The Tree of Enlightenment
An Introduction to the Major Traditions of Buddhism
by Peter Della Santina
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Part Three
The Vajrayana
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Chapter Twenty-Four
Methodology
As noted in Chapters 22 and 23, the Vajrayana and the Mahayana are
identical in their
views of the beginning and end of the path. Where the two differ is in
methodology. The
special claim of the Vajrayana is that it provides a more skillful and
rapid means of
getting from that beginning (the initial situation of suffering) to the
end (the goal of
Buddhahood). Therefore a look at its methodology is particularly
important to an
understanding of the Vajrayana.
Let us begin by discussing the mechanism of the initial situation of
suffering. The
fundamental cause of suffering has traditionally been called ignorance.
But ignorance
means the dichotomy or duality between subject and object, between self
and other.
There are different ways to deconstruct or dismantle this duality which
is the substance of
ignorance. In the Abhidharma literature (see Chapter 19), the emphasis
is on the
dismantling of the self. By taking apart the self--one pole of the
duality-- the subject is
dismantled. And ultimately, dismantling the subject implies dismantling
the object, too.
This is why great emphasis is placed on the analytical dissection of
the self. This has been
the main thrust of the Abhidharmic tradition, although not its
exclusive contents, since
the Abhidharma Pitaka also contains the important Book of Causal
Relations (Patthana),
in which the object as well as the subject is dismantled.
In the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions, there is a slightly different
approach, in that
these traditions begin by attacking the object in various ways. For
instance, in Chapter 23
we discovered that the object is not stable in its mode of appearance,
and that an object
can appear even without any external stimulus. Thus the object is like
an object seen in a
dream; it is unreal.
The discovery that the object is unreal raises the question of the
status of the self, or
subject. In the Mahayana and Vajrayana, the general procedure for
deconstructing the
subject-object or self-and-other duality follows these lines: We begin
by showing that the
object is dreamlike and unreal, and then apply our
understanding of
interdependence to
reveal that, if the object is unreal, then the subject which is
dependent on the object is
also dreamlike and unreal. If the seed is unreal, the sprout, too, must
be unreal. This
brings us to the understanding of the emptiness of subject and object.
This process is
reflected to an extent in the attitudes of the two main Mahayana
schools--the Mind Only
school, which focuses on the dreamlike nature of experience, and the
Middle Way school,
which focuses on the idea of
interdependence.
In addition to this fundamental duality--the subject-object or
self-other duality--there
are many others that must be removed if we are going to achieve
enlightenment. The
other major duality which produces suffering, and on which the Mahayana
and the
Vajrayana focus, is the duality between samsara and nirvana. In
general, this is a duality
between what is conditioned and what is unconditioned. Samsara is
conditioned and
nirvana is
unconditioned. This is reflected in the technical
description of the phenomena
of samsara as conditioned phenomena and nirvana as unconditioned
reality. Samsara is
conditioned because it is characterized by origination and destruction,
by birth and death,
whereas nirvana is unconditioned because it is characterized by
non-origination and non-
destruction.
But is this duality real or is it merely constructed? The position of
the Mahayana and
Vajrayana is that the duality between
samsara and nirvana is unreal. It
is merely
constructed by, and hence an illusion of, the mind. This is shown by an
analysis of the
characteristics of samsara--that is, by an analysis of origination and
destruction.
There are various ways origination and destruction are examined within
the Mahayana
and Vajrayana traditions. One is found in Nagarjuna's extensive
examination of
origination in his Foundation Stanzas of the Middle Way
(Mulamadhyamakakarika.).
There he considers the four possibilities of origination: (i) from
self, (ii) from other, (iii)
from both, and (iv) without a cause (see Chapter 18). But here we can
content ourselves
with an analogical examination of origination, in which it is said that
if objects are like
objects seen in a dream, then there is neither any real origination nor
any real destruction.
In the Samadhiraja Sutra, it is mentioned that if a young, virgin woman
has a dream in
which she gives birth to a child, and in that same dream she sees that
the child dies, she
will (of course) experience first happiness and then sorrow in the
dream. But when she
awakes she will realize that there was no real birth or death of a
child. Similarly, all
phenomena have no real origination and no real destruction. If, in
reality, all things have
no origination and no destruction, then the characteristics of samsara
no longer hold good
as real characteristics. The distinction between samsara and nirvana
collapses, and we are
left with the conclusion that, as Nagarjuna puts it in the
Mulamadhyamakakarika, there is
not even the subtlest difference between samsara and nirvana. If there
is no origination
and no destruction, then samsara's characteristics are the same as
nirvana's, since nirvana
is
characterized by the absence of origination and destruction. There
is, therefore, no
difference between samsara and nirvana.
To summarize, we arrive at the identity of samsara and nirvana
first
through a
dismantling of our conception of samsara. We define
samsara as
conditioned. We say that
the characteristics of the
conditioned are origination and destruction,
but find that there is
no
real origination and no real destruction. If samsara does not have
these characteristics,
then its opposite, nirvana, has no meaning. In
this way we arrive at
the identity of
samsara and nirvana.
Everything I have said thus far about ignorance being the
fundamental
cause of suffering,
about the duality of subject and
object and of samsara and nirvana, and
about the
emptiness of
each pole of these dualities--all this holds true for the
Mahayana as
well as
for the Vajrayana tradition. There is complete agreement
between the
two up to this point.
There is also complete agreement
about the distinction between indirect
knowledge and
direct
knowledge.
The distinction between understanding the truth intellectually
and
seeing the truth directly
is, of course, recognized throughout the
Buddhist tradition. For
example, in the
Theravada tradition, there is
recognition of the difference between
understanding the Four
Noble Truths intellectually and seeing them directly. In the
Mahayana
and Vajrayana
traditions, the crux of the matter is
whether our knowledge of the
identity of samsara and
nirvana is
intellectual or direct and experiential.
If we follow the procedures laid down in the Perfection of
Wisdom
literature--the
arguments spelled out by Nagarjuna,
Asanga, and Vasubandhu--we arrive
at an
intellectual, indirect
understanding of the non-differentiation of
subject and object,
samsara and nirvana. It is with the quicker, more skillful methods
by
which indirect
intellectual understanding is turned into direct and
transforming
understanding that
Vajrayana methodology comes into
play.
The key to an understanding of Vajrayana methodology per
se is an
understanding of the
emptiness of all things. All phenomena
(dharmas) are nothing in
themselves. They are
what they are insofar
as they are conceived of by the mind. Let me
refer to two
examples
from the Theravada tradition to illustrate this point of the
emptiness,
or neutrality, of all
phenomena. In the Discourse of the
Water Snake, Alagaddupama Sutta, the
Buddha
likens all
phenomena to a water-snake and to a raft. He says that
someone
who is skilled
at handling a water-snake can capture and handle it
without coming to
grief, but someone
who is not skilled will come
to grief if he tries to capture one. He
also says that
phenomena are
like a raft, in that we do not need to hold onto them,
just as we do
not
need to hold onto a raft once we have crossed a river.
The Buddha's discourse expresses very brilliantly and
succinctly the
emptiness and
neutrality of phenomena. All
phenomena are neither this nor that. They
are neutral,
dependent
on how we take or use them. It is not in the nature of a
water-snake to cause
grief; rather, grief depends on the manner in
which the water-snake is
caught. Similarly, a
knife is neither true
nor false, but one who grasps it by the blade is
surely in error. If
we
grasp a knife by its blade, we hurt ourselves, but if we grasp it
by
the handle, we are able
to use it. If we use a raft to cross a
river, we are using it properly;
if we carry the raft on
our shoulders
after crossing the river, we are making a mistake. The
usefulness or
lack of
usefulness of phenomena lies not in phenomena themselves
but in the way
we use them.
This is true not only of objects but also
of mental states like desire
and aversion. For
example, there is the
story of the Buddha's instruction to his cousin
Nanda, who was
persuaded to join the Order on the day he was to have married.
After
his ordination,
Nanda began to miss his fianc?e and regret
that he had entered the
Order. The Buddha
was aware of Nanda's
state of mind, so he took him on a trip to the
heavens to show him
the lovely, heavenly damsels there. Nanda was so infatuated by the
maidens in the
heavens that, when he was asked how they
compared to his
fiance, he
replied that,
beside them, his fianc?e
looked like the skeleton of a female monkey.
The Buddha
advised
Nanda that if he wanted to enjoy the heavenly damsels in his
next
life, the best
way to do so was to remain in the Buddhist Order and
practice the
Dharma.
Nanda went back to the Order with renewed
zeal. When the other monks
found out why
Nanda was practicing
so diligently, they teased him. Eventually Nanda
realized the
hollowness of his motivation and became an Arhat known as the
foremost
of those who
are able to control their senses. This is an
example of the neutrality
of the mental state of
desire. At a
particular point in Nanda's progress, the Buddha used
desire as a
motivation
to get Nanda to settle down and practice diligently.
Thus we can see that not only are objects like water-snakes,
rafts, and
knives neutral and
dependent on how we take or use
them, but mental states, also, are
nothing in themselves:
they
depend on how we use them, whether for spiritual progress or
spiritual retardation.
This is why the Buddha said that 'killing anger
benefits the killer.'
Aversion is neither
good nor bad. If one is
averse to unwholesome actions, this is
conducive to the goal of
liberation, but if one is averse to wholesome actions, this is not
conducive to good.
To reiterate, all phenomena are basically neutral or empty.
How they
affect our progress
depends on how we take them and
what we do with them. This is the
insight or attitude
which has been
developed in the Vajrayana and which has enabled the
Vajrayana
to use
particular methods that utilize all phenomena for spiritual
progress.
This is the key to the
acceleration that Vajrayana
methods bring to spiritual progress.
To the extent that we use only part of our experience to make
progress
toward the goal of
liberation, our progress is, inevitably,
slower. For example, how much
time do any of us
spend in
meditation or in recitation? Most of our time is spent instead
on
eating, sleeping,
or chatting with our friends. We are wasting all that
time, and all
that experience is not
being used to make progress
toward the goal of enlightenment. It is
here that the
Vajrayana
makes use of the idea of the basic neutrality of all
phenomena, for if
all
phenomena are empty, why not make use of them--all sights,
sounds, and
mental
states--for spiritual progress?
This is why the Vajrayana is said to regard all sights, sounds,
and
mental states as deities,
mantras, and the transcendental
dimension of Buddhahood. Everything
that we see, hear,
and think
is really neutral and empty. If we take these sights, sounds,
and
thoughts to be
manifestations of the pure vision of enlightenment,
we can utilize
these elements of
experience to contribute to our
progress toward enlightenment. I will
explain this in
greater detail in
the chapters that follow, but let me give you an
example at this
point. The
cup that I am holding belongs to the aggregate of form,
which is a
manifestation of the
celestial Buddha Vairochana. The
object, which belongs to the aggregate
of form, is
therefore not
simply a cup but a dimension of the Buddha Vairochana.
This is
what is
meant when it is said in the Vajrayana that one regards all
sights as
the deities, as the
particular manifestations of a purified
reality. By a particular act of
the mind, we can
similarly regard all
sounds as mantras and all mental states as the
transcendental
dimension of Buddhahood.
This careful utilization of sights, sounds, and mental states is
especially evident in the
form of the Vajrayana ritual of meditation.
In this context the
Vajrayana practice of
meditation may be likened
to a raft--a raft that is composed of sights,
sounds, and mental
states. In the Vajrayana ritual, for example, there is a visual
component, which is the
visualization of any one of the deities of
the pantheon; an auditory
component, which is
the recitation of the
mantra; and a mental component, which is the
identification of the
meditator with the object of meditation and the cultivation of the
understanding of
nonduality and emptiness.
This will become clearer in later chapters. For the time being,
I would
like to conclude by
observing that the ritual of Vajrayana
meditation practice employs
these three
components--visual,
auditory, and mental--in order to create a 'raft of
ritual' that
utilizes
a variety of phenomena, and that this provides a particularly
efficient form of
meditation.
Those of you who practice breathing meditation or other
forms of
meditation will
appreciate the truth of this. If you are trying
to meditate only on
your breath, there may be
a point at which your
mind becomes tired of trying to concentrate only
on the breath and
begins to wander. If you are chanting, your mind may become tired
of
the words of the
chant. If you are doing insight meditation, your
mind may become tired
of the penetrative
analysis of phenomena.
Because of the multifaceted character of
Vajrayana meditation
practice, when the mind becomes tired and irritated and is no
longer
able to concentrate
on the visualized form of the deity, it can
concentrate on the mantra;
when it becomes
tired of concentrating
on the mantra, it can concentrate on emptiness;
and when it
becomes tired of that, it can go back to the visualized form of the
deity.
Indeed, Vajrayana ritual is more effective as a means of
meditation
precisely because of
its multidimensional character:
rather than setting up a confrontation
with the tendency of
the mind
to become distracted, it utilizes that tendency. Thus
Vajrayana
meditation
actually lets the mind wander, although it is only allowed
to wander
within a particular
compass of religious or spiritual
meaning, so that no matter what the
mind rests on--
whether the
visualized form of the deity, the mantra, the
identification of the
meditator
with the form of the deity, or even the emptiness of that
form--it is
resting on something
that has spiritual power.
The Vajrayana ritual is also like a raft in the sense that it is not
anything to be grasped. It
is a means, or method, and nothing
more. This ritual is also not
supposed to be confined
to sessions of
formal meditation but to be extended to all our
activities, both
within and
outside of meditation sessions. While in the meditation
session, we
visualize the form of
the deity, recite the mantra, and
cultivate both an understanding of
identity with the form
of the deity
and an understanding of the emptiness of that form.
Thereafter, this
view is
extended beyond the limits of the meditation session to
encompass all
our activities.
Wherever we are and whatever we
do, the totality of our experience is
made a part of this
'raft of
meditation practice,' so that we can incorporate and utilize
all this
energy and
experience in our practice. As we go about our daily
activities, we
perceive sights,
sounds, and mental states in this
special, transformed way. In other
words, we grasp the
elements of
our entire experience by the handle, not by the blade.
Through the
techniques
of Vajrayana meditation, we learn to handle these
sights, sounds, and
mental states
skillfully, so that we do not come
to grief. We learn to handle sights
that we see, sounds
that we
hear, and mental states that we experience so that, instead of
being
ensnared by
these experiences, we can use them for our mental
development and
progress toward
enlightenment.
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Contents
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01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11
| 12 | 13
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41
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Layout: Nhi Tuong
Update : 11-05-2002
