Excerpts

The Practice of Meditation and the Manner in Which Realization Arises: A Song of the Path for Travelers Who Are Going a Long Distance

These three experiences—well-being or bliss, lucidity or clarity, and emptiness—are three meditation experiences that very commonly occur. They can arise in any sequence and be of any duration. The order given here, first well-being then lucidity then emptiness, is not always the case. They can last for years, for months, or days—depending upon your individual makeup, your degree of purification of obscurations, and so on. At a certain point, in the midst of any one of these three types of what we would normally regard as positive meditation experiences, something will disturb you. Some kind of condition that brings about suffering or intense anxiety—such as people speaking about you or sayingsomething to you, and so on—will happen that will break the bubble of your meditation experience. That is the problem with experience. It does not last. The experience will vanish in an instant, like a rainbow.

In its place, you will experience a degree of mental wildness and agitation that is at least as bad as what you experienced before you practiced meditation. In fact, your aggressiveness, irritability, resentment, conceptualization, agitation, passion, greed, obsession with food, clothing, and so on will all seem to be worse than before. You will be more reactive than before. You will be short-tempered and harsh of speech.

With the previous experiences, there is a tendency to assume that they are really good and sometimes, particularly with the experiences of clarity and emptiness, we may mistakenly assume that we have attained enlightenment. For the same reason, we tend to assume that this is something really bad and that it means that our practice has been really worthless in the beginning. It is called an “upsurge,” which is an experience that arises that is an actual indication that your practice is purifying your obscurations. The generic name for this type of experience is rough experience. When this happens, you simply have to recognize it for what it is, which will give you perspective on it. Recognize that it does not mean that your practice is ineffective. It simply means that this is what is happening. Then relax both your body and your mind as much as you can. Within the context of proper meditation posture and meditative awareness, relax as much as possible.

Look at the nature of this experience, just as you did with the other three. This experience, as unpleasant as it is and as apparently discouraging as it may be, is a great opportunity. If you can look at the nature of this, you stand a chance to make great progress because it is in that context, when you are actually able to look at the nature of your mind in the midst of this disturbance or agitation, that you can first begin to really understand what it means to say that the mind is the root of all phenomena or the root of all things. You will recognize that there is nothing that you experience that is beyond or other than your mind. Looking at the nature of the experience, you will start to move toward a realization of the mind’s emptiness. Nevertheless at this point, because there is not yet realization, there is still a sense of duality, so that when you are looking at the mind you may have a sense or experience of the mind’s nature, but there will seem to be someone looking at the mind’s nature that is separate from that nature.

When in the context of this experience, you look at the mind and you experience its nature in this way, then confidence will arise once again; confidence in your recognition or your experience, and that is also a fixation.

Transcending Fear

The transcendence of fear and anxiety is characteristic of the level of simplicity. The reason for this is that you are no longer threatened by things that you previously experienced as external to yourself. You have no conceptualization about what forms you see, sounds you hear, or what you smell, taste, feel, and so on. Not conceptualizing them, you are not afraid of them. You are like a snow lion that has reached the snowy peak of the mountain and is safe. You have no fear; you have no anxiety. The samadhi or meditative absorption that characterizes this level is called “heroic samadhi” because it is fearless. Essentially what this really refers to is the realization of the selflessness of person. The reason why at this point you are fearless is because at the level of simplicity you have realized half the emptiness. You have realized the emptiness or selflessness of yourself as a person or individual.

The reason why we can say that the realization of selflessness is equivalent to the realization of simplicity is that, when we use the term mind and the term self we are referring to the same thing. Because at this point you have recognized, through looking at the mind, that the mind itself, has from the very beginning been unborn, unarising, free of a location, and unceasing. You have recognized the selflessness or the nonexistence of the imputed personal self. In addition, the basis for our imputation of the self of persons is our mind. Because at this point you have the confidence or certainty that comes with the resolution of the nonexistence of the previously imputed self of persons, because you have realized that there is no dharmakaya other than your mind itself, with that realization of the selflessness of persons, you are fearless. That is half of the realization of emptiness. At this point you have established, in direct experience, the nature of your mind internally or within yourself, but you still have not really resolved or established the nature of external appearances. You do not conceptualize them in the same way and you are not afraid of them in the same way, but you have not truly penetrated their nature.

Geomancy: The Collection of All That Is Precious

We now begin the study of the examination of the ground, or geomancy, to determine if a proposed retreat site is appropriate and if it has the necessary conditions conducive to practice. The presentation of geomancy here is not something that Karma Chakme made up himself but is drawn from the various older traditions that he has brought together.For someone who has realized absolute truth and therefore experiences samsara and nirvana as inseparable, there is no need to be concerned with geomancy because that person is no longer affected by the conditions of relative truth. As long as you areaffected by such conditions, however, then some of the conditions that affect you have to do with the place in which you live. The arrangement or form of a place has a definiteeffect on the beings that inhabit or are associated with that place.

All physical things, the external environment, and the contents and inhabitants of that environment are physically composed of the five elements. The strength and stability of these elements determines the strength and stability of the circumstances of the beings who inhabit the environment. This is especially true with the element of earth, which is extremely powerful. The reason that the earth element is so influential is that it primarily determines the structure or content of our environment. All of the various ways that the different countries and societies on the four continents, including Jambudvipa—India, China, Mongolia, Tibet, and so on—have developed and prospered or not prospered throughout history is fundamentally a result of the physical environment in which these societies have developed. When the environment is flourishing, the inhabitants will flourish. When the environment is ruined, the inhabitants will be ruined. You could say, of course,that the cause of this is their own previous actions, but the circumstantial conditions that allowed these causes to ripen were for the most part found in the environment.

Having Your La Stolen

The Virtuous Path to Liberation: Instructions on Retreat

After barking for your guru, you recite the usual stanzas of refuge and the four immeasurables. Each of these would be recited three times. You then instantaneously visualize yourself as Chenrezik and above your head you visualize your root guru in the form of the Buddha Amitabha. In supplication of your root guru, visualizing the lord of the family, Amitabha, you recite the Ma Nam Zhi Kor three times. The Ma Nam Zhi Kor is the four prayers that begin with the words ma nam in the Guru Yoga section of the ngondro text. This is supplication to the guru as buddha, as dharmakaya, as sambhogakaya, and as nirmanakaya. After reciting this three times, and for the greater part of this first early morning session, you recite the six-syllable mantra, OM MANI PADME HUM. You do not want to do your recitations too loud because you are going to be doing it all day long and you do not want to use up your voice. At the same time, since it is not a mantra that is supposed to be recited silently, it is not good to do it too quietly.

Continuing to visualize yourself as Chenrezik, think that where you are is the realm of Sukhavati and that all beings, human, animals, and so forth, within that area are Chenrezik. You visualize them all as Chenrezik. While reciting the mantra, and until you generate a clear perception of the place as Sukhavati and the beings as Chenrezik, you rest your mind on the visualization. This “form recitation” means that it is recitation of the mantra while you are concentrating on the visualization of the form. It is also called “the bearing or outlook of appearances and body” from among the three-fold bearing.

Once this has been clarified and stabilized, you think that all of those beings whom you are visualizing as Chenrezik, lead by you, recite the six-syllable mantra together with you, so that the whole world resounds with the sound of OM MANI PADMA HUM. Continuing to chant the mantra and directing your awareness to the sound of the mantra as it is being recited by all beings is “sound repetition.” You are repeating the mantra while concentrating on the mantra’s sound. It is also called “the bearing of sound and speech” or “the outlook of sound and speech.” Essentially you are directing your awareness to the sound of the six-syllable mantra. In summary, those two phases of the practice, those two bearings of form and sound, or appearance and sound, include the full meaning or essence of the generation stage of practice, which is the first of the two stages.

While you are still in the first session of the day, continuing to visualize yourself as Chenrezik, in the middle of your heart you visualize a white sphere of light the size of a pea. You try to rest your awareness as much as you can on that alone. To get your mind to stay put on that without wandering around too much includes the essence of all practices of holding the mind in tranquillity or shamatha. Then without thinking anything with your mind, simply rest looking directly at your mind with your mind. Although you do not see any form, color, or substantial characteristics whatsoever, nevertheless, thoughts arise. When through analysis of the arising of thoughts you resolve that they have no origin, location, or destination, rest evenly in that certainty. That is the summary that includes the essence of vipashyana or lhaktong, the practice of insight meditation.

The Ani Wangmo Story

STUDENT: When I circumambulate and walk by the retreat cabins, it is very inspiring just to contemplate the fact that at one time someone like Ani Wangmo was in there for so many years. It is inspiring to hear about westerners doing this kind of practice; what types of long retreats are done there?

RINPOCHE: The Ani Wangmo story is that she would need many things in order to do Dorje Phakmo. A situation needed to be put together and we did not have any arrangements at that point as we were still in New York. I told her to do one hundred nyungnes. She had previously received the nyungne vow, so she could renew it herself, but she did not know how to make the tormas and things like that. She told me she was not going to make the tormas; I asked her if she could offer cookies instead. Apparently His Holiness Karmapa had told her that her yidam was Dorje Phakmo, Vajrayogini, and that she should practice that. She had the empowerment from him. She came to me and asked me to teach her Dorje Phakmo. I told her that she first had to do ngondro and she told me that she had already done a Drukpo Kagyu ngondro. I told her to do another one. She came back, not more than three months later, and told me that she had done another ngondro and again requested Dorje Phakmo. She then did one hundred nyungnes in a tree house, living on bread and water. She did them straight through, came out, and said she wanted to be taught Dorje Phakmo.

By that time we were here at KTD. There was this ruin of what had formerly been a cabin. I told her that first, she would have to build a house to do retreat in. I told her to try to get the money to build it and said I would try to get the money to build it and together we would see what we could do. She worked helping an older woman in Woodstock and managed to raise a thousand dollars to re-do the outside of it. The outside was finished but the inside was still a wreck. She said that she did not want to wait any longer; she wanted to go in, and she did not care what the inside was like. She went in. I made her do ngondro again and six months of Guru Yoga. For the next seven years she did the outer, inner, and secret practices of Vajrayogini. While she was doing that, probably during the inner practice, she had a strange experience, where she said she heard thunder come from the sky and along with that the words, “You are an incarnation of Dorje Phakmo, and you are the tenth incarnation in the line.” At the same time she saw the number ten appear in the palm of her hand. When she told me this I got a little bit nervous and I said that I did not know if she was Dorje Phakmo or not, but I knew she was practicing Dorje Phakmo and that she must continue.

She continued and eventually she finished Dorje Phakmo and she finished the fire pujas; she then did the Six Dharmas of Naropa for three years and that was the end of the twelve years. After she came out I asked her to serve as the lama of a Dharma center and she said no. She said she did not want to do that, she did not have anything to say, and she did not know how to teach. She preferred to live on the beach and meditate alone. If people wanted to talk to her about practice that was fine, but she did not want to make a big deal about it. She is someone whom you cannot tell what to do. If she wants to do something, she will do it and if she does not, she will not. She is also someone who never fights. If you argue with her she will never get mad, no matter how many times you argue, but she will not do what you want unless she wants to do it.

She is indescribably diligent. She did one thousand prostrations every day for the whole retreat until she got to the physical exercises of the Six Dharmas, and then she cut down to five hundred a day. She never missed a day; she practiced eighteen hours a day of formal practice without missing at all ever for any reason. She never stopped practicing and she never complained for any reason. It looks like she had some health problems. She broke a tooth in retreat, which must have hurt tremendously, but she never mentioned it.

Lama Yeshe Losal, who was known before he was ordained as Jamdrup, is the same type of person. He was in there for four years, in the other cabin, and he practiced with the same diligence. Initially, when he first went into retreat he found it difficult, but after practicing tranquillity meditation for a long time his mind became more and more stable and he did very, very well. They practiced with the same diligence; the only difference is that Ani Wangmo was in there much longer.

I am confident that those retreat facilities have great blessing because of all the excellent practice that was done there for so many years and because His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa visited them, Gyaltshap Rinpoche visited them, Situ Rinpoche visited them, and many other great teachers visited them.

Closing the Door to the Lower Realms: The Practice of Yoga Tantra for those Skilled in Ritual and Mudras

Practically speaking, nowadays most yoga tantra consists of the practice of Kunrik based upon the Tantra the Purification of the Lower Realms.

The procedure of the practice is clear in the liturgy so Karma Chakme does not go through it. In the first session of every day, you offer one preliminary torma and then the other three sessions you do not. You can do either three or four sessions a day when you are doing yoga tantra practice. In each session you recite the self-generation, the self-visualization. You visualize yourself as the central figure of the mandala, who is the Buddha Vairochana. In your heart is a moon disc, on top of which is a five-pronged vajra marked with a HUM; if you do not wish to visualize that, you can simply visualize a white HUM standing upright on the moon disc. The vajra or the HUM is surrounded by the root mantra, the Vaircochana dharani, which is standing upright. There are many other deities in this mandala, the other buddhas, the sixteen bodhisattvas, the sixteen shravakas, the twelve pratyekabuddhas, the four consorts, the offering goddesses, and so on. Each has a moon disc in their heart on top of which is their individual syllable, which vary for each deity, surrounded by their individual mantra.

The central deities, which are the wisdom deities, start from the central figure, Vairochana, all the way out to the eight wrathful deities at the perimeter of the wisdom mandala. Although they are individual in appearance and although they are visualized as physically separate from one another, you identify with all of them. You think that you are all of those deities, just as you think that all the different parts of your body are part of your body. It is like that. When reciting the mantra, you think that from the mouths of the deities resounds the sound of their mantras. You can visualize that the rays of light that come from the mantra garlands in the hearts of the deities swirl around and spin. In the case of the male deities, this is clockwise and in the case of the female deities, counterclockwise. There is no mention in this yoga tantra of the mantra garlands themselves spinning, just the rays of light.

While reciting the mantra, you think that from the mantra in your heart, rays of five-colored light emanate. These rays of light emerge from between your eyebrows and pervade the three realms in general, but especially the bardo and the three lower realms. These rays of light illuminate all of these realms like the sun rising. As they illuminate these realms, they purify or remove all of the wrongdoing and obscurations of all beings that cause rebirth in the lower realms and also they remove the actual suffering of the lower realms that result from those causes. They remove or purify all these things just the way the hot rays of the sun burn off or dissolve the dew. Then the rays of light are withdrawn and dissolve back into your heart. Again rays of light emanate as before and they become vast oceans of offerings to all buddhas. Then each of those individual rays of light becomes a buddha who, like Buddha Shakyamuni, demonstrates all twelve deeds of a supreme nirmanakaya and in that way, benefits beings as did Buddha Shakyamuni. Then again the rays of light are withdrawn and dissolve into your heart.

During the visualizations you recite the mantra as much as you can. At the end of the first three of four sessions of the day you think that your ordinary form is emanated from the heart of you as Vairochana and that your ordinary form, having been emanated in that way, goes about your business, whatever it is you have to do in between the sessions. When you begin the subsequent session, since there is a little bit of an ablution still in yoga tantra, you perform the ablution. Then you think that your ordinary form, having been cleansed, dissolves back into the heart of yourself as Vairochana. In postmeditation you think that the mandala is still there. You have just been projected or emanated out of it to do whatever ordinary things you have to do.