Overlooking
The Yogic Aspect
of
Vajrayana
By Jon
Norris
”Here in the West, we Kagyupas are so immersed in the scholastic and political modalities of the lineage that we sometimes overlook the yogic or ‘repa’ aspect of Vajrayana. We pay homage to great yogins like Tilopa, Maitripa, and Milarepa, but we think of them more as historical supermen than as role models that we could emulate today. This was not how the first wave of Tibetan expatriate lamas saw things; most of them had spent some years in solitary retreat, and would gladly do even more if they could. Today, most lamas rightly perceive that only a small percentage of western students are prepared to undertake a three year retreat, let alone spend long years in a solitary retreat hut. Likewise, it is difficult to find logistical support for such long retreats in western countries. We have to wrestle with sanitation, property taxes, and zoning codes, as well as food and medicine. Such things are actually easier to set up in Tibet than they are in the US. So, the current generation of gurus has concentrated on ‘the View’ and ‘the Preliminaries’ and incorporating ‘the Path’ into the daily life of a householder. This is helping westerners to get a toehold on the Buddhist Path, but it’s not likely to produce many Milarepas.”
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