Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 32-minute teaching, Alex Berzin explains the theoretical framework behind Anuttara Yoga Tantra sadhana practice and why it offers a faster path to enlightenment than other Buddhist methods. He outlines how sadhana—literally self-generation—works by combining four essential elements: the understanding of voidness, the determination to be free from suffering, bodhicitta expanding compassion toward all beings, and blissful awareness. Berzin then walks through the complete arc of practice from foundational stages through to enlightenment: developing the safe direction; receiving initiation; performing preliminary practices; generating oneself as a deity on the generation stage; manipulating the subtle energy system on the completion stage to access the clear light mind; and finally manifesting the illusory body and attaining Buddhahood. He stresses that sadhana is visualization training, not recitation, and addresses how lineage, vow-keeping, and choosing a deity practice suited to one’s capacity all fit into this integrated path. The teaching is pitched at serious practitioners with foundational Buddhist understanding.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 SP.mp3
UUID: ade10824-c55f-4430-a468-034400dd5a59
Teacher: Alex Berzin
Collection: Theory of Sadhana practice (Alex Berzin)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 32.2 minutes
Words: ~4,727
In order to cut through the subtlest, level of these obscurations, the second set of obscurations, it is necessary to do it with the subtlest level of consciousness. It can’t be done otherwise. That’s why, you know, it’s absolutely, you know, imperative eventually to aim to get into the Anuttara Yoga methods, because that’s really the way in which we do become enlightened. So what we’re going to need to combine here is, with this understanding of voidness, we’re going to have to have behind it the force of the determination to be free. In addition to that, bodhicitta, our hearts are expanding out to everybody.
We have to achieve our fullest potentials, overcome our limitations so that we can help everybody. Then, not only that, but it has to be done with a blissful awareness. We have to combine that, you know, because that’s gonna tend to get down to more non conceptual and more subtle, and it’s going to be have to be done with the subtlest level of consciousness. We wanna combine all of these. Plus, out of the energy of that subtlest mind, make the body of the Buddha, which is going to be the basis for the voidness that we’re focusing on.
You can see everything gets very interconnected. That’s another connotation of Tantra, is everything intertwined, interconnected. So this is what we’re aiming at. This is what makes Anuttara Yoga so speedy. It’s that there are closer analogies not only to what we want to achieve but what we’re working to purify.
So it’s not only that we ourselves have the body of a deity, but the way that we achieve that is similar to the way that we achieve enlightenment and similar to what we’re trying to purify, the way that we die and go through Bardo and reborn. So it goes down to the subtlest level, then a little bit gross, then grosser. Method and wisdom is even closer together in one package because not only is it the body of a deity and the voidness of that body, but it’s the body of the deity being made out of the subtlest wind and the mind being that understands its voidness being made out of the subtlest consciousness, which already are together in one package like two sides of a coin. And we have blissful awareness and the awareness of voidness also together in one package because that blissful awareness, which is going to help us get the body of a Buddha as well, is taken as what we are going to be aware of voidness with. We have that closer together in one package.
That of voidness is special also because it’s made of that subtlest wind, which is always available, so we can always focus on it. It is that by using this subtlest consciousness, this laser beam consciousness, is the consciousness with which we are aware of voidness. It’s not going to take our three zillion eons because already it’s non conceptual, so it doesn’t take the first zillion. It’s more subtle than the disturbing attitudes and doesn’t illuminate things in a gross, deceptive way. So I’ll take the second zillion, and it is capable, it is the only level that’s capable of seeing the two levels of truth about things, the true facts about things simultaneously.
And so it’s not gonna take the third zillion eons. So it’s because of that Anuttara Yoga is so speedy. Any questions on that? And this is what makes it really a very exciting difficult method. Nobody said it was easy.
But, it is unbelievably profound. Everything in it, when you go through the sadhana, whatever deity practice that you’re doing, everything in it is using the imagination. You don’t just want to go blah blah blah. It’s, as Serkong Rinpoche said, the word for sadhana, by the way, is self generation. You know, one of the words for it.
Self generation is dagkyé. Rinpoche used to say it’s a self generation, not a mouth generation. So it’s not just that you recite the words. You know? The words are helpful, but the point is to do the visualizations to train your imagination.
And so it is possible, you know, to with more and more familiarity, to just sort of speed read it, to go through it very quickly. Don’t get hum up on having to say each word, mouth each word. That’s going to take you forever to do. And then you get very discouraged because these practices then take much too long. You can read it in your head.
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So the the what you say, you know, a sadhana is usually you know, the ones that you’ve been doing here just with the Chenrezig and Tārā, well, these are very, very tiny. You know, when you get into the longer practices and the longer form, what it is is basically a huge opera visualization.
You have many, many different things happening, many details. You’re describing it all. Obviously, when you’re familiar with it, you don’t have to describe it. You know what it is. You can go through it very quickly.
Then, you have various praises and so on, aspirations, offerings, these sort of things. The point is that you don’t want to get overwhelmed by it because you’re doing it so slowly because you’re getting hung up with the language. The main thing is to it’s a self generation, not a mouth generation as Serkong Rinpoche said each aspect of the sadhana sadhana means to act a way to actualize ourselves meaning to actualize ourselves as the deity. Each point in it is to ripen into something on the completion stage. It’s using one sort of aspect with the imagination, which will then act as a cause for something actually happening similar to that with the energy systems in the complete stage.
Again, it requires a lot of teaching, a lot of explanation, but don’t feel that all the material in the sadhana is totally arbitrary and dumb, you know, every tiny little point of it has, you know, many specific reasons for it. Things that it’s ripening into, things that it’s symbolizing, and so on. So, you know, that’s an important thing to keep in mind. Now, what we do then is, we start off, you know, you have a precious human life, you know, and, something that will be lost. We die so we want to take advantage of it, not to go to a worse situation.
What we want to do, we dread that happening so we put a certain safe direction in our life of, taking preventive measures. The ultimate one would be to eliminate all our limitations, realize all our potentials as the Buddhists have done, as the community of, those intent on this goal, the Sangha, are doing. Lead our lives according to cause and effect. The way to avoid destructive actions, act in a constructive manner. Even if we get a better situation, still we’re going to have uncontrollably recurring problems.
And so what we want to do is develop a strong determination to be free of them. And, then, we realize that, I’m not the only one who’s, has problems, but everybody else does as well. I want to expand my heart out to everybody and to reaching my fullest potentials, overcoming my limitations so I can help them all and then develop wisdom and so on so that I can cut through all my problems. With this, then building up, you know, then I can overcome all my limitations. I can help everybody reach the state of a Buddha, but it’s gonna take three zillion eons.
I can’t wait that long. So, I’m gonna have to build up tremendous amount of positive potential and deep awareness with the preliminary practices, all the prostrations and so on. Need to receive an initiation, empowerments to plant seeds, further purification, further potential, keep the vows which are going to give me the structure within which I can practice in the most successful way. Then practice with the imagination that’s on the generation stage, which is going to build up the causes for being able to actually get into the subtle energy system on the complete stage. Once I can get into that, then I can manipulate those energies.
I can centralize them, dissolve the grosser energies, get down to the subtlest level of consciousness. With that subtlest level of consciousness, then I can That would be the clear light level. With that level, level, can then arise in an illusory body that’s out of the energy of the system. By the way, we have Father and Mother Tantra, the divisions in the Gelug tradition of Anuttara Yoga Tantra. Father Tantra puts the emphasis on illusory body practices.
Mother Tantra on the clear light practices. So again, it’s another way of dividing it. In any case, we get this illusory body and so out of the subtlest consciousness, the clear light, we make the causes for the mind of a Buddha. And out of the subtlest energy, you know, we make illusory body, which is going to be the cause of the body of a Buddha, that’s how we attain enlightenment, by union of these. So enlightenment, the state of a Buddha, having the body mind of a Buddha, has to come from its causes.
Causes, illusory body, which we generate out of the subtlest, winds. In order to get that, we need to have the clear light, which is getting down to the subtlest, consciousness. In order to do that, we have to have worked with the subtle energy system, dissolve the energies. We need the complete stage. In order to do that, we have to have trained our imagination to be able to get into this subtle energy system and tap into it.
So, that’s the generation stage. In order to be able to do that, we have to be keeping all the vows and the rules, the actual procedures. If you want to drive a car, you have to follow the rules of driving. In order to have any success in any of this practice, we have to have planted the seeds, receive the empowerment, keep the vows. It’s going to allow us to do that in order to take an empowerment.
It’s necessary to have built up the potential, prepared for that with all the preliminaries. It’s necessary to have the understanding of voidness, this absence of the fantasized, have our heart expanding out towards everybody, which is built up in terms of developing compassion for others. Compassion is developed in terms of seeing our own problems and having the strong determination to be free of them. That will enable us to have compassion for others. To have that determination, then we have to think in terms of cause and effect.
We think of our uncontrollably recurring problems. They do arise from some sort of cause. We lead our life in terms of cause and effect. To do that, then we’re leading our lives in terms of having the safe direction, which is a way of making the fullest advantage of our precious human form. Whether we take it going from top bottom up or the top back down, this is the way that, the whole path fits together.
Any questions? Yeah. No. We can, as an ordinary person, if we could see that with our eyes. Like, you can see his holiness, the Dalai Lama, or you could see the Buddha.
If you were around at the time of the Buddha Śākyamūni, you’d see it with your eyes. Right. No. Not no. There’s a difference.
The, illusory body. When you’re talking about the state of a Buddha. A Buddha doesn’t have illusory body. Illusory body is the cause for having the body of a Buddha. Right?
No. We don’t necessarily recognize that with our subtle energies. A Buddha would You see, when a Buddha appears in an emanation body, you know, like, His Holiness, well, that is in connection with gross matter. Right? It’s an emanation body which is manifesting with gross matter as a human body.
And so with, you know, that gross matter, we’re able to see with our eyes like you see anybody else’s body. If you shake hands with His Holiness, it’s a solid body. However, the subtlest energy, these sort of things, that’s something that we can’t see with our gross consciousness. To see that, you have to have a much more subtle type of consciousness. That’s why it says that Dharmakāya, can only be seen by experienced by other Buddhas.
So, it can only be seen by the subtlest consciousness. Of course, it’s subtlest consciousness itself. Sambhogakāya is a body of pure enjoyment. That can only be seen by Ārya Bodhisattvas. It’s those who have had straightforward non conceptual perception of voidness with bodhicitta behind it.
Right? And so, it is a grosser level, but, than dharmakaya, but still, it’s only a certain type of mind that can see it. It’s only a mind that can focus non conceptually on voidness with bodhicitta. Whereas, an emanation body is the Nirmānakāya, is something that can be seen by ordinary people who have the karma to be able to see it, the connection to be able to see it. That would be illusory body.
So we have, the clear light would be the cause for dharmakaya. It’s going down to the like, similar to death, going down to the subtlest consciousness. Illusory body is generating out of that subtle energy, that subtlest energy, a grosser form. Right? Now, that illusory body cannot be just as sambhogakaya cannot be seen except by those on a very high level who can see it.
Just as the Bardo body can’t be seen except by others who are in the Bardo or very highly evolved people who can see that. Dream bodies can’t be seen by other people unless you have and special abilities. Likewise, this illusory body can’t be seen by others unless they are on that level of attainment. Because there are certain more highly advanced for their benefit, for our benefit when we reach that stage as well. From that illusory body, that illusory body will then go to, what’s called an emanation body as well.
You have an emanation body on the complete stage as well as the emanation, body on the, you know, the level of the result, the nirmanakaya. And that half level of emanation body is in a grosser form than the illusory body and can be seen by, you know, more ordinary people. Not all ordinary people. Again, you have to have a connection. Mhmm.
Yep. Right. Right. Well, this is something, you know, to choose, you know, the exact way that we’re going. Pardon?
No. No. No. No. No.
No. No. That is ridiculous, and, you know, it’s just quite self defeating. It’s something that and you certainly shouldn’t look at these things, you know, the prostrations and so on as a punishment. You know, we can get a little bit into it if we understand the purpose behind it and the benefits of it.
But we the type of course that we’re going to follow in terms of what preliminaries we’re going to do and, you know, so on. This is something that you work out with a spiritual teacher over, you know, a course of time. There is this if you don’t have, you know, such a close connection with one, well, there is the standard practices. You can do the standard ones. That never hurts.
Also, you shouldn’t get it into a point of view of let’s make a deal. There’s a TV program in America called that. But you know, sort of negotiating with, you know, well, I don’t really wanna do this, but, you know, I’ll do that and let’s compromise. But, it is something which, you know, there is a great deal of variety. Same thing with the, specific deities that, we practice.
There may be, you know, well, there’s only one that’s being given and so you know, you go to what’s being held. Sometimes that’s not so bad, but other times you may be getting yourself way over your head and committed to doing retreats or daily practices and stuff that could be a bit too much. You have to be, again, a bit particular in what you choose. It’s said that when we actually are going to When you’re really on the point where you’re to devote twenty four hours a day to your practice and you really know, now I’m going to go for it, go for enlightenment, then at that point you would practice one specific deity system because each deity system is going to put a slight emphasis on one aspect or another, have more elaboration on one, either illusory body practice or clear light practice or this or that. You would work spiritual teacher and so on which one, you know, actually suits your energy system, your way of, of doing things because they’re going to be also slightly different according to different energy system types.
But beforehand, it’s not harmful to have practiced many different, systems because one, it gives us some experience so we know what really do I have some connection with or not. Also, they help to supplement each other in terms of, you know, one will have more detail than another on one or more points. Also, if we want to become an omniscient Buddha and help everybody, then it’s necessary for us to know all the systems. So somebody asks you a question about a different system and we say, Well, I’m sorry. I don’t know about that.
Then it’s a little pathetic if you really wanna be able to help everybody. But, again, you know, it’s a matter of, as His Holiness says, you have to see what is your capacity. If your capacity is up to it, then, you know, it’s good to study many different systems. It’s good to study all the different traditions of Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, of other forms of Buddhism, if your capacity is up to it so that you can see, based on your own experience, that there’s nothing contradictory. You can explain things to everybody in terms of all the different systems.
You can help everybody. But, if your capacity isn’t up to it, don’t jump over your head. You’re just going to cause yourself a lot of confusion. It’s going be too much. Right.
That’s how you go in the beginning of how you choose. You go by some sort of intuitive feeling, once you have a connection with. That might not always be available to us to have a choice. Again, you have to use your judgment. Am I ready to go into this?
Even if we’re not ready to go into it, at least having a general understanding of the theory behind it will allow us to develop some sort of respect for it, and some sort of admiration and aspiration that in the future maybe I can get involved with this. This is something which is very worthwhile. Yeah. Yeah. I have a a list of that if you’d like to.
You have a Xerox and a back here. You can make a Xerox of the list. We’ve also translated lots and lots of They’re not listed there because they’re not published, but, you know, copies are available. No. Not through Buddha House, but, well, you get it through a friend of mine in, Wales.
Best copies of things that can make Xeroxes. Depends on what specific I mean, it’s mostly the it’s only the Anuttara Yoga practices, those sadhana. I’ve mostly translated. Sakya tradition, of its sadhana. No.
I haven’t. I’ve studied Sakya, but I haven’t translated any of it. So on Sakya? No. No.
Although I have done books on, Kālacakra and a lot of Gelugpa that I have studied all four. So as I say, if one’s capacity is up to it, then, it’s very good because then you can, you know, from your own experience, you know that, there is no contradiction. You can see how it all fits together, and that’s very, very helpful. Otherwise, one tends to have a a football team mentality, which is, most unfortunate and quite inappropriate. So this is the things with tantra.
It gives a general picture of what’s going on. If you have any further questions or whatever, I’m here until Thursday, and, we can discuss things. Yeah. The importance of, lineage in a practice is, well, in every practice, in every sadhana, you have lots of parts to it. They will always start with the lineage.
You go through with a verse of praise to every member of the lineage going from the Buddha all the way down to the teacher that you received the initiation from. Now, that’s very important in terms of what I was saying with the initiation, that we feel connected to the whole lineage, to a whole line of people who have done this so that it’s something which has validity. It’s not just a crazy person picking up a book or just imagining something that has no source to it. In that sense, having a lineage is very important. Now, there are lineages like that of each particular practice and there are the major lineages, Kagyu, Sakya, Nyingma, and so on.
It’s important, well you see when you look at all the lineages of the deities in each of the systems that these lineages are crossed a lot. Can be a lot of figures in common. So many of the lineages go through Naropa, and you know these sort of figures not just the Kagyus and so none of these lineages exist with a big black line around them you know within the Gelugpa there’s a great deal of variety. There’s three traditions of Sakya. There’s thirteen traditions of Kagyu.
There are two major lines within the Nyingma, and then the northern and southern, and many subdivisions within that. Basically, there’s certain styles of practice that I said that you find in each of these major traditions. But again, they’re not uniform. There’s a great deal of interaction, interstudy, and so on. Things in common with all the traditions.
The Kadampa tradition goes into Sakya, the Kagyu, the Gelugpa. Things are joined or shared in common. Even Nyingma Dzogchen, things will go into the Karma Kagyu at the time of the third Karmapa. There’s not big black lines. These are big hedges around them and there’s been no interaction.
Tradition, where did that come from? Was no Gelugpa before that. Tsongkhapa’s teachers were all either Nyingma, Kagyu or Sakya. Everything that he got came from them. That’s important to realize.
As His Holiness says, it is quite important not to make a big stew or mishmash out of everything. It’s good to, if your capacity is up to it, to study from the various lineages, the various traditions. But don’t mix them all together. If you’re doing a practice, just do that in that session. Don’t mix it with some Gelugpa way of meditating on voidness or some sort of Sakya type of technique.
If you’re doing a Sakya practice, just do that and don’t mix it with something else. Have each practice that we do individual and pure in its own context. Of course, can do many different sessions and do many of these different things consecutively. It just means don’t mix it all together like putting the soup and the main dish all together in one bowl, you know, with the after dinner mint as well. You know, have them individual.
Mhmm. The process of meditation is, one of, as I said, seeing and feeling. So with these, tantric, practices, again, you want to, know, you arise as the meditational deity, for instance, in this Buddha form. Now, you try to see yourself as that and feel like that. Feel it.
It’s the exact same process. One of focusing on it, on discerning oneself as this, discerning all these qualities around one as symbolized by all these parts, and feeling that stabilizing it, letting it sink in. Again, going through all the stages for gaining concentration as we would, use in any system, correcting dullness, correcting mental wandering, bringing it back. There are many advantages of gaining this concentration with the visualization of oneself as a deity. See, what we want to gain, let’s get into two more terms, is what’s usually, you know, the terms in Tibetan or in Sanskrit.
I used to translate them as, mental quiescence and penetrative insight. Other people translate it as calm abiding and, again, some sort of insight, translation. I forget. But, what, they’re talking about, the first one is a serenely stilled and settled state of mind. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but, it has all those elements in it.
A serenely stilled and settled state of mind. It’s stilled of the various mental wandering and dullness, etcetera. It’s settled on an object, so it’s perfectly concentrated. Now, just that would be enough to qualify for Samādhi. Samādhi means total absorbent, you know, absorbed concentration.
But it’s more than just absorbed concentration or perfect concentration. It is, in addition to that, serene, which means that it has this sense of fitness, this exhilarating sense of fitness that your mind is able to stay on any object. Place it wherever you want it. The sense of it being fit. That’s the serenely stilled and settled state of mind.
Now, that can be gained by focusing on a whole variety of objects. Here, we’re focusing on the body of the deity. Although you have various usages of it in the Theravadin systems, Vipashyana means an exceptionally perceptive state of mind. Not only is it stilled and settled, it not only has perfect concentration, and it not only has this sense of fitness of being able to stay settled wherever you want it, but it has an additional sense of fitness of being able to perceive and understand anything that you want it to. So it’s an even greater sense of fitness.
That’s this exceptionally perceptive state of mind. So it can be gained by focusing on voidness, absence of fantasized ways of existing, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be. In Tantra, in Anuttara Yoga Tantra, it’s developed by focusing on these incredible visualizations of a tiny vajra or a drop multiplying into two, that multiplies into four, into eight, and so on. In each of these drops you can have an incredible whole universe of things. In any case, to multiply them like that and then to bring them back in order, dissolve them back down to the one drop, out again and back again, that develops an exceptionally perceptive state of mind, the sense of fitness that it can perceive anything in any amount of detail.
So that also is built up, you know, in special tantra ways as well. Anyway, we’re, well past five, and some people have to leave. Dedication that after doing something like this, then a certain amount of positive potential or energy is built up. That energy or potential is very easy for it to dissipate when we walk out. If in our minds, we sort of shape it and push it in certain direction, direct it in a certain direction, then that energy goes in that direction.
So we should think that whatever think and feel, whatever positive potential has been built up by this, may this go towards everybody being able to, know, through these techniques, the opportunities to be able to pursue them and be able to overcome all their limitations and realize all their potentials, myself and everybody, in order to be of best benefit to all. And again, dedication doesn’t mean just go blah blah blah, some verse in English or Tibetan, but to actually feel it. Push that, have that energy go in that direction. Obviously, you review it by saying it first, then you go into feeling it.