Highest Yoga Tantra and Mahamudra
By Master Sheng-yen Lu
Translated by Cheng Yew Chung, Edited by Dance Smith
Translated by Cheng Yew Chung, Edited by Dance Smith
This was translated from Grandmaster Lu's 51st book, 無上密與大手印.
The Mahamudra practitioner must know that the true significance of Mahamudra is True Reality.
He who knows the Mahamudra is the wisest man, for he is neither attached nor deluded.
Tantric practitioners are prone to stepping into the four wrong paths, and we must recognize what these four paths are and commit them to memory.
The first wrong path is obsession with the idea of Emptiness.
I know of a monk who studies the Satyasiddhi School (Jap. Jojitsu-shu) and the Three-Treatise School. These two schools are also known as the Sunyata or Emptiness Schools.
He feels that everything does not have an intrinsic nature.
The monk practises meditation and focuses on the cultivation of breaking any attachment to the self. He is aware that all dependent originations are inherently empty in nature, and that the ego self and its possessions are non-existent.
His final destination in his cultivation is the Heaven of Boundless Empty Space, the first heaven of the Realm of Formlessness, which is among the Three Realms and the Nine Grounds.
The monk feels that he has attained enlightenment.
The monk who is attached to the nature of Emptiness can hope to reach the Realm of Formlessness.
Practitioners in this category often feel they no longer need to return to the human realm; they feel that they have entered into Emptiness itself and have liberated themselves from birth and death.
They feel they have attained Nirvana.
However, all that they experience has arisen from a sense of selfishness, for people who indulge in the nature of Emptiness are unable to generate the heart to deliver sentient beings.
Such Emptiness is nothing more than the empty state of obstinate void.
They hold the heterodox view that does not recognize the existence of cause and effect, and they are attached to the views and understanding of emptiness.
Such a spiritual level is incomparable to the bodhisattva state born of the true reality of Mahamudra. Thus, this is the first wrong path.
When you ask this monk what truth is, his reply is, Truth is emptiness.
When you ask him about delivering sentient beings, his reply is, Delivering sentient beings is emptiness.
What about meditation? His reply is, Meditation is emptiness.
His reply, no matter what you ask, is always emptiness. He is completely attached to the ideal of emptiness.
An individual who practises this form of meditation will attain the Samadhi of Emptiness, whose highest spiritual state is the Heaven of Neither Thought Nor No Thought.
When dwelling in this meditation, the highest level one can hope to reach is the four spheres of existence within the formless realm.
The second wrong path is attachment to scriptures.
I once said that there are indeed many great scholars and venerables who are completely versed in the study of the sutras and scriptures.
Whenever they discuss principles based on the sutras, they deliver them clearly and coherently.
If they are approached with questions, they will support their arguments by quoting from the sutras and scriptures.
Christians are absorbed with the Bible; Buddhists, the Buddhist Canon; Taoists, the Taoist Canon.
I am not here to discourage you from reading the sutras and scriptures, but I want you to read them, apply them creatively, realize their meanings, and create new thoughts.
I do not encourage memorization of the texts, neither would I want you to become a bookworm and eventually bury yourself in the scriptures.
Being well-versed in the scriptures is useless, as mentally mastering all sutras and scriptures without actually practicing them and generating new thoughts through them is nothing more than being a blind follower.
These scholars and monks are not able to go beyond the boundaries set by the sutras and scriptures, and are unable to put them to good use.
Hence, they become too involved with the scriptures.
Such is the condition of attachment to the mara of words.
This is a form of delusion, a sense of intellectual complacency which feeds the academics with the idea that by understanding the meanings contained in the scriptures, they have realized the truth.
By this approach, they have isolated themselves in their thoughts and no longer pursue the inner true reality of Mahamudra.
Armed with only an intellectual mastery of the scriptures and gaining no progress in their spiritual level - this illustrates the situation of being bewildered by the scriptures and deluded in the mara realm of words.
When you ask any monk who falls into this category what exactly is truth, his reply would likely be, A certain scripture says ?
You ask him about the delivery of sentient beings and his reply would be, Go read the sutras and realize the meaning of the words.
So you continue with the question of meditation and his reply would be, Meditation is exactly what is written in the scriptures.
All that the monks ever know and say as they each preach the dharma is quoted from the sutras and scriptures, and they hold the truth written in the sutras and scriptures to be the perfect truth.
Actually this is a grave mistake.
The Mahamudra of Dispelling Delusion is to be actualized in practice.
The scriptures should never be held as the final word, for they are only supplementary to our cultivation.
We must regard the inventiveness of actual practice and actual realization as primary, for the Mahamudra leads to limitless expansion of ideas and cultivation.
If we want any yogic response, we must not be engrossed with the scriptures.
The third wrong path is attachment to the practice of stilling thoughts.
When I began teaching the practice of Mahamudra, I encouraged people to still their discursive thoughts.
However, when a day comes when you find there is no way to still your thoughts, then you must stop trying. It may seem to be a paradox, but it is not.
It is really the progression of the three phases of cultivation:
1. Stilling the mind - First we learn to stop discursive thoughts.
2. Letting the mind be - Letting discursive thoughts run wild.
3. Observing the thoughts - Like standing by a river, watching the flow of thoughts moving like the river water, remaining unaffected by them.
The Tantric practitioner must cultivate according to these three phases.
When you reach a point where you realize there is no stopping of thoughts, then stop trying and simply allow the thoughts to flow naturally.
This is because the more you try to stop your thoughts, the more discursive thoughts are produced. Therefore you are better off simply letting discursive thoughts continue as they will and seeing the process as a natural thing.
By letting the thoughts flow and subside on their own accord, they appear to diminish instead.
If we focus on stopping the arising of discursive thoughts, it can turn into a kind of obsession with stilling thoughts.
This has an adverse effect if we push too hard trying to still the arising of discursive thoughts.
While discursive thoughts continue to flow ceaselessly, they increase in the process of attempting to stop them.
This process could eventually lead to a situation similar to the Yellow River bursting its banks, where all desires and thoughts flood the mind and destroy our efforts of cultivation overnight.
Thus, the Tantric practitioner who practises Mahamudra must understand the three phases of cultivation, where one first stills thoughts, and if thoughts are unstoppable, then one lets the thoughts run their course.
Finally, we transform discursive thoughts into thoughts of observation.
This is the right way to practise.
A monk once told me that when he was cultivating the method of stilling his thoughts, he was unaware of the method of diversion.
Whenever a discursive thought arose, he would slap himself once.
Eventually his face became swollen, but it helped little to stop his thoughts.
Later, he took a needle and pricked himself whenever he had to stop his thoughts.
But still this did not stop his thoughts.
Finally he thought of cutting his penis.
I told him even if he should cut off his penis it would not help to reduce his discursive thoughts.
Do you really think that by becoming a eunuch you will not think sexual thoughts?
Eunuchs think sexual thoughts more than anyone else; we call this the bare itch.
The only way to deal with discursive thoughts without hitting them is to first still the mind.
And when this does not work, switch to the approach of letting thoughts run freely.
After some time doing this, switch to the approach of studying the buddha statues to appreciate their sanctity, and divert your thoughts in a natural way.
By adopting this approach you will not become attached.
It is a wrong path for a Tantric practitioner to become obsessed with the act of stilling the mind.
The fourth wrong path to take is an obsession with multiple practices.
There are many practices in Tantrayana.
A practitioner may prefer one practice over another and become fickle, adopting different practices at different times.
Even his or her choice of principal deity may change all the time, and eventually the individual cant make up his or her mind which principal deity to follow.
Today, I, the Holy Red Crown Vajra Guru, have transmitted many Tantric methods, and those which have yet to be transmitted number in the thousands.
If I should decide to transmit everything and let the readers learn all of them, a hundred lifetimes would not be sufficient to cultivate all these practices.
At the same time, the individual would not gain any spiritual response.
The practitioner only needs to pick the one practice which most suits his or her nature and cultivate it.
Once the practitioner gains yogic response, it is only natural that he or she will gain responses with other practices.
This is a key point.
He who receives the Mahamudra has long realized this truth.
All his or her actions are of the Mahamudra, and are completely absorbed in the state of Spontaneous or Essence Mahamudra (Sahaja Mahamudra).
This is liberation.
This form of liberation is called the dharma is really no dharma.
All these practices can be put aside, for his or her every action in life constitutes all dharma.
The individual abides perpetually in the state of liberation, and his or her expression of all dharma is done for the sake of sentient beings.
This is the most important attitude held by a realized person.
Thus, putting on a shirt is Mahamudra.
Releasing oneself in the toilet is Mahamudra.
Washing ones hands is Mahamudra.
Thus, an obsession with multiple practices is itself a delusion.
I just want to remind you not to be obsessed with multiple practices.
Remember well! Remember well!
Amituofo
Lotuschef
Pure Karma
True Buddha School
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