Tantric Techniques (20 page)

a
For instance, five visions of Tsong-kha-pa appeared to his student Ke-drup after Tsong-kha-pa’s death “during periods of (1) tearful sadness about the level of trainees he was encountering, (2) tearful sadness from his inability to penetrate the meaning of difficult points in texts, (3) tearful mindfulness of the greatness of his teacher’s service to the world, (4) tearful wishfulness to be in his teacher’s pres-

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Tantric Techniques

observed in Tibetan monastic communities how the community serves to exert pressure on persons who have become too grandly public in their virtues—through teasing, mild derision, mimicry, and so forth. Still, the danger of retreating into a persona of fatuous, unfounded, “good character” while at the same time wreaking havoc on all those around oneself is great.

In conclusion, the transmutation sought through deity yoga involves a constellation of techniques: (1) development of positive moral qualities, (2) confrontation with neurotic contents and gradual education of them, (3) identification with the sublime, and (4) de-autonomizing objects and consciousnesses through realization of the status of phenomena and through taking emptiness and wis-dom as the stuff of appearance. Jung’s cautions, nevertheless, need to be heeded; his insights make it clear that deity yoga,
if
it is possible, is no easy matter.

Given its built-in safeguards and moral tone, there is the suggestion that deity yoga could actually succeed in overcoming inflation, despite the enormity of the task. Still, anyone who made such a proclamation would, most likely, be reeking with the stink of inflation.

With a sense of humility in the face of the issue that we are considering, let us take a detailed look at other elements in the Ac-tion Tantra path in the next three chapters.

ence given the fragility of Tsong-kha-pa’s teaching remaining in the world, and (5) intense longing to rejoin his teacher.” See the brief account in Tenzin Gyatso and Jeffrey Hopkins,
The K
ā
lachakra Tantra: Rite of Initiation for the Generation Stage,
145.

4. The Path in Action Tantra: Divine Body

In order to appreciate how tantric systems could possibly claim to bring about radical purification of defilement, it is necessary to comprehend the full breadth of the path that deity yoga encompasses. Tantric practices came to be absorbed in a highly systema-tized culture of internal development that reached acmes of development in Tibet and Japan, and since we are concerned with claims of efficacy, in this chapter we will continue the examination, begun in chapter two, of a highly developed tradition within Tibetan Buddhism.

Research into the historical origins of such systems would take us in a different direction that in the end would indeed enrich our understanding of the meditative cultivation that is our focus, but, in the infant stage of knowledge of these traditions outside of Asia, each inquiry must define its own field in order to avoid attempting too much and achieving nothing. Thus, here we shall not be looking backward to origins but will examine a path-structure within a developed tradition. To do this, the context of a spiritual path-structure that, within Tibet, provides the background for appreciating the significance of these practices must be made explicit. To accomplish this, I will synthesize these elements, not out of the arrogance of assuming possession of an all-encompassing, superior perspective but with considerable trepidation at attempting to communicate a meaningful portion of a highly complex, multifaceted spiritual culture that provides a context of reverberation of nuance and value.

Deity yoga in Action Tantra is not just imagination of oneself as an ideal being but, as was mentioned briefly at the beginning of chapter two, is organized in an increasingly profound series of mul-tiphased meditations called the meditative stabilizations of exalted body, speech, and mind. Imagination of oneself as a deity (described in chapter two) is the heart of the first of these, the meditative stabilization of exalted body. One of the problems in understanding the steps of these meditations is that there exists a plethora of vocabulary for the stages of the path even just in Action Tantra that must have developed over centuries and was co-opted and amal-gamated under a single system. For instance, mention has been made of the meditative stabilizations of exalted body, speech, and

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Tantric Techniques

mind which provide a basic framework for the entire path, but another framework, “concentration with repetition [of mantra]” and “concentration without repetition [of mantra]” is also used. One would expect that repetition of mantra would be confined to the meditative stabilization of exalted speech and that “concentration without repetition [of mantra]” would not involve mantra sounds, but neither of these seemingly innocuous assumptions is true, as will be detailed below.

Also, how do these rubrics fit together with other ones such as the cultivation of calm abiding and special insight? Or yoga with signs and yoga without signs? Or prior approximation, effecting achievement of feats, and activities? Or the five paths and ten grounds? These sets of vocabulary, which seldom involve equivalent terms, offer a variety of intertwining approaches for viewing the path of Action Tantra that enrich and foster appreciation of its complex structure. By immersing ourselves in the detail of this path with its intricate and overlapping terminology, the boundaries of which are often in question,
a
we will advance discussion of the issues raised at the end of the last chapter.

As sources for an exposition of Action Tantra, I am primarily using texts stemming from the delineation of the path of Action Tantra found in Tsong-kha-pa’s
Great Exposition of Secret Mantra
. There, he presents the general mode of procedure of Action Tantra, applicable to deities of all three Action Tantra lineages—One-Gone- Thus, lotus, and vajra. This division into general and specific modes of procedure mirrors a division of the tantras in this class into two types, general ones that present the path and surrounding activities in a manner that is suitable for all three lineages and specific ones that are concerned with a particular deity and lineage.

Tsong-kha-pa draws his exposition of the general meditation from what his student Ke-drup
b
identifies as the four general Action Tantras—the
General Secret Tantra
,
c
the
Questions of Sub
ā
hu Tantra
,
d

a
For a chart of this Action Tantra meditation as well as a meditation manual extracted from Tsong-kha-pa’s text see chapter 7.

b
Lessing and Wayman,
Mkhas Grub Rje’s Fundamentals of the Buddhist Tantras,

134.23. Ke-drup reports that the list is in terms of their respective lengths, the first being the longest.

c
spyi’i cho ga gsang ba’i rgyud, s
ā
m
ā
nyavidh
ī
n
ā
m guhyatantra;
P429, vol. 9.

d
dpung bzang gis zhus pa’i rgyud, sub
ā
huparip
ṛ
cch
ā
tantra;
P428, vol. 9.

The Path in Action Tantra: Divine Body
85

the
Susiddhi Tantra
,
a
and the
Concentration Continuation Tantra
.
b
As the late-fifteenth- and early-sixteenth-century Ge-luk scholar Pa
ṇ
- chen Sö-nam-drak-pa
c
says:
d

[The Action Tantras of the three lineages in general] are the
General Secret Tantra,
the
Susiddhi,
the
Questions of Sub
ā
hu,
and the
Concentration Continuation.
The first of these teaches the ma
ṇḍ
ala rites of Action Tantra in general, ranging from the rite for the place [where initiation will be conferred] through the bestowal of initiation. It also sets forth the three thousand five hundred ma
ṇḍ
alas related with the three lineages.