Читать книгу Dzogchen Deity Practice - Падмасамбхава - Страница 16

Train in Indivisibility

Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche⁴

As I have mentioned numerous times, the way to train in the unity of development and completion is to begin any visualization with the samadhi of suchness, recognizing your own nature and remaining in that. In that very moment, you are actually in the state of the primordially pure essence. The samadhi of illumination then occurs as the natural expression of rigpa. Mind-essence is the unity of being empty and cognizant. The empty aspect is the samadhi of suchness, the primordial purity, the dharmakaya. From this, the spontaneously present phenomena manifest, and this is the second, the samadhi of illumination. The unobstructed cognizant aspect is the samadhi of illumination, the sambhogakaya. Thus, emptiness has a compassionate flavor. The expression of the primordially pure essence, the unconstructed nature, is naturally compassionate. These two—emptiness and compassion—are indivisible. That is the vital point.

To repeat, the empty quality is primordial purity, and the manifest aspect is a spontaneous, compassionate presence. This unity of emptiness and compassion is the basis of all dharma practice, and it is this unity that takes the form of the seed syllable. That is the third samadhi, the samadhi of the seed syllable, which is the nirmanakaya. The unity of being empty and compassionate appears as the seed syllable that is the spiritual life force of the deity you are practicing. For example, if you are practicing Guru Rinpoche, his spiritual life force is HRIH.

Once the seed syllable appears, it sends out E, which is the seed syllable of space, and then YAM for wind, RAM for fire, KAM for water, LAM for earth, SUM for Mt. Sumeru, and finally BHRUM for the celestial palace at the top of Mt. Sumeru. Next, the syllable HRIH descends like a shooting star, lands on the throne within the celestial palace, and transforms into the deity. All this takes place without having to leave behind the state of mind-essence. Without leaving the empty suchness samadhi of rigpa behind, the compassionate illumination of spontaneous presence unfolds unobstructedly from the primordially pure essence. The development stage can take place while recognizing mind-essence, since its expression is unobstructed. If the essence were obstructed, the development stage could not arise; but it isn’t so. The development stage is allowed to develop, to manifest, without harming the primordial purity one bit. Without moving away from unchanging primordial purity, the spontaneous presence, the expression of awareness, takes place. This is the indivisibility of primordial purity and spontaneous presence.

This is also why development and completion are basically a unity. The developed in development stage refers to “what is formed as an expression of unobstructed awareness.” Thought, on the other hand, can obstruct rigpa. When the expression moves as thought, there is delusion. Ordinary thinking is the process of forming one thought, then thinking of something else, and so on, incessantly. The new thought interrupts the previous one, and the next thought interrupts that one. True development stage is not like that at all. The key point lies in this unobstructed quality of rigpa; the samadhi of illumination does not cut off the samadhi of suchness. The seed syllable manifesting in the middle of space doesn’t obstruct the compassionate emptiness. In fact, it is the expression of compassionate emptiness. Thus, you are not only allowed to let visualization unfold out of compassionate emptiness; it is the real way to practice.

This type of development stage takes place without having to leave behind the state of mind-essence. There is no need to avoid recognizing mind-essence in order to think of these things; let them unfold naturally. Simply allow the visualization to unfold out of compassionate emptiness, the unity of empty cognizance. This is called “letting development stage unfold out of the completion stage.” In this way, there is no real separation between them. Otherwise, a common misunderstanding is that the development stage steals the completion stage, and that later you have to kick out the development stage to give the completion stage a chance. Similarly, when you start to think of one thing, the previous thought disappears. That is called “visualizing with dualistic mind.”

This is how it may seem in the beginning, when you are being taught, but, really, it isn’t like that at all. The reason is that primordial purity and spontaneous presence are a natural unity; they cannot really be divided. If they weren’t a unity, you would have only primordial purity, a void state where nothing can take place, or a spontaneous presence that was the same as dualistic mind. There would be a battle between dharmakaya and sambhogakaya. In actuality, there is no conflict, because spontaneous presence is indivisible from primordial purity. You are not only definitely allowed to let the development stage unfold from within the completion stage, but also it is perfectly all right and permissible to do so. There is no conflict between the two. As a famous saying goes, “Some say development stage is right. Others say completion stage is right. They pitch development against completion.”

The unity of emptiness and cognizance has an unobstructed capacity. If it were obstructed, we wouldn’t be able to know anything. It would be a total blank. If cognizance and emptiness were not a unity, one of them would occur when thinking and the other when not thinking. Conceptual thought obstructs, and confines; this is how development and completion can be obstructed. However, the expression of awareness is unimpeded. If this were not so, rigpa would not have any capacity. But the essence does have a capacity. The dharmakaya and sambhogakaya do manifest.

Dharmakaya is a totally unconstructed state, and sambhogakaya is the great enjoyment, meaning an abundance of perfect qualities. From the empty essence of primordial purity, the spontaneously present nature manifests unobstructedly. Likewise, we are allowed to practice the development stage unobstructedly. Otherwise, without the samadhi of suchness, development stage would be an imitation. We might even think the wrathful deities were literally angry!

Rainbows give us a very good way to understand this. When a rainbow appears in the sky, it doesn’t damage the empty sky at all, and yet the rainbow is totally visible. It doesn’t change the sky or hurt it in the slightest. It’s exactly the same when recognizing the essence of mind, which has been pointed out as being utterly empty. That is the samadhi of suchness. That recognition doesn’t have to be left behind in order for cognizance, the samadhi of illumination, to be present; it is spontaneously present by nature. That is true compassion. The sky is the samadhi of suchness, while the rainbow is the samadhi of illumination, the development stage. There is no fight between space and a rainbow, is there? It’s exactly like that. First of all, you need to know the samadhi of suchness. Having recognized that, the expression of awareness arises from the essence as the development stage. It is not like construction work. Like the rainbow appearing in the sky, the expression of awareness is the perfect unity of development and completion stages.

Applying this approach is not always possible for every practitioner. The next best way is when you think of one detail at a time, like the head of the deity, the arms, the legs, the body, the attributes, and so forth. Every once in a while, you’ll recognize who is visualizing, and again you’ll arrive at the state of original empty wakefulness. Then again think of some visualized details, and again recognize, alternating back and forth between the two. That is called the “next best,” the medium way of practicing. The least, or minimum, requirement is to first think that everything becomes empty. Recite the mantra OM MAHA SUNYATA … and after that say, “From the state of emptiness, such-and-such appears.” In this way, think of one thing at a time, and at the end of the sadhana, again dissolve the whole thing into emptiness. These are three ways to practice development and completion together.

However, while again and again recognizing your buddha-nature, you can allow the visualization to take place unobstructedly. There is no law that you have to think of one thing after another. The expression of awareness is unobstructed. It is not like bricklaying, where one puts things on top of each other in a very concrete way. Whatever unfolds out of the samadhi of suchness is like a rainbow. The celestial palace and the deities are all like rainbows. This rainbow manifestation doesn’t have to somehow block off the space in which it unfolds. It is not necessary at all. The first two samadhis are the unity of primordial purity and spontaneous presence. In the seed samadhi, the word seed means it is the “source” or “origin” of the whole mandala and all the deities. The seed syllable is also called the “life-essence of the mind,” the deity’s mental life force. As mentioned before, for Guru Rinpoche, that is the syllable HRIH, which begins the visualization. But remember, this hrih and whatever follows are not tangible or material.

The authentic way of practicing is to let visualizations of the development state unfold out of the samadhi of suchness. That is the best, foremost way. The samadhi of suchness is the dharmakaya state. The samadhi of illumination is the sambhogakaya state, and the seed samadhi is the nirmanakaya state. In actuality, all of samsara and nirvana unfold from the expanse of the three kayas. This is the example for the unity of development and completion stages.

Here is another way to understand development stage. All things take place from within the space of the five mothers, meaning the five female buddhas. The five elements are empty yet the cognizant quality knows them. This perceiving quality is the male buddha Samantabhadra, the yab, while the empty quality is the female buddha Samantabhadri, the yum. The outer objects, the five elements, are not the perceivers; they are the empty aspect. In actuality, the five elements are the five female buddhas. In the impure state, we perceive them as being earth, fire, water, wind, and space, but they are, in fact, the properties of the five female buddhas. In this way, everything in this world is already the mandala of the five female buddhas. Within this type of celestial palace is the pure nature of the five aggregates, the five male buddhas. We are not inventing anything here; this is our basic state as it is. Mind and phenomena, the experiencer and the experienced, are Samantabhadra and consort. In the development stage, we don’t perpetuate ordinary impure perception in any way whatsoever. Everything is regarded as the pure wisdom deities, the unity of experience and emptiness.

All phenomena are already, by nature, the unity of experience and emptiness. All experiences, all things in this world and in your life, are already the unity of experience and emptiness. There is nothing that is not empty. The essence of development is the experiencing aspect. The essence of completion is the empty aspect. These two are primordially a unity. There is nothing impure whatsoever. This is how everything already is. Therefore, everything already takes place as the unity of development stage and completion stage. When practicing development and completion stages, you are training yourself in seeing things as they actually are. You are seeing as it is, not as pure fantasy that has no basis whatsoever.

Dzogchen has two quintessential principles: primordial purity and spontaneous presence. Primordial purity is the empty aspect and spontaneous presence is the experiencing aspect. These are an original unity. When training in development stage and completion stage, we train in manifesting as a pure form, which is already the case. This is the basic situation of everything, how it really is. Reality is already the unity of male and female buddhas, in the sense of the indivisibility of primordial purity and spontaneous presence. The whole mandala with the deity is a display of primordial purity indivisible from spontaneous presence.

This indivisible unity also appears as the deities in the bardo. Likewise, the deities in Tögal practice are the unity of primordial purity and spontaneous presence. In these two instances, the mandala of the deities of your own body arise, or manifest, like rainbows in the sky. These deities are five-colored lights, as a sign of the indivisibility of primordial purity and spontaneous presence. In both cases, these things are as they are; you don’t need to think that what isn’t, is. Your own deities appear to you.

From the perspective of the manifest aspect of buddha-nature, the deities can be said to abide in our body. These deities of the development stage do appear to us in the bardo and in Tögal practice. Our own deities manifest to us. In terms of the essence of our mind, nonexistence is primordial purity; existence is spontaneous presence. Our essence is the unity of existence and nonexistence. The deities are the experienced aspect; this is how things are. This is the preciousness of development stage; it is not an unimportant point.

If, in the state of primordial purity, there were no aspect of experiencing spontaneous presence, nothing would happen. However, this is not the case, because these two, primordial purity and spontaneous presence, are a unity. Primordial purity means the “absence,” no concrete thing, the empty quality, whereas spontaneous presence means the “presence.” It is not a case of having “only absence” or “only presence;” they are indivisible. The primordial indivisibility of absence and presence is a very good example. Experience and emptiness are a unity. The experiencing aspect is development, and the empty aspect is completion. The rainbow in the sky is not tangible, but it’s still visible. There is no “thing,” and yet there is something. That is a very good example. Also, rainbows only appear in the sky. You don’t have rainbows in wood or in stone, and so on.

All phenomena are the unity of existence and nonexistence. Primordial purity and spontaneous presence are a unity. The kayas and wisdoms are a unity. There is a quote that goes, “All the scriptures say that everything is empty, but the fact that our nature is not empty of the kayas and wisdoms, that is the real tradition of the Buddha.” This is how it really is. In the second turning of the wheel of dharma, the Buddha said that everything, from the aggregate of form all the way up to and including omniscient enlightenment, is empty and devoid of self-entity. Of course that is correct, but it is not the full truth; that statement emphasizes the empty quality. Liberation is only possible through realizing the basic unity of emptiness and experience. Like space, the empty aspect cannot get liberated.

All phenomena are the unity of experience and emptiness. Without the experience aspect, the kayas and wisdoms would be hidden and would never manifest. Kayas and wisdoms are very important principles. It is said, “If the kayas and wisdoms are empty, there is no fruition.” If the state of fruition is empty, it is just like space, which is called “nothing whatsoever.” Just like space means there’s “nothing to understand, nothing there.” Think about this. Everything is of course empty, but not empty of the kayas and wisdoms, in the sense that they are nonexistent or absent. If the kayas and wisdoms were absent, there would be no twenty-five attributes of fruition. If they were absent, how could there be five kayas, five types of speech, five wisdoms, five qualities, and five activities? The twenty-five attributes of fruition are not some kind of concrete material substance. There is ground, path, and fruition—not only ground and path. If everything were empty, there wouldn’t be the two kayas of dharmakaya and rupakaya. The dharmakaya—free from constructs, like space—is defined as “dissolved yet unobscured.” Dissolved here means “totally free of all disturbing emotions.” At the same time, wisdom, meaning “original wakefulness,” is unobscured. That is the meaning of dissolved yet unobscured. This is also called the “dharmakaya of basic brilliance.” Dharmakaya is not empty or devoid of a cognizant quality.

Furthermore, in terms of experience, dharmakaya is primordially the unity of experience and emptiness. Primordial purity is the empty aspect, while spontaneous presence is the experience aspect. These two are a unity. That is why we say that the kayas and wisdoms are a unity. Dharmakaya is a body of space, free from constructs. Sambhogakaya is a body like a rainbow. The five buddhas of the five families are called the “bodies of the wisdoms of distinguished characteristics”—white, red, yellow, green, and blue, the five lights.

Once again, first there are two kayas: dharmakaya and rupakaya. The rupakaya consists of two types: the sambhogakaya, which is of rainbow light, and the nirmanakaya, which is a material body of flesh and blood possessing the six elements.

If we claim everything is empty, then who would there be to know that? There wouldn’t be anything. There would be no wisdom, no original wakefulness. The wakefulness knowing the original nature is a type of knowing that does not depend on an object. Thought, on the other hand, cannot stir without depending upon an object. When you say original wakefulness, (yeshe,) or wisdom, by definition it signifies “a knowing that has no object.” When you say thought, (namshey,) it signifies “a knowing that has the structure of subject and object.” Yeshe is a knowing that doesn’t fixate in a dualistic way, whereas our ordinary knowing is dualistic fixation. Dualistic fixation should be destroyed. That is the whole reason why we strive so diligently in meditation and recognize mind-essence. Yeshe is primordial knowing. We get used to primordial knowing by recognizing our essence as primordial purity. Nondualistic wakefulness destroys dualistic fixation. When dualistic fixation is destroyed, deluded experience falls apart, and all conceptual activity collapses. We should become completely clear and resolved about this.

Ultimately, the vital point is the difference between consciousness and wakefulness, namshey and yeshe. Consciousness is a way of knowing in which there is subject and object and in which the subject gets involved in the object. The state of realization of all the buddhas, on the other hand, is a primordial knowing that is independent from an object. Trekchö training reveals this state of realization. If we, on the other hand, believe that our basic state is only empty, a blank empty state, this emptiness wouldn’t possess any qualities. But the qualities are primordially present. This original wakefulness, yeshe, is inconceivable. The Dzogchen teachings describe it either as the unity of being empty and cognizant or as the unity of being aware and empty. Of course, the dualistic consciousness is also empty and cognizant, but it is suffused with ignorance, with unknowing. Ignorance means “not knowing rigpa.” Yeshe is empty cognizance suffused with knowing.

In actuality, all that appears and exists, all worlds and beings, are the mandala of the five male and female buddhas, the mandala of the victorious ones. This is simply how it already is, and that is how we train ourselves in seeing things, by means of the development stage. To recognize rigpa is the true way to acknowledge what is, as it is. At that moment, experience, in itself, is already the mandala of the male and female buddhas, without us having to think it is. When we don’t recognize rigpa, then it isn’t, even though, essentially, it is. When we merely think it is, that is only a pretense—even though, based on this pretense, called “ordinary development stage,” we can realize rigpa, in actuality, since whatever appears and exists is already the mandala of the victorious ones.

Development stage is a training in what really is. The perceiving quality is the yab and the empty quality is the yum. These two are an indivisible unity. This is the fundamental mandala of all the victorious ones, of all buddhas. This unity of experience and emptiness is also the source of the ordinary body, speech, and mind of sentient beings. Sentient beings, however, are not simply ordinary body, speech, and mind. We possess the enlightened body, speech, and mind as well; we just don’t recognize this. Still, it is not enough to pretend this is so. We can pretend to be a buddha, but still we won’t be enlightened by thinking, “I am a buddha.” We need to authentically acknowledge what actually is. Even though our world is a nirmanakaya buddhafield, we need to also know it.

There are the six munis, one for each of the six realms of samsara. There is Dharmaraja for the hell beings, Khala Mebar for the hungry ghosts, Senge Rabten for the animals, Shakyamuni for the humans, Taksangri for the demigods, and Shakra for the gods. Each of the six realms of samsara is in fact a nirmanakaya buddhafield. Even though this is so, beings don’t know it. We need to know that our nature is an unconfined empty cognizance. Knowing this to be as it is is the mandala of the victorious ones—just as the buddhas know it to be. However, we have fallen under the power of wrong views and distorted concepts, and we are wandering about in the confused states of samsara.

The four lines for ultimate bodhichitta, included in the preliminary practices of Kunzang Tuktig, say,

Namo

I and the six classes of beings, all living things,

Are buddhas from the very beginning.

By the nature of knowing this to be as it is,

I form the resolve towards supreme enlightenment.

By the nature of knowing this to be as it is, means “seeing reality as it is.” It means that whatever appears and exists is already all-encompassing purity, the mandala of the victorious ones. It is not only something we pretend it to be. However, it only becomes true when recognizing the natural state. Otherwise, we don’t see it as it really is. Our ignorance of the unknowing, grasping at duality, and getting involved in the three poisons obscures the all-encompassing purity of what appears and exists. The difference lies entirely between knowing and not knowing. When we recognize our nature as pointed out by a master, then we know what is to be as it is. We then train in this, in the state of original wakefulness unspoiled by dualistic fixation.

To recognize self-existing wakefulness is to see things as they are. This is unlike taking a white conch shell to be yellow; there is no way that this is so. When you have jaundice, you see a conch as being yellow. The conch definitely isn’t yellow; it never was, but the gall in the body makes your eye yellow, so you see white as yellow, even though it isn’t. This exemplifies confusion, the mistakenness of sentient beings. We don’t see things as they really are.

Since I and all other sentient beings are buddhas from the very beginning, I resolve to attain supreme enlightenment by the power of recognizing this to be as it is, by the ultimate bodhichitta. This is the way of acknowledging the all-encompassing purity of all that appears and exists. All-encompassing purity abides within us.

According to the Dzogchen teachings, the state of primordial enlightenment has never been confused. The basic state of buddhas is like pure gold that is not covered by any dirt. Dirt is an example of the confused thinking that temporarily takes place. If the gold always remains pure, there is no cleaning to be done and there is no achievement of purity, because it already is like that from the beginning. The state of primordial enlightenment is analogous, because self-existing wakefulness was never confused. If there is no being confused, how can we use the phrase being liberated? It is impossible, because liberation is totally dependent upon having been confused. Since the awakened state of the buddhas is not confused, you cannot really say that buddhas become liberated either. We can clear up confusion because we’ve been mistaken. Unless there is confusion, it is not possible to be liberated.

We sentient beings have the same self-existing wakefulness as the buddhas. There is no difference whatsoever in our natures. However, the self-existing wakefulness of the buddhas, all the infinite qualities, never became confused, like the gold that never became tainted. Even though we possess the same gold, ours fell in the dirt. Not knowing this dirty gold to be intrinsically pure, we fell under the power of confused thinking. This is what obscured us: our thinking. The gold of the buddhas was known to be what it is. Buddhas do not have discursive thinking. It won’t help us sentient beings to act as if we were primordially pure gold, if we have already become confused and are now unaware of our own nature. It doesn’t become true. We have to apply the practice we have, of first recognizing the view, then training in meditation, and acting in accordance with that as the conduct—thus realizing it fully as fruition. This practice is like the special chemicals that clean away dirt from gold. In other words, view, meditation, and conduct remove the confusion.

In recognizing our nature, the confusion is liberated. For buddhas, neither the words confusion nor liberation apply. The word confusion connotes “bewilderment, being mistaken, deluded.” Confusion is nothing other than the expression of rigpa that has moved in a mistaken way. As long as you are confusing yourself by your awareness being extroverted, nobody else can ever solve that. There is only you, right? Otherwise, confusion goes on and on. That is exactly what samsara is, confusion going on and on. Even though we sentient beings are buddhas, we are like the dirt-encrusted gold; we don’t recognize the gold for what it is, due to deluded thinking. In our basic essence, there is no thinking; the essence is wakefulness that is pure from the beginning. By recognizing your buddha-nature, the three kayas become an actuality.

The empty essence is dharmakaya, and the cognizant nature is sambhogakaya—awareness and the expression of awareness. We need to allow the expression of awareness, of rigpa, to be liberated. It is said that nirmanakaya recognizes sambhogakaya, which in turn recognizes dharmakaya. In awareness itself, there is neither the word liberation nor confusion. It is the expression that has fallen into conceptualizing. If the expression of rigpa recognizes itself, it dawns as knowledge, sherab. This is not the ordinary knowledge that is the outcome of learning, reflecting, and meditating. It is the real prajnaparamita, “transcendent knowledge,” the expression of awareness recognizing itself. In that moment, the expression of awareness dissolves back into awareness, and there is only the state of rigpa, which is identical to the state of primordial enlightenment of all buddhas, the state that never strayed from itself.

A famous and important quotation describes this, “When the expression moves as thinking, it is confused. When the expression dawns as knowledge, it is liberated.” That doesn’t mean there was ever any difference in the state of the essence, rigpa. The state of rigpa, buddha-nature itself, is never confused and never liberated. The confusion and liberation can only take place in the expression.

The state of original enlightenment is the essence itself, where there is no confusion and no liberation. The state of sentient beings is to be constantly absorbed in confused thinking. It is the expression, the thinking that can be liberated again. Yet, all the time, the essence was never different from that of any other buddha. That is the important point: recognize your own essence. That is also the key point in the first samadhi of suchness. Real development stage practice is not possible without the samadhi of suchness, and this suchness is not recognized without first having the nature of mind pointed out.