Daniel Odier - Yoga Spandakarika: The Sacred Texts at the Origins of Tantra

My thanks go
to Anne Blum for her
work in transcribing the
oral commentaries

Preface

To my first meetings with the great Chinese, Tibetan, and Kashmiri masters, I owe the idea of the profound similarity between Chan, Tantrism, Dzogchen, the Tibetan Mahamudra, and the original Mahamudra (that of Kashmiri Shaivism, a mystical movement linked to the teachings of the Mahasiddhas and to the ShaivismShiva worshipof the Indus Valley from six thousand years ago). Shiva is considered to be the creator of dance and yoga. His abode is Mount Kailash and he holds a trident, which symbolizes humankind as the divinity, the temple, and the worshipperall united in the main branch of the trident.

In 1967, at the age of twenty-two, I arrived fresh from my readings in a shocking and marvelous India that would destroy, one by one, the ideas that I had established for myself regarding spirituality. Armed with a letter of recommendation that Arnaud Desjardins, the French reporter and spiritual teacher, had quite willingly written for me following my enthusiasm for his film series Les Mystres des Tibtains, I set out for Delhi. There, I met the director of the Tibetan Museum, who in turn sent me to Kalimpong to meet the most prominent leader of the Nyingmapas, Dudjom Rinpoche. As chance (a word cursed by spiritualists) would have it, I stopped in front of a little house in which there lived a scholarly Chinese man by the name of Chien Ming Chen, author of some one hundred works unpublished in the West. This little bearded man, dressed in a worn, stain-spattered robe, radiated dazzling energy and overflowing joy. He served me tea before a yogini whose legs were spread open upon the space that he spent his days and his early mornings contemplating in unending ecstasy. He gave me as gifts more than twenty of his works, all of which I still have. Among these was a commentary on the Vijnanabhairava Tantra, which it seems existed in Chinese, although it belonged originally to the Mahamudra of the siddhas in the Kashmiri Shaivism tradition.

This first meeting carried in seed form all of the future developments of my approach. Of all the works he gave me (which I carried about with me like a Himalayan mule), the Vijnanabhairava Tantra immediately and absolutely fascinated me. Chien Ming Chen was a follower of Chan but also of Dzogchen and Mahamudra. He had lived in his hermitage since 1947, without ever having gone outside of it. Curious souls who were now locally financing his printed publications had nevertheless found him. He fascinated both the masters of Hinayana Buddhism as well as those of the Mahayana and the Vajrayana, along with a few scientists and academics. I spent only a few hours in his company, but they were a determining factor in my opening to these various streams.

After having explained to me the ideal conditions for establishing a hermitageconditions that I still remember and that governed my choice of place for my retreat in TuscanyChien Ming Chen, very modest man that he was, told me that he could not guide me on the path because his vow as a hermit constrained him to practicing only, and that he himself had not yet realized the ultimate fruit. He sent me to the great master and supreme leader of the Nyingmapa, Dudjom Rinpoche, the same man for whom the director of the Tibetan Museum of Delhi had written me a letter of recommendation.

With regret I left this remarkable man, and arrived that same day at a lovely Indian-style dwelling, a bungalow perched on a hill, where I was warmly welcomed by Dudjom Rinpoches wife. During those golden days, the greatest masters were accessible with surprising ease. Few Westerners were seeking the dharma. Dudjom Rinpoche received me. He was a man who had an open gaze on the infinite, a perpetual smile on his face, great kindness, and an almost feminine gentleness allied with a gripping powerfulness. He had long hair and wore a Western shirt under his blue Tibetan robe. He granted all my requests. I had naively gotten it into my head to write a book on Tibetan painting with the support of the great art publisher Albert Skira, who had had me take a few courses on the photography of paintings and had then armed me with the appropriate materials. Dudjom Rinpoche had the thangkas (painted rolls) brought out from the temple and watched me photograph them, then informed me, with humor, that in order to penetrate their secrets, I would have to practice the path.

Troubles at the nearby Sino-Indian border were such that foreigners were not allowed to stay in Kalimpong for more than three days. The Indian authorities were being driven by an acute sense of spy mania, and for them, any foreigner was a potential informer of the Chinese. In the face of my enthusiasm, Dudjom Rinpoche gave me, over the course of each of my three days, the essence of the Dzogchen teachings; it would be thirty years before I understood how simple, vast, and direct his instruction had been. (Subsequently, I had the opportunity to meet with Kalu Rinpoche and to express my gratitude to him.) When I was leaving him, Dudjom Rinpoche gave me a letter of recommendation for one of his disciples who lived near Darjeeling: Chatral Rinpoche, also a great master of Dzogchen.

This meeting would turn out to be rough and upsetting. Having arrived at his place, I pushed open the door to a kind of hovel, and I found Chatral Rinpoche in contemplation, his gaze absolutely still and open straight in front of him. I remember a brazier, a thermos bottle on the table, and a calendar bearing the effigy of Gandhi. Standing before the masters silence, I took out the letter, which he did not read. Abruptly and bluntly he asked me what I wanted. I made my request, trembling, so irrepressible and marvelous was the energy he emitted. He leaped up, caught me by the collar, and took me to a spot behind his lair, where there were six little retreat cells: loose boards and canvas roof. He opened a door and pushed me into one of these cubbyholeswhich seemed more like a latrine than a place for contemplationand said, Are you ready to be in this cell for six years? I came right back out, frightened by the cold, the rain, the fog, and the smallness of the place. He laughed and told me, In that case, I can do nothing for you. Start by learning Tibetan.

I was quite happy at the idea of escaping from him. Just as I was leaving, he called out in a more friendly tone, Its too bad. I only take six disciples at a time. There was an open space. You would have had the chance to attain awakening. But go down to Sonada; its a few kilometers away. There youll find your master.

I walked in the driving rain, thanking the gods for my having escaped this big-nosed typhoon. I imagined that the master awaiting me was going to be even more insane. I had the surprise of my life when I came into the room where a magnificent old man with eyes full of love was playing with a cat, balancing cans on its head, the cat looking at him as if hypnotized. After a brief conversation, Kalu Rinpoche told me right then and there that I could think of him as my master or as my mother. I chose the second option and relaxed completely in his presence, which emitted love like a soothing and nourishing elixir.

It was at Sonada that I undertook my long search, which would culminate much later with the transmission of the Mahamudra. I would discover, over the course of the weeks that followed, that Chatral and Kalu Rinpoche were very close. Chatral, at the wheel of his jeep (which he drove like a frenzied madman), visited Kalu quite frequently. He never missed the opportunity, while I was there, to make fun of this young, pretentious Westerner whose nose he had been so nice as to wipe.