So the first step in ‘walking through walls’ is entering Vajrayana’s graduated esoteric path, upon which one burns the seeds of one’s negative karmic actions of body, speech, and mind, the source of our deluded vision creating the ‘appearance’ of substantive walls. For those who like pujas, this can methodically be done through confession, purification, and literally tossing one’s bad seeds into a homa fire. It can also be easily accomplished through purifying visualizations of restorative nectars descending from Vajrasattva seated upon one’s crown, while one also practices the four powers: 1) Shrine power, which is an absolute confidence in the Triple Gem. 2) Power of genuine remorse. 3) Power of antidote; a faith in Vajrasattva’s ability to purifying all faults. 4) Power of resolve; that one would rather drink poison than capitulate to one’s former bad habits. This is steadfastly thought and visualized, the mind properly placed upon the four powers and the descending nectars, while intently reciting Vajrasattva’s Hundred Syllable Mantra.
Recommended in odd numbers of repetitions, three, seven, twenty-one and so forth, this mantra is best done until visualizations of the deity or deities, and descending nectars appear as ‘ceaseless’ and empty like a reflection in a mirror. How is this possible? One can be empowered in this unique method of transforming negativities of body, speech, and mind after first entering the Bodhisattva’s Path. This is done in a Mahayana ceremony given by an accomplished Bodhisattva (preferably one’s own root Guru) in which one vows to aspire, and later fulfill, a sacred wish and promise to save all sentient beings from suffering. This is achieved by a commitment to follow the Bodhisattva’s rules of conduct and accepting the efficacy of a ‘vajra being’ to whom one confesses and seeks forgiveness for all negative actions. This being is the primordial Buddha, Vajrasattva, the ultimate purifying manifestation of all the pure realm deities. While doing this practice, one leaves off the ordinary ‘karmic vision,’ accepts the yogi’s ‘vision of experience,’ and practices until realizing the ‘pure vision’ of an Enlightened Buddha.
Embarking upon the Vajrayana path, one performs ‘foundation practices’ of many repetitions, traditionally 100,000, such as full prostrations while taking refuge in the Guru, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Then one does the above Vajrasattva practice, makes Mandala Offerings of all things precious and desirable, commits to Guru Yoga devotion, and perhaps recites a Protection Chakra mantra as found in most Highest Yoga Tantra sadhanas. Preferably, foundation practices are ‘transmitted’ by one’s Root Guru, who ripens a disciple by teaching them from the same root texts used in ripening him or her by their own Root Guru.
After receiving this precious instruction, its best to immediately go into retreat and complete the required number of repetitions as quickly as possible; or until all one’s emotive and cognitive obscurations are completely purified. This accomplishes what’s called the ‘two heaps’ of merit and wisdom, the same path and result accomplishment of all Fully Enlightened Buddhas.
Next, after being initiated into the Highest Yoga Tantra, and having vowed to do a daily sadhana practice upon one’s chosen deity, one recites the amount of mantras one promised to the Guru at the time of empowerment. From the point of view of conventional, impure vision of reality, extraordinary experiences will then occur if one executes the sadhana with a pure vision, as one should. The Guru is an actual Buddha, all words are the Dharma, and the people around one are all Sangha. The ground is made of vaidurya gem stone and one no longer sees their physical reality as ordinary, but rather transformed and purified. One figuratively and literally prostrates one’s body, voice, and mind to shed pride and arrogance. The conventional view of the naively real—my, me, mine, and others’—transitions out of a self and selfish nature. The spirit of giving, and practicing the other five Perfections—moral discipline, patience, diligence, contemplation, and wisdom—now guide and define one’s purpose and being.
The irreversible perception that self and other are devoid of a substantive, self-existent nature is arrived at through a transformative purification of five primordial Buddhas, located at the navel, heart, throat, genitals, and crown. These primordial Buddhas are actually one’s skandhas; literally the five ‘heaps’ of form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness. The agents of these are known in Buddhist epistemology as the eighteen ayatana or sense bases: eye and visible objects, ear and sound, nose and odor, tongue and taste, body and touch, mind and mental objects. Arising in an impure field, conditioned by a predisposed, self-aggregating ego mind, these tripartite ayatanas are purified to remove emotive obscurations. However, latent mental impressions, as cognitive obscurations, persist and need to be destroyed in order to make irreversible the higher, Madhyamika, ‘middle way’ view of an unwavering, non-dualistic nature.
Through a supreme manifestation of the Nirmanakaya, the compassionate agency of the Buddha, five spiritually curative families of Primordial Buddhas—Vairochana, Akshobhya Ratnasambhava, Amitabha, and Amoghasiddha—are revealed to the advanced practitioner. First appearing as meditational deities in Mahayana Buddhism, in Vajrayana they are ‘self-born’ celestial buddhas existing in an a-temporal, a-karmic continuum. Five corresponding negative reflexes, or psychological complexes—ignorance, hated, greed, lust, and envy—are related to these five Buddhas. They also embody the five elements, including space, and the eighteen ayatanas, or sense bases, in a purified nature. The Vajrayoga practitioner transforms his or her ‘poisoned’ mentality, those cognitive obscurations and psychological complexes, by consciously yoking them to these five inner, enlightening natures.
For example, one can meditate on Akshobya at the heart chakra, apprehending hatred in a ‘settled’ meditation known as calm abiding. What gradually arises is mirror-like wisdom which is hatred from ‘its own side.’ Free of any obscuring karmic context, this pure awareness expands as it repels the substantive illusion of dimensional objects. The closer dimensional appearances come into the emptying window of mirror-like wisdom, the greater its reflection of non-dimensionality appears. Put your face in front of a mirror very closely and stare at it. Soon you’ll experience it’s empty, unsubstantive and dimensionless, quality. A similar expansion of awareness, after repeated applications of concentrative placement upon mind’s subtlest level, eventually experiences a ‘clear light,’ the actual primordial ‘hatred’ as a transcendent, resultant expression of one’s own Buddha nature, in its mirror-like wisdom aspect of Akshobya.
Often preceding the experience of clear light, is the arising of ’three empties’ seen in corresponding colored lights of white (unification), red (increase), and black (near attainment). This is naturally experienced at death, dawn, after a dream, a sneeze, or during orgasm. The dawning of the ‘purities,’ limb and limbless ecstasy-bearing entities, may also arise during such a two-in-one meditation, inclusive of self and other. Repeated familiarization of this ‘path,’ or Child’s Clear Light leads to the ‘deathless state’ when the ripened practitioner enters the (chi kha) bardo of death. At that time, one can merge their previous ingrained experiences of Child’s Clear Light with the powerful dawning of a resultant, Mother’s Clear Light. An elation of infinite expansion occurs that is said to be like a long-lost child reuniting with its mother.
On the extraordinary Vajrayana path, where ‘first things are first and last thing are last,’ how one walks through walls is that previously they were imagined to be solid, but later they are experienced as substantively empty. Either as an aspirational, mental imagining, or a physically accomplished feat, both are said possible.
*The Three Levels of Spiritual Perception, An Oral Commentary on The Three Visions of Ngorchen Konchog Lhundrub by His Eminence Deshung Rinpoche, trans., Douglas Rhoton, 1995, p29.
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