basis of designation for enlightenment

8/10/2019 Basis of Designation for Enlightenment

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Buddhahood and its Basis of Designation

On the basis of the ordinary body, speech, and mind of a samsaric being, it is ridiculousto say, I am a buddha. You cant even validly state, I have buddha nature. You may

have read such an assertion in a book, but you cannot validly make that statement. Unlessyou actually are a buddha, making statements about your buddha nature is ust the blathering hubris of a conceptual mind. On that basis of designation , all you can validlyassert is, I am a sentient being, and for some of us even that may be a stretch!

On the other hand, from the basis of designation of the dharmakaya as e"periencedthrough rigpa, you can say, I am a buddha. #hat is a valid statement $even though a

buddha %ould have no motivation to say such a thing&. If you have stabili'ed thespontaneous presence of the luminous e"panse, then indeed you are a buddha, and youd%ell in unconditioned and unmanifest buddha nature. (ood for you.

#he discriminating factor bet%een these t%o statements is the ) basis of designation .*ithin the base of samsaric mind $ sems & you can only impute the personhood of asentient being. *ithin the base of intrinsic a%areness $ rigpa & you can only impute aselfless buddhahood. +oth of these are accurate. +ut %hat you must not do is confuse thet%o. It is not ok to casually mi" them up. In fact, it is karmically damaging for a sentient

being to make grandiose assumptions about buddhahood. #oday, %e often see statementssuch as -ince buddha nature is already present %ithin me, there is nothing I need to do.

ll effort is useless/ I can ust relax into my true nature. 0mptiness is emptiness and formis form/ I %ill ust let them be and my %ork is done.

*ell, such statements are simply bullshit! #hey are the %ishful thinking of la'y egos, or

%orse, a con game played by unscrupulous gurus. #o imagine yourself as a buddha because you have some notion of an omnipresent buddha nature is self1delusional. Its as bogus as imagining yourself to be a 2o'art because you have a notion of 2o'art being achild prodigy. You are neither a concert pianist nor a buddha unless you train yourselfaccordingly. In the case of a buddha, that training begins %ith shamatha and vipashyanameditation. *ithout that foundation, your samsaric mind remains dysfunctional.

#he 2ahayana sutras present buddha nature as a )vie% of reality that can be reali'edthrough a )path and its resulting )fruition. #he 3a rayana tantras do the same, althoughthey usually claim to offer a 4uicker path. #hese quicker methods are understandablyvery popular %ith %esterners. *esterners barely have a minute bet%een te"t messages, so4uicker is better! 5ately, %esterners have become infatuated %ith the very highest of the3a rayana teachings, such as 0ssence 2ahamudra and 6yingthig 7'ogchen.Unfortunately, there is a ma or disconnect bet%een the %estern mindset and the originalsocial conte"t of those teachings. -uch te"ts %ere only meant to address the final stagesof the path. s such, these te"ts sometimes make disparaging statements about )lo%er

practices. #hey marginali'e them as dualistic or condition1based. 5ike%ise, they advocate)non1meditation over )meditation. -peedy %estern minds sei'e on such statements in a

predictable and harmful %ay. *hat they overlook is that these highest teachings %ere


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%ritten for a specific audience in %hich the mastery of shamatha and vipashyanameditation %as assumed. #hese teachings %ere for advanced practitioners of the highestacumen %ho had stabili'ed mindfulness to the level of samadhi, merged that samadhi%ith insight, and mastered the nyam e"periences as %ell. Only then did the practice of)non1meditation have any genuine meaning.

*hen you first set out on the +uddhist 8ath, you have no immediate access to emptiness or rigpa 9 none. You %ouldnt kno% it if you sa% it! #o claim that you have masteredrigpa because you read about it in a book is at best a %aste of time, and at %orst acorruption of the path into a form of spiritual materialism. It is not even sufficient to be)introduced to it through the pointing out instruction of a guru. #his may provide you%ith a flash of recognition, but a flash or glimpse of rigpa is a far cry from settling yourmind in its natural state. #he means of developing immediate and stabili'ed access torigpa is through the repeated e"amination of the )non1dual nature of mind, and thate"amination takes place %ithin structured meditation practice. #he highest teachings of7'ogchen and 2ahamudra are predicated on this sort of stabili'ed mindfulness. #his is

called )taking the mind as the path. You cannot skip it. If you do, your mind continues tooscillate bet%een la"ity and e"citation. It continues to ump from attachment toattachment. It is like a %ild horse that has never learned to respond to a bridle. #here isno %ay for such a mind to sever mental afflictions at their root/ no %ay to cut throughnamarupa, and no %ay to e"perience the ethically neutral ground of alayavi nana. -orry,its not going to happen.

-o, the key to making use of 2ahamudra and 7'ogchen is to first master shamatha andvipashyana. Mindfulness and insight meditation are the tools that %ill produce calmabiding in one1pointed samadhi, and crystal clear insight into emptiness. #hese are not concepts: I repeat: these are not concepts. #hey are not ideas or topics to be studiedfrom books. #hey are not any form of thought content. ;ather, they are non1conceptualand non1dual states of a%areness produced through the disciplined training of body,speech, and mind. *hen mastered, they do not maintain any sub ect1ob ect dichotomy/they transcend it. In fact, they are perfectly able to bring the practitioner to buddhahood%ithout resorting to 2ahamudra or 7'ogchen. #hey are the < th and = th parts of the 6oble0ightfold 8ath, and as such they are the essence of +uddhas method.

Unfortunately, it has become common practice in some contemporary +uddhistorgani'ations and internet discussion groups to marginali'e shamatha and vipashyana.#here is a steady stream of %eb posts ignoring shamatha and vipashyana meditation oreven demeaning it. #hese and other practices are all lumped together under the label of)gradual path, and %ritten off as inferior. Only the )sudden path of 7'ogchen is %orthyof their attention. In fact, not even conventional 7'ogchen %ill do these days/ it has to be)radical nyingthig or yangthig 7'ogchen. You dont even need to do the korde rushen outer and inner preliminaries. #he latest cra'e among these >andy >rush digital gurus is) tiyoga. #he pitch for ti is that it isnt even a sudden path, but rather a pathless path.You ust snap your fingers and click the heels of your ruby slippers. 8resto 9 youreenlightened. #he presentation goes like this


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-ince the primordial great e"panse is omnipresent, everything you are anddo is part of it 1 right?-o searching for it else%here is stupid 9 right?-o, stop searching and ust be 9right?

Youre supposed to ans%er Right ! at this point.

s for +uddhas original meditation e"ercises in mindfulness and insight 1 %ell that is ust ) Buddhism For Dummies . *e are %ell past those preliminaries. t most %e ustneed a little 7'ogchen trekch@ and t@gal.

Indeed, 7'ogchen has become the spiritual soup de jure in the enlightenmentmarketplace. #here is a veritable tsunami of books, publications, and chat rooms %here%ould1be 7'ogchenpas regurgitate the pithy statements of ancient masters, but they do it%ithout any unmediated or impersonal reali'ation of it. #hey have no such reali'ation

because they have never tamed their minds on the meditation cushion. In fact, %hat

attracted them to 7'ogchen in the first place %as the idea that they could skip all that boring %ork.

*ell, I hate to burst your bubble, but if you %ant to achieve stability in rigpa and d%ell inti beyond cyclic e"istence, there is no alternative to shamatha and vipashyana

meditation. #hat is %here all paths begin. nd to make steady progress in meditation, youmust retire from the busy1ness of your daily occupations and retreat to a meditationcushion. You dont have to sit for days on end, but you must sit regularly and fre4uently,

ust as %ould do to train a horse or a concert pianist. Until you make this beginningcommitment, you havent even slipped a training bridle over your nose. You havent evenfound middle >.

-hamatha and vipashyana are the catalysts that precipitate the attachments out of oursamsaric minds, and thus leave the crystalline clarity of intrinsically pure a%areness inthe present continuum. Once that clarity is stabili'ed, then formal meditation is no longernecessary, but until that stabili'ation is achieved, shamatha and vipashyana are essential.#hey are not optional. In fact, they are the only paths to a%akening that +uddha taughtduring his earthly incarnation. #antra, 2ahamudra, +on, Aen, and 7'ogchen may offerfurther embellishments to the later stages of development, but they all depend on themastery of shamatha and vipashyana in order to have any significance. *ithout thatmastery, all these so1called )higher teachings are ust esoteric distractions. 0ven %orse,they risk becoming karmic attachments so over%helming that they completely derail your chances for any genuine progress in this lifetime. #he great masters of every lineage haverepeated this %arning, and most have endeavored to 4ualify students before endangeringthem %ith teachings they cannot safely comprehend. #hose %arnings are going unheededtoday, and this recklessness is putting the future of genuine +uddhism at risk. -o, the ne"ttime you read or teach something about buddha nature, please make sure it is based onthe reali'ation of shamatha and vipashyana. 2ake that your basis of designation .

*ritten at 6agi 6al or


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+y Bon 6orris2ay CDEC

basis of designation for enlightenment

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