Table of Contents
Ddjom Lingpa (18351904)
Drawing by Winfield Klein
PREFACE
S tudents of Tibetan Buddhism in the West have been extremely fortunate in recent decades to receive teachings from great lamas who were trained in Tibet before the Chinese Communist occupation. These superb teachers include the Dalai Lama, the Sixteenth Karmapa, Ddjom Rinpoche, Sakya Trizin Rinpoche, and many other great masters. There has also been a gradual increase in the number of texts from this tradition available in Western languages, as more and more students have learned the art of translation. As a result, we are now seeing a significant number of Westerners who have themselves become qualified teachers of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as a younger generation of Tibetan lamas who were educated in India and other regions of the Tibetan diaspora.
Despite these exceptionally favorable circumstances, it remains difficult for us to properly contextualize the teachings we receive and to put them into practice effectively. Tibetan teachers, as wise, experienced, and enthusiastic as they often are, and Western studentsmany of them willing to make great sacrifices to practice Dharmaare still, culturally speaking, worlds apart. Keep in mind that Tibetan Buddhism began its development in the eighth century and is itself an offshoot of Indian Buddhism, which began with Shakyamuni Buddha around 500 B.C.E. The distinctive qualities of these traditional Asian cultures are quite different from those of the modern world in which we live today. It took roughly four hundred years for Indian Buddhism to morph into Tibetan Buddhism. Now the infusion of Tibetan Buddhism into todays global settingthe first globalization of Buddhism in its entire 2,500-year historyis taking place at a breathtaking pace.
The Buddhist texts and commentaries presented to people today were initially geared for the lives, and especially the psyches , of ancient, Asian students of Dharma. The cultural context of a second-century Indian or even a nineteenth-century Tibetan has very little in common with our globalized world of jet planes, cell phones, and the internet. Certainly we can gain a great deal from reading such timeless classics as Shantidevas Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life or Patrl Rinpoches Words of My Perfect Teacher . Great human and universal truths are expressed there that apply to all human cultures. At the level of particulars, however, Shantideva and Patrl Rinpoche were speaking primarily to students with views, values, and lifestyles radically different from ours.
Therefore, as a Western teacher of Dharma who has had the great good fortune, over more than forty years, to study with a number of eminent Tibetan Buddhist teachers, I have tried to mold my commentary on the Vajra Essence to the Western psyche. That, after all, is what I myself had to do in order to gain some understanding of Tibetan Buddhism. I have addressed a number of issues that often cause confusion among Western students, ranging from terminology (with terms sometimes defined differently in the context of different traditions and teachings), to the significance of specific techniques within important sequences of meditation practices. It is my hope that as a Westerner with much in common with other Western Buddhists, I will be able to provide a bridge between worlds. I am, after all, someone who grew up mostly in southern California, went to high school, dreamed of becoming a wildlife biologist, played the piano, andafter being a monk for fourteen yearsreentered Western society pursuing interests in both science and religion. I am fluent in Tibetan but am also fascinated by quantum cosmology, the cognitive sciences, and the wonders of modern technology.
The text presented here, the Vajra Essence by Ddjom Lingpa, a nineteenth-century master of the Nyingma order of Tibetan Buddhism, is known as the Nelug Rangjung in Tibetan, meaning the natural emergence of the nature of existence. This is an ideal teaching in which to unravel some of the common misunderstandings of Tibetan Buddhism, since it is a sweeping practice that can take one from the basics all the way to enlightenment in a single lifetime. The present volume explains the initial section on shamatha , or meditative quiescence, about nine percent of the entire Vajra Essence root text.
Shamatha is presented in the Vajra Essence as a foundational practice on the Dzogchen path. Dzogchen, often translated as the Great Perfection, is the highest of the nine vehicles ( yanas ) in the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Classically speaking, after achieving shamatha, the yogi will use his or her newly acquired powers of concentration to practice insight into the nature of emptiness ( vipashyana ), followed by the Dzogchen practices of tregch (breakthrough) and tgal (direct crossing-over). These four practices comprise the essential path to enlightenment from the Nyingma point of view. The practice of Dzogchen brings one into direct contact with reality, unmediated by the individual personality or society.
Shamatha, in its various presentations, is used to make the mind pliant and serviceable for the more advanced practices. Shamatha is not found only in Buddhism. This practice of refining attention skills exists in religious contexts as distinct as Hinduism, Taoism, early Christianity, and the Sufi schools of Islam. Within Tibetan Buddhism, shamatha practice maps on to the nine stages of attentional development wherein thoughts gradually subside as concentrative power is increased to the point at which one can effortlessly maintain single-pointed focus on a chosen object for at least four hours. The accomplishment of shamatha is accompanied by a powerful experience of bliss, luminosity, and stillness.
Shamatha requires more careful incubation than most other kinds of meditation. You can practice tonglen (taking on the suffering of others and giving them your happiness) very well while you are watching the news. Loving-kindness and compassion and the rest of the four immeasurables can be practiced down on Main Street. Vipashyana you can cultivate anywhere. In fact, many other practices can be done under varying circumstances. If you wish to take shamatha all the way to its ground, however, it requires a supportive, serene environment, good diet, proper exercise, and very few preoccupations. The necessary internal conditions are minimal desires, few activities and concerns, contentment, pure ethical discipline, and freedom from obsessive, compulsive thinking. It is my feeling that the achievement of shamatha is so rare today because those circumstances are so rare. It is difficult to find a conducive environment in which to practice at length and without interferenceeven more so to have that and access to suitable spiritual friends for support and guidance. Therefore, if the causes are difficult to bring together, the resultshamathais also necessarily rare. I present a detailed guide to the general practice of shamatha in my earlier book, The Attention Revolution (Wisdom, 2006).
Ddjom Lingpa was a lay practitioner, married, and the father of eight renowned sons, including Jigm Tenpai Nyima, the Third Dodrupchen Rinpoche, who was widely revered by lamas of all the Tibetan Buddhist orders. During the course of his life, Ddjom Lingpa performed many miracles, and he reached the highest levels of realization of tantra as well as the Great Perfection. Thirteen of his disciples attained the rainbow bodydissolution into light at deathand one thousand became vidyadhara tantric masters through gaining insight into the essential nature of awareness. In short, he was one of the most realized and acclaimed Tibetan lamas of his time.