Padma-Sambhava (T: Padma-’byun-gnas, also known as Guru Rinpoche [Precious Guru] and Padmakara) is one of the most renowned and revered figures in the religious history of Tibet: one of his many honorific titles is no less than ‘Second Buddha’, and it is partly as a result of his influence that Tantric Buddhism took so firm a hold in that country. He is said to have founded the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet (bSam-yas), and his followers formed a school of Buddhism which has endured to the present, the rNying ma pa (the Old Ones), more popularly called the Red Hats. The members of this school hold that Padma-Sambhava and other masters buried sacred texts in secret locations, these buried texts (T: gter-ma) to be found by ‘takers-out of the treasures’ (T: gter-ston, pron. ter-ton) when they are needed to help the world towards enlightenment. (A taker-out is always a person of the highest spiritual attainments, and never more than one incarnates at a given time.) Again, the rNying ma pa have preserved the doctrine of the bardo, i.e. the experience a person undergoes between death and the next reincarnation. The Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thodol), on which Padma-Sambhava wrote a commentary, contains a detailed description of the experiences of the individual on the bardo plane. In the present context, however, the principal concern will be the Mahayanist metaphysics and associated yogas set out in Padma-Sambhava’s work The Yoga of Knowing the Mind, called Self-Liberation, a sub-section of the work The Profound Doctrine of Self-Liberation by Meditation Upon the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities (T: Zab chos zhi khro dgongs pa rang grol), together with recommendations for practice set out in certain gter-ma texts.1
Though there is an almost contemporary biography of Padma-Sambhava, very little can be gleaned from it concerning the historical facts of his life, much of the content being myth, legend or religious allegory. Thus he is said to have had an immaculate birth, emerging not from the womb but from a lotus blossom; to have developed yogic powers to the extent of mastery of shape-changing, mind-reading, understanding the language of animals, raising the dead, and becoming invisible.2 He is said to have lived for centuries, to have taught the dharma both to humans and to spiritual beings in various heavens, and to be a reincarnation of the Buddha, returned to the flesh for the special purpose of spreading Tantric doctrine.
The biography does, however, refer to one or two incidents which scholars agree to be historical. Padma-Sambhava was probably Indian by birth, and spent many years studying under gurus in his native country, Burma, Afghanistan and Nepal. He achieved mastery of many yogas and acquired a considerable reputation as a siddha or Tantric adept. The contemporary king of Tibet, Khri srong lde brtsan (reigned 740–786? CE) was concerned that Buddhism was not taking as firm a hold in his country as he wished, and enquired who could remedy the situation. His advisers recommended Padma-Sambhava, who was duly invited to Tibet in 746 and arrived in the spring of 747. How long he stayed in Tibet is unknown, as are the circumstances of his departure. In a sense, these details are unimportant by comparison with the achievement attributed to him. He has a unique place in Tibetan religious history, in some ways analogous to that of Bodhidharma, another semilegendary figure, in the development of Zen in the Far East. It is held that the effect of his presence was the establishment of Buddhism in Tibet, and further that his example set the direction for its development.
The Yoga of Knowing the Mind epitomizes the philosophical basis of Padma-Sambhava’s Buddhism. He begins at once with the fundamental metaphysical assertion that the world of ordinary sense-experience and introspection (the samsara) is an illusion and that being-as-is or reality is One Mind: ‘There being really no duality, pluralism is untrue. Until duality is transcended and at-one-ment realized, Enlightenment cannot be attained. The whole
Sangsara and Nirvana, as an inseparable unity, are one’s mind.’3 The One Mind is a predicateless unity, and this assertion has far-reaching consequences, as becomes clear if the implications of the following description of it are followed through:
In its true state, mind is naked, immaculate; not made of anything, being of the Voidness; clear, vacuous, without duality, transparent; timeless, uncompounded, unimpeded, colourless; not realizable as a separate thing, but as the unity of all things, yet not composed of them; of one taste (i.e. homogeneous), and transcendent over differentiation.4
The whole of The Yoga of Knowing the Mind is an amplification of this statement.
It follows first that the mode of being of the One Mind cannot be characterized as either existence or non-existence, since these concepts apply only in the samsara: ‘Although the One Mind is, it has no existence’5 since ‘there are no two such things as existence and non-existence’.6 Moreover, the One Mind must of necessity be ‘timeless’, i.e. eternal. Eternity is the mode of being outside time or, put another way, to which in principle no temporal predicates apply. Time is the framework in which all events or changes are located: there logically cannot be an event which is not in time, and conversely, if there is time, there must be events. Now the One Mind is predicateless: it is unchanging and must therefore be eternal.
A further consequence flows from this conclusion, namely that our ordinary timeconsciousness, our awareness of time as having a unidirectional flow from past to present to future, must be a samsaric illusion to be overcome by the practice of appropriate yogas. If this is not done,
The yoga concerning past and future not being practised, memory of the past remains latent. The future, not being welcomed, is completely severed by the mind from the present. The present, not being fixable, remains in the state of the Voidness.7
Enlightenment or Liberation consists in part in transcending normal time-consciousness: it is the condition in which there is no past, present, or future. Further, since birth and death are changes which occur in time, they must be samsaric and so illusory, and do not pertain to the One Mind: ‘Not having known birth, it knows not death.’8
Again, since the One Mind is indeed one, i.e. ‘transcendent over differentiation’,9 it follows that the distinction which lies at the root of all human consciousness, that between the self and everything which is not the self, is an illusion, since it is an instance of duality, and all dualities without exception are unreal. If enlightenment or the Great Liberation (as it is referred to in this work) is attained, it is realized that this distinction is inapplicable:
Although [the One Mind] is Total Reality, there is no perceiver of it . . . When exhaustively contemplated, the teachings merge in at-one-ment with the scholarly seeker who has sought them, although the seeker himself when sought cannot be found.10
‘The seeker cannot be found’ because after enlightenment, normal self-consciousness is absent, and so in an important sense the person who set out on the road to liberation no longer exists.
Normal experience, then, is a tissue of illusions which we must seek to overcome. What ordinarily passes for knowledge of the world, information concerning the nature and interactions of all the individual entities into which we erroneously subdivide it, is accordingly knowledge of an illusion and so worthless. What we must seek is not such knowledge but wisdom or acquaintance with being-as-is. Since what commonly passes for knowledge is unconnected with reality, it is unconnected with wisdom. There is no link between extensive learning and enlightenment, and indeed the former is likely to get in the way of the latter. Thus Padma-Sambhava stresses that ‘Even a cowherd [i.e. an illiterate] may by realization obtain Liberation’.11 Padma-Sambhava is careful to point out, however, that this distinction between wisdom and ignorance is merely a device to help us along the Path to the Great Liberation. Like all dualities, it is inapplicable to being-as-is: ‘Although the Wisdom of Nirvana and the Ignorance of the Sangsara illusorily appear to be two things, they cannot truly be differentiated.’12
Having indicated the nature of reality and the extent of samsaric illusion, the next stage is to indicate the Path the aspirant must follow in order to attain the Great Liberation. As the title of the treatise indicates, the path to reality lies inwards, via the yoga of knowing the mind. The bedrock Yogacarin insight is that reality is One Mind. We too have mind, and the route to Liberation is to free our mind from its fetters. We must seek to rid the mind of all the illusions of the samsara, to control it by means of various yogas, and to restore it to its primal nakedness, i.e. the condition of non-conceptual awareness of reality. Over and over again, Padma-Sambhava enjoins the aspirant to seek the truth by turning inwards: ‘The Dharma being nowhere save in the mind, there is no other place of meditation than the mind . . . Again and again look within thine own mind.’13
As is to be expected from one of the greatest Tantric gurus, Padma-Sambhava has much to say about meditational technique, its stages and benefits, from the first steps to the farthest reaches of mahasandi (S: Great Perfection; T: rDzogs chen) yoga. The first essential is to find a qualified guru, one who has attained full enlightenment, and who is motivated by compassion for all sentient beings:
You should know that the master is more important
Than the buddhas of a hundred thousand aeons,
Because all the buddhas of the aeons
Appeared through following masters.There will never be any buddhas
Who have not followed a master.14
Failure to follow a qualified guru will result in disaster, the tragedy of indefinite deferment of enlightenment.
The next step for the aspirant is to arouse bodhicitta, the desire for enlightenment, not just for oneself but for all sentient beings. As Milarepa was to do later, Padma-Sambhava makes use of one of the consequences of the doctrine of reincarnation: in the past, we have all had countless lives, and every sentient being has been at some time our father and our mother. To entertain this belief helps to reinforce in us the desire to act for the sake of others. The arousing of bodhicitta in this way is a necessary condition for gaining enlightenment: ‘Unless you cultivate bodhicitta, you will not attain enlightenment, even though you gain mastery of mantra and be very powerful.’15
When bodhicitta is aroused, it is appropriate to proceed to practise meditation. The central element in Tantric yoga is the visualization of a deity by the meditator using mantras, and Padma-Sambhava gives careful recommendations as to how this may be achieved by persons of differing aptitudes: most must begin by concentrating on a physical image of their yidam (i.e. personal) deity, and practise until this external stimulus is no longer necessary. Throughout his detailed prescriptions on method, Padma-Sambhava stresses, consistently with his nondual metaphysics, that the deity thus visualized is nonseparate from the mind of the meditator, having no real, discrete existence: ‘Realize that you and the yidam deity are not two and that there is no yidam deity apart from yourself . . . Do not become fascinated or overjoyed by such visions since they are only the manifestations of your mind.’16 It follows further from nondualism that, since reality is a oneness, all distinctions between deities are illusory, and so it does not matter which one is chosen as a focus for meditation: ‘if you practise one you will be practising them all.’17
As in other schools of Buddhism, the aim of this method of meditation is to bring conceptual thought to a halt and so facilitate enlightenment or direct awareness of being-as-is. One who reaches this level of insight is a vidyadhara (S: knowledge-holder). Again in common with other systems of yoga, there is more than one degree of insight to be attained, and Padma-Sambhava discriminates four vidyadhara levels.18 The first is that of maturation (T: rnam stain rig ’dzin):
When you attain stability [as a result of meditation] . . . without discarding your body, it will be matured into a deity . . . Although your body remains as an [ordinary] human being, your mind is matured into a deity. This is like an image formed in the mold.19
At this first level, conceptual thought is stilled, the divine nature of the mind is revealed, and so the mind has ‘matured into a deity’. At the second vidyadhara level, that of life-mastery (T: tshe dbang rig ’dzin) the yogi, though still linked to the body, begins to acquire special powers, such as extension of the life-span at will, and that of shape-changing, the ability to manifest as ‘myriad things through three incalculable aeons’20 and act for the welfare of all sentient beings. Such a one is said to be beyond life and death, and so, equally, to be beyond the point at which it is possible to fall back into an unenlightened state.
The third vidyadhara level is that of mahamudra (T: phyag chen rig ’dzin)21 and at this level the practitioner is said to be able to leave the body at will: ‘When leaving your body in the bardo state, you become that particular deity just like the image coming out of the mold . . . the moment the body is discarded, the practitioner becomes the form of the yidam deity.’22 Bardo (literally ‘between two’; S: antarabhava) is a term used to refer to any intermediate state of being, notably where the soul is separate from the body. Descriptions of this kind are not unusual in the context of advanced mystical experience: the Zen master Dogen, for example, when attempting to describe union with the infinite, speaks of body and mind ‘dropping away’. At such times, the distinctions between mind and body, self and other, are transcended, and a way has to be found to gesture at the nature of this state using conceptual descriptions.
The final vidyadhara level is that of spontaneous presence (T: lhun grub rig ’dzin) which, like the analogous stages of other yogas, is effectively beyond description. Padma-Sambhava suggests the nature of this condition as follows:
Gathering regents and giving teachings, you attain the consummation, the vajra [= diamond]-like samadhi, and accomplish the welfare of self and others through effortless magical powers . . . Meeting the dharmakaya [= reality] face to face, you receive teachings through blessings and purify the subtle obscuration of dualistic knowledge.23
He describes at some length the nature of the consciousness of the yogi who has arrived at this rare peak of attainment. This condition he epitomizes as ‘mirror-like wisdom’: ‘all phenomena appear like reflections in a mirror while having no self-nature, and are cognized while having no conceptual thinking.’24 Discriminations are made, but the phenomena discriminated appear as they truly are, as illusions of the samsara. Moreover, since the yogi has transcended the surface ego and its desires, the discriminated phenomena are simply reflected in consciousness: none is desired, since desire has been overcome. Hence the use of the classic Buddhist image of the mirror, for a mirror simply reflects what is before it, and desires nothing. Such a yogi ‘will naturally progress beyond meditation and post-meditation and will be free from holding a conceptual focus or conceiving of attributes, just as clouds and mist spontaneously clear in the vast expanse of the sky’.25 Meditation is no longer an activity which takes place, as it does during the years of training, at set times, but is the state in which all actions are performed.26
Further, Padma-Sambhava considers that this condition is the only sure basis for moral action. So long as an agent is innocent of nondual awareness and therefore cognizes in ordinary self-conscious, conceptual terms, there is a constant danger that good deeds (to which he refers as ‘virtuous roots’ or ‘roots of virtue’) will be done for the wrong reason:
In general, a virtuous root is unerring when embraced by nonconception. To think in conceptual focus, I did a virtuous action!, and to dedicate your virtuous deeds toward material gain or good reputation, is perverted dedication.27
Padma-Sambhava presupposes that an action is truly virtuous only if it is spontaneous, not done with a view to any possible gain of good reputation or other benefit for the agent, and the only condition in which it is certain that selfregarding motives are absent is that after enlightenment. In this state, there is no ego in the normal sense, and action is the spontaneous manifestation of compassion. For those who have yet to reach this state, Padma-Sambhava recommends that ‘In all cases [of doing good deeds], completely let go of all focus on dedication, object of dedicating, and dedicator, while leaving no trace behind’.28 When conceptual distinctions are dropped, the innate Buddha-nature can manifest itself; when the ego is dispersed and with it all selfish desires, what remains is the will of God.
This philosophy is open to the objections which beset nondualism: to find a motive for the manifestation of the absolute as the samsara; to give an account of how the eternal can be related to the temporal, the changeless to the mutable, the perfect to the imperfect. Padma-Sambhava would reply that these are problems only for those unable to transcend a conceptual focus. The accomplished vidyadhara knows the mind of God, and for such a one all problems are resolved.
The titles of works cited in these notes are abbreviated as follows: DT = Erik Pema Kunsang (trans.), Dakini Teachings, a selection of gter-ma texts attributed to Padma-Sambhava, Boulder, CO, Shambhala, 1990; TBGL = W.Y. Evans-Wentz (ed.) The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation, London, Oxford University Press, 1954.
1 Whether the attribution of these works to Padma-Sambhava himself is secure is a matter for scholars: the issue is very difficult to settle in connection with a figure like this around whose life there has gathered a nimbus of legend. What matters in the present context is that these texts set out a consistent form of rNying ma pa Tantrism.
2 The same powers are attributed to other advanced Tantric yogis, e.g. Milarepa.
3 TBGL, pp. 206–207.
4 op.cit., p. 211.
5 op.cit., p. 208.
6 op.cit., p. 225.
7 op.cit., p. 222.
8 op.cit., p. 219.
9 op.cit., p. 211.
10 op.cit., pp. 219 and 224.
11 op.cit., p. 237.
12 op.cit., p. 229.
13 op.cit., p. 217.
14 DT, p. 103. This work is a translation of parts of gterma texts said to have been dictated by Padma-Sambhava to his biographer and most faithful disciple Lady Yeshe Tsogyal, who also concealed them. They were discovered by the gter-stons Nyang Ral Nyima Oser (1124–1192) and Dorje Lingpa (1346–1405).
15 op.cit., p. 7.
16 op.cit., pp. 105 and 107.
17 op.cit., p. 105.
18 cf. analogous distinctions in Hakuin’s Zen, Aurobindo’s Hinduism, and the four stages of the Mahamudra yoga of Milarepa.
19 DT, p. 109.
20 op.cit., p. 130.
21 This sense of the term Mahamudra is distinct from that in which it is used as a generic description of the yoga of Marpa and Milarepa.
22 DT, p. 130.
23 ibid.
24 op.cit., p. 132; cf. Dogen’s description of the same condition as the ‘ocean seal concentration [= samadhi]’, in which the enlightened mind is likened to the surface of a calm ocean.
25 op.cit., p. 145.
26 Analogously, Zen master Hakuin suggests that for the adept, the whole of life becomes a koan.
27 DT, p. 148.
28 ibid.; cf. Zen master Bankei’s description of postenlightenment action in his advice to layman Gesso.
The attribution of texts to a figure like Padma-Sambhava is a complex matter. Philosophically, the most central of those thus attributed is The Yoga of Knowing the Mind, called Self-Liberation. The gter-ma texts used here originate chiefly in Nyang Ral’s Jomo Shulen (The Questions and Answers of the Lady) i.e. Lady Yeshe Tsogyal.
the Buddha, Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Milarepa
Blofeld, J., The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet, Boulder, CO, Shambhala, 1970
Douglas, K. (trans.), The Life and Liberation of Padma-Sambhava (by Lady Yeshe Tsogyal), Dharma Publishing, USA, 1978
Evans-Wentz, W.Y. (ed.), The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation, London, Oxford University Press, 1954 (contains the text of The Yoga of Knowing the Mind, and a condensed version of Lady Yeshe Tsogyal’s biography of Padma-Sambhava)
Evans-Wentz, W.Y. (ed.), The Tibetan Book of the Dead, 3rd edn, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1957
Freemantle, F. and Chogyam Trungpa (trans and eds), The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Boulder, CO, Shambhala, 1975
Padma-Sambhava, Dakini Teachings, trans. Erik Pema Kunsang, Boulder, CO, Shambhala, 1990