Tantric Techniques (36 page)

When proficiency is achieved in concentrating on the sounds of the mantra in a tiny flame on a moon disc at the heart of one’s own di-vine body, the meditator proceeds to cultivate the concentration of abiding in sound. This phase involves placing a tiny deity within the flame and then imagining a flame on a moon disc at the heart of the small deity.
a
When this visualization becomes firm, one’s own mind appears as the mantra sounds within the flame at the heart of the tiny inner deity; the smallness of the flame and the withdrawal of the basis of one’s sense of self within a body that is within another body bring about a more intense withdrawal of consciousness but without much danger of laxity because of the brightness of the object of observation, fire. As the Dalai Lama says in commentary:
b

These unusual objects of observation in the concentrations of abiding in fire and abiding in sound are for the sake of achieving clear appearance and thereby avoiding laxity. For even if the earlier meditations involved the appearance of bright mantra letters and so forth, here one imagines fire

a
Tsong-kha-pa does not explicitly mention the tongue of flame inside the small deity, but the Dalai Lama (
Deity Yoga,
31) does. Most likely, it would, as before, be on a moon disc like the flame at the heart of the larger divine body.

b
Deity Yoga,
31.

150
Tantric Techniques

itself, even the name of which evokes a bright appearance, thereby helping in relieving the mind of laxity—any looseness in the mode of apprehension of the object.

When the mind is able to remain stably and alertly on this new visualization, the meditator takes the sounds of the mantra as the principal object of observation.

The
Concentration Continuation Tantra
describes two alternative ways of cultivating the concentration of abiding in sound:
a

Place [a divine body which is] the base of the immutable [mantra letters]

In the very peaceful tongue

Of flame with brilliant pure light

That is on a subtle stainless moon disc dwelling at the heart.

Then contemplate the sounds while abiding in bliss. Or, having set the [written] letters

On the immutable [moon disc], Contemplate only the sounds themselves.

Here, it is emphasized that the “moon disc dwelling at the heart” of the practitioner who is visualizing his or her body as a divine body is “subtle” because the smallness of the object helps to eliminate excitement and scattering of the mind. The meditator “places” a small divine body—which is the “base” of a moon on which the mantra letters are set—in the tongue of flame (as imagined in the concentration of abiding in fire) on the small moon at the heart of one’s larger divine body. As earlier, the mantra letters are called “immutable” because they uninterruptedly appear without any fluctuation in a series that is continual like the sounds of a bell.

Then, the meditator leaves off observing these forms and “contemplates the sounds,” which, although the text does not explicitly say so, are viewed as being in the midst of a tiny tongue of flame on a tiny moon at the heart of the tiny deity on the very small moon at the heart of one’s larger divine body. The emphasis here, however, is on just the sounds, which become the principal object of observation and even the
sole
object of observation in that the oth-er parts only provide context.

The tantra offers a second way to cultivate the concentration of

a
Stanzas 21 and 22; P430, vol. 9, 53.4.2; cited in
Deity Yoga,
159.

Concentration Without Repetition
151

abiding in sound that dispenses with the second deity and even with the flame on the moon. In this version, the meditator “sets the letters,” that is, the written letters, on the edge of “the immutable,” this being the moon disc which is called immutable because it symbolizes the mind of enlightenment realizing the emptiness of inherent existence that abides solely, and thus immutably, in an aspect devoid of dualistic appearance. In this version, the meditator first observes the written letters of the mantra on the moon disc and then, leaving the written letters, “contemplates only the sounds themselves.”

With success at this meditation, a fully qualified calm abiding is achieved—a state of meditative stabilization conjoined with the bliss of mental and physical pliancy. The meditations to this point have employed many techniques to concentrate the mind—to withdraw it from the usual sweep of distraction but without the accompanying dullness and drowsiness that ordinary withdrawal of the senses involves.

In the S
ū
tra system style of cultivating calm abiding, only one object is the focus of meditation, with other objects used only when techniques to counteract laxity and excitement do not work and either sobering reflection on, for instance, impermanence and death, or revivifying imaginations such as imagining vast acts of charity are needed. Except for such circumstances, the meditator is advised to remain with one and only one object, not switching from it to another. Here in this Action Tantra, however, a series of meditations that involve switching from object to object upon gaining proficiency with the former serves as a means of keeping the mind alert. Also, the individual meditations themselves call for considerable activity and change; for instance, the reading of mantra letters in a circular fashion on the moon at the heart of the deity in front not only collects the mind in one place but also keeps the mind lively by the very fact of movement, as is similarly the case with moving the moon and letters to one’s own heart with inhalation and then exhaling them back into the deity in front. Furthermore, the progression from listening to one’s own recitation of mantra, either whispered or mental, to listening to sounds that are like someone else’s recitation or a natural reverberation but which are still an appearance of one’s own consciousness helps to remove distraction in that outside and inside become blended.

All of these factors help to induce the withdrawn and intensely

152
Tantric Techniques

focused mind of calm abiding, but their effects are not limited to building one-pointedness of mind. The very act of imagining one’s own body to be composed not of ordinary substances such as flesh, blood, and bone but of an appearance of consciousness interferes with a basic self-perception—one’s own body—that is usually taken as a given. Such givenness runs counter to dependent-arising and its consequent emptiness of inherent existence, and thus the undermining of the sense that one’s body is “just there as it is” radically alters a basic self-perception, preparing the way for increased understanding of emptiness. In this fashion Bu-tön Rin-chen-drup (below, 217) says:

Through mindfulness of Buddhas and having faith upon recognizing Buddhas and making offerings with resources, collections of merit are always produced. Also, when meditation of a divine body has become manifest, all phenomena are understood as just appearances of one’s own mind, and moreover, understanding that even the mind is not established arises. Through this and since pristine wisdom is generated in the mental continuum of one with merit, such serves as a cause of pristine wisdom.

At minimum, the meditator, to this point, has been imagining his/her body as composed of an appearance of consciousness, or at least of light, and this process has not just been entertained intellectually but imagined over such a long period of time that one’s new body appears
clearly
and
continually
as like that of a deity, and one’s mind similarly manifests in a state far superior to the usual. In dependence upon such enhanced mind and body, one also gains an enhanced sense of self, again undermining perceptions taken in the past to be givens set in place.

Beyond this, the technique of causing the mind to appear as body and as sounds of mantra upsets the division of classes of objects, and the technique of causing one’s mind to appear as sounds that are as if recited by someone else further upsets the ingrained sense of subject and object. Factors of body, mind, self, and subject and object—assumed to be in the warp and woof of appearance— are thereby challenged by substitution meditations that themselves induce a sense of the implications of the emptiness of inherent existence. Thus, even though the tradition subsumes the meditative stabilizations of exalted body and speech (and thus the

Concentration Without Repetition
153