A New Year… but is there anything new?

It has been seven years since I left for my pilgrimage and searched deeply within myself and with my relationship to and with the world. It has been well worth the journey. My instincts that I spoke of in my last blog were correct. It was time for me to leave and now to return. What I can tell you of my journey is limited, as I previously mentioned, but I can mention a few details of my trip.

My pilgrimage was a great success, I am not yet a fully accomplished yogi, but I have penetrated through veils of reality that only previously I could dream of. I found out that while my dreams helped me continue on this path of perfection, the dreams themselves had to be removed in order for me to accomplish my goals. Life is like a dream and it is my projected imperfections of my own desires upon the world which did not allow me to truly perceive the world. This is the complication with Vajriyana Buddhism. As the lotus sutra says “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form”. To understand this is not, as they say in epistemology, a propositional issue, but rather one which is procedural. People use their heads to decipher reality way too often, this permits their fantasies and inner symbolisms to dominate rather than what is really occurring inwardly and outwardly at all moments.

One reason that the pilgrimage itself was such a benefit was that it helped strengthen my body. For tantra to fully realize itself in one’s form, the body must be prepared to handle the intense psychic/mental/energetic practices that one will go through. Inner violence and excruciating pain can sometimes occur, but these are merely movements of rLung (wind, energy) within the form of the body. If one can keep their attention and focus and allow the experience to occur and trust that what is happening is part of the process, then the change can be complete. With a strong body, one can stand through these torrents, as if one is standing in the middle of a storm. As I feel the storm attempting to tear me asunder, compassion for the process and realizing emptiness at every step as I watch the experiences come from nothing, rise up, peak I know and they always fall back to nothingness again keeps me together. Staying with this, I grow and know.
As for what I learned in my studies, I can only mention a small number of practices. I was taught continually that one does not discuss tantric practices to those who are not at the place of understanding what is being taught. One can either easily become overwhelmed by the intensity of techniques and lose their way or they will attempt to fabricate ideas and fantasies and miss what is actually occurring. Or, as I will speak about the sexual practices I became deeply involved in, use these kinds of practices to become more enmeshed in desire and greed.

These practices are not for the meek. They are intense methods to understand the underlying ultimate emptiness that exists at all places all the time. To know this is truly freedom. There was one person at one of the temples I stayed at, this person shall remain nameless. He was too much ego, too engrossed in his own desires and in siddhis, or supernatural abilities, and the way in which he practice showed that. At one point during deep sadhana, he suddenly arose, screamed at the guru and at another student that they were attempting to destroy him and ran out of the space. Some of the other students found him in the woods, naked, in the rain and screaming at a bush. Our lama reminded us that we must be careful on this path and just as much as we push forward to remove the delusions in the subtle body, we must also care for the delusions themselves. They are there for a reason and must be subdued and seduced to open up and play so they can be understood, not fought. This man was more interested in super powers and, in turn, his mind was destroyed. I do not know if he will ever regain his reason and return to practice.

For myself, one of the sadhana I was taught were the sexual techniques. I am mentioning these now because I had written about them in previous blogs. The sexual practices are not ones which I recommend to anyone, it requires intense previous practice and initiation by a lama who can see that it is the correct time for an initiate. Sexual practices are challenging for a couple of reasons. One is to gain a state of bliss without allowing the mind to be overrun by pleasure. Pleasure itself is empty, but orgasm can too easily seem as if it is not and that is dangerous. When one orgasms, we lose the rlung and become tired and dejected. But when one can orgasm internally and use the intensification of inner sexual experience towards awakening one’s mind, then it becomes a very powerful practice that can awaken a siddha in this lifetime, rather than waiting a number of lifetimes. But this is all I will say for now. There are many books on tantra, please read those. If you feel you are ready to practice tantra, practice with what you know and then you will find the right lama or guru.

After my pilgrimage, I am now home. My cave has been cared for by my friends, the village is strong in construction and community. It is good to see that the library and the medicine factory are both complete and at full force. I am happy to be back and to see the village I am so intimately a part of to be so healthy.

Upon my return to the village, and so many old friends coming to greet me and ask me of my adventures, as well as tell me of those who had passed, I notice that it is the Tibetan New Year! One of my favourite times. It is amazing how time moves when one is immersed in sadhana. I cannot be happier that it is time for the New Year festivities. I will reconnect with all my friends who are still around, perhaps even surprise a few, although word gets around fast in a village and I’m certain many people know I have been gone for so long.

I am sure my readers have many questions as to how New Years is celebrated in Tibetan culture. In Tibet, we call this time Losar. At the moment, monks from all over Tibet, including my village, are gathering together to prepare themselves in order to recite prayers and perform rituals for all sentient beings. We will head down to a main area used every year in the centre of our village where the monks will perform these rituals. Lay people, including myself, will stand all about. The monks perform these prayers and rituals for the benefit of all beings and myself and others will offer money or our services to the rituals in order for these benefits to continue forward. I also want to mention that many western scholars are deeply interested in what a Buddhist ritual is and what is pre-Buddhist. I feel these scholars have much too much time on their hands, since today the ritual is a ritual and Buddhism becomes a part of the culture that accepts it. Attempting to separate the two logically is like trying to separate sound from the dramyin; all you are left with is a piece of wood. The two are interdependent and would not exist in this place and time without each other. Academics need to spend more time in sexual tantra than with their books.

You will always see certain features at every New Year (besides the chang being poured like spring snow melting off the side of a mountain). This is the purification rituals and mantra chants; which begin to cleanse the areas which will be used for ceremony, where monks draw forth all Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and Dakinis to help protect the area. These are also reminders of the vows to Buddha, dharma and sangha, as well as the request for Bodhisattvas to continue avoiding nirvana for the benefit of all beings. The instruments, such as the gyanling, the damaru, the tingsha, lag-na and rolmo all being used in the ritual. Many of these instruments I’m sure you have already heard. Just in case I have added a YouTube link in my blog for you to hear this.

One of my favourite parts of these is the yearly examinations for the monks. These are called the geshe degree. It is specific to the Gelupa monastic system, so not every monk will perform these. For myself, being a tantric practitioner in the yogic tradition, I have nothing to do with these, we follow more secretive rituals. But I truly enjoy watching these debates and listening to the monks struggle over questions concerning Buddhism. It can be embarrassing and I feel that this is part of the struggle. Regardless, I very much enjoy watching these debates, being part of smaller debates in the audience and learning from the monks.

I feel the good that my pilgrimage has done. I have grown deeply in my practice and have overcome a number of difficulties that prevented me from seeing the ultimate truth about myself and the world I inhabit. I am closer than ever to realizing the true nature of all things.

You may have noticed that I wrote “is anything new?” as the title of this blog. I meant this to remind me to bring forth a Buddhist philosophy I learned while travelling. The Sarvastivadin tradition, which goes back as one of the earliest schools in Buddhism, believed in the non-continuity of time. In essence, that dharmas, or moments of existence, exist all the time and it is only when we focus on one, which they called “possession”, thus determines whether this dharma is a past, present or future. I understand that I am leaving out many details and this may seem confusing. A good example is to think of a VHS tape — yes, I understand some of you may not know what this is but please google it and you will find out — and imagine that our present lives are what is actually on the TV screen. Yet, the past and the future are already on the tape. There is no escaping that the past and future have already occurred. This has me thinking that perhaps rebirth is therefore us reliving our lives again and again. Our lives are rewound and replayed. Where does free will come into this? Can we change our lives while we are alive? And hence my question, is there anything new? Perhaps not.

I hear the festivities roaring outside as more and more people come into town from the farmlands, and I believe there is a bottle of chang awaiting me. Be well!