Vajra Diaries, ‘The Caves’

’Michael from Austria,’ as I have him my contacts on Telegram, wrote back after I told him we could get together after my Saga Dawa retreat and he replied: “Have a present retreat.” Probably because that’s an unconventional construction, I thought it a typo (spell correct error) for ‘have a pleasant retreat.’ Deductively I figured out it was not as Michael not only knows retreats are not ‘pleasant,’ but had mentioned that what he gained out of a recent  Vipasana retreat was ‘present mindedness.’ This, and writing in the Vajra Diaries #3, Vol.1 about Vulture Peak caves, got me thinking about the possible difference in practicing Zen and Indian Buddhism—specifically Vajrayana. Let me explain. I missed going to the ‘Zen Site’ cave, which I didn’t know existed until yesterday, while writing in Vol. 1 about where we went after Vulture Peak. It’s said at Zen Site that one can easily slip into Samadhi. The Mahasiddha Saraha, in his Dohas speaks of ‘self-awareness’ as none other than the Enlightened Mind, but only as a starting point for one’s meditative analysis, which leads directly to the Mahamudra siddhi. As most of the Mahasiddhas were first initiated into a tantra, often the Hevajra, before given their ‘sadhana,’ or pith instruction from the Guru, a directive on what to focus on and repetitively perform, it’s understood the Mahasiddhis were yogis who first learned to integrate the Vajra Body. This means having received and practiced upon the Four Consecrations, the five mandala chakras, and the purified five skandhas, they were opened, allowing subtle airs to coursed through them, producing the clear light experience. This is the classic Indian ‘gradual path’. As one commentator, the Nyingmapa scholar and adept Jikmé Tenpa Nyima extolled, “such a practitioner just  experiencing the vahyu [subtle airs] entering the central channel is fortunate indeed.” This gradual path when compared to a sudden path, Zen, or revelations coming from sitting a Vipasana [insight] retreat, has the advantage of a guaranteed stability, if practiced correctly, in six months to twelve years. As it is taught, just by keeping one’s Vajrayana Vow, full Enlightenment is guaranteed within sixteen lifetimes. But for the ‘present minded,’ sudden school practitioner, this would seem too long and too arduous, as the rationalist schools seek ease of method. So the question becomes: will a ‘present minded’ practitioner integrate the five skandhas just by walking around experiencing phenomena, in an astutely self-aware state, and achieve the Mahamudra siddhi, same as the yogi-adept who does both his Vajrayana sadhana and successfully analyses phenomena according to the pith instruction of his Root Guru—or not?

Very interesting dreams coming from writing about Vulture Peak and Son Bandar Caved. Last night I dreamed about this family album that, surprisingly, was really something like the lam dre nang sum, exoteric teachings. More surprisingly, I then discovered in the appendix a teaching entitled, Homelessness. In these writings there were short phrases with family and friend’s initials after them. Perhaps a record of donations. The significance of this led me to remember and reflect while doing Birwapa’s daybreak yoga this morning, what Lama Chödak had said about Khunnu Lama being homeless, and while hanging out with the street yogins in Varanasi, being recognized by an old friend from Lahore. “Don’t feel pity or sadness for me,” consoled the scholar adept elatedly, “I have bodhicitta!” This I then contrasted with the Dharma that builds monasteries and holds property. Also remembering that Patrul Rinpoche closed down the very comfortable house at his monastery when he became the Khenpo, and then wandered in homeless, constantly giving teachings. I also remembered seeing monks, looking awkwardly renounced, driving cars and motorbikes around the Tibetan enclaves in India. Perhaps too I was thinking how as a good Bodhisattva I needed to check back with Michael from Austria and see if he’d found a new home yet. He seeming a bit of a scholar gypsy. I also dreamt—and this is one of two sexual dreams—last night and the night before, my penis was like a ‘Push-up’ ice cream tube we used to eat as children. I was carving and sculpting my skin at the organ’s tip, eliminating excess, and then restoring the original shape, just like we use to do by licking those ice creams shaped like a phallus. Brother Tony was there and reminded me I was actually shortening my male member. Enthralled with its new sculpt-ability, the transformational quality of it seemed infinitely more important than its size. My ‘secret vajra,’ now more than just a tantric epithet, had become the thing itself—a true instrument of miraculous change. I also dreamt, night before last, I was part of this foursome out at the beach. The other couple was this clever young woman with this very old man, perhaps in his eighties or nineties. He kept trying to have sex with her and she would transform the situation just at the moment he was about to penetrate her. She did this by covering herself in sand or materializing objects to obstruct him. They both seemed to enjoy this cat and mouse game and I was surprised at day’s end she looked forward to us all getting together again. Upon waking I realized this attractive young transformer was none other than my primordially pure, nondual anima figure, the Buddha Nairatmyia Yogini, whom I consider my constant consort and inner, or secret, companion. Keith Richards, in his autobiography, suggested while learning to play your guitar, you should sleep with it—reminding us that one of the essential keys of mastering anything is to make it part of your lifestyle.These two dreams are also relevant for Buddhist practice, suggestive of both faith, as in trust, and energy as in devoted application or diligence, which are two of the five  strengths or powers.

Both of these entries today make me think as well of the Buddhist homily the dignified old guide at Son Bandar Caves (see Vajra Diaries Vol. I, #3, 29/5) could’ve also spun. It would go something like this: When King Bimisara tried to steer Shariputra away from spiritual pursuit, Shakyamuni, now Gotama Buddha, interceded by manifesting, or pretending to manifest an unlimited amount of gold within a cave, and all Bimisara had to do was meditate upon the dharani written outside the cave’s opening, figure out what it said, and all the gold would be his. Bimisara, while doing so, realized not what the words in Gupta language said, but instead that the Buddha had given him a priceless teaching. The teaching is that the cave is akin to the ‘container’ that is one’s mind. And that its content, like a cave’s, is empty. But that this emptiness, being all phenomena, is anything but valueless. And like gold, though limitedly so, it’s absolutely pure. Further, that this primordial nature of one’s mind and the Buddha’s Enlightened mind are the same. The unlimited amount of gold then was in this very realization, and limitlessly precious. His son, a prince of much power, seeing that his father the King believed in this sort of thing about Buddha’s teaching, came to see him as weak, imprisoning him so he could ascend the throne. This then is what led  tragically to Bimisara’s death, a teaching in itself on karma’s stubborn nature, and how all practice is not for this life but the next.