Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute talk, Alex Berzin explores the philosophical and psychological foundations necessary for tantra practice, moving beyond surface-level visualization to examine how the mind creates suffering. He begins by distinguishing between seeing the absence of a fantasized identity — whether in external objects like rooms and cigarettes, or in ourselves — and the actual reality of how things exist. Berzin then develops a two-tier analysis of obstacles: ideologically-based and automatically-arising disturbing attitudes (which prevent liberation), and deeper mental habits that distort perception and prevent true helpfulness to others (which prevent omniscience). He introduces bodhicitta — an expanding heart motivated by interconnectedness and the resolve to benefit all beings — as the essential energy required to overcome the second set of obstacles. Finally, he outlines the path itself: building positive potential through ordinary preliminaries (understanding motivation and direction), and then engaging the uncommon preliminaries like prostrations and Vajrasattva mantras — practices shared across all Tibetan Buddhist schools despite apparent differences. The talk assumes serious practitioners aiming toward enlightenment rather than mere nirvana.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 SP.mp3
UUID: 36d8f2a3-4b25-4b4f-9953-b3c4f6a9504b
Teacher: Alex Berzin
Collection: Theory of Sadhana practice (Alex Berzin)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.2 minutes
Words: ~6,869
It’s not just the analytical blah blah blah, but the conclusion that you’ve come to to actually see that that’s the case and to feel that. To see this absence and feel it like we see absence of the glass from the hands. You see the absence of monsters in the room or the room existing as haunted by monsters. It’s the absence of a fantasized way of existing. Now, that doesn’t mean that the room doesn’t exist, does it?
What it means is that in fact the room is now very open because, you know, this is how does it exist? It exists, dependent on, you know, whatever, you know, how it’s used and so on. It allows for an openness to be able to use it in whatever way we want when we see this absence of fantasized ways of existing. The fantasy exists but it was crippling us, but the fantasy is not referring to anything real. There are no real monsters there.
That’s what’s absent. It is an implied object of this fantasy. When we see that that’s absent, then the fantasy eventually will go away the more and more we’re able to focus on how it’s not referring to anything real. That way you become more and more familiar with this absence of fantasized ways of existing. It’s the same thing with ourselves.
You could imagine that I exist as a monster. Right? I’m a shit. I’m no good type of thing. That again is like imagining the room is haunted by monsters.
To realize that I don’t exist that way, there’s an absence of that, that fantasy with which I imagine that I am a monster, that I’m no good, I don’t deserve to be happy, I don’t deserve to be loved, all this sort of stuff. That feeling about ourself, that self conception, that self image could cause us to be miserable and cause us all sorts of horrible relationships with others, all sorts of scenarios that we act out. When we realize that it’s not referring to anything real, then that doesn’t mean that I don’t exist. What it means is that there’s an absence of this monster in me, so it leaves everything open. It allows me to act in accordance to whatever is going on in a situation.
These are very, very important things. We don’t have so much time. Unfortunately, we only have one day to cover these things normally. It would be good to take time out and try to digest these points one by one. This is on tape.
This is something that you can then work with later on going through these points one by one. Anyway, it’s important to have some general idea more accurately what’s being discussed here because all these points are very, very crucial when it comes to any type of tantra practice. It has to be approached with this determination to be free of our problems. It’s not just done as a game or an indoor sport of visualization and so on, but it’s done within the context of having this direction in my life, following cause and effect, having determination to be free. What’s really, really essential is to be able to differentiate between reality and fantasy because this is really, you know, when we’re dealing with Tantra, we’re dealing with the imagination, we’re dealing with the powers of the imagination, and so on.
If you can’t differentiate between reality and fantasy, you can get really messed up. You can think that I actually am this deity. Flap your wings and go out and imagine you can fly, get into a lot of trouble to lock you up. These are very important prerequisites, these sort of things. Anyway, we have, this general material.
Then, so we had, you know, on the intermediate level, the true problems that we face are uncontrollably recurring problems. Causes of it is our lack of awareness of how we exist, who we are, if we want to achieve a stopping of that which would be liberation or nirvana. It would be a state in which we’ve gotten rid of all these problems, the disturbing attitudes, the impulsive behavior that causes them, then we would follow a pathway of doing that which would be to gain this determination to be free and to have this ethical self discipline concentration and discriminating awareness. Now, on a more advanced level, what is a true problem would be everybody else’s problems. Those are true problems, too.
I’m not the only one who exists. I don’t exist in a vacuum. Everybody has problems the same as I do. There’s also my inability to be able to help them, to truly help them. That’s a big problem.
What’s the cause of this? The cause of this is my, own selfishness. Now, we have a number of, things that are going on here. You know, we have our, disturbing attitudes. These disturbing attitudes are, you know, we have, several you know, what’s often discussed are the, obstacles preventing, liberation.
Alright? Now, the obstacles prevent and the obstacles preventing omniscience. There’s two levels of, mental obscurations or obstacles. The first level is, the, obscurations, which are our, disturbing attitudes. Right?
Because of our disturbing attitudes, their tendencies, and so on. You know, I don’t really have the time to go into, you know, the whole discussion of tendencies, habits, these sort of things in too much detail detail here. We’ll do that Tuesday night. These things are causing me my uncontrollably recurring problems because of these disturbing attitudes. There’s also a much deeper level.
We have you act in a negative way. Let’s say you smoke a cigarette, it builds up a potential to smoke another one. It also builds up a tendency to smoke. That’s usually translated as seed but anyway, it’s a tendency. Even deeper, builds up a habit.
All of those will cause the impulse to come up for us to smoke again, but the habit is much more deeply ingrained. What the habit is going to do is not only cause us the impulse to come up to smoke again, but also it’s going to cause the mind to make things appear in a discordant way or a strange way. Discordant is usually translated as dual, dualistic appearances but that again is a bit misleading because it sounds as though you have double vision and that everything is one, know, sort of a very, simple minded way of looking at things. But, rather what it’s talking about is inharmonious appearances. Things appear in a way which is discordant out of harmony with, reality.
That’s what dual is, talking about. So, it, these habits may cause our mind to make things appear in strange ways. For instance, makes the it causes the mind the habit of smoking causes the mind to make the cigarette appear as though it’s something that we should set on fire and stick in our mouth. That cigarette doesn’t appear that way from its own side because if it did, everybody should see it that way. The baby doesn’t see it that way, might want to put it in its mouth, it wouldn’t occur to it to set it on fire.
It doesn’t appear like that to the dog. It wouldn’t appear like that to a martian who landed. It doesn’t appear like that to a nonsmoker. It only appears like that to the smoker, you know, that should be set on fire and stuck in their mouth. Why?
Because of the habit of smoking. So, I mean, you have all these strange appearance making processes are due to habits. You have the habit of thinking that you’re no good and everybody’s against you, this sort of thing. And that habit causes you to see everybody with a vision of paranoia that they’re against you. Right?
So, you know, they have a grimace on their face. It could be because of indigestion but in our mind it appears as though they’re disapproving of us. You know, all these sort of syndromes, this, you know, strange appearance making, is due to these habits. This is the second set of obscurations. The obscurations which prevent our omniscience, our ability to help others, is this tend you know, this the habits which are causing us to make all our projections.
Alright? So, it’s not only the disturbing attitudes and their tendencies. Once we’ve gotten rid of those, we still have the habits. So, we still have, you know, our mind having all sorts of projections onto others. That prevents us from helping them because then, you know, we see them and instead of seeing them for who they are, you know, seeing their actual reality, we see them with our projections.
I like a certain kind of food, therefore they must like that. I like things done a certain way, therefore they must like it done that way as well. Many, many projections. This is cause which is preventing us from being able to help everybody the best, being omniscient. Now, if we could achieve a stopping of this, what would that be?
That would be to achieve enlightenment. Enlightenment is more than nirvana. Enlightenment means, again, enlightenment isn’t the greatest term because enlightenment has the connotation of some light going on or illumination, some sort of mystical experience which is ridiculous. That enlightenment really in the English language means modern. You have the age of enlightenment which was the age of modernity.
In regular parlance, you’ll see Reagan has an enlightened policy of economics which means a modern view of economics and certainly we don’t want that to mean the same thing that we’re talking about in terms of gaining enlightenment. What it’s talking about is a state in which all the limitations are removed and all the potentials are realized so that we’re in the best position to benefit others. It’s not only our own problems removed but in terms of disturbing the causes for them being removed, disturbing attitudes, and impulsive behavior. But we’re rid of all the limitations. So the limitations of these projections and so on, these discordant appearance making, habits of the mind.
You know, we’re rid of all of that so that all our potentials are realized and we can really be of benefit to everybody. So, how do we develop that? We have to, develop what’s called bodhicitta. Now, bodhicitta is basically talking about a heart which is expanding out to all others and to reaching our fullest potentials in order to be able to benefit them. First, we have to see that we’re all interconnected.
This is something that we can see very easily if we think in terms of Śāntideva, a great Indian master, said that if you had a thorn in your foot, if the hand were to say to the foot, Tough luck, foot. That’s your problem. I’m fine up here. That would be ridiculous. The hand should help the foot because they’re interconnected.
Likewise, he said that problems should be removed, not simply because they’re your problem or because they’re my problem, but problems should be removed simply because they’re problems and problems hurt. Like that, we think in terms of everybody’s problems that we’re all interconnected and they should be removed simply because they’re problems and they hurt not because they’re your problem or my problem. If we think in terms of what we’ve made use of in a day, then, we can see this very clearly. Like for instance, you know, I might have had a piece of, bread in the morning, a piece of toast. Now, where did that come from?
Where did the bread come from? There must have been a lot of people involved growing the wheat. All the farmers seen, people involved in harvesting it, picking it, transporting it. How was it transported? Where did all the roads come from?
All the people involved with that. Who made the trucks that it was transported in? Who made the steel that the trucks were made out of? The rubber for the tires. Where did the petrol come from?
The whole petrol industry. How about the dinosaurs whose bodies decomposed to make the petrol? All the factories in which it was, the bread was baked. Where did that come from? If we got the bread in a paper wrapper, well, you know, where did that come from?
You have to bring in the whole forest industry, the paper industry, the printing industry, people who sold it. If we made it into a piece of toast, then we have to bring in where the electricity come from. All the people who built the power plants, laid the lines, all these sort of things. If we put some butter on it, well, now we have to bring in the cows, the dairy industry, all this sort of thing just for a simple piece of toast and butter. Like that, if we think about every single thing that we’ve eaten during the day, every item of clothing that we wear, all the gadgets in our house, then it becomes very clear that our lives are interconnected with the lives of hundreds of thousands of others.
It’s pretty ridiculous to just think that if I solve my own problems, that’s it. We’re home free. Because if we were the only survivor from a nuclear war sitting in our bomb shelter with a gas mask on, well, what’s the point of that? What fun is that and how could we really survive? We really are interconnected with others in this level.
We think in terms of all the things that they’ve done for us, their kindness. They might not have done it out of particularly being wanting to be kind to me, but the point is that they did the work. I didn’t. So, you know, this is something very, helpful for me. Think of repaying that kindness, want to develop love.
Love is a caring type of love. It’s not just love and, you know, I love you. Why don’t you call me? I love you. Why didn’t you call me?
You know, this sort of thing which is conditioned. You know, I will love you. Basically, I need I want something from you. I need something from you. If you don’t give it to me, then I don’t love you anymore.
It’s not that type of love and it’s not this sort of hippy dippy, oh, you know, love type of, thing which is very vague but, rather it’s a a caring type of love. It’s defined as the attitude of wishing another person to be happy. Wishing the other to be happy. So, you care about them sincerely. You care that they be happy and it doesn’t matter what they do.
It’s unconditional. It’s like what a mother has, a good mother or father, would have towards their baby. If the baby throws up all over you, you don’t stop caring for the baby. It’s unconditional. There’s that love, the caring love.
Then there’s compassion, which is sympathy. It’s wishing for the other to be free from their problems. Then it’s not just that, but developing an exceptional resolve. Sometimes His Holiness translates that as universal responsibility. Often it’s translated, I used to as the pure selfless wish, but that’s not so accurate.
It’s an exceptional resolve. We resolve to do something about it. It’s not just a parent watching their child drown and saying, What a shame. I wish somebody would help this child. But, actually, taking responsibility to do something about it, resolving them to do something, jump in there, save the child.
We need to develop that and then we say, Well, do I really have the ability to do that, to help everybody the best? No, I don’t. But, if I were to overcome all my limitations, realize all my potentials, become a Buddha, then I’d really be able to help everybody the best. So bodhicitta is Your heart We’re talking about heart, not mind. Your heart is set on overcoming our limitations and realizing our potentials.
It’s set on that with the intention that we have to reach it and with the intention that in doing so we’re going to benefit, do this in order to benefit everyone. It’s a heart set on this. It’s in terms of It’s called developing bodhicitta, it’s actually expanding our heart. Expanding our heart out more and more towards others and towards this goal that we want to achieve. That’s the whole process of developing bodhicitta, means expanding our heart.
That again is something which is going to allow us then to overcome these difficulties more. Certainly, we’ll overcome our selfishness when our heart is expanding out like that so that was what was preventing us from even being interested in helping others with their problems. Also, it’s going to give us the extra energy which will allow us to break through the obscurations, the limitations that we have. To overcome our disturbing attitudes, we saw we had to see reality, the absence of the fantasize, in terms of who we are and how we exist. Now, in order to overcome the obstacles preventing omniscience, which is this crazy appearance making tendency of the mind, we also have to see the absence of fantasized ways of existing.
You know, that people don’t exist terms of my projections of how they should be or how they are. Although this understanding of this absence is the same here for overcoming the disturbing attitudes and also for overcoming the habits and so on of them that cause our projections, our crazy projections. We need to have, you know, more energy behind it to be able to, you know, just with the determination to be free of my problems. It’s not enough to get through the second set of obscurations. It only is enough to get through the first set.
The example would be like, but if my heart is expanding out towards everybody and towards reaching my fullest potential to be able to help them, that’s bodhicitta, then I have stronger energy to be able to break through both sets of obscurations. The example is if you have a medical class and in this medical class they’re teaching how to cure a snake bite, poisonous snake bite, you can have a student in the class who’s motivated by the desire to get out of their financial difficulties. So, they want to become a doctor, make a lot of money, pass examination. With that motivation, they listen to how to cure a snake bite. Now, that gives them enough energy to learn how to do that.
But, if you have a mother who has a child that’s just been bitten by a poisonous snake and she runs into that classroom to learn how to cure the snake bite, then obviously she’s going to have a tremendous amount more energy to learn how to cure it. She has to because her child is depending on it. If we have this expanding heart of bodhicitta, then that’s going to give us the strongest energy to be able to see reality. We have to see reality. We have to cut through all the crap because of others.
Because others need us. Because of the whole situation of others. This is the general presentation of this advanced scope. Then, it’s not enough to just wish to achieve in order to reach our fullest potentials and overcome our limitations. To be able to benefit others, we have to actually involve ourselves in the process of doing that.
We have the aspiring state and the involved state of an expanding heart. We want to involve ourselves in the process of doing it. It’s not enough to just wish to go to India. You have to involve yourself in getting the visa, getting the plane ticket, all these sort of things to actually get there. Ourselves in this process.
The way that we involve ourselves is by practicing with the far reaching attitudes. It’s usually translated perfections or paramitas. Again, that’s a heavy term because perfections people get the idea I have to be perfect. I’m not perfect, this is too much, this sort of thing. You know, you get some problems with that terminology.
What it’s talking about is a far reaching attitude. It’s an attitude which will take us far, take us to the far shore of our problems. A far reaching attitude of giving, you know, being a generous person, willingness to give, ethical self discipline, patient tolerance, you know, tolerance for difficult situations, tolerance for obnoxious people, and so on. Then positive enthusiasm, far reaching positive enthusiasm. Enthusiasm not just for whipping a horse, but for doing something positive.
And then far reaching reaching a constancy of mind, mental constancy. It’s not just concentration, but it’s a constant constancy of mind that’s free from not only flightiness and dullness, but there are many stages of it. Also, far reaching discriminating awareness or wisdom. Following this sort of type of pathway, then in that process, we can actually overcome all our limitations, realize all our potentials, so that we can benefit everyone. So why don’t we take our tea break and then we’ll continue.
Again, I have to apologize that I’m going through all this material so quickly, but it’s important to cover that so that when we get into the discussion of tantra, we at least have a shared idea of what the background is. We’ve been talking about the general background of any tantra practice and that’s to have developed ourselves and progressed along the Lamrim or the graduated path, the graded stages. Because as we saw, any type of tantra practice is one which is done within the context of taking a safe direction in life. We’re doing it in order to go in that direction of overcoming our limitations, realizing our potentials. It’s done with an idea of cause and effect.
Whatever we want to achieve a certain effect, want to achieve becoming a Buddha ourselves, clearing out all our limitations, realizing all our potentials. In order to achieve that, we’re going to have to follow causes. We’re approaching it in a causal type of way. We’re applying it to our own problems. We have this determination to be free.
Not only that, but our heart is expanding out toward all others and towards reaching our fullest potentials, overcoming all our limitations so that we can be of best benefit to them. We have a general understanding of the absence of fantasized ways of existing, a general understanding of reality so we can differentiate between reality and fantasy. Following this sūtra path is going to take a very long time in order to cut through all these obscurations. To describe just a little bit of what’s involved, it says that it’s going to take what’s usually called three countless eons. Countless is the largest finite number.
It’s ten followed by sixty zeros. I think the word in English zillion is a little bit closer to the flavor of what it’s talking about. It’s going to take three zillion eons to cut through all the garbage. This process is one in which we have first of all gain, you know, the understanding of this, absence. Well, how do we gain this?
You know, first we, hear about it. You get a flimsy idea of it. Then based on this flimsy idea that’s usually called a generic image or something based on hearing. A flimsy idea is actually closer to what it’s talking about. You get a flimsy idea, then you think about it.
Once you’ve thought about it and you understand it correctly, then you get a firm idea of it. With this firm idea, we can actually have some object to focus on. In terms of seeing and feeling, we build up to this either by having an inferential understanding of it, so we depend on a line of reasoning and we can build up to this firm idea of it and then focus on it. That’s inferential understanding and it’s conceptual. Then we can get to a little bit more straightforward way of doing it.
We don’t necessarily have to depend on this line of reasoning, but we just can focus on seeing and feeling it. Remember, we were discussing the process of how that’s done. That would be a straightforward conceptual perception of it. Eventually, as we get more and more familiar and build up more and more potential and so on behind it, then we’ll be able able to get a non conceptual, straightforward perception of it, which means not through the medium of an idea of it, but just straightforwardly to see this absence. Now, that is going to take one zillion eons to be able to do.
It takes a long time. When we’ve achieved that though, then all that we are able to get rid of at that time, now remember we’re using get rid of rather than abandon, all that we’re able to get rid of is the certain type of disturbing attitudes. We have two different types. We have the disturbing attitudes which are based on ideology and those which automatically arise. Let’s take some examples because with this first zillion eons, in other words with that first straightforward perception of this absence, all that we’re going to be able to get rid of are the ideologically based ones.
For instance, let’s say we have this syndrome of smoking cigarettes. We could have a very strong ideologically based idea that if like from the Marlboro ads, if you smoke then you’re a real He Man, you’re be real sexy. This type of thing. You’re really cool. I don’t know if you have in Australia but in America, there are certain women’s cigarettes as it were.
Virginia Slims. Do you have something like that in Australia? If you smoke these cigarettes, then as a woman you’re going to be really cool. That sort of thing. Based on this ideology, then a fourteen-year-old can start to get into smoking, feeling that this is going to make them cool.
They’re going be accepted by their peer group. This sort of thing. Now, it’s only when we get this, first, you know, we see it straightforwardly. This absence of this fantasized way of existing is ridiculous. It doesn’t make you cool.
That, you know, you don’t exist with this big identity of, you know, the cool smoker. That, we’re able to get rid of, you know, that attachment, you know, that infatuation with a cigarette which arises due to, the influence of this ideology. It’s going to take a much longer time to more and more familiarity with this absence in order to get rid of the automatically arising, disturbing attitude. In other words, you know that it’s not going to make you cool, but still, that desire for a cigarette still comes up. It sort of comes up automatically.
Now, there are many, many examples of ideologically disturbing attitudes. We can see that from a wide spectrum of the ideology that we’re subject to, from advertising, from our Christian backgrounds, from our ancient Greek inheritance, these sort of things. Like, I was speaking Friday night about how we have this idea. I think I was speaking Friday night about I exist as a maybe I didn’t go into it. But from the Greeks, we have this idea of I’m only a half.
The other person is I’m going around looking for my other half. When I meet this other half, this person is going to be the perfect complement to me, perfect sex object, complete me as a whole. This is sort of the general pursuit in life. This sort of ideology from the Greeks is behind the whole romantic movement in the West and behind much of our romantic visions of how we approach relationships, is quite different from that we find in non Western civilizations. Based on that, then you can have this really disturbing attitude of when you see somebody, then you cop this whole thing of they’re going to compliment me and have to satisfy me in all ways because they’re this other perfect, the other half of me.
Based on that, obviously, we get into a lot of trouble because we make outrageous demands on the other person that they be our perfect compliment and nobody exists that way. It’s just the perfect sex object for me. Anyway, we have these type of disturbing attitudes based on ideology, disturbing attitudes like from a misunderstanding of original sin that I’m no good, I don’t deserve to be happy, I’m a sinner, that type of thing which can cause a lot of trouble. When we have this first straightforward perception of this absence, we see we don’t exist in that way. Gets rid of the ideologically based disturbing attitude.
We see that the ideology is not based on anything real. As I say, the automatically arising will automatically we still feel like I’m no good. We still feel that I need to have another half or something like that. There’s that attraction to the other person. It’s going to take the second zillion eons to overcome the automatically arising one.
Or like driving your car and based advertising, if you have a fast car, that’s going to make you sexy. All these beautiful, sexy people are going to fall out of the sky into your lap because you’re driving the latest model fashion car. Based on this ideology, we see another car on the road, We have to pass it. That’s an ideologically based, disturbing attitude. We have to pass it.
It’s going to make us sexy. It’s going to make us cool. Even once we get rid of that, still automatically though, the car is next to us automatically, your foot goes on the pedal and you have to pass it. The second set of zillion eons is going to be taken to familiarize ourselves more and more with this absence of the fantasized in order to overcome even the automatically arising, disturbing attitudes. That’s going to get gone.
Be finished. There’s no disturbing attitudes anymore. But, still, remember we had these habits. These habits of these disturbing attitudes are still going to make things appear in a discordant way. It’s going to make that cigarette look attractive as if it’s something that could make us cool or something like that.
Although the disturbing attitude doesn’t arise, the desire for it doesn’t arise, still it looks as though it’s something that’s cool. The other person is still going to look to us as a sex object. This sort of thing rather than just seeing them as a person, as a human being. The car, though the With that example of the sex object, although that desire, that attraction is not going to arise, still that person’s going to look sexy. The example with the car, even though the disturbing attitude doesn’t come up, don’t actually feel that we have to pass the thing.
Nevertheless, it looks as though it’s something that should be passed. Our mind makes it appear like that. So it’s going to take the third set of zillion eons to, you know, of more and more familiarity with this absence in order to overcome the habits which are causing the the mind to make these discordant appearances, to make things appear in these weird ways. So it’s this process of working through, the familiarity with voidness over, these three zillion eons. You follow that?
I I don’t wanna go too fast. Yet, if we don’t go a little bit speedy, we won’t get through everything. But, you know, if there are any questions or anything? Yes? Oh yes, that is extremely hard.
Just the determination to be free. With the determination to be free of our problems, get rid of the disturbing attitudes. We can get rid of our problems. We can achieve nirvana. We can get rid of the ideologically based and the automatically disturbing attitudes.
We don’t have any problems from it. Nevertheless, it’s going to take this bodhicitta, this expanding heart. The heart set on becoming enlightened. I have to overcome my problems and my limitations. I have to realize all my potential so that I can help everybody to be able to cut through that last set.
Because it’s that last set, this deceptive appearance making of the mind due to habits of disturbing attitudes awareness, that is making us have all these projections, which prevents us really from helping everybody. So that takes that takes, you know, a real big, amount of energy to break through that. That’s the toughest. With that, then you achieve enlightenment. Okay.
Now, how is, all of this done? All of this is done through a process of building up two bountiful stores. They’re often called collections. A bountiful store of Well, it’s usually called merit and insight. Merit, again, sounds like the scouts with merit badges.
It’s not building up points. Rather, it’s, building up a store of positive potential. You know, it’s like charging a battery. You build up a lot of positive potential, and you build up a lot of, deep awareness. It’s not necessarily an insight into this or this or this or that, but deep awareness into reality and so on.
By building, working with these, that’s going to provide the energy and so on that is going to drive this entire process and we can overcome these obscurations. These are what’s often called the ordinary or the common preliminaries. What is necessary to go through in order to go into tantra. There’s also preliminaries, the uncommon preliminaries, which are just specifically working with Tantra and are aimed at Tantra, although obviously it’s beneficial in any case, which is often just left Tibetans called Ngöndro. Ngöndro, the preliminary practices, these are doing one hundred thousand prostrations, one hundred thousand Vajrasattva mantras, one hundred thousand mandala offerings, and one hundred thousand repetitions of some form of Guru Yoga.
This is the usual terminology speaking about them. These are things which coming from Gelugpa background. We might think that, well, is stuff that’s only done in the Kagyus or the Nyingmas or the Sakyas and we don’t have to do that. We got off easy. We don’t have to do all these prostrations.
That’s a misunderstanding. The different traditions of Tibetan Buddhism all have basically about eighty percent of their material in common. Eighty five percent or something like that. It’s only slightly different in some of the terminology, the style in which things are practiced and approached, what is going to receive more emphasis or less emphasis in the explanations, and in the final stages, the specific type of approach that’s going to be taken. These preliminaries are very important in any type of approach to Tantra because the analogy is what we’ve discussed so far with the ordinary preliminaries, the ones that are common with the sūtra, is if you want to go on a journey, then you have to know where you’re going and why you want to go there.
We have to know where we’re going, is we want to go towards becoming like a Buddha ourselves. We want to know why we want to get there in order to be able to benefit everybody. If we have no idea of where we’re going or why we want to go there, then it’s very easy that we’re going to give up the journey. We’re going to get lost. We’re certainly not going to get to the goal that, you know, we would have intended to get to.
After a while, you just say this is crazy and you, give up. It’s important to understand, to know what the route is, where we’re going, why we want to go there. Then, it’s also necessary to fill the tank and keep the engine clean. This is what the extraordinary preliminaries are all about. These Ngöndro practices, it’s cleaning the engine and putting petrol in.
It’s like building up these positive potentials. I was using the analogy of charging your battery. You build up the potential so that you can actually go. The process of filling the tank and keeping the engine clean are things which you can either fill the tank completely before you set out or you can just put a little bit in and get going. Both ways you can set out on the journey.
Regardless of which way you do it, you’re going to constantly, throughout the journey, have to keep putting petrol in and keep the engine clean. Although you have, let’s say in the Kagyu and Nyingma, a bit in the Sakya as well, I guess what we’re most familiar with is in the Kagyu in the West and Nyingma, some Sakya, but is that you do one hundred thousand of these to start with. When you do one hundred thousand, that doesn’t mean that you’ve paid your dues and now you’re home free. Something that has to be maintained throughout the entire practice, something that you continue. The same thing in the Gelugpa style is usually you don’t necessarily do one hundred thousand to begin with, but it’s something that one would do at some time.
You do a little bit of it. In each of the sadhana practices that we do, now I’m talking about the long practices, it always has each of these preliminaries. You always have prostration. You always have Vajrasattva. You always have Mandala offering.
You always have some type of Guru Yoga, standard part. That’s to continue to put in petrol and keep the engine clean. You can do these things. One hundred thousand repetitions, there’s no big deal about one hundred thousand. You have to think of the cultural background where this is coming from.
This is coming from places in which people might not be so used to accomplishing a great deal. For that type of person, and certainly we have many, many people in our western civilizations who are like that, who get discouraged, who feel that I can’t really accomplish something. If you count up to one hundred thousand of something, then that gives you encouragement that you’re actually able to do something. Psychologically, it’s helpful for that type of person to count up to one hundred thousand of prostration or whatever. It gives you a feeling of self confidence which is very necessary for continuing.
You can get proud over the whole thing, arrogant, I’ve done one hundred thousand, you haven’t, which is also a little child’s approach. For that type of tendency and so on, it’s not necessary to count. You can also just do it until it works. Until you get the signs that the purification process has occurred and so on in terms of recurring dreams of throwing up or putting on clean clothes or these type of recurring dreams. Another thing is to just do a little bit of all of them each day.
That’s going to just sustain you. Keep your petrol in the car and the engine clean. Now prostration is something which is extremely helpful because what it’s doing is developing a whole sense of humility. You humble yourself in terms of going down on the ground, but it’s not becoming a slave. It’s one of showing respect as well.
It’s not necessarily respect for this golden idol up on a throne but rather showing respect for the goal that we ourselves want to achieve. Showing respect for ourselves and what we want to achieve and showing some sense of humility that I need to go towards that way. It’s also, I have a long way to go. It also is very good for grounding us. It’s especially helpful for space case type of people, people with a lot of emotional problems, to sort of ground them into something physical with their bodies, doing this type of prostration and physically ground you to the ground.
By going down at the ground, it’s very helpful for bringing us a little bit back down. It also is extremely helpful for opening up because you’re actually opening up your body physically in terms of stretching out on the ground. One needs to open up with one’s mind as well because everybody has to overcome. When you do prostrations, this reticence of saying, I don’t want to do this. This is a lot of hard work.
Opening up and that type of attitude of opening is also very, very essential for being able to get any success in the practice. So, prostration, the Vajrasattva, or Dorje Sempa in Tibetan, is for purification that it can’t just be reciting a hundred-syllable mantra blah blah blah and imagining some clown on your head squirting you with a hose or shining a light on you.