Tantric Techniques (35 page)

b
Deity Yoga,
29.

c
Ibid., 165-166.

Mantra Repetition
143

not lose the earlier appearance, much as we can think of a street that we know well and focus on a particular building on that street without losing the appearance of the general locale.

6. Concentration Without Repetition

The meditative stabilization of exalted speech has two more phases, both of which involve mantra but not accompanied by the sense that one is listening to one’s own repetition. In these phases, the meditator concentrates on the mantra tones as if resounding of their own accord or as if being recited by someone else; therefore, these steps—the concentrations of abiding in fire and of abiding in sound—constitute the first part of the concentration
without
repetition and yet are still part of the meditative stabilization of exalted speech. The remaining part of the concentration without repetition—the concentration bestowing liberation at the end of sound— constitutes the meditative stabilization of exalted mind.

In this way, the concentration without repetition itself has three phases called the three principles,
a
these being the concentration of abiding in fire, the concentration of abiding in sound, and the concentration bestowing liberation at the end of sound. As just mentioned, the first two are included in the meditative stabilization of exalted speech, whereas the last constitutes the meditative stabilization of exalted mind. About these, the
Concentration Continuation Tantra
says:
b

The secret mantra abiding in fire bestows feats. That abiding in sound bestows yoga.

The end of sound bestows liberation. These are the three principles.

From among the three principles, the first—“The secret mantra abiding in fire,” or concentration of abiding in fire—is said to “bestow feats,” not in the sense that it alone is sufficient for the achievement of major yogic feats but in the sense that, through causing the concentration on mantra to become more powerful and causing the mind to become more stable,
c
one comes considerably closer to the achievement of feats.

The concentration of abiding in sound “bestows yoga” in that it is the time of achieving a fully qualified calm abiding.
d
The

a
de nyid gsum.

b
Stanza 17; P430, vol. 9, 53.3.8; cited in
Deity Yoga,
155.

c
Ibid., 29 and 158.

d
Ibid., 29 and 166.

146
Tantric Techniques

concentration bestowing liberation at the end of sound brings about achievement of a union of calm abiding and special insight realizing the emptiness of inherent existence, which, when cultivated over time, brings direct realization of emptiness and eventually leads to the great liberation of Buddhahood.
a
Let us consider these three concentrations in detail.

When meditators have firm success with the many levels of the concentration with repetition, they pass to a subtler level, the concentration of abiding in fire. As just mentioned, this also is a meditation observing a divine speech mantra, but “repetition” is not involved because in this case when one’s own mind appears in the aspect of the sounds of mantra it is not as if oneself is reciting them, but as if one is hearing them resounding of their own accord or hearing another’s repetition. Because it is free from the aspect of one’s own recitation of mantra, it is called a concentration
without
repetition. It is called “abiding in fire” because the sounds of man-tra are heard as if resounding within a tongue of flame on a moon disc at the heart of one’s own body visualized as that of a deity. As the Dalai Lama says in commentary:
b

Previously, during the repetition of mantra while observing the sound of the letters, it was as if you were listening to the reverberation of the sounds of your own recitation, whether whispered or mental. However, here you are to lis-ten to the mantra sounds as if someone else were reciting them. Therefore, that the concentration of abiding in fire is said to be without mantra repetition means that it is free from the aspect of
one’s own
repetition, not that it is free from mantra sounds altogether.

These sounds are “heard” from within a tongue of flame imagined at the heart—all this within the clear appearance of your own body as a deity’s. Your own mind is as if inside the tongue of flame, appearing in the form of the mantra sounds resounding as if by their own power. This is like the practice on other occasions of the mind’s taking the mind as its object of observation—a factor of the mind

a
Ibid., 29-30.

b
Ibid., 30-31.

Concentration Without Repetition
147

taking the general mind as its object. Here the mind is appearing as the sounds of someone else’s repetition and is simultaneously listening to those sounds.

In the previous meditations all forms and sounds were appearances of the mind realizing suchness; thus, all forms seen and sounds heard were appearances of the mind. Within that, one was as if listening to the mantra repeated by oneself; hence, there still was a sense of a listener and the listened. However, here in the concentration of abiding in fire one’s own basis of designation is as if dwelling inside the tongue of flame, and it itself is appearing as the sounds being listened to in that same place.

One’s mind, which is the basis in dependence upon which oneself is designated, is imagined as dwelling within the fire and as appearing as the mantra sounds. The brightness of the fire helps to remove laxity, and the placement of one’s own mind
within
the small space of the flame helps to remove excitement, the scattering of the mind to other objects. With proficiency, the sounds of the mantra are “heard” as if in continual reverberation. Buddhaguhya
a
explains that meditation at this point becomes one’s own sustenance such that there is no sense of hunger or thirst.

The unusual practice of causing one’s own mind to appear as sounds that have the aspect of being recited by someone else or reverberating of their own accord brings about a diminishment of the sense of subject and object, the bifurcation of the world into what is on this, the subject’s, side and what is on that, the object’s, side. The diminishment of duality mimics the lack of dualistic conception in the realization of emptiness and thus helps to induce such realization through familiarity with a psychological counterpart of a central feature of that realization.

The
Concentration Continuation Tantra
describes the concentration of abiding in fire with three stanzas:
b

M
ā
ntrikas with intelligence bind to the self [that is, the mind]

The phenomena arisen from the nondistinguished [mental consciousness].

a
P3495, vol. 78, 77.1.7. Cited in
Deity Yoga,
158.

b
Stanzas 18-20; P430, vol. 9, 53.3.8; cited in
Deity Yoga,
156.

148
Tantric Techniques

Dwelling on what transcends the branches [that is, the eyes and so forth],

They concentrate without adherence.

When they contemplate within adhering

To the immutable letters [that is, sounds] strung together, Continual like the sounds of bells

And set in a series called “sound,”

[The sounds] should be contemplated as abiding in fire— Quiescent, free from words, having the branches [that is,

the mantra letters]

With a nature also of having stopped vitality and exertion As well as having forsaken sleep.

The first stanza describes the initial cultivation of one’s own final nature, the suchness of self, the equivalent of the ultimate deity from among the six deities. Practitioners of Mantra (“M
ā
ntrikas”) are to “concentrate without adherence,” meaning that they are to meditate within ceasing the conception of inherent existence. They “dwell on” the emptiness of inherent existence, which “transcends the branches”—“branches” here referring not to the four branches of repetition but to conventional phenomena in general, such as eyes, ears, nose, and so forth. They do this by “binding to the self ”—that is, to the mind—the mental factors that accompany it. These mental factors are “phenomena arisen from the nondistinguished” in that they are associated with an internal consciousness that cannot be distinguished, or apprehended, by another’s eye consciousness and so forth. The mental factors involved with the entanglements of the afflictive emotions are “bound” to the mind in the sense that due to strongly contemplating the emptiness of inherent existence, afflictive emotions do not arise. Such M
ā
ntrikas are endowed with “intelligence,” for they have the wisdom capable of investigating their own suchness, their own final nature.

Having concentrated on suchness, practitioners rise from solely contemplating the emptiness of inherent existence and, within appearing in the form of a deity and conceiving of themselves to be deities, their own mind of wisdom appears in the aspect of the mantra as if one were hearing another’s recitation of them or resounding of their own accord. Because the mind of wisdom itself is appearing as sound, the sounds of the mantra and one’s own final nature are completely mixed like water and milk.

Concentration Without Repetition
149

The practitioner “adheres” in mind to the sounds of the letters, which are “immutable” in that they uninterruptedly appear without any fluctuation “strung together” in a series such that, with proficiency, they become “continual like the sounds of a bell,” the earlier sounds not disappearing with the appearance of the later ones. The sounds are imagined “as abiding in fire,” that is to say, in a tongue of flame at one’s heart; the fire is “quiescent” in the sense that it does not burn, even though once proficiency is gained, there is a sense of warmth. Also, the sounds of the mantra are “free from words” as they are neither whispered nor mentally repeated in the aspect of one’s reciting them. Moreover, the mantra is endowed with “the branches,” which here means all of its individual letters. “Vitality and exertion,” or breath and distraction, are stopped in order to avoid excitement and scattering of the mind. “Having forsaken sleep” indicates that laxity and slackness in the mode of apprehension of the mind are to be stopped.