Tantric Techniques (24 page)

a
Deities have made pledges, previously while training, to be available to serve sentient beings; the practitioner is calling on such a pledge.

b
Deity Yoga,
122.

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Tantric Techniques

person and identifying oneself as being of the same club, as well as being means of keeping interlopers away.

The invitation to a divine being has provided an avenue for the practitioner to come into contact with positive forces deep in his or her mind, but it also has opened the way for obstructive contents to appear; so, one drives them away by circling the great pledge hand-gesture of one’s lineage. As Tsong-kha-pa says:
a

This is said to afford great protection from all evil deeds by obstructors who arrive after [the achievement of deities due to one’s own karma and conceptions], and so forth.

That when one’s mind has become opened, both greater good and greater evil arrive suggests that a prime reason for an ordinary per-son’s being shut off from the amazing potential of the mind is that we employ dullness as a defense mechanism to keep evil tendencies at bay. We are locked within a stultified mode of operation of mind, not just out of inattention to our potential but out of fear and a need to control forces lurking within.

Here in this ritual, by imagining a pure being the current psychological system-level is enlarged; a higher system-level is tapped, requiring a different type of defense against corresponding forces of evil. This is the problem with gradualistic expansion and development; it is not a mere adjustment of perceptions but an opening up of previously unused layers of mind not under one’s control; one arrives like a vassal in a kingdom with new and different rulers. Unlike the manifestation of the fundamental innate mind of clear light in Highest Yoga Mantra which is beyond the combat between good and evil and which itself is the resolution of all conflict, the gradualistic opening up of the mind
toward
that level (for those who cannot immediately manifest the most profound level of mind) requires that the present system-level become gradually re-educated and re-organized in order to handle the forces unleashed with each enhancement. As the tantric abbot Ngawang Lekden
b
put it, “With each advancement, there is a corresponding strengthening of bad forces.”

Offering to the deity.
Not only is evil thwarted with various techniques, but also the good is reinforced with devotional acts. Offerings are presented, most likely to strengthen one’s

a
Ibid., 122.

b
ngag dbang legs ldan,
1900-1971.

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commitment to the right and the pure through committing resources to it.

The practitioner rids the offerings of obstructors, cleanses them, and blesses them into a magnificent state, these ritual activities again suggesting that objects of common perception are over-lain with autonomous images obstructing perception of their actual nature. The false solidity of objects into which our perceptions are mired is composed of imagistic overlays incited by correspondences with past perceptions and eliciting places for suppressed and repressed contents to find expression. The ritual removal of these encrustations is a forerunner of the force of wisdom realizing the absence of inherent existence that first makes afflictive emotions impossible and then removes the appearance of objects as if they existed concretely from their own side. As a precursor of wis-dom through a correspondence of activity, the repeated performance of such ritual cleansing and enhancement must also help to induce wisdom.

The articles offered are the oblation already mentioned, a foot-bath, a bath through pouring water on an image of the deity in a mirror, clothing, adornments, music, perfume, flowers, incense, food, and lamps. These are performed with hand-gestures and recitation of a stanza appropriate to the particular article as well as a mantra at the end. For instance, the flower-offering is made with:

I offer with faith these flowers Of auspicious divine substance,

Grown from the clean, most clean. Receiving them, be pleased with me.
Ā
hara
ā
hara sarvavidy
ā
dhari p
ū
jite sv
ā
h
ā
.

As the Dalai Lama says:
a

The offerings prescribed are distinctly Indian, being geared to receiving a guest in a hot country—cool water for the feet, a cool drink, a garland for the head, fragrant perfume for the feet, sprinkling of water, and so forth.

The process of visualizing a visit by a special being in his/her palace is reminiscent of a child’s imagining a doll-house and then engaging in all sorts of marvelous activities that teach the child how to act—family roles and so forth.

a
Ibid., 20.

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Tantric Techniques

Praising.
The practitioner raises up songs of praise, first for the Three Jewels—Buddha, his doctrine, and the spiritual community— and then for the lords of the three lineages, these being Mañjushr
ī
who is the physical manifestation of the wisdom of all Buddhas, Avalokiteshvara who is the physical manifestation of the compassion of all Buddhas, and Vajrap
āṇ
i who is the physical manifestation of the power of all Buddhas. This triad of wisdom, compassion, and power mirrors the three principal qualities of Buddhahood, the character-traits that practitioners are seeking to develop. Praising the three deities with lines extolling these very qualities serves to strengthen the practitioner’s commitment to their development.

Homage also to Mañjushr
ī
,

Bearer of the appearance of a youth, Vividly adorned with the lamp of wisdom, Dispeller of the three worlds’ darkness.

Homage to the always merciful, Whose name is Avalokiteshvara, Composite of all excellent qualities, Strongly praised by all the Buddhas.

Homage to Vajrap
āṇ
i, Powerful and fierce,

Virtuous king of knowledge-mantra, Tamer of the hard to tame.

By imagining in front of oneself beings who have wisdom, compassion, and power to their fullest degree, practitioners mix their minds with states currently beyond them, thereby exerting a pull toward these qualities.

The directionality suggested by this practice is a far cry from the abject, amoral submission to unconscious forces that Jung warned Westerners against in undertaking “Eastern yoga.” We can see that this system is replete with techniques, positive and negative, for developing what Jung sought—a strong ego that can mitigate the demands of expression of the unconscious and the requirement that one’s conscious mind not become enslaved by the contents that manifest.

Worship.
These techniques take quintessential form in the seven-branched service—disclosure of ill deeds; taking refuge in Buddha, his doctrine, and the spiritual community; generating

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altruism; admiration of one’s own and others’ virtues; entreaty of the Buddhas to remain teaching; supplication to them not to withdraw physical appearance so beneficial to the world; and prayer-wishes. The first is to confess or, more literally, to
disclose
previous ill deeds, to cease hiding them, for it is wisely said that when ill deeds are hidden, their force increases daily, no doubt due to identifying with them. Fear of disclosure usually comes from not wanting to have to identify with one’s deeds, but actually it appears that disclosure allows one, after the pain of open identification, to cease identifying with those deeds.

The practice involves being regretful for what has been done and being committed not to repeat the activity in the future and is accompanied by the enactment of a specific virtuous action aimed at atoning for the misdeed. It is a technique for releasing oneself from the sway, the autonomous force, of past negative actions. The
Susiddhi Tantra,
from which Tsong-kha-pa takes his text for the sev-en-branched service, prescribes disclosure this way: