|
List Books by:
Title
Author
20% Discount for
3 or more
items.
|
|
Medicine Buddha Teachings
|
|
| Preface
All of the
Buddha’s teachings can be subsumed under
the two categories of shamatha and vipashyana—calm
abiding and insight. |
In the Hinayana traditions
of Buddhism the intention of the vipashyana
teachings is to establish the lack of true existence
of the individual—sometimes called one-fold
egolessness, the selflessness of the individual,
the identitylessness of the individual—and
the lack of true existence of gross phenomena
or things. The intention of the vipashyana teachings
of the first half of the Mahayana teachings—the
second turning of the wheel of dharma—is
to extend this understanding to include the
lack of true existence even of the most subtle
phenomenon, including atoms and subatomic matter
and energy, time, and all forms of consciousness
itself. These two understandings together are
referred to as two-fold egolessness, the selflessness
of the individual and the selflessness of phenomena,
and are both included in the terms shunyata
or emptiness.
The second half of the Mahayana teachings—the
third turning of the wheel of dharma—goes
on to teach that emptiness is not simply a mere
nothingness, nor merely the other side of the
coin of interdependence, nor even simply a state
beyond all conceptuality. The third turning
teaches that this emptiness—while lacking
any limiting characteristics, such as color,
shape, size, location, substance, or gender,
and being empty of all cognitive and emotional
obscurations—is not empty of its own nature,
the radiant clarity of mind and reality, which
we refer to as clear light, in which all the
positive qualities of intelligence, wisdom,
compassion, skilful means, devotion, confidence,
etc., inhere as one undifferentiable quality.
Various manifestations of this quality arise
out of the clear light nature in the form of
the deities of the Vajrayana tradition such
as the Medicine Buddha, Vajrayogini, Tara, or
Chenrezig. And although it is said from the
standpoint of relative truth that these deities
actually do exist as individual beings who can
be supplicated, they exist as such because,
and only because, the qualities that they embody
were already inherent in the clear light nature,
the Buddha nature, of their own minds when they
were confused sentient beings, just as they
inherently exist today in the minds of all confused
beings.
The essential nature of all deities can be better
understood by understanding the essential nature
of their body, speech, and mind. The body of
the deity is the union of appearance and emptiness
and emerges in the practitioner’s experience
when the experience of perceiver and perceived
is purified. What is it purified of? Grasping
and fixation. Grasping or clinging to a self,
and fixating on an other. In the words of Guru
Rinpoche, “Perceiver and perceived when
purified are the body of the deity, clear emptiness.”
The speech of the deity is the union of sound
and emptiness. We all know that sound is intangible,
but sounds without the experience of their emptiness
have tremendous power to hurt us, to insult
us, to exalt us, to exhilarate us, etc. But
when sounds and verbal communications are experienced
as mere sounds, as the union of sound and emptiness,
their power over us dissolves and we experience
perfect equanimity.
The mind of the deity is the union of awareness
and emptiness. The experiences of the five sense
consciousnesses and of the mental consciousness
give rise to a constantly changing kaleidoscope
of thoughts, mental afflictions, and subtle
dualistic perceptions which have the power,
in the absence of the experiential understanding
of their emptiness, to involve us in the most
outrageous, outlandish, though sometimes very
subtle, melodramas of the mind. But when their
essential emptiness is recognized, and one ceases
to welcome and reject, they dissolve or are
self-liberated in their own place, the space
of empty awareness. All deities share these
three aspects of the essential nature—which
we also call Mahamudra or dzogchen—and
all practitioners who practice deity meditation
with sufficient diligence and perseverance will
come to realize this very same nature—the
body, speech, and mind of the deity—in
themselves as they become the deity.
At the same time, each deity has its own particular
relative blessing. If one meditates on Chenrezig,
ultimately one will realize Mahamudra or dzogchen,
and attain Buddhahood. But in the short run,
one will experience a strengthening of one’s
loving kindness and compassion. If one meditates
on Green Tara, ultimately one will attain enlightenment,
but in the short run, one will experience freedom
from fear and mental paralysis, the increased
ability to accomplish one’s objectives,
and an increase in active compassion. If one
meditates on Manjushri, in the end one will
attain enlightenment, but in the short run one
will experience an increase in intelligence,
insight, and wisdom. If one meditates on the
Medicine Buddha, one will eventually attain
enlightenment, but in the meantime one will
experience an increase in healing powers both
for oneself and others and a decrease in physical
and mental illness and suffering. Whether or
not we have a very strong motive to attain Buddhahood,
we all desire these sorts of relative objectives,
so deity meditation provides tremendous incentive
for the practice of dharma.
And yet deity meditation is just another version
of shamatha and vipashyana. When one meditates
on the form, the attire and other attributes,
the entourage and environment, and the internal
mandala of a deity, and when one recites the
deity’s mantra, one is practicing shamatha;
and when one realizes that all that one is meditating
on is mere empty appearance, one is practicing
vipashyana. But because meditation on the deity
and on the union of the deity and one’s
own root lama instantly connects one with the
empty clear light nature—which is the
essence of the deity, the guru, and the lineage,
as well as being one’s own essential nature—the
power of this form of shamatha to purify the
mind of the practitioner of the mental obscurations
blocking his or her insight is immeasurably
greater than that of ordinary tranquillity meditation
on mundane objects like the breath or a flower
or a candle flame. And since the forms upon
which one is meditating are mere mental fabrications,
their emptiness is more immediately apparent
than, say, the emptiness of something like the
Jefferson Memorial or the Washington Monument.
This is all possible because of the special
quality of the Vajrayana, which takes enlightenment
as the path, rather than seeing it merely as
a goal. Through the three processes of abhisheka,
which ripens the mental continuum; oral transmission,
which supports one’s practice; and the
teachings, which liberate, one is connected
directly to the enlightened state transmitted
by the guru and the lineage. Thereafter, when
one practices or merely brings to mind those
teachings, one is instantly reconnected with
that compassionate primordial awareness, and
this constant reconnecting then becomes one’s
path, bringing with it the rapid purification
of mental defilements and the rapid accumulation
of merit and wisdom. The recognition of this
connection is the uncovering of one’s
own wisdom. If it goes unrecognised, it still
exists in the practitioner’s mental continuum
as a seed, which will gradually ripen according
to conditions.
The teachings here on the Medicine Buddha, which
comprise the first half of this book present
the stages of practice of the Medicine Buddha
Sadhana. In it Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche elucidates
not only the details of this particular practice,
but also many of the basic principles of tantric
theory and practice in general: the notion of
deities and Buddha realms, the principles of
samayasattva and jnanasattva, the principles
of emanating and gathering, and the use of offerings
to cultivate qualities, to mention a few. For
anyone engaged in any Vajrayana practice, this
teaching is very useful in understanding the
foundations of tantric practice, and a garden
of delights. In addition, Rinpoche describes
and explains the mudras in the sadhana and gives
a particularly lucid description of the five
wisdoms associated with the five Buddha families,
describing them as five aspects of intrinsic
awareness or as five aspects of the wisdom of
a Buddha.
The second half of this book consists of Rinpoche’s
teachings on the Medicine Buddha Sutra, by the
Buddha Shakyamuni. In these teachings Rinpoche
explains the twelve aspirations; the benefits
of hearing, recollecting, and reciting the name
of the Medicine Buddha; the meaning of deity
in Vajrayana Buddhism; the nature of the four
maras and the transcendence of obstacles in
the path; and the four qualities of a good intention.
—Lama Tashi Namgyal
|
|
|
