Introduction to Tantra: The Transformation of Desire (6 page)

SO, WE CAN SEE THAT THE ENERGY OF DESIRE can affect us in two completely opposite ways. Through the transformative methods of tantra, this energy can be transmuted into light, blissful wisdom and thus become a potent force in our development. Ordinarily, however, this desirous energy feeds into habitual patterns of grasping and attachment, which only decrease our awareness while reinforcing our ignorance and dissatisfaction. One of the major tasks facing the spiritual seeker is to identify as precisely as possible the factors responsible for perpetuating this cycle of dissatisfaction and then to apply the most appropriate antidote to their destructiveness. Only then can best use be made of tantra’s transformative powers.

According to Buddhist tantra, we remain trapped within a circle of dissatisfaction because our view of reality is narrow and suffocating. We hold onto a very limited and limiting view of who we are and what we can become, with the result that our self-image remains oppressively low and negative, and we feel quite inadequate and hopeless.

As long as our opinion of ourselves is so miserable, our life will remain meaningless. Many people feel that humans are little more than monkeys and that the human mind is nothing but a series of chemical reactions and electrical impulses in the brain. Such a view reduces us to lumps of matter and dismisses any notion of a higher dimension to human existence. For people who truly believe in such a narrow view of what it means to be human, what is the purpose of remaining alive? Perhaps it is merely to experience as many sensations of pleasure as possible before we decay back to our basic nature: dust. Such a depressing outlook may account for much of the alienation in modern society.

Tantra challenges this unreasonably low opinion of human potential by showing us how to view ourselves and all others as transcendentally beautiful —as gods and goddesses in fact. One of the essential practices at all levels of tantra is to dissolve our ordinary conceptions of ourselves and then, from the empty space into which these concepts have disappeared, arise in the glorious light body of a deity: a manifestation of the essential clarity of our deepest being. The more we train to see ourselves as such a meditational deity, the less bound we will feel by life’s ordinary disappointments and frustrations. This divine self-visualization empowers us to take control of our life and create for ourselves a pure environment in which our deepest nature can be expressed.

Tantric meditational deities should not be confused with what different mythologies and religions might mean when they speak of gods and goddesses.

Here, the deity we choose to identify with represents the essential qualities of the fully awakened experience latent within us. To use the language of psychology, such a deity is an archetype of our own deepest nature, our most profound level of consciousness. In tantra we focus our attention upon such an archetypal image and identify with it in order to arouse the deepest, most profound aspects of our being and bring them into our present reality. It is a simple truth that if we identify ourselves as being fundamentally pure, strong, and capable we will actually develop these qualities, but if we continue to think of ourselves as dull and foolish, that is what we will become.

To give an example of tantric transformation, we might visualize ourselves as Manjushri, a princely deity usually represented as reddish yellow in color, holding the sword of discriminating awareness in his right hand and a text of Buddha’s Perfection of Wisdom teachings in his left. (This we can do whether we are a man or a woman since tantric visualizations completely transcend our ordinary identification as male or female.) But such a visualized image is not, in fact, the actual Manjushri. Wisdom itself—the completely unobscured insight of a mind that has realized its full potential—is the actual Manjushri, and the purpose of seeing ourselves in the form of this particular deity is to hasten the development of the wisdom already within us. Manjushri’s double-edged sword, for example, symbolizes the ability of enlightened wisdom to discriminate between what is true and what is false by cutting through misconceptions and superstitions. The more closely we identify with such a deity, having become familiar with what each of his attributes stands for, the more deeply we stimulate in our own mind the growth of the qualities he represents.

In the early stages of practice, this process of seeing oneself as a deity is largely artificial. But as we train in deity yoga with the proper perseverance we will be able to perceive this self-generated deity with a clarity far exceeding that of our present self-image. Our mind will actually become the mind of the deity, and our ordinary sensory experiences—what we see, hear, taste, and so forth— will be transformed into the blissful enjoyments of the deity. This is not a fairy tale. Such transformation has been the experience of countless tantric meditators of the past and there is no reason why, if we exert sufficient effort, we should not experience the same transcendental results.

P ROBLEMS OF SELF-EMANATI ON

“But why should I emanate myself as Manjushri or any other deity?” you may ask. “It is already difficult enough for me to emanate myself as a man, or as a woman. So why should I change my appearance and put on another mask, a Manjushri mask?”

What we have to remember is that when we emanate ourselves as Manjushri, it is not to manifest as something different from what we already are. We already have the profound qualities of such a divine manifestation within us at the moment. The reason we practice emanating ourselves as a deity is so that we can more fully recognize and cultivate these qualities, rather than remaining miserably trapped within the limiting projections of the self-pitying attitude: I am ugly, stupid, weak, and worthless.

You may still wonder, “But how could Manjushri, or any other tantric deity for that matter, be the essence of what I already am? I don’t look like any of these deities; I’m not orange or blue or green; I don’t have more than one face and two arms the way many of them do.” Of course objections like these will arise, but if we are ever going to put them to rest we first have to examine very closely who we think we actually are.

First of all, your present face is not you; your bones and flesh are not you.

Neither your blood, your muscles, nor any other part of your body are the essence of who you are. To an extent you can say that your body is like a mechanical robot because by itself it is powerless to function. It has to be controlled by something else. And just as it is the computer program that controls the robot and makes it function, it is your mind—or consciousness, psyche, soul, or whatever you want to call it—that gives life to your body.

Therefore, if you are looking for the essence of who you are, if you want to know what is responsible for how you live your life, you have to look into your mind.

The next thing to realize is that from the time you were born up until now you have manifested in many different ways. None of us is static and unchanging. For example, when you are filled with anger, you look like a demon while at other times, filled with love, you look like a beautiful angel.

None of these manifestations—whether angry, peaceful, jealous, loving, compassionate, stupid, or wise—arises primarily from your body, from your physical form. They all arise from the power of your consciousness, from the power of your mind. The mind has the ability to generate thousands of different emotions and attitudes, and the body just follows its lead without any choice. Despite this fact, however, we so often identify with our body rather than with our mind. It is as if we think the body were the boss instead of the mind. It is almost as if we become slaves of our body. Just turn on the television for a few minutes and it will be clear how much energy our culture devotes to serving the body and how little to cultivating the mind. No wonder things are so confused.

Putting the body before the mind in this way is not the only mistake we make. We also fail to realize that our gross physical body is not the only body we possess. More will be said about this later (see Chapter 10) but, briefly stated, within the confines of our ordinary physical form exists a subtler conscious body, so-called because it is intimately connected with deep levels of consciousness. It is from these subtler levels that the potential energy of blissful wisdom arises, an energy capable of transforming the quality of our life completely. Tantric deities symbolize the full development of this blissful wisdom energy and that is why we can say that such a deity—no matter what color it is or how many faces it has—represents the essence of who we are and what we can become. Deity yoga, therefore, is not involved with fantasizing about the impossible. Rather, it is an extremely practical method for living up to our highest potential through systematic training and profound transformation of our human consciousness.

Although deity yoga might seem very unfamiliar and impractical at first, we can get a glimpse of how effective it is by thinking of similar techniques that have already demonstrated their value even to the skeptical West. For instance, there are many documented cases where people have cured themselves of cancer and other serious illnesses solely through the process of creative visualization. Instead of holding onto the view: “My body is filled with cancer and I am dying,” these people see themselves as whole and healthy. The image of being diseased is released from the mind and replaced by an image of radiance and vitality. On many occasions this approach has proven effective even after doctors have given up all hope.

The health of body and mind is primarily a question of our self-image.

Those people who think badly of themselves, for whatever reasons, become and then remain miserable, while those who can recognize and draw on their inner resources can overcome even the most difficult situations. Deity yoga is one of the most profound ways of lifting our self-image, and that is why tantra is such a quick and powerful method for achieving the fulfillment of our tremendous potential.

The biggest obstacle standing in the way of our successful transformation into such a deity is our persistent belief in ordinary appearances. As long as we maintain the ordinary vision we have of ourselves, there is no space for seeing ourselves as an enlightened being. We cannot truly see ourselves as possessing a deity’s transparent body of light if we continue to identify so strongly with our gross physical form. And we will never be able to contact the essentially pure nature of our own being if we continue to think that our mind’s fundamental nature is nothing but the delusions and gross conceptions that pass through it.

Therefore, if we truly wish to achieve the satisfaction of complete self-fulfillment, we must find a way to break free from the tyranny of ordinary appearances and conceptions. We must gain a heartfelt appreciation of how disastrous it is to continue relating to our body and our mind, and therefore our self-image, in the gross and limiting ways we do now. We need to understand that our naive acceptance of ordinary appearances only makes us more and more confused, insecure, and dissatisfied.

Any tendency we have toward indecision and fear is a symptom of our dualistic mind, the mind that churns out a seemingly endless succession of contradictory thoughts. “I hope I look good but I’m afraid I look bad.” It also demonstrates how superficial the judgments we make about ourselves usually are. After all, physical appearance is not a true measure of the actual worth of any man or woman. Nevertheless, slight physical imperfections, whether real or imagined, are enough to cause us great anxiety. There are even people who feel so ugly, so utterly worthless, so full of self-loathing, that they starve themselves to death. This is an extreme example, of course, but I think most of us put ourselves down and make ourselves miserable for one reason or another.

TH E MI ND DI STRACTED OUTWARD

It sometimes seems that our mind is running in every direction at once, turning to this and that in a desperate search. But for what? We are looking for an unnamed something that will satisfy our longing for stability and security. We pass from one thing to another hoping that the next experience will contain whatever it is we are looking for. As a result our mind is constantly distracted. It is difficult to focus all our attention on what we are doing because part of our mind is already dissatisfied and has begun to search for that elusive something else. Even when we are doing something that we enjoy we lose our concentration so easily. Thus not only do we fail to discover a higher meaning and purpose to our life, we are often unsuccessful in our mundane affairs as well.

The inevitable result of our limited self-conception—limited by our unquestioning belief in ordinary appearances—is our tendency to look outside ourselves for the answer to our problems. Having grown accustomed to seeing ourselves as incomplete or lacking in some fundamental way, it does not cross our mind to look toward our own inner resources, our inner strength, for a solution to our difficulties. Instead, we think that something in the outer environment, if possessed somehow, will give us what we want. The futility of this approach, however, should be obvious to us all. What person or thing could we possibly make our own so that this search for security might come to an end? Neither the most beautiful woman in the world, the most handsome man, the most fashionable clothes, the most precious jewel, nor the most ingenious new idea has the power to quench our desires as long as we remain incomplete inside. As long as we think that a refuge from life’s difficulties can be found outside ourselves, there is no way that we can experience true peace of mind. Certainly the possession of wealth and power is no solution. The high rate of alcoholism, divorce, and suicide in the so-called developed nations of the world shows that mere material possessions do not satisfy restlessness.