Tantric Techniques (26 page)

Just as the earlier Buddha children Made prayer-wishes,

I also with a virtuous mind Plant prayer-wishes in that way.

May all beings have happiness, Peace, and freedom from disease. May I be capable in all activities And also possess all good qualities.

May I be wealthy, generous, Intelligent, and patient, Having faith in virtue, memory

Of former births in all lives, and mercy.

Since wishes shape the manifestation of virtuous forces, one makes them both for others’ prosperity and for one’s own. In addition, because both consciously and unconsciously our perceptions of others serve as models for our own development, wishes for others’ success also have an advantageous effect on our own future.

Cultivating altruism in the presence of the deity.
Prayer-wishes are followed by cultivation of the four immeasurables—compassion,

a
Deity Yoga,
136.

b
Ibid., 136.

The Path in Action Tantra: Divine Body
105

love, joy, and equanimity.
a
N
ā
g
ā
rjuna speaks of the great power of love in his
Precious Garland:
b

Even three times a day to offer Three hundred cooking pots of food

Does not match a portion of the merit In one instant of love.

Though [through love] you are not liberated You will attain the eight good qualities of love, Gods and humans will be friendly,

Even [nonhumans] will protect you,

You will have mental pleasures and many [physical] pleasures,

Poison and weapons will not harm you, Without striving you will attain your aims, And be reborn in the world of Brahm
ā
.

Love has the power not only to make others be friendly but to grant protection even from poison and weapons. During lectures at Harvard University in 1981, the Dalai Lama similarly spoke of the pow-er of love when asked about the meaning of a certain class of de-mon:
c

Devaputra demons are classified among the six categories of gods in the Desire Realm, specifically in the class called “Those Enjoying Control over Others’ Emanations.” We ourselves have formerly been born in that type of life with-in cyclic existence. All of us have acted as horrible demons, all of us! With regard to techniques that can be employed if one is being bothered by such a demon, in the Mantra

a
The more usual order is with equanimity last; however, Kensur Ngawang Lek-den, abbot of the Tantric College of Lower Lhasa (
rgyud smad
) before escaping Tibet in 1959, frequently taught that equanimity is practiced first among the four immeasurables in Great Vehicle practice. Tsong-kha-pa (
Deity Yoga,
136) has a different order—compassion, love, joy, and equanimity—with equanimity meaning cultivation of the thought, “May they [all creatures stricken with suffering] pass from sorrow with the unsurpassed nirv
āṇ
a of a Buddha.”

b
Stanzas 283-285; see Jeffrey Hopkins,
Buddhist Advice for Living and Liberation: N
ā
g
ā
rjuna’s Precious Garland
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion Publications, 1998), 130-131.

c
His Holiness the Dalai Lama,
The Dalai Lama at Harvard,
trans. and ed. by Jeffrey Hopkins (Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion Publications, 1989), 153.

106
Tantric Techniques

system there are meditations of a wheel of protection, but the best of all techniques is to cultivate love. When Sh
ā
kyamuni Buddha, from among the twelve great deeds of his lifetime, performed the deed of taming demons the night before his enlightenment, he did it by way of cultivating the meditative stabilization of love.

Sometimes, when one has a bad dream or nightmare and awakens, even if one repeats mantra or meditates on a wheel of protection, these will not help, but when one cultivates love, it cures the situation. This is the best technique.

Altruism has such great power probably because love and compassion—wishing for all
equally
to attain happiness and overcome suffering—as well as the ability to take joy in others’ achievement of happiness do not separate one off from others, but through sympa-thy and empathy bond one to them. This bonding takes from un-friendly objects such as the ghouls of nightmares the autonomous power that fear has granted them.

The stanzas drawn from the
Susiddhi Tantra
that Tsong-kha-pa uses for this practice are rich with wishes for bringing beneficence to all beings:
a

In order to pacify the suffering

Of limitless realms of sentient beings,

To release them from bad transmigrations, Liberate them from afflictive emotions, And protect them completely

From the varieties of sufferings

When the discomforts of cyclic existence crowd in,

I will generate an altruistic intention to become enlightened.

May I always be a refuge

For all destitute sentient beings, A protector of the protectorless,

A support of those without support, A refuge for the unprotected, Maker of the miserable happy.

May I cause the pacification

a
Deity Yoga,
136-137.

The Path in Action Tantra: Divine Body
107

Of all sentient beings’ afflictive emotions. May whatever virtuous actions

I have accumulated in this and other lives Assume the aspects of the collections That are called merit and wisdom.

May whatever effort I make By way of the six perfections Be of benefit to all beings

Without there being any exception.

Making effort until enlightenment, I will strive at actions temporarily

And limitlessly over lives so that, in short,

All the afflictive emotions of all sentient beings May be pacified and they be freed.

This single-pointed dedication to the welfare of others comes not from a S
ū
tra practice brought over to Mantra but from the
Susiddhi Tantra
itself. Still, the techniques for the practice of altruism are laid out in greater detail in the S
ū
tra system, and to get a sense of their impact the Dalai Lama advises readers to turn to a description of them.
a
Without intimate exposure to one’s own hatreds that these practices force and a clear perception of the value of persist-ing at the development of positive attitudes, it is impossible to understand how the tantric enterprise could succeed. Tsong-kha-pa emphasizes the need for the development of such altruism prior even to attainment of tantric initiation.
b

With cultivation of the four immeasurables, the practices of the first of the four branches of repetition, called “other-base,” are now complete. It is clear that a deity is invited into one’s presence in order to heighten virtuous activities by moving the mind to another level. The extensive cleansing of the place before the practice and the high reception of the guest serve to heighten the mind, generating a sense of the unusual, of the special, of awe, with the re-sult that succeeding activities are done with more intensity, more