Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 74-minute teaching from a Mahāmudrā retreat, Lama Zopa Rinpoche moves from the philosophy of the self and consciousness continuing through the Bardo to a detailed map of the Tantric path. He outlines the six stages of practice—isolated body, isolated speech, isolated mind, illusory body, meaning clear light, and unification—each involving specific meditations on subtle channels and wind energies. Deity yoga, the heart of the practice, means seeing oneself as the deity while approaching all activities as ripening sentient beings’ minds toward enlightenment. The latter portion shifts to direct address, with Rinpoche urging practitioners not to dismiss Tantra as beyond their reach. He emphasizes sangha harmony, monthly self-initiations, and Vajra brother/sister commitment in actualizing the path. Pitched at practitioners who have received tantric initiation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 96 2004 04 29 MR.mp3
UUID: 28baec09-2a04-494d-ac52-2bede0f2c349
Teacher: Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1
Collection: y Mahāmudrā International Retreat (Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1)
Date: 2004-04-29
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 74.3 minutes
Words: ~7,622
We’ll just start with the mantra. Yeah. Is it the merely imputed eye that goes from life to life? That’s the person who goes the mere I is the I that goes, is the person who goes from life to life. Yes.
And bears all the karmic imprints. No. It bears the karmic imprints. The the mere I yeah. That’s right.
The Bardo being has a sense of self, that thinks I in relation to the subtle body and mind of the Bardo being. Yeah. That’s right. There’s a basis of designation which is changing the five aggregates of this life cease, but the mental consciousness continues on with together with the most subtle wind.
Right? So there is a continuity and then that subtle wind becomes the primary cause of the body. And the most subtle clear light mind, which has all of the seeds of the afflictions and all positive and negative mental imprints carries on and then that becomes the primary cause of the Bardo being’s mind. So here you have a new mind albeit subtle. Not it’s not a sense the Bardo state is is not really a rebirth state.
It’s well in between rebirths, but it’s still a state of existence. That’s why we do prayers for the intermediate state beings who are still in the Bardo. So you do have this continuity of basis of imputation of the eye, the mere I which as we found out yesterday can be said to exist on the aggregates, but not be findable upon the aggregates. From the tantric point of view, the final basis of imputation of the person is the what we call the indestructible drop. This this single entity which abides at the very center of the heart chakra.
And that is this this entity has two functions. One is movement, which we call wind, and the other is awareness, which we call mind. So that is eternal because it exists forever, but still constantly changing moment by moment. And so from the tantric point of view, that’s the final basis of imputation of the person, which goes from life to life. The the thing the point about bearing karmic imprints, well, I thought that I said, come on.
I said to Lama Zopa Rinpoche, come on. It’s a consciousness that’s said to bear the karmic imprints. Now you’re telling me that this mere eye, which is a mere designation that has no physical, no mental characters. How can that carry the karmic imprints, Rinpoche? Tell me.
And he said well, I can’t remember exactly what he said, but he said words to the effect of it’s suitable to say that whatever the aggregates are doing, the mere I is doing. We said that the as Rinpoche said, the one logical reason to establish that I am in this room is the body aggregates and the mind aggregate is here. That’s the reason. So equally as we can say the body aggregate is in this room, we can say I am in this room. So Rinpoche said there’s no harm or no fault in stating that the mere I is the bearer of karmic imprints when if we really want to analyze it’s the imprints are borne upon the consciousness, the most subtle mind.
Because the point is that we have to establish a person, a doer of karmic actions, an experience of karmic actions and an entity which bears the imprints, you know, the unripened imprints of past actions which are going to arrive in some stage in the future. That’s really the essential function of the person which we want to establish. Now how is it, what is it? And so as we talked yesterday, the pith of the final view of Buddha is that there is nothing at all from the side of the aggregates that it could be pointed out to be the person. Nevertheless, whenever we talk about the conventional person, we are referring to some function of the aggregates.
And so the conventional person is is completely established by the imputation upon that valid basis. Alright. Any other question? Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Just just on that point. So is there a different position that that you’re putting forward that you’re saying from the standpoint of view, you’re talking about this sort of you used the word eternal and from life to life and so forth. Is it considered to be a different position than the conventional Mādhyamika Prāsaṇgika? Or is that simply a more detailed or different way of looking at the same thing? What we were talking about in terms of we’re talking about the basis of designation of the person.
So in the Sūtra system, which includes the Prāsaṇgika tenets, there is a presentation of the aggregates, the collection, the mere collection of aggregates as being the basis of imputation of the person. And I but also the passing you could say that the person goes from life to life. We have to, we have to establish that. So what is it? It’s the mere I, again, the merely imputed person goes from life.
So what’s it imputed upon? Well, these changing sets of aggregates, like a split second after the end of the clear light experience of death, the next split second the Bardo being arises. So there’s no break in the continuity of subtle form. And so that subtle wind and mind which becomes more gross obviously in the intermediate state is the basis of imputation for I. The the Bardo being thinks I and it has pleasure and pain according to what is happening to it.
And then when we’re born, well, you’ve read the description of leaving the Bardo and entering the mother’s womb. So there’s a strong sense of self. Then after a period of deep, you know, deep sleep like state, when the fetus wakes up, it immediately thinks, where am I? You know? I I is there, and it’s it’s new set of of aggregates is the basis of eye.
So it probably pinches itself in the womb. My first reaction I think when I wake up in the room, we’ll reach around to see if I’ve got a tail or not. I hope there’s no tail. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, it would be great if it would be great if we could just live with it. The trouble is that the false appearance is occurring strongly, as it has been since beginningless time. There’s appearance, there’s a false appearance of of I to to exist not merely designated by mind, but to exist in its own right. And as Rinpoche said yesterday, that very false appearance is the seed.
You’re grasping at that to be true, that is the direct cause of attachment and anger and pride and doubt and all of the disturbing emotions. So that’s why we have to pay attention to these teachings too. Where we’re taught that there is a, the way in which we apprehend our I to exist is mistaken. And that’s the source of all suffering in the universe. So in our meditation, our primary purpose is to recognize that and to to see that it although it appears, does not exist at all.
It’s never exist. And in part of our meditation, we naturally ask the question, what is the I? Because as Lama Tsongkhapa said, the other way to approach emptiness is to reflect upon dependent arising, how things do exist in dependence upon causes and conditions. And in fact, that’s an excellent way to understand emptiness. If you have good, clear understanding of the meaning of dependent arising that gives good clear that will lead to good clear understanding of us.
And the other way around, at other times we need to meditate more on emptiness and that will give us a good clear understanding of dependent arising. And also in the process, we will become so convinced in the reality of karma and we’ll be so terrified when we do see the reality of karma that we’re going to be as strongly motivated as Rinpoche is to not sleep and to observe karma twenty four hours a day. Many years ago, at Kopan, when I was over, Rinpoche sort of looked around at the the bunch of second world war refugees. And he said, if you really understood karma, you would never sleep at night. And he doesn’t sleep at night.
So I guess he understands karma. So these teachings on emptiness and dependent arising, they open up the whole Buddhadharma or you understand this and you’ll understand karma, you’ll understand rebirth, you’ll understand enlightenment, the possibility that we have to achieve Buddhahood. Yes, I mean, it’s all integrated. So that’s the answer to your question. Why we have to really check out what is this wrong appearance?
That’s the whole point. Our mind apprehends the eye wrongly, but we don’t know it, we we assume it’s true, and we we act accordingly, and that’s our problem. Yeah. Sure. Buddha is a mere designation.
There’s no inherently existing Buddha. Yeah. That’s right. Well, you see your own body and mind as the body and mind of your deity. Well, yeah, it does give the feeling that we’re just imagining things. But just — no, what was that?
Yes. But I was just about to clarify the phrase just imagination is something that we have to think deeply about and we should not throw it out with, oh, it’s just a fantasy. Like if somebody has got a problem, how many times you say, oh, it’s all in your mind implying that it’s nothing, but the person’s got a big problem. But it’s nothing. Buddha, that’s what Buddha said to everybody, hey, you’ve got a big problem, it’s all in your mind, but it exists.
That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. And the solution is all in the mind. All in the mind, yes. It will. That’s right.
And I think we will have to meditate on what the process of imputation means. Like we all use the words, the eyes merely imputed upon the base of aggregates. But what is this action of imputing? Really think how do I impute things? How do I establish things to exist through the label and do they really exist or do they not really exist.
And we really we should be I mean, this is what we should be thinking about in between the sessions. Not just everything is hallucinating everything, that’s wrong. Well, maybe it’s a point where we’re discussing here that just making up or just imagining is I mean sure, we can we can go into a fantasy and imagine all sorts of things, which are not real and probably won’t become real. But the action of mere designation always has a basis. You you designate upon a suitable a suitable basis of designation.
That that’s very important. So Buddha can only be designated upon a suitable basis which is, a person, a Buddha is a person. There’s a mere eye of the Buddha and you designate that upon a body and mind, which have achieved the four kayas. The mind is the Dhamma kaya with its nature, the Svabhāvikakāya and then the form the body is the two enjoyment body and emanation body of the Buddha. So that is a suitable basis of designation of Buddha.
So when you recognize that and the person of the Buddha is established. What are the exact words of the I mean I can’t remember the specific the commentary on that specific valve, we should be constantly we are judging people all the time. And if we see so we should be consciously aware of, I guess, it’s decisions or conclusions that we’re making about people, seeing them in a negative light and judging them wrongly. Now I’m not sure whether this means we’re deliberately doing it or whether we just haven’t sought enough facts before making a judgment. Probably it refers to that one of jumping to conclusions in a negative light about somebody and making a false judgment about gathering all the facts.
Perhaps this is just as I said, I can’t remember the actual commentary on that file. You have to check up in the commentaries. But you can see the problem. We see somebody in a room, we instantly judge them, don’t we, as friend, enemy or stranger. And enemy can be just from the way the clothes they wear or from the sound of their voice.
So are so many ways in which we can instantly set up someone. I don’t like that one. I’d rather be with this one. So maybe it’s that false judgment of negating somebody which obviously comes from the ego. Yes.
I remember there was one of Lama Yeshe’s monks did a three year retreat in in the mountains above McLeod Ganj, and he hadn’t finished, think he was in his second year, and he came down to see his teacher to ask some questions. I just met him at the water tank. And he was telling me about this this Indian village where he had where he’s doing his retreat, and he was saying he’s having a fantastic time. And, and he said, oh, it’s so nice up there. It’s beautiful.
I’m having no trouble with sexuality. And and the Indian women around there, they’re all dakinis. Oh, yeah. You haven’t got trouble with sexuality. I didn’t say it.
Yeah. I mean, Dakini energy is well, I don’t know what it is. All right. So no more questions about emptiness. That’s great.
Now I have printed out I did sort of some notes on the introduction to Tantra. And I printed out just an outline of the tantric grounds and paths, similar to the one I did before about the sūtra grounds and paths because it helps me to have this visual thing, a table and so on. And Rinpoche, every night he whips through the whole Tantric path like he did last night, all these things, isolated body, isolated speech, illusory body, that a meaning clear light and it’s very difficult to follow. And so I thought I can’t give you much commentary upon it, but it might help at least if you’ve got something to look at, which shows you the Tantric grounds and paths. So I’ve printed out some copies.
So maybe it’s something I’d like to hand them out. There’s two sheets. Okay. So they’re all one, two, one, two, one, two. They’re all in pairs.
So while that’s being handed out, just to remind you that when we talk about our body and mind, are the gross aspects of our body, which are all the bits that we can see and so on, The organs, the skeleton and so on is the body. But also there is the subtle body, which is the system of channels and chakras, which are described within the body itself. And then there’s the very subtle body which refers to the what I talked about before that the most subtle wind energy that exists at the center of the heart chakra. The mind itself has gross subtle and very subtle aspects. The gross part of the mind is our six consciousnesses and all the various mental factors which are functioning during waking and even dreaming states.
That’s all gross consciousness. Subtle consciousness refers to the experiences during for us that occurs for us during the death process when there’s the absorption of the wind energies towards the central channel. And when we eventually when we finally stop breathing and the winds enter the central channel and they flow towards the heart chakra and you get the sequence of white vision, red vision, black vision and finally the clear light vision. So those three are subtle mind, those consciousnesses, three visions, subtle mind. And then the final, the vision of death, the clear light, that’s the most subtle mind or the very subtle mind.
And that clear light vision is associated with the most subtle wind energy at the center of the heart chakra. So this and I said before, I don’t know if you picked it up, A couple missing? That’s all we’ve got. Okay. Anyway, just in general, the purpose of Tantra Yoga, the meditational practices of Tantra is to make use of this subtle body and mind within the practice.
And to do those meditations, one needs to have the prerequisite attainment of renunciation, bodhicitta and wisdom understanding emptiness at least as an intellectual. No, I’m not going to talk about any secret practices. I’m just giving the outline, which I think is so to actually to practice, need to have the some strong understanding of the three principal aspects of the path renunciation, bodhicitta and wisdom realizing emptiness. One needs to meet a qualified tantric master and receive initiation. The essential function of initiation is to plant in the mind stream the permission to do the two the practice of the two stages of tantra.
So we call these two stages the generation stage and the completion stage. So there’s a whole set of divisions here, which you will hear about in various contexts. But mostly we talk about tantras having generation stage practice, which when that is attained, then one moves on to completion stage practice. Within the Tantric path, just as we mentioned on the Sūtra path, there are the five you can divide it into the five paths, the paths of accumulation, preparation, seeing, meditation and no more learning. So those words are the same as we use in the sūtra path, but the level of attainment is very different.
There’s the five yogas, we won’t talk about that. Then there are the six levels. Rinpoche uses these terms a lot: isolated body, isolated speech, isolated mind, illusory body, meaning clear light, and the stage of unification. These are constantly being mentioned, and so I just hope to give you some idea of what what he’s talking about. So again, the essential practice of Tantra, whether it’s generation or completion stage is deity yoga.
Deity yoga is where we meditate on emptiness and we as much as we can, we try to absorb our mind into the experience of emptiness. And then through bodhicitta, by generating bodhicitta, we arise we see ourselves arising in the aspect of the deity. And so that’s yes, that’s deity yoga. And from then on, twenty four hours a day, we have to see ourselves as the deity. When we’re putting on clothes in the morning, these are offering of divine clothing from the Pure Lands we’re offering to the deity.
They’re not my clothes and they’re not ordinary clothes or good or bad clothes. We we we have to see them as an offering to the deity. When we have a shower, it’s an offering. It’s like the bath offering in the in the in the practice we do every day. This should be a bath offering to the deity.
If we see ourselves as impure, then we break our tantric samaya. It’s hard to keep tantric vows. Food, everything is an offering to ourselves as the deity, deity yoga. The our activities, whatever we’re doing should be seen as the activity of the deity in ripening the minds of sentient beings. So there’s no question, whatever we do must only be directed towards ripening the minds of sentient beings from buying a bus ticket to whatever.
Yeah. Yeah. Ripening the minds of sentient beings. Well, every every senior being including the millipedes has the Buddha nature, right? They have the seed of enlightenment, the potential to become enlightened.
And you’re essentially, you’re you’re watering that seed. You’re you’re trying to germinate that seed. So how how do we help the millipedes? We we help the millipedes by taking them around the table, around the stupas and see through the power of the object, the stupas themselves. An imprint is placed on the millipedes mind.
An imprint of what? An imprint to attain enlightenment. So that so you’re ripening the minds of the millipedes by, well, already have the seed you know of Buddhahood. They already have the potential to become Buddhahood. But this helps to ripen that seed by creating a karmic cause to meet the teachings in the future.
Like like the old man who who couldn’t get into the monastery until Buddha came on and said, you have an imprint which will help you become a monk. One time you were a fly on a piece of dung which went around a stupa. That is the cause for you to become a monk and he became a monk and he became an Arhat. Fly sitting on a piece of cow dung. So that’s that’s ripening the minds of millipedes.
And well, not yet. We won’t know the right action to do for all sentient beings. But it’s like at the very least, we can be a perfect example of Dharma by being patient, subdued, not attached you know, and so having and that that in itself without saying anything. A person with a peaceful loving mind brings so much relief to others. You don’t have to say a thing and you’re writing.
Well, at least you’re giving people space. And then they might say, how come you’re so calm? What are you taking? Who’s your doctor? They say, my doctor.
So yes, of course, the action of ripening the minds of sentient beings is vast and only a Buddha can do it perfectly. But we can do it in so many ways. So that’s what it is. Okay. So the activity, we should see all of our actions as ripening the minds of sentient beings.
And then you see how easy it is to keep your mind in virtue. How to not get it. I mean, deity yoga is such the easiest in a way. It sounds to me. It’s actually the best way to practice Dharma.
Well, many ways. Mean many ways. It’s like the story of the Tantric yogi who was invited to a house to do some practices and he was in the kitchen and he saw his favorite cookies in a jar. And the thought went through, oh they won’t miss just one. And he sort of reached into the jar.
And then he realized, so he grabbed his hand and started out, thief, thief. There’s a thief in the kitchen. And the family came running in to beat up this thief and there he’s got his hand. Yes, it’s like that’s how you should deal with non virtue. Don’t hide from it.
Attack it in many ways, many ways. All right. So what are we talking about, deity yoga? All right. So anyway, it’s clear that we have to first through training ourselves, the process of the powerful process of visualization, visualizing ourselves as the deity, visualizing and then in terms of practice within the channels and so onwards, we just imagine in the beginning.
But as we progress and we get more and more skillful, one eventually gains control over the wind energies and is able to direct them wherever one wants. What knowledge? You have to get instruction from your Tantric Master. And anyway, the first step to that is having initiation because you can’t have instruction without the initiation. So it’s don’t think I’ve had the initiation, that’s enough.
That’s then you have to start doing the retreat and doing the practice and then getting more when you’re ready and the qualified master will know when you’re ready to get instruction at the next level. So just briefly, what I’ve done here, first of all, well, the main headings that I’ve put down are the five paths, the paths of accumulation, preparation, seeing and so on. The tantric path of accumulation occurs on the all of the generation stage and also the first part of the completion stage. The first level of practice we call isolated body. So what isolated body means is that we isolate our body and the physical environment in which we live from ordinary appearances and we transform them into the aspect of the deity and the deity’s, you know, celestial mansion, the pure land abode of the deity, the mandala or the pure abode of the deity.
Right? So that’s isolating. Normally when we wake up, it’s ordinary old me, my ordinary old house and my ordinary old car or like me, you’ve got a very good car. I think there are fair lanes in the Pure Land. So instead of that ordinary ordinary ordinary, which we tend to fall into, we immediately have the sense that I am Chenrezig, I’m Tārā, I’m Vajrayoginī, you know, whatever deity we’re practicing and this is the pure land.
And as Peter Kedge, one of the Lama’s students, he told me that he was once at the Swayampanath Temple in Kathmandu Valley. And he was there with Lama Zopa Rinpoche. And Rimshet asked Peter, he said, what do you see? And Peter looked around mangy dogs and these scavenging monkeys and crap and dirt and Peter sort of described what he saw. And Rinpoche shook his head and I see a pure land.
And anyway, that’s that’s isolate. We’re isolating our body and our environment from ordinary appearance through the power of our meditation. So the generation stage is divided into gross and subtle. And the main part of the gross generation stage is meditation on divine pride. Divine pride is the pride of seeing oneself as the deity.
It’s called divine because it’s not the affliction of pride, but it’s like pride and vivid appearance. You know, it’s not just the thought, I am Chenrezig or I am Tārā, but there’s vivid appearance of oneself as the deity and environment, very, very strong. So that has to be repeatedly reflected upon. Within the generation stage, there also is meditation on the channels. But on the generation stage, you never actually the process of the winds entering the central channel has three phases.
We call entering, abiding and dissolving. So one does not say that the winds are entirely within the central channel until they reach the phase of dissolving. So in the generation stage, you can enter and abide, but you can’t dissolve the winds in the central channel. Once you do, you reached the completion stage. So then there are meditation practices to do within the channels itself on the completion stage.
Meditating at the navel chakra, not necessarily the navel chakra, but that’s a very convenient chakra. Tummo, the Yoga of Inner Fire, the experience of the four blisses, which is meditating on the winds in the central channel, and combining the waking, sleeping and dying states with the three kayas. You also do three kaya meditation on the generation stage. You just do it more strongly on the completion stage. So that is the first level.
That’s all included within the level. Then when one becomes skilled at that and that there are definitions, we won’t go into that of when you’ve reached the attainment. The next level is isolated speech, which isolates or transforms one’s ordinary speech into the unity of mantra and wind. Don’t ask me what the unity of mantra and wind is. That’s how it’s described.
And the particular meditations for isolated speech vas breathing and vajra recitation combining with the breath and the winds. So again, to you have to have a vajra master explain these meditations too. There are the three faculties, body, speech and mind. So these are the three doors. Or karma is created through body, speech or mind.
So they’re the three doors of the aggregates, which we’re working on to transform. The next level within the Tantric path of preparation is isolated mind, which as it says, it isolates the mind from ordinary appearance of the four empties. So the four empties are the visions, the black vision, the red vision, the white vision and the clear light vision. They’re empty because there is no appearance of anything else. There’s no forms or shapes or there is just that very subtle white, red or black or clear light vision, just that extremely subtle.
So it’s empty. The sorry? Yes, that’s right. For ordinary people, they occur to us when we die, breathing stops but we’re not yet dead and the winds entering the central channel and going to the heart chakra. So that’s when we but I mean, difficult for an ordinary person to recognize that they’re happening.
Well, I don’t people who have these near death experiences, what level of the death absorption they go into, I’m not sure. And yes, and also if you are there, you won’t remember it. So I think it’s at that time when just as the breathing stops and the conscious so you see their conscious if they’re thinking I and they’re experiencing something nice and there’s this lovely figure in white, that’s well before the white vision. Yeah. So I think it’s near death must be that time just as breathing stops.
But these four empties haven’t begun yet. Well, it’s near death. I mean, usually their breathing stops for a period of time. The experience of death, as Rinpoche said before, there are karmic visions. We learned a mantra to prevent the nasty karmic visions from disturbing us.
So it depends upon the individual’s karma, what they’re going to experience at that time. Yeah. I guess there could be an infinite variety of experiences, I suppose. Okay, so the meditation then for meditating on the isolated mind is the meditation with the mudra. This is taking a visualized consort or an actual consort.
In the first three levels of tantra, one has a visualized consort and also in the highest yoga tantra one uses a visualized consort mostly. But there is a stage when according to the Vajra Master’s understanding where the practitioner can use an actual consort. The purpose of this is to cause forceful entry of the winds into central channel. So with this meditation, you achieve the example clear light. So you actually go through the visions and you’re conscious, right?
You are aware that you’re in the white light vision. But it’s so subtle, you have to tell yourself that during that, you do have subtle thought processes. All of the gross thoughts have stopped. We say that the, what do they call them, the eighty, I forget what they call them, but all the concepts, the gross conceptualizations have stopped when we stop breathing. But there can be or there is very subtle awareness of what’s happening.
And in that very subtle awareness, we we know we’re in the white vision. We have to tell ourselves next will be the red vision. Because if we don’t tell ourselves that, we’ll miss the red vision when it occurs. It’s so subtle. Even we know we’re in the white vision.
And then when we’re in the red vision, again, we have to tell ourselves next. Somehow that mind has to know next will be the black vision. If we don’t do that, we’ll miss it. And and same up to the clear light. And in the clear light, we, we meditate upon emptiness.
So then we have to we bring up our intellectual understanding of emptiness. It’s called the example clear light. It’s not the actual realization of emptiness. It’s still the direct realization. It’s the inferential understanding of emptiness.
Okay. So what you can see on the right, the list of things that happen up until emptiness is realized conceptually. The third the fourth level, now having done that, having gone to the clear light and achieved the example clear light, the next level is the level of the illusory body. Now the illusory body is where we come out of the clear light and the most subtle wind, then we’ll take the aspect of the deity. So this illusory body is can emanate separate from the old gross aggregates.
The gross aggregates remain in meditation. And we can send the illusory body to the pure lands where they can make offerings, receive teachings. And it is that illusory body which accumulates all of the vast accumulation of merit, which on the sūtra path would take three countless eons. It’s called illusory because it looks like the deity but it’s not the deity. It’s called, at this stage, it’s the impure illusory body because the mind still has the obscurations to liberation.
They haven’t been abandoned because we’ve only had an intellectual understanding of emptiness. We haven’t reached the direct understanding of emptiness yet. However, we’re at the point. So at the end of this tantric path of preparation, again we reached the example clear light where we have the our mind is meditating extremely powerfully, extremely subtly on our intellectual understanding of emptiness. And finally, bang, we break through that the last mental image, the last idea of emptiness goes away and we have direct experience of emptiness at clear light stage.
And this is called the meaning clear light, right? Meaning, this is it. This is the direct realization of emptiness. And it’s so powerful. Remember when we talked about the five sūtra stages, when you achieve the path of seeing, you get this direct realization of emptiness.
And that mind, well, who can tell me what is abandoned by that first direct realization of emptiness? What? Suffering, not yet. Gross delusions, will you be more explicit? The I knew.
God, who was at that talk? Nobody. The which? Seeds. Seeds of what?
No. No. What? I failed. Come on, what are the obscurations?
Okay. There are obscurations to liberation and obscurations to omniscience, right? These are objects to be abandoned. The obscurations to liberation have two. What are they?
There are two main groups. There’s the intellectually acquired Obscuration to Liberation and the Innate Obscuration to Liberation, right? So at the first moment of the path of seeing on the Sūtra path, you abandon what? The intellectual obscurations to liberation. Okay, they’re boom in one go.
But you still have the innate obscurations, liberation, not to mention the obscurations to omniscience. Now the difference here, the first moment of the Tantric path is seeing is that instantaneously in one moment you abandon both the intellectually acquired and the innate obscurations to liberation. Boom, you’ve achieved nirvana in that one moment. But you still have the Obscuration to Omniscience. So that’s the first moment of meaning clear light.
At that stage, you become a first ground Tantric Bodhisattva. At what stage do you achieve at what ground do you achieve nirvana on the Sūtra path? Not on the path of seeing, achieving nirvana on the eighth ground. So here on the tangent ground, you achieve on the first ground. Okay.
So as it says, meaning clear light, the exalted wisdom of bliss and void directly realizes emptiness for the first time. So then you enter the tantric path of meditation. When you come out of that single potent concentration on the meaning clear light, you enter the tantric path of meditation. And you’re now on what we call the unified stage. So unified stage refers to the unification of the pure illusory body.
The illusory body now is pure because you’ve abandoned the obscurations to liberation. You are called you’re still a learner. You’re on the learner’s path of unification. Rinpoche mentioned those words. So when Rinpoche again tonight talks about the learner’s path of unification, know that Rinpoche is talking about the Tantric path of meditation.
Oh, yes. So arising out of the clear light, the first moment of the black vision because the visions occur in reverse now, you don’t die, they occur in reverse. You arise with a pure illusory body. And you’re definitely going to achieve enlightenment in this life. That’s it.
You will achieve enlightenment. And you can do so with a pure illusory body alone, you just the old aggregates. I’m not sure, I think I don’t know if you would just sort of apparently die and with a pure illusory body go to the Pure Land or whether the old aggregates can just disappear. There is a stage of the practice where you actually your entire body disappears and you go after the Pure Land. I’m not sure if that refers to this point.
You’re on the learners unified stage. What’s your job now? Your job is to abandon the nine levels of obscurations to omniscience. So you need more merit, more powerful meditation to be able to abandon the obscurations to omniscience. That’s the job on the learner stage of the learner’s part of the unified stage.
So you do that, you can engage in crazy activities. We hear the crazy yogis who do apparently contradictory behavior. Well, those Yogis are at this level, the learners unified stage. If you’re not at the learners unified stage and you think you can like do acts, which are apparently contradictory to Vinaya, contradictory to Monks vows, you’re making a big mistake. An example of crazy activities.
Look at me. What? Gyalwa Ensapa was famous for his crazy activities. Well, it’s our example was at the sixth or seventh Dalai Lama who shocked everybody by spending the nights down in Lhasa at the brothels. And this was apparently completely contradictory behavior, but then he demonstrated rather well, they said they accused him of immoral conduct.
And he said and he showed he had total control over his energies by going to the top of the Potala and urinating over the side. And before the urine hit the ground, was able to draw it back into his bladder. So surely he had control over his energies. So if you can do that, that was an example of crazy behavior. Well, one has to prove it.
If one’s these yogis, it’s like there are lots of stories that Yogi who he took the girl who used to take food to him. She eventually moved in with him and all the people in the village and the King came and accused him of immoral behavior of this girl. And so they and they had two kids or something. And so they sat in union. The children became a vajra and bell and they flew away into the sky.
You’ve literally got to do that. You’ve got to have the power to show people that you’re not just a crazy person breaking vows. One is if one is going to manifest that behavior, one is obliged to show miracles. They’re not too thick on the ground. So as one continues on the Tantric path of meditation, one abandoned sequentially the obscurations to omniscience.
The final obscuration, the most subtle obscurations to omniscience are the subtle appearance of the white, red and black visions to exist inherently. And so when those wrong appearances are abandoned, one enters the tantric path of no more learning, which is the state of Buddhahood. One is on the nonlearners unified stage. One is a Buddha. One attains the state of seven faults.
Now that’s just a literal presentation of Tibetan, the state of the seven states. And they’re written down here, I can’t give you any commentary on them, but they’re there. If you ever wonder what the seven things are, Rinpoche did mention them in one of these talks. So that’s it. Now these notes I compiled from mostly from teachings by Geshe Jampa Gyatso at Nālānda Monastery in France and the Yamāntaka self-initiation practice and the Vajrayoginī self-initiation practice.
Preparing for Tantra by Lama Tsongkhapa, which was edited and translated by Geshe Lobsang Tharchin and Geshe Michael Roach. The Great Exposition of Secret Mantra by Lama Tsongkhapa, which was translated by Jeffrey Hopkins. And Bridging the Sutras and Tantras by Gendun Drub, translated by Glenn Mullin. So that’s the source for the information that I’ve got here. Preparing for Tantra by Lama Tsongkhapa.
By Glenn Mullin, Bridging the Sutras and Tantras. Sorry? They’re all Yes. Yeah. Well, grounds well, the first ground occurs with attainment of the path of seeing.
They have the ten grounds. So they would be achieved on the path of meditation. So what time we’re starting again? At three, is it? Okay.
So yeah. Yes, are. We are near this actually. It’s like the meditations themselves, having received the instruction, are not that difficult. I mean, they’re difficult to achieve success, but they’re not difficult to understand.
That’s my point. And if we get the instruction, then we can do the practice. And I tell you, this is the real purpose of the FPMT centers to provide the causes and conditions for people to engage in tantric practice. For some reason, Australia is very much behind Italy and California, where the students really get together. They like in California, they do the Vajrayoginī practice and Heruka practice so strongly.
I’m talking about lay people, married people, working people, right? I’m not talking about monks and nuns. They do the retreats. They do the self-initiation practices every month together and they do it. They’ve really got and they mutually love each other and look after each other and they do it.
The key thing is we are Vajra brothers and sisters. We have taken empowerment from the same teachers. If we argue, fight, criticize each other, we’re breaking our root tantric vows, we’re shortening the life of lama, whichever lama we’ve taken empowerments from. So guru devotion, we can do. Why can’t we practice guru devotion?
Why can’t we love each other? You get so much criticism of each other in nowhere more than in Dharma centers. And that’s so destructive. So we pretend every morning to say may all sentient beings, may I lead all sentient beings for enlightenment. Then we meet the director or the secretary of the Dharma center we’re at their throat.
It’s like no, I’m sure Buddha House is on the level of California. I mean, it’s true actually. Everybody has been so strongly impressed by the harmony and the cohesiveness of Buddha House. Thank you so much. But anyway, that’s the key.
And they work practice together, must practice together, look after each other, do the self initiation every month. It doesn’t take that much to get it together and you get so much out of it. Yes, it can be done. I mean it’s not that far. And I mean, whoever’s done the retreat, of course, you can’t do the self initiation until you’ve done the retreat.
But the Geshes are there. They’re ready to do the fire pujas and show you how to do retreat. You’ve got the initiations. It really is up to us. And it’s not that far away, it can be done.
Well, mean it’s sort of started and stopped. At one stage with Wayne and with others, we were doing the Vajrayoginī self-initiation every month. I mean, you’ve got the qualified practitioners. It’s just you got to unite them and get it together And and organize for group retreat like at Vajrayoginī Institute in France. They do Vajrayoginī retreat every or they try to every winter.
And then people who have done it, they will take the cook’s job or the director’s job, whatever, and allow the staff people and any other student do retreat. So that would take over the running of the center and allow the others to do the retreat. And then next year, somebody else can do it and they really do it. And so when they do self initiation there too at Vajrayoginī Institute, there’s a huge number and everybody’s doing it right. Now in California, they do it in English and it’s chanting in English and people are blissed out.
They say it’s absolutely wonderful. It can be done. You’ve got precedence in other FPMT centers. But we’ve really got to we shouldn’t have this attitude, our Tantra is beyond me. It’s too far.
It’s out there. I can’t do it. Not so. Not so. Why does His Holiness give Kālacakra?
Why does Rinpoche and the other lamas, why are they continually giving Tantric initiations? It’s not just for the imprint. We do have the capacity. In fact, they say at this stage at this time during the age of degeneration, that the Heruka and Vajrayoginī practice will become very strong. We should be right out there doing it.
And of course, the foundation for that is Lam Rim. Renunciation is so big. Renunciation, bodhicitta, wisdom realizing emptiness. But we really shouldn’t sell ourselves short. Each one of us, there is no reason why any one of us can’t achieve enlightenment even in this lifetime.
So what are we hanging out for? Why why aren’t we doing whatever we can to actualize that? Is the Vajrayoginī retreat led by Lama Lhundup at Kopan? When? That’s happened.
Yes. Yes. That’s you’re saying that there’s a proposed three month retreat led by Lama Lhundup on Vajrayoginī at Kopan. Well, you better go book a ticket. So that proves that’s proof that within FPMT, the lamas are trying they’re giving us everything and it’s up to us.
It’s not that far away. I have to really make a strong decision to do it. Okay. So I think we’ll have a break and give you time to relax before. You’re welcome.