Am I a vajrayana practitioner?

Or are you a vajrayana practitioner?

Is it a question of rites and rituals and pictures and mantras? Or is it something deeper?

Empowerment card showing a vajra

 

Words or phrases you might want to look up:

• Vajrayana
• Samaya
• Dorje Sempa
• Tsog (or tsok)
• Guru Rinpoche
• Dakini

 

#Buddhism #Vajrayana #DoubleDorje #Samaya

Episode Transcript

(00:11):
Hello and welcome whoever you are to the Double Dorje podcast. I'm Alex Wilding and today I want to kick around some ideas concerned with the question of what it really is to be a vajrayana practitioner.
Briefly, a reminder, if you please would, to press the appropriate buttons. The like button, subscribe button, whatever it is. And it would be specially great if you like this podcast if you would share it with your friends. Also, there's nearly always a bit of extra material such as words to look up

(00:47):
which you can find on Podbean where this episode is first hosted, if it doesn't appear on the platform that you usually use.
I was prompted to think about this question because I was recently accused of not being a real vejriana practitioner at all. In fact, this happened twice. In both cases, the accusation was made because I don't buy into the myths surrounding a certain lama who had a very high profile in the West a few decades ago.

(01:20):
Interestingly, although this was certainly annoying, I didn't actually find it hurtful.
I have a general suspicion that when we are criticised about something and we don't really accept the criticism, but we feel hurt by it, that's often because deep down we have a slight suspicion that there is at least a bit of truth in it.

(01:43):
I don't know if that's the way it is for you, but it certainly is for me. Anyway, in this recent case, the accusations were so laughable, based on totally made-up stories and made with such anger that they didn't cut deeply at all.
All the same, it did raise the question of just what a vajrayana practitioner actually is. Am I one? Are you one? And does it matter?

(02:13):
A huge amount of stuff is done in the name of vajrayana, the empowerments, the preliminaries, the great ceremonies, the accumulations of mantras, the retreats, the practices on certain days of the month or year, the physical yogas.
And more.
On the formal side, the question is perhaps not so very hard to answer.

(02:35):
A vajrayana practitioner has to have begun with a foundation in refuge and bodhisattva vows.
They will have received empowerments.
To put things beyond any doubt, the practitioner needs at some stage to have received what we call a high tantric empowerment from an authorised Lana and to have received it live in circumstances where the lama knows who the empowerment is being given to.

(03:03):
So I wouldn't really want to count those mass empowerments that are given more as a blessing than as a key step on the spiritual path. I don't necessarily mean to knock those mass empowerments, but I would
like to question how deep their value goes.
Our would-be practitioner will have received the reading transmission - that's what we call the lung - for the practices concerned, along with the full instructions for that practice and will have accumulated a probably large number of mantra recitations.

(03:38):
In the course of a full scale tantric empowerment, they will have received the Tantric vows. The list of these vows vary slightly, so the practitioner must get clear about how they are to be understood in the particular
tradition that they are practising.
When looked at closely, it turns out that there aren't just the main 14 vows which you may relatively easily hear of.

(04:03):
Vast numbers of subsidiary vows are spoken of in the commentaries. This means that it's extraordinarily difficult to keep all of the tantric vows, so the practitioner will also regularly be doing purification practices to make up for not having kept the vows.
These will include confession, prayers, reciting things like the Dorje Sempa mantra.

(04:26):
And regular tsok practices. I said a tiny bit about those tsok practices in episode 23.
One of the main purposes of tsok is to repair broken vows.
In the Nyingma tradition, the most important date for tsok practice is the 10th day of the lunar month, which is dedicated to Guru Rinpoche, followed closely in importance by the 25th day, which is dedicated to the dakinis about whom I said a bit in episode 26.

(04:59):
All this means that it is a relatively straightforward matter to check whether somebody's outer performance is what is expected of a vajrayana practitioner. We can check ourselves in that way quite easily.
If somebody is doing all of that, there can't really be much of an argument about whether they are a practitioner.

(05:23):
Superficially at least.
But if we jump through all these hoops, are we nevertheless just going through the motions?
This, obviously enough is a problem that's by no means confined to Buddhism. We can do all the study and the outer performances, and wow, we do have a lot of that in this style of Buddhism, but still do all that without

(05:51):
truly engaging at a deep level. At the level that might in our system be called the inner or even secret level.
It's quite possible to use some mantras just as magical spells, and with enough effort and faith they may very well work.
Indeed, it's true that a traditional nagpa - mantra practitioner - would be expected to apply their mantric power to tasks like healing, averting hailstorms, protecting from the attacks of demons, finding lost objects, repelling enemies, increasing wealth, extending life, and so on.

(06:29):
These are the stock in trade of magicians in many societies.
Some people might look down on that activity calling it impure, but if for the moment we can assume that the work is effective, I can't see any ethical difference between that and the work of a doctor, a meteorologist, a financial advisor

(06:52):
in modern settings.
Nevertheless, if we know anything about the mantra vehicle, the tantra vehicle, the vajra vehicle, or any of its other names, then we know that there is a proper tantric use of mantras when inner and outer are not separate.
In that practice, every hand gesture, every syllable, indeed every breath, has an effect and plays its part in a sacred space in which the mantra is the sound of sacred speech.

(07:24):
This is said to be a very subtle understanding. You might say an advanced one and difficult to grasp. But that doesn't mean that we can't start. I don't think we need to put tantric practice on such a high pedestal that we don't even consider ourselves
capable of relating to it properly at all.
We can begin, of course, with the relatively gentle mantras of Chenrezi or Tara, with their relatively simple requirements by way of commitment. But in due course, the connection can and probably will deepen, and that makes it more complicated, I can assure you.

(08:01):
So the formalities of vajrayana practice are important, but they're not by any means the whole story.
At the other extreme, we can look at this thing very, very deeply indeed. My teacher has told me that when the five poisons arise as the five wisdoms, then the practitioner is a real ngagpa, a real mantra practitioner.

(08:27):
These fives, by the way, 5 poisons wisdoms, 5 directions, colours, Buddhas, dakinis and so on, they are an important idea, an important scheme in vejragana literature
and liturgy.
Maybe I'll talk about them a bit in another episode, but the point here is that the general principle that if, for example, anger, which is clearly a dangerous and potentially poisonous thing, arises not as something harmful

(08:57):
but as something that allows us to see things with unusual clarity
- then we may be on this track.
I must, however admit that while I do treasure that teaching, and I find it inspiring and something that sets a direction for me, these things are so personal that they are hard to use as any kind of yardstick.

(09:25):
Maybe we can discuss them with a very trusted teacher, but they're hard to check on, even in terms of what's going on in our own minds, let alone judging other people in that light.
Luckily, the tradition itself has something to say about this, so I know I want to introduce the all singing all dancing term samaya. In Tibetan, that's something like damtsig, and it's often translated as sacred bond or as commitment.

(09:57):
What a subject this is.
Samaya is often said to be the heart, the very lifeblood, of the tantric path. It refers to our commitment to the vision of ourselves,
experience of ourselves, as enlightened Buddhists, as is introduced through the Lama's empowerment.
In this process, the Lama is seen as the Buddha.

(10:20):
He, or occasionally, but pleasingly, she, opens the channel to whatever form the Buddha appears in the practice concerned. A big part of our samaya is to treasure, respect and keep faith with the lama as the representative of the Buddha,
through all the teachers and yogis and scholars and practitioners of the lineage that stand behind him or her.

(10:46):
The 14 vows that I mentioned a few minutes ago are very much concerned with this aspect.
Does this mean that we have to always view our personal Lana as perfect in every respect and every one of their actions as enlightened activity? Some people do treat it like that, or at least try to. But even without going into detail,

(11:08):
my guess is that any listener will already have seen that this can lead to real problems.
Frankly though, I don't quite understand why we westerners should find it so difficult. We have, after all, something parallel, in many ways quite different,but in other ways quite close, in our homegrown Western culture.

(11:30):
What am I talking about? I'm talking about love, including romantic, fairy-tale love. A young person might truly believe that the object of their love is truly divinely perfect in every way.
But people aren't perfect, so it's impossible for that state to last.

(11:52):
If the love is real, this attitude will have to change. In real love, I suggest, the lovers see each other as extraordinary, worthy of love, even as they recognise each other's physical, emotional, and other faults.
Where would Hollywood be without stories of love for imperfect partners?

(12:17):
So here is one of the first ways that so-called samaya can go wrong. If we're criticising our lama and harping on their faults or mistakes, gossiping to others about it, then this truly is a breach of samaya.
Yet pretending that everything they say or do is literally perfect is a recipe for trouble. For the practitioner, this is going to lead to cognitive dissonance where they try to think two

(12:47):
incompatible things at the same time.
And for the lama, it paves the way to potential abuse.
The word is also used in a lightweight sense. For instance, you might hear people saying something like oh, I have a samaya to say mantra XXX at least 108 times a day.

(13:09):
Nothing wrong with that. It's part of the range of meanings that the word samaya has these days, and I don't call it a misuse of the word. It's simply using it in the sense of commitment or promise.
There is, however, another quite serious misuse of the word as an argumentative ploy. In this case it often turns up as an attempt to coerce agreement with a certain point of view. One of the problems with Tibetan culture

(13:41):
is the unwillingness to criticise anybody who has a higher social or religious status than the speaker, or even has a religious status at all.
All so when, as sadly has happened on more than a few occasions, a lama is behaving badly or abusively, that lama's followers will often try - because they don't want to think badly of the lama -

(14:07):
to obtain some kind of approval from someone higher up in the in the hierarchy.
Tibetans, being Tibetans, this is often easier to get than many of us might expect, because nobody likes to speak ill of someone of someone with religious status.
If that approval can be found, then the way is open for an argument that takes the following structure.

(14:35):
One. You have criticised my Lama. Two. But the greatly respected So-and-So has said that my lama is OK.
Three. So-and-So, what is more, is directly or indirectly a lama of your lama.
So, four, you must therefore not criticise my lama, otherwise you are breaking samaya, and if you break samaya you are bound for hell. You are not really a vajrayana practitioner at all. You don't know what you're talking about, and you clearly don't get the vajrayana in any case.

(15:15):
You are in fact a horrible person with whom I do not want to associate.
Well, you might think that's a caricature, but sadly it's not. Or if it is, not by a very large margin. So when somebody starts talking about samaya as they try to convince you to see things in a different light, in particular to ignore what appear to be abuses being carried out by some lama,

(15:39):
just do, please, please, be cautious. Abusing the concept to enforce omerta about a lama's behaviour is in fact corrosive to the flourishing of the dharma in the West.
It is a word to be taken with caution.

(16:01):
The main point I want to take from this is that this sacred bond is indeed the life force of the tantric path. Feeling that you have a samaya commitment, for example, to perform certain practices or prayers every day is a good thing.
Although it's not the full measure. The word does mean quite a lot more.

(16:22):
Let's try to remember what samaya really is or should be, and therefore what a real vajrayana practitioner is beyond the regular, daily, monthly, or whatever performance of whatever formal commitments there are.
Have you, or have I, if only obscurely, glimpsed the vision of our own mind as the Buddha?

(16:45):
Are you committed to cultivating that vision through the methods you are being taught?
Are you committed to the blissful realisation that the guru wants for you, so becoming a refuge for all beings?
In that case you are a vajrayana practitioner, a ngagpa.
Finally, then do please take a moment to like, subscribe, tell your friends and all that stuff, and remember, what is the one thing that puts Buddhahood in the palm of your hand?

(17:20):
It is great compassion.
Bye.