Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 34-minute talk from 1984, John Landaw introduces the tantric approach to the subtle mind. He begins by explaining why the gross level of consciousness we ordinarily use is limited: the senses are easily deceived, and mental consciousness habitually filters direct experience through conceptual images and preconceptions, preventing direct knowledge of reality. Landaw then pivots to tantra’s key innovation—a method for accessing the subtlest level of mind, the mind of clear light, which is naturally free of conception and capable of perceiving emptiness directly. He walks through how this subtle mind naturally arises during sleep and at death, describing the detailed progression: dissolution of sense consciousness, subtler and subtler mental states, and the dawning of clear light. He explains the anatomy involved—the central channel, heart chakra, and the red and white drops—and parallels the three-stage processes of sleep (clear light, dreaming, waking) with death (clear light, bardo, rebirth). The practical purpose of higher tantra, he concludes, is to rehearse this death process in meditation while alive, ultimately aiming toward enlightenment, or at minimum, conscious control over rebirth and reduced fear at death.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 Intro to Tantra Day 2 no date.mp3
UUID: 97556b2a-5673-47fa-ac68-d7c2160aa3d2
Teacher: John Landaw
Collection: Introduction to Tantra (John Landaw)
Date: 1984 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~3,595
So we’re talking about these three levels So now concerning the these three levels of consciousness, these three levels of consciousness, the the point, the major point being made is that the gross level at which we ordinarily operate is a very clumsy vehicle. For instance, if we just think about our sense consciousnesses themselves, we know how easily they’re deceived, how easily we fall for various illusions, like optical illusions and so forth. When we say we know something is true because we’ve seen it or we’ve heard it, it’s actually a very, very rough approximation, because the senses are by nature dualistic. Instead of being very clear and very direct, they have a certain amount of contamination to them. They’re quite limited.
And the same thing is true for the gross level of mental consciousness. We are very often stuck behind our conceptions about something, and therefore unable to directly understand the thing itself. This is a very, very common mistake. When we say that our mind is dualistic, we find this something negative about the mind, and we say that. What we’re saying is that whenever we try to understand an object, think about an object, we habitually do so through the medium of a concept or an image about that object.
So two things are appearing to the mind, the object itself and an image or a concept or a picture of the object. Habitually, we relate much more to the image that we project than to the reality of the object. We can see this at work very simply in our relationship with other people. Very often we’re blinded to the reality of another person because we have an image about them, and we only see what conforms with that image. It’s like there’s a diamond that has a hundred different facets, and we’re only looking at one of them because that’s the one that corresponds to the preconceived notion that we have about the object, and all of the others go unnoticed.
So if we stop and check, we’ll see that this reliance upon conception creates this dualistic flavor to the mind. It prevents the mind from directly knowing anything, always going through a medium, going through some other something else. Now this is true not only about the general things that we know, but it’s also true about those things that we try to understand more deeply in meditation. For instance, we’ve talked before about the ignorance that holds on to a false image of self. Well, that’s definitely related to a conception or a misconception.
But even the wisdom, the wisdom of emptiness which overcomes this ignorance, is also a conceptual mind. Just as that we have a wrong conception of how we exist at the present moment, so too, we develop a conception of the correct view, a conception of emptiness itself. Now in the beginning, the conception we have of emptiness and what emptiness really means is often very, different from one another. You know, like people hear the word emptiness and they think, oh, it means nothing exists. Well, that kind of mistaken view can be removed.
And when it’s understood that emptiness is not the emptiness of things that exist, but it’s the emptiness of the wrong projections, the wrong views. Okay. So now the conception is a little bit better. And as we proceed, the conception gets better and better, but it remains the conception. And so no matter how good the conception may be, there’s always something between us and a direct appreciation of emptiness, a direct appreciation of the way things actually exist.
Now, Tantra has a very special way of overcoming that limitation. And that is by a movement of the various energy winds and so forth, the gross level of mind stops functioning, and it’s the gross level of mind that holds conceptions, that deals with the conceptual thought. And so eventually, through a process which we’ll talk a little bit more about later, one arouses the very subtlest level of mind. And this level of mind is free of conception. Not only is it free of conception, but no ordinary appearances appear to this mind.
All that appears to it is a clear emptiness, a clear vacuity. And from this, the mind gets its name. It’s known as the mind of clear light. The mind of clear light. So the mind of clear light is a synonym for the very subtle mind.
Now at the present moment, this mind is not functioning within us. It’s existing within the heart, within the heart chakra. But in a sense, you might say, it’s not functioning because it’s drowned out by the grosser levels of mind. So while while all of the input is coming in through the various senses, and while the mind, the ordinary mind is covered and and engrossed in all of its various conceptions about this and that, making all manners of distinctions between things, All of that noise, all of that static drowns out the quieter, more subtle function of this clear light mind. But if we could quiet the noise of these grosser levels of mind and release the very subtle level of mind by opening up the heart center, Then we will be in possession of an extraordinary tool for gaining a deep insight into emptiness, a deep insight into reality.
Remember the other day I mentioned that a lot of the trouble when we try to meditate is that there’s this subject object duality? There’s a gap between the mind that’s meditating and the object of the meditation. You tend to feel we’re over here looking, and there’s the object over there. Whereas to gain a real transformation of the mind, the subject and the object should meet. They should become of one taste.
Well, when we arouse the very subtle level of mind, this is an extraordinary tool for understanding emptiness, because the mind is already has a type of emptiness appearing to it. Emptiness in the sense of a clear, open space. So if we can train ourselves well enough, it’s possible to take whatever understanding we have of the wisdom of emptiness and allow the subtle level of mind to meditate on that wisdom, to meditate with that wisdom. And so the mind that’s meditating, which is meditating on the emptiness, the antidote to ignorance, And the object itself, that emptiness, become of one taste, because there’s nothing, there’s no conceptual garbage, there’s no baggage, there’s nothing to interfere between the mind and its object. And so the penetrating power of such a meditation by such a subtle mind is far deeper than meditating with the gross level of consciousness, the way we normally do.
It’s like trying to do a very, very delicate operation while wearing gloves. It just cuts down the ability to be subtle and to be delicate, whereas the subtle level of mind is already delicate, and therefore the penetration is much deeper. This is a very kind of rough explanation, using mostly analogies, but it gives an idea of why this very subtle level of mind is considered such a treasure. Now, during our ordinary life, we come to touch this subtle level of mind at various points. But because we’ve not trained ourselves, that experience comes and goes without leaving any appreciable result.
In other words, we haven’t trained ourselves to take advantage of its arising. So of the various times in which it arises, there are two which are of major importance to the meditator. One is the experience of sleep, the other is the experience of death. Now every time we fall asleep, there is a progress a progression that takes place. It’s as if the mind, in a sense, were like a telescope going from an expanded position to a collapsed compact position.
It’s a little bit like that. Just a little similar to that kind of collapsing telescope. So before we fall asleep, all our physical senses are operating and our mind is working on its ordinary conceptual level. And then in the process of falling asleep, the sense consciousness is, as it were, shut off one by one till only the mind is left. The mind itself grows subtler and subtler until there is a clear light experience, which most people who have not trained their minds don’t notice it.
But some people, even after doing a little bit of meditation of the type that, you know, we’ve been undergoing here, like the nine round breathing and so forth, even with a relatively little amount, they can catch this this white light experience and they can actually fall asleep in the white light. And what happens is they remain on a certain level of consciousness even while they’re asleep. But usually this is a rather advanced obtainment to take advantage of this clear light consciousness in this way. But anyway, it is the experience of yogis that the mind does reach this clear light stage in the process of falling asleep. And then the mind reasserts itself or reemerges from this clear light state, and we have what we experience what we know as dreams.
And then when it comes time to wake up, we wake up from these dreams back into the ordinary functioning of the gross level of mind and the five sensory consciousnesses. Now that process also takes place at the time of death. Because at the time of death, the energies that have been flowing through the peripheral channels naturally dissolve and re enter the central channel. This is the exact opposite process of what takes place at birth. Like at conception, when the sperm and egg meet, from a subtler point of view, what happens is that a what we call the germ cells, or in Buddhism referred to as the red and white drops.
From the mother comes a subtle red drop, and from the father a subtle white drop. And they meet, and at their juncture, consciousness enters consciousness from the previous life enters. And this point of meeting the red white drops in consciousness is eventually what develops into the heart chakra. Then the red and white drops separate, the grosser red and white drops separate, the subtle ones stay mixed together. They separate and they take a position at either end of what becomes the central channel.
This is all talking about very early days within the embryo. So the white drops collect in an area which eventually is going to be the crown chakra and the red drops collect in an area which eventually is going to be the navel chakra. So we’re already getting an idea of the central channel, the heart chakra with the very subtle beating of the drops, then the crown and the navel with grosser levels of drops, these red and white drops, a kind of a polarity. Then from this the two side channels develop and then these divide and divide again and eventually there comes a network of seventy two thousand channels. Throughout these channels these red and white drops are found, but if we want to know where the major where they are mostly concentrated then that’s the crown chakra and the navel chakra.
But in fact they’re found throughout the body. So now at the time of death, that movement, that differentiation movement from the center outward takes place in reverse. And so there’s a movement of the energies from the periphery to the center. So the first things that happen is that the ordinary sense consciousness is shut down as they do in sleep. And this process is most easily explained in terms of a natural death, in other words a death that takes place, let’s say due to illness, over a period of time.
Because before the dying person then it’s very easy to discern how the eyesight gets foggy and the hearing degenerates. It’s as if the physical organs are shutting down and eventually shut down completely. And then there’s an experience of successive visions, which we’ll we’ll go over during the meditation session as the mind grows subtler and subtler, and eventually there is the dawning of the clear light experience. So at this point all of the prana, all of the psychic winds and psychic energies have now entered the central channel and have collected, within the heart chakra. And that very subtle mind, which was encapsulated within the very subtle drops received from the parents, those that that it’s almost like a little hemisphere, a little sphere, I should say, formed by the subtle drops.
It’s as if that opens up and the very subtle mind functions at that point as the clear light. And that experience is known as the clear light of death. Just as we had clear light of sleep experience, this is now the clear light of death experience. And if one is untrained, then this experience comes and goes very quickly. If one is well trained, it’s possible to stay in this state for weeks or even months.
For instance, the senior tutor to the Dalai Lama, Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, his breathing stopped on Christmas Day nineteen eighty three. And all the signs of life stopped. But he remained seated in meditation until about, I think it was about the sixth or the seventh of January, so about two weeks, during which time there was no decay of his body and all the external signs were that he was engaged in the meditation on clear light. Having practiced during his life, then it was possible to prolong this experience at the death time. Then signs came that the meditation had finished.
There are various physical signs associated with this process, and thereafter the body very quickly began to undergo the changes which normally occur at death. And so this isn’t something that just yogis from the past have done. It’s still there are many cases of being staying in the clear light experience for long periods of time now. But for people whose minds aren’t trained, the mind collapses into this clear light experience, and then the mind, the very subtle mind, with its very subtle supporting wind leave the body. The body collapses and begins to decay, and and that’s the actual moment of death.
Then this very subtle mind and the very subtle wind enter what’s known as the in between state or the bardo. Many people know that term from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the bardo or in between state, which is very much like a dreamlike state. Various karmic visions appear and one is magnetically drawn to the next rebirth state where one again joins the germ cells of the joining parents at conception and then the cycle begins again. Now it’s possible to give very detailed descriptions of what it is that motivates the dying consciousness to have the Bardo experiences and find the rebirth, what the type of karmic connection involved is, how that can be transformed and so forth, but then those are those are other rather complex topics. If people want to research them further, then the general teachings under which they’re explained is the twelve links of dependent arising.
Sometimes known as the twelve links of interdependent origination. And in those teachings there’s a very detailed analysis of what’s going on in this process in terms of what’s throwing one from one life to another. So when we talked about sleep then, we were talking about three related processes: the clear light, the dreaming, and the awakening. Clear light, dreaming, and awakening. And when we talk about death, again we’re talking about three processes: the clear light, the clear light of death the bardo or intermediate state, and rebirth.
And these two sets of three are precisely analogous to each other. So there’s a relationship between the clear light of sleep and the clear light of death. There’s a relationship between dreaming and the bardo in between the state. And there’s a relationship between the process of reawakening and the process of rebirth. Now the point of the practice of higher Tantra it’s not found in all of tantra, but it is found in the highest level of tantra, the point is to recreate these experiences, specifically the death experiences, to recreate them in meditation while one is still alive.
So a practitioner can know when he or she is successful in being able to arouse the clear light mind. First it’s done in meditation while one’s awake. One rehearses for this. One practices. Then, one knows one is successful when one can do it in one’s sleep.
In other words, a person can reach a stage in which he or she can fall asleep consciously, then dream consciously, and reawaken consciously, all with conscious control. Now when I say dream consciously, what I mean by that is a number of us have had that experience already occasionally when we dream and we know we know we’re dreaming. Has that ever happened? Some friends it might happen to quite often. To me, in my whole life, it’s only happened just a handful of times ever.
But occasionally it happens, where we’re in the state of dreaming, and instead of being fooled the way we normally are, we know we’re dreaming. And in that state, we actually can transform our dreams. We can do whatever we want with the dream. So the practitioner knows that control of this process has been gained because he or she is able to duplicate it in sleeping experience. Then on the basis of having done that, then it’s assured that the person will be able to do it at the moment of death, to take advantage of the clear light of death and so forth, and therefore to exert control.
So when the attainment and enlightenment is talked about, it’s mentioned that it can be done during one’s life. But if one is unable, or for other reasons unwilling, to experience it during one’s life, then it’s possible to experience it during the death process, to take advantage of the clear light experience of death, and to gain enlightenment through that process. And if one is not developed enough to actually achieve enlightenment, either during one’s life or during the death process, but one has advanced enough, then it’s possible to gain control over the entire process and to be reborn out of choice rather than being reborn out of compulsion. And then with that choice, with that clarity that comes from that level, one can continue with the spiritual path in the next state of rebirth, as opposed to having it all, know, having lost all the memory and having to start from scratch again. So this entire process of gaining control over the psychic nervous system, gaining control over the energies and the drops and so forth, The final goal to which it’s aimed is attaining enlightenment itself.
But even if it doesn’t even if we don’t complete it to the point of being able to attain enlightenment, since there’s quite a few things that have to be done for that to occur, we can at least have a greater or lesser degree of choice or control over the entire dying and rebirth process. And even if this isn’t possible, even if we don’t proceed to this level of being able to have conscious choice, there is still a tremendous benefit. And this is the benefit of knowing beforehand what the dying experience is going to be like. See, because what happens for most people is they don’t have a clue what they’re going to expect in the dying experience, and therefore before they die it is possible for a tremendous amount of anxiety to arise, especially when they know they are dying. And this anxiety itself can be responsible for having the mind experience a lower rebirth or an uncontrolled rebirth.
Whereas if beforehand we know what to expect, we have an idea of what to expect, then this removes a lot of fear. And when the fear is removed, then naturally positive states of mind can arise. And if we die with a positive state of mind, then this is very beneficial for a rebirth, as well as making the death a more acceptable experience. So this entire process of becoming familiar with the psychic channels and so forth as a very great result in the ability to experience enlightenment for the practitioner of the highest skill. But even for those of us who are not very skilled, just rehearsing the death process beforehand is a great vehicle of alleviating a lot of the fear and the anxiety surrounding that experience, and therefore has a very beneficial effect.
So what I would suggest now is we usually have a break between eleven and eleven thirty, so we’ll do that now. I can have that breakfast tea. And then when we come back at eleven thirty, we’ll do a meditation together, which will be like a simulation of the dying experience, in which we will go through some of the successive visions involved in the dying experience to gain a certain level of familiarity with them, with what’s happening, and to get a sense of what it’s like to gain a subtler level of mind below the level of its gross functioning. So we’ll do that after the break.