
1. Breaking the Image: A Gateway to Vajrayana
Ken opens this five-day retreat with a Sufi tale that illustrates the heart of Vajrayana: breaking through conditioning to access the boundless wealth of awareness. “This is exactly what awareness is. It’s an infinite source of richness, which doesn’t even have the possibility of being depleted.” Topics covered include transformation and self-releasing, the role of sorcery in spiritual practice, and approaches to teaching Vajrayana in a clear and contemporary way.
Sutrayana
[Students were not recorded]
Ken:
Once upon a time there was a merchant named Abdul Malik. He was known as the Good Man of Khorasan because from his immense fortune, he used to give to charity and hold feasts for the poor.
But one day it occurred to him that he was simply giving away some of what he had; and that the pleasure which he obtained through his generosity was far in excess of what it really cost him to sacrifice what was after all such a small proportion of his wealth. As soon as this thought entered his mind, he decided to give away every penny for the good of mankind. And he did so.
No sooner had he divested himself of all of his possessions, resigned to face whatever events life might have in store for him, Abdul Malik saw, during his meditation-hour, a strange figure seemed to rise from the floor of his room. A man was taking shape before his very eyes dressed in the patchwork robe of the mysterious dervish.
“Oh Abdul Malik, generous man of Khorasan!” intoned the apparition. “I am your real self, which has now become almost real to you because you have done something really charitable measured against which your previous record of goodness is as nothing. Because of this, and because you are able to part with your fortune without feeling personal satisfaction, I’m rewarding you from the real source of reward.
“In future I will appear before you in this way every day. You will strike me and I will turn into gold. You’ll be able to take from this golden image as much as you may wish. Do not fear that you will harm me, because whatever you take will be replaced from the source of all endowment.”
So saying he disappeared.
The very next morning a friend named Bay-Akal was sitting with Abdul Malik when the dervish spectre began to manifest itself. Abdul Malik struck it with a stick, and the figure fell to the ground, transformed into gold. He took part of it for himself and gave some of the gold to his guest.
Now Bay-Akal, not knowing what had gone before, started to think how he could perform a similar wonder. He knew that dervishes had strange powers and concluded that it was necessary only to beat them to obtain gold.
So he arranged for a feast to be held to which every dervish who heard of it could come and eat his fill. When they had all eaten well, Bay-Akal took up an iron bar and thrashed every dervish within reach until they lay battered and broken on the ground.
Those dervishes who were unharmed seized Bay-Akal and took him to the judge. They stated their case and produced the wounded dervishes as evidence. Bay-Akal related what had happened at Abdul Malik’s house and explained his reasons for trying to reproduce the trick.
Abdul Malik was called, and on the way to the court, his golden self whispered to him what to say. “May it please the court,” he said, “this man seems to be insane or to be trying to cover up some penchant for assaulting people without cause. I do know him, but his story does not correspond with my own experiences in my house.”
Bay-Akal was therefore placed for a time in a lunatic asylum until he became more calm. The dervishes recovered almost at once through some science known to themselves. And nobody believed that such an astonishing thing as a man who became a golden statue—and daily at that—could ever take place.
For many another year, until he was gathered to his forefathers, Abdul Malik continued to break the image, which was himself, and distribute its treasure, which was himself, to those whom he could not help in any other way than materially.
The Golden Fortune, Tales of the Dervishes, Idries Shah, p. 38
It’s quite clear, isn’t it?
This evening you start a five-day retreat, the subject of which is awakening or awakened compassion. This is a form of meditation practice which four or five of you—to my knowledge, probably not more than that—have some previous experience. For most of you it’ll be quite new. The form of practice in the Tibetan tradition is known as deity meditation and is part of Vajrayana tradition.
Over the last 10 years or so, the material that I’ve been teaching—and everybody here has had some experience with me as a teacher—has been principally drawn from what is known as the Sutrayana, which is the vehicles of the sutras. And the word sutra means meeting and in particular it is the meeting of the teacher and student, and that’s what the sutras are. They are records of interaction between Buddha and one or more of his students, usually Buddha, sometimes somebody else, like Vimalakirti is a very famous one.
If, for instance, you consider The Diamond Sutra, or the The Diamond Cutter, to be more accurate; it consists of a long series of questions and answers between Subhuti and Buddha. Subhuti asks a question, and Buddha says something, and then asks Subhuti a question. And Subhuti answers that, and Buddha says, “Well yes, perhaps, but you might consider it this way.” And so it’s a conversation, and through this process Subhuti’s understanding is refined and deepened.
I think everybody here is familiar with The Heart Sutra. It’s very short and there’s not much back and forth. Basically Shariputra says, “How do you train in the Perfection of Wisdom?”
And Chenrezi, or Avalokitesvara, says, “Do this.”
And then Buddha says, “Yes.” But it’s still this interaction, and it is through this interaction that understanding develops, and this is in keeping with what happens.
The Sutrayana is also called, in the Tibetan tradition, the seed vehicle. You will see in translation that most of the terminology or most translators, will call it the cause vehicle. The word that’s being translated as cause does not mean cause, so that’s why I call it the seed vehicle. The metaphor here is that the qualities which bring about awakening are cultivated in one’s practice. And as they grow and develop, then they provide the conditions in which awakening takes place.
Vajrayana
Ken: This is in contrast to what is known as Vajrayana or Tantrayana or Mantrayana. The Indians love names. And each of these names, they all refer to the same thing, but each of them puts a little different complexion on the subject.
Let’s start with tantra as opposed to sutra. And the tantras are esoteric constructions, which means that they can’t be understood, or to take them at their literal level is incorrect, they’re coded instruction. So for instance, in the Sutrayana, you have instructions, the five acts which have immediate consequences: to harm a buddha, to kill your parents or your teacher, that makes four, harm a buddha, kill your mother, father, or teacher, or to cause division in the sangha.
In one of the tantras, I think it’s the Hevajra Tantra, you find the following instruction: kill the buddha, kill your parent, kill your teacher, divide the sangha. What does this mean? Well, the inner meaning of this means to kill the buddha is to let go of any idea that the buddha is something external to you, that you’re not trying to seek anything outside. To kill your parents is to remove from how you interact with the world, all the habitual conditioning that comes from your family experience. Pretty deep. To kill your teacher is to cease to rely again on an external, another person for guidance, so the teacher becomes alive in you. And I will confess, I can’t remember the esoteric interpretation of divide the sangha, so my apologies for that. I wanted to give example of how esoteric instruction, it’s coded language and it depends on instruction and elucidation to understand what these things actually mean.
The word tantra has in the popular mind been associated with, everybody thinks of sexual practices, weird stuff, etc., but the word tantra itself is the, and I can never remember if it’s the warp or the woof, which is the continuous thread? The warp, okay, thank you. It comes from the word for the warp in weaving, and it’s the thread which goes continuously, no breaks, and as such, it is a metaphor for human spirituality, which if you quote from the Tara Tantra, another text, doesn’t change, the same in the beginning, in the middle and the end.
The Tibetan term for tantra, rgyu (pron. gyu), has the same meaning. It means continuity, and it’s the sense that what we are doesn’t undergo any change. The awareness, which is what we are fundamentally, is not something that is created, or developed, or cultivated. It is what it is, and the problem is to know it. You don’t know it, but knowing it doesn’t change it. And just now it actives because it is known. So that’s the term Tantrayana.
Vajrayana is very similar. Vajra has been translated as diamond, as in the Diamond Cutter Sutra. It’s actually the Vajracchedika in Sanskrit, and it’s the same word. In Indian mythology, vajra is the thunderbolt of Indra, so it’s exactly analogous to Zeus’s thunderbolt. It’s a weapon, and it’s made from the bones of a person who’s been born a rishi seven times, or a seer. That’s another element of Indian mythology. And such an object, because the purity, was regarded as indestructible, and it has the capacity to destroy anything without being affected itself. And so it’s used as a symbol, again, for human spirituality, or this fundamental awareness. It’s what we are, because this awareness has the ability to undo all conditioning, to eliminate it. And it is not affected in the process, it doesn’t change. It is what it is.
And then there’s the term Mantrayana or Secret Mantrayana. Now the right translation for mantra is spell, as in magic spell, abracadabra, etc. The folk etymology for mantra—which is to say it’s a syllable-by-syllable explanation that has nothing to do with the actual origin of the word, this is how it’s usually explained—is the first syllable man is derived from the syllable for the word manas in Sanskrit, which is one of the words for mind, and tra is from the verb to protect. So, protect the mind.
Both these perspectives point to another aspect of Vajrayana methods. A magic spell comes, of course, from magic or sorcery traditions. And one aspect of Vajrayana is the use of sorcery methods for spiritual understanding. When I say this, people often say, well, “What’s your definition of sorcery? Are you talking about magic and black magic?” Sorcery is the ability to direct energy so that your experience of things is transformed. That’s what you do in sorcery. You transform experience. Transforming experience from ordinary experience, with all of its conditioning and habituation, into something similar to awakened experience, protects the mind from being carried away by conditioning. Follow?
I read this story, which of course is from the Sufi tradition, because the story in its own way captures the essence of Vajrayana. Abdul Malik had broken down his conditioning and in doing so, something opened and there was available to him a source, an infinite source of richness, which he could draw on at will. Sound familiar? This is exactly what awareness is. It’s an infinite source of richness, which doesn’t even have the possibility of being depleted. I’m going to read you another story now, if I can find it.
Once upon a time, there was a town composed of two parallel streets. A dervish passed through one street into the other, and as he reached the second one, the people there noticed his eyes were streaming with tears. “Someone has died in the other street,” one cried, and soon all the children in the neighborhood had taken up the cry.
What had really happened was that the dervish had been peeling onions.
Within a short space of time, the cry had reached the first street; and the adults of both streets were so distressed and fearful (for each community was related to the other) that they dared not make complete inquiries as to the cause of the furor.
A wise man tried to reason with the people of both streets, asking why they did not question each other. Too confused to know what they meant, some said, “For all we know there’s a deadly plague in the other street.”This rumor too spread like wildfire until each street’s populace thought that the other was doomed.
When some measure of order was restored, it was only enough for the two communities to decide to emigrate to save themselves. Thus it was that from different sides of the town, both streets entirely evacuated their people.
Now, centuries later, the town is still deserted and not so far away are two villages. Each village has its own tradition of how it began as a settlement from a doomed town through a fortunate flight in remote times from a nameless evil.
The Founding of a Tradition, Tales of the Dervishes, Idries Shah, p. 61
Now, I offer this story to you as a kind of caution. Because of its esoteric nature, because of its origins from secret cults in India many, many years ago, centuries ago, through all kinds of other factors, there are numerous misconceptions, confusions, superstitions, misunderstandings about Vajrayana. And some of you who’ve frequented the traditional Tibetan teachings from teachers probably know what I’m referring to, right Arlene?
Cultivation and purification
Ken: Over the last few years I’ve been mulling about how to teach Vajrayana in a way comparable to the way that I’ve been teaching Sutrayana, which is: get rid of the misconceptions, boil it down to its essentials, make it straightforward and clear. And that is what I’m going to attempt to do this weekend. You’ll be the arbiters how successful that is.
The practice we’re going to focus on is, by Vajrayana standards, a relatively simple practice. I’m going to approach it in a way that is probably different, for those who’ve been exposed to this kind of material before, from what you’re used to. And my intention is to guide you, to the best of my ability, so that you experience the transformative quality in this practice, because that’s the essence.
In Buddhism in general, there are many, many different methods. Well, let’s say approaches to practice. And just for the sake of this evening, I’m going to discuss just four of them. And this may be exhaustive, I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it enough for that.
One is cultivation, and the idea is to cultivate what brings about awakening. Much of the Theravaden is based on that, a good part of the Mahayana is too. In the Mahayana, things like the six perfections is a practice you do to cultivate generosity, cultivate patience. Theravaden: cultivate morality, cultivate attention, develop these abilities. And so the whole paradigm is that of growth, and something comes into being through that growth. Well, some people, when they came to realization, they said, “When you get right down to it, nothing came into being. It was already there.”
And so another approach developed, which was about purification, getting rid of the stuff that is in the way. And so there are a whole slew of practices which developed like that. Of course the cultivation practices are still around, so you got those working together. So you build up some stuff, tear down other stuff, and it works.
Transformation and self-releasing
Ken: And then, sometime later, I think, people thought, “Well, all that cultivation and purification is fine, and it’s very helpful, and it’s important, but really it’s about transforming your experience.” You really experience the world differently when you’re awake, it’s about changing how you experience. So a whole slew of methods developed around transformation, and using sorcery methods to transform. You develop abilities to direct energies, you experience things differently. All kinds of techniques developed around that, really, really large body of techniques, all different shapes and sizes.
And people looked at all this and said, “Well, actually nothing happens, and all that’s really important is just to be able to let things be as they are.” And so this notion, which is usually translated as self-liberation, this term you’ll see again and again but I don’t like that translation at all. Self-releasing—and all of you know about this—you sit in meditation, and if your attention is reasonably stable, thought arises, you’re not disturbed by it. You don’t start thinking, but the thought’s there, and thought goes poof, and you’re just there. That’s self-liberating or self-releasing, the thought releases itself in a field of attention. Think everybody here knows this experience. And you didn’t have to do a damn thing. So various meditations, and not a whole slew of techniques, because there’s about only one way to nothing—you do nothing—and that this is all based on self-releasing, natural awareness, direct presence, all of this stuff.
What we’re going to be working with primarily is transformation, but it’s in the context of self-releasing. I want that to be clear. And in order for transformation to come about, to take place, a certain amount of cultivation of attention, and clearing away of habituation, is necessary. So we’re going to be working with all of that, but the main emphasis is going to be on the transformation.
I have one final story, for tonight that is. There may be others.
A man who was very easily angered realized after many years that all his life he had been in difficulties because of this tendency.
One day he heard of a dervish deep of knowledge whom he went to see, asking for advice.
The dervish said, “Go to such and such a crossroads. There you’ll find a withered tree, stand under it and offer water to every traveler who passes that place.”
The man did as he was told. Many days passed, and he became well known as one who is following a certain discipline of charity and self-control under the instructions of a man of real knowledge.
One day a man in a hurry turned his head away when he was offered the water, and went on walking along the road. The man who was easily angered called out to him several times, “Come, return my salutation! Have some of this water which I provide for all travelers!”
But there was no reply.
Overcome by this behavior, the first man forgot his discipline completely. He reached for his gun, which was hooked in the withered tree, took aim at the heedless traveler and fired. The man fell dead.
At the very moment that the bullet entered his body, the withered tree, as if by a miracle burst joyfully into blossom.
The man who had been killed was a murderer on his way to commit the worst crime of a long career.
There are, you see, two kinds of advisors. The first kind is the one who tells what should be done according to certain fixed principles, repeated mechanically. The other kind is the Man of Knowledge. Those who meet the Man of Knowledge will ask him for moralistic advice and will treat him as a moralist. But what he serves is Truth, not pious hopes.
The Man Who Was Easily Angered , Tales of the Dervishes, Idries Shah, p. 71
I’ll let you think about that story. I love these stories. They’re great.
For meditation instruction, to start with we’re going to follow our usual routine. So tomorrow morning, just take time to sit, rest with the breath. Then in the teaching after breakfast tomorrow, I’ll talk about specific instructions for working with this. And this is going to be kind of a walk down an unknown road for all of us.
[Retreat logistics]
Are there any questions on anything that I spoke about? And then we’ll turn off the tapes and go into technical stuff. John? [Unrecorded question]
Oh, vehicle. And the analogy is it’s a means of transportation: camel, donkey, car, rocket ship, [unclear], the vehicle in which the student and teacher interact. Vajrayana, the vehicle which rests on this indestructible nature. Hinayana means small vehicle, Mahayana means big vehicle.