLISS
This emphasizes the transcendent nature of buddhahood: a vajra- dhara buddha bodymind represents the ultimate nondual awareness of en- lightenment that experiences its own/everything's reality as unobstructed bliss of orgasmic freedom, nirvana. This is the reality that Shakyamuni and all buddhas proclaim as the very substance of even samsaric reality, not enjoyed by beings who misknow it as otherwise, even while their bodies and minds are essentially constituted of bliss and their whole beings
are primally interpenetrated by uncreated nirvana. In exoteric Universal Vehicle this is taught by the Buddha in the Lotus Satra and other cata- phatic SUtras, wherein the Buddha shocks his dualistic Elder disciples, monastic vehicle arhat saints, by proclaiming the world's purity, blissful- ness, eternal selfhood, and transcendent freedom.
4. SUCH BLISS IS EVER AWARE OF VOIDNESS
This blissful wisdom that enjoys the inconceivable exquisiteness of the relative world never loses sight of its essential freedom, its ultimate peacefulness, its brilliant infinite energy that therefore has no need to do
anything, and so has done all that needs to be done. So the nirvanic bliss- awareness is not contradictory to the ultimate calmness and oneness of the immanent beyond; it neither troubles the ocean of bliss with elabora- tions nor constrains it by clinging to non-elaboration. Being "aware of voidness" simply means that the blissed-out subjectivity remains in a limitlessly melting, nongrasping flow, in unity with an infinite horizon of
openness pervading all objectivities.
Introduction ? 1 1
12 ? Introduction
5. ITS COMPASSION AVOIDS EXTREMIST CALM
The previous two super-components of a vajradhara indicate the buddha mind's nature as the ultimate tolerance of cognitive dissonance, the reconciliation of all dichotomies, the unity of simplicity and complexity, and not simply as a collapsed state of total extinct oblivion or resigned
relational bondage. Particularly, this fifth super-component indicates that a vajradhara buddha is not tempted to escape into sheer infinity without any differentiated objects; his/her/its transcendent wisdom is absolutely self-transforming into the infinite compassion that cannot abandon beings trapped by ignorance in the suffering of egocentric separateness and aliena- tion from the multi-dimensional, inconceivable universe of freedom.
6. ITS BODILY CONTINUUM IS UNINTERRUPTED
Being an infinite awareness beyond unity and plurality, one indi- visible-with every detail-with all buddhas of the past, present, and future, along with all unenlightened beings of all those three times also,
and being also indivisible with the infinite clear light transparency energy of absolute void freedom, a vajradhara buddha effortlessly responds to the needs of infinite numbers of suffering beings. A vajradhara buddha manifests from this inexhaustibly energetic nirvanic reality whatever medi- cine will relieve that suffering, whether it be the magical emanation of a vajradhara, a buddha, a bodhisattva, a person, a companion, an enemy, a substance, a continent, a planet, a star, a deity, a demon, a death, a rebirth, and so forth.
The fact that some sensitive humans who seek freedom and enlight- enment carry subconsciously the notion that they are somehow going to escape from embodiment, going to have a rest, going to get out of entan- glements, and so forth, is nowhere more powerfully responded to in the Buddhist Sntras than by the iconic event of the supreme emanation body Buddha's parinirvana, ultimate freedom understood by dualistic Buddhists as "no more rebirth. " However, the proposition that a buddha simply dis- appears from existence upon final enlightenment is definitively refuted by the many Universal Vehicle presentations of nonduality.
7. ITS ENLIGHTENED DEEDS ARE UNCEASING
Seeing nirvana as here and now, as nondually and blissfully imma- nent within all details of differentiation and manifestation, means that
there is no need at all for any interruption of embodiment. Iconically, this presents buddhahood not as the permanent extinction attractive to escapist dualists, but rather as a glorious explosion into infinite life, driven by in- finite compassion into hyperdrive to manifest whatever is needed to tame whomsoever.
This last super-component of vajradharahood adds to the Tantric dimension an encouraging transhistorical dimension where the aspirant need no longer feel lost in a decadent historical era when buddhas are gone, enlightened institutions have been crushed, beings are deluded and self-destructive, and so on-just how the world looks to us when we read the news or get bogged down in confronting political confusion, venality, and incompetence. The investigator and adventurer who seeks the real meaning and purpose of life wants to live it by taking up the priceless and rare human opportunity to become truly consciously awake. This involves mastering the evolutionary process to accelerate her or his devel- opment toward the ideal evolutionary condition of bliss-freedom indi- visible and wisdom-compassion irresistible, infinitely alive because firmly rooted in the transcendent rootlessness of death. This scientist- explorer can always and without fail discover the past present and future
vajradhara buddhas to help her or him find knowledge, consecration, instruction, wisdom, and artfulness. As far away as they may seem at times, their enlightened deeds are unceasing, they are never retired or unavailable.
I am fully aware that this unpacking of Tsong Khapa's opening salutation reveals a worldview profoundly at odds with that of "modern" scientific materialism. I do not expect academic colleagues-committed to the institutions founded on spiritual absolutism and now devoted to
scientific materialism-to be convinced that such things can be realistic: such things as real former and future life continua, mental genetic evolu- tion, a teleology not based on an omnipotent creator god but on individ- ual choice of purpose made by rational persons who scientifically investi- gate reality in systematic ways and discover the void nature of things as being in nondual harmonious equivalence with a causal coherence of lifestyle leading to buddhahood as the logical summit of evolutionary potential. However, there is no way to understand the works of the Indian and Tibetan great adepts (mahasiddhas)-great yogi/nis, scientist-
explorers, astronaut-like psychonauts - unless one at least makes the effort to imagine the world they discovered, considered, and then persuasively
Introduction ? 1 3
14 ? Introduction
argued is the more real world. After all, if modem or postmodem scientific materialists wish to be truly scientific, and not dogmatic and fundamen- talist, they must admit that the cutting edge of science has reached the uncertainty principle, the mutual transformability of matter and energy, the inconceivability of the macro- and micro- universes, and the openness to the principle that all "laws of the universe" are hypotheses awaiting falsification by new data and new theories. Thus, the examination, evalua- tion, and imaginative experimental appreciation of realistic worldviews and paradigms that at first seem completely strange and outlandish is part of the advancing of the frontiers of knowledge and the deepening of
scientific and humanistic wisdom.
2. Who Are the Beings Who Maintain this Tradition?
To the Lord of Secrets, collector of all secrets combined, And to the ancestral mentors who achieved supremacy Through thepath ofthe Community, King ofTantras- lndrabhilti, Nagaqakinf, Visukalpa, glorious Saraha, Vajrin Nllgarjuna. Aryadeva, Nagabodhi, Shakyamitra, Matangi. Chandra[kfrti]pada and the others-
/ bow with the mind offerociousfaith! LORD OF SECRETS
The "Lord of Secrets" (Guhyapati, gsang ba 'i bdag po) is consid- ered an emanation of Yajradhara Buddha. incarnating the powerful energy of all buddhas as a bodhisattva who asks Yajradhara to explain the esoteric
teachings and then records what he is taught
dark blue in color, often one-headed and two
pronged double scepter that symbolizes the buddhas' wielding of the su-
'
preme power of the relative universe
-
s experience
this power being fierce love and basically the indomitable bliss of deathless freedom that
compassion
seeks to go beyond being contained within any individual and to share itself with all sensitive beings.
Tsong Khapa had a personal mentor and colleague named Hlodrak Khenchen Namkha Gyaltsen, who. when teaching Tsong Khapa. would be perceived as transformed into the iconic form of Vajrapuoi. When he learned from Tsong Khapu. he would pen:eive Tsong Khapa as trans- formed into Mai\ju? hri. The Khenchen was gratefully credited by the late
-
. -
He is usually represented as armed. holding a vajra five-
Introduction ? 1 5
lama, Kyabjey Lingtsang Rinpochey-the Dalai Lama's senior tutor and the 90th Ganden Throne-holder of the Gelukpa order-with having dis- suaded Tsong Khapa and his eight close followers from going on pious pilgrimage to the Buddhist holy places in India in 1 399. For had they gone, they might not have returned very easily, if at all in that era, and Tibet would not have benefited from the twenty years of writing. teach- ing, and building Tsong Khapa gave to it from that time until his passing in 1419.
And what are these "secrets" of which Vajradhara/VajrapaQi is the "Lord? " These are the esoteric teachings of the Tantras, which are the "continua" of person, reality, and teaching, that are the highest technolo- gies of transforming the meaningless, purposeless, and miserable world of cyclic living - wherein misknowing egocentric beings struggle futilely and endlessly against an overwhelming infinite universe - into a buddha- verse of mutual love, compassion, and blissful pleasure energizing the inconceivable positive evolution of interconnected self and other.
Why are they "secret? " They are not secret from anyone who needs them, just as the formulas and procedures of sub-atomic quantum physics are not intrinsically secret from anyone, but are as good as secret for any- one who is unprepared by a complex and sustained education. For such persons, they are incomprehensible and useless. Moreover, there is an
additional element in the need for secrecy in the context of Tantra; the need to protect such unprepared persons, as they can hurt themselves in profound evolutionary ways if they misuse the powerful technologies of Tantra.
A cardinal Tantric technique is the art of purifying perception: to visualize and gradually learn to perceive the universe as a buddhaverse or mandalic paradise, with all beings as divine "buddhine" beings and all environments as perfected divine abodes. If this were to be employed
with sustained concentration by persons who have not first had some level of experiential realization of voidness and its inevitably entailed aware- ness of the relativity and constructedness of all things, it would lead such practitioners into the trap of psychosis, getting them stuck in an alternate reality far more pleasant and seemingly secure than the jarring and dangerous ordinary reality. A second cardinal art of Tantra is purifying self-conception: cultivating a divine buddha-identity to replace the ordi- nary, habitual self-identity of the ignorant person. If that were to be
practiced by someone without at least some level of the realization of
16 ? Introduction
selflessness and its entailed insight into the constructedness of relational self. it would lead to megalomania. Thirdly, if a practitioner does not have at least some degree of detachment from primal subconscious drives of eros and thanatos. and some degree of universal compassion toward others. the powerful energies of the deeper mind and body, when aroused within the Tantric atmosphere, are likely to carry the person still perceiv- ing those energies as lust and hostility into dangerous areas of manipulat- ive exploitation of others, which would prove enormously destructive to
both self and others.
Therefore the guardian of the secrets of the Tantras is the fierce
Vajrapag. i, who appears occasionally in the exoteric Sotras as a yak? ha- like fierce protector of the Buddha, who dwells under his teaching throne. I recall the Surra ofthe Wise and the Fool account where several Vajra- pag. is come out from under Shakyamuni's throne to ward off the six false teachers .
ANCESTRAL MENTORS
This term "ancestral mentor" (Tib. brgyud pa 'i bla rna), usually translated "lineage lama," is translated this way to reveal the feeling of a practicing great adept, who is not identified in her or his mind with his blood lineage and does not look back to great grandparents and so on as the most important ancestors. We can see in the case of Tibetan culture that the common institution of ancestor worship or preoccupation with bone (father) and blood (mother) lineage is almost completely neglected, having been thoroughly eroded by the commonsensically accepted, cul- turally embedded, biological theory of karmic evolution. That is, persons so acculturated consider their own past existences to have been in other families, nations, genders, races, even species, and so there is not a very strong connection with the blood or bone of the parents of this life and their forebears. Further, a dead parent or great grandparent is considered more likely to be reincarnated as one's neighbor than to be in some ances- tral happy hunting ground awaiting veneration and the offerings of tea and
cookies from successive generations.
However, in past generations, those who provided and preserved
precious Dharma teachings and practices are the spiritual ancestors who engendered the good qualities and liberating realizations in oneself that really enhance one's "spiritual gene" (gotra, rigs); so they are considered the real ancestors. Spiritual adepts - and, by their conscious and subliminal
Introduction ? 1 7
example. all Tibetans-are acculturated to view their Dharma ancestors as more important than their clan forebears. The rituals of offering drops of elixir to them in one's daily prayers and performances are in effect substitutes for the more usual ancestor rituals we find in other Asian societies. Every ritual performance (sadhana) written by lamas such as Tsong Khapa and his successors. and performed by hundreds of thousands of monks and nuns over the centuries, includes an invocation of these ancestral mentors at the beginning and makes offerings to them during a later section of the performance.
THE PATH OF THE ESOTERIC COMMUNITY TANTRA
From among the Unexcelled Yoga Tantras, the Esoteric Commu- nity Tantra (Guhyasamaja) is considered by Tsong Khapa the paradig- matic "Father Tantra. " I say "paradigmatic" rather than "supreme," as is often said, since every Tantra proclaims itself to be "supreme. " Indeed, each of them can assist the practitioner to the supreme achievement of buddhahood if properly implemented. The special virtue of the Esoteric Community is said to be that it has five Explanatory Tantras taught by Vajradhara Buddha which complement the originally revealed Root
Tantra. It therefore provides all the materials needed for a student and practitioner to understand all Tantras, many of which are less complete in their teachings.
The "Father" category of Tantras is critically defined by Tsong Khapa as characterizing those Tantras that emphasize the methodology for attaining the magic body (mayadeha, sgyu Ius), a subtle body like a dream body. The practitioner learns to release this subtle body from within
his or her meditatively entranced coarse body, which subtle body can then act in the universe to accelerate the accumulation of the stores of merit and wisdom that are required for buddhahood, gathering lifetimes of merit and wisdom in a single lifetime dedicated to such meditation.
The "Mother" category of Unexcelled Yoga Tantras emphasizes the arts of deepening the wisdom of either a coarsely or a subtly embodied practitioner by plunging her or him again and again into the clear light transparence realms within the infinite event horizon of deep voidness. With all due respect, Tsong Khapa critiqued those venerated mentor
scholars, such as Buton Rinpochey, who argued for a third category of "nondual" Unexcelled Yoga Tantras, on the principle that all of them are nondual; the "Mother" and "Father" categories simply describe their
1 8 ? Introduction
dominant emphasis, not an exclusive focus. These most advanced Tantras are all called "unexcelled" (anuttara), rather than "highest" (parama), because they reveal and make accessible the innermost core of nondual reality, and nothing can go beyond them since they contain everything within their matrix; "highest" implies a hierarchy in which the goal is somehow above and away from the "lower" things, which would carry a trace of dualism. Unexcelled Yoga Tantra teaching is not "higher" than the four noble truths, the eightfold path, the ten transcendences, and so forth. It is the matrix in which all of those teachings are nested, and where
they are fulfilled to the subtlest and most complete degree.
Although Tsong Khapa was an adept practitioner of a number of Tantras other than the Esoteric Community-he quotes from many of them-he usually based his analytic commentaries such as this one on the Esoteric Community literature and its commentaries developed in the
noble (Skt. arya) tradition of Indian Buddhist Tantrism.
Tsong Khapa goes o n to mention outstanding examples o f the spiri-
tual ancestors he reveres as having brought the Esoteric Community Tantra teaching forward in history from the initial revelation of the Buddha to Tsong Khapa's day.
INDRABHOTI
Indrabhiiti was a great adept said to have been a high king of U<;l<;li- yana. Contemporary scholars identify this land with the Swat valley pres- ently in Pakistan, but in ancient times it possibly represented the entire country now known as Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. It is said that he was fortunate enough to have received the original revelation of the Eso- teric Community Tantra directly from Shakyamuni as Vajradhara. It is said that the reason the Esoteric Community mandala universe has no charnel grounds (shmashana) around it (representing samsaric existence), as do
other Unexcelled Yoga Tantras, is that since lndrabhoti was a king, he liked things clean and orderly. He would have been repelled by any graphic display of the decay and putrefaction elemental in ordinary life. Upon re- ceiving the teachings, Indrabhoti put them into practice and within twelve years attained perfect buddhahood as a great adept. He spread the teach- ing so widely within his kingdom, it is said, that even the fish in the lakes attained communion (yuganaddha), the orgasmic embrace of personal one- ness with all nature and all beings that describes Tantric buddhahood.
NAGAOAKINI
It is interesting that the second ancestor is a female. the Dragon Angel (klu'i mkha 'gro ma), who figures in the tradition's history as hav- ing received the Esoteric Community Tantra teachings and precepts from King lndrabhOti and passed them on in turn to the southern Indian king, Visukalpa.
VISUKALPA
Apparently a king from southern India who received the teachings
from the Naga<;lakini and passed them on to Saraha.
GLORIOUS SARAHA
There is a bit more information about Saraha, who was a Brahmin, but who was attracted by a female arrow-maker when strolling through a bazaar. humbled, and then taught how to make a straight arrow. To take up such a profession was to abandon his status as a high caste Brahmin and to live among the lowliest castes, typical behavior of the great adepts. He became enlightened as a great adept and eventually taught the great Nagarjuna.
VAJRIN NAGARJUNA
The life of Nagarjuna is fraught with historical uncertainty. He is said by his own highly philosophical, scientific, and critical tradition to have lived over six hundred years. He was given by his Brahmin parents to a monastery in his youth, as he was afflicted early on with an appar- ently incurable disease which a sage told them would prove fatal if he remained a householder. He was a good monk, also a doctor and alche-
mist, and works on medicine and alchemy are attributed to him. Once he had become a teacher of the Individual Vehicle clear science (Abhi- dharma) tradition, he was approached by nagas, under-ocean benevolent serpent- or dragon-like beings, and given a library of Universal Vehicle (Mahayana) Sutras which they had been keeping safe since Shakyamuni Buddha's time. He revealed these texts in several batches, the first being the Transcendent Wisdom and Flower Garland Siitras and the second being the Elucidation of the Intention, the White Lotus, and the Shrrmala- devr Siitras. He left India for around 250 years between these revelations
and spent time in the northern continent, Uttarakuru, the continent on the
lmroduction ? 19
20 ? Introduction
other side of the axial mountain Sumeru, which would correspond on the round earth geography to the Americas. This "legendary" account would place his dates around 50 BCE to 550 CE. During this extraordinary lifespan (not quite up to Methuselah's standards to be sure), he was a Buddhist monk and teacher of the Individual Vehicle, a doctor and alche- mist, author of several medical tomes, a discoverer of lost Universal Vehicle texts and a revealer of their philosophical and spiritual meanings in two phases, and an explorer who traveled across oceans and visited other continents. Finally, he was a mystic adept, upholder of the esoteric teachings and attainer of vajradharahood, replete with its omnipresent buddha bliss-void transparence body of truth. with its magic body time- less ability to manifest wherever and whenever it would be helpful to
disciples.
I will return below to the problems this legendary richness poses
for the contemporary materialist and historicist scholarship. For these short vignettes, I am presenting these ancestral masters according to the way Tsong Khapa and his colleagues perceived them.
ARYADEVA
Aryadeva was born as the son of the king of Shri Lanka in ca. 3rd century CE. miraculously appearing in a lotus in the garden. According to his legend, like Nagarjuna, he lived for several centuries. Although placed on the throne at an early age, he felt dissatisfied with royal life and soon renounced his role in society and wandered off into South India to study the Dharma, taking ordination from Nagarjuna himself. He soon became the Master's foremost disciple, even surpassing his Master in some re- spects, as conveyed in the legends of his Tantric persona, Kal"(laripa. This is only startling if we fail to recognize the basic anti-authoritarian and progressive stance of Buddhism, even in those ancient times.
The most fumous story about Aryadeva is his debate with the great Pao4it Mlttche\a, a great Shaivite logician, as well as a great adept. No one could withstand him in disputation. and so he conquered the great monastic university of Nalanda. In those days. you had to defend your philosophical positions against all comers, if you were to retain your endowment and control over your own college. Aryadeva was sent from South India by Nagarjuna to recover the Buddhist curriculum of the uni- versity. and after many shenanigans. Aryadeva succeeded in doing so, converting Mltrchela to becoming an important writer in the Buddhist
Introduction ? 21
tradition. Aryadeva, like Nagarjuna, is claimed as a patriarch by the Ch'an/ Zen school of the Far East.
Aryadeva's principal philosophical works show that he did indeed take on the various Brahmin schools of thought, whereas Nagarjuna had mainly confined himself to refuting the Individual Vehicle Abhidharma masters who had fallen into too rigid a spiritualistic dualism to open up to the profound teaching of wisdom and compassion indivisible.
Aryadeva's greatest work of critical philosophy was the Four Hun- dred on Yoga Practice, which begins with a systematic arrangement of the Universal Vehicle path, and continues with a devastating critique of all the extremist ideologies existent in India during his time. His major work in the Tantric field, the Lamp of Integrated Practices, is remarkable for its lucidity and comprehensiveness. It is very extensively quoted by Tsong Khapa in the present work, which some consider as much a commentary on Aryadeva's Lamp as an independent treatise. What is specially inter- esting about it is its attempt to integrate exoteric and esoteric Universal Vehicle practices, even though its main focus is the perfection stages prac- tices of the noble tradition.
NAGABODHI, SHAKYAMITRA, MATANGIPA
These three important disciples of Nagarjuna were key figures in the noble tradition of the Community. Nagabodhi wrote a number of im- portant works, Shakyamitra a chapter of the Five Stages as Nagarjuna's transmitter, and Matangipa various works in the Tengyur collection.
CHANDRA[KIRTI]PADA
Chandrakirti was also from South India, born probably in the latter part of the 6th century CE in a place called Samanta, according to Tibetan sources. He was ordained and studied under Buddhapalita's disciple Kamalabuddhi. After becoming an expert himself, he went to Nalanda in
the north, and eventually became an abbot there. At the time, the ruling post-Gupta monarch was somewhat unfavorable to the Buddhist scholars, so they were restricting their teaching activities to the monastic univer- sity proper. Chandrakirti changed that, and began to teach the Universal Vehicle and the Centrist philosophy widely again. He had a famous debate that lasted for seven years with the master grammarian and ideal- ist philosopher, Chandragomin. It was later revealed that Chandragomin managed to stand up to Chandrakirti only through daily consultations
22 ? lntmJuctit>n
with the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. through a famous statue standing in a courtyard at the monastery. When Chandraklrti complained that the bodhisanva was showing favoritism he was told, "You don't need me, you have Maiijushri helping you ! So I just thought to help this fellow
along a linle. ? ?
According to the Tibetan tradition, Chandrakirti was the "ultimate"
disciple of Nagarjuna himself. At the end of his long life, Nagarjuna taught him his "ultimate" teaching, that of the uncreated. Whatever else this may mean. it indicates a sense of Chandrakirti ' s destiny as elucidator of the essence of Nagarjuna's message, as does the legendary connection with Maiijushri. Other legendary events of his life are his milking of the picture of a cow to feed the monks of Nalanda during a famine, and his riding of a stone lion to frighten away a Tajik army that was threatening the monastery. He is also said to have survived a forest fire while meditat- ing in retreat. His rescuers found him in the middle of an unburnt circle on his grass mat, saying, "My master Nagarjuna burnt entirely the fuel of phenomena with the fire of the uncreated. My master has done so, and I have done so; so how can the phenomenal fire burn me? " Many other
such miraculous signs are recounted.
A final interesting story about him was his last interaction with
Avalokiteshvara, after he discovered that the bodhisattva had been help- ing his adversary Chandragomin in their debate.