Introduction

Vajra World translates a technical term in Sanskrit, vajradhatu, meaning realm of indestructibility. It refers to that level of reality which is beyond all thought and imagination, all impermanence and change. It is a realm that is described as colorful, vivid, and filled with unexpected beauty and meaning. It is this vajra world, according to Tibetan Buddhism, that a fully realized person knows and inhabits.

In the title of this book, I use vajra world metaphorically to refer to the traditional culture of Tibet. In many respects, Tibet was like any other human society with its share of foibles and miscreants. But in another sense, not only for many modern people but also—poignantly enough—for the Tibetans themselves, Tibet came as close as perhaps a human culture may to being a vajra world. The shocking splendor and magnificence of its landscape; the warm and earthy character of its people; their seeming wholeness and rootedness in their lives; the brilliance of Tibetan philosophy and ethics; and the color, vividness, and drama of its religion—all communicate a life lived close to reality and drawing on its deep springs.

Of course, to call Tibet a vajra world is ironic, for old Tibet—like so many other premodern cultures—has shown itself to be anything but indestructible. As is too well known and all too painful to bear repeating, traditional Tibet has been overrun and nearly obliterated by the tidal wave of modernity.

Nevertheless, there is something of Tibet that lives on, something that has survived the mortal assault on the place and its people. This living quality of Tibet continues to fascinate and compel us modern people, and to fuel our imagination and inspiration. One may wonder, then, just what this enduring quality of Tibet might be. What is the secret of Tibet? What is the secret of this vajra world?

I believe that the attraction that Tibet continues to hold for modern people is not based purely on naive romanticism and the exoticism that surrounds such a far-off and different culture. It seems to me that there bleeds through Tibet something else, something more basic and universally understood—an evident commitment to life; a fullness of embodiment; a warmth toward others; a depth of experience; a joy in the most simple and ordinary experiences of life; and an ability to include and incorporate both happiness and the intense suffering and grief that have lately been the fate of Tibet. But what, one may ask, is the source of these profoundly human qualities that one finds so vividly embodied among Tibetans? What is the secret of the world that was traditional Tibet?

In this book, I propose that the secret of this vajra world lies in something that transcends Tibet itself, namely its spiritual traditions, and particularly the Tantric or Vajrayana Buddhism that provided the foundation of Tibetan culture for some twelve hundred years. As a tradition, far from being otherworldly, the Vajrayana directs attention to this world of sensory experience, of happiness and sorrow, of life and death, as the place where ultimate revelation occurs. The practice of tantra opens up an appreciation for ordinary life as the fount of inspiration, wisdom, and liberation. I suggest to the reader that the color, energy, and vivacity of Tibet are owing, in some significant way, to its tantric foundations.

From the tantric viewpoint, the vajra world—now in the sense of the ultimate nature of reality—is like a fiery ocean, an experiential intensity, that underlies all human cultures and human life. This flaming substrate—which is none other than the fire of primordial wisdom—continually gives rise to sparks and plumes and occasionally to conflagrations of incandescence. In the modern era, most people and most cultures preoccupy themselves with trying to blanket these expressions, to ignore and deny them, in order to maintain their habitual business as usual. The Vajrayana, however, provides a means to open to the burning, turbulent wisdom of reality and to allow it expression in cultural forms and human creativity. It was Tibet’s good fortune to encounter the Vajrayana at a critical moment and to assimilate its perspectives. The result is a culture that has, to a large extent, been born and shaped from the unending inspiration of ordinary life itself, experienced without shadows. Old Tibet, unlike most contemporary cultures, lay close upon the incandescent sea and was particularly transparent to it. It is ultimately this quality, I think, that people sense and that so many find engaging and compelling about Tibet.

Buddhism flourished in India from the time of the Buddha in the sixth century BCE to the Muslim invasions that destroyed institutionalized Buddhism in North India, culminating about 1200 CE. During the course of this seventeen-hundred-year history, three major Indian orientations developed. First to appear, following the passing of the Buddha, was that of the Eighteen Schools (sometimes called nikaya Buddhism). Some centuries later—around the first century bce, the Mahayana, or Great Vehicle, entered upon the Indian scene. And finally, in the seventh century CE, the Vajrayana, the tantric vehicle,a made its appearance upon the stage of Indian history. Each of these three represents a distinctive approach to the practice of the dharma: the Eighteen Schools stresses the four noble truths and individual nirvana; the Mahayana places its emphasis on the compassionate ideal of the bodhisattva along with the altruistic practices of the six paramitas, or perfections; and the Vajrayana is a colorful and intensely practice oriented yogic tradition calling for the attainment of enlightenment in this life.

During its long existence in India, Buddhism spread from the Indian subcontinent throughout Asia. In most of the cultures to which it traveled, all three of these orientations were taught and propagated. Nevertheless, for historical and cultural reasons, in each culture one or another of the three orientations tended to predominate. For example, in Southeast Asia, in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, and elsewhere, although the Mahayana and Vajrayana were known, the Theravada, one of the early Eighteen Schools, came to be the dominant force. Similarly, in China, Korea, and Japan, it was Mahayana Buddhism that provided the predominant Buddhist orientation. Tibet is unique in the Asian world, for it was here and here alone that the Vajrayana reigned supreme.b

Although at one time the Vajrayana was known throughout Asia, owing to its radical and unconventional approach it was not tolerated for long in most cultures to which it went. Tibet, however, proved a remarkable exception, and thus if one wants to know something of Vajrayana Buddhism, one must look to Tibet. The Vajrayana was not only transplanted into Tibetan soil but flourished there, continuing to grow and develop over some twelve hundred years. Tibet provided a uniquely welcoming environment for the practice of tantra owing to several factors—including the particular historical period during which the Tibetans were adopting Buddhism (the Vajrayana was prominent in India during this time); the indigenous shamanistic religion of Tibet (with its many elements in common with the Vajrayana); and the rugged character of the Tibetans (with their uncompromising sense of personal dignity, individuality, and independence, echoing the concept of vajra pride in the Vajrayana). Also critical to the survival of the tantra in Tibet was the social and political decentralization of the country, which inhibited attempts to standardize Buddhism along more politically and socially conventional lines.¹

In Tibet prior to the Chinese occupation, the Vajrayana was not only the supreme and culminating Buddhist vehicle; in addition, to a large extent, it gave shape and color to the whole of Tibetan Buddhism. For example, it provided an overarching dharmic framework including within its folds both early Buddhist teachings of the pre-Mahayana Eighteen Schools as well as the full range of Mahayana traditions. In addition, many of the most vivid aspects of Tibetan religious life have their roots in the Vajrayana, including its colorful temples, vivid iconography, and striking deities; the liturgies performed in every monastery and home; its theater and dances, and the esoteric yogas; its rich tradition of hagiographies and lineages of mad saints; the practices surrounding the incarnate lamas; and its many ways of working with death and dying. In fact, it was the special role of Tibet to provide a place where the multitude of Indian Vajrayana traditions could find safe haven.

Beyond this, however, the very culture of Tibet itself was permeated by the Vajrayana. Even the social, political, and religious institutions in Tibet were, to a large extent, expressions of a Vajrayana Buddhist outlook. It is true, then, that one needs to study Tibet in order to find out about the Vajrayana; but it is equally true that, as mentioned, one needs to study the Vajrayana in order to understand the Tibetans and their culture.

Tibet, as is well known, was occupied by the Chinese communists beginning with incursions into Tibet in 1949 and culminating in a complete takeover within a decade. In spite of the Tibetans’ intense love of their country and the remarkable distinctiveness of their culture—or perhaps because of these—over the past half a century the Chinese have continued to wear away and destroy the face of Tibet. As each year goes by, this magnificent and wonderfully rich culture is coming more and more to assume the appearance of a mere economic and social appurtenance of China. The tradition does survive in various places in Tibet, but it is hard pressed. Within this context, one wonders how Buddhism—and especially the Vajrayana—will be able to survive in Tibet in any integral form.

Tibetan Buddhism also continues to exist in Asia, in pockets in which Tibetan culture still survives, outside of Chinese control. It exists in diaspora in other places in Asia, in India and elsewhere, in monasteries and refugee settlements that have been built. But the last generation of teachers trained in old Tibet has nearly disappeared. New generations of monks and nuns, who never knew Tibet, are receiving training, but it is a training that is severely strained by the brutal economic and political realities of refugee life. How much of the integral tradition will survive in these contexts, to be passed on?

At this fateful moment, the Vajrayana has appeared in the West. Ironically, it has come from the crucible of the conservative, medieval culture of Tibet, in a remarkably vigorous, engaging, and creative form. Beginning in the 1950s, first a small trickle, then an increasing flow of Tibetan teachers came to Europe and North America, teaching the Vajrayana in ever more open and accessible ways. In this context, it is an interesting question to what extent the integral Vajrayana will be able to take root in the West. One of the purposes of this book is to begin to explore this question.

a. In this book, for the sake of simplicity and because of the general level of the discussion, I use Vajrayana and Tantric Buddhism, as interchangeable terms. When employing these designations, then, I intend them to be inclusive, comprehending the teachings contained in the liturgical texts known as tantras as well as the formless practices associated in Tibet with mahamudra and dzokchen.

b. The Vajrayana was also practiced among the Mongols, but in the vehicle of Tibetan Buddhism, which the Mongols adopted. Elements of Tantric Buddhism also survive in Japan (in Shingon and Tendai, which are based on the practice of Kriya and Charya tantras, understood in Tibet as the lower or more conventional tantras).

PART ONE

Foundations of Vajrayana

1

The Indian Prelude

¹

In the eleventh century, a renowned Buddhist scholar named Naropa was sitting in the sun at the famed Nalanda monastic university in northeast India, studying his texts. Suddenly, in a revelation that broke open his life, an old hag appeared out of empty space and confronted him with the truth that in spite of his surpassing intellectual knowledge of the dharma, he had no idea of what it actually meant on a human level. She declared that to acquire genuine wisdom he must cast away his books, leave his comfortable and prestigious monastic lifestyle, and abandon what most people in his Indian context identified as the epitome of the dharmic life. His only hope, so he was informed, was to set out into trackless jungle wastes to the east, in search of a Vajrayana master named Tilopa, who alone could show him the path to awakening.

Naropa saw no other option but to follow these rather imprecise instructions. As days turned into weeks and weeks into months, however, he was unable to find this tantric teacher. One day, coming to a certain small monastery, he was admitted and apparently invited to join the monks in their noonday meal. After the doors had been locked from the inside, as was the custom, Naropa happened to be in the cooking area. Suddenly, there appeared out of nowhere a dark-complexioned and very filthy beggar. This strange individual then began to roast live fish over the cooking fire. Naropa, scandalized that anyone would so blatantly contravene monastic procedure, attempted to restrain him but was unsuccessful. Given the Buddhist prohibition against the taking of life, the monks of the place were horrified because of the disrepute such actions would bring upon their establishment. The dark man responded, If you find this displeasing, I will put the fish back in the water again. He then went outside and threw the roasted fish back into the adjoining river and, springing to life, they swam happily away.

FIGURE 1.1 Tilopa, Indian founder of the Kagyü lineage. Drawing by Chris Bannigan (Namkha Tashi).

Apparently none of the monks was particularly impressed by this peculiar series of events, and they returned to their usual business. Naropa, on the other hand, realized that something noteworthy had just occurred. In fact, he suspected that this filthy miscreant was a siddha, an enlightened tantric teacher. Perhaps, indeed, this was the long-soughtafter Tilopa. Naropa forgot about his meal and followed after the beggar, going so far as to prostrate himself and plead for instruction.

Abruptly, the beggar turned on him and began to beat him, meanwhile speaking not a single word. However, when Naropa then began to think, Is this Tilopa? Is this Tilopa? The beggar replied out loud, I am. I am. Then, when Naropa began to think, No, this couldn’t be Tilopa, the beggar replied, I am not. I am not. His mind swimming with confusion and disorientation, Naropa realized that this must be the master he sought, and he began to follow him as his guru. Although now Tilopa—for it was indeed he—sometimes acted like an accomplished yogin and at others like a madman, Naropa entertained no more doubts. Attending Tilopa for many years, through the most harrowing of circumstances, having sacrificed literally everything he had in body and soul, the erstwhile scholar eventually attained the genuine realization he sought.²

Naropa’s dates (1016–1100) put him at far remove indeed from the lifetime of Buddha Shakyamuni some fifteen hundred years earlier. More than this, however, the strange interactions between Naropa and Tilopa would seem to have little to do with the Buddha’s dharma. In fact, the tantric way espoused by the siddha Tilopa might well seem to represent, by any and all accounts, a different religious universe altogether.

From the Tibetan point of view, however, Tantric or Vajrayana Buddhism represents Buddha Shakyamuni’s most essential and ultimate teaching. If much of what is ascribed to him by tradition seems decidedly nontantric, this is only an appearance. In fact, for Tibetans, the Vajrayana is the essential heart of the entire Indian dharma. If all of the apparently nontantric teachings of Indian tradition are boiled down to one point, that point is the essential nature of mind that is articulated most purely, explicitly, and directly in the Vajrayana. If the nontantric teachings of the Buddha appear so far removed from this essential, tantric heart, it is because they provide more gradual and accessible avenues of approach to this inner citadel of the Buddha’s ultimate instruction.

FIGURE 1.2 Naropa, disciple of Tilopa and guru of Marpa; the Tibetan founder of the Kagyü lineage. Drawing by Robert Beer.

Tibetans hold that human beings are generally not capable of seeing the whole of reality all at once. Rather, spiritual awakening must proceed in stages. Even if the fullness of reality were to be displayed, people could only see what their current level of maturity would allow. In consideration of this quality of human nature, the Buddha gave a vast array of teachings and practices, each of which addresses a particular stage on the path to enlightenment.

Tibetans believe that the Buddha, as a realized being, manifests himself on many different levels. Following Indian tradition, they divide these levels into three primary bodies. First is the nirmanakaya, emanation body, the Buddha’s physical, human form in which—as described in his early biographies—he appears as a prince, renounces the world, and follows the path to enlightenment. Second, the Buddha appears as the sambhogakaya, body of enjoyment, his brilliant, transfigured, nonphysical form of light. In this body he journeys to the heavens, teaches the gods, and reveals himself to highly attained people. Finally there is the Buddha’s dharmakaya, the body of reality itself, without specific, delimited form, wherein the Buddha is identified with the spiritually charged nature of everything that is.

THE BUDDHA’S LEGACY

The Three Yanas and the Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma

For Tibetans, Buddha Shakyamuni’s enlightenment at Bodhgaya in India can be viewed from the perspective of each of these three bodies. As the dharmakaya, the Buddha has always been enlightened and his mind has never departed from that complete and perfect realization. On the sambhogakaya level, his enlightenment was essentially a tantric one, the union of male and female aspects of reality. According to one account, he experienced tantric initiations at the hands of celestial buddhas and realized mahamudra, the great symbol, enlightenment as described in the Vajrayana. Yet, out of respect for the limitations of ordinary people, the Buddha showed to most people only his nirmanakaya form, that of a person, sitting alone underneath a tree, meditating, and achieving enlightenment as a human being.

For the same reasons, when the Buddha rose from his enlightenment experience, he refrained from talking about the full measure of his realization. Instead, he taught more exoteric doctrines, such as the four noble truths, as most immediately accessible and appropriate for the people of his day. Throughout the course of his life, however, the Buddha gave progressively deeper and more sophisticated teachings, sometimes in his human, nirmanakaya form, at other times in the spiritual body of the sambhogakaya. By the time of his passing at the age of eighty, he had presented an enormous array of discourses, including 84,000 dharmas, or types of instruction—in other words, a nearly limitless collection of different teachings to address the various types of situations and levels of maturity experienced by sentient beings. Nevertheless, at the center of all these, so the Tibetans hold, was the Vajrayana, with all the other innumerable instructions being understood as more or less provisional approximations, leading in the direction of this most profound of the Buddha’s dharma.

During the time when the Tibetans were studying in India, Indian scholars were in the process of organizing the wealth of the Buddha’s legacy into the system known as the three yanas. In this system, the early traditions of the Eighteen Schools were loosely designated by the term Hinayana, the lesser vehicle, while the second yana was called Mahayana, the great vehicle, and the third the Vajrayana, or adamantine vehicle.³ The Tibetans, following Indian tradition, adopted this system and its way of viewing Indian Buddhist history. According to this interpretation, shortly after his enlightenment, at the Deer Park in Benares the Buddha presented the first yana, the Hinayana. Here he promulgated the first turning of the wheel of dharma, consisting of the four noble truths. This teaching spread quickly to multitudes of people throughout India and became the foundational teachings of early Buddhism. Later, in Tibet, the Hinayana teachings provided Buddhist tradition both with important practices (the Vinaya, or monastic discipline) and teachings (the Abhidharma, or advanced Buddhist psychology).

Later in his life, to a more select audience, the Buddha presented the second yana, the Mahayana. The Mahayana included a second and a third turning of the wheel of dharma, outlining the basic view and philosophy of the great vehicle. The second turning of the wheel presented emptiness, while the third outlined the doctrine of buddha-nature. On the occasions upon which the Buddha gave the second and third turnings, he deemed that the world was not ready for these more advanced teachings, and so they were kept hidden until such time as people were able to receive them. Some centuries later, through the work of Nagarjuna and others, the Mahayana did begin to make its way in the human world—around 100 BCE, according to modern historians.

Subsequently, the Mahayana sutras originally preached by the Buddha were commented on by successive generations of scholars and meditation masters, producing a textual tradition of great richness and diversity. Standing at the forefront of this tradition were masters such as Nagarjuna, the founder of Madhyamaka, and Asanga, the initiator of Yogachara. The Indian Mahayana sutras and commentaries provide the basis of Buddhist philosophy in Tibet: the great scholars rely on them in their teaching and writing, and the most important texts are studied in the monastic colleges and universities.

Subsequently, in a sambhogakaya form, the Buddha presented the final and culminating yana, the Vajrayana, to a very small audience of his most advanced disciples. Like the Mahayana promulgations, these teachings were kept hidden until such time as the larger human world was able to receive them. Modern scholars date the public appearance of the Buddhist tantra at around the end of the seventh century CE. Between the eighth and the twelfth centuries CE, the Vajrayana flourished in India, becoming quite popular and receiving considerable financial support, with many hundreds of tantric texts (tantras) and commentaries being written down. Many of these were brought to Tibet and provided the basis of Vajrayana practice there.

FIGURE 1.3 Shakyamuni Buddha.

Each yana contains characteristic doctrines and also practices tailored to that level of spiritual understanding. From the Tibetan viewpoint, the individual practitioner, in his or her own process of spiritual maturation, follows the three-yana unfolding of the Buddha’s teaching, first practicing the Hinayana, next the Mahayana, and finally the Vajrayana. Table 1.1 (reproduced from Indestructible Truth) summarizes the essential elements of this Tibetan way of looking at the great variety of teachings given by the Buddha. The three-yana scheme will be discussed in chapter 3 of this book, while the three turnings of the wheel of dharma will be examined in chapter 4.

The Three Lifeways

In addition to the three yanas and the three turnings of the wheel of dharma, Tibetans understand the Buddha also to have taught three lifeways that still provide the basic options for Tibetan Buddhists. The first two of these require renunciation of the world, and the third provides a path for the laity. In terms of the renunciant options, then, one may abandon the world to become either (1) a monastic living in a settled monastery or (2) a yogin meditating in solitude in the wilds—in the forest, as the Indian texts put it. Or, without renouncing the world, one may remain (3) a layperson and practice Buddhism in the context of ordinary household life. The most ancient of these three ways is the path of the yogin meditating in retreat, the very same path that the Buddha himself pursued and which he taught to his most gifted and advanced disciples. This is a path of radical renunciation in which one leaves all conventional comforts and security behind and lives in solitude, perhaps under a tree, in a cave, or in the open, subsisting on small quantities of food, and meditating day and night.

However, this radical path is difficult and demanding in the extreme, and it is only for the most ardent and dedicated. There are others who are inspired to renounce the world but for whom the rigors of forest renunciation are beyond reach. In order to meet the needs of such people, a second renunciant option developed, that of settled monasticism. According to this second lifeway, a person may renounce the world and, as a monk or a nun, take up residence in a monastery, thus ensuring a roof over one’s head, daily sustenance, and a community of which one is a part. Whereas the forest renunciant spends all of his or her time meditating, monastics typically engage in a variety of activities, revolving around a path of virtuous behavior in accordance with the monastic Vinaya, the study of the sacred texts, maintenance of the monastery, teaching and counseling the laity, caring for the sick, and so on.

TABLE 1.1

THE THREE YANAS

AS TAUGHT BY BUDDHA SHAKYAMUNI

The third lifeway is that of the layperson, who venerates renunciants, looks after their material support, and follows an ethical life defined by the well-known five precepts (pancha-shila). These include abstention from killing, stealing, lying, sexual misconduct, and intoxicants, and participating in the ritual life of their local monasteries. Through following this path, laypeople are able to receive the Buddhist teachings and accumulate the necessary good karma to advance them along their paths, directing their lives toward the eventual goal of enlightenment in a future life.

In Tibetan Buddhism as previously in India, these three lifeways are closely interconnected. For one thing, the same person, at different times in his or her life, might experience each of these three paths. One might begin as a layperson, renounce the world and become a monk or a nun, later be inspired to enter the forest for a period—perhaps of many years—of solitary meditation, and finally as an aged person return to the monastery to live and teach.

Tibetans view these three lifeways as each performing important and necessary functions within the overall spiritual economy of the dharma. In traditional Tibet, the way of the mountain hermit, the forest renunciant in Indian terminology, provided an arena where the teachings of dharma could be carried to their utmost fruition, for here people were able to focus their attention exclusively on meditation. Through this, they were able to attain, in their lifetimes, the realization of enlightenment, the supreme and ultimate goal of Buddhism. Monastic people provided the institutional continuity of the tradition, maintaining monasteries that were Tibet’s primary religious centers; acting as paragons of virtue for the lay folk; copying and studying the sacred texts; through study and debate clarifying and refining the teachings; developing distinctive schools of interpretation; engaging in religious dialogue with other traditions; and passing their way of life and their understanding on through the training of new monastics. The way of the laity was equally important, for Tibetan laypeople venerated and supported the great saints and teachers; provided material sustenance to the monasteries and their inhabitants; through having children enter the monasteries, thus ensured their continuation; and through bringing the dharma into the many activities of their lives, made Buddhism the core around which Tibetan culture revolved.⁴

THE FURTHER HISTORY OF INDIAN BUDDHISM

From Forest to Monastery: Classical Patterns

The dharma of Buddha Shakyamuni was originally one of forest renunciation, subsequently developing the lifeways of both monastic and layperson. Mahayana Buddhism, in its earliest days, was also largely a forest tradition,⁵ held by men and women practitioners meditating in solitude. These yogins and yoginis had devoted lay practitioners who revered them and supported them materially. We first see the forest Mahayana about 100 BCE in the earliest Mahayana text we know of, the Collection of Precious Qualities.⁶ Many centuries later, perhaps around the fourth or fifth century CE, the Mahayana, like the traditions before it, gave rise to a monastic wing. During its full flowering in India, the Mahayana thus also came to possess three lifeways—those of forest meditator, settled monastic, and lay devotee.

Like earliest Buddhism and the Mahayana, the Vajrayana in India was also originally a forest tradition. According to the Tibetan historian Lama Taranatha, its lineages were passed down from one teacher to one or at most a very few disciples, and kept secret and hidden from outside view for centuries.⁷ At the end of the seventh century, however, it began to become visible within Indian history as a vigorous and dynamic religious movement defined by its unconventionality and its intense focus on meditation and personal transformation.

From reading the earlier tantric texts, it is clear that the Vajrayana came forward in India at this time partly owing to a diminishing spirituality among the Eighteen Schools and the Mahayana. In the centuries prior to the appearance of the Vajrayana, these traditions had undergone a process of institutionalization. Originally forest lineages, they had largely moved into monastic environments and attained a high level of cultural esteem and material well-being. As part of this process, the monastic traditions underwent a certain amount of adaptation to the prevailing values of the Indian social context. Behavioral purity had become a primary desideratum among the monastic population and the mastery of texts the principal occupation of its elite. In this context, the learning and intellectual accomplishment of a monastery’s scholars were crucial: the material well-being and even the survival of the Buddhist monastic lineages and schools depended to a large extent on the renown of their scholars and their success in scholarly debate.

By the time of the appearance of the Vajrayana in India, the dharma seems to have become largely identified with a monasticism in which the practice of meditation, originally the heart of Buddhist spirituality, played a generally quite peripheral role. In any case, this is the picture given in the earlier tantric texts and particularly the hagiographies of the tantric siddhas, the enlightened ideal of the Vajrayana. Here one finds a critique of the conventionality and scholasticism of monastic Buddhism and a call for a return to the primary values of radical renunciation, meditation, and realization.

Tantric Yogins, Monastics, and Lay Practitioners

The siddhas were men and women who came from all social stations and walks of life, from beggars, criminals, and menial workers at the lower end, to kings, queens, and brahmins at the upper. In spite of their great social differences, they were joined together in the intensity of their spiritual aspiration and devotion to their practice. Each in his or her own way had met a personal crisis that they were powerless to resolve through ordinary means. At this critical juncture, they typically met an accomplished tantric master, a siddha, who initiated them into one of the Vajrayana cycles and then set them to meditating. Many of these disciples carried out their practice in solitary retreat, as forest renunciants, but others remained in the world and carried out their meditation in that context.

After many years of practice, the disciples reached enlightenment and themselves became siddhas. Henceforth, they lived in the world, often continuing to follow their given caste occupations, converting others, teaching widely, and training disciples. In their hagiographies, they are depicted as often quite unconventional men and women of extraordinary insight, compassion, and power, and an abundance of miracles and magical feats is a standard feature of their lives. Sometimes, they behaved as if demented or insane, camouflaging their attainment to all but their closest disciples. Owing to their nonmonastic roots, their personal unconventionality, and the tantric practice they followed, the siddhas—at least as depicted in their standard Indian biographies—seem to have lived and practiced in more or less completely nonmonastic contexts.

The Vajrayana remained a mainly nonmonastic tradition until probably sometime in the ninth century, when it began to appear within contexts of Indian monastic life, like the Eighteen Schools and the Mahayana before it. In the ninth through the twelfth century CE, monasteries that were being built gave evidence of Vajrayana influence; Vajrayana texts were being studied in those monasteries; and scholars emerged from them schooled in the three yanas, meaning that they were learned in Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana matters. Thus it was that the Vajrayana—like the Eighteen Schools and Mahayana—came to have adherents belonging to all three of the lifeways mentioned above, those of yogin, layperson, and settled monastic.

In addition, a fourth lifeway emerged at this time, which we may term the householder yogin. This fourth ideal derived from the fact that among the siddhas, as mentioned, were not only forest renunciants but also elite lay practitioners. These latter, the householder yogins, lived what seemed ordinary lay lives, marrying, raising families, and working at various occupations for their livelihood. At the same time, however, they received tantric initiation, spent periods of time in retreat, and carried out their Vajrayana practice in secret in their lay contexts, meditating at night and even in the midst of their daily activities, eventually attaining full realization. Typical is the housewife Manibhadra, who, having received initiation, meditated while her Hindu husband and the other members of her family were sleeping. Only years later did her tantric commitments become known, when she attained realization and herself became a siddha. This tradition of the householder yogin became important in Tibet, where many laypeople were able to practice and attain realization in the midst of an ordinary life in the world. The Nyingma lineage, in particular, continues this important development in the tradition of the married lamas, among whom in each generation are accomplished scholars and teachers, and realized practitioners.

FIGURE 1.4 Some of the eighty-four mahasiddhas. From upper left to right: Shavaripa, Saraha, Luyipa, Lalipa, Ghantapa, Krishnacharya, Naropa, Tilopa, Maitripa.

The movement of the Vajrayana into a monastic environment thus replicates the pattern by which both Hinayana and Mahayana similarly developed monastic wings. At the same time, the process and the results of this tantric monasticization were somewhat different. However dominant Vajrayana texts, concepts, and symbolism became in many Indian monasteries of the day, institutionalized Vajrayana was never able fully to replace the nonmonastic traditions. In fact, even after the Vajrayana came to reign supreme in much of Indian monastic life, it was an accepted fact that the most serious Vajrayana practice could only occur in the trackless wilderness of the forest. As we have seen, even as late at the eleventh century Naropa was able to train in the tantra only by abandoning the Buddhist civilization of Nalanda University and setting off into the unknown in search of the elusive Tilopa.

One sees the same kind of pattern in the following story about the great scholar Abhayakaragupta (fig. 1.5), who also lived in the eleventh century.⁸ This brahmin was a learned monk who resided at a monastery in North India. He had become a Buddhist in the first place because of a vision of the tantric yidam (personal deity), Vajrayogini, a female buddha who embodies one’s own innermost being. However, after this vision, instead of entering the practice of Vajrayana, Abhayakaragupta elected to become a monk and follow the inclination, typical of his caste, to pursue the scholarly study of the Vajrayana instead.

FIGURE 1.5 Abhayakaragupta, eleventh-century tantric scholar and practitioner.

Nevertheless, he was not to be left alone, for Vajrayogini appeared to him repeatedly, enjoining him to abandon the mere study of the Vajrayana and engage in the practice. Each time, the decorous monk demurred, claiming that the practice was too risky to his identity as a monk and a brahmin. On the occasion of her last visit, Vajrayogini said to him, You know three hundred tantras and have received the very best oral instructions on them. How can you possibly have doubts about the actual practice? Yet the proud and stubborn monk would not be swayed, even by this stunning embodiment of buddhahood right in front of him. Hearing his refusal, the Mistress of the Three Worlds—as she is called—disappeared for the last time. To Abhayakaragupta’s credit, he eventually realized what he had cast away and rejected, and spent the rest of his life in search of the divine maiden, longing for nothing so much as to prostrate himself and offer all of his accomplishments to her wondrous cosmic form.

The stories of both Naropa and Abhayakaragupta make the point that whatever foothold the Vajrayana may have had in the monasteries, the real tradition and the real practice was to be found elsewhere, somewhere in the outback where books, scholarship, and decorous behavior, where prestige, honors, and renown, have no meaning.

In Tibet, the model of the three yanas provided a framework for Tibetan Buddhism as a whole. The Hinayana and Mahayana defined conventional, institutionalized Buddhism. The Hinayana provided the Vinaya, which regulated both individual monastic behavior and collective monastic affairs. It was also the source of the Abhidharma, one of the more advanced topics of Buddhist scholastic study and the basis of Buddhist psychology. The Mahayana articulated the all-important notion of emptiness (shunyata), the basis of Buddhist philosophy in Tibet as well as the ideal of the bodhisattva followed by all Tibetans, monks and nuns, yogins, and laypeople alike. And the Mahayana scholastic traditions, particularly the various Madhyamaka and Yogachara schools, defined the intellectual culture in Tibetan monasteries.

While the Hinayana and Mahayana defined conventional Buddhism in Tibet, the Vajrayana gave voice to its unconventional, forest side. Although Vajrayana ideas, symbolism, and liturgies were certainly prevalent within Tibetan monasteries, in order to engage in serious tantric practice, one would normally enter retreat. Furthermore, the most respected practitioners within Tibetan tradition were the yogins who devoted much or all of their lives to solitary meditation. It was these yogins who, when they attained realization, were understood as siddhas, virtually equivalent to the enlightened ideal of the Indian Vajrayana. These Tibetan siddhas often followed their Indian progenitors in their unconventional behavior, their critique of the religious establishment, and their unpredictable and sometimes fearsome demeanor. In the next two chapters, we shall examine the way in which the Vajrayana, as the centerpiece of this three-yana synthesis, gradually made its way to Tibet and became the defining orientation of Tibetan Buddhism.

2

How the Vajrayana Came to Tibet

The Early Spreading of the Dharma

The vajrayana came to Tibet as part of the larger enterprise of the transplantation of Buddhism to the Land of Snow. In order to understand how the Vajrayana came to play the role it does within Tibetan tradition, we need to gain some understanding of the tantric transmissions within this larger context.

Tibetans divide the nearly six centuries during which Indian Buddhism was making its way to Tibet (seventh through the twelfth centuries CE) into two major periods: the early spreading of the dharma, from the seventh to middle of the ninth century, and the later spreading, from the late tenth to the end of the twelfth century. During the seventh and eighth centuries in India, but later as well, Buddhists following the different trends often inhabited quite different worlds. Proponents of one or another of the Eighteen Schools (what Tibetans called the Hinayana), rejected the Mahayana sutras as inauthentic, not to speak of the tantras. Those following the Mahayana sutras, while perhaps acknowledging the tantras, saw the conventional bodhisattva ideal, defined by compassion and the six paramitas (perfections) as the epitome of the Buddha’s teaching. Even within the conventional Mahayana, there was a considerable amount of debate and disagreement over which philosophical traditions were most desirable. Tantric practitioners often ignored the monastic world altogether as a waste of time, and devoted themselves to their own esoteric practices as the essential heart of the Buddha’s way. And through the period of the seventh to the twelfth centuries, there was always a tension, which could sometimes be considerable, between those pursuing the way of virtue and knowledge in the great monasteries and those unconventional yogins carrying out their esoteric practices in the dangerous precincts of cremation ground and jungle.

During the five centuries when the dharma was being transplanted to Tibet, the Tibetans were exposed to the full range of diversity of Indian Buddhism. To make matters more complex, beginning before the eighth century and continuing thereafter, Central and Far Eastern forms of Buddhism were known in Tibet and were being advanced, sometimes quite vigorously. The broad range of types and forms of Buddhism that were transplanted to Tibet may be viewed as positive in two respects: first, it allowed a great array of Buddhist traditions to undergo transplantation and to develop and flourish in Tibet; and second, it produced a Tibetan tradition that was uncommonly diverse, vigorous, and creative.

THE EARLY SPREADING OF THE DHARMA (SEVENTH TO MID-NINTH CENTURY)

During the period of the early spreading, traditional histories identify three Tibetan kings as principally responsible for the successful transit of the Indian dharma: in the seventh century Songtsen Gampo (609–649?), in the eighth, Trisong Detsen (754–797), and in the ninth, Ralpachen (815–836).

During the early spreading, it appears that the conventional Mahayana and the unconventional Vajrayana were transmitted by different sorts of Indians, came to Tibet in distinctive ways, and were welcomed into somewhat different environments. Tradition reports that in the seventh century Songtsen Gampo married a Chinese princess and a Nepalese princess, both of whom were Buddhists. Through them, Buddhism gained entry to the royal court. This ruler also sent one of his ministers to India to bring back an alphabet so that the Tibetan language could, for the first time, be committed to writing. Indications are that the Buddhism brought to the court was of the conventional Mahayana variety.

In the eighth century, the second religious king, Trisong Detsen, invited the Indian monk Shantarakshita to Tibet, a respected Mahayana scholar whose synthesis of Madhyamaka and Yogachara set the standard for the day. The king’s plan was to have Shantarakshita supervise the building of the first major monastery in Tibet, oversee the ordination of a group of Tibetan monks (something that had not yet occurred), and establish conventional Mahayana study and practice at the monastery. Shantarakshita arrived but, so we read, the local spirits were offended at the prospect of the new Buddhist religion being given such a firm foothold in their domain, with the result that a number of natural calamities occurred and the Indian monk was forced to withdraw.

Before he left, however, Shantarakshita advised the king that tantric methods were needed to overcome the recalcitrant forces and that he, as a monk, was not competent in these matters. He further suggested that the king invite an accomplished tantric yogin named Padmasambhava (known as Guru Rinpoche or Padmakara in Tibet) to carry out the necessary taming of the indigenous deities. The invitation was drawn up by the king and relayed to the siddha.

Padmasambhava was a siddha whose life and person reflect the unconventional, nonmonastic environment of Vajrayana Buddhism during the eighth century in India. His biography reveals a life entirely devoted to spiritual realization. He was born, it is said, in no ordinary human way, but in a lotus in the middle of a sacred lake. Having no earthly mother and father, he arrived in this world with no hope of an identity, at least in conventional terms. Having been discovered, the foundling was taken to the palace of a local king, Indrabhuti, who, without a son, was delighted to bring the child up as crown prince.

From the beginning, the enlightenment within the child was pure and strong, and he would not or could not conform to normal human limitations. In time, the boundlessness of his inner realization proved too much for the royal court, and he was sent away into exile. Barred from the human world, Padmasambhava took up residence in a cremation ground, outside the bounds of the conventional society, inhabited by the dying and the dead, by criminals and the insane, by wild animals and marauding spirits. In this place, deemed an ideal location for tantric yogins bent on liberation, Padmasambhava took up the practice of meditation. He carried out his yogic endeavors for many years in this and similar locales, exploring the limitless realms of enlightenment. Eventually, he began to bring his realization into the world, and his biography is filled with the many encounters and experiences that now came to him. In due course, he married an Indian princess named Mandarava, who received tantric initiation and instruction from him. Living now mostly in caves in the mountains, Padmasambhava and Mandarava practiced together.

FIGURE 2.1 Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava) in lotus-born aspect.

Padmasambhava accepted King Trisong Detsen’s invitation. Once in Tibet, he made a connection with the indigenous deities and tamed them, thus rendering the building of Samye possible. Through Padmasambhava’s taming activity at Samye and elsewhere, many indigenous spirits were brought to the dharma and enlisted as its protectors. Many of the most important protectors in classical Tibetan Buddhism trace their origins back to him. Shantarakshita, who had been gone from Tibet for several years, was now able to return. With Shantarakshita and Padmasambhava working together, Samye was built, being completed about 779. Now the first group of Tibetans underwent monastic ordination and took up residence in the monastery. During his time in Tibet, Padmasambhava accepted a Tibetan woman, Yeshe Tsogyal, as his principal disciple. She became his tantric consort (wife) and was responsible for the preservation of much of his teachings. Subsequently, the master traveled around the country giving extensive tantric instruction. In his work of spreading the dharma, Padmasambhava was joined by other tantric masters, such as Vimalamitra and Vairochana.

In the royal court and its entourage, and in Samye monastery, the conventional Mahayana now had found a solid foothold in Tibet. But into what environment could the Vajrayana come and who might be its recipients? In India, the tantric siddhas were unaffiliated yogins who, like Padmasambhava, wandered forth alone or in small groups. They roamed about giving tantric teachings and initiations, spending much of their time in retreat, and training disciples met in their travels. During the early spreading (and, as we shall see, also in the later), such yogins passed their lineages on to Tibetans in India and also in their own journeys to Tibet. It appears that, during the early spreading, these lineages were generally not passed on in monastic environments. Rather, as in India, transmission occurred in retreat settings where disciples were trained and in contexts of teaching among the laity.

So it was that during the early spreading of Buddhism in Tibet, alongside the conventional Mahayana traditions established in the royal court and maintained at Samye, tantric lineages were being transmitted in nonmonastic contexts, particularly to yogins and laypeople. By the end of the early spreading, a great variety of these tantric lineages had taken root among various families of the laity and were being practiced individually and in small retreat communities by male and female yogins.

This does not mean that the world of court and monastery on the one hand, and of the Vajrayana on the other, were entirely separate. In fact, the building of Samye shows how the conventional Mahayana and the unconventional Vajrayana, while distinctive, could cooperate in the development of the dharma in Tibet. Shantarakshita embodied a socially laudable and institutionally stable form of Buddhism. Padmasambhava embodied a more radical path that produced realization, miraculous powers, and the ability to handle problems outside of the normal ken of most laypeople and monks. Together, these two were able to bring about not only the foundation of Samye but the establishment of Tibetan monasticism, and the rooting of Buddhism itself in Tibetan soil.

The interface between Mahayana and Vajrayana in Tibet is also seen in other ways. For example, Trisong Detsen established support for both monks and yogins. Thus records indicate specific kinds and amounts of material support for the monks residing at Samye; and they also specify similar support for yogins living in the caves in the Samye vicinity. In addition, King Trisong Detsen provided the material resources necessary for the