Commentary on the text “Lamrim”
Although our absolute potential is pure and perfect right now, nevertheless the mirror of our mind is still closed to fully realizing it. The process of such closure is called obscuration. When speaking of obscuration, it is usually said that kleshas are responsible for this obscuration. In fact, obscurations and kleshas are one and the same.
Kleshas are mental imprints in the stream of consciousness that were created in previous lives (incarnations) and now remain as the consequence of our wrong thoughts, actions, and choices in the past.
It is said that two factors are necessary to maintain the cycle of samsara: karma and kleshas. The main one of these two factors is the kleshas, since in the absence of kleshas the “sprout of suffering” does not arise, even if much karma has been accumulated. This is similar to how a sprout will not appear from a plant seed if there is no earth and moisture.
In the tradition of the lower tantras, the principle of understanding kleshas and using an antidote against them is very important. In the sutra tradition, the struggle against kleshas is the main path. For us, as practitioners of laya yoga belonging to the anuttara tantra tradition, neither the struggle against kleshas nor the introduction of antidotes is the main path. One could say that we are fortunate, since we possess the teaching of the higher paths. This means that the very great merits of past lives allow us to practice such lofty teachings, like a diamond or a mystical starship that can not merely fly, but is capable of folding time and space, overcoming enormous distances in an instant at incredible speed. Therefore, I will give interpretations of the described kleshas from the point of view of anuttara tantra.
Definition of Kleshas. General Characteristics
In the “Anthology of Abhidharma” it is said:
“Kleshas are elements which, arising in the stream of consciousness, create disturbances. That is, the main feature of kleshas is to agitate the stream of consciousness.”
Kleshas can include vasanas (impulses prompting one to do something, which arise in the body) and samskaras (subtle mental imprints). The basis of vasanas and samskaras is seeds (bijas).
Vasanas are located in the subtle body, while some believe that they are located in the energy body. Samskaras are located in the astral and mental body. Seeds (bijas) are located in the causal body. These are the various subtle streams, subtle thought-forms that excite the mind, causing it to fall out of its natural nature or become obscured.
Suppose that a person’s channels are clogged; then during meditation he feels pain in his knees. Then this pain is reflected as an aching pain in the area of the svadhisthana chakra. He feels some irritation in this area, and then blood rushes to this place (to the genital area). The subtle body reacts to this, old samskaras surface, and sexual images arise. And then, instead of meditation, the person experiences a completely obscured state. This is an example of the influence of vasanas and kleshas.
“According to what has been said, kleshas are factors that disturb the soul by their arising.”
When we are in retreat or, through good practice of contemplation, establish ourselves in such an even, mirror-like state of pure contemplation, we attain almost a certain holiness. But if we are inexperienced contemplatives, then when conditions change the kleshas arise again; this subtle disturbance obscures the mirror of the mind, and then we feel as if we have spilled the water from our bowl. This is nothing other than the influence of such kleshas.
Characteristics of Each of the Ten Kleshas
1. Passion is attachment to external and internal (that is, mental) pleasant, beautiful objects. Just as, for example, it is difficult to remove oil that has soaked into fabric, so too, because of passion that draws one toward its objects and grows, it is difficult to give up these objects.
Foremost among all kleshas is attachment, passion as such. This attachment-passion is the prototype of all samsara, the attraction of all living beings toward illusion. Such blind attraction is likened to a moth’s urge to fly toward the light. It does not matter what this passion is directed toward: the possession of power, worldly status or a sexual object, domination, tasty prasada, and so on. In itself, this passion is the basis of the global passion that brings the whole of samsara to life. If we blindly follow it, this passion becomes the cause of a new birth. Just as a fly gets stuck in honey, so too in the bardo a living being gets stuck in the mother’s womb at rebirth, carried away by the objects of its passion.
From the point of view of the Vedic path of Raja Yoga and the sutra, especially from the point of view of ascetic yoga, any passion must simply be denied, harshly suppressed, burned out with a red-hot iron, until detachment from all the vanity of this world occurs, until complete dispassion toward everything is attained: toward tasty food, bodily comfort, the opposite sex, any attachments, relatives and friends, and any kind of self-expression.
From the point of view of tantra, passion must be constantly sublimated, transformed into something else, for example into the four immeasurables.
And our method is self-liberation, when, instead of following attachment or passion, we instantly find refuge in the single Sphere. In other words, we do not fight it or wage war against it, but turn to leaving everything as it is, to abiding in contemplation. It is like a child who, having a strong father, does not try to settle matters with bullies himself, but simply turns to his father. Thus, if we contemplate correctly, passion and any attachment lose their power and become like a snake whose teeth have been pulled out. It disappears, dissolving in the principle of sahaja-tattva.
2. Anger is embittered irritation toward beings, toward one’s own suffering, toward weapons, thorns, or other things that cause suffering; malicious intent toward these objects.
If anger is not controlled, it becomes the cause of unfortunate rebirths. Various kinds of hells are described, in which people are sawn apart, thrown into molten copper, devoured by terrible beings, and forced to climb trees studded with blades or needles, so that they severely wound their bodies. These are various kinds of hellish dimensions where fierce shaktis play. And such dimensions truly exist.
From the point of view of Anuttara Tantra, our attitude toward the kleshas is somewhat different. We do not take a negative stance toward the manifestations of the kleshas. Of course, we must control and self-liberate them, but nevertheless our attitude toward them is different—it is more exalted and purer. Such an attitude is the only acceptable and the most profound one from the point of view of all teachings.
Even anger, at its core, possesses emptiness and luminosity, and even it has its own pure manifestations in the form of wrathful deities. If we examine anger without losing contemplation, it does not seize us and does not become the cause of birth in hellish dimensions. Prana does not flow outward from the muladhara chakra; instead, the muladhara chakra, opening, begins to function, and then the wind is drawn into the sushumna nadi by the power of presence. Then anger is transformed into a manifestation of the energy of a wrathful deity, becoming an activating factor that gives strength to contemplation. Of course, this is not a reason to indulge anger. Rather, we are saying that this is the deepest way to control and pacify it.
3. Pride is an arrogant interpretation, based on an egocentric view, of one’s own and another’s as great and insignificant, good and bad (respectively); conceit.
From the point of view of Anuttara Tantra, anger should be viewed in pure vision, and pride should be viewed as a manifestation of the pride of the deity. It is precisely this approach that most closely corresponds to reality.
In the worldly sense, pride is connected with the ego, with egoism, when a person clings to ahamkara (ego) and has too strong a fixation on their “I.” This is what a yogin must strive in every way to get rid of, cultivating humility. However, in its pure essence, pride is the prototype of divine pride. It can be said that this is distorted divine pride, which manifests in this way in the absence of contemplation. But if contemplation takes place and the yogin becomes established at the very highest levels of awareness, then such pride should never manifest outwardly; it simply becomes a bhava playing within, which relates not to the ego but to essential consciousness. Thus the complete pacification of pride occurs.
Pride is connected with manas, with the lower “I,” with ahamkara. Divine pride, however, is connected with buddhi, with the Atman. Whether pride will arise from manas and ahamkara or from buddhi and the Atman depends on the yogin himself, on where his level of contemplation is set.
If the yogin contemplates well, then pride disappears, and divine pride appears within in the form of a majestic state arising from the Supreme Source, while humility manifests outwardly. In this way we rid ourselves of the klesha called pride.
How can one recognize whether this is a klesha or something divine, whether it is pure or impure, whether it should be acknowledged or denied in every possible way? Many ask such questions, because one can fall into a deviated state if one begins to interpret all one’s improper states as pure.
The criterion here is this: one must determine whether it is a disturbing factor of consciousness, agitating awareness, clouding the mind, or whether, on the contrary, the mind is not clouded, and contemplation remains in the depths and suffers no loss. In the case of divine pride there is no agitating factor at all; rather, there is a deepening of clarity; there is no clinging, domination, or attachment, that is, it is not a klesha.
The principle is as follows: a klesha always obscures, while a pure manifestation always deepens, clarifies, calms, and brings prana into the central channel.
4. Ignorance is the obscuration caused by not knowing, by complete unawareness regarding the four truths, the law of karma, and the Three Jewels.
It is considered that dullness, ignorance, is originally the great synthesizing wisdom. That is, the principle of Anuttara Tantra is that each klesha is a distorted prototype of some divine state, quality, family of deities, or wisdom connected with an element. As a rule, each klesha is connected with an element, with a chakra, and each chakra in its pure manifestation is a space of a certain color possessing a certain level of awareness, that is, wisdom.
5. Doubt is hesitation: “does it exist or not exist, is it or is it not?”—with regard to the truths, the law of karma, and the Three Jewels.
It can also be said that this is weak faith, instability in spiritual practice, a klesha as an obscuration that does not allow one to practice fully.
6. The egocentric view is the obscuration of the mind that regards the “appropriated” aggregates as “I” and “mine,” as oneself and selfhood. The literal name “the perverted view of the perishable aggregate” is given in order to show that the “substratum” of personality that is imagined in this view is impermanent and composite, and not a permanent and unified personality, for “perishable” is equivalent to impermanent, and “aggregate” to composite.
The egocentric view is aham dehasmi, that is, identification with the ego and the body. It is the obscuration of the mind that considers itself to be the body, the pranas, and the manas. Whenever we lose connection with the Supreme Source and identify with the skandhas, an egocentric, dualistic view is present in us. It becomes a klesha when we are convinced of it, that is, when we think: “I am me, he is he, and the world is the world. It cannot be otherwise.” Even after many hundreds of lectures, no doubt about this arises in us. Such “dull” conviction is, as a rule, characteristic of inhabitants of the lower worlds, hungry spirits, and animals; it is sincere faith that things are exactly as you think. Then it becomes a klesha.
If we contemplate, then such conviction has already been weakened in us. We know: “On the one hand, I am a person; on the other hand, I am the Absolute, like space. The surrounding world is external, but it is also a reflection of my own ‘I’. Another person is outside, but he is also a manifestation of my consciousness.” We no longer have that primitive duality inherent in the inhabitants of the lower worlds. As awareness deepens, this duality goes away; identification with aham dehasmi (“I am the body”) also disappears. We increasingly begin to understand the interdependence of all things, that the inner is completely connected with the outer. At the higher stages of realization, or among the gods, the inner and the outer are the same things, one “taste,” completely identical.
7. Attachment to one of the extremes is the obscuration of the mind that looks upon the “I” (in whose reality it believes because of an egocentric view) as eternal and imperishable, or else as ending with this life, without future rebirth.
Attachment to extreme views is the state in which we look at the world sincerely believing that it really exists, that it is independent of our consciousness. Or we take some unambiguous point of view, clinging to some assessment such as “this is bad, this is wrong.” We do not understand that this point of view is conditional, that it is not self-liberated in our basis.
Of course, in a relative sense we may make certain assessments, for example say: “This prasadam is tasteless, it is too salty,” or “This is wrong.” Nevertheless, even if we say this on the periphery, within there must be another, self-liberating point of view, which, like a street sweeper, immediately sweeps all these opinions out of the soul. That is, we know that this is wrong, but in fact we ourselves abide in a state where there is neither right nor wrong; we abide in such a state of space that possesses one “taste” and looks with equanimity at both the right and the wrong. Then our assessment acquires not a dualistic eternalist character, but a playful one. In other words, when making an assessment, we are not bound by it. This is possible, and then a klesha ceases to be a klesha; an evaluative judgment turns into discriminating wisdom, which simply distinguishes one thing from another and gives some relative assessment, taking the relative dimension into account. At the same time, we are not bound by the relative assessment.
8. Blindness by false views is the blindness of the mind that believes in the immutable truth of the egocentric view, of one of the extreme views, or of a completely false view, and of all manner of theories built upon them.
Blindness by views is bondage to conceptual thinking. If we do not recognize the empty, luminous basis of conceptual thinking, then we are blinded by other people’s words, by our own thoughts, by statements read in books. We see the superficial meaning of texts and sutras, but cannot understand the depth of which they speak. It is like a car coming out of a dark turn with its high beams on; for a while we experience a shock of light, and we do not see the essence, the source of this light.
In the same way, concepts can blind a person who is unable to recognize the spatial basis that lies behind concepts and to self-liberate words and theories. When we understand not the essence and not the meaning, but something superficial that comes from these theories, then concepts become kleshas; our view also becomes kleshas, that is, something that obscures. If, however, we learn to recognize and self-liberate words, then the worldview, different attitudes in consciousness, and concepts become an expression, the play of the energy of this space of awareness.
9. Obsession with moral rules and asceticism is the obscuration of the mind obsessed with rules in order to avoid the “immoral,” with rigid ascetic prescriptions concerning clothing, manner of action, body, and speech, believing that these rules and prescriptions purify one of sinfulness, free one from the kleshas, and truly save the respective aggregates of personality from samsara.
To explain it briefly, it is an obsession with commandments and vows. This means that we blindly follow commandments and vows without reconnecting them with contemplation. That is, we follow them formally, without recognizing their true spirit. If such adherence exists, it also becomes a klesha. In other words, principles, commandments, and vows are intended to stimulate our awareness. But if our awareness is not stimulated, and we simply perceive them dualistically, eternalistically, without applying the principle of awareness to them, then such primitive reliance on any external things (asceticism and so on) also becomes a klesha. Asceticism, principles, and vows in themselves are not bad; they must be observed. However, they should be observed with proper awareness.
For example, one brahmachari, while in a bathhouse, experienced sexual desire. He thought that the devil was tempting him, so he decided to scald himself in order to stop the sexual desire. As a result, the sexual desire disappeared, but he had to seek medical assistance. This is a clear example of an immature approach. On the one hand, this is commendable behavior of a vira, but on the other hand, it is completely immature behavior that links spiritual impeccability to something external. That is, he believed that one could change oneself through something external.
From the point of view of Anuttara Tantra, such an approach is considered immature, since the change must consist in awareness, and all other things must work for this awareness. This is an example of obsession with external principles.
10. A completely false view is the obscuration of the mind that denies past and future lives, the law of karma, and the like, or believes that the primary cause of beings is God, nature, and the like.
What is meant here is that we do not recognize that the entire world is a projection of our primordial Consciousness, that there is no God outside our primordial Consciousness.
