Buddhahood
In This Life
All
sentient beings have buddhanature or potential of freedom, in both
psychological and existential sense. The purpose of spirituality or
dharma is very simple: to know and become familiar with this
potential. Tantric buddhism takes it further and states that it is
possible within one lifetime to familiarize with this buddhanature to
the extent that all karmic bubbling of the mind becomes extinguished.
In this way one can become a living buddha, like thousands of women
and men throughout the history have. The beauty of it is that it
still keeps happening. To some, buddhism is museum practice where the
potential is seen to belong to the great practitioners of the past in
distant lands but actually, according to Guru Padmasambhava (can't
remember the exact quote), this time of great chaos and confusion has
even more potential for spiritual realisation than peaceful times and
places. Ha! Him being a wrathful guru, it is a very typical thing for
him to say, but of course, it is true.
Avoiding
Common Pitfalls
The
core message and meaning of the path is easily lost. Before we know
it, we have gotten distracted by externals. Do yourself a favour and
don't get lost in forms and rituals. Avoid getting enchanted by
foreign cultures, languages, clothing or names. Also never read more
than you practice meditation. Actually, if you read 10% and practice
90% of your study time, then the scales are right. Make sure you sit
in meditation and do your practice as much in your daily life as you
can. If you stick to these points, you manage to avoid some pitfalls
but even then it's not like you'd have any shortage of obstacles.
Relative
View
Our
own mind is what makes us deluded, unhappy, lost and confused. We are
mislead by our perception which is skewed due to our innumerable
preferences acquired in the past. We suffer because we are convinced
that we exist as independent entities. All buddhism sets out to
accomplish is to deconstruct this sense of entityness or me-ness
through different means. What I have said here is according to the
gradual path where it is acknowledged that there are opposites, such
as delusion and wisdom, or confusion (samsara) and liberation
(nirvana). This is a relative way of seeing things and accordingly
one applies the practices of concentration (shamatha/shine) or
emptiness insight (vipashyana/lhaktong).
Absolute
View
In
the tantric vehicle or vajrayana, there is also a non-gradual way of
looking at things, where by recognising our true condition, the
duality of confusion and liberation, and in fact any other type of
duality, is transcended. If there is no confusion, why would there be
liberation of it? If there is no need to become free, confusion can't
possibly have ever existed.
The
undisputed royalty among all yogic methods is atiyoga, literally
primordial yoga. To practice atiyoga means to remain in the
recognition of knowing oneself as a buddha or as someone who doesn't
have the slightest idea about attaining liberation and whose mind
functioning doesn't have the slightest mark of sense of self. To
someone like that everyday notions such as me or you, us or them, up
or down, far or wide, here or now, focused or distracted, wise or
stoopid, wholesome or unwholesome simply do not arise, like they do
in the samsaric mind. This, in my understanding, is the so called
non-abiding nirvana. As there is no one who abides and no
location or state where the abiding takes place, it is called
liberation or freedom of non-abiding. Not abiding anywhere, just
being free. To practice atiyoga means to know one's reality. In
Tibetan, atiyoga is known as dzogchen. The term rigpa or knowing is
closely associated with it.
If
we take a look around, we can only see human beings whose minds are
samsaric. All we see is people who chase after happiness and avoid
misfortune in any way possible. This is even the case with
practitioners of yoga, who by definition are samsaric and have not
yet completed their dharmic paths. Because samsaric beings are so
convinced that they are beings who really exist in time and space,
they are unable to recognise their real condition. In other words,
they cannot sustain knowing awareness or rigpa effortlessly.
In
fact, even dedicated practitioners of dzogchen approach spend decades
actualising the view. Actualising the view is just a way of
saying familiarising with knowing that one is completely free
already. Those who feel attracted to mostly practice dzogchen,
get pointed out by their lama what the secret meaning of buddhanature
is and then they spend their time doing practices such as rushen and
semdzins, like chanting of A or shouts of Phet-syllable.
In
my experience, and the reader is asked to remember that my
association with the dzogchen-teachings from Tibetan vajrayana is
limited, atiyoga practices are simple and concise. They are not like
tantra where there sometimes is complex visualisations or long
mantras and prayers. Dzogchen-practices are all about getting to the
bottom of it as quickly as possible.
I
am sure there are practitioners out there who have the ripeness and
capacity to practice dzogchen without the support of sutra and tantra
but I am not one of those. I feel fortunate that my body is strong
and heavily built because my mind is so restless and suffers of
outstanding stupidity, i.e. delusion. Because of my miserable
condition and yet fortunate karma that has lead me to Guru Rinpoche
and his teachings, I feel like sharing my positive experience about
tantra and especially tantric guru yoga, that have enabled me to gain
understanding of my predicament, confidence in the dharma, confidence
about my potential and finally, confidence that attaining buddhahood
in one lifetime is indeed be realistic.
Tantric
Guru Yoga
There
is no adept of dzogchen to be found who does not give praise to her
or his lama and the lineage. Guru is praised and celebrated because
she or he is the person who can show buddhanature to a sentient
being. Because there is no samsaric being who is able to do is, is
the reason why all adepts of atiyoga acknowledge the importance of
transmission from a guru who represents a valid lineage of vajrayana.
It is important to understand that dzogchen transmission is not like
any other transmission. For more on transmission see: Transmission
– Heart of All Buddhism.
Buddhism
discusses three bodies or kayas of buddhanature. In my understanding,
these are: 1. physical body (nirmanakaya), 2. energetic body
(sambhogakaya) and 3. body of transparent empty awareness
(dharmakaya). Like everything else, including me and you, also
mahasiddha gurus, such as Guru Padmasambhava, have these three
aspects.
Lama
Karl Eikrem has written in his short terma (see full text here),
”The
outer meaning of Guru refers to the revealer of the teachings, the
head of the lineage. The inner meaning of Guru refers to the
energetic presence and blessings of Guru Rinpoche, the master. The
absolute meaning of Guru refers to Self-Arising Awareness itself.”
The
meaning of guru yoga in dzogchen, is to access and recognise
”Self-Arising Awareness” or rigpa. This enables one to see the
needlessness of liberation by enabling one to see that all things are
already empty.
In
tantra, the meaning of guru yoga is to ask blessings from the guru,
chant her or his mantra and to visualise her or his form. By doing
this, one receives the blessings or energetic charge of the guru
which over time loosens the dualistic views which then allow the
vision of reality or vision of pureness of emptiness, to arise. From
here then, the yogini or yogi is able to comprehend the view of
atiyoga. Tantra to atiyoga is what cane is to a cripple. I feel that
correct practice of tantric guru yoga is an idiot proof way of seeing
the reality, that is, a certain way to attain buddhahood or
non-abiding nirvana. When the presence of the mahasiddha guru fills
all of one's body cells there is no option for missing it.
Since
atiyoga is the absolute path that offers no relative footholds or
handles of support, the inner path of tantra comes at handy to assist
those who despite of samsaric faults, take seriously the promise of
attaining buddhahood in this life. We should never ever forget that
it is possible and we should never let anyone convince us that we
couldn't tap our potential. In fact because of the fact that we can
acknowledge our confusion, is the very proof that we can attain
buddhahood in this life.
May
Guru Rinpoche's blessings shower on you,
Thank
you for reading,
-Kim
Orgyen Pema, 14.12.2019
