Topic: Yogin training: The View

[Michael]

There are three pillars of Buddhist yogin training:

The View, the Path, and the Result.

These are very apropos of our own path, and as we have slim depth to the philosophical underpinning of our path, it is wise to draw on the vast knowledge of traditions that walk the same intent.

The View is our State of Mind. All experience, including the prosecution of our path, is conditioned by our state of mind. This is underwritten by a philosophy.

We are the prisoners of a philosophical legacy by nature of our upbringing - culturally and family. For example, notice how often in movies the 'close-up' shot is used repeatedly in American movies. This is due to a powerful cultural philosophy which has vied for supremacy in the US of what is called the cult of the individual - the lone gunman against the world etc. The definitive film being High Noon. This is being challenged now in the US as another powerful theme is finding relevance - the community. The 'close-up' shot typifies and reifies this individuality theme in the viewer, without any debate or informed permission.

Thus the job of those on the path is first to dismantle the hidden philosophical elements of influence which have been embedded in our mind without any asking for permission or evaluation of consequence. Then a rebuilding of a new mind with questioning, permission and evaluation. This is the View.

It is a state of mind devised and debated over centuries in Buddhism, and constantly evaluated against experience.

The Path is the body of practices.

The Result is the accumulation of realisations, small and large, and the consequential changes which are observed in the yogin, both inner and outer.

I want to follow here with a summary of the View - why it came about in Buddhism, how it modified and how it seeded contesting themes, some of which still remain in Buddhism today.

You will see they engaged in insightful investigation of many of the questions we begin to ask as we also have experiences which we need to place in some View context. By looking at their dissections, we can find some elements to include in our own new structure of mind, plus realise we are not alone in trying to make constructive sense of a universe that reveals itself after some progress on our path, which our normal outer world has little to offer by way of clarity.

[Michael]

Permanence lies at the core of every worldly and spiritual mind.

Understanding the critical significance of this concept is perhaps the very first practice any aspirant undertakes. If you haven't thought about it, then you should - most traditions initiate this task with the practices surrounding Death.

The desire for permanence permeates our cultural and personal world. How we build buildings, take pictures, focus on family generations, seek to be remembered in all kinds of ingenious or stupid ways. The pyramids are perhaps the greatest monument to this desire, and they symbolise in our consciousness the folly and intensity of our desire in seeking permanence on this side of the line.

Some of you may know that I also use this concept, in seeking permanence, in my own spiritual structure, and have spoken of it elsewhere. But I seek permanence in impermanence, which for the Buddha, was far too clever and tricky.

The Buddha looked at the world of humanity and saw that everyone is embedded in a mind of attachment, and the driving core of that world was the yearning for permanence. The consequence was only one thing - suffering.

So he said, there is no permanence, and for a yogin, it's desire is the greatest obstacle on the path.

For Buddha, belief in permanence, the desire for permanence, in any form whatsoever, inner, outer, this or the other side of the line, is not only absolute folly, but demonstrates a profound ignorance of reality. Permanence simply does not exist, anywhere.

(I have no problem with this, but I ask, "What is seeking permanence?" But back to Buddhism... )

Yogin training begins with meditation, which frees the yogin from attachments. Once free from attachments, the link to permanence is broken. Once permanence is broken and replaced with flux, constraint and fear fall away, creativity flows and the mind reverts to its original and natural state of joy. That is the strategy, the plan and the process.

Karma also came into this - recognised that there were deep momentums of current within our being from ages past. The above strategy was, in early Buddhism, believed to also wipe out the long arm of karma.

This was the focus of early Buddhism, and it produced what was known as an Arhat, one who attains the ultimate release. Through meditation and non-attachment, the assimilation of impermanence is achieved, and personal liberation is realised.

But as the centuries passed it dawned on Buddhists that the Buddha was more than an Arhat. He came to bring liberation to all beings, not just himself... 

Should not his followers seek to attain His mind?

[erik]

Should not his followers seek to attain His mind?

OM - Buddha's body
AH - Buddha's speech
HUM - Buddha's mind

[Michael]

Once they adopted the approach that we could become more than an Arhat, that in fact we could become Buddhas, or rather Bodhisattvas - there could be many Buddhas who led all beings to enlightenment, not just achieved it themselves - then the concept of the ‘Large Vehicle’ arose. This was also based on the belief that the natural free mind was kind, compassionate, and as such naturally drawn towards relieving the suffering of all beings.

The Large Vehicle was called Mahayana, and its arising was called the Second Turning of the Wheel.

I should point out a critical difference between Buddhist philosophical thought and that of European Philosophy or Christian theology, and many other philosophical systems. Buddha’s ‘method’ as simplistically outlined above, was unbelievably successful in delivering for thousands upon thousands of practitioners, the intended result - a dramatic and life changing experience, known as enlightenment or samadhi. The philosophy was the subsequent attempt of these enlightened monks to improve the practice as a whole - specifically the View. Because the philosophy was no idle pastime of wealthy intellectuals, it was an integral component of the whole practice which was intended to produce a definite result.

The early Buddhists adopted a view that there existed ‘atomic’ events, called ‘dhamas’, which arose and disappeared. ‘Atomic’ meaning they had individuated existence, even if for only a short time.

This was a thought system which was built upon a foundational teaching of the Buddha: the Principle of Interdependent Origination.

This principle held two components - that all existence was in flux, impermanent, and that it was also interdependent: devoid of individual existence in its own right.

‘Emptiness’ has a specific meaning in Buddhism. It does not mean that there is nothing there. It means that nothing exists in the sense that nothing is ‘real’, due to nothing being permanent.

Thus for the early Buddhists, the paradox of atomic events and emptiness became the subject of great interest and writing - wisdom was accorded to those whose insights into this paradox was profound and acknowledged.

Mahayana Buddhism arose at a time of ‘relaxing’ of the strict ‘personal’ Arhat approach to include a shared method, and at the time of the rise of a ‘religion’ of Buddhism in which lay people’s inclusion was to be considered. Thus many pre-Buddhist deities were adopted and called Buddhas or Buddhisattvas. But ironically at such a time of more liberal broadening of the movement, a profound change entered into its innermost core.

Why should anything be excluded from this Principle of Interdependent Origination?

Buddhist thinkers finally come to the conclusion, that if they were to accept the truth of the Principle of Interdependent Origination, then they had to deny the concept of the ‘atomic’ events. This was a devastating realisation and a dangerous one. They called it the ‘emptiness within the emptiness’.

This view was put forth in the Prajnaparamita scriptures of early Mahayana. But its consequence was that everything, without exclusion, was empty of substance and meaning: the View, the Path, the Result,and the Buddha Mind itself were all empty of inherent existence. Everything is purely the expression of the interdependent origination of phenomena, and this is also empty of existence. An arrival at a point of ultimate nihilism. Everything was meaningless.

Tibetan lamas caution the teaching of emptiness to those unprepared to withstand the impact of its comprehension. Yet its very potency within Buddhism (and other traditions in which it has become recognised) is due to experiential validation through meditation. It is no idle mental rumination.

You will recall that in CC’s books, Don Juan also expressed a similar view.  Also a little after this view flourished, there arose the great teacher Adi Shanakra in India who almost single-handedly reclaimed India for Brahaminism. He is most know for promulgating within the terminology of the later Vedas precisely the same view, in which ultimate reality is beyond everything. His approach to Advaita Vedanta is renown for its absolute position, that Brahman is beyond all attributes, and all else is illusion.

This has caused considerable confusion in unprepared minds, who posit that there is no realisation and nothing to strive for, no God, no Spirit, no purpose, no intent, no point to anything. Thus you see how a profound truth becomes a trap for those who are not ready or wisely counciled.

[erik]

This has caused considerable confusion in unprepared minds, who posit that there is no realisation and nothing to strive for, no God, no Spirit, no purpose, no intent, no point to anything. Thus you see how a profound truth becomes a trap for those who are not ready or wisely counciled.

Yes, lack of meaning has most certainly put off many minds. It sounds similar to and arising from what is happening in this world at mental level - people read something and already think they've got it. No experience is necessary to verify it, everything is known, everything is clear.

After reading the post of yours I have been wondering though about that aspect of unprepared minds. How valid it is in present times? Is there that much time left? Maybe it ought to be: who recognises this truth from within - recognises it; who doesn't - doesn't.

Then, again, the road does not end now, and every step counts.

The Lama of Buddhists I practiced with, stresses the need to start working/meditating on emptiness from day one. He is most practical about it - theory means little, constant practice and meditation is what takes one forward, and therefore one must practice all aspects of the truth from the beginning.

[Michael]

For the early Buddhists, these ‘atomic’ events had what they termed ‘self nature’. Meaning they existed independently, they had ‘inherent existence’, they arose and existed ‘from their own side’. In other words, they existed in the universe in their own right and were not the figment of a mind. They were ‘real’.

Not long after the transit from BC to AD/CE, the early Mahayana thinkers wrote the Prajnaparamita scriptures, which in the main rejected this idea of independent atomic events.

This view was taken up by Nagarjuna,  then followed and further developed by Chandrakirti. They went for the throat, and used a technique of analytical debate, an utter devastation to all arguments for the proposition of existence in any form whatsoever. This technique was to reduce the opponents view to absurdity. It turned the argument upon itself and rendered it exhausted in its own confusion.

This philosophical position was known as Madhyamaka, the ‘middle position’, and the technique of deconstruction and complete obliteration of all opposing points of view was called Madhyamaka Prasangika.

Madhyamaka is still today the primary philosophical position of Mahayana Buddhism.

It demolished the beliefs of not only all other Buddhist tenants, but also those of other religions. Thus it asserts neither the existence of a void, nor any kind of permanent principle whatsoever, including the atman of Hinduism. Meaning it denied any permanent core existence not only to ourselves personally, either in personality or in our deepest self, but also to the entire cosmos. The universe was thus completely and absolutely devoid of all meaning, substance or purpose.

Madhyamaka grew and flourished up to the 6th century CE, and as I said, is still the ultimate core of Mahayana today.

It is a reasonable argument to say, isn’t this a depressing view? You Buddhists are suppossed to be relieving suffering but all you are offering via Madhyamaka is empty nothing?

They counter this argument by pointing out that all suffering (by which they mean mental suffering) is based upon expectations, fixed ideas, attachments and attitudes. All of which are acquired through our family, teachers and culture. We inherit a value system that then becomes a cage, which is the basis of our suffering when reality does not match it. Our whole subconscious vision, the result of our socialisation, is violated when the world crosses it, and in that we are bound to suffering.

Madhyamaka pushes us along a thought path which ultimately strips us of all support, then drops us into a vision that renders all our presuppositions and presumptions invalid. It is an experiential tool, not just a philosophy. Like Zen koans, it destroys the very foundations of the prison which causes our suffering. It delivers us into utter nakedness of being, before a mirror which reflects nothing more than a mirage.

This is the method behind the famous debates of the Gelugpas, with their dramatic hand slapping gestures. They are trying to apply the Prasangika technique to discombobulate the mind of their opponent. Because in that discombobulation a doorway opens, which remains tight sealed when we have confidence in our mental vision of ourselves, where we are going and why. Once that is successfully laid waste - the mind is such a powerful tyrant - a vital and precious opportunity opens to us. Unfortunately, we strive with all our might to close that door again, to regain our certitude and composure. In that short space, if we were to mount an arrow, like a mantra, we could ride out from our cage on a white stallion, and catch a glimpse of eternity ... but only the wise are capable of that, let alone seek it.

A few hundred years after the peak of this philosophy in India, Shankara adopted the same methodology, for the same purpose, and it was called Advaita Vedanta. Which had many variations of meaning, as happened in the Buddhist world earlier, but both Nagarjuna and Shankara espoused the final and ultimate end point in this direction. One could go no further, so the only way was back.

In both cases, in Mahayana and Hinduism, people began to say, “Yes, but we don’t like it.” It was somehow inhuman, and soon positions of practical moderation began to be presented - and so they should. After all, what is this all around us? How do we account for undeniable appearances and how do we value the heart?

[Michael]

What began to exercise the mind of Buddhist thinkers was how to account for the world we perceive around us. Accepting that in the final reality, it did not exist, and accepting that it appeared to exist, how was this appearance constructed - how did it come about and what was it made of?

This was important for them as being meditators they had come to realise the nature of mind, and began to feel dissatisfied with a  purely logical philosophical position. They wanted to tease out the very fabric of world as mind. This led to a psychological rather than philosophical approach.

The Buddhist scholar who brought Buddhism to Tibet, Santarakshita, posited a new view. So objects were ultimately non-existent, but they could exist in our mind with the appearance of conventionality, ie socially accepted,  an agreement taken for granted.

Two brothers, Asanga and Vasubandhu, went further and attacked Madhyamaka in that it failed to offer any base for the understanding of experience and belief. (Which seems fair comment to me.) Nararjuna had really only put forth the position that nothing could be said about the ultimate reality, as it was ineffable. So, by definition, it  was inexpressible. But that didn’t stop it existing in a state that was incapable of proof. Sure you can’t logically prove it exists, but there it stand before us nonetheless.

This position became know as Cittamantra, or ‘mind only’. The whole of creation is mind-created.

Citta is a Sanskrit word roughly translated as ‘mind’, but it is far more comprehensive than that, and lies at the basis of the Sanskrit model of the form side of the universe. It is the medium through which we build our world. It comes from Cit, which is one of the three fundamentals: Sat-Cit-Ananda (Truth-Mind-Bliss), of the Divine Reality, the Paramatma. So it is our part of this, but whereas Western psychological ‘mind’ is taken to mean the expression of our thought, volition and feeling, Citta is the universal medium through which consciousness functions on all planes of the manifested Universe. It is the fundamental and immaterial nature of consciousness itself, and as such was referenced in the very first statements by Patanjali on Yoga.

Cittamantra had three aspects. First was the pre-language phenomena in a categorised form. Language grasps this raw material and builds reified conceptualisations - making them appear as real things. Meditation strips this quality of fixedness and boundary from our perceptions of the world, and reveals it as a flow and without defined edges. It unmasks the discriminating mind and resolves everything into what they simply call the ‘suchness of things’, or tathata.

Cittamantra aserts that this ‘suchness’ really exists as the root of experience. Thus the use of the word Citta. Interesting how Buddhism reaches back to the ancient knowledge embedded in Sanskrit when they rediscover the nature of perceived existence, or of Maya. But further, it claims this process is not purely a personal thing - it is universal. Thus this ‘suchness’ it is in fact the Buddha Mind itself - the intrinsically pure universal state of being.

It works like this: bottom layer is the storehouse of unprocessed experience (alaya). Our actions leaves behind ‘seeds’ which exist in a dynamic, constantly changing state within this storehouse. Next layer is our everyday awareness which discriminates between elements of the store, emphasising some and skipping others, influenced by the seeds, and resulting in a construction which appears as solid reality and continuity (manas). What Toltecs called ‘skimming’. Meditation cuts through this construction, perceiving the unmodified store, and revealing the structure as illusion - the fabrication of our mind. Meditation reveals the suchness: colourful, variegated, flowing, devoid of all differentiation, without observer or observed. (Nifty way of describing it I’d say.)

The Kargyupa follow a related philosophical position which closely resembles Cittamantra. It is called Tathagatagarbha. Tathagata means Buddhahood - literally ‘the thus gone one’. Garbha means womb or embryo. Thus the womb-embryo of Buddhahood. The basis of sentience, and as such the Tathagatagarbha is equivalent to the storehouse, alaya, of Cittamantra. Clearance of  the defilement of our fabrications results in perception of its pure nature (dharmakaya), which is enlightenment - sans ‘the enlightened’.

Thus the mind itself is the basis of defilement (samsara) and of purity (nirvana). And yoga, as stated by Patanjali in his second sutra, is the “inhibition of the modifications of the mind”: the path to nirvana.

The Tathagatagarbha doctrine underpins the most important medatitive traditions within Mahayana, Mahamudra, Dzogchen, Ch’an, Zen and Son. Comprehension of it gives the tonal note to what all these traditions are aiming at, and their practices. That it subtly negates the Madhyamaka position is known, and the Madhyamakas are none too pleased. Fights have broken out and it remains not entirely resolved to this day.

For the yogin, the tension between these two positions: the philosophical irrefutability of Madhyamaka which regresses into an infinity of absence (what Zen calls Mu), and the meditational experiential perceptions of Cittamatra and Tathagatagarbha, create a dynamic which the practitioner can employ beneficially in acquiring the View.

Meditating on the deepest meaning of the essence of existence, while acknowledging the experience revealed through the endeavour of meditation, allows the yogin to acquire a profound and resilient View.

That is a simple exposition of the Buddhist practitioner’s View. Next we deal with the Path.

[Jennifer-]

This is excellent Michael, I look forward to further additions to this thread.


Namaste'

[Jennifer-]

That is a simple exposition of the Buddhist practitioner’s View. Next we deal with the Path.

 

Rereading this thread this morning and thought Id bump it up to be sure it doesnt slip away here~

[Michael]

Once we encounter the actual practices, there are many variations, so I will outline here a basic yogin practice derived from the Nyingma sect.

The word yana means a practice, or a path. Thus it is also employed for a large range of extensions of this basic meaning.

Within Buddhism, what is called the Third Turning of the Wheel, was the arrival of Tantra. Tantra is a path of utilising the world in specialised ways to achieve enlightenment in one lifetime. So these practices come within the Tantric tradition, and are practised by yogins who may or may not exist within the formal structures of Tibetan Buddhism.

The first concept to understand is what they call a yidam. Yogins of the ‘old school’ have a personal yidam and/or a series of them for different purposes. The yidam is a meditational diety.

As Buddhism does not in essence acknowledge the gods, or rather, they acknowledge them but dismiss them as futile for the purposes of achieving ‘liberation’, due to the fact that they see the gods themselves as trapped in samsara as humans are. So there is no point in asking them for help or even worshipping them. But over time, as Buddhism spread and evolved as a popular religion, it was natural that the gods found their way into Buddhism.

But Tantra remember, is all about utilising the world, and so the use of deities is no problem for them. More than that, it is essential.

All Tibetan Buddhist practice follows two phases: the Development and the Completion. In the Development, aspects, devises, and forms of all kinds used in spiritual practice are first developed to a level of definiteness and power. Then the process is Completed by the complete disintegration of the object - especially in the realisation of the non-reality of the very forms that have been so carefully built. Thus the Tantric practices which use the world and its items, do so only temporarily as an aid, or a tool, after which they are ‘seen through’ for what they really are, illusions, and then dismantled, discarded and returned to the raw unstructured storehouse of possibilities.

The same applies to the yidam.

I will try to explain a little of the place of a yidam in the practice of yogins. When people from Western countries meditate, they don’t normally associate their practice with any religious diety. So you could assume that the yidam is not a central practice of Western culture meditators. But if you look a little closer, you will find that most people, even in Western cultures, have around them images of certain deities, or they have a ‘personal attraction’ for one or another deity, be it god or Bodhisattva. This is only natural, as we are attracted to the qualities we see in certain deities even though we may not consider it a serious matter. In an informal way, this is very close to the practice of yidam. There is something intrinsic to our humanity which warms to the thought of a deity who espouses archetypal qualities we admire or which have special meaning to us.

Two central foundations to Tibetan Buddhist Tantra:
1. The whole point of Tantra is that the world can be used. Thus you have many in that tradition who are scathing of those who ‘sit doing nothing’. Tantra is about applying oneself to practices, skilfully using the world in specialised ways to produce the outcome of liberation.

I have this image, in my own terms, of what happened when Tantra began in Tibetan Buddhism. This is not historic, and yet I sense there is much truth in it.

At the first Turning of the Wheel, Buddha experienced, and then taught others a method which was very single-minded and direct. Essentially a method for some who are prepared to leave the world. At the Second Turning of the Wheel, his people realised their place in the larger scheme. They also realised the staggering consequences of his teachings. Then came the Third Turning of the Wheel. It happened like this:

One day the grand monks were sitting around feeling very pleased with themselves - they had it all down neat and pat, and they were respectable. In through the door came a shaman. He derided the monks for their complacency, and their happiness to wait many lifetimes for Buddhahood. This shaman changed the course of Buddhism. He bridged the ancient tradition to the new. Years later monks asked those grand monks, how did they know this man was what he claimed?

The grand old monks said, “Because he carried a ladder. And it stretched all the way to the hole in the universe!”

The shaman demonstrated such power and effectiveness that the grand monks could not refuse his legitimacy. “What are we to do?” they asked each other. “I know said one old clever monk, we’ll give him and his ladder a new name. That way no one will know from where he comes, and we will retain some respectability. Let’s call his method Tantra!”

And that my children is how it came to pass. As shamanism demanded entrance, this ancient tradition caused such a commotion, that they named it the Third Turning of the Wheel.

The ladder is the critical thing. That an item of the world could be used to escape the world, was an enigma which caught the imagination of the most daring yogins. They soon developed many clever techniques of body and mind, upon which they climbed to the hole in the universe.

2. One of these techniques, was to utilise a most auspicious item of the world - the body of the Buddha. The Divine Simulacrum.

The principle at the heart of this whole practice became the task of creating in the mind, a direct replica of the Buddha’s body, energetically. They, through the practices I will describe next, created inside themselves the Buddha himself. This is similar to the whole practice of using a yidam - again an inner replica of a deity. So too the inner body of the Buddha is created, and at last, discarded.

Tantra however is dangerous. Using the world to defeat the world is a concept and practice riddled with dangerous pitfalls. Not least of which is the inner body of the Buddha - what if one really began to believe one was the Buddha with all his powers? Isn’t that exactly what the practitioner is supposed to be doing? This path is tempting the ego like none other, and in the confusion between Divine pride and egoistic pride, who can say what will emerge?

But worse, Tantra utilises items that are taboo. The trap of sinking into pure indulgence is immense. This is then a slippery slide right into damnation - this path has no side-rails. Thus one man referred to Tantra as ‘the kiss of a beautiful woman with teeth like fangs of a snake’. Thus in Tibetan Buddhism, some semblance of guide rails are devised, but remember, Tantra is practised by more than monks within an Order. Yogins tend to be a breed apart.

One guide rail is devotion to one’s teacher who teaches and initiates only when the pupil demonstrates readiness. Another guide is the yidam itself, who acts as an inner Protector of the path. And another guide rail is secrecy. It is paramount that the yogin never speaks of his practice to anyone except his teacher, and then later his peers. Lastly, Tantra is embedded within the View - the Sutric foundations.

The Nine Yanas.

These are divided into three by three layers, not necessarily practised sequentially.

The first three yanas are the ways of the Arhat, the Hearer, and the Bodhisattva. The yogin focuses his meditational attention on the fundamental Sutric propositions of Buddhism: impermanence, craving, love, compassion and emptiness.

Next three yanas, called the Three Lower Tantras: Kriyatantra, Caryatantra and Yogatantra. These are known as the outer tantras: action in visualisation, worship and devotion of the chosen deity, the yidam. Prostrations, preparation of offerings, setting up and maintaining a shrine and altar. Complex visualisations of the deity’s arrival, devotion, placation, offerings, blessings and the return to source. The yogin eventually begins to identify as the yidam, and with the deeper meanings of all the yidam’s characteristics. This set of yanas is called the causal vehicle, as it is directly related to attainment of Enlightenment.

The last three yanas, the resultant vehicles, or inner tantras: Mahayoga, Anuyoga, and Atiyoga. These refer to visualisations within the energy/prana channels of the body. Roughly, two streams coming from the nostrils that rise and fall to the lower abdomen, where they form a third stream which rises up through the chakras to the crown of the head.

In meditation a bright drop of light (a tigle) is created which is moved through the prana streams. At each nodal point, it radiates light out into sub-channels which distribute the energy throughout the whole body. In Mahayoga, the imagery is created, in Anuyoga the channels and drops of light are meditated on through to the void state, and in Atiyoga one seeks to simply reside in emptiness. Always the two stages are employed, of Development, where the images and feelings are built up, and Completion, where all returns to suchness, emptiness and the Clear Light.