Praxis Thinking

from “Tara’s Enlightened Activity”
by Khenchen Palden Sherab
Part One “Nobel Lady Tara in Tibetan Buddhist Life“
subsection “Understanding Tara at the Ultimate Level” excerpts herein

Emanations 

TARA AS THE ULTIMATE MOTHER

At all levels, from the Hinayana up through the Vajrayana, Buddha Shakyamuni used the language of the Great Mother to explain the ultimate true nature. In fact, at their core, all the teachings of the buddhas are none other than explanations of the nature of the Mother. She is given several different titles, such as Mother of all the Buddhas and Mother of all Samsara and Nirvana.

The ultimate nature is correctly described as our true Mother because she is that which gives birth to and develops our own enlightened mind. For a long time our obscured minds have been distanced from our original nature. Therefore, we wander in samsara lost and confused.

Buddha is the one who really points out the way back home and reintroduces us to our own true Mother. 

Until now we have been distracted and separated from the recognition of absolute reality, the Mother true nature.

Throughout the sutras and tantras of the Mahayana Prajnaparamita and the Dzogchen, the Buddha taught that we must reconnect ourselves with this Mother. In her ultimate state she is none other than the tathagatagarbha [‘Buddha nature’ (Tib. kham / rig)].

THE MOTHER’S INFINITE EMANATIONS

Joy, peace, and enlightenment will come when we reconnect ourselves with our true nature. To provide the opportunity for beings to do this, the Mother herself has emanated in many different sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya forms.

The specific practice we are discussing is called the Twenty-one Praises to Tara. Here we see twenty-one different Taras, with different names, colors, and so forth… The number twenty-one has specific symbolic meanings. At the basic level the Buddha taught twenty-one techniques with which we may work to attain enlightenment.

According to the Mahayana sutra system, as we practice we traverse the ten different levels, or bhumis, eventually reaching the enlightened state. The basis for our enlightenment is right where we find ourselves now, with the precious endowment of our own human body and our own buddha-nature.

Vajrayana, or tantra, is similar to the sutra system, but its methods are more specifically targeted. According to tantric teaching, within this human body we have twenty-one different knots. These are in pairs and they obstruct or block our channels. Through practice, as we release each of these pairs of knots, we obtain a specific experience or realization. After we have released all of the twenty-one knots, we are known as enlightened beings, having attained buddhahood.

Of course, buddhahood is not some force that is outside us, waiting for the knots to be untied in order to come in. From basic Buddhism all the way to Dzogchen, it is made perfectly clear that buddhahood is an innate state, already within us. Our inherently awakened state is an already enlightened being, a buddha, the tathagatagarbha. When we release those twenty-one knots, we attain the ultimate awakening known as the dharmakaya state.

The dharmakaya, in turn, has twenty-one spontaneously inherent qualities. They transcend duality, the compounded state, permanence and impermanence, and effort or striving. Unceasingly they arise as necessary for the benefit of all sentient beings. These twenty-one active dharmakaya qualities appear as the twenty-one emanations of Tara. 

Thus Tara combines all the active energies of the three kayas by which we release our own knots and those of other beings, the energy by which we achieve enlightenment and help other beings to achieve it.

TARA AND THE WISDOM DAKINI

As the embodiment of enlightened energy, Tara is inseparable from the wisdom dakini [ ‘Sky-goer’ (Skt. ḍākinī; Tib. khandroma)]… An expanded meaning of dikini would be “the activity of love and compassion, full of strength, moving freely in the wisdom space. 

As we turn our attention to the wisdom dakini nature of Tara, this will bring us into a consideration of the deep meaning of the true nature of our minds and of reality. When we begin to study and practice and we start looking beyond externals to internal levels, we know intellectually there will be much to discover. Initially we can’t penetrate deeper levels very well because our present consciousness and senses are deluded by habitual patterns of conceptual and dualistic thinking.

No matter how carefully and openly we try to look and think about things, our view is always partial, limited. That’s just how our mental habits have developed. Of course, what we’re able to see now, limited though it is, seems to fulfill our everyday needs so we don’t think there’s anything wrong with it.

But then, inspired by the teachings, we do try to look deeper. At first we find we’re unable to perceive any reality beyond our habitual pattern, even though we have adequate eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mental capacities. The perceptions of our six senses are trapped by our old attitudes of partiality and limitation. We’re always setting up rules and mental boundaries. Once we start to take note, we’ll see that we entrap ourselves in every direction with a web of concepts. Skillful and determined practice is needed in order to break the pattern and see beyond. Once that happens, our wisdom mind sees the true nature of reality as vastness from which arises an unceasing display of dynamic forms called the display of the mandala of the wisdom dakinis.

That’s why the great masters teach about developing the openness state symbolized by the dakin’s third eye. Her third eye, or wisdom mind, sees beyond duality. For the wisdom mind there are no boundaries or limitations. For example, an individual with the realization of the wisdom mind makes no distinction between past, present, and future. All are seen in one instant.

Our wisdom must be developed inwardly; it has nothing to do with external conditions. Our dualistic minds have also developed inwardly; we are internally obscured. The mind’s true nature is always buddha-nature and its experience is perfect joy and peace.

This understanding will develop according to our stage of realization. To the extent that we cleanse our minds of habitual patterns, we become more able to see the clear image of absolute truth. …As we gradually clear out our internal habitual patterns, our understanding becomes clear.

Realizations come only if we practice joyfully, with confidence and courage. Realization doesn’t grow within a timid or weak state of mind — it blossoms in the mind free of doubt and hesitation. Realization is fearless. When we see the true nature of reality, there’s nothing hidden, nothing left to fear. At last we’re seeing reality as it is, full of joy and peace.

Our habitual patterns can only be removed by understanding the great emptiness aspect of true nature, that which is named the Mother of all the buddhas. Emptiness is freedom; emptiness is great opportunity. It is pervasive and all phenomena arise from it. As the great master Jigme Lingpa said, “The entire universe is the mandala of the dakini.” The Mother’s mandala is all phenomena, the display of the wisdom dakini.

Without this ultimate great emptiness, the Mother of the buddhas, the universe would be without movement, development, or change.

Because of this great emptiness state of the Mother, we see phenomena continually arising. Each display arises, transforms, and radiates, fulfilling its purpose and then dissolving back into its original state. This dramatic dance of energy is the activity, ability, or mandala of the wisdom dakini. Thus, the combination of the great emptiness or openness state, together with the activities of love and compassion, is both the ultimate Mother and the ultimate wisdom dakini.

This ultimate nature of reality is not separate from the nature of the mind. We should not disconnect them. When we look into our own mind, we see that it’s also based on this great emptiness wisdom state.

We won’t find anything substantially existing because this Mother is beyond conceptions and habit patterns. Yet our thoughts and conceptions, which are mental phenomena, continually arise from the mind’s true nature, each thought fulfilling its own purpose, then dissolving back into the original state. There are no solid entities at all, just an unceasing display of dynamic form; as it is called for, it appears. That is how mind is the display of the mandala of the wisdom dakinis.

Try not to spoil this arising energy of love and compassion of the wisdom dakini with ego-clinging. Ego is duality; ego-clinging or grasping is an obscuration that disturbs the radiating energy of the wisdom dakini. It also disturbs our practice, so we must try to release it, or at least ease it, by developing more love, compassion, and openness. This is the essence of Dzogchen and of the Buddhadharma.

DEEPENING OUR UNDERSTANDING OF EMPTINESS

[Emptiness] is a state full of freedom and opportunity. It is the pervasive nature of every external and internal sense object and the source of every outer and inner display. As the Heart Sutra says, “Emptiness is form; form is emptiness. Emptiness is none other than form; form is none other than emptiness.” Furthermore, emptiness is the source of our minds. Mind resides totally within this great emptiness state. Try as we might, we cannot grasp our own mind. That is as useless as grasping at the sky.

From “Words of My Perfect Teacher”
Part Two “The Extraordinary Or Inner Preliminaries”
Chapter One “Taking refuge, the foundation stone of all paths”
by Patrul Rinpoche.
Herein excerpt from  subsection II. “How to Take Refuge”

According to the Basic Vehicle, one takes refuge in the Buddha as the teacher, in the Dharma as the path, and in the Sangha as companions along the way.

The general method of the extraordinary Secret Mantra Vehicle is to take refuge by offering body, speech and mind to the teacher, taking the yidams as support and the dakinis as companions.

The special, sublime method of the Vajra Essence is to take refuge in the rapid path whereby one uses the channels as the nirmanakãya, trains the energies as the sambhogakaya and purifies the essences as the dharmakaya.

The ultimate and infallible refuge in the indestructible natural state is based on the primal wisdom inherent in the refuge. That wisdom’s essential nature is emptiness; its natural expression is clarity; and its compassion is all-pervasive.” Taking refuge here means to realize in one’s own mindstream, with total confidence, the great inseparability of these three aspects of primal wisdom.

Having gained a clear understanding of all these ways in which refuge should be taken, we now go on to the actual practice of taking refuge.

First, visualize the field of merit in the presence of which you will take refuge.

Consider that the place where you are is all a Buddhafield, beautiful and pleasant, made of all sorts of precious substances. The ground is as smooth as the surface of a mirror, without any hills, valleys or irregularities. In the middle, in front of you, grows a wish-fulfilling tree with five great branches spreading from its trunk. Its perfect leaves, flowers and fruit stretch so far to the east, south, west and north that they fill the entire sky, and every branch and twig is hung with a multitude of entrancing jewels and bells of many kinds.

On the central branch is a jewelled throne upheld by eight great lions. Seated upon the throne, on a seat consisting of a multi-coloured lotus, a sun and a moon, is your own glorious root teacher, incomparable source of compassion, embodiment of all past, present and future Buddhas, appearing in the form of the great Vajradhara of Oddiyana. His body is of a compelling white colour with a rosy gleam. He has one face, two arms and two legs and is seated in the royal posture. In his right hand he holds a golden five-pronged vajra with the threatening gesture. In his left hand, which rests in the gesture of meditation, he holds a skull-cup containing a vase filled with the ambrosia of deathless wisdom. The lid of the vase is topped by a wish-fulfilling tree. He wears a brocade cloak, monastic robes and a long sleeved blue tunic, and on his head the lotus hat. Seated in union with him is his consort, the white däkini Yeshe Tsogyal, holding a hooked knife and a skull cup.

Visualize him like this in the space before you, facing toward you. Above his head are all the lamas of the lineage, seated one above the other, each not quite touching the one below. The teachers of the general tantra transmission are innumerable, but here we visualize particularly the main figures of the Heart-essence lineage of the Great Perfection: Samantabhadra, the dharmakaya; Vajrasattva, the sambhogakaya; Garab Dorje, the nirmanakäya; the master Mañjusrimitra; Guru Sri Simha; the learned Janasûtra; the great pandita, Vimalamitra; Padmasambhava of Oddiyana and his three closest disciples, the King, Subject and Consort – the Dharma king Trisongdetsen, the great translator Vairotsana and the däkini Yeshe Tsogyal; the omniscient Longchen Rabjampa; and Rigdzin Jigme Lingpa. Each of them should be visualized with their own particular ornaments and attributes. They are all surrounded by an inconceivable multitude of yidam deities of the four sections of tantra and by dakas and dakinis.

On the front branch is the Buddha, the Conqueror Sakyamuni, surrounded by the thousand and two perfect Buddhas of this Good Kalpa as well as all the other Buddhas of the past, present and future and of the ten directions. All of them are in the supreme nirmanakya form, garbed in monastic robes, bearing all the thirty-two major marks of Buddhahood – the crown protuberance, the wheels marked on the soles of the feet and so on – and the eighty minor signs. They are seated in the vajra posture. Some are white, some yellow, some red, some green and some blue. Inconceivable rays of light stream forth from their bodies.

On the right-hand branch visualize the eight great Close Sons, headed by the Bodhisattva Protectors of the Three Families – Mañjusri, Vajrapani and Avalokitesvara – and surrounded by the whole noble sangha of Bodhisattvas. They are white, yellow, red, green and blue. They all wear the thirteen ornaments of the sambhogakaya, and are standing with both feet together.

On the left-hand branch visualize the two principal sravakas, Sariputra and Maudgalyayana, surrounded by the noble sangha of sravakas and pratyekabuddhas. All are white in colour, and dressed in the three monastic robes. They too are standing, holding their staffs and alms-bowls in their hands.

On the rear branch visualize the Jewel of the Dharma in the form of piles of books. Topmost of them, encased in a attice of lights, are the six million tour hundred thousand tantras of the Great Pertection, the label of each volume facing towards you. All these books appear very clearly and distinctly, and resonate with the spontaneous melody of the vowels and consonants.

Between the branches are all the glorious Dharma-protectors, both the wisdom protectors and the protectors constrained by the effect of their past actions. The male protectors all face outwards; their activity is to prevent outer obstacles from coming in, protecting us from hindrances and conditions unfavourable to practising the Dharma and attaining enlightenment. The female protectors all face inwards; their activity is to keep inner accomplishments from leaking out.

Think of all these figures of refuge, with their immeasurable qualities of knowledge, love and power, leading you as your only great guide.

Imagine that your father in this lifetime is with you on your right and your mother on your left. In front of you, gathered together in an immense crowd covering the surface of the earth, are all beings of the three worlds and the six realms of existence, the first row consisting of all adversaries who detest you and all obstacle makers who harm you, All these beings with you are standing up, with the palms of their hands joined. Expressing respect with your body, do prostrations. Expressing respect with your speech, recite the refuge-prayer. Expressing respect with your mind, cultivate the following thought:

“O Teacher and Three Jewels, whatever happens to me, favourable or unfavourable, pleasant or painful, good or bad, whatever sickness and suffering befall me, I have no other refuge nor protection than you. You are my only protector, my only guide, my only shelter and my only hope. From now on until I reach the very heart of enlightenment, I place all my trust and faith in you. I shall neither seek my father’s counsel, nor ask my mother’s advice, nor decide on my own. It is you, my teacher and the Three Jewels, that I take as my support. It is to you that I make my offerings. I pledge myself to you alone. I have no other refuge, no other hope than you!”

With this burning conviction, recite the following text:

In the Sugatas of the Three Roots, the true Three Jewels,

In the bodhicitta, nature of the channels, energies and essences

And in the mandala of essential nature, natural expression and compassion, I take refuge until I reach the heart of enlightenment.

When the time comes to conclude the session, visualize that your yearning devotion causes innumerable rays of light to stream out from the refuge deities. The rays touch you and all sentient beings, and, like a flock of birds scattered by a slingstone, you all fly up with a whirring sound and dissolve into the assembly of deities.

Then the surrounding deities melt into light, from the outside inwards, and dissolve into the teacher in the centre, embodiment of the three refuges. All the deities above the teacher’s head also dissolve into him.

The teacher then dissolves and vanishes into light. Rest for as long as you can in the primordial state free from all elaboration, the dharmakäya, without any movement of thought.

As you arise from this meditation, dedicate the merit to the infinity of beings with these words:

Through the merit of this practice,

May I swiftly accomplish the Three Jewels

And establish every single being, Without exception, on their level.

Remember the deities of the refuge constantly, in all situations. When you walk, visualize them in space above your right shoulder and imagine that you are circumambulating them. When you sit, visualize them above your head as the support of your prayers. When you eat, visualize them in your throat and offer them the first part of your food or drink. When you sleep, visualize them in your heart centre. This practice is essential to dissolve delusions into clear light.

Whatever you are doing, never separate from a clear mental image of the refuge deities. Entrust yourself with total confidence to the Three Jewels and devote yourself entirely to taking refuge.

It is impossible to attain the twofold purity of Buddhahood or to realize fully the truth of emptiness without completing the two accumulations of merit and wisdom.

The Conqueror, in his great compassion and with all his skill in means, taught innumerable methods by which the two accumulations can be performed. The best of all these methods is the offering of the mandala.

In this tradition, when making such an offering, we use two separate mandalas: the accomplishment mandala and the offering mandala.

The Accomplishment Mandala
We make offerings in the presence of the accomplishment mandala, which is used rather as one might use a statue of the Buddha. It symbolizes the perfect Buddhafield of the five Buddhas which represent the five wisdoms. As it is these five wisdoms which we wish to accomplish, this mandala is called the accomplishment mandala.

Begin by arranging five [offering] piles on the accomplishment mandala. 

The [centre] heap represents Vairochana surrounded by his retinue of many deities of the Buddha lineage.

A second heap in the east (meaning towards yourself) represents Akshobhya and his retinue of deities in the Vajra lineage. 

To the  south of Vairochana place a third pile of rice representing Ratnasambhava surrounded by deities of the Jewel lineage.

A fourth [offering] behind [the west] Vairochana symbolizes Amitabha and his retinue of the Lotus lineage.

A fifth on Vairochana’s left [the north] represents Amoghasiddhi with his retinue of the Karma lineage.

Another possibility is to visualize the field of merit as in the refuge practice. The central pile would then represent the Great Master of Oddiyana, inseparable from your own root teacher, with all the teachers of the Great Perfection lineage above him, arranged in order, one above the other. The front pile would represent the Buddha Sakyamuni, surrounded by the thousand and two Buddhas of this Good Kalpa. The pile on the right would represent his eight great Close Sons surrounded by the noble sangha of Bodhisattvas, and the pile on the left would represent the Two Principal Srävakas, surrounded by the noble sangha of Sravakas and Prayekabuddhas. The pile at the back would be the Jewel of the Dharma, in the form of stacked-up books encased in a lattice of light rays.

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In Sanskrit, manda means “essence” or “quintessence” while la means to “hold” or “uphold.” Thus, the word means “the ground that holds essential qualities. Alternatively, if one takes the word as a whole and directly translates it, it means “completely round” or “full circle.” For this reason, it is called kyilkhor (“center and circle”) in Tibetan, referring to a chief figure surrounded by a retinue, or the Transcendent Conqueror Dharma King, along with his retinue and palace. Hence, in this context, a mandala is the ground that upholds supreme qualities and appears as the embodiment of the completely pure support and supported.

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Continue reading “Visualizing the Accomplishment Mandala”