Even people who had not met the Dharma felt that Lama was different from ordinary people. When they met Lama, they sensed very particular qualities of purity and holiness; they felt not only that he was learned but also that he had a deep spiritual quality.
Even when Lama was showing the aspect of serious illness, he would suddenly look so bright and magnificent that you could almost think that he had no sickness at all. Out of his great compassion, Lama manifested various aspects as needed to subdue different sentient beings.
The actual essence of Lama’s holy mind was great compassion, just as it is with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Lama was filled with great compassion, cherishing other sentient beings. You can understand Lama’s great loving kindness from the way he took care of his students like babies. He was more than a mother, more than a father. Not only did he give teachings to his students, but he constantly encouraged them in their Dharma practice and helped them to solve their problems. Like a father, he would listen to all their problems and then give them personal advice as well as teachings. He wrote many letters each day, late at night, to give advice to students. Even though he had so many other things to do, Lama gave so much of his time and his life to solving the problems of his students and their families. Lama would mix with people, entertaining them in whatever way made them happy and dissolving the tightness in their hearts. To make people happy he would go to the beach or to a restaurant. Because he did these things only to benefit others, they became causes for developing his own mind and realizations. Lama told me that the whole point is to transform every action you do — eating, drinking, sleeping — into Dharma, so that your life becomes meaningful. Lama used to say that some beings even use their breathing to benefit others.
Because of the unbearable compassion he felt for his students, Lama tried to live as long as possible to guide his students and help them make their lives meaningful. While he was alive, he dedicated all his time and energy to others, day and night. Lama was able to live even when physically the situation seemed to be hopeless because of the power of his great bodhicitta, his strong will, and his tantric realizations. Another of Lama’s particular powers was the great scope of his vision; he had the ability to make huge plans to benefit the teachings and sentient beings. Many people could not comprehend the scale of these works and felt that the projects were too difficult to accomplish. When Lama’s plans were actualized, however, they proved to be highly beneficial for those who had carried them out as well as for many other sentient beings. Such great works showed the qualities of Lama’s holy mind: his great compassion, great will, capability, and understanding.
When Gen Jampa Wangdu came to see Lama at Tushita Retreat Centre in Dharamsala, they often teased each other. Lama always put down ascetic monks, saying that even though they might physically be living on high mountains, their minds were clinging to worldly things. Lama would then say, “Oh, the whole world comes to me. I have everything and I enjoy it.” Gen Jampa Wangdu used to say, “Training the mind in the three principal paths is ancient talk.” This meant that he had completed the realizations a long time ago. Lama would then reply, “Oh, I realized emptiness ages ago, when I was debating on Madhyamaka in the courtyard at Sera Je.” Lama said that he realized emptiness when he was a young monk in Tibet.
One of Lama’s special qualities was that he never showed others that he was a great practitioner. Even to those close to him Lama did not show the external appearance of meditating. You never saw Lama sitting cross-legged in meditation posture for very long. He was either very active or relaxing. Lama, however, practiced very skillfully. Like Shantideva, he was a great hidden yogi. When Shantideva was at Nalanda, the other monks in the monastery thought that he spent his whole time doing only three things: eating, sleeping, and defecating. They did not think that Shantideva did any Dharma practice.
Once a practitioner has realizations, since the continuity of the experience needs to be maintained by meditating every day, even a few minutes of meditation becomes extremely precious.
Once in Dharamsala, when I had lung, or wind disease, Lama told me, “With achievement of bliss and voidness, there is no wind disease. There is no place for tightness if you have bliss in your heart.” I think Lama was talking from his own experience. Great meditators, even when dealing with problems, experience no depression themselves because of their tantric realizations. I think Lama’s realization of bliss and voidness overwhelmed the many problems he had to deal with in relation to the Dharma Centers and students. He was never depressed and was always very happy.
Lama seemed to be able to read various texts in different rooms at the same time. When Lama was in retreat at Tushita Retreat Centre, for instance, he would have one text open in the retreat room, another open in the outer room, and yet another text open outside in the greenhouse. This reminded me of the stories His Holiness Zong Rinpoche told about meditators who had achieved the illusory body. While they were sleeping at night, they would use their subtle body to read and memorize many scriptures at the same time. I thought that Lama was able to read so many texts in such a short time because he did it at night with the illusory body.
Editors’ Preface
The Bliss of Inner Fire combines the last two major teachings given by Lama Thubten Yeshe (1935–84), both commentaries on Lama Je Tsongkhapa’s text Having the Three Convictions, itself a commentary on the Six Yogas of Naropa, a completion stage practice of Highest Yoga Tantra. Lama Yeshe’s first teaching on the Six Yogas was given to 150 students at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, his center near Pomaia in Italy, during a three-week retreat-style course that began in mid-December 1982. In June 1983, Lama taught on the Six Yogas for two weeks to 100 students in another retreat-style course, this time at Vajrapani Institute, his center in northern California.
More than anything else, Lama wanted everybody to “taste” the practice of inner fire. He expected everybody to work hard and maintain a retreat regime. Between the discourses students meditated intensively on the techniques that had been explained, maintained periods of silence, and practiced the physical exercises associated with the practice.
May everyone who reads The Bliss of Inner Fire be inspired to seek a tantric master, enter the supreme tantric path, and quickly achieve enlightenment for the sake of all living beings. As Lama said at the very end of the Vajrapani Institute course, nine months before he passed away, “If I am alive and you are alive, perhaps we will see each other again. The next time we will discuss in detail the illusory body, the dream experience, the clear light experience, transference of consciousness, and consciousness going into another body. These subjects are more profound and sophisticated. You should work now on what we have already covered, and we will pray that at some time we will do the rest of the Six Yogas of Naropa. If we cannot do them next year, we can do them next life.”
Introduction by Jonathan Landaw
Lama Yeshe did not merely study these profound tantric teachings, he put them into practice in extensive meditational retreats and in his daily life. As became clear to many toward the end of his life, his main practice was that of Heruka Chakrasamvara, and he devoted much time and energy to gaining deeper and deeper realizations of this Highest Yoga Tantra. According to his heart-son and disciple, Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, Lama Yeshe wrote privately about his own meditational experiences of both Heruka Chakrasamvara and the Six Yogas of Naropa and would often speak to Lama Zopa about clear light and bliss, the essence of these advanced tantric practices.
So, in a sense, The Bliss of Inner Fire is like a second Introduction to Tantra, opening up the world of Highest Yoga Tantra’s advanced practices the way the earlier work opened up the world of tantra in general.
As the reader will discover, The Bliss of Inner Fire offers detailed instructions on the various phases of inner fire meditation. This emphasis on meditational instruction makes the present work a valuable manual for those interested in engaging in serious and prolonged practice themselves.
To begin with, the ultimate purpose of all Buddhist teachings is to lead others to enlightenment, or Buddhahood.
As already stated, the Mahayana presents two interrelated approaches to this full and complete enlightenment: the more general path of sutra and the esoteric path of tantra.
It is said that for those who do rely on an accomplished tantric master and observe the precepts of tantric practice purely, it is possible to reach the goal of full enlightenment within the space of one short human lifetime, even within a few years.
The subject of emptiness is too vast to go into in any great deal here. Suffice it to say for now that it involves ridding the mind of all falsely conceived, fantasized modes of existence arising from ignorance of the way in which things actually do exist.
As Lama Yeshe declared in Introduction to Tantra, “As long as we are burdened by these misconceptions, we remain trapped in the world of our own projections, condemned to wander forever in the circle of dissatisfaction we have created for ourselves. But if we can uproot these wrong views and banish them completely, we will experience the freedom, space and effortless happiness we presently deny ourselves” (p. 69).
These correspondences are outlined in the accompanying table and the significance of the three Buddha bodies (kaya) can be explained briefly as follows. The attainment of full enlightenment, or Buddhahood, is said to accomplish two purposes: those of oneself and those of others. With enlightenment comes the elimination of all obscurations of the mind, which are created by ignorance and produce suffering, as well as the enhancement of limitless beneficial qualities such as blissful awareness and universal compassion; this perfection of consciousness completely fulfills the practitioner’s own purpose for following the spiritual path. But such an extremely subtle, unobstructed, and fully evolved consciousness — the truth body, or dharmakaya, of a Buddha — can fulfill the needs of others only if it manifests in forms to which those not yet fully enlightened can relate. Therefore, with the compassionate motive to benefit others, there first emerges from the unobstructed sphere of dharmakaya the subtle enjoyment body (sambhogakaya), which only higher bodhisattvas can perceive, and then the grosser emanation body (nirmanakaya), which even ordinary beings can contact. It is through the guidance and inspiration provided by these two form bodies (rupakaya) that the purposes of others are accomplished.
All completion stage practices are directly or indirectly associated with the meditative technique known as inner fire, the main subject matter of this present volume. Through mastery of inner fire, one can gain full conscious control over the vajra body and the ability to bring the mind to its most subtle and penetrating state: the blissful clear light experience. This extraordinarily powerful state of mind is unequaled in its ability to gain direct, penetrative insight into ultimate truth and thereby eliminate all afflictive states of mind.
And finally, at the culmination of the path, one attains the blissful state of unlimited awareness known as full enlightenment, spontaneously and effortlessly fulfilling one’s compassionate intention to work for the welfare of all other beings.
PART ONE The Six Yogas of Naropa
1. Tantra and Inner Fire
In tantra we are dealing with pleasure, not with pain. The person who is qualified to practice tantra is able to cope with pleasure, to experience pleasure without losing control, to utilize it. This is the essential characteristic of the tantric personality. Tantra does not work for people who are miserable, because they have no resource of pleasure to utilize.
Inner fire is the first subject in the set of tantric practices known as the Six Yogas of Naropa. The other five are the yogas of the illusory body; clear light; transference of consciousness; transference into another body; and the intermediate state, or bardo. During this teaching, my main emphasis will be on the yoga of inner fire.
In Tibetan we say that inner fire is lam kyi mang-do, “the foundation stone of the path.” It is fundamental to the realizations of the illusory body and clear light — to the realizations, in fact, of all the advanced completion stage practices of tantra.
Inner fire is tummo in Tibetan, and the literal meaning of tummo is “brave female.” Tum means courage or bravery; mo, used in Tibetan grammar as a female modifier, represents the wisdom of nonduality. Tummo is courageous because it destroys all delusions and superstitions and female because it enables our subtlest level of consciousness to realize simultaneously born great blissful wisdom. This is the essential purpose of tantric practice, and inner fire can help us to achieve it.
Inner fire meditation really suits the Western mind because Westerners like to work with material, with energy. You like to play with it, fix it, change it, manipulate it. With inner fire you are doing exactly that; but the difference is that you are playing with your inner energy, your own pleasure resource.
Also, Westerners like instant satisfaction. It’s what you expect. Well, inner fire gives you this. It is the direct path to enlightenment that you have heard about. It is a very simple process: very practical, very scientific, and very logical. You don’t have to believe that inner fire brings bliss for it to work; you just do the practice and get the results.
With inner fire, you are dealing directly with your own inner reality; you are simply increasing the power of the kundalini and heat energy that you already possess. It is amazingly powerful, like a volcano erupting from within you.
Inner fire is the real chocolate! Whereas you may find it difficult to get results with other meditations, inner fire is a sensitive, quick way to convince yourself that you are progressing. It will surprise you. When you practice it you will think, “What else do I need? This is the only way.” Other practices will seem second-rate.
Inner fire is like the main door leading into a complex of hundreds of treasure houses. All the facilities for magnetizing realizations are there. Since it penetrates the very center of the universe of the body, it is incredibly sensitive in producing realizations. In fact, the superstitious, conceptualizing mind cannot count the realizations brought by inner fire. It is the secret key that opens you to all realizations. Even if you could stay in samadhi meditation twenty-four hours a day for twenty days, Milarepa would say to you, “That means nothing! It does not compare to my inner fire meditation.”
We really need tantra these days because there is a tremendous explosion of delusion and distraction. Good things are happening in our lives, but many bad things are happening too, and we need the atomic energy of inner fire to blast us out of our confusion.
Think, “Now, and for the rest of my life, I will enjoy myself as much as possible and try to create a good situation around me by giving to others the best part of my divine qualities and blissful energy. May this joyful present lead to unsurpassed joyful realizations in the future.”
2. The Six Yogas and the Mahasiddha Naropa
The first is that Lama Tsongkhapa’s descriptions of the meditations are clean-clear and integrated. The second is that although there are many subjects, each is presented so distinctly and clearly that it can be comprehended easily by anyone with discriminating wisdom. The third characteristic is that in order to prove his points, Lama Tsongkhapa quotes many scriptures, both the tantric texts of Shakyamuni Buddha and the treatises of many of the lineage lamas.
Naropa was a well-educated monk and the top professor at the ancient Indian Buddhist university of Nalanda. With a mind like a computer, he had vast knowledge of the sutras and tantras. He was famous as an expert debater and was able to defeat all the non-Buddhist scholars in public encounters.
Nevertheless, Naropa was unhappy and dissatisfied and longed for realization. He thought to himself, “There’s something wrong. I have learned all these intellectual ideas and I can explain absolutely everything about the Buddhadharma, yet I still feel empty and dissatisfied. Something is missing.” Naropa’s guru instructed him to recite one of Heruka’s mantras, oṃ hrīḥ hā hā hūṃ hūṃ phaṭ, until he found a solution to his problem. Naropa recited several million mantras. Then one day, while reciting the mantra, he felt the earth shake. A voice spoke to him from space, “You are still a baby! You have a long way to go. Your knowledge is merely intellectual, and this is not enough. In order to gain real satisfaction you must find Tilopa. He is your special guru.”
So Naropa left the monastery in search of Tilopa. When he eventually found him after months of difficulties, Tilopa was sitting on the ground cooking live fish. He looked more like a madman than a great yogi! Nevertheless, Naropa became Tilopa’s disciple. Year after year Naropa requested his guru for initiation; and year after year Tilopa would get him to perform some outrageous action, always denying him the initiation he so desperately wanted. Naropa struggled like this for twelve years, and twelve times he almost died.
It is good for us to hear this story of Naropa. These days we have no shortage of intellectual information, but I truly believe there is a shortage of fertilization. We collect so much information, but we do very little with it. This is why we have so little success in our spiritual practice.
3. The Mahasiddha Je Tsongkhapa
We Tibetans believe that when you can control the four elements of your own nervous system through inner fire meditation, you can also control the external elements.
Lama Tsongkhapa also had no shortage of telepathic power. For example, he was once staying in a small retreat hut some thirty minutes’ walk from the place where he later advised Sera Monastery be built. Suddenly one day he disappeared, and nobody knew why. Later that same day a delegation from the Emperor of China arrived; the Emperor had heard of Lama Tsongkhapa’s fame and wished to invite him to come to China, but he was nowhere to be found. No one knew the delegation was coming that day, but Lama Tsongkhapa knew, and he escaped over the mountains. This shows Lama Tsongkhapa’s telepathic power, but it is also a good example of his perfect renunciation. He vomited at the thought of worldly pleasure. Can you imagine us in that situation? We would definitely accept the invitation. I can’t even resist an invitation to visit a rich benefactor, let alone an emperor. Although Lama Tsongkhapa was incredibly famous, he never went to distracting places but preferred to stay in isolated places in the mountains. On the other hand, we go to the most confused places, which shows that our renunciation is not yet perfect.
When Lama Tsongkhapa finally died, he died perfectly. First, he put everything in order. Next, he asked one of his disciples to bring him his skullcup. He then performed the inner offering meditation and took thirty-three sips of the inner offering, a sign that inside he was the Guhyasamaja deity. Finally, sitting in meditation in his full robes, he died. These are the actions that distinguish a mahasiddha from an ordinary being. An accomplished master doesn’t have to announce, “I am a mahasiddha.” His actions prove it. Can you imagine being able to die deliberately and clean-clear? When we die, we leave a mess. We should motivate and pray that instead of dying like a cow, we will die as Lama Je Tsongkhapa did. This is our human right. Pray that instead of dying in a depressed, miserable state, you will die blissfully. Make the resolution, “When I die, I will control my emotions and die peacefully, just as Lama Tsongkhapa did.”
4. The Point Is to Practice
Karma means watching your body, watching your mouth, and watching your mind. Trying to keep these three doors as pure as possible is the practice of karma.
Wrong motivation brings pain, disappointment, and extremes in life. Think in this way, “During the rest of my life, it is my responsibility to grow in mindfulness and happiness. Each day I will expand the loving kindness I already have. When I wake up each morning, I will open my wisdom-eye and see more and more deeply into the inner universal reality. I will try to be as mindful as possible. I will take responsibility for my life and dedicate it to others by growing strong in loving kindness and wisdom. I will serve others as much as possible.” Make the determination that this will be your way of life.
PART TWO Preliminary Practices
5. Preparing the Mind
Some Gelug texts say that the most important preliminary is meditation on the three principal paths — renunciation, bodhicitta, and emptiness — and that the other preliminaries are secondary. You might interpret this to mean that you don’t need to do the preliminary sets of prostrations and so forth, but this would be a mistake. Lama Tsongkhapa was a realized being, yet he still did prostrations. In fact, he did so many that his body made an impression in solid rock.
In order to experience their power, it is necessary sometimes to do these practices intensively in retreat, just as Lama Tsongkhapa did. It is a profoundly different experience.
6. Receiving Initiation
Initiation does not mean that a guru gives you some incredible power. You already have the qualities of profound wisdom and great bliss within you; initiation simply activates them. The quality of the initiation you receive does not depend on the guru. It depends on you.
If you are motivated by the sincere wish to transform yourself so that you will be able to benefit others, you should receive the initiation. It is important to have a dedicated attitude. In fact, according to Buddhist psychology, unless you dedicate yourself to others, you will never be satisfied. Instead you will be bored and lonely. It is logical that dedication to others brings you the satisfaction that you crave.
At the end of an initiation, you should feel that you have become enlightened, and you should make the determination, “From now on I will not project the hallucinations and concrete conceptions of my self-pity mind, the source of misery. Instead, I will identify with my divine wisdom-energy, the source of pleasure, and offer this to all living beings.”
7. Purifying Negativities
In the view of tantra, attainment of higher realizations depends on first purifying negativities.
It is good for beginners to practice inner fire in the morning and to perform ten minutes of Vajrasattva purification in the evening before going to bed. You will then sleep comfortably, with a happy mind. If you go to sleep with a miserable mind, you will activate heavy karma all night. The conventional, relative mind causes negativity to become bottled up and to increase. However, if you can recognize that even the concept of negative energy is an illusion and has the nature of nonduality, the negativity will be lessened. Just like everything else, positive and negative are interdependent; they are made up by our own mind.
Lama Je Tsongkhapa describes the Vajrasattva meditation in detail in Having the Three Convictions, but I won’t go into detail here as I have explained it elsewhere. I will simply give you the essence of the practice.
Visualize Vajrasattva and his consort seated above your head on a lotus and moon seat. Their bodies are composed of radiant white light. Recognize the equal realizations of the male and female deities. There are three ways to visualize the process of purification. With each visualization, you simultaneously recite the Vajrasattva mantra.
In the first technique, white nectar — like milk or liquid yogurt…
down from the hearts of Vajrasattva and his consort. It comes…
central channels to their joined lower chakras, then down through the lotus and moon seat. Like a powerful waterfall dropping from a great height, the nectar forcefully enters through the crown of your head and rushes down your central channel, completely purifying you. All your gross negative energy, your internal garbage, is forced out through the openings of your lower body in the form of snakes, scorpions, worms, ants, or whatever else you find effective. Alternatively, you could imagine the negativities coming out as roosters, pigs, and snakes,…
In the second method, the blissful nectar coming from Vajrasattva and his consort pours down your central channel and fills you from your feet up to your crown. Visualize all your impure energy being forced up by the nectar and leaving your body through your nostrils and mouth, in much the same way that water poured into a dirty glass causes the…
The third technique involves light-energy rather than liquid. This powerful blissful light is white, but with a rainbow hue. It instantly shatters the darkness inside you. The darkness in your brain chakra, your throat chakra, your heart chakra, and everywhere else disappears without a trace. The nonfunctioning parts of your brain and nervous system are activated, and there is no…
These three visualization techniques are the main meditations that accompany recitation of the Vajrasattva mantra. Since they bring…
Now, let us dedicate. “May there be no obstacles to our accomplishment of inner fire. May we all attain…
8. The Inspiration of…
Guru yoga, the other tantric preliminary described in detail by Lama Tsongkhapa in Having the Three Convictions, is practiced to receive inspiration and blessings. It seems to be the most difficult practice for the Western mind, but it is…
You may have books that explain exactly how to practice the Six Yogas of Naropa, but the results of following instructions from a book are questionable. Tantra is highly technical, internally technical, so a teacher is essential. Someone has to show you the practices so that they become an organic experience. If you went to buy a Rolls-Royce and instead were given all the parts of the car and an instruction manual on how to assemble it, you would panic: “What’s this? Where’s my car?” You would need…
Westerners question everything, and I find this a very honest approach. If something does not make sense to you, you say so openly. If something makes sense to you, you say, “Yes, this is helpful. I will use it.”
To meditate on guru yoga, visualize the essence of your guru manifesting in the space of nonduality in front of you in the form of Vajradhara. Guru Vajradhara sits on a lotus and sun seat on a throne supported by eight snow lions. He is radiant blue in color, holds a vajra and bell, and embraces a consort of the same color. Seeing their radiant blue light-bodies in space arouses great bliss and the wisdom of nonduality within you. Blue light and space automatically remind us of nonduality.
Although Guru Vajradhara is not your father or mother, not your husband or wife, not your boyfriend or girlfriend, he is still greatly concerned about your welfare. It is as though he exists solely for you.
When I visualize all these lineage gurus, I like to see each of them in the aspect of a mahasiddha. Mahasiddhas have vajra bodies vibrant with blissful kundalini energy. They have no desire for external objects because they have achieved perfect samadhi and simultaneously born wisdom. To see the lineage lamas in this way encourages and energizes us.
It is the same for us. If we want to engage in tantric practice, we should follow Naropa’s example and give up our concern with our appearance and reputation, with the way we look and what people think of us. Perhaps we should take off our clothes and sit on a tiger skin with ashes on our body like an Indian sadhu. When Claudio and another of my Italian students, Piero, first came to see me years ago, they came dressed as mahasiddhas. When they came to the teaching, they even brought an animal skin to sit on. Different aspects can give us different energy according to our needs. For me, Milarepa is a good example. When I was studying philosophy as a young monk, I often read Milarepa’s biography. It made a deep impression on me and took away all difficulties. Another image that inspires me is the fasting Buddha. It is useful sometimes to look at this ascetic aspect of Shakyamuni Buddha. It makes us think, “He was a human being like me. How did he do these things?”
Milarepa said, “I have no worldly offerings to give my guru. I have only the offering of meditation.” That is the very best offering. The best offering in the world that you can give your guru is to practice sincerely, be integrated and happy, and achieve realizations.
To conclude the guru yoga practice, visualize that Guru Vajradhara comes to the crown of your head and absorbs into you. Even though many things manifest in your life to help you, they have one nuclear source: Guru Vajradhara is the guru, the deity, the daka and dakini, and the Dharma protector. Guru Vajradhara comes down your central channel into your heart chakra. Your body is unified with Guru Vajradhara’s body; your speech is unified with Guru Vajradhara’s speech; and your mind is unified
with Guru Vajradhara’s transcendental, blissful wisdom, which is the dharmakaya experience. You experience totality.
Guru yoga is profound; it cannot be expressed in mere words.
You can understand the qualities of Guru Vajradhara only according to your own level of spiritual development. You cannot push and you cannot intellectualize. When you understand that there are many different levels, the practice of guru yoga becomes quite reasonable.
You should not feel any separation between you and Guru Vajradhara. You should not think, “The guru is so high and I am so low.” Instead you have to unify with Guru Vajradhara, dissolving him into you. You recognize your own mind as the dharmakaya experience of Guru Vajradhara. This blissful wisdom consciousness is the absolute guru, and in order to experience it, you need to practice guru yoga. The dharmakaya is nonsuperstitious and nonconceptual in nature, but our minds are full of superstition. However, merely imagining the dharmakaya experience summons the inspiration and taste of it, just like imagining cheesecake. Simply thinking of the dharmakaya stimulates the dharmakaya experience and automatically stops superstitious thinking. The main idea of guru yoga is to unify our mind with the utter clarity of Guru Vajradhara’s wisdom, which is free from superstition.
We must also learn to recognize the guru in each moment. Even if our most egotistical, miserable, dissatisfied mind is present, instead of expanding this egocentric mind we must recognize its dharmakaya nature, its totality-of-the-guru nature. This direct, organic energy is digested into the great wisdom of unification: “You are the guru, you are the deity, you are the daka and dakini, you are the Dharma protector.” This is the teaching of tantra.
This is similar to Christianity, which accepts one God as an embodiment of the principle of totality. The Buddhist tantras describe many deities, dakas and dakinis, and Dharma protectors, but in fact they…
PART THREE Going Beyond…
9. Transforming Death, Intermediate State,…
Why It Is Necessary To First Practice…
Highest Yoga Tantra is divided into two stages: the evolutionary stage and the completion stage. The practices of the Six Yogas of…
In evolutionary stage yoga, which some people prefer to call generation stage yoga, we learn to identify ourselves as a Buddha, a deity, a fully enlightened being (see chapter 10). In intensive meditation, we develop the clear and vivid appearance of ourselves as a deity and the divine pride of actually being the deity. In order to do this, however, we must first practice purifying the ordinary experiences of death, intermediate state, and rebirth. This, the essence of evolutionary stage yoga, is accomplished through meditating on the three pure experiences of the dharmakaya (truth body), sambhogakaya (enjoyment body), and nirmanakaya (emanation body). The experience of death is to be transformed into the dharmakaya, the experience of the intermediate state into the sambhogakaya, and the experience of rebirth into the nirmanakaya. The evolutionary stage practice of purifying the experiences of death, intermediate state, and rebirth happens at the level of mere imagination, not at the level of actual experience. When we think, “Now is the time of the death experience. The four…
Also, in general, the practice of evolutionary stage yoga should have three qualities, or flavors: all beings should be seen as deities, every experience should be inseparable from the wisdom of nonduality, and every experience should have the nature of great bliss. Accomplishment of evolutionary yoga is a high realization, with both gross and subtle levels. With the gross level of attainment, you are able to build up a clear mental image of the entire mandala with its various deities, celestial mansion, and surrounding environment. With the subtle level of attainment, you have indestructible samadhi and can vividly imagine your entire mandala, in miniature, for several hours. However, even though we have not yet achieved the subtle attainment of the evolutionary stage, we can still start completion stage practices such as the Six Yogas of Naropa. You shouldn’t feel that inner fire is a big leap. “I’d better meditate on renunciation for the rest of my life. That is more reasonable.” Don’t think this way!
How do we engage in evolutionary stage practice? Generally, regardless of which deity we are actualizing, evolutionary stage yoga involves the practice of a daily sadhana. The sadhana begins with taking refuge and generating a bodhicitta motivation to achieve enlightenment in order to benefit others. This is followed by the practice of guru yoga, the root of the entire tantric path, as I described earlier. After this, just before meditating on the three kayas, we recite the emptiness mantra oṃ svabhāvaśuddhāḥ sarvadharmāḥ svabhāvaśuddho ’ham and meditate on its profound meaning. Basically, this mantra states that the nature of everything that exists is pure, that all existent phenomena, including us, are nondual in character. It is referring to the non-self-existence, the noninherent existence, or the emptiness of everything that exists. This is absolute reality. Conventional reality is like a dream, a magician’s trick, a projection, or a mirage. Thinking in this way as we recite the emptiness mantra dissolves our concrete concepts.
We believe we are fundamentally impure. “How can I be pure?” our self-pity mind thinks. We must rid ourselves of this idea, which is the cause of all our diseases of body and mind. The point is that the fundamental nature of our mind is pure and spacelike. Ego-mind tries to project something impure on top of this, but it is impossible to add to something that is spacelike in nature. Such impure projections are momentary, like clouds in the sky. Even though the sky allows the coming and going of clouds, they are not a permanent characteristic of the sky.
They are simply energy. Their relative, negative, confused, fantasy nature is not our fundamental nature. Realizing this cuts off the self-pity ego.
The moment you reach this experience of nonduality you have no room for heavy emotions or sentimentality. The pure, penetrative awareness cuts through relative obstacles and touches the deepest nature of human existence. At that moment of experience there is no conceptual labeling by the dualistic mind; at that moment, there is no Buddha or God, no subject or object, no heaven or hell.
After reciting oṃ svabhāvaśuddhāḥ sarvadharmāḥ svabhāvaśuddho ’ham, you visualize the process that occurs at death, starting with the dissolution of the four elements. Feel the absorption of the earth element, then the water element. Your experience of the sensory world gradually diminishes. The fire element absorbs, then the air element. All your concrete concepts gradually dissolve too. Now you experience only consciousness; your body has ceased to function. The white vision appears; you see the entire universe as empty space pervaded by white light. No dualistic phenomena appear. You are approaching the universal totality of nonduality, your true nature. Feel, “I am this natural state of consciousness touching universal reality.” Your mind becomes more subtle, and the white vision changes into the red vision. Maintain mindfulness and simply let go. Experience the unified nature of the emptiness and bliss of the red vision. Now you experience the black vision, like the early morning before sunrise. Out of the darkness comes light, signaling the beginning of the clear light experience. Like the sun rising in a clear sky, the light grows and grows, until the entire space appears as clear light. This is the dharmakaya experience, the most subtle consciousness. All existence is nondual. All the dualistic puzzles have disappeared. You enter the spacelike nature of clear light. Your wisdom consciousness embraces universal space.
You don’t need to analyze the nature of the non-self-existent I; simply experiencing the nonexistence of the self as spacelike is good enough.
It is a clean-clear, natural state with no complicated ego conflicts or relativity puzzles. This is the real experience. Rest in it.
The narrow, dualistic puzzles disappear, allowing the natural state of mind to radiate and embrace reality. Here we want our consciousness to experience the clear light without conceptualization; it’s like rays of sunlight embracing the blue sky of morning. This clear light is the great universal emptiness of nonduality. Experience only the total unity of the dharmakaya. Feel, “I am this enlightened dharmakaya state, this total peace and joy, this unified intense awareness.” See all appearances as reflections of this dharmakaya consciousness. Stay as long as you can in this experience of omnipresent wisdom, this state of nonduality.
In the very subtle state of the dharmakaya you can communicate only with other enlightened beings. Therefore, in order to communicate with sentient beings and benefit them, you must move from the dharmakaya to the sambhogakaya and then to the nirmanakaya. How do you do this?
My advice is that you should motivate at the beginning and then just float through the rest of the meditation.
10. Arising as a Divine Being
To succeed in tantric practice it is essential to identify yourself strongly as a deity. You need to have intense awareness of your body as the deity’s body, your speech as the deity’s mantra, and your mind as great blissful wisdom. The purpose of seeing yourself as a deity and the environment as the deity’s mandala is to transcend mundane appearances and actions. The deity and the mandala are manifestations of simultaneously born blissful wisdom.
Tantra teaches us that we need powerful transformation. Identifying with the profound qualities of Heruka and seeing ourselves as infinite, radiant, blue light are powerful methods for eliminating self-pity concepts and garbage-imagination.
Tantra says that essentially every human being is divine and pure. This is why it is important to identify yourself so strongly as being a deity, to regard yourself as perfectly developed. Instead of seeing your body as something miserable, transform it into a radiant blue light-body. Outwardly this might seem strange, but inwardly there is a profound meaning. Blue light symbolizes nonduality, so the moment you visualize this blue light, which is like clear blue sky, your dualistic, concrete concepts break down; you no longer believe in them.
From the tantric point of view, each color we perceive — blue, red, yellow, or whatever — is directly related to what is happening in our internal world. It is important to be aware of this. The radiant blue light of Heruka helps us to touch reality, which is the most important thing in the world. The Heruka mandala expresses inner and outer reality rather than a fantasy world of projections. Most of us are unaware of reality; we never touch it.
Actually, you do not visualize yourself as Heruka in order to show a different manifestation; Heruka is the manifestation of the profound qualities you already have within you. Heruka is within you.
There is no point in holding garbage-concepts of yourself. You are perfect; you just need to recognize it. According to tantra, you do not need to wait until your next life to experience heaven. Heaven is now. Tantra teaches us to bring heaven into our everyday life. Our home is heaven, and everyone we see is a god or goddess. You are not your face, your blood, your bones, or any other part of your body. The essence of you and your life is your consciousness, your mind, your psyche. Your body is basically a robot being pushed around by a computer; it is the manifestation of the computer of your consciousness.
The point is that the mind is powerful and can manifest anything. When you can convincingly see yourself as beautiful and handsome, your self-pity concepts will vanish and you will become the manifestation of your own profound qualities. Everyone can achieve this. Actually, we have more than one body, as we will discuss soon (see chapter 11). As well as our physical body, we have a more subtle psychic body. Our consciousness does have the ability to manifest as a radiant blue light-body, and when we understand the nature of the subtle body, we can learn to manipulate the energy of our inner nervous system and to control our blood-and-bone body. When you visualize yourself as Heruka in union with Vajravarahi, it is important to feel that you actually are the deity, that you are youthful, beautiful, fully developed sexually, and full of kundalini. Some people think that we only pretend to be Heruka. This is not right. We are not pretending. The more strongly you identify yourself as the deity, the more transformation you achieve and the more fear and uncontrolled emotion you eliminate. We often say that we don’t like to waste time, but we do waste time when we participate in self-pity and the fearful “I.” Kick out self-pity by generating the strong divine pride of being the pure deity. Do not merely pretend to be the deity. Have the inner conviction that you are the deity.
And remember that all appearances are illusory and nondual in nature and that all the illusions are empty. Recognize also that all the empty illusions are blissful in nature. Focus your attention on this blissful state.
I want you to understand the teachings and to be technically clear about the meditations. Then I want you to practice. Many of my students have been working with evolutionary stage yoga for several years now, but the evolutionary stage is a little like dreaming. With completion stage yoga, however, you are in the real situation and are no longer dreaming. Be careful, because if you push the wrong button, you are going to end up in the wrong place.
I want you to be inspired by these teachings. What we are doing is something serious, and I want you to be serious. So please practice. It is very simple; it is not complicated. Milarepa and many other yogis like him had much renunciation and put much effort into this practice. For many years they lived in mountain caves like animals, eating nettles and grass. Remember the tremendous effort Naropa put into pursuing these teachings. He almost died twelve times. On the other hand, we live in such comfortable situations. It would be shameful not to put any effort into meditating. Milarepa was the right extreme; we lean toward the wrong extreme.
11. The Characteristics of Body and Mind
The body can be said to exist simultaneously on three levels. These are the gross body, the subtle body, and the very subtle body. The gross body is composed of the blood, bones, five sense organs, and so forth. The subtle body, also known as the vajra body, comprises the channels and the energy-winds and drops that exist within the channels. There are thousands of these subtle physical channels running throughout our body. The main ones that we use in meditation are the central channel, which runs up and down our body just in front of the spine, and the two side channels, which run alongside the central channel.
Understanding the subtle body and the very subtle body helps us to recognize that we have other bodies within us in addition to our physical body — so we don’t have to worry too much when our gross body is degenerating or being uncooperative.
Tibetans explain how the fetus develops, with the wind energies pushing this way and that; how the heart chakra is the first chakra to develop; how the channels grow from there; and then how the other channels develop. We have detailed explanations of how energy develops and functions to coordinate the internal and external.
To release tension in your upper body you might have to massage a point in your lower body. By knowing the interrelationships within your body, you can relieve the discomfort. According to tantra, pain in a particular area of the body is often due to energy blockages, which in turn are related to blocked states of mind. If you understand the fundamental structure of your body, you will know how to release any tension that arises. Your body is organic, and you need to learn to listen to its rhythms until you feel that each cell in your nervous system is talking to you. When you develop such sensitive awareness of your body, it is almost as though you can tell it what to do. Instead of clomping around heavily, your whole body feels light and blissful, as if you are
walking on air. It is liberating. Simply touching yourself will produce bliss. We have that resource.
Let’s take the example of desire, one of the six root delusions. We do not really understand what desire means. In the West, desire seems to refer to sense gratification. However, in the Buddhist view, desire is not a craving of the senses but the mental concepts and projections that we build up on an object, thereby bringing us problems. Desire misinterprets and distorts the object; we then hallucinate and drive ourselves crazy. I am always skeptical when somebody says that they know the meaning of desire. It is not easy to understand desire. I think it is very difficult, and it takes time. If you know the nature of desire, you can really control your mind because you are able to question and to understand your own view of desire’s objects. Otherwise, you cannot see the mind’s tricks. With its constant “I feel, I want,” desire plays tricks on you, leading you to a constant restlessness that can mess up your life.
12. Unifying Relative and Absolute
The main point to understand is that in an absolute sense the mind is empty, or non-self-existent, while relatively it exists in dependence upon causes and conditions and so forth. All the phenomena of samsara and nirvana, including the mind, exist like an illusion, a dream, or a reflection in a mirror. Even though it is sometimes said that something is nonexistent because it is like an illusion, a dream, or a reflection in a mirror, this is not philosophically correct. It is speaking loosely to say, “This phenomenon does not exist because it is an illusion. It is just one of my projections.” In fact, the reverse is true. The phenomenon exists precisely because it exists as an illusion, which is interdependent. A reflection in a mirror is also interdependent; it exists because of the mirror.
Nonduality does not mean nonexistence. A tissue exists relatively because it functions. You can touch it, use it to wipe your nose, and then throw it away. It comes and goes. In that sense it exists conventionally, but it does not have the solid existence that it superficially appears to have. Even though it appears to exist dualistically, it does not have a dualistic way of existing. To say that something exists simply means that it functions, that conventionally it does something. That is all. It is momentary and it functions. But when we talk about absolute nature, we are speaking about a broader view, a bigger view.
Existence is for the relative mind only. Even good and bad exist in dependence on the mind, the time, the situation, the environment, and so forth. For example, perhaps at one time it was considered good to give a potato as a gift, but nowadays a person who received such a gift would be shocked. Good and bad are relative.
Milarepa’s point is that all samsara-phenomena and nirvana-phenomena exist only for the conventional, relative mind. Lama Tsongkhapa agrees that Milarepa’s interpretation of relative and absolute is perfectly correct.
Pleasure is not a bad thing in itself; but for most of us it just produces misery and trouble because we lack wisdom. Tantra emphasizes taking pleasure without hesitation, digesting it, and turning it into the great blissful wisdom of nonduality.
Je Pabongka, a real manifestation of Heruka, also comments that even if we don’t have much intellectual understanding of emptiness, it is enough to start with the belief that there is no concrete existence.
We should now dedicate our positive energy. “May all sentient beings touch their fundamental nature. May they discover the unity of the relative and absolute characteristics of mind. May they see that all problems appear when they use the unintelligent, narrow mind and that all the mundane puzzles disappear when they use the broad, universal wisdom of nonduality.”
PART FOUR Awakening the Vajra Body
13. Hatha Yoga
It is best to do the exercises when your stomach feels empty and comfortable. Begin each session by taking refuge, generating bodhicitta, and meditating on Vajrasattva. Then, visualizing Guru Vajradhara and the lineage lamas, meditate on guru yoga and recite the prayer to the lineage lamas. Arise from emptiness as Heruka with consort. Your light-body is radiant, completely empty, and as clear as crystal. Visualize the three principal channels and the four chakras (see chapter 14). Everything is clean-clear and transparent, and there are no blockages in any of the channels. With this awareness, you then perform the exercises. Maintaining awareness of yourself as the deity, even while doing these physical exercises, is extremely important. Don’t think of yourself as an ordinary person who is just pretending to be the deity. Feel strongly that your body is the deity’s body, your speech is the deity’s mantra, and your mind is great blissful wisdom. This stops the self-pity mind. Do not lose the divine pride of being this illusory deity, nor your comprehension of yourself as nondual. This makes the exercises very powerful.
If someone falls from a great height, such as from a five-story building, they won’t die or even be badly hurt if they hold their breath in the correct way.
Tantra says that you should take care of your body, keeping it healthy and giving it good food, because you need to have tremendous energy. Giving your body more protein, for example, increases the blissful kundalini power. Respect your body. Don’t think that it is just a source of problems. Difficulties come from the mind, not from the body. When you do the exercises, feel that your negative thoughts and energy blockages are eliminated with each movement and that you feel blissful energy wherever you touch. You can almost see this bliss ful kundalini energy running through the channels and throughout your entire body of radiant rainbow light. There is no place in your nervous system for pain.
You could say that the purpose of Tibetan yoga is to make it impossible mentally and physically to have space for misery.
The exercises awaken your entire nervous system and bring you bliss twenty-four hours a day. Therefore, the body is definitely something to be respected.
When our desire explodes and we are about to lose energy through our sex organ, we should be able to bring the kundalini up from the lower chakras and spread it into the right places. These exercises help us learn how to handle our energy. Eventually we become able to transform our experiences of bliss into wisdom.
14. Channels and Chakras
Sitting
Marpa said, “None of the Tibetan meditators can compete with me. Just my sitting position is supreme.” Marpa had really tasted the Six Yogas of Naropa and was speaking from experience. When you sit, your inner energies should somehow talk to you and bring you bliss. Tantra simply uses the natural resources of your body; it follows your own natural play of energy. Lama Tsongkhapa states that correct body posture is very important during inner fire meditation. He recommends that you sit on a comfortable seat with your body slightly raised at the back. Cross your legs into the full-lotus position, with your right foot on the left thigh and your left foot on the right thigh. Completion stage practices should be done in this position. It may be difficult for beginners, so just come as close to it as you can. It might also be helpful to use a meditation belt, as Milarepa did, but this is not absolutely necessary.
Your hands should be placed below your navel in the mudra of concentration, with the right one on top of the left and with your thumbs touching to form a triangle. It is especially important to keep your mind and your body a little tight, rather than loose; you can judge from your own experience. You need to train in this. Your body should be upright and slightly tight from the hips to the chest. Most of us slump, and a…
EMPTY BODY MEDITATION Visualize yourself as Heruka, standing upright, with your body completely transparent from your head down to your feet. Your body is utterly clear and empty of all material substance, like a balloon…
The…
Once you have become comfortable with seeing your body as empty, you can start to meditate on your channels. First, arise from emptiness in the form of the deity. Your entire body of radiant rainbow light is empty and as clear as crystal; even your hands are like crystal. Heruka’s body is not crowded with blood and bones; it is transparent and light. It is a conscious body, a psychic body. Visualize in front of you your root guru and all the lineage lamas, surrounded by dakas and dakinis. Offer them, without miserliness, your body and the entire world. Then pray to experience blissful air energy, blissful channels, and blissful kundalini. Think, “For the sake of sentient beings, who are as vast in number as the extent of space, I will now engage in this meditation in order to discover Vajradharahood.” Now visualize the three principal channels: the central channel and the…
According to the commentary, however, when we do inner fire meditation, we visualize that the three channels end about four finger-widths below the navel, which is the point where we bring the airs into the central channel during the meditation. The side channels curve up into the bottom of the central channel in a shape resembling the Tibetan letter cha (). Lama Tsongkhapa explains how the channels exist in reality and how we should use them in meditation. He emphasizes that the central channel is close to…
The central channel is blue on the outside, similar to the color of Heruka, and red on the inside. The right channel is red and the left white. When talking about the width of the channels, Tibetans sometimes use the example of a barley straw. I think the plastic drinking straws used in restaurants are also a good example. But in some ways a channel is not like a straw. If you bend a straw when you are drinking a milkshake, it cracks on the outside. Our channels, on the other hand, are as flexible as…
THE CHAKRAS Now let’s talk about the various chakras. The four that we utilize most during inner fire meditation are the navel, heart, throat, and crown chakras. We should learn to visualize these four chakras; we should hold our mind on each of them until we eventually penetrate them. Lama Tsongkhapa says that the navel chakra is red, shaped like a triangle, and has sixty-four branch channels that bend upward from it, rather like the ribs of an upturned umbrella. The heart chakra is white, shaped like a ball, and has eight branches that point downward toward the navel, like the ribs of an upright umbrella. The throat chakra is red and also shaped like a ball, with its sixteen branch channels opening upward. Finally, the great blissful chakra at the crown is multicolored and triangular, and its thirty-two branch channels open downward toward the throat.
The triangle is symbolic of the wisdom-female energy and the circular shape symbolizes male energy.
Lama Tsongkhapa also explains that the side channels loop around the central channel at each of the four principal chakras, thus forming knots. There is a sixfold knot at the heart chakra and a twofold knot at each of the other chakras. Some people will not find this easy to visualize. If you find them difficult to visualize, leave out the knots.
There are also doubts about the location of the crown chakra, which is also called the bliss chakra. Literally, “crown” refers to the top of the head; therefore, the crown chakra is sometimes said to be between the skin and the skull at the crown of the head. In my opinion, however, this chakra is in the brain, where there is much active
energy. This is where the bliss center is located. Some texts call this the head chakra, but we could also call it the brain chakra. In any case, visualize this chakra somewhere between your eyebrows and your crown, at a point more toward the back of the head. It doesn’t need to be in a precisely designated place. We are dealing with psychic reality, not physical reality.
There is also the secret, or sex, chakra. This is red, has thirty-two branches, and is level with the base of the spine. In a man, this is located at the base of the sex organ. As well, there is the middle secret chakra, also known as the jewel chakra, which is white and has eight branch channels; and there is the tip secret chakra, which is at the end of the penis, where the central channel ends.
Completion stage tantra also explains that a yogini has a subtle channel that extends from the end of her central channel, and that when the male and female organs join, this subtle channel enters the central channel of the yogi, giving rise to incredible bliss.
We need to develop both clarity and stability in our meditation on the channels and chakras. Begin by concentrating on each one until it appears clearly and then rest within that atmosphere of clarity. By holding the mind at each chakra, we develop stability.
In the Six Yogas of Naropa penetrative concentration at the navel chakra is the fundamental step that makes everything else possible, including realization of the illusory body and clear light. It is very quick to bring results.
Concentrating on the navel chakra is also less dangerous than focusing on the secret or heart chakras, for example. Lama Tsongkhapa states that concentrating too much on the heart chakra can cause tension, stress, and even heart problems. Concentrating on the navel chakra is much safer and is fundamental to generating inner fire. Therefore, even when performing the empty body meditations and the hatha yoga exercises, you should pay special attention to the navel chakra. In the beginning you must meditate on the channels and chakras as described above until you become thoroughly familiar with them.
First do the empty body meditation. See yourself as the deity, your light-body as clear as crystal. Visualize the three main channels, all the chakras, and all the branch channels. Everything is transparent, clear, and free from blockages. At the heart chakra visualize a drop of white-red kundalini, the size of a sesame seed. It radiates bright rainbow light of five colors, in nature the five Buddha families. Concentrate on this drop. Do not look at the drop from the outside. Enter into it, penetrate it, become utterly one with it. Your mind unifies with the drop so that there is no distinction between subject and object. Within this blissful atmosphere of being the drop, you are no longer attracted to any sensory objects. Everything is set up for you to do deep meditation. You, as the energy drop, look down from the heart chakra and see the navel and secret chakras. You then look up and see the throat, crown, and brow chakras. The passage of the central channel is clear. You go up through the passage and reach the throat chakra. Looking around, you see clearly all its sixteen branch channels. You then move up to the crown chakra, which has thirty-two branch channels, and you see all of them clearly.
Now let’s dedicate the merit: “By meditating on the three main channels and the four main chakras, may we loosen the tightness of the blocked channels. May all the wind energy enter the central channel, and may we thereby experience the path of clear light. By penetrating the pleasure centers of the chakras, may we achieve the realization of the eternal state of bliss.”
15. Blissful Syllables
Remember that you have a body of radiant rainbow light in the form of Heruka. It is not crowded with blood and bones, but is empty and has clear channels and chakras that are free from all blockages and confusion.
What are the benefits of contemplating the concentration objects at the chakras? Contemplating the haṃ at the crown increases the white male kundalini, which is the source of bliss. Contemplating and penetrating the oṃ at the throat chakra increases the female blood energy and also helps the practice of dream yoga. Concentrating on the hūṃ at the heart helps to develop the clear light. And meditating on the short a at the navel increases the strength of the inner fire; it also increases the white blissful energy, because of the navel chakra’s link with the left channel.
Marpa explains that the heart and throat chakras are key points for sleep yoga and that the navel and crown chakras are for practices during the waking state. During the waking state, the navel chakra is important for the practice of inner fire and the crown chakra for consort practice. This is because at these times the subtle energy drops abide at each of these points.
In all the meditations on the channels and chakras, we are advised to visualize them as clear and rainbowlike. In reality, however, at the moment they are not like that at all. Our side channels adhere to the central channel, squeezing and blocking it. The channels are often shriveled and wrinkled, and there is much crowding and confusion at the chakras where all the smaller channels branch out. How are the chakras loosened and opened so that the air energies can enter the central channel? How do the channels become clear and rainbowlike? The basic principle is that the mind, and therefore the wind energies that always accompany it, automatically go to whatever point the mind contemplates. Concentration on the vital points thus gradually clarifies and unblocks the channels and chakras. This creates space for the subtle energies to flow, similar to the way that blowing air into a balloon causes it to open and expand. When you penetrate the navel chakra, for example, the blockages are released, the chakra opens, and the winds automatically enter the central channel.
When you are feeling much devotion, it is good to pray to all the lineage lamas for blessings to receive the realizations of all the meditations. Visualize them in your heart chakra, like a tiny reflection in a crystal. All universal phenomena are also reflected there. Alternatively, you can simply visualize Naropa in your heart chakra.
With devotion, you then pray, “May I be successful in inner fire meditation. May my entire nervous system experience an explosion of blissful energy. May all this blissful energy enter the central channel, and may it comprehend the wisdom of nonduality.”
16. Vase Breathing Meditation
Don’t think that the process is complicated or that you will have difficulty doing it. Many things seem to be happening at the same time, but the main steps involve bringing the airs from above and below and unifying them at the navel chakra. Rather than forcing the process, you should feel that the short a automatically draws all the airs into the navel chakra. Good concentration helps all this to happen naturally.
When the side channels are open and functioning, the central channel is closed; and when the central channel is open and functioning, the side channels are closed. Lama Tsongkhapa says that these are the only alternatives.
Holding the upper and lower winds together at the navel chakra is the key to success in inner fire meditation. You should practice vase breathing over and over again, until you can do it effortlessly. It is not a difficult technique; in fact, it is unbelievably easy. A sense of bliss arising from the secret chakra will indicate that you are making progress. Even performing the vase meditation without much concentration will induce bliss. You don’t need to be a great meditator. All you have to do is practice, live peacefully, control yourself, relax, and you can experience blissful energy even without good concentration.
Being able to do 108 of these while holding a vase breath is considered a sign of great success; seventy-two indicates middling success; and thirty-six, small success.
We should now dedicate the merit. “May the hatred and desire energy from the right and left channels totally absorb into the short a. May all sentient beings experience the wind energies entering into the central channel, becoming stable, and then absorbing there. May they all discover the clear light.”
PART FIVE Discovering Totality
17. Inner Fire Meditation
Inner fire is a very special and distinguished tantric technique. I mentioned earlier that some lamas in ancient times said that the meditations of the evolutionary stage are not necessary and are only used for gaining worldly realizations. In a sense they are right. I’m joking, of course; they are wrong. But I want you to see my point. The completion stage practice of inner fire is like shooting a rocket along a completely straight path. It deals only with what is essential. By comparison, the evolutionary stage is like dreaming. As I said earlier, inner fire is the root of success in all completion stage practices. It is the perfect method for awakening our very subtle consciousness, whose function is to comprehend the totality of nonduality wisdom. This completion stage experience of simultaneously born great blissful wisdom is the ultimate result of inner fire meditation.
Gampopa told Milarepa that he had such deep samadhi meditation that he could meditate for many days without distraction or sluggishness. Milarepa simply laughed and said, “I’m not impressed by that! Dear son, there is no comparison between my tummo short a and your indestructible samadhi meditation. I don’t know why you’re so proud of it. You cannot get olive oil by squeezing sand. My inner fire meditation is incomparable.”
Milarepa was not speaking out of egotistical pride. Inner fire meditation is very special. As Milarepa put it, sitting for many days in a conventional samadhi is like trying to get oil by squeezing sand. This is impossible. Inner fire meditation, however, quickly produces the real oil. Milarepa is talking from his own experience. Inner fire meditation is far more effective than ordinary deep meditation. It quickly grows into an explosion of nonduality wisdom, an explosion of telepathic power, an explosion of realizations. It is the key to countless treasures.
Penetrative concentration at the navel chakra is the foundation that makes everything else possible.
A fourth point that makes inner fire special is that it generates such incredible bliss that your mind simply wants to stay at the pleasure center at your navel. It has no desire to go outside to anything else. Inner fire burns up your dissatisfied energy, bringing you total physical and psychological satisfaction. In any case, how can your mind move from the navel chakra once the vase meditation has forcefully brought the winds to the short a? Your mind rides on the wind, so if the vehicle is not moving, the mind cannot go anywhere. It has no choice; it has to stay there. In this way, with inner fire meditation we quickly attain indestructible samadhi.
18. Good Things and Bad Things Can Happen
The real inner heat gained through concentration melts the kundalini in the central channel, and this produces bliss, which is then used to understand nonduality. The unified bliss and wisdom of nonduality consumes superstitions and ego conflicts. We do not have bamboo, pine, or olive trees to burn as our inner fuel, but we do have plenty of ego garbage and superstitions. The main function of inner fire is to burn all our delusions and superstitions and allow a nonsuperstitious, simultaneously born great blissful wisdom to grow.
Inner fire should have the earth quality of strength, the fire quality of heat, the water quality of smoothness and softness, and the air quality of gentle movement.
BLISS AND NONDUALITY Whenever heat begins, bliss begins. This is because of the power of the absorption of the winds, the power of the short a, the power of concentration, and the power of the melting of the drops within the central channel. You really taste the chocolate when all these factors are gathered together. During inner fire meditation, it is important to recognize the blissful nature of any heat — in fact, of every physical and mental sensation — that arises. You should also recognize its nature of nonduality, clarity, radiance, transparency, and its reflection-like quality, so that the bliss itself becomes the wisdom of nonduality. Also, whenever you experience nonduality, you should recognize its blissful character.
As soon as we feel any bliss, we should put effort into generating the wisdom of nonduality. This is important from the very beginning. The bliss itself should be digested and transformed into wisdom. Bliss becomes wisdom, wisdom becomes bliss. Otherwise, the experience becomes one of ordinary pleasure, an explosion of emotional desire and superstition. If we constructively build up the unification of bliss and nonduality, there is no danger of this happening.
By the way, the semen that comes from the male sex organ during ordinary orgasm does not come from the central channel. For both males and females, the energy and bliss of ordinary sexual experience does not come from the central channel. You should be clear about this. The bliss of ordinary orgasm is produced by the kundalini touching the outside of the central channel. In the logic of tantric yoga, if the kundalini energy generates such bliss when it touches the outside of the central channel, there is no question that it will generate incredible bliss when it flows inside the central channel. Bringing all the winds into the central channel gives rise to an experience of incomparable super-bliss. Drawing the airs into the central channel and activating this bliss is mainly accomplished through the power of concentration. Therefore, someone who loses kundalini energy because they are living the normal life of a layperson can still be successful in the practice of inner heat yoga as long as they can maintain strong concentration during inner fire meditation. This is logical. Naturally, those who have weak concentration and also lose physical energy in this way will find it difficult to generate strong blissful energy.
It is important to be aware of the point from which you must begin to reverse the flow of energy. Not only must this energy be brought back up, but it also must be spread throughout the nervous system. It can be dangerous and produce illness if it becomes blocked in any one place.
You are moving in a dimension where there is telepathic energy, so you suddenly gain what seems like telepathic power. However, you still lack the attainment of single-pointed concentration, so don’t become too excited. You have not yet gained clairvoyance. Sometimes you may also be able to read other people’s thoughts. Whether or not we call it telepathy, it is obvious that when you become more aware of the nature of your own mind, you will be more sensitive to the minds of other people. You will be able to read the minds of others in accordance with your own level of development. This is nothing unusual. Again, don’t believe that you have actual telepathic powers simply because you have had a few good experiences, and don’t boast to anyone else about them. You should control your mouth.
Sometimes terrible feelings will arise, and you will think, “This is too much! I don’t want to meditate any more.” When inner fire meditation becomes a heavy burden, go back to the lam-rim and meditate on your precious human rebirth. When you check up, you will find that meditation is the best thing you can do with your life. In this way, lam-rim meditation supports your practice of the Six Yogas of Naropa.
As I pointed out at the very beginning, inner fire meditation is fundamental. It is the foundation stone of all realizations. When you meditate on inner fire, you are using a secret key to open the door to all realizations. Listen to your subtle conscious experiences, and let
JUDGING BY YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE Try as much as possible to actualize nonconceptual, indestructible samadhi and the union of bliss and emptiness. Don’t think, “I am not very accomplished in evolutionary stage yoga, so I should not practice completion stage.” Lama Tsongkhapa himself did four sessions of meditation every day. He practiced evolutionary stage yoga in the morning and completion stage yoga in the afternoon. Practicing the two together is the right thing to do.
In Shakyamuni Buddha’s approach to human growth, you are the one responsible. Buddha or the guru or God is not responsible. You have to judge by your own experience, which is why you need to develop confidence in yourself.
Also, just as you change your friends, you can change the statues and pictures of Buddhas and lamas on your altar. Don’t think that you must have a particular picture on your altar because otherwise other people will think that you are not being respectful. Who cares about what other people think? This is just politics. When you pay attention to such criticism, you are not communicating with yourself. It is your business, not theirs. It is your altar, and arranging it is your experience. Put Mickey Mouse on your altar if you find it helpful. Use whatever communicates with you and helps you to grow.
Your Pleasure Is Your Responsibility
you should eat food that is high in protein and exercise regularly. It is logical that the more energy you have, the more you can use.
Laypeople with a regular sex life should use the force of inner fire meditation to hold the kundalini in the secret chakra for as long as possible during intercourse. Imagine that you experience simultaneously born great blissful wisdom before you release the energy.
Why am I telling you this? I don’t want to ruin my reputation by having people say, “Don’t go near Lama Yeshe! He burned out my married life and ruined my relationship.” Tantra is very practical in emphasizing the use of desire energy. Of course, when we first meet someone we arouse pleasure and excitement within each other, almost to the point of energizing kundalini. Later all we do is energize misery! Instead of becoming each other’s pleasure object, we become each other’s prisoner.
As long as you use this energy to generate the wisdom of nonduality, you can do whatever you want to do. This makes sense. As long as we are developing bright universal wisdom, it doesn’t matter what tools we use. As long as you are clear that you are responsible for the
Vajradharahood, anything you do that benefits your growth is good, even if it is socially unacceptable. In any case, society has a dualistic structure, and its philosophies can make you more confused.
You are responsible for your own growth. As long as you are not harming yourself, turning yourself into a psychological or physical disaster, and are not harming any other sentient being, who cares what you do? The Buddhist attitude is that you take care of your own karma; you take care of your own baby. What society or anyone else says you should do is not important. What you do is your responsibility. Your pleasure is your responsibility. On the other hand, don’t think that happiness always comes from touching something outside yourself and never from inside. Happiness comes from inside you, so remember that you don’t always need to play in your relationships.
22. Never Forget Inner Fire
It is good to set up a place for meditation wherever you are living. For a few dollars you can make a meditation box like meditators used in ancient times. Since you cannot lie down in a meditation box, at least while you are in it you have to sit up and meditate. It is good psychology to set yourself up in this way. Be mindful of your experiences and keep a written record of them if you like. You have to understand that these technical meditations are set up in such a way that you will achieve results. Everybody who practices them should have some experiences.
When you become more accomplished, you can do sessions of many hours in length; if you do long sessions at the beginning, you will merely become sluggish and sleepy. Also, do the physical exercises for half an hour at least once a day. When you are not in retreat, it is best to do the hatha yoga and the inner fire meditations early in the morning on an empty stomach. Also, since fire energy is naturally strong in the evening, this is a good time to meditate on inner fire, but only if your stomach is empty. People in the West tend to eat a large meal in the evening, so in that case it is better to do the practice in the morning.
All the inner fire meditations should be done with single-pointed concentration. This includes the meditations on melting the blissful kundalini energy; the entering, stabilizing, and absorbing of the winds; and the whole process of the sinking of the four elements and the arising of the three visions. They are all intended to be samadhi experiences.
During periods of intensive inner fire meditation, you should not sit too close to fires or get sunburned, as this may stimulate the wrong energies. It doesn’t matter when you are not meditating intensively; at those times you can go to the beach as usual and burn yourself to a brown color. Unfortunately, you should also avoid cold foods, such as ice cream. Eating very cold things damages your natural resource for inner fire meditation. Also avoid salty foods and drinks when you are doing inner fire meditation. You may think that Tibetans have no idea about chemicals and such things, but we have known about them for many hundreds of years. Also, you should not eat acidic foods, such as lemons. Many juices are said to be free of acid, but I have discovered that most of them are acidic. Avoid fish, too.
Also, don’t sleep under heavy blankets or thick feather quilts such as those used in Germany. Tibetan yogis advise that you shouldn’t allow your body to get too hot. You should also not lift heavy weights or breathe forcefully, as you do when you blow up a balloon, for example. Until your inner fire practice is stable, you should not expose yourself to confused situations. Conserve your energy a little. With inner fire meditation, you become extremely sensitive, so you must be conscious of what you are doing.
When the energy is strong, however, you don’t need the meditation techniques. You stop intellectualizing and simply let go and contemplate.
You should cultivate bliss and nonduality not only during meditation sessions but in the breaks between sessions as well. You can bring inner fire into all your daily activities; use every experience of ordinary pleasure — every pizza and chocolate experience — to contemplate with intense awareness the inner fire in the central channel. When you are walking and talking, bring along inner fire. Take it with you when you go to the beach or to the mountains. When you touch water, feel it is blissful; when you see a fire, imagine that it is the inner fire; when you see light, imagine that it is kundalini energy.
They may be intelligent and be making a lot of money in some high-powered business, but they do not seem to know how to put even ordinary bliss and wisdom together in their lives.
Inner fire meditation is a process in which we learn to unify bliss and emptiness inseparably. Bliss energy is emptiness; emptiness is bliss.
Try to be happy in your practice, to be satisfied with your life. Be reasonable in the way you grow, and don’t ever think that it is too late. And don’t be afraid of death. As long as you feel you have gained some experience, even death is no big deal. Life has been enjoyed. Even if you are going to die tomorrow, at least for today keep yourself straight and clean-clear, and be a happy human being. Because we are trying to bring reasonable satisfaction and reasonable joy into our lives, and to go reasonably beyond fear, it is most important that we meditate. When you accomplish inner fire, you will be satisfied, and you will also benefit others.