Wisdom of the Mountains

Now, this seminar this weekend concerns a subject which is so alien from anything that we understand in the West

that it may stretch your skulls a little.

I don't know.

But as Westerners face certain forms of Mahayana Buddhism from the outside,

they see what reminds them of total irrationality and superstition.

And this, in particular, applies to a form of Buddhism which has several names.

And they're all...

Well, it's really one form of Buddhism, but it's named differently.

And they are all sub-schools of Mahayana.

It's variously known as Vajrayana, Tantrayana, or Mantrayana.

You remember the word Yana means a course, basically, sometimes a vehicle.

And Buddhism is fundamentally likened to a vehicle or something like a raft which you use for crossing a river.

Or let's say you want to get in at a door and you have to knock and you need a brick to knock on the door with.

So you pick up the brick and bang on the door.

That's a Yana.

It's an instrument, an expedient, a means, a technique, a method.

And the Buddha's doctrine is called in Sanskrit the Dharma.

And Dharma has a whole multiplicity of meanings, but one of them is method.

Although it's usually translated law in English, this is not a good translation.

So the Yana, the whole idea of a Yana is related to the idea of Upaya, which I have previously explained to you.

U-P-A-Y-A, meaning skillful means, what we would call a pedagogical device or sort of trick.

Because Upaya in politics means cunning.

But in religion or philosophy, it means the skill of a teacher and getting something across to a student.

And so the whole essence of Upaya is really surprise.

Because everybody wants a surprise, but you can't surprise yourself because you know in advance what you're going to do.

When you have hiccups, then indeed you surprise yourself because you didn't intend to.

And Upaya and surprise is deeply connected with the whole inner meaning of Buddhism.

Life has to surprise itself.

Because if it doesn't, you don't know you're there.

Because you only know existence to the degree that there is a balance between knowing and not knowing.

See?

So there must be the surprise.

There must always be something in you, in other words, that is sort of spiritual hiccups.

That happens unbeknownst.

So an Upaya is a method of the teacher producing the surprise of enlightenment in the student.

And he uses a yana, that is to say a vehicle or a course.

Just like we say we give a course in philosophy or semantics or chemistry or something.

And so the course then is the Mahayana, the great course, which includes ever so many different Upayas or different ways.

The Hinayana, the little course, which has only a few ways.

Now, in the Hinayana, they are very tough-minded.

And they stick to the notion that all enlightenment depends on your own effort.

The Buddha is supposed to have said just before he died,

Be you lamps unto yourselves.

Be you a refuge unto yourselves.

Take to yourselves no other refuge.

And in Japanese classification of Buddhist schools, they have two that are respectively called Jiriki and Tariki.

And they classify all schools of Buddhism under these headings.

Ji means self.

Riki means power.

So there are ways of salvation, or better, more accurately, liberation, by your own power, Jiriki.

And then Tariki are the ways by the power of another.

That is to say, liberation through what Christians would call grace, rather than works.

And it's fascinating how the problem of faith and works, or grace and works, turns up in Buddhism just as it does in Christianity.

And it's really the same problem.

You see, in the history of Christianity, there was a huge argument around 400 A.D.

between a Welshman, or a Celt, by the name of Pelagius, and Augustine of Hippo.

And Pelagius was a kind of optimistic Britisher, who believed in muddling through, and playing the game, and putting your nose to the grindstone, and so on.

And he believed that one's own will and effort could obey the commandments of God, because he argued that God would not have given us any commandments unless we could have obeyed them.

But St. Augustine said that he missed the point entirely, that if he had read St. Paul properly, especially the Epistle to the Romans,

he would have found out that God did not give us commandments in order that we should obey them, but in order to prove that we couldn't.

That is to say, as St. Paul put it, to convict us of sin.

That the law, in other words, was a gimmick.

An upaya.

Nobody was ever expected to obey the law.

The Ten Commandments summarizing the law.

Especially, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all your heart, with all your soul, and all your mind.

Nobody can do that at all.

And so even the greatest saints are always beating their breasts and confessing that they're abysmal sinners,

because they've realized that they can't live up to the commandments.

So therefore, St. Paul taught that the law, he said, is a pedagogue to lead us to Christ.

And you see, a pedagogue has the same meaning as upaya.

So what the law does is make you feel absolutely awful, because you can't obey it or do anything about it.

Now the Buddhists have come to an exactly similar conclusion in the course of time.

Because the Buddha was apparently, in his original teaching, tough-minded.

And said, listen boys, you better discipline yourselves, see?

And you get to work, and you cut out women, and drink, and possessions, and meditate, and control your minds.

Well, everybody tried this.

And of course they couldn't do it, a few people did.

Only, they dried up.

They found that it was a kind of a pyrrhic victory.

That what you gain by stopping your humanity, and stopping your emotions, isn't worth getting.

It's like cutting off your head to cure the headache.

So they realized that wasn't the way.

But that was why Buddha suggested it, so that they'd find out.

So then came in the new schools of Buddhism, which said, uh,

that you must be liberated by tariki.

And ta, as I said, means other power.

That is to say, the power of something in you, that is not your ego.

Just in the same way as your heart doesn't beat at the will of your ego.

So, uh, in psychoanalysis, for example, we would say that the unconscious has to, uh, be worked on.

And that it will be watered, and nourished, and so on.

Eventually, the unconscious will produce your integration.

This is Jungian language, not Freudian.

And, uh, you depend on that.

It's not you.

Uh, because, of course, integration means that you get the two aspects of yourself together,

and acknowledge them both as you.

The conscious and the unconscious, the power of the ego, and the power of the natural organism, of the psyche.

And, uh, so in every art one realizes there comes a point where your will is exhausted.

You've tried everything to make something work, and it won't work.

And then to achieve the perfection of the art.

Something has to happen of itself, which we variously call grace, inspiration, or tariki.

And the problem that everybody's always wanted to know is how to make that happen.

Now, you see, if we knew how to make it happen, it wouldn't be it.

Because it would be something we were doing.

And it would be, therefore, the old story of just as simply an ego effort.

And so we don't know how to make it happen.

But if you just settle for that and say, well, sorry, but, uh, there's nothing you can do about it.

Everybody's just going to go home.

And forget the whole thing and commit suicide.

The thing is, therefore, the state we call faith is the key.

And faith means that we know it will happen.

Only we've got to wait.

Only don't wait too hard.

Because that will be ego effort again and will stop it happening.

So, the thing is to learn to wait soft.

That is to say, in a state of openness.

Well, now, how do you do that?

There are all sorts of upayas, you see, means that help one to do this.

And one of them is this thing that I've been referring to as the Vajrayana.

That means the diamond vehicle.

The tantrayana.

That means the web vehicle.

And the mantrayana, which means the sound vehicle.

Sound in the sense of, uh, incantation.

I may as well begin with mantrayana aspect of it.

Because this is the most perplexing to us, from our point of view.

And doesn't make any sense.

That you know there is an age-old belief in spells.

And that certain formulae, said in the right way, will produce results.

All of this descends philosophically, so far as Asia is concerned.

From the Hindu, uh, Upanishadic idea.

That the world is the creation of sound.

The Hindus say that in the beginning was Vak.

Which is exactly the same thing as saying in the beginning was the word.

As in the Gospel of St. John.

But that doesn't mean the orders.

Like, uh, give him the word.

The, the Vak means vibration.

And, uh, so the, the, the, the name that is fundamentally Vak.

Is the Sanskrit word Om.

Because when you say Om.

You begin at the back of your throat with O.

And you finish at your lips.

And so you take in the whole range of sound.

And so this word Om is called the Pranava.

And it is the holiest of all names.

And so you can chant Om, you know.

And really stir up things.

And so, uh, all, uh, Hindus and Buddhists alike.

Use this word Om.

And we'll use it to set going a meditative state.

This is very easy to do.

Because it's awfully easy to concentrate on sound.

It's much more difficult to keep your eyes still.

You flicker.

Because your eyes tend constantly to,

it's natural for the eyes to rove over things.

And you get, uh, have difficulty.

In stopping your eyes from scanning.

But sound is very easy to concentrate on.

And the, the whole point of a mantra.

Is it's a method of digging sound.

I hope you know what I mean by that.

Because I purposely used a very slangy popular word to dig.

That means get right down into.

So that you realize that the, the, the flow, the vibration of sound,

is a way in which you experience basic existence.

Being here.

And you can learn everything from it.

Because sound is not a constant.

It comes and it goes.

It's on and off.

You only hear it because it is vibrating.

And so herein is the lesson that life is on and off.

Black and white.

Life and death.

Inside and outside.

Knowing and not knowing.

They're all in the vibration.

But it's easy to explain that in words.

But to understand it.

In your bones.

To feel it.

You have to.

Learn how to listen to a sound.

So then they invented this way.

Of making chanting sounds.

Now there are various ways in which this is understood.

By people in Asia.

Incidentally I should say.

That this, uh, as a form of Buddhism.

What I'm calling, uh, Vagrayana.

The whole movement.

Uh, sprung up.

In about the 9th century AD.

And in its geographical distribution.

Is from North India.

Into Tibet.

China and Japan and Mongolia.

And it is highly characteristic of Tibetan Buddhism.

So then.

Let's say there are various ways of understanding it.

The word, the formulas used for mantra.

Are understood by the ignorant.

As being shortcuts.

Instead of saying the whole Sutra.

The whole Sutra is summed up in the formula.

Om Mani Padme Hung.

And you can say that.

That'll do.

You're a poor weak slob.

And out of infinite compassion.

The bodhisattvas have arranged to get you into Nirvana.

Instead of going through all the heroic efforts.

Of those saints and, uh, sages and meditation practices.

You can just say Om Mani Padme Hung.

And in fact you don't even need to say it.

You can have it printed on paper.

And enclosed in a silver box on the end of a stick.

And all you have to do is rotate the thing.

So the, the popular idea of this.

Is the shortcut.

The next idea of it.

Is the one I've been sort of talking about.

Which is that you concentrate on these formulae.

On these sounds.

Of course.

And there's a third interpretation.

Which is you might call the esoteric interpretation.

Which was originally, uh, as far as I know.

The first person to really bring this up was Vasu Pandhu.

Whom I told you about last week.

Who lived, oh, shortly before 400.

And he said the whole point of mantra.

Is that they don't mean anything at all.

And that the word Om is completely meaningless.

And that, uh, all these, uh, various different kinds of incantations.

Um, are totally senseless.

And the idea of repeating them.

Is to liberate yourself from the notion that the universe means anything.

All those forms of Buddhism which are associated with the Vajrayana.

Are what is called Tantric.

And Tantric, the word basically means.

Web structure.

Warp and woof.

Well now, uh, Tantra in Hindu context.

Is a discipline that is sometimes called the fifth Veda.

There are four Vedas.

Uh, which are basic holy scriptures of Hinduism.

The fifth Veda.

Is as it were.

The esoteric one.

Now, according to the four Vedas.

In order to be liberated.

You have to give up.

Physical life.

That is to say.

You must not eat meat.

Uh, you must not have sexual intercourse.

You must not take alcohol.

Uh, or any, uh, kind of.

Consciousness changing, uh, substance.

Uh, there are various other things.

I forget them all.

But in Tantra.

The whole idea is.

Liberation through.

The forbidden things.

That is to say.

Liberation in the world.

Belonging to the world.

Participating in the world.

And sometimes.

Uh, it is therefore.

Called the left hand path.

Once as a Hindu story you know.

That the Brahma was asked.

The question.

Who will gain to union with you first.

He who loves you or he who hates you.

And Brahma replied.

He who hates me.

Because he will think of me more often.

So.

You can other words.

Attain to liberation.

By one of two ways.

One is by complete altruism.

And the other is by total selfishness.

And the, the, the moral of the whole thing is.

That if you are completely and consistently selfish.

You will discover.

That yourself is the other.

That you don't really experience yourself at all.

Except in terms of others.

When you say I love myself.

What do you mean?

Mean you love being alive.

And when you push it.

You see.

This is the point.

To push it.

To an extreme.

So.

Uh.

The, the left hand path is a very dangerous way.

Of, of going about things.

Because nobody approves of it.

I was discussing this morning with my father.

Some time in the distant past.

We had witnessed a comedy.

Wherein.

The stage.

Was set.

Of a man asleep in bed.

In a highly Victorian bedroom.

With all kinds of fancy furniture.

And terrible stuff.

You know.

And the alarm clock goes up.

And he wakes up in a total rage.

He immediately picks up his shoe.

And smashes the alarm clock.

He then.

Gets out of bed in fury.

He rips the sheets to pieces.

Overturns the bed.

Finds a hammer somewhere.

And starts breaking up all the crockery.

The windows.

And still the place is a total demolition.

Finally.

There is left in one corner.

One of those enormous standard lamps.

You know.

With.

Blah.

All the sort of bugaws on it.

And he takes several runs at this.

And finally he picks it up.

And he flings it in the air.

And as it comes down.

It bounces.

It was made of rubber.

And this is the flip.

You see.

That.

And that's the surprise I was talking about.

In the beginning.

Satori.

Sudden awakening.

It bounced.

You know.

You thought you were going to crash.

And you bounced.

And you see.

This is.

This is the whole thing about Buddhism.

We all think we're going to crash.

And it must seem that way.

Because otherwise it won't be a surprise to bounce.

If.

In other words.

You press your selfishness.

And you.

Go into this whole question.

Of.

Um.

What do I really want.

Supposing I could have it.

Supposing I have all the money.

Anything I can think of.

What is it I'm after.

And you explore all the sensations you can imagine.

All the delights of pleasure.

All the ecstasies.

All the drunks.

All the orgasms.

All the.

Anything you can think of.

Go right through to the end of it.

What is it you're looking for.

I want to be flipped.

You know.

I want to be let out of myself.

Well.

When you're let out of yourself.

That's altruism.

He that would save his life shall lose it.

And he that loses his life.

Or looses his life shall find it.

You go one way or the other.

And all comes to the same thing.

All right.

So in the same way.

Take the path of.

Meditative discipline on concentration.

Where somebody is sitting there with a stick.

This is you attend.

See.

I'm the master.

You follow that way.

See what you want to get that.

Out of that.

Try and get rid of yourself.

That's one way of doing it.

And a certain kind of people.

Who ought to.

To take it that way.

They want to.

They.

They don't know they're here.

Unless they hurt.

And that's the right way for them.

We shouldn't condemn it.

It's just like.

There are certain kinds of plants.

That grow this way.

There are certain kinds of plants.

That go this way.

And so there are many types.

On the other hand.

There's the mantra.

Game.

Where.

People say.

Oh.

This is so simple to do.

You really don't have to chant it at all.

It's just the shortest formula.

And it's this.

This is kind of cut.

And then they get going.

Into this thing.

And they get fascinated.

Singing.

Om Mani Padme Hum.

So.

Something like that.

Or.

Like those.

Pure Land Buddhists in Japan.

Namo Amida Butts.

And eventually comes.

Namo Amida Butts.

and you really get with it and when you get with it you suddenly realize it's doing you

now what's the difference between you and it self and other self power other power

it's all one only you play it isn't because you have to do that

I say have to that's not quite the right word you do that in order to create the sensation of

existence which is called now you see it now you don't I want to draw your attention to the fact

that very vivid Tibetan painting has a curious way of creating a state of mind if you really start

looking at it that I can only call psychedelic it's I don't know anything else quite like it

as you get into the detail of it it's like this let's suppose that you look at some object

and instead of the thing becoming fuzzy and fading out it always gets more detailed more clear more

alive and you suddenly find out that what you thought was just a bunch of blur was 16 000 maggots

with bright eyes on them and that every eye was a deep jewel and you go down into these deep jewel-like

eyes and you find inside them that there are cross-legged buddhas with aureoles around them

and uh necklaces of uh human heads and then you start looking at those and by jove in every eye on

one of those human heads you look inside it and there's another buddha sitting there see and you go

on like that forever and ever and ever in myriad detail see but now that is a state of consciousness

which these artists are trying to represent it is the the the idea of the the dharma datu which i

explained in last seminar that is to say the net of jewels where every jewel reflects all the other

jewels and therefore naturally contains the reflection of all the other jewels in each other jewel that it

reflects you see the infinite interrelatedness or they call it mutual penetration of everything in

the universe and so this is an art form designed to get you into the mood to understand that by looking

at it it is absolute total fascination

But, what I was trying to describe to you about the nature of these art forms, where you look at the details, and then you suddenly discover that behind the details, there are millions more details, and you never fuzz out.

You find, in other words, that the possibility to see down into something goes on forever and ever. Now then, that is the visual equivalent of hearing when you work with mantras, with these formal chants, to get to hear sound in such a way that, just as you could say that a visual field is rich in detail, like these paintings are.

Like a piece of Hindu beautiful silk weaving, which is rich with gold and flowers, and you see detail in that. Now, you can hear sound in the same way, and that's what Hindu music is playing with.

And so, when you get down into that, you see, you are, what I would call, truly listening in to the universe.

Because, eventually, if you listen to sound that way, or you look at form that way, you discover its secrets.

This is just another way of investigation of life, comparable to our scientific investigation, with microscopes and chemical analysis, and this, that, and the other.

But it's a different road. Scientific investigation does what we call looking out into matter, into the physical world.

This is going in the opposite direction, but it's all the same thing, it's the same continuum, but it's going into the nature of your feeling of it, that is to say, into the center of awareness, into the self.

And what these, all these drawings are, from various points of view, is they're drawings of your own interior world, looked at in this way, under the influence of the traditions of a, indeed, a particular culture, which is not our culture,

and, which, therefore, which, therefore strikes us as a little strange.

But whenever you look at a work of art, and you feel, gee, isn't that weird?

It's not the way people look.

You know, for people's first impression of Chinese art, say, they perhaps don't meet Tibetans so easily, is that it's, um,

well, everything's got curls on it, it wiggles, it's, uh, very strange.

And that, the, the reason for that, is that they are showing you a vision of the universe, which you haven't looked at, and so it looks odd to you.

And what you mean by odd, is, well, it curls where it shouldn't, or, uh, I don't see things that way, I don't see them with that extra flip on them.

No, indeed, you don't, because the way you see things is what you call ordinary, and what you're used to.

And, as you know, we, when we see things, we ignore.

We screen out certain aspects of things, which we don't notice.

And, therefore, by studying other people's art forms, we are taught to see things that we wouldn't ordinarily notice.

So, that when you become used to Chinese or Tibetan painting, you say, why, of course, that's the way the world is, also.

So, the feeling of the strange, of the, uh, we say, we use the word exotic, and that means looking, a thing looks exotic,

when you look at it from somebody else's point of view, and eventually you get used to it.

And so, if you move into a state of consciousness, such as I've been trying to describe,

that is not the usual kind of state of consciousness, you say, it's kind of weird, isn't it?

And if you aren't prepared for that, you might be afraid of it, and say, am I going mad?

Am I going out of my mind?

Yes, you are.

You're going out of your set, ordinary set of mind, but you're going into just another aspect of mind.

And, at first, it always feels weird.

That's why people have difficulty in meditation.

When they really start moving, they say, well, I'm going to go out of my mind if I think about that.

You know, all those famous stories about people who invented computers and went mad,

or who thought about the nature of thought, and absolutely were never heard from again.

There's a certain fear, in other words, of the loss of one's own ego,

of the sort of regular world, where conventions go on,

where the familiar gestures are made,

so that you feel at home,

and you get into other dimensions of awareness,

where the gestures are different.

The nerves are doing something else.

Or, in Eden, you don't know whether they're even nerves anymore.

They may be, um,

Adi Buddhas, and, uh,

all these charming girls,

who you see in these things,

and you don't know who they are.

Some kind of weird Tibetan fantasy.

You say, uh-oh.

This will get cultural shock.

Stay away from that.

But this isn't cultural shock, uh,

with respect to some other people.

It's cultural shock with respect to your own inner life.

In other words, that we all have in us levels of vibration,

which we are not used to,

not familiar with,

and therefore are scared of.

So this particular kind of Buddhism,

Vagrayana,

is a rather adventurous,

not to say dangerous,

exploration,

of man's inner consciousness,

depicting it

in an elaborate symbolism,

which, although to a Westerner

used to Christian symbolism,

looks as if it were

a drawing of some heaven somewhere,

of potentate seated on thrones

and receiving homage

and all that

political bit.

All these are quite definitely,

I'm not making this up,

all these are quite definitely

to be understood

as exteriorizations

of your own being.

In other words,

let us suppose

that we looked on a microscope slide

at the cross-section of a spinal column

or of, uh,

an area of the brain.

This would show us certain designs,

certain patterns,

and they would be,

uh,

rather central to you.

Now,

these are equivalent to those,

but they are moving

in a different direction,

and you have to understand now

the difference

between what is called

the material body

and the subtle body.

The rupa,

actually that means

the formal body,

as I explained

last, uh,

second seminar.

Uh,

the word rupa in Sanskrit,

which apply,

is applied to the material world,

means the world of form,

the world seen

in a certain form,

a form to which

we are accustomed.

So,

you have a formal body,

which is you

as you

appear

to any other

objective observer.

Then you have a subtle body,

which is

the way you are

as you feel

to yourself.

In other words,

supposing you've been on a drunk,

and you wake up

with a headache,

and it feels

that your head

is so big,

well,

that's the shape

of your subtle body.

Spiegelberg

used to show

a wonderful cartoon

of Corky

in the comics,

looking at a plane

going over,

which was

doing some stunts,

and it made his neck

grow longer

and longer

until it all

got tied in knots

while watching the plane.

That was the shape

of Corky's subtle body,

which is called

his

linga sharira

in Sanskrit,

as opposed to

stula

sharira,

which is your

gross body.

That means

more dense.

Now,

so when you get

the drawing

of the

microscope slide,

say,

a cross-section

of the spine

or something

that is quite

fundamental

to the structure

of nervous system,

you've got

a design

of the

gross body.

But when you

start looking

into the other

direction

of things,

which is how

you feel,

and you really

go into feeling

to what

sound is,

to what

touch is,

to what

emotion is,

and you trace

the senses back

along their channels

till you get

to the

mano vijnana,

which is the

central sense

behind each

separate sense.

and you find

that it isn't

just kind

of a

goo,

it's a,

it's an

incredibly

detailed

experience.

And then you

draw pictures

like this

to represent

what you

found.

We would

draw them

in a different

way

if we

genuinely

made this

inquiry

ourselves

because we

have different

traditions

and we

would find

ourselves,

goodness only

knows what

we'd be

drawing,

but we

would make,

we would

be making

things like

the stained

glass windows

in Chartres

Cathedral,

you see,

and

crucifixes,

because

when you

investigate

sensation,

you go down

into it,

and you feel

it getting

more and

more intense,

more and

more intense,

more,

you see,

right down

as how

much can

you stand?

Well,

there's

Jesus on

the cross,

cover it

with jewels,

make it

gorgeous.

So all

these things

you see

are

investigations

of the

basic sensation

of being

alive,

and people

are curious

about that.

You know,

where are

we?

What's

it all

about?

Well,

the only way

is to look

and see.

So if

you want

to find

out what

you mean

by meaning,

by asking

a question,

by being

conscious,

by being

here,

well,

you have

to meditate.

And meditation

is not

meditating

on something

like thinking

it out

in an

intellectual

way.

It is

looking

more closely

at what

you're asking

the question

about.

So you

could do

that externally

with a

microscope,

with chemical

analysis,

and so on.

That way

is valid.

But it

has to be

balanced

by the

internal

way,

going down

into your

own

sensations

and your

own

consciousness.

And the

point that

I'm going

to make

again in

another

way that

I made

this morning

is that

this isn't

something

you're

supposed

to do.

That is

to say,

isn't

a chore,

it isn't

your solemn

duty,

unless you

want to

come on,

that's the

sort of

person you

ought to

be.

This is

a delight.

Get into

that,

out of

total

fascination

and joy

and love

of whatever

it is that

you are

and everybody

else is.

So that

this is a

different

spirit

of religion

than that

to which

we are

normally

accustomed.

Instead

of saying,

which I

suppose

is an

attitude

characteristic

of what

you might

call a

patriot

that's

distinct

from a

matriarch

culture,

go and

read your

Bible.

Get down

on your

knees and

repent,

you see.

Ooh.

We feel

pretty

spooked

by that

attitude.

This one

says instead,

I've got

something to

show you.

Look in

here.

You all

know what

all this

is about?

You watch.

Take a

look.

You look

in there

and you

say,

ooh,

no.

It can't

really be

like that.

You look

at this

other guy

who was

the guru,

you see.

He says,

it's all

right,

don't be

afraid.

Ooh.

That's

not

possible.

Yeah,

you know.

And this

is the

attitude.

And I

don't know

how to

suggest it

except by

this sort

of drama

of the

two

different

approaches.

So,

this then

is the,

as near as

I can

get to

describing

it,

the inner

meaning

of Tantra,

of an

attitude

which is

common to

both

Hinduism

and

Buddhism.

They say

Tantra

it means

not only

the web,

the warp

and the

woof,

where you

can't have

yes without

no.

You can't

have this

direction

without having

this,

that direction

because this

direction,

to have it

there,

needs this

other one

to hang

on to.

But he

says,

look here,

I've got to

have something

to hang

on to

too,

so we

hang

on to

each

other

and

so there

we

Tantra

means the

comprehension

of the

unity of

opposites,

of the

good and

the bad,

of life

and death,

of love

and hate,

of all

extremes

in the

whole

spectrum

of our

emotions,

our

sensations,

everything.

In a sense

this is not

something for

children,

because you

have to

be reliable

to get

into this

because otherwise

you go berserk,

pay any

respect to

any rules

or anything

if you

didn't have

a mature

attitude

before getting

mixed up

in this

because you

suddenly see

anything

and everything

goes,

there is

no way

of

being wrong

because you

are it

whatever there

is forever

and ever

and that's

so,

you can

die,

fantastic,

forget everything

altogether,

blow right

out,

come back

because the

light is the

other side

of the

darkness,

be all

new again

but it's

all you

just as it

was before

because you

do the

same patterns

same kind

of stars

same kind

of physical

properties

the same

dance

blot it

out

it starts

again

just like

the physical

forces in

things you

see

repeat

their

fundamental

laws and

patterns

it's

exactly the

same

with the

inner world

I'm talking

about

investigating

the outer

world

investigating

the inner

world

it's

all one

and

that's

you

so

Buddhist

enlightenment

is simply

to know

that secret

and that's

what it means

really

finally

to grow

up

you see

again

just as I

said

that

we find

in our

own

preachers

and religious

people

an attitude

of

against

lifeness

and we

get a

funny

feeling

about

that

they're

full of

reprimands

and they're

full of

there's

a trap

you see

and they

have

the

young

people's

fellowship

as I

explained

to suck

you

into

this

trap

it's

exactly

the

same

thing

exists

here

in

particular

I

think

one

of

the

basic

tantric

texts

is

called

Saraha

the treasury

of songs

by

Professor

was

a

tantric

teacher

living

probably

in the

area

of

Bengal

about

AD

he

is making

a critique

of both

the Hindu

and Buddhist

orthodoxy

so he

says

the

Brahmins

who do

not

know

the

truth

recite

the

four

Vedas

in

vain

with

earth

and

they

make

preparations

and

seated

at

home

they

kindle

fire

and

from

the

senseless

offerings

that

they

make

they

burn

their

eyes

with

the

pungent

smoke

in

lordly

garb

with

one

staff

or

three

they

think

themselves

wise

with

their

brahmanical

law

vainly

is the

world

enslaved

by

and

on

their

heads

they

wear

matted

hair

seated

within

the

house

they

kindle

lamps

seated

in

a

corner

they

tinkle

bells

they

adopt

a

posture

and

fix

their

eyes

whispering

in

ears

and

deceiving

folk

teaching

widows

and

bald

headed

nuns

and

such

like

initiating

them

as

they

take

their

fee

the

giant

monks

mock

the

way

with

their

appearance

with

their

long

nails

and

their

filthy

clothes

or

else

naked

and

with

disheveled

hair

enslaving

themselves

with

their

doctrine

of

liberation

if

by

nakedness

one

is

released

then

dogs

and

jackals

must

be

so

if

from

absence

of

hair

there

comes

perfection

then

the

hips

of

maidens

must

be

so

if

from

having

a

tail

there

comes

release

then

for

the

peacock

and

yak

it

must

be

so

if

wisdom

consists

in

eating

just

what

one

finds

then

for

elephant

and

horse

it

must

be

so

for

these

giant

monks

there

is

no

release

Saraha

says

deprived

of

that's

not

the

same

as

old

school

Thai

it

means

the

old

school

of

Theravada

Buddhism

with

the

teaching

of

the

old

school

who

renounced

the

world

to

be

monks

some

are

seen

sitting

and

reading

the

scriptures

some

wither

away

in

their

concentration

on

thought

others

have

recourse

to

the

Mahayana

this

is

the

doctrine

which

expounds

the

original

text

they

say

others

just

meditate

on

mandala

circles

others

strive

to

define

the

fourth

stage

of

bliss

with

such

investigating

they

fall

from

the

way

some

would

envisage

it

as

space

others

endow

it

with

the

nature

of

voidness

and

thus

they

are

generally

in

disagreement

whoever

deprived

of

the

innate

that's

what

you

really

are

seeks

nirvana

can

in no

wise

acquire

the

absolute

truth

whoever

is

intent

on

anything

else

how

may

he

release

will

one

gain

release

abiding

in

meditation

what's

the

use

of

lamps

what's

the

use

of

offerings

what's

to be

done

by

reliance

on

mantras

what's

the

use

of

austerities

what's

the

use

of

going

on

pilgrimage

is

release

achieved

by