Tantric Techniques (23 page)

Imagining a divine residence.
b
The deity will arrive with his or her own palace magically coming together with the resident, but one imagines such a residence in front of oneself into which the actual palace of the deity will merge when the deity arrives. To help in imagining the residence and the deity, practitioners often hang up a painting or set up a statue in front of their place of meditation. They meditate on emptiness and then imagine that all the features of the divine residence appear from within emptiness.

The divine residence is not just a palace but also a land of je-wels of cosmic proportions covered with grains of gold, in the mid-dle of which is an ocean, white like milk, adorned with flowers. Birds that are as if made of jewels fly over the ocean. In the middle of the ocean is the great square Mount Meru with stairs on all four sides, made respectively of gold, silver, sapphire, and topaz. The mountain is covered with wish-granting trees, themselves adorned with thousands of flapping victory banners. On top of the mountain is a huge lotus—its stalk adorned with jewels, petals made of jewels, a gold corolla, and topaz anthers. On the lotus is an empty inestimable mansion, a palace imagined either as appearing together with the land and so forth, or as emerging from the

a
sgrub thabs, s
ā
dhana.

b
Deity Yoga,
19 and 115-117.

The Path in Action Tantra: Divine Body
95

transformation of the Sanskrit syllable
bhr
ūṃ
,
standing upright in the middle of the lotus. In the middle of the palace is another lotus, this one serving as a seat for the deity, yet to appear. Instantaneously, a huge canopy appears over the palace.

If done sequentially, practitioners imagine this grand setting in four phases—first the ground, then the ocean with flowers and birds, then the mountain with lotus and residence, and finally the canopy. After the first three phases, the practitioner makes what have been imagined more magnificent by blessing them with man-tra—
o
ṃ
calav
ī
h
ūṃ
sv
ā
h
ā
recited once for the ground,
o
ṃ
vimaladhaha h
ūṃ
recited once for the ocean with flowers and birds, and
nama
ḥ
sarvatath
ā
gat
ā
n
āṃ
sarvath
ā
udgate sphara
ṇ
ahima
ṃ
gaganakha
ṃ
sv
ā
h
ā
recited a hundred times for the mountain with lotus and residence. With the mantra recitation, the objects imagined become even brighter. (One need only do this to recognize its value as a technique for enhancing visualization.)

From a Jungian point of view, practitioners are being asked to utilize not creative imagination but the results of another person’s creative imagination, in which a certain visionary content has appeared, reflecting that person’s own psychic situationality. The effectiveness of the visualization could be questioned from the viewpoint that it does not allow a meditator to develop his or her own particular expressiveness, essential to unlocking the passageway to deeper layers of mind. This qualm is difficult to answer, but it seems to me that this type of meditation with its grand dimensions, its reliance on basic elements—land, ocean, mountain, flower, and palace—as well the richness of imagery ranging from its size to the substances are evocative of basic psychic forms, archetypes. Also, there is room for much personal adaptation of the imagery, but in-deed not of the basic variety that Jung’s depiction of creative imagination would yield.

The formality of this Action Tantra system of meditation also stands in stark contrast to the Nyingma practice of the Great Completeness in which, in a phase called “spontaneity,” the mind is allowed to display appearance upon appearance to the point where, as the Nyingma lama Khetsun Sangpo said, the whole cosmos becomes like a giant movie screen. Though this Nyingma practice has similarities with Jungian creative imagination, it is markedly different in that the meditator is not seeking to become involved in the imagery but is, instead, using the practice to allow the latent

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Tantric Techniques

fecundity of the mind to develop in manifest form. The aim is to bring this display of appearances to its fullest peak by not getting involved with it, after which the display naturally subsides, leaving direct perception of reality. The meditator of the Great Completeness is looking not for a central image to develop as in creative imagination but for the imagistic power of the mind to completely ripen into manifest perception of the the noumenon (ultimate reality). Here in Action Tantra visualization practices, on the other hand, the mind is being gradually opened to new levels through systematically proceeding through carefully framed steps.

Inviting the deity.
a
The meditator has previously prepared an oblation, like a drink to be offered a visitor; the substance of the vessel (gold, silver, stone, wood, and so forth) and the contents (barley and milk, sesame and yogurt, cow urine and rice, and so forth) are determined by the feat that one is seeking to receive from the deity after completing the meditations. Now the practitioner blesses the oblation into a magnificent state and is ready to invite the deity.

In his commentary on Tsong-kha-pa’s text, the Dalai Lama
b
explains that form bodies of Buddhas can appear instantaneously to a faithful person and thus do not have to come from one place to another but that for persons bound by the conception of inherent existence it is helpful to imagine inviting a deity from a Pure Land and to treat the deity in a manner modeled after the reception of a special visitor. That actual divine beings can appear anywhere at any time suggests that our minds are closed—by the conception that objects exist solidly from their own side—to the fecundity of reality, that we are bound, closed, and shut off from the richness of our own situation. In the process of breaking out of the prison of oversolidified conception, we may need to use the rules of the confines, inviting a deity to come, with palace and full retinue filling space, from a distant land.

The invitation is done through making a beckoning gesture with the hands, called a “seal of invitation” (such gestures are called “seals” most likely because, like a seal that guarantees a promise, they do not deviate from their specific symbolization, which in this case is to invite the deity). The practitioner says:

a
Deity Yoga,
20 and 117-122.

b
Ibid., 20.

The Path in Action Tantra: Divine Body
97

Due to my faith and [your compassionate] pledges
a
Come here, come here, O Supramundane Victor.

Accepting this oblation of mine,

Be pleased with me through this offering.

A mantra appropriate to the invited deity is recited, and the practitioner assumes a posture corresponding to that of the deity— standing, sitting, bent to one side, and so on—and holds up the oblation to entice the deity to come. If the proper ingredients have not been obtained, the practitioner begs the deity’s pardon, much as we do when we have not been able to provide the full complement of food and drink at a dinner party.

The deity arrives and is offered a seat either with the appropriate hand-gesture and mantra or by reciting:
b

It is good that the compassionate Supramundane Victor has come.

I am meritorious and fortunate. Taking my oblation,

Please pay heed

[To me] and grant [my request].

The guest is clearly not an equal but a superior powerful being who can grant favors. Practitioners curry favor with the deity, who is an appearance of a superior level of their own minds projected externally. That such projective techniques are used indicates the difficulty of achieving enlightenment—that the conscious mind must be manipulated out of its adherence to a limited state.

Displaying hand-gestures.
The mind has been heightened through imagining the arrival of an ideal being, and it is probably for the sake of making this firm that the practitioner now recites once the mantra
ś
a
ṃ
kare samaye sv
ā
h
ā
,
displaying the pledge vajra seal and then the hand-gesture appropriate to the lineage of the practitioner along with the lineage essence-mantra—
jinajik
for the One-Gone- Thus lineage,
ā
rolik
for the lotus lineage, and
vajradh
ṛ
k
for the vajra lineage, the three lineages corresponding to three levels of practitioners. The hand-gestures at this point seem a bit like the private handshakes of fraternal clubs, indicating recognition of the other