Read Tantric Techniques Online
Authors: Jeffrey Hopkins
Tags: #Health & Fitness, #Yoga, #Body; Mind & Spirit, #Meditation, #Religion, #Buddhism, #General, #Tibetan
MEDITATIVE STABILIZATION OF EXALTED MIND
3. Concentration Bestowing Liberation at the End of Sound
Effecting the achievement of yogic feats
Feats are in three categories:
pacification,
such as avoiding untimely death, illnesses, epidem-ics, harmful influences, and contagion
increase,
such as enhancing life span, youthfulness, magnificence, power, qualities of realization, and resources
ferocity such as killing, expelling, or confusing harmful beings.
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These feats—which also include clairvoyance, invisibility, the capacity to understand all treatises immediately upon reading them, swift footedness, and empowering pills for youthfulness and so forth—are sought in order to enhance the power of the very yoga that comprises prior approximation. Thus, although the triad of prior approximation, effecting achievement of feats, and engaging in altruistic activities suggests a movement from the first to the last, the yoga that constitutes the first phase is the most important. The feats that allow a practitioner to perform special activities for the benefit of others bring about merit further enhancing the capacity of this same yoga so that Buddhahood can be achieved.
Analyzing dreams
See
Deity Yoga,
176-177.
Performing the above meditation in modified form and burnt offerings or repetitions of mantra and so forth
See
Deity Yoga,
177-179.
Activities
Using the yogic feats of pacification, increase, and ferocity for your own and others’ temporary and final aims.
Part Two:
The Difference Between S
ū
tra and Mantra
8. Bu-tön Rin-chen-drup’s Stimulating Catalogue
The distinctiveness of the tantric practice of deity yoga and Tsong-kha-pa’s choosing it as the sole central distinguishing feature of Mantra is put into perspective through considering his prime source, the encyclopedic presentation of the difference between S
ū
tra and Mantra by the “omniscient”
a
Bu-tön Rin-chen-drup
b
(1290-1364), who is reported to have been first a Nyingma and then a Sa-kya
c
but is more appropriately identified by the sect named after him, Bu-luk (Bu System). All presentations of the distinctiveness of Mantra, except that by Tsong-kha-pa and his followers, em-ploy multiple formats for demonstrating its greatness through its central features, and Bu-tön in his
Extensive Presentation of the General Tantra Sets: Ornament Beautifying the Precious Tantra Sets ,
d
drawing from Atisha’s
Compilation of All Pledges,
cites nine Indian scholars’ varying descriptions of the multiple ways in which the Mantra Vehicle surpasses the Perfection Vehicle:
Tripi
ṭ
akam
ā
la as well as Vajrap
āṇ
i’s commentary, 4 ways
being for the nonobscured
having many skillful methods
no difficulties
a
“Omniscient” is a Tibetan epithet for an accomplished scholar versed in many topics, a polymath.
b
bu ston rin chen grub.
c
Reported orally by the Nyingma lama and biographer, Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche, who himself studied at a Ge-luk-pa monastic university, Drepung, before pursuing the Nyingma path.
d
rgyud sde spyi’i rnam par gzhag pa: rgyud sde rin po che’i mdzes rgyan,
Collected Works vol. 15 (New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture, 1969), 6.1-32.5, hereafter referred to as “
Extensive
version.” The very same presentation, with mi-nor printing differences, is repeated in Bu-tön’s middling version called the
Me-dium-Length Presentation of the General Tantra Sets: Illuminating the Secrets of All Tantra Sets
(
rgyud sde spyi’i rnam par gzhag pa rgyud sde thams cad kyi gsang ba gsal bar byed pa
), Collected Works vol. 15, 614.7-641.7, hereafter referred to as “
Medium-Length
version”; it has been used for text comparison. A considerably abbreviated version of the same is given in his
Condensed Presentation of the General Tantra Sets: Key Opening the Door to the Precious Treasury of Tantra Sets
(
rgyud sde spyi’i rnam par gzhag pa rgyud sde rin po che’i gter sgo ’byed pa’i lde mig
), Collected Works vol. 14, 845.1-859.1, hereafter referred to as “
Condensed
version
.
”
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Tantric Techniques
being created for those with sharp faculties.
Jñ
ā
nashr
ī
, 11 ways
observing an unsurpassed object of observation
unsurpassed achieving
unsurpassed pristine wisdom
unsurpassed effort
ability to take care of all trainees without exception
blessing afflictive emotions into a magnificent state
swifter blessings into magnificence
quick emergence
abandonment of afflictive emotions
unsurpassed contemplation
unsurpassed deeds.
Ratn
ā
karash
ā
nti, 3 ways
very pure objects of observation
power of aids
deeds
N
ā
g
ā
rjuna, 6 ways
implanting of everything with the seal of the all-good
blessing into a magnificent state
faster achievement of feats
separation from the frights of cyclic existence and bad transmigrations and becoming rested
lack of interference
nondeterioration of pledges, and natural restoration if deteriorated
Indrabh
ū
ti, 7 ways
guru
vessel
rite
activity
pledge
view
behavior
Jñ
ā
nap
ā
da, 3 ways
practitioner
path
fruit
Bu-tön Rin-chen-drup’s Stimulating Catalogue
207
Ḍ
ombh
ī
heruka, 5 ways
vessels
doctrine making vessels (initiation)
texts
paths
fruits
Vajragha
ṇṭ
ap
ā
da, 4 ways
persons who are the bases
paths that are the means of entry
fruit which is the finality
definite emergence
Samayavajra, 5 ways
guru
initiation
pledges
quintessential instructions
and effort
Bu-tön begins with Tripi
ṭ
akam
ā
la’s
Lamp for the Three Modes,
a
quoting his stanzas on each of the four features and paraphrasing Tripi
ṭ
akam
ā
la’s own prose explanations, after which he expansive-ly describes Jñ
ā
nashr
ī
’s eleven ways, and then quotes Atisha’s brief accounts of the remaining seven. He occasionally explains and defends the positions of these nine scholars.
a
tshul gsum gyi sgron ma
,
nayatrayaprad
ī
pa;
P4530; Toh. 3707, Nying ma edition of
sde dge,
vol. 62.
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Tantric Techniques