Methods of Working with Kleshas
On the path of contemplative practice, a yogin has many enemies. These enemies are his own unpurified states of mind and energies. Usually, there are considered to be five such enemies. The five root kleshas, or root poisons, corresponding to the number of elements, represent the polluted karma of one or another element in the body.
To be a monk means to be a warrior and to realize that these enemies exist. Although they have a pure nature in the absolute sense, nevertheless, as long as the mind is impure, they are regarded as enemies. Of course, we may think that the cause of our troubles is someone else and try to run away from them somewhere. For example, it may seem to us that another person is impure and that this impurity somehow affects us. But we will not run away from our impure nondual mind, because this impurity will run away together with us. The point is that these enemies are not outside, but within us. Therefore, a true practitioner never tries to seek these enemies outside; he sees that they are within, which means he must work on them humbly for years.
It is frivolous to think that one can be freed from kleshas easily, with a snap of the fingers. If you read the biographies of the ascetic hermits of the Christian Church, who practiced a mind-boggling ascetic way of life, you will see that for decades they waged spiritual warfare, fighting the devil and Satan in a life-and-death struggle. Of course, the devil and Satan are unpurified karmas and parts of our own “I.” In tantra we do not have the concepts of the “devil” and “Satan” who create obstacles. These Christian concepts correspond in tantra to the yogin’s own unpurified karmas, which influence his mind.
It is believed that, branching and intertwining many times over, the five root kleshas give rise to eighty-four thousand passions, which draw the yogin toward a new birth and do not leave even the slightest opening in his consciousness for the practice of true contemplation. Although in the teaching of Laya Yoga it is customary to say that the kleshas must be made into wisdom, that is, to integrate obscured passions without rejecting them and without following them, in the presence of awareness, nevertheless this method truly works when we have become established in the practice of awareness.
Yes, it really does work; it is the best and highest method. However, it works only when we have confidence in the natural state. Until then, the recommendations of the saints are as follows: “One must strike the pig on the snout with a club.” The pig is the embodiment of the impure. The snout is the part of its body that it pokes everywhere, trying to find acorns. To strike it on the snout with a club means to constantly point out its place to it. It tries to get into our mind or somehow tempt it, and the yogin strikes it on the snout with a club, saying: “Know your place! Don’t interfere.”
The Importance of Self-Assessment in Practice
It is very important to understand for yourself whether you have become established in the practice of contemplation, or whether you are still a weak practitioner, easily falling under the sway of distractions. As long as we have not become established in the practice of awareness, we should overcome the distractions that arise as a result of kleshas and passions. Therefore, the siddhis say that a yogin should imagine himself as a mother who fears losing her only son. In the same way, we must be vigilant so as not to dissipate our contemplation by yielding to obscured states.
It is often said that we must learn to contemplate in such a way that even if seven enraged dogs are chasing us, we must not abandon contemplation. The seven enraged dogs refer to our emotions and passion-desires, which extinguish our contemplative presence.
The siddhis also recommend discarding passions in the same way that a mother guarding her only son would throw away a snake that had quietly crawled onto her lap. In order to keep the passion-kleshas under control, two methods are applied—mindfulness and vigilance. These methods belong to the practices of the sutra and are not, strictly speaking, methods of Laya Yoga. However, as we have already said, a true practitioner of Laya Yoga is not limited in his sadhana to any single method. Therefore, he can freely apply methods of the initial stages if they help him.
“Not limited in his sadhana to any single method” is like a person who has many different kinds of clothing in his wardrobe: he does not have to wear all of them at the same time; they simply would not fit on him. Depending on the situation, he takes one garment or another, winter or summer clothing.
Mindfulness and Vigilance
Mindfulness means the continuous directing of the mind toward the required object. Vigilance means the constant checking of one’s own mindfulness. For example, if we are practicing concentration, we need to steadily keep the mind on the object of concentration and periodically check how well we are holding the mind there. Such checking is what is called vigilance.
Vigilance is, rather, a catching oneself, when we notice: “Stop, where am I now? Has my mind gone somewhere?” We remember, having caught ourselves, and return to the moment when we became distracted, for example three hours ago or three days ago, and begin again. We think: “Wow! How could I have become so distracted?” Sometimes anger at oneself may even arise, along with the desire to say to one’s mind: “Well, you really are a stupid animal! How can you become so forgetful?” Gradually this interval becomes shorter. A time comes when we forget, but not for long—only for three minutes, thirty seconds; then this interval narrows down to an almost non-forgetful state.
In laya yoga, the vigilance that checks contemplation is also called “the secret friend on the path.” If we do not know how to restrain the kleshas through recollection and vigilance, and if at the same time we have not yet become established in true contemplative presence, then there is a great danger that, imagining ourselves to be a mystic-avadhuta or mahasiddha and acting with great ease and casualness, we may develop a frivolous attitude toward impurities and obscurations, and therefore, instead of liberation, we will generate mountains of negative karma. The siddhas also recommend: until we have achieved stability in maintaining presence and success in meditation, we should practice for a long time in seclusion, just as a wounded deer, hiding from other living beings, heals its wounds.
I knew one practitioner who claimed that he was constantly in the natural state. He liked to drink vodka, saying that this pure tantric offering symbolized awareness, and he freely ate meat, saying that he performed poa for the animals he ate. Of course, he was a very unusual person; he was not a worldly man, but he had peculiar ideas about the natural state and self-liberated behavior. He lived in society, but thought that everything was illusions and fixed ideas, and therefore nothing concerned him. He had a fake certificate from the Society for the Blind, so sometimes he rode trolleybuses and trams without a ticket; when a ticket inspector approached him, he would take out black glasses right in front of him and put them on, saying that he was blind. He had many different stories and adventures. He behaved in various ways, giving rise to much gossip, rumor, and reproach. Sometimes he imitated animals, ducks, and so on. The last I heard was that someone in a restaurant had smashed his head because of his disharmonious behavior, but he survived. He believed that if you are in the natural state, you can be independent of the external world. But sometimes the external world can arrange a test of your natural state. Of course, if you are a genuine practitioner, you truly do not depend on it. For example, one is unlikely to meet practitioners of the highest level somewhere among ordinary people. Most likely, they are in monasteries, in solitary retreats, or in the jungles and the Himalayas, not showing themselves to ordinary people, since they have neither kleshas nor attachments.
Once he was in Kharkov at a lecture by a lama named Ole Nydahl. He visited various schools and sects—where had he not been! At the lecture he kept jumping up, showing and expressing himself, demonstrating his understanding of contemplation, and behaving very unrestrainedly. At that lecture there was also another Tibetan lama who tried to answer his questions. Then Lama Ole Nydahl answered him, and then this practitioner said: “What do I care about Lama Ole Nydahl?! Let this Rinpoche answer me!” He behaved openly provocatively, one might even say insolently. Everyone around then began making noise, got angry, and wanted to drive him out. Then Ole Nydahl came down and tried to lead him out of the hall. He began to resist. Then Lama Ole struck him right on the forehead. This prabhu took a fighting stance and asked challengingly: “Well, Ole, shall we box?”
But in reality, this is spiritual clowning. In the end, he was nevertheless expelled from the gathering where the lecture was being read. Of course, if you have cut off hope and fear, it makes no difference to you whether your skull is smashed in or you are thrown out of the gathering by the scruff of your neck; you regard it as practice. This may be amusing, but most likely it is unpurified kleshas, pride, and ego, combined with a certain clarity of the natural state, trying to play. This play is not yet harmonious and is connected with accumulated karma, since the genuine natural state means complete non-action. If you touch the karma of hell by killing animals, then this means that you are ready for animals to kill and eat you in the next life; that is, you have no aversion to it or rejection of it. You see that the animals are illusions, and your body is an illusion; for you there is no difference in this. But if this is not so, then, of course, a yogin must be very careful and vigilant about his behavior until he has attained the signs of realization. Otherwise, higher beings, for example dakinis, may intervene in his spiritual destiny and create obstacles, limiting his spiritual growth. Or one of the saints or deities who are observing him may intervene and in some way draw restrictions toward him so that he does not accumulate too much bad karma.
Of course, if your mind is like the sky or a vast space of sunlight, and restrictions are like nectar for you, like a sauce for your natural state, then this will only add a new flavor; it will not shake you. But I have not seen such practitioners, at least not in the CIS countries, since this presupposes a level of genuine attainment. As for beginning yogins, they are told: “Be careful like a newlywed bride entering the home of the groom’s parents.”
View and Behavior in Working with Kleshas
In general, when the question of obscurations, passions, and kleshas arises, it is said: “Flee from the passions as from venomous snakes.” If we ask whether this contradicts the essential instructions of Laya Yoga that kleshas need not be rejected and that even kleshas are the path, there is no contradiction here. Indeed, kleshas are used in various tantric teachings and are made into the path. And to think that passions and kleshas are separate from the natural state means falling into fundamental delusion. However, until realization, such an approach concerns the view, not behavior.
It should be understood that this concerns view and meditation, not behavior. When you understand this, you do not make such mistakes, like this guy.
At the initial stages of practice, we must think that passions and kleshas are inseparable from the natural state, and not generate a negative attitude toward them.
“Not generate a negative attitude toward them” is expressed by the saying: “do not hit the pig on the snout.” There is such a saying in Tantra. The pig is the embodiment of defilements or kleshas. The snout is the pig’s most painful spot. Not hitting it on the snout means that when a klesha manifests, one should not fall into a feeling of self-abasement, despondency, or depression, thereby aggravating the manifestation of the klesha.
In Christianity, the position of sinfulness is very strong. In fact, self-flagellation is a very powerful practice that erodes the false ego. However, if, when a klesha manifests, we fall into depression and despondency, then one can say that this aggravates the klesha itself, and then we have no awareness or strength left at all to transcend or sublimate the emotion or klesha. That is why it is said “do not hit the pig on the snout,” that is, do not aggravate its manifestation with various mental torments, self-flagellation, pangs of conscience, and other such things, but try to return to the primordial purity of the natural state. We simply see critically that a klesha is manifesting and that this is an impure or unconscious state. That is, instead of falling into despondency and depression, we simply see it. This does not mean that we think, “It’s all right, I won’t fall into despondency,” and then go on merrily and carelessly, because it is pure anyway. We simply see the klesha critically, but we direct our attention above all to the source from which it arises—to the pure nature of the Mind—and then we instantly return to this purity. This very purity and awareness give us the strength to be independent of the klesha, without falling into self-flagellation, into awareness of our sinfulness, weakness, and everything else.
Ramakrishna said: “If a person thinks he is sinful, then most likely he will become so.” Why? Because what you think about, you become.
Question:
Swami, what if the practitioner is not a simpleton like your acquaintance, but some kind of practitioner? Suppose he unites with a klesha, with passion, exactly to the extent that he is rooted in mindfulness, and knows precisely when there will be an overdose and when he will be able to endure such a klesha. Would this be a deviation?”
Such an approach is the approach of a mature practitioner. This is approximately how a yogin practices. However, firstly, here it is important always to remain within the bounds of the Vinaya, if you observe it and do not have any special initiations, permissions, or empowerments. Secondly, it is important not to overestimate your capacity for sublimation.
Nevertheless, in our conduct we must cast off kleshas and passions, and purify our mind by any available methods. In this case it is said: “Only the peacock is capable of feeding on poison.” Therefore, a yogin capable in practice of truly applying the path of union with passions without renouncing them is rarer than the precious udumbara flower. And it is said that even an experienced practitioner, if he indulges passions while not abiding in presence, will be poisoned after some time.
Vigilance must always be present. A true practitioner will never exchange contemplative presence for a frivolous game with kleshas, even though he understands that kleshas are inseparable from contemplation.
There is such a story. Once, Drukpa Kunley, a Tibetan mahasiddha, was in Tibet. At the same time, the Karmapa was preaching there; many people had gathered, and he was giving an initiation. While he was giving the initiation, Drukpa Kunley walked around, shouting: “The Karmapa is breaking his vows!” The monks became angry with him and wanted to beat him, since the Karmapa was their Guru. But the Karmapa said to them:
“Do not beat this madman Drukpa Kunley; he is telling the truth.”
Then the people were surprised and asked:
“What exactly is he saying?”
The Karmapa said:
“A girl passed by here; I looked at her, and a subtle curiosity arose in my mind. It was not because she interested me as a woman, but it was curiosity of the kind that arises when you want to take a better look at the hide of a beautiful animal. I thought about what karmic causes had led her to receive such a body, tried to find out her past lives, and my mind deviated slightly. Drukpa Kunley saw this.”
That is, one must understand what the highest level both the Karmapa and Drukpa Kunley had attained, if they could have such clarity regarding each other’s minds. Drukpa Kunley said this to the Karmapa:
“I can behave however I like, but you, Karmapa, by acting this way will be poisoned. Only the peacock can feed on poison. If a peacock pecks at poisonous grains, nothing will happen to it, but if a rooster from the pen pecks at the same grains, it will certainly be poisoned. Therefore do not let your mind be distracted.”
Therefore, for a beginner there is no other way out than to strive, while purifying oneself, to develop renunciation of passions and negative emotions, kleshas, and the objects that give rise to desires, until he sees their illusory nature and feels complete dispassion, when there is no striving to experience them and no attachment arises when they are experienced. When such a state is attained, then even if passions arise, there is no need to stop them by force of will, since now they are harmless. One should simply abide in contemplative presence.
Levels of Practice and Working with Kleshas
When you have become established in the natural state, kleshas are like roasted grains. They no longer sprout; karma no longer accumulates. Your contemplation roasts the seeds of karma, and therefore they no longer produce new shoots. Of course, such a level is already something close to enlightenment or on the threshold of enlightenment.
As long as we experience kleshas, they should always be restrained. For example, anger arises, and we suppose: “Perhaps this is the anger of the gods, and I am a wrathful deity,” and we allow this anger to pour out freely onto others. We think: “This is just my play. They simply do not understand that I play this way, that I manifest a wrathful presence.” But if there is no genuine contemplation, one may very well end up in the hell realm, where your wrathful presence will be truly tested. Instead, one should tame anger and practice the Four Immeasurables, conversion, or transformation.
This is a very subtle line, when we can determine how sufficient our natural state is and to what extent it is lacking.
If passions do not arise, then there is no aspiration to obtain, generate, or experience them in any way; therefore, desires do not arise in the yogi’s mind. Thus only a yogi who has no desires whatsoever and is completely free from any attachments can truly unite with kleshas, integrate them into contemplative presence, and use their energy to increase and kindle contemplative presence.
The practice of uniting with kleshas and using them is often of particular interest to laypeople. Those who have many of them are the ones interested in it. But they clearly overestimate their abilities. If they use them incorrectly, they have no chance of getting out of samsara.
The true approach is that a yogi must undergo rigorous practice of cutting off, purification, practices bordering on asceticism, concentration, and meditation, so that his mind and pranas are completely purified, and he himself becomes a genuine yogi with experience of samadhi and becomes unwaveringly established in the natural state.
The Universality of the Principles of Purification
I have read the writings of Ignatius Brianchaninov and some fathers of the Christian Church (the Egyptian one). There, too, there are instructions on how to cut off sinful thoughts, how to let the Light into oneself and unite with it, so that sin disappears through the Light itself.
True practice must always lead to purification from kleshas. Only ignorant people think that kleshas do not need to be purified. The question is one of methods: whether they are purified through sutra and renunciation (transformation) or liberated in the natural state. But in any case, their complete dissolution takes place. And if there is no such dissolution, how can this be called true practice?
It is another matter that when the yogi’s mind becomes a vast blazing space and is inseparable from the natural state, purity itself arises spontaneously within it. Then he is like a purifying agent not only for his own karmas, thoughts, and passions, but also for others. Such a yogi, of course, is beyond the scope of ordinary perception and karma. The law of karma does not act upon him as it does upon people, or does not act in the ordinary sense of the word at all. For example, he may steal someone’s possession, and that person will receive a blessing as a result; or he may feign anger, and through that anger a person’s kundalini will awaken—this is not motivated activity, not connected with karmas; it is unconditioned play for the benefit of others.
A woman came to a saint and complained that her affairs were going terribly badly, that everything was not going as she wished, that she was unable to break free from the fetters of her fate. Then the saint became very angry with her and began to scold her with the most furious words. For some time she endured it and humbly accepted his abuse. The saint continued to scold her even more harshly. Then she stopped humbly accepting his words, but outwardly maintained a certain decorum, knowing that he was, after all, a saint. He continued to scold her even more furiously; then at last she jumped up and promised to smash all the windows in his cell, and she too began to scold him in return. In the end she rushed out of his cell, her face red with anger.
Nevertheless, when she came home, she discovered that an enormous spiritual power had appeared within her, thanks to which she was able, in a short time, to deal with all the problems that had so oppressed her, to heal, and to change her fate. Then she began to make inquiries about this saint and learned that he was not an ordinary saint, but something like a holy fool, and therefore his help could often come in a strange way. That is, in this way she received genuine help and was afterward very grateful to this saint.
The Danger of Prematurely Applying Higher Methods
It can be said that this is an example of how the kleshas are a play and are used for the benefit of living beings. However, this should not be done while one is still only a novice, or even a monk. If you want to help someone else in this way, you will most likely create problems for yourself as well.
We had a novice in Crimea who behaved provocatively toward other novices and monks. He was asked why he behaved that way toward the manager and the others. He replied: “I am testing how they act if I ‘step on their tail’: whether they identify with it or not.” But he was told: “This is not your dharma at all. Such behavior is characteristic of teachers and mentors. In the status of a novice, one cannot test others for the natural state by playing on their feelings; otherwise, you too may be tested.”
What you are hearing is Dharma of a very high level—not even an intermediate level, but the highest level. It presupposes a high degree of readiness on the part of the yogin to follow it. Therefore, we say that we study this Dharma at the level of view, but not at the level of behavior. This should be known, but it should not be applied.
