Sutrayana as a Preliminary Path

The First Dalai Lama begins his Notes on the Two Yogic Stages of Glorious Kalachakra with the advice,

One should first refine the mind by means of the ordinary Sutrayana methods. In particular, cultivate a definite understanding of the pure view of emptiness.

All the traditional writings assert that before entering into tantric practice one should first develop spiritual stability by means of the general trainings that constitute the foundations of the buddhist life.

Three of the Tibetan texts translated in Part Two—those included as Chapters Thirteen, Fourteen and Fifteen—deal mainly with the Sutrayana preliminaries. The remaining four chapters mainly treat the resultant Tantrayana methods.

In Chapter Thirteen, for example, the Sixth Panchen Lama’s brief Kalachakra poem focuses primarily on impermanence, karmic law, love and compassion, and so forth, all of which are Sutrayana teachings. Only two verses are given to the Tantrayana.

In Chapter Fourteen the present Dalai Lama examines the general buddhist perspective on the nature of the human spiritual situation, and goes on to place this in the context of attending a Kalachakra initiation

ceremony. He discusses the four noble truths that form the essential structure of the buddhist outlook, and then examines the root of human confusion, which is a misunderstanding of the nature of the self, the I, of both ourselves and other phenomena. He then points out the remedy suggested in the Sutrayana,

In the Bodhisattva Vehicle methods one meditates that everything one does is for the benefit of living beings. Once it has been understood that all living beings, just like oneself, want happiness and dislike suffering, the attitude which assumes responsibility for their well-being arises. This attitude is an amazing, wonderful and most courageous force, more precious than anything else in existence.

When one uses it as a basis for one’s meditation upon the ultimate mode of things, the forces that destroy delusion and distortion are easily cultivated.

Perhaps the most thorough examination of the Sutrayana preliminaries comes in Chapter Fifteen, which is the Seventh Dalai Lama’s The Prerequisites of Receiving Tantric Initiation. Here the esteemed author places these in the context of preparing the mind for receiving the tantric initiations. His aim is to project an image of the spiritual principles underlying a mind that has been ‘tamed’ by the Sutrayana practice. This is the inner basis required in order to enter the tantric path and to receive the according initiations.

The Seventh Dalai Lama opens his essay by introducing the four ‘pure perceptions’ that one should bring with one to the place of initiation—a pure motivation, a pure sense of the environment, a pure sense of other sentient beings, and a pure sense of activity.

He then quickly changes the drift of his thought, and turns to the Sutrayana trainings that act as preparatory practices to the Vajrayana: cultivating an awareness of the precious nature of human life endowed with the freedoms and opportunities that render enlightenment possible;

cultivating an awareness of death and impermanence; generating an appreciation of reincarnation and the nature of karmic law; cultivating an awareness of the unsatisfactory nature of unenlightened existence; generating a sense of refuge in the Three Jewels: the Buddhas, the Dharma

and the Sangha; generating the altruistic bodhisattva attitude, the compassionate aspiration to achieve highest enlightenment to benefit all living beings; and the cultivation of the wisdom of emptiness, the awareness of the void nature of things.

As is the custom with most Tibetan writers, especially those of the Gelukpa school, the Seventh Dalai Lama largely quotes Indian buddhist masters to illustrate his points. His favorite source works1 are Nagarjuna’s A Letter to a Friend; Aryadeva’s Removing the Veils of the Mind;

Shantideva’s monumentally important A Guide to the Bodhisattva Ways; Chandragomin’s A Letter to a Disciple; and that classic Indian Mahayana compendium, Selected Sayings of the Buddha, which is a collection and arrangement of quintessential teachings of the Buddha on all important aspects of spiritual life, set in verse form.

Two other Indian masters whom the Seventh Dalai Lama quotes liberally by name (usually without stating an exact textual source) are Acharya Vira and Atisha.

The former of these, Acharya Vira, who is also known by the name Ashvaghosha, was one of classical India’s greatest buddhist poets. Originally an outspoken anti-buddhist, he challenged Nagarjuna’s principal disciple Aryadeva to a debate. Aryadeva defeated him, and Ashvaghosha embraced buddhism. He dedicated the remainder of his life to meditation and to the composition of devotional poetry.2

As for Atisha, this refers to the monk Dipamkara Shrijnana, who came to Tibet in 1042 and taught there until his death some thirteen years later, and whose principal disciple, Lama Drom Tonpa, is regarded as being an early predecessor in the string of reincarnations of the Dalai Lamas. The Kadampa school that grew up under Atisha came to influence and inspire

all major Tibetan buddhist traditions. Eventually it was adopted as the basic spiritual structure of the Gelukpa school, to which all the Dalai and Panchen Lama incarnations have belonged. Atisha is also an important name in the propagation of the Kalachakra doctrine in Tibet, as we will see later.

The only Tibetan lineage master whom the Seventh Dalai Lama quotes to any degree is Lama Tsongkhapa, founder of the Gelukpa school. This indicates the respect in which he held this illustrious lama. Each of the Tibetan buddhist orders provides something of its own

approach to the Sutrayana trainings. For example, the Sakya school speaks of ‘The Methods of Separating from the Four Attachments.’ The Kargyupas use the approach known as ‘Four Ways to Turn the Mind.’ The Gelukpas speak of ‘Training the Mind on the Stages of Enlightenment.’ The Nyingmapas classify the Sutrayana trainings as ‘The Dzogchen Preliminaries,’ and also as the ‘Dzogchen Lam Rim.’

A threefold arrangement of the Sutrayana trainings was taught by Lama Tsongkhapa. Famed in Tibet as the lam-tso-nam-sum, or ‘three principal paths,’ this tradition condensed all the ‘shared vehicle’ practices into three themes: those for cultivating the free spirit of detachment; those for cultivating the altruistic bodhisattva spirit, or bodhimind (literally, ‘mind of enlightenment’) that is based on love and compassion, and that aspires to achieve enlightenment as a means of benefiting the world; and those practices for cultivating the wisdom of emptiness, the non-inherent existence of things.3

It is said that all of Buddha’s sutra teachings of both Small and Great Vehicles collect into these three themes.

When this system is followed, the meditations upon the preciousness of human life and upon cultivating an effective relationship with a spiritual teacher are taught as foundations for all three categories.

Under the methods for cultivating the free spirit of detachment are the meditations on death and impermanence, the wheel of reincarnation, the unsatisfactory nature of life in the six realms of samsara, the meditations upon taking refuge in the Three Jewels, the four noble truths, and so forth.

The second of the three principal paths, that of cultivating the bodhimind, includes all the meditations that contribute to the growth of the bodhisattva attitude, such as the meditations on equanimity, love, compassion, patience, the sense of universal responsibility, and so forth. It also incorporates cultivation of the six perfections.

The Seventh Dalai Lama lays great emphasis upon this aspect of the Sutrayana trainings. Quoting a passage from Lama Tsongkhapa he says, It is not enough to have a Mahayana practice. The practitioner must have the Mahayana perspective. Furthermore, the quality that gives one this is nothing other than the bodhimind: if one has the bodhimind one is a Mahayanist; if one doesn’t have it one is not on the Great Way. Therefore dedicate yourself to cultivating the bodhimind.…

In order to develop this state of consciousness one must develop two qualities: the thought concerned with sentient beings; and the thought concerned with enlightenment.

He explains what is meant by cultivating the thought concerned with enlightenment:

Yet although the happiness and welfare of sentient beings are to be fulfilled, a person himself bound in the chains of worldly existence can forget about being able to do anything substantial to help others.… The most powerful worldly god, being himself limited by the fetters of cyclic existence, has no ability to fully benefit other sentient beings. Nor do Shravaka Arhants nor Pratyekabuddhas, who are free from all chains.…

If one could attain the state of perfect buddhahood, that is free from all faults, that sees directly all aspects of the qualities to be cultivated and faults to be overcome in the quest for enlightenment, and that is physically adorned with the marks and signs of perfection, the mere perception of which is beneficial, then one would be beyond the distinction of feeling attraction or aversion toward the infinite sentient beings. One would regard all beings with an equal compassion, and would have the ability to really benefit them.…

In brief, the motivation should be, ‘For the ultimate benefit of the sentient beings, who are as infinite as the sky is vast, I must attain the state of a peerless, perfect, pure buddha.’

The Seventh Dalai Lama then concludes by describing the universal compassion of the Mahayana practitioner:

…the quality of a supreme being’s mind is that it has turned its back on self-interests and thinks only of ways to benefit others.

Thus it is like a sun untiringly illuminating the lives of sentient beings dwelling on the four continents, and like the great earth which carries the weight of all that lives upon its surface. The bodhisattvas who possess it no longer have any liking for self-centered works. They concern themselves solely with methods to produce benefits and happiness for the limitless sentient beings.

One might think it somewhat unusual that The Preliminaries of Receiving Tantric Initiation does not pay more attention to the methods for cultivating the wisdom of emptiness, the third of Lama Tsongkhapa’s ‘three principal paths.’ This perhaps is because he endorses the view that the analytical methods for approaching emptiness as found in the Sutrayana are not indispensable requisites of tantric practice; that the methods for cultivating the wisdom of emptiness as found in the tantric practices themselves are sufficient.

This attitude was once voiced to me by His Holiness the present Dalai Lama, in an audience I had with him in the mid-1970s. I asked him to define the line of demarcation in each of Lama Tsongkhapa’s three principal paths that signifies a spiritual maturity sufficiently ripe to enter the tantric yogas. His Holiness replied,

By meditating on impermanence, the nature of karma, samsara, and so forth, one should have experienced the free spirit of detachment to the degree that, if one sees a particular course of action to be clearly erroneous and spiritually unhealthy, one has the inner strength to remain still and not

be carried into it. As regards the cultivation of the bodhisattva spirit, one’s aspiration to achieve enlightenment should have become a priority, and one’s attitude toward others should be one of caring, a sense that we are all one family. There should be a strong commitment to cultivating the bodhisattva’s ways. As for the degree of experience of the wisdom of emptiness, here there is no specific prerequisite, for there are a large variety of very powerful methods for discerning the meaning of emptiness in the

tantric vehicle itself. The majority of practitioners should have a basic training in the Sutrayana means; certain trainees, however, can enter the tantric vehicle without that preliminary. They can rely exclusively upon the tantric methods for inducing the wisdom of emptiness.

Whether one is in the category of practitioners who should study the emptiness doctrine from the Sutrayana perspective before entering into tantric training, or is able to enter tantric practice without this as a preliminary, in either case an understanding of the basic sentiment of emptiness becomes necessary from the onset of tantric meditation. For

example, it is a principal topic of contemplation during the initiation ceremony itself; and then later, when one takes up sadhana practice, the mantra of emptiness marks the opening section of the liturgy.4 In Concerning the Kalachakra Initiation His Holiness the Dalai Lama mentions three fundamental qualities that anyone wishing to attend a Kalachakra initiation should consider.

The first qualification is that of the bodhichitta, the altruistic aspiration to highest enlightenment, which cherishes others more than oneself. Here it is said that the best disciple dwells in an unfeigned experience of this sublime mind; the medium disciple has had a small glimpse of it in his or her meditations; the lowest should have at least an appreciation for and interest in developing it.

The second qualification is given in terms of wisdom or special insight training, one’s experience of emptiness. Here it is said that the best disciple has an undistorted experience of the nature of ultimate reality as explained in the Madhyamaka or Yogachara schools of Mahayana thought; the

medium disciple has a correct understanding based on study and reason in general; and the lowest disciple should at least have a strong appreciation for and interest in learning the philosophical views of emptiness in either of the two above-mentioned schools.

In addition, a disciple seeking the Kalachakra initiation should have a feeling for and interest in this particular tantric tradition. The purpose of initiation is to plant special karmic seeds in the mind of the recipient; but if he or she does not possess the openness born from a basic degree of spiritual interest, it will be very difficult for the seeds to have any impact.

Readers interested in a more detailed explanation of the basic Sutrayana practices that prepare the mind for tantric endeavor are referred to one of my earlier books with Snow Lion Publications, Essence of Refined Gold, by the Third Dalai Lama, a work in the Lam Rim cycle that is supplemented with an oral commentary given by His Holiness in the main temple at Dharamsala in 1976.

In Mystical Verses of a Mad Dalai Lama the Second Dalai Lama expresses the Sutrayana focus in song, linking it as a preliminary to the Vajrayana,

To be constantly aware of death and impermanence, To become skilled in living by karmic law, To always wear Buddha, Dharma and Sangha as one’s crown And thus close the door to lower rebirth: Turning the mind toward Dharma like this,

It is not so bad, really, as a way to go. To see cyclic existence as a mountain of frustration, To identify the root of suffering as ego-grasping, To behold the gateway leading to final liberation And, in order to gain that sublime state of freedom, To intensely practice the three higher trainings of discipline, meditation and wisdom:

Walking this path leading to knowledge, It is not so bad, really, as a way to go. To view all beings as having once been one’s parents, To continually abide in love and compassion for all, To achieve maturity in cultivating the two bodhiminds—

The conventional bodhimind of the bodhisattva attitude And the ultimate bodhimind of wisdom of emptiness— And thus become skilled in method and wisdom combined: This path for cultivating peerless enlightenment, It is not so bad, really, as a way to go.

To know the faults of grasping at true existence, To perceive the nature of relativity in causation, To see the emptiness level of all that occurs And to experience the highest vision of being: This is what it means to follow

The sublime path elucidated by Arya Nagarjuna. It is not so bad, really, as a way to go. To be ripened by the waters of the tantric initiations, To understand the vast and profound tantric teachings

And then to cultivate the yogas of the two tantric stages Whereby enlightenment is quickly and easily attained: Holding buddhahood in the palm of one’s hand like this, It is not so bad, really, as a way to go.