Vajra Studies: Southern Esoteric and Vajrayana Buddhism

Here, in present day Cambodia, Mahayana Buddhism, and some degree of Vajrayana (still under academic scrutiny), is no longer widely practiced as it seems to have been around the 9th through 12th centuries. What has remained, somewhat indeterminably is a synthesis of Shravaka and Vajrayana-like practices, scholars now label as Southern Esoteric Buddhism. This article includes a quick digest of that esoteric Buddhism, starting with a description of The Yogāvacara (practitioner of yoga) manual. This is a Theravada Buddhist meditation manual dated approximately from the 16th to the 17th century. Interestedly, recent scholarship of Buddhist tantras reveals they were composed in stages, building from meditation manuals, with Mahayana ethical and Vajrayana soteriological content super added. 

Other Yogāvacara practices include: 1. “The use of encoded language.” Vajrayana tantras are famous for secret coded instructions and scrambled mantras deciphered through key indexes in order to assemble their proper order. 2. “Energy centers & channels like cakra/marma & nadi.” These are also present in all Unexcelled Yoga Tantra sadhanas and replete in the Chakrasamvara (Lagusamvara) tantra. 

3. ”Esoteric interpretation of Buddhist words, objects, myths, numbers and the Abhidharma Pitaka texts.” 

Vajrayana practitioners may think the above tantric content arose simultaneously with the tantric texts, but they are certainly derivative. Concerning the Abhidharma, Tantric texts prioritize the application over theory of Abhidharma concepts through rituals, mantras, and visualizations—the imperative of employing body, voice, and mind—to achieve liberation. Other Abhidharma content in Tantric texts assimilate Abhidharma's encyclopedic listings of mental phenomena (dharmas) to distinguish subtle mind states during meditation and tantric practices, like the parsing of five skandhas (form, sensation, perception, mental formations) their aggregation by ego consciousness, and two higher levels of consciousness, the seventh defiled, and the eighth contiguous, but simultaneously interacting storehouse consciousness. 

The three poisons referred to in Tantric texts derive from the five skandas. Ignorance, desire, and hatred centered in the three chakras (from the head down) are joined by greed at the navel and jealousy at the genitals. The identification of universal defilements arose from Abhidharma as well Vedic sources, and are viewed quite differently in each of the three Buddhist vehicles. They are seen to be strictly avoided in the Shravaka vehicle, mindfully converted into the perfection of six virtues in Sutric practice, and a direct source to revealing one’s five Primordial Buddhas, through homeopathic-like, mind-body transmutation in tantric practices. 

Similarly, the numbers of hells and heavens, their tortuous or blissful nature, the lifespans or durations of their beings compared to human lifespans in mind boggling calculations, mostly comes from the Abhidharma, or are lifted from sutras or shastras in which the original source is either the Buddha or the Abhidharma. Tantric iconography and cosmology rely on Vedic and other Puranas (a collection of sacred ancient Hindu writings). So while both Abhidharma and Tantric texts employ this cosmology Tantric interpretations often incorporate symbolic meanings and deities associated with different cosmic realms, while firmly rooted in Abhidharma tenets, lending an iconographic setting for visualization practices. Much of the ‘color’ of Buddhist Tantra is borrowed from Shaivism; whereas much of their advanced philosophical theory is borrowed from Buddhism. This is said to obtain in the nondual Kashmiri Hindu tantra. 

Further, the ethical principles outlined in Abhidharma are often integrated into Tantric, as well as sutric, teachings, emphasizing the importance of moral conduct for practitioners engaging in advanced practices. The big difference between the two is Abhidharma develops a metapsychology—addressing root causes, giving comprehensive explanations of psychological phenomena on a fundamental level through theoretical analysis—while Tantric focus on the application of these ‘truths’ through specific rituals, mantra recitation, and visualization practices the goal of which is fully Enlightened Buddhahood. 

Of course, all of Buddhism prioritizes the realization of Śūnyatā, the emptiness or essence-less nature of all things, according to the second Buddha Nagarjuna (150–250? CE.) Seen not as a negation of existence but rather as the non-differentiation out of which all entities, distinctions, and dualities arise, Śūnyatā, as a term for emptiness and vacuity, is not only common to the Buddhist Abhidharma and Tantra, but to Indic religion in general. 

The Ārya-saṃdhi-nirmocana-sūtra or Noble Sūtra of the Explanation of the Profound Secrets, a Madhyamika or Middle Way Sūtra, contains explanations of key Yogācāra concepts such as the basal-consciousness (ālayavijñāna), the doctrine of appearance-only (vijñaptimātra), and the "three own natures" (trisvabhāva), that is, three states of reality according to a person’s degree of understanding—imaginary, thoroughly dependent, and thoroughly realized (or ultimate). It’s considered the sutric ‘link between the Prajnaparamita and the Yogācāra Vijñānavāda school.’ This sutra, as much as the Abhidharma, as our title indicates, also provides through its emphasis on meditation, shamata and vipassana, trisvabhāva (the three natures) of Parikalpitā, Paratantra, and Pariṇiṣpanna, the eight consciousnesses, and so forth, a developmental linkage between both Southern Esoteric and Vajrayana Buddhism. 

“It is only in the light of the Abhidharma Problematic as a whole, arising out of the discrepancies between the newer dharmic analytic and the traditional doctrines preserved in the early Pali texts, that we can understand why the questions of the latent affective dispositions, the nature of karmic potentiality, and the gradual progress along the path to liberation became problematic at this point in Indian Buddhist thought – and, even more importantly, why they came to be addressed in terms of the two ‘aspects’ [the existent and non-existent in gross and subtle mind?] of vijñana first found in those early texts. Most of the responses to these questions either implicitly or explicitly pointed toward some kind of multi-dimensionality of mind, a ‘common interest in the deeper strata of conscious life … ,’ Guenther observes, which ‘reflects the collective spirit or Zeitgeist of this epoch in Indian Buddhist thought’ (1989: 19). In this respect, the concept of alaya-vijñana can be seen as merely the most comprehensive and systematic of the many innovative ideas proffered within the intellectual milieu of fourth–sixth centuries CE Buddhist India. The origin or even first occurrence of the term alaya-vijñana is unclear. The Saddhinirmocana Sjtra [saṃdhi-nirmocana-sūtra] is traditionally regarded as the first Yogacara sutra (sjtra), announcing the advent of the special doctrines associated with that school and receiving, at least from their fellow Mahayanists, the veneration due to the sacred words of the Buddha. Most of the early Yogacara literature dates from the second or third to the fifth centuries CE,3…” (The Origins of the Alaya-Vijñana – Beezone Library, passim.)

This dating, along with Guenther’s zeitgeist theory, would mean the Southern Pali school of Buddhism was exposed to this advance, at least through the Abhidharma ‘problematic’ of the newer dharmic analytic and the traditional doctrines in Buddhist doctrine and practice [of] the Northern Sanskrit school. Did both ‘Vajrayana’ and the now so-called ‘Southern Esoteric’ teachings both arise out of Asanga’s Yogacarabhumi compilations? Or did tantric sadhanas for both esoteric schools evolve out of lay practicer’s mediation manuals which evolved, in the North, by super additions from Mahasiddhas and Nalanda scholars and, in the South, from Shravaka/Theravada ta-bas or yogin’s in Shrī Lanka, Java, Suvarṇabhūmi (here a toponym—for places related to Khmer and Cham empires) cultivated by scholars from the Ratnagiri monastic ‘university’ in West Bengal. These are of course big topics not to be resolved here but rather give a necessary orientation for the localization of esoteric practices. The organic sadhana, providing a necessary practicum for villager and monastics alike versus the universal doctrinal ‘ism’s’, wow of typed Buddhist vehicles, sects, philosophical schools and movements. 

The Yogacara School’s influence, concerning gross and subtle consciousness, may be clearly traced through writings of the Mahasiddhas and Pandits from India into Tibetan tantric Buddhism, especially in the later reception of tantras from the new translation school. But the idea that defiled consciousness is present within the alaya vijnana ‘stream’ would’ve possibly already be known to indigenous Bon ‘Dzogchen’ adepts, as it’s a practical observation made by  Nyingma meditation masters like Chökyi Tenpa Nyima of the Lingpa lineage. Defilements, both as arising conceptual proliferation and transgressive behaviors, are common ‘uncommon’ transformative agents in advanced Tantric Buddhism. This comes strictly out of their Dzogchen meditation practices and is centuries old. 

Consider the following practices both the Southern Esoteric School and Vajrayana share:

• The importance of initiation by a Guru (master). In Vajrayana this is paramount as that Guru is one’s own personal Buddha guilting and granting blessing on the path. 
• The use of the symbolism of embryology. In Vajrayana this gets into in-disclosable territory. One must be an initiate into a specific major tantra to learn how a return to the womb is all essential in recovering one’s primordial Buddha nature.
• The practice of a type of meditation in which one visualizes and gives birth to a 'Buddha within' and the Dharmakāya. This process is replete in Vajrayana, where the four levels of tantra successively move one from the outer to the inner, to the point in the highest, Anuttara, Yoga tantra, one entirely becomes the tutelary deity. 
• Chemistry of mercury as model for ongoing process of purification. Alchemical as well as Ayurvedic models are embedded in and often alluded to extensively in Vajrayana practices. 
• The practice of magic for healing, longevity, protection, etc. A large portion of almost every well-circulated, major tantra privides magic spells for attaining the four common siddhis of protection, destruction, increase, and magnetizing.
• Worship (puja) of Buddhas, Devas and Spirits. Pujas worshipping the Guru, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, Dharma teachings and texts, and the Noble Assembly, the venerable Sangha of monastics and lay practioners in Vajrayana, especially Tibetan, Buddhism, has within the traditional four schools or sects been taken to a level in use of liturgy, musical instruments, chanting, and modes of offering all things desirable that has to be experienced to be believed. This requires actually spending some invaluable time in a Tibetan monastery witnessing or participating in these pujas that supplicate and deliver the common and uncommon siddhis (gifts and blessings). 
• A path which is open to all, monastics and lay persons. This is generally true in Vajrayana and is key to understanding how esoteric Buddhism arose. However, in its Tibetan Buddhist iteration, functionally speaking, the lay practitioner has varying degrees of power and importance compared to the monastics, according to each school.
• Internal/external applications (Right hand-left hand). Left handed practice in Vajrayana is the domain of the Yogini tantras and contains very secret vows un-disclosable here.

Vajrayana was known as Mantrayana first because of the extensive use of mantras in the tantras, especially Chakrasamvara. Two of the most widely used sacred mantras in Yogāvacara texts are Namo Buddhaya ("Homage to the Buddha") and Araham ("Worthy One"). Here is an example of esoteric interpretation of the letter and number symbolism of Namo Buddhaya:[1]

• NA, symbolizes the twelve virtues of the mother;
• MO, the twenty-one virtues of the father;
• BU, the six virtues of the king;
• DDHA., the seven virtues of the family;
• YA, the ten virtues of the teacher.

The recitation of these sacred phrases was used as a meditation practice.[4] Robert Percival (in Ceylon from 1796 to 1800), described Buddhist mantra meditation thus: "To their girdles they wear suspended strings of beads made of a brownish or black wood; and mutter prayers as they go along."[1]

In one text studied by Bizot, meditation includes the use of visualization of colored lights paired with sacred syllables located throughout the body and visions of the Buddha and a stupa at the top of mount Sumeru.[4] Another text called the Ratanamala uses the itipi so formula for various purposes including spiritual protection, magical 'worldly' uses which are termed "left-hand", the transformation of the body into a kayasiddhi, a spiritual body, as well as for the pursuit of nirvana(termed "right-hand path").[4]

Several studies by Bizot have also looked at certain "rebirthing" rituals which seem to have been common in pre-modern Cambodia. They included symbolic sacred syllables, the entrance into a cave which symbolized the womb, meditation on embryonic development, and the belief that this meditation would allow one's body to be reborn as the Dharmakaya.[4] Another practice studied by Bizot was the use of yantras or sacred diagrams, which were made with Pali words and phrases and used as tattoos and on clothing.[4]

In his study of the Saddavimala, a Yogāvacara text which was widely circulated in Southeast Asia (with over two hundred extant manuscripts), Bizot gives an outline of Yogāvacara practice:[4]

"The yogavacara must:

1. memorise the stages of the embryonic development (with their alphabetic equivalents) which form the stages of his own formation;
2. through these stages build himself another body using the organs and constituents that are the letters, i.e. the portions of the Dhamma;
3. become conscious that this new body which he is going to produce outside of himself, first takes form within him, in his stomach at the level of the navel, taking the form of a Buddha the height of a thumb;
4. pursue and achieve in this life the construction of this immortal vehicle because it leads the person who possesses it to Nibbana, in that it takes the place of the spent physical form at the moment of death."

In contemporary Southern Buddhism, these practices are sometimes termed Boran Kammatthana(former practices) and are most widely seen in Cambodian Buddhism. They usually involve "the physical internalisation or manifestation of aspects of the Theravada path by incorporating them at points in the body between the nostril and navel."[12]

Lastly, “The practices of the Burmese Buddhist Weizza (Wizards) who follow an esoteric system of occult practices (such as recitation of spells, samatha and alchemy) which are believed to lead to supernormal powers and a life of immortality might also be related to Southern Esoteric Buddhism.”(Southern Esoteric Buddhism - Wikipedia) When the great abbot Śāntarakṣita headed north from Nalanda University to Tibet to spread Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism, he saw many of the Tibetan supplicants wearing pointy hats and thought they were all wizards! In truth, many of them were practicing white and blank magic, which was at the time somewhat of an institution in untamed, ancient Tibet.

So, these are just some of the most overt and common connections between Vajrayana, as it evolved out of the Northern school of Buddhism, and the so-called Southern Esoteric Buddhism, spreading east from ancient ports in what is now West Bengal. Certainly, at this time, the subject, as far as research and scholarship goes, is an open playing field.