Archive Result

Soundfile 20071007GRGRVAJ7

Speaker Gehlek Rimpoche

Location Ann Arbor

Topic Vajrayana

Section 7 out of 8

Transcriber John Thornton

Date 3/26/08

We are doing the protector prayers now. (They do the protector prayers.)

Do you have a lot of questions?

Can you partially get an initiation? Can you tell if you got an initiation? Are there signs that you got the initiation?

GR- Yes you can partially get an initiation. Feelings, dreams and signs and things like that are not reliable. We all know that. Yes you can get the first initiation and not the others. As far as I know His Holiness did that in the Kalachakra initiation. That is why I said earlier that to get the complete initiation you have to get all four initiations-the vase, secret, wisdom and word.

Vajrayana begins with imagination, which is unreal to us in the West. You said the visualizations become reality. How does that happen?

GR- That is a good question and I wish I had the answer. I don’t know what to say. Many times when you think something, it happens. It is reality. Especially when you are meditating and visualizing a pure yidam in a pure environment. There is no question it happens, but how it happens, a scientific explanation, I don’t know. But the mind is capable of that when the conditions are right. It is reality.

Please explain the difference between the 4 levels of self-generation, layman level, little wisdom, some wisdom control?

GR-We will be covering that later today.

What is the connection between tantra and the joy of the mind?

GR- As I told you earlier the mind becomes joy nature. Mind itself becomes joy, not only the mind has joy. That is probably the key. If I am wrong I am sorry.

Were all the tantras taught by the Buddha in the Buddha’s lifetime?

GR- I don’t know. You do have tantras and you have accounts. But you have to remember when the Buddha taught, things were not written down. His teachings were written down way after Buddha’s lifetime. All were collected by memory. Someone said thus I have heard so and so was in such and such a place and the Buddha was there and said this and that. They are considered Buddha’s words. The word came out because of his blessing and influence. Then there are things that were supposed to be said by Buddha’s attendants because of his blessing or influence-not from his mouth. So all of them, such as Shariputra’s statements, are recorded way after Buddha’s lifetime. They began to write 400 years after he passed away. That is why you know buddhalogists say Buddha’s collected works is Buddha’s canon and you cannot argue with them. In another case the Buddha doesn’t speak, but the tray next to the Buddha starts speaking!

Are there any new tantras in Tibetan Buddhism not taught directly by the Buddha?

GR- Well you know there is a Tibetan tradition of tantras and hidden treasure is there too, things like that. I don’t know if it is real tantras or not. They are also there too. That happens. Are they real tantras? Who knows? Many would like to believe it is, but I don’t know if there is a valid reason. These things I don’t know. When I was a kid, a lot of things came up. One of them came from Manjushri mountain. I remember there was a popular but secret tantric teaching about a practice –it said from the five Manjushri mountains a bikshu named Somolane came, and it was very popular. It is sort of unbelievable. Like if you smoke a cigarette and blow smoke up in the air you destroy 100,000 in the samsaric gods’ land and if you blow down you destroy 100,000 in the Naga land. It is sort of unbelievable. I still remember those words. I think later things like that were supposed to have come out of Manjushri’s mouth. I don’t know what they are talking about. Who knows, but they said all that. There are many others. Look at the Tibetan Book of the Dead; you have wrathful and peaceful deities and this and that happens. Who can say it is right or wrong. Probably everyone will say it is right. But will every individual see all the monster-lookking wrathful deities and other things described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead? Probably not. So that is why I am not going to rely on a new tantra; probably not. You know the word tantra and sutra itself it really cuts the other out, other than Buddha. We divide between “dha” and “kinju”. Dha is like order and kinju is like commentary. Whatever is dha is supposed to be from Buddha. That is the reality.

Can you please explain what the vajra, bell, name, water and crown initiations empower us to achieve?

GR- That gives us authorization to look in each and every related material. Like I explained earlier. In the Kriya initiations are only the Water Initiation and the Vase Initiation. That authorizes the people to practice. Otherwise unauthorized persons are not allowed to practice that. So Crown and Water Initiations, like the Avaloketishvara thousand eyes, all those types, all these categories are only Water and Crown Initiations. Another has the Vajra Bell Initiation. Sometimes they have five or six, but they are within the vase. Vase Initiation is only divided into two or three or six in the lower tantra. One of them has a Vajra Master Initiation. But the Lower Vajra Master Initiation is not the same as in the upper tantra initiations. One gives you wong. Wong in Tibetan means power. The initiation gives you power within the mandala, but that alone gives you wong.

There are a number of questions about yidams. People are talking about their issues, accepting the existence of yidams and ghosts. I believe they are looking for advice about how to overcome the feeling that they are not real.

GR- This is interesting; this is reality. Ghosts, yidams, you can never say they are not reality. Just because I did not see it, you cannot say it is not true. I don’t think that is not a valid reason. There are many people who saw them and even communicated with them. So you cannot deny it. If you deny it, you will be ignoring true happiness just because me did not see it or because you did not accept it scientifically, maybe. I am not sure how valid a reason that is, especially for those of us who have a valid experience of ghosts. Those of us who have communicated, in trance or otherwise. Really, we know for a fact it is there. When it is there, it does not have to be tangible. We do have … I myself have personally experienced communicating with different people, protectors, being in a trance. It is reality. In my case, I also had a number of experiences of seeing ghosts. Luckily it was not so horrifying or terrifying. I just told you yesterday about a ghost coming into an eleven year old girl in Malaysia.

When I was a kid. It is so funny. We do go to a remote place in Tibet, about a day long horse ride from Lhasa. We used to go on horse rides almost a day long. That is a remote area in a mountain valley. There are a number of buildings that belonged to the monasteries, but they only use them for three or four weeks during winter. Every day, normally they are empty. They talked about one particular ghost, which we called “donkey.” Sometimes this particular ghost takes people and they get lost. Everyone is in temporary homes or halls-maybe 50 or 100 sleeping together. So if one is missing, then they run around with flashlights and get very busy with the burning lights looking for someone missing. This is the duty of the senior incarnate lamas. Whoever the senior incarnate lama is, his job is to find this lost guy. So what we do is we go in the main hall and go on top of the building run by Ratha Jung Rinpoche. We go on top of his building and we sit there and pray and a couple of sitta rituals and we have to bang the gong. It is funny, somehow the person who is being taken away will be stopped immediately. They are stopped immediately the moment they hear the first gong. When they stop, sometimes it is near the monastary. Sometimes people have to go on the road or up a cliff to get the monk down. Those persons have run so much that the leather on their shoes is almost finished. The person himself doesn’t know where he went. It happened in my lifetime three or four times, honestly. Once a monk was on a cliff up there and no one can get up. Monks went with ropes to get him down.

And then almost everybody will tell you, “Oh, I saw that ghost.” Then you say, “How?” They said, “He covered his head with a rope like this.” I think all lie, or most of them. I did see it one day in the middle of the day. A teaching was given and I was supposed to go attend that teaching. You go to the teaching and then come back and debate. You have to prepare for the debate, I think with 20 monks or something. I tried to prepare, and I am supposed to go around the huge assembly and I am a little late. I am supposed to go around because of the huge assembly. But I was late and I didn’t go around. I went across the hallway and cut across the assembly. There is a street that goes up, then there is a house here and you have to turn this way, and then a big open space and then there is the house where the teaching is being given. So I went this way. Almost all the monks attending the teaching are senior members who are in this assembly there. From the distance, I saw a donkey and it was looking at me. It was not just a donkey, but it was rainbow colored and it was looking back at me. I walked to the donkey. I thought what a beautiful donkey. I have never seen such a beautiful donkey. I went to pet it and there was nothing there. I touched it and there was nothing there. Suddenly, I heard a big sound and looked back and there is a huge guy carrying a load walking by. Then I got scared. So I ran up to where the teaching was and when I reached the place I could not see. They said, “What happened to you?” “I saw a donkey.” They said, “Oh everyone sees a donkey with ear coved by rope on top,” and I said, “No I saw a rainbow colored donkey!” Everybody sees donkey ear covered by rope, but I saw a rainbow-colored donkey.

I had this experience and many others. I have to tell you this because I was accused of not telling my stories. People start saying, “Oh yeah, you didn’t tell us this you did not tell us that.” So donkey ghost is reality. It happens to be one of those quite learned geshes who could not control his pride and jealously and so he became that donkey ghost. That is the true fact of my experience of ghosts, and thereby you figure out others.

Why are there different yidams?

GR- Oh yeah, there are a lot of them. We haven’t even gotten there yet. The tantras are divided into father tantras and mother tantras. There is no neutral tantra. The reasons why father tantra and mother tantra? We talk about union, body-mind union. The body we are not talking about our ordinary body, but extraordinary illusion body. And mind is not ordinary mind, but mind in the nature of clear light. The ultimate production of the mother tantra is the clear light. Illusion body is the ultimate production of the father tantra. If you don’t have both you don’t have a Buddha without a clear light mind or without an illusion body. For this reason you have father and mother tantras. Every practice almost from the start of the lineage prayer onwards is geared for the practitioner to develop whatever the practice is.

For us it is clear. What we use here is Vajrayogini and Yamantaka sadanas. The systems’ functioning is the same, but the emphasis is different. Each is indicated clearly by the way the words are said, the rituals are said. When you do the Vajrasattva recitation in the morning, the mother tantra Vajrasattva, the liquid comes and purifies. And if you look in Yamantaka the liquid comes and purifies thereby majestically develops or something-- makes his luster and energy outstanding, purified, and then going into the mantra. Purified and simply dissolving in to empty is clear light. Purified and developed luster and energy is physical energy, so it is producing illusion body. That is every step, even accumulation of merit, which indicates the tantra is clearly geared toward producing that. And that is why at least you have father tantra and mother tantra. That’s how it is. Why so many? Each and every individual human being has different emotions, negative or positive, our mental psychic emotions. Some people have this connection or that connection and that is why there are so many yidams.

I can tell you one story. Sebang Dorje Chang is the father of Semo Sible Rinpoche. Some of you may know Semo Sible Rinpoche. He is the teacher of that guy, the dharma translator now in Germany. When Sebang Rinpoche passed away and during the funereal so many different people had seen so many wonderful images of Buddha, this image or that image. He had one guy he was always joking with, and they were always dirty jokes. When Sebang Rinpoche passed away, this guy arrived at the funeral and he was crying. He cried and said he was so great and it was so unfortunate that he died. They said there are all sorts of images so why don’t you look up. So he looked up and he saw this huge donkey dick. He got so upset. Everyone saw these wonderful things, Buddha, Tara and this and that, and I saw this terrible thing. He was always making jokes with him and that’s what really happened. But on the other hand there was Heruka called Donkey Face Heruka. So what happening is Rinpoche was indicating to him, that is me. So all these things happen to suit individual mentalities, all kinds of different yidams do appear. (Laughter). What are you laughing about?

We are moving on to another topic, away from donkeys now (laughter.) Can cause be considered male and conditions, female?

GR I don’t know what to say on that, honestly. Even in cause and conditions there are four or five kinds of things, but I don’t know what to say on that.

How does enlightenment help other beings?

GR That’s also another good question. If enlightenment doesn’t help, what else? Enlightenment state is supposed to be the most efficient state. Traditional Tibetans will say it achieves everything effortlessly. It is the most efficient state. That is the reason why any individual who has bodhimind needs to have that state. They need that state to liberate sentient beings.

What is the relationship between the nature of mind and the laws of the universe?

GR That also I don’t know, honestly.

Should we have a main practice and how do we choose one?

GR This is a good question, actually. I think what happens is for the individual people, well two is a must because of father tantra and mother tantra, body and mind ultimate development. When you are doing it, the individual begins to realize what is comfortable and what would you like to do more. That is how you begin to settle it for yourself. This is a decision each and every individual makes. There are a number of people who go and ask different lamas, “What is my yidam?” The lama will say, “Your yidam is this and thus.” They may be clairvoyant, or throw dice, or say eni, mini, mini, mo. That is what they do and that is fine. But the reality is you see for yourself what is most comfortable and effective for the individual. And it may change from time to time. But ultimately you see what has the best effect on you. Sometimes people have a presumption, but it never works. Like Kaybje Ling Rinpoche, we all presumed his main yidam was Yamantaka. But before he passed away he told people it happened to be Heruka. In the case of Pabongka his writing was signed essence of joy, essence of bliss. From the palace Dewa Choh, he says, from the palace of Dewa Choh. Dewa Choh refers to Heruka. He does that. In that case it was very obvious. Some are not so obvious so that is how it goes.

Thank you. Okay, now lets do a little work. We are talking about the generation stage-comes out of three kaya practice. We talked about Sambogakaya. So we have Manjushri as Sambogakaya in the case of Yamantaka. What happens is we develop this mandala. The principal is in the center of that. As you build up, sometimes we exchange. So in the center of the mandala is the air mandala and it transforms to the letter "D" and it transforms into a sword and it transforms to Manjushri, and that is called the “Sambogakaya Manjushri.” Then you build up to Yamantaka and the nine-spoked vajra which is Nirmanakaya. So it builds up. So it is evolution from emptiness to the letter D to Manjushri then vajra and it dissolves and becomes the result Yamantaka. Yet you still maintain the whole mandala. At the center, the individual person from the Manjushri form evolves into Yamantaka form. Thus you are completing the Nirmanakaya. Right? So thus you evolve into Nirmanakaya. Then you have to have the three wisdoms. You have the implements, then under the feet birds and samsaric gods. Then at the heart you have Nirmanakaya and you have Manjushri at the heart, which is the wisdom being, and the vajra at the Hum becomes the commitment beings. It depends on the sadana. You become the Nirmanakaya with the wisdom being and commitment beings are all together. Plus adding up those different deities in the eyeball and the ear and all of those. Plus lights going and inviting initiation deities. Giving offerings and praise and all those builds up. Although the initiation deities may leave after the initiation. Plus manifesting offering deities and making offerings, including inner offerings for lineage masters, dharmapalas and yourself and even total retinue.

And then comes the meaning of the physical appearance, which we call purity. It says the two horns are the two truths and the nine faces are the nine faces of the teachings and so forth. The sixteen legs are the sixteen emptiness’s and the sex organ standing is the sign of joy. All of those. Right? So up to that level, holding together –earlier you had the lineage, purifications, accumulation of merit and accumulation of wisdom merit are all relative matter. All are built up together. But through emptiness of the base, Dharmakaya, building up together including all those little things, each deity in the form of mantra, some of them, and zim, zim in the eyeball and two ears we have the Vajrapani and the zim zim black form. Avaloketishvara is in the tongue and all of those. These are not part of the body itself, which is in the form of the symbol or yidam. Symbol or yidam doesn’t matter, since symbol and yidam are the same thing. There are shorter and longer versions, all of them adding up the commitment being, wisdom being and absorption being. You build them up slowly with the sadana and then focusing them together, meditating. This is the beginning of the meditation of development of stage for us. Build up and focus together is the beginning. Can we do it? No we can’t? When we think about two horns we forgot the other. When we think of one thing we forget the other. They are not there. So what you have to do is go up and down without losing—the legs, stomach, waste, body, arms, the waste, the upper part of the body, the heads head. That is going to take a hell of a long time. So the development stage is slowly building up and be able to focus all together.

In the case of White Tara and Vajrayogini it is a little easier, not so many hands. But in the case of White Tara it is Kriya, and you may generate yourself in the form of Tara and then you have Tara in front of you. There is nothing like the development stage and completion stage in Kriya Tantra. They don’t even talk about development and generation stage. They talk about sign and no sign. They don’t generate in the way we do with Yamantaka thing, although the sadanas we have are very simple. If you really look into the Kriya they have six deities. So sound is included and mantra is included. They don’t do it that way though, although the little sadanas we do are quite simple. One advantage for the Kriya is you can generate yourself in the form of the Yidam and you also have the Yidam in front of you. So you sort of have a duplicate. That is an advantage. But they don’t talk about development stage. It is not mentioned. Instead they talk about sign and no sign, which means with wisdom and emptiness. It is only the Mahayoga Tantra that talks about the development stage.

“Developed” here means whole mandala with the Yidam and focusing. If you have to focus on three eyes, you know how difficult it is. On the gross level, to be able to focus together quite clearly, is called layman’s stage. That goes to all Mahayoga Tantra yidams. Yamantaka will be quite complicated; too many hand implements. When you get used to it, it is simple and easy as anything. When you are not used to it-even Vajrayogini with one face, two hands, three eyes- is difficult. Also,Vajrayogini is a problem. It looks like one deity, but the problem is there are 22 because of the body mandala inside and in all becomes 32. It looks simple, but it isn’t.

It very clearly mentions to develop the yidam in the development stage your mandala must have more than 5 deities, with the exception of the Solitary Hero Yamantaka. Everywhere it is written. Everywhere you see it. Other than that, it is normal that one must more than five deities. The Solitary Hero Yamantaka is the exception. Then we say one, in the case of the Solitary Hero Yamantaka. But you have more and being able to see all of the three beings clearly, not really seeing the subtle aspect. Maybe not seeing the nose and ears but just maybe a lump, just seeing everything together completely.

We have this problem of zooming and not zooming to see clearly something if you are looking at it, but don’t forget it is you yourself in the form of the yidam. All this we have, but without zooming you should be able to see everything together and be able to focus on that to arrive at the layman’s stage.

Along with this you have mantra recitation, too. Again mantra recitations are normally done at the heart level of the yidam. You have the letter at the heart level, OM or HUM or whatever it is, and the mantras surrounding at the heart level. So these are additional things. But for the development stage I am not sure you need mantra in the form of the deity. My guess is no, but still you need to have the structure completely without which you cannot develop. It is the beginning of the development stage, layman’s stage, to be able to focus them together for a while.

Even at this development stage there are two ways of dividing. I divide it into gross single thought and detailed analyzing. But these four stages I taught, they overrun those divisions. These are the four stages I taught through which one individual goes, they sort of overrun these divisions. The last stage is divided between the completion stage into gross thought and detailed analyzing. We can still talk further about the development stage in quite a bit of detail. The completion stage I shouldn’t talk to you too much, but I would like to talk about the steps needed and how they are reached. They differ from deity to deity. Yamantaka, Guyasamaja, Heruka differs from others. Of course, one gets to you from the path of clear light and you use tummo, the heat. One gets to you through the father tantra side and they don’t use those and there are more steps. So there is no blanket statement. And we can talk about the five paths, and the nine stages of the last one, the nine meditation stages. Each has three big ones, three medium ones, and three small ones. That is how we count.

There is the single gross level. I am paraphrasing here. Single gross thought stage means you are always focusing on the deity. Single thought. Single thought does not mean one thought. It always means you are always thinking on the deity, but it also means you don’t have to build, like development stage. The moment you think it is all there, you don’t have to build it up. At this stage you don’t have to say your sadana because it is all there. Each and every mantra has its own meditation within its own sadana that the person is supposed to be doing.

Then it is always permitted for us when you do a retreat, a small number of times during each session you meditate on the yidam. The rest of them are in the Lam Rim stages, wherever you are, because we are already here, but we left our tail! At least gain effort, if not effortless experience, you can gain if possible as you get experience. This means at least the situation is under control and you can manage the subject within your development stage. That sort of thing should be developed. That is permitted, because we go to Vajrayana with a background, just gesture. Only that. Not only is the development of Shamata absolutely necessary in Vajrayana. We are permitted, however, to train and develop Shamata at higher levels, not only at the gross level of the development stage. We are permitted to develop Shamata at the level.

When people do a long retreat to develop Shamata, we say very nice, but in my heart of heart I say what a waste of time. We can develop this and use it to develop into the subtle Vajrayana development level. Then your focus is not Buddha or mind, but the total mandala-perhaps on the tip of your nose, even if you just focus on your third eye or sex organ as a yidam. That is how you do it.

(Hartmut and Rinpoche perform a Yamantaka prayer.)

The virtue equaling the flow of the Ganda has arisen from our practicing absorption, recitation and so forth.

Upon the circle of the mandala of the opponent of Yama, the Lord of Fury, a mandala as clear as a rainbow reflected in the surface of a stainless mirror, a sphere of bliss and void,

Through my uniting the accumulation of merit with the many streams of meritorious activities of all beings,

And by my having trained in the path of liberation, conjoined with the vows and deeds of the sons of the conquerors, may my continuum become filled with a treasure of nectar,

The culmination of the common path

By the devine order of the vase empowerment, may ordinary appearance and the belief in it be purified,

By the supreme empowerments, which color this, may the speech of the conquerors, the sphere of clear light and the great union actually come to me.

Having at that time in the presence of the Lama and deities taken upon myself the pure vows and commitments, which are the supreme root of all siddis, may I constantly protect them all even at the cost of life or limb.

By practicing in four daily sessions, as diligently as a river flows, the yoga the cause of the subtle development stage, the path fully ripening one for the completion stage, may ordinary appearance and belief in it be annihilated.

The great radiance of the heart of the perfect hero, invites the field of accumulation which pervades the sky. By delighting this field with the purest offerings, praises and practice, may I totally complete the great collection of merit.

Having with stainless reason examined the meaning of the mantra and having with awareness, sure the profound emptiness, soundly establish the pride of the Dharmakaya, may I become habituated with the peerless wisdom.

By the absorption of the ten wrathful ones, the great glaring ones who abide in the fiercely blazing wheel, the transient limbs of darkness are torn off from their very root, may I too come to possess this power

In the center of this mighty wrathful wheel is the inconceivable mansion, having the nature of wisdom, radiant with the light of jewels, all beauty is condensed into one object.

By meditating upon it may the supreme Buddhahood be produced.

In the center of the palace is a mandala of air on which firmly rests the moon

Seated there is Manjushri having a luminous body. By constantly meditating upon him, may I become free from the impure intermediate state and attain the Samboghakaya.

By perfecting the yogas of the course and subtle development states, wherein the form of Vajravaria is actualized, from the natural vajra that arises out of the seed syllable which rests on the sun the conceals the myriads of preconceptions.

May I experience the dance of the Nirmanakaya that has abandoned all impure results.

May the highest realizations of the completion stage relating with the 37 elements directed at awakedness, the principle features of the large scripture categories into which all teachings of the able ones arise.

From the meeting together of the white and red bodhicittas appears the point of the vajra body, may I realize the 16 emptiness’s together with the 16 innate great bliss’s and thus complete the absorption combination.

By my practicing the perfect enactment of the 3 aspects of emptiness from which the glorious illusive body is actualized and all airs dissolved into the heart center, may all the non-deceptive signs such as the mirage and so forth appear.

From the resemblance of the yoga of pure wisdom, may I arise in the form of a deity resembling the yoga of shape, beautifully adorned with all major marks and minor signs, like a bubble emerges from the middle of a pool.

By continually entering into the semblent clear light of the beautiful illusive body, the actual clear light is actually generated.

Having actually done that, may I achieve the great union of pure practice, which has abandoned the obscurations of defilement.

By completing the meditations upon the ultimate natural generation, may I with vajra-like Samadhi, in this very life, achieve the state of the vajra-holder, which has abandoned the evil of all instincts and confusion.

May I myself spread and not let decline this most wondrous of paths in all times and places, and by this path may I easily and quickly place all beings in the state of the vajra-holder.