AMONG ALL THE TEXTS in this volume, one of the most intriguing, in style as well as origin, is Wheel of Sharp Weapons.134 With 116 verses, the work is composed in a lively poetic style in the form of self-recriminations as well as self-exhortation. Starting from its opening line, the verses focus on one of the paradigmatic themes of mind training—transforming adversities into the path to enlightenment. In addition, we hear unmistakable echoes of tonglen, taking on others’ suffering and mental afflictions and offering to them our happiness and positive mental states, as well as the need to view others as a source of our own ultimate well-being, and the need to engage in all stages of the path with the awareness that all things are ultimately empty in nature. All of these are powerfully articulated in this work.
As its title suggests, the key metaphor used throughout is a wheel of sharp weapons. This traditional Indian weapon wheel has sharp double-edged knives extending outward from a central ring, which is spun like a frisbee at its target. In traditional Indian mythology, some gods carry this wheel as their weapon of choice, and the paintings of these gods depict the wheel hovering above their right index finger. This weapon is thought to have a kind of magic power that permits it to return to the owner, like a boomerang.
Clearly, the sentiments expressed in this poem will have powerful resonance if the reader accepts the twin doctrines of karma and rebirth. However, even for readers who do not share these premises, these verses can evoke powerful insights and emotive response. For negative karmic deeds remain so regardless of our belief in the law of karma—even a purely secular standpoint recognizes that these acts bring suffering both to self and others. And the antidotes that are called for remain the same, too, again irrespective of our metaphysical perspective.
Since our volume does not contain a commentary to this text, I will provide a brief outline of its structure. In doing so, I am relying on the topical outline found in the collected works of the nineteenth-century Mongolian scholar Losang Tamdrin, who suggests that this topical outline may have been composed by the famed Geluk master Gungthang Tenpai Drönmé (1762–1823). Tamdrin notes that the version of the outline he found suffered from a substantial number of corruptions, all of which he corrected.
According to this topical outline, the text has three broad parts: (I) stanzas pertaining to the conventional awakening mind, that is, the altruistic aspiration to seek full awakening for the benefit of all beings (verses 1–102), (II) those pertaining to the ultimate awakening mind, that is, the direct realization of emptiness (103–15), and finally, (III) a verse for dedicating the merits of the practice. The verses can be further broken down as follows:
• How, in the forests of cyclic existence, the peacock-like heroic bodhisattvas transform self-grasping and mental afflictions into life-sustaining vital essences. (1–7)
• Practicing tonglen, giving one’s happiness to others and taking others’ suffering and its causes upon onself. (8)
• Correlating specific karma and their effects with their corresponding antidotes. (9–47)
• Recognizing the real enemy. (48)
• Supplicating the meditation deity Yamāntaka to help crush the demon of self-grasping through a rite of subjugation. (49–89)
• The heart of the supplication to Yamāntaka. (90–94)
• Dedication and aspiration prayers. (95–101)
• How, ultimately, the results of practice are attained. (102)
• Introducing all appearances to be empty of substantial reality. (103–13)
• Introducing the mind, too, to be empty of substantial reality. (114)
• Introducing the indivisibility of the appearances and mind. (115)
• Dedicating the merits. (116)
The section on supplicating Yamāntaka opens with the following powerful stanzas:
Now, O Yamāntaka, raise the weapon of karma over [the enemy’s] head;
spin the wheel three times fiercely over his head.
Your legs of two truths stand apart and eyes of method and wisdom wide open,
with your fangs of four powers bared, strike the enemy!
The king of spells who confounds the enemy’s mind:
summon this oath breaker who betrays self and others—
this savage called “self-grasping demon,”
who while brandishing the weapon of karma,
runs amok in the jungle of cyclic existence.
Summon him, summon him, wrathful Yamāntaka!
Strike him, strike him, pierce the heart of this enemy, the self!
Dance and trample on the head of this betrayer, false conception!
Mortally strike at the heart of this butcher and enemy, Ego!
The imagery here is quite striking. What we have is the personification of our habitual self-grasping and self-centeredness in the form of a demon, which is then being exorcised through invoking the power of Yamāntaka. Using the weapon wheel the deity is asked to crush the demonic ego, the oath-breaker, the savage “self-grasping demon,” and then dance in celebration by trampling upon its head! To this day, when I find myself beginning to get caught in a spiral of thought that has the potential to lead to obsessive rumination, I chant to myself the line, “Dance and trample on the head of this betrayer, false conception!” Admittedly radical, I find this approach highly effective, for it immediately stops the racing thought process in its tracks.
I first came across these powerful lines as a young monk at Ganden by listening to a beautiful recording of this text by Kyabjé Trijang Rinpoché, the late junior tutor of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Hearing the lines chanted in his deep melodious voice, I was entranced and immediately went out to look for the text. Later, I was able to receive instructions on the text both from my own teacher, Kyabjé Zemé Rinpoché, as well as once from His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Traditional Tibetan sources attribute this text to one Dharmarakṣita, who is recognized as one of the “three Indian teachers” of Atiśa on mind training. We know very little in the way of personal details about this master, other than that he is supposed to have held a non-Mahayana philosophical standpoint and that he was a person of such great compassion that he once gave away a piece of his own flesh to help cure someone of an illness. We have no independent corroboration of the historicity of this person, but we do find mentions of him in very early sources, such as those of Dromtönpa. Thus it seems that Atiśa himself may have been the source of these details about Dharmarakṣita.
The provenance of the text itself is another question. We have no viable alternative to the traditional ascription, and the colophon states that the work was translated from Sanskrit by Atiśa and Dromtönpa. This said, I can find no explicit mention of this work in a text undisputedly dated prior to the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century. Several years ago, a large stash of texts associated with the Kadam school, the lineage founded by Dromtönpa, was found. As these texts are cataloged, we may find references to this Wheel of Sharp Weapons in an earlier source. As of now, however, its true origin is in question.
This text appeared to have become quite popular in the Geluk school around the early eighteenth century, with such luminaries as the Seventh Dalai Lama, Yongzin Yeshé Gyaltsen, Phurbuchok Ngawang Jampa, Gungthang Tenpai Drönmé, and Trichen Tenpa Rapgyé teaching it widely.