Vajrayana and the Culmination of the Path

Introduction

VAJRAYĀNA, OR THE path of Tantra, is a branch of Mahāyāna that is based on the practice of the four truths as taught in the Fundamental Vehicle. It is infused with the heart of bodhicitta—the aspiration to attain full awakening in order to benefit all sentient beings most effectively, and its core is the wisdom realizing emptiness, dependent arising, and their complementary nature.

Vajrayāna is found principally in Tibet, Mongolia, and Japan; it spread to China in ancient times but did not become popular there. Since Vajrayāna was more widespread in India when Indian and Tibetan sages brought Buddhism to Tibet, Sūtrayāna and Vajrayāna teachings spread in Tibet and became popular at the same time.

Vajrayāna is also called the Secret Vehicle (Guhyayāna), which in some people’s minds evokes notions of hidden, mystical, and fantastical practices that make a practitioner powerful and magical, not to mention famous. Actually, secret indicates that tantric practitioners are discreet; they don’t announce their meditative experiences to the world or seek fame. For that reason, the texts advise them not to display the pictures of the deities whose practices they do, or their tantric implements such as vajra, bell, and inner offering. Secrecy is to protect practitioners from the eight worldly concerns as well as to prevent the public from having misconceptions about the practice.

Vajrayāna practice involves visualization of meditational deities and maṇḍalas, recitation of mantras, and pūjās or offering ceremonies. Being unfamiliar with Vajrayāna teachings and practice, some people have glamorous or outlandish notions about Vajrayāna practitioners. It is very important as modern Buddhist practitioners that we debunk these misconceptions. The tantric path involves the same aims as the Fundamental Vehicle—to 2uproot the afflictions that bind us in saṃsāra and, like the Pāramitāyāna, to eradicate the latencies of these afflictions that prevent the full awakening of a buddha.

All sentient beings—no matter our physical form or other distinguishing characteristics—want equally to be happy and avoid suffering. Each human being has the same human mind with its unique human potential, and all of us have to deal with the same mental defilements. All religions and cultures encourage us to develop ethical conduct and a kind heart, to abandon harming one another, to help others as much as possible, and to forgive ourselves and others when we act in harmful ways. Even though we may feel more comfortable living in our own culture because it is more familiar, it is only suitable to respect the good aspects of all cultures and learn from them. However, romanticizing other cultures—for example, thinking Tibet is Shangri-la³—blinds us to what they actually are and causes us to ignore the good qualities of our own culture. Although some people may want to live in a culture or practice a religion other than that of their family, we will benefit from appreciating the good qualities of our birth culture and religion while adopting Buddhist perspectives and practices. This book, therefore, is our attempt to present Vajrayāna as practiced in Tibet in an accurate way, explaining some of the philosophy that lies behind it so that people don’t get too distracted by its more colorful aspects.

Two Aspects of the Path

To attain full awakening, the practice of both the method and wisdom aspects of the path are necessary. The method aspect is exemplified by the aspiration to be free from saṃsāra and generate bodhicitta, whereas the wisdom aspect emphasizes understanding emptiness and impermanence. These two need to be combined so that they mutually reinforce each other. We may have a strong determination to free ourselves and others from saṃsāra and to attain buddhahood in order to do so, but without uprooting the principal cause of saṃsāra—the ignorance grasping inherent existence—this is impossible. The wisdom realizing emptiness is the factor that frees our minds from defilements, and without doing this we will still circle in saṃsāra and be unable to lead others to liberation and full awakening. Likewise, we may realize emptiness, the ultimate nature of reality, but if we lack 3love and compassion for all sentient beings and the altruistic intention to benefit them, we will be content to attain our own liberation from saṃsāra. Although we may wish others to be free from duḥkha, we won’t necessarily act to bring this about.

How do these two aspects of the path complement and enhance each other? One way is to see that the sentient beings for whom we feel love and compassion are empty of inherent existence. Understanding this increases our compassion, for we can see that ignorance obscures their minds and causes them to repeatedly create the causes for saṃsāra’s duḥkha. The wisdom realizing emptiness is the antidote to saṃsāra. We need to actualize this wisdom and free ourselves from saṃsāra so that we are fully capable of guiding others on the path to generate this wisdom and free themselves from saṃsāra too. In this way bodhicitta encourages the practice of wisdom.

In addition, wisdom supports the practice of bodhicitta. In the early stages of meditation on emptiness, some practitioners fall to the extreme of nihilism and mistakenly believe nothing exists. However, emptiness does not mean nonexistence. Emptiness is a quality of all phenomena; it is their ultimate nature, their deepest mode of existence. As such, wherever and whenever a particular phenomenon exists, so does its emptiness. They are one nature—a phenomenon and its emptiness are inseparable. This means that the ultimate nature of each and every sentient being is their emptiness of inherent existence. The two truths—ultimate truth (emptiness) and conventional truth (the variety of phenomena, including persons)—exist and complement each other. The sentient beings we want to benefit exist conventionally and at the same time lack inherent existence. Because they lack independent or inherent existence, they are dependent on causes and conditions.

Knowing that ignorance and other afflictions are adventitious and not in the nature of the mind, we know that sentient beings’ duḥkha is not a given. It is not fixed and everlasting. Because duḥkha and its causes are empty, they can be altered. When ignorance, the afflictions, and their seeds are eradicated by the wisdom realizing emptiness, the duḥkha that depends on them gradually ceases. Thus this wisdom is the key to fulfilling our compassionate aspiration of bodhicitta.

Together with wisdom and bodhicitta, serenity—the ability to remain focused on a meditation object without laxity or restlessness—is necessary 4to attain awakening. Tantrayāna has a special method for generating serenity (meditative concentration) and insight (the realization of emptiness). The union of these two facilitates yogis to fulfill the accumulations of method and wisdom more quickly than in the Sūtra path. This is one of the chief reasons Tantrayāna is highly praised.

Unfortunately, nowadays when some people think of Tantrayāna, their first thought is of lamas wearing big hats, sitting on high thrones, ringing bells and playing drums, while mumbling magical mantras in Sanskrit. It is as if some people think the less they understand of a ceremony, the greater the blessing they receive—their wealth will increase, they will obtain special powers, and their worldly affairs will flourish.

However, increasing our saṃsāric pleasures—which are transient and eventually lead to pain and loss—is not the purpose of tantric practice. Once I watched a television program about Tibetan Buddhism. The film showed lamas holding the bell in their right hands—it is normally held in the left hand—sprinkling water here and there. There were colorful prayer flags all around and the room was filled with paintings of deities and lavish offerings of food, light, and so on. What the film didn’t show was Buddhists studying and debating the Buddha’s teachings for twenty years or more in the monasteries. It omitted their practice of disciplining their body, speech, and mind, and it neglected to show them teaching the Dharma to help others subdue their clinging attachment, anger, confusion, jealousy, arrogance, and so on. From that television program, it would seem that Tibetan lamas did rituals to earn their living and increase their reputation and wealth. If such were their motivation, that is not Dharma practice, no matter its external appearance.

It is important to understand what practicing Dharma means. Its purpose is to subdue and abolish our disturbing emotions and wrong views. The Nālandā tradition from India, as embodied in Tibetan Buddhism, emphasizes the use of reason and logic. Eschewing blind faith, it encourages faith based on understanding the teachings and having a reasoned conviction in them. This begins with listening, reading, and studying the teachings; continues with discussing and debating them; and leads to deep meditation on the meaning of the teachings to integrate it with our minds.

One of the excellent texts I recommend to people as the basis of their spiritual practice is Engaging in the Bodhisattvas’ Deeds (Bodhicaryāvatāra) 5by the eighth-century Indian sage Śāntideva. Consider this book as your guru and your trusted friend. Read it again and again; become very familiar with it. Then whenever you face problems or difficulties, you will know what chapter to read to counter the affliction disturbing your mind at that time. For example, when you suffer from anger, resentment, and jealousy, read and contemplate chapter 6 on fortitude and patience. When you’re carried away by attachment and lust, refer to the first part of chapter 8, and to deal with competition, arrogance, and self-preoccupation, practice the teachings in the second part of chapter 8 to calm your mind, subdue your self-centered attitude, and water your seeds of compassion.

With wisdom and compassion, faith and joyous effort, ethical conduct and concentration, we’ll now explore the Vajrayāna. But first, a short overview of the Buddha’s teachings to put Vajrayāna in context.

Three Turnings of the Dharma Wheel

The Extensive Play Sūtra (Lalitavistara Sūtra) relays in chapter 24 the words our teacher, the Buddha, said after he attained full awakening under the bodhi tree:

Profound and peaceful, free from elaboration, clear light, unconditioned—

I have found a nectar-like Dharma.

Yet if I were to teach it, no one would understand,

so I shall remain silent here in the forest.

In this statement the Buddha underlined the profundity of the ultimate reality that he had discovered. Thinking that others could not understand this, immediately after his awakening he turned away from giving teachings. He abided in silent contemplation in the forest until gods such as Brahmā and Indra came and pleaded with him to teach, saying there were beings who had “little dust in their eyes” and would benefit from hearing the Dharma. Accordingly, he “turned the wheel of Dharma,” teaching the Dharma in three sets.

Profound and peaceful refers to the first turning of the wheel of Dharma, which speaks of four truths of the āryas as well as dependent arising. Free 6from elaboration indicates the second turning, which includes the Perfection of Wisdom sūtras. These emphasize the ultimate nature of all persons and phenomena—their emptiness of inherent existence. Clear light, unconditioned refers to the third turning of the Dharma Wheel. Whereas the second turning contained teachings on emptiness—the object clear light—the third turning speaks of the cognizing subject, the clear-light mind that knows emptiness. In this short verse, the Buddha summarized the teachings he would give.

His first teaching was to five human disciples—the wandering mendicants who had been his companions during his six years of ascetic practices. When they requested him to teach, he explained the four truths of the āryas from the point of view of their nature, how to engage with them, and the result of realizing each truth. Regarding their nature, he said, “This is the truth of duḥkha—unsatisfactory experiences; this is the truth of the origin of duḥkha, this is the truth of the cessation of duḥkha and its origins, and this is the path leading to that cessation.” With respect to engaging with each truth, he said, “Duḥkha is to be known, its origin is to be abandoned, its cessation is to be actualized, and the path is to be cultivated.” Regarding the result of understanding each truth, the Buddha said, “True duḥkha is to be fully understood, but there is no duḥkha to understand; true origins are to be abandoned, but there are no origins to abandon; true cessation is to be actualized, but there is no cessation to actualize; and true paths are to be cultivated, but there are no paths to cultivate.”⁴ In saying this, the Buddha is speaking about the ultimate nature of all phenomena—they are empty of inherent existence. There is no inherently existent duḥkha to know, no inherently existent origins to abandon, no inherently existent cessation to actualize, and no inherently existent path to cultivate. Thus, while the four truths exist conventionally, on the ultimate level they are empty of having any independent, self-instituting nature.

True origins—the afflictions and polluted karma—are described in detail in the second turning of the Dharma Wheel, as is the way to abandon them by practicing the true path, the wisdom realizing selflessness. Free from elaborations refers to true cessations and to emptiness. Both of these are free from the elaborations of inherent existence and grasping inherent existence. This shows the possibility of overcoming the afflictions by understanding dependent arising free from the eight extremes of (inherently existent) ceasing, 7arising, discontinuation, permanence, coming, going, difference, and identity, as Nāgārjuna said in his homage to the Buddha in Treatise on the Middle Way.

The third turning of the Dharma Wheel consists of two sets of sūtras: The first set are for those disciples who found it difficult to understand the literal meaning of the teachings on emptiness in the second turning. They interpreted them by speaking of the three natures: dependent phenomena, imaginaries (imputed), and the consummate or perfect nature (nonduality—i.e., directly knowing the world as “representation only” in the nondual deeper layer of our consciousness). These form the basis for the Yogācāra school of Mahāyāna Buddhism as explained by Asaṅga and Vasubandhu in the fourth century CE.

The second set of sūtras in the third turning include the Tathāgata Essence Sūtra (Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra), the root sūtra that is the topic of Maitreya’s Sublime Continuum (Uttaratantra), in which the basic element, the tathāgatagarbha, is explained. “Clear light” and “unconditioned” refer to this. This basic nature of mind itself is luminous, whereas the afflictions are distorted conceptions rooted in ignorance. Here “luminous” does not mean radiating light but has the connotation of being vivid and capable of knowing an object. When ignorance is overcome by the realization of emptiness, the other mental afflictions have no basis and they too cease. Dependent arising is the “monarch of reasoning,” and understanding it correctly brings about this cessation.

By bringing together the two points taught in the second and third turnings of the Dharma Wheel—emptiness (object clear light) and the clear-light nature of the mind (subject clear light)—we can feel the possibility of attaining nirvāṇa. The basic nature of the mind is clear light in that it is empty of inherent existence, and the afflictions are adventitious because they are not imbedded in either the conventional or ultimate nature of the mind.

By speaking of the subject clear light, the third Dharma Wheel hints at Tantra, which explains the subtlest mind, the fundamental innate clear-light mind, and how to make it manifest so that it realizes emptiness. Teaching the tathāgatagarbha is a prelude to this.⁵

The tantric teachings speak of the coarse, subtle, and subtlest minds. The subtlest mind becomes manifest at the time of death after the three visions 8of white appearance, red increase, and black near-attainment dissolve during the dying process. At this time the eighty indicative conceptions, most of which are subtle afflictions, also dissolve, leaving the fundamental innate clear-light mind, which is free from the three visions and the eighty conceptions. In some explanations, this is understood to indicate zhentong (other-emptiness), but here it refers to levels of consciousness, not to the ultimate nature of phenomena.

Ultimately this innate clear-light mind is the basis of all appearances in the universe. Dzogchen terminology includes the words “basis” (T. gzhi) and the “expression or appearance of the basis” (T. gzhi gnang). The latter refers to various appearances, including the white appearance, red increase, black near-attainment, and the eighty conceptions. At the time of death, all these dissolve into the basis, the subtlest clear-light mind.

When meditators already have the correct view of emptiness, the subtlest clear-light mind can be used to realize emptiness nonconceptually. This further purifies the actual clear-light mind, which then becomes the wisdom truth body of a buddha. The emptiness of this mind and its true cessations are known as the nature truth body of a buddha. From the subtlest wind that is one nature with a buddha’s mind arises the enjoyment body and the emanation bodies. Buddhas use their enjoyment body to teach the ārya bodhisattvas in a pure land and their emanation bodies to teach ordinary sentient beings. These two form bodies of a buddha serve the purpose of others by guiding them on the stages of the path to liberation and full awakening, and the two truth bodies serve that buddha’s own purpose by being actualized upon their attainment of buddhahood.

Bhikṣu Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
Thekchen Choling