The Psychology of Tantra Venerable Robina Courtin Buddhahood is the Goal be adventitious; and gye implies the development rom the mahayana buddhist point of to perfection of all positive states, all goodness, view, all sentient beings possess Buddha na- which he has found to be at the core of our being. Fture, the potential to become a Buddha, just What are the implications of this bare-bones naturally. This potential defines us. For the Ti- etymology? How does a Buddha exist and func- betan Buddhist, every practice—from the most tion? Buddhas have three essential characteristics: basic: harnessing the energy of our behaviour; to infinite wisdom, infinite compassion, and infinite the most advanced: tantric meditation—is for power. They pervade existence and are omnisci- the purpose of achieving Buddhahood, enlight- ent: they see perfectly all phenomena without enment. The Tibetan word for ‘Buddha’,sang-gye , mistake, especially the minds of all sentient conveys the meaning beautifully: sang implies the beings, their past and future. Beyond the dual- utter eradication of all negative states of mind, all ism of a separate sense of self, they have effortless delusions, which Lord Buddha has established to empathy with every one of these sentient beings Venerable Robina Courtin is a renowned Buddhist and exist only to benefit them. And they have the IMAGE: WWW.SHENSARA.COM nun and works with the Foundation for the power to manifest simultaneously in countless Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition. bodies throughout countless universes to joyfully PB January 2016 227 238 Prabuddha Bharata do whatever needs to be done to benefit these Fifth, from the Mahayana point of view our countless sentient beings and lead them to their mind-stream is also endless—as opposed to the own Buddhahood, no matter how long it takes. Hinayana view, which says that it ceases at the end of the life in which the person achieves their What is the Mind? own liberation, pratimoksha, nirvana: cessation Besides the body of a sentient being, which is of suffering and its causes. made up of the four elements, Buddha does not And sixth, mind has far subtler, more refined, assert any phenomenon other than mind—or levels of cognition than are posited as even existing consciousness: these are synonymous—such as a in the materialist models. In order to accomplish self or spirit or soul. The presence of conscious- Buddhahood—to rid our mind utterly of all delu- ness within this body of ours makes us a sentient sions and their imprints and to develop to perfec- being, in Tibetan, sem-chen: mind-possessor. tion all goodness—we need to access the subtlest And it’s the mind that becomes enlightened. level of our mind, the clear light consciousness, by It has several characteristics. First, it is defined using tantric meditation techniques. as that which is clear—in other words, not phys- ical—and that which knows, or cognises, or is Three Categories of the aware. Cognises what? Finally, that which exists. States of the Mind Obviously mind exists in dependence upon a The Buddhist model of the mind has its origins, body, at least at the grosser levels, but it is not a of course—as His Holiness the Dalai Lama often function of the body. points out—in the marvelous experiential findings Second, as implied by the etymology of sang- of the great Indian thinkers and yogis: it was they gye, consciousness is pure in its nature. who began the extraordinary investigation into the Third, mind encompasses the entire spectrum nature of self. The literature studied in depth in the of our inner being: intellect, feelings, emotions, Tibetan monastic universities up to the present unconscious, subconscious, instinct, intuition, day encompasses the epistemological and psycho- as well as our sensory experiences, those parts of logical models explained by these great masters. our mind that function through the medium of Mental consciousness—as opposed to sens- the eye, the ear, and so forth. ory—has three categories of mental factors, or Fourth, our consciousness is not the handi- states of mind: negative, positive, and neutral. work of any external source, neither a creator These are technical, not moralistic, terms. The nor our parents. In fact, there’s not an atom of negative states, such as attachment, anger, jeal- our being that comes from a superior being, al- ousy, and pride, are necessarily disturbing, as well though indeed our body comes from our kind as delusional—literally, misconceptions—and, parents. We don’t need creating; our mind is a when they’re the motivating force behind actions beginningless continuity of mental moments, of body and speech, are the causes of suffering. each moment of awareness necessarily being The positive states, such as love, compassion, the result of—having as its substantial cause— and generosity, are necessarily not disturbing and the previous moment of cognition in that very not delusional—relatively, at least—and, when mindstream, or mental continuum. Mind, being they’re the motivating force behind actions of a product of the law of cause and effect, necessar- body and speech, are the causes of happiness. ily cannot have a first, causeless, moment. The neutral states—that is, those that are 228 PB January 2016 The Psychology of Tantra 239 neither negative nor positive—such as concen- According to Tantrayana, however, this very de- tration, mindfulness, and alertness, are involved sire can be used in the path to enlightenment. … in both positive and negative actions. As Lama tantric practitioners use the energy of their own Zopa Rinpoche often points out, even ‘thieves pleasure as a resource and, in the deep concen- tration of meditation, unify it with the need mindfulness’. samadhi wisdom that realizes emptiness. Eventually this The root misconception, ignorance—Ti- gives rise to simultaneously born great blissful betan ma-rig-pa, unawareness—also referred to wisdom, which in turn leads to enlightenment.2 as self-grasping, underpins all the other states of mind, including the positive. Until this is The Quick Path uprooted—with the realisation of emptiness, Tantrayana is said to be the quick path to shunyata, the utter lack of the intrinsic self that Buddha hood. By using the tantric methods, the ignorance believes in—samsara never ends, and most qualified, most sublime yogis and yoginis certainly Buddhahood can never be achieved. can achieve enlightenment in ‘one brief lifetime Nevertheless, according to Lord Buddha’s of this degenerate time’, as Lama Zopa Rinpoche four noble truths the main cause of suffering puts it in How to Enjoy Death. Using only the in the desire realm—which encompasses gods, Paramitayana methods, the meditator would take humans, animals, spirits, and hell beings—is de- three countless great eons to achieve the goal. sire, attachment. As Lama Zopa Rinpoche says This gets us very excited! In response to a in How to Enjoy Death: ‘[Attachment] is what question at a public teaching in Los Angeles years ties us to samsara continuously, has been tying ago about the quickest way to get enlightened, us to samsara continuously, and will continue Lama Zopa Rinpoche to tie us to samsara, because our consciousness has existed since beginningless time and will continue to exist forever. Until we have cut the causes of samsara, body after body will keep com- ing, like the assembly line in a car factory.’1 The Qualified Yogi or Yogini It is not a cliché to say that Lord Buddha is a psychologist, that his expertise is the mind, and that Buddhist tantra is the most sophisticated psychology of all. The unique skill of the tantric yogis and yoginis is their ability to utilise the en- ergy generated by the delusions, in particular at- tachment, as a tool for achieving enlightenment. This is the essence of the psychology of tantra. As Lama Thubten Yeshe says inThe Bliss of Inner Fire, According to Lord Buddha’s general teach- IMAGE: HTTPS://NALANDABLOG.FILES.WORDPRESS.COM ings, known as Sutrayana, desire is the cause of human beings’ problems, so it must be avoided. PB January 2016 Vajradhara Buddha I recall that His Holiness the Dalai Lama cried: practice and the quickest way to Buddhahood, ‘I don’t want to know about quick, fastest’, he but it needs a sound basis in supporting prac- said sadly. ‘Look at Milarepa!’—the eleventh- tices. In the system of practice of the Gelug trad- century tantric yogi beloved by Tibetans. There ition of Tibetan Buddhism, the stages of the he was, with ‘callouses on his arse’, never giving path to enlightenment, Tibetan, lam-rim, all up working to become a buddha only for suffer- the teachings and practices that lead to Bud- ing sentient beings. dhahood are presented gradually, from the These great practitioners want desperately to easiest to the most difficult, like in any good become enlightened as quickly as possible be- education system, starting with the Hinayana cause the suffering of sentient beings is unbear- and leading to the Mahayana, which includes able, but they would happily spend eons in hell Paramitayana and Tantrayana, also referred to if it would benefit just one of them. as Vajrayana or Mantrayana. Another way of framing these teachings is as Buddhist Practice is Gradual the three principal aspects of the path: renunci- Tantra might be the most advanced level of ation, bodhichitta, and insight into emptiness. 230 PB January 2016 The Psychology of Tantra 241 As the fourteenth century Gelug founder Tsong are from the action and highest yoga classes. Khapa says in his Hymns of Experience, ‘Success In each class the practitioner is capable of in your practice of Paramitayana qualifies you taking into the path different levels of attach- to practice Tantrayana; Success in your practice ment.