Three Methods of Working with Kleshas
Here are several quotations from the sutras and tantras that I would like to comment on.
As you know, in the teachings of the Prajna Yantra, when we practice, we focus either on contemplation and the practice of working with sankalpa, training in clarity; on bhava and maintaining divine pride and pure vision; or on presence that is like space.
Depending on which section you practice more, you apply different methods and have different experiences.
For example, for someone who practices contemplation, it is very important to understand the principle of working with sankalpa. For someone who practices divine pride and bhava, it is very important to understand the principle of divya-bhava—the divine way of perceiving the world. Finally, for someone who works with presence that is like space, it is important to apply methods of working with space, such as Shambhavi Mudra. All these sections are interconnected, but each has its own distinctive features.
These instructions belong to the section related to contemplation.
The Essence of Awakening Amid the Kleshas
The essence of awakening permeates all living beings. These examples illustrate how it remains present despite the kleshas (defilements).
“The essence of awakening is present amid hidden desire, just as the Buddha is present within an unattractive embryo.”
When we analyze our consciousness, we discover obscurations and kleshas within it. Some obscurations are associated with tamas (unawareness), while others are associated with desires. Spiritual practice consists in purifying oneself of these obscurations and kleshas. A great many people do not understand this. A great many people dwell in various fantasies about aliens, the sixth race, higher intelligence, contactees from the Pleiades, and many other similar things that are very attractive to the mind, believing that talking and sharing their fantasies on these subjects is spiritual practice. They become absorbed in all these things, but completely lose sight of the fact that spiritual practice consists in purifying oneself of kleshas and obscurations; this is a much deeper layer than such superficial interests.
I recently met one of the disciples who took Refuge a year ago at the Berdyansk retreat. He said, “Only now have I understood what it means to be your disciple, when I had to struggle not to eat meat, not to drink coffee, and not to lose semen during sex. I broke all these rules many times, and I came to understand my own helplessness when I saw how little control I had over all this. My illusions were dispelled because, as it turned out, even to gain control over such simple things, one must reach an entirely new level.”
The Principle of Recognizing the Essence of Awakening
“The essence of awakening is present amid hidden desire, just as the Buddha is present within an embryo.”
A klesha (defilement) itself is the unrecognized essence of awakening. That is, if we do not recognize it as the essence of awakening, it is a klesha (defilement); but when we recognize it as the essence of awakening, it appears as what it is and has always been—a living, empty play of energy. At the same time, recognition is not a mental act in which you simply think, “I have recognized it,” but the ability to unite with it, integrate it, and dissolve this energy into pure vision.
For example, if someone has desires and, instead of uniting with them, simply says, “I recognize them as the essence of awakening,” while these desires continue to torment him, can this be called the essence of awakening?
The term “to recognize the essence of awakening” means that desire has been completely pacified and its energy has been brought to pure vision. In other words, from this coarse, unrefined energy of desire, a deity has been produced—something pure and sublime, inseparable from contemplative presence. This is precisely what is meant when we speak of uniting with presence and the self-liberation of kleshas. That is, it is self-liberation by leaving things as they are.
Nevertheless, even if we do not know how to self-liberate, we must understand the principle of the view clearly and unequivocally. The view is that the essence of awakening is present amid hidden desire. Even amid obscurations and kleshas, the essence of awakening is still present.
When we have such an exalted, great, pure view, even if we have not yet gained full control over our energies and desires, it is nevertheless enough to keep us, at least on the mental level, from falling into any obscured states when reflecting on this subject.
“Buddha-nature is present amidst latent anger like honey among bees, amidst latent ignorance like a grain within its husk, and amidst the arising of intense desire, anger, and ignorance (that is, manifested emotions) like gold in a cesspit.
Buddha-nature (the nature of awakening) is present amidst the habitual ignorance of various practitioners, such as arhats, shravakas, and others, like a treasure buried in the earth.”
The Tantric Principle of Working with Energies
Fundamentally, the tantric principle, or the principle of Laya Yoga, consists in recognizing the nature of awakening amid the diversity of all objects, without rejecting them or becoming attached to them. The various manifestations of energy within us—emotions, kleshas, and limitations—have the nature of awakening at their deepest foundation. The problem is that we are often unable to recognize this nature of awakening. For example, we may be overcome by tamas, and even if the body is tired and falls asleep on the surface level, some subtle part of us, if it understands this principle, can recognize the nature of awakening, and we will remain in conscious presence.
Once I was practicing a walking technique involving integration with space, with the sky. Over the course of the day, I covered twenty or even thirty kilometers, because running or walking quickly was easy and posed no difficulty. I practiced it on deserted country roads. I did not finish until two in the morning. The body was quite tired, but the mind and prana remained calm. Although the body was tired, consciousness had merged very deeply with space, and throughout the night I had very good experiences of clarity associated with space. Against the background of the tamas that had arisen in the body and pranas from fatigue and running, there was flawless recognition of the awakened nature of all of it.
When we experience anger, if we have the right view, we can recognize that the nature of awakening exists in the midst of latent anger, like honey among bees. The point is that we do not allow this anger to cloud our mind; then the anger becomes a vibrant, highly active energy, and this energy even gives a certain impetus to our clarity.
The moment when our clarity meets this vibrant energy is called maha-melana, or the great encounter: the principle of Shiva meets the principle of Shakti, and the question then becomes which will prevail. Either Shakti begins trampling Shiva underfoot and dancing upon him, in which case anger becomes uncontrollable, or Shiva pacifies Shakti and samyoga (equilibrium) is established. If Shiva completely suppresses Shakti, you will simply have distinct clarity and the energy will quickly subside; but if equilibrium is established, the vibrant energy will circulate through the body without obscuring clarity. At the moment clarity comes into contact with the vibrant energy in the body, this energy is released and purified. This means that anger is neither vented uncontrollably nor suppressed and turned into a source of stress. It is drawn into the central channel, circulates through the body, and becomes pure, transforming into the energy of the deity.
Whether or not the energy becomes the energy of the deity indicates whether sublimation is taking place within you. True sublimation, true self-liberation, means that the energy of any klesha is completely transformed into pure vision without the use of tantric methods of transformation. If the energy is not transformed, however, it is too early to speak of self-liberation.
For example, when I often went into the city while practicing contemplation, there were many different distracting factors: encounters with other people, the hustle and bustle, the surroundings, railway stations, and so on. Nevertheless, they did not interfere with me, and because contemplation was integrated with every situation, many creative moments arose. You hear music, and an idea for a new bhajan melody arises. You encounter a situation, and an idea for developing the monastery’s service plans arises. You encounter information that might seemingly sweep away your clarity, and an idea for a philosophical treatise arises.
Your clarity is a powerful stratum that feeds on all of this, transforms everything into pure vision, and turns it into Dharma.
The Potential for Awakening in All Objects
“Like a mango seed that has the potential to produce fruit, like a precious image of the Awakened One wrapped in rags, like the embryo of a royal heir in the womb of a poor, unattractive woman, like a piece of gold in the mud, the essence of the Awakened One is present among all objects of perception.”
The essence of awakening is present amid all objects of perception like a seed capable of bearing fruit. Whether it becomes a fruit depends on how much clarity we generate.
To abide in awakening means to abide in continuous clarity and to generate such clarity by bringing it into contact with obscurations and kleshas—that is, with ordinary consciousness, which essentially consists of such obscurations and kleshas—and continuously purifying them.
It is like taking a bright lantern and entering an old room or closet that symbolizes obscurations and kleshas. There are cobwebs, rats scurry about, everything is overgrown with moss, water drips from the ceiling, and you bring the light of this lantern inside and illuminate everything. And as you illuminate everything, it all begins to be cleansed. Or it is like taking a hose and spraying everything with water, washing away all impurities until the room begins to shine.
In the same way, when we discover our awakened essence and practice sustaining it, over time we generate clarity, which we direct toward the state of our mind, freeing it from tamas and rajas and leaving only sattva. Or, if rajas remains, it is under complete control. Then we direct this clarity toward our prana, and over time the coarse winds are replaced by the pure pranas of wisdom. Then we extend this clarity outward, and our external environment is purified as well.
In essence, to abide in proper contemplation means to abide in clarity and continuously generate it from an effortless state.
The Natural Generation of Clarity
If we try to generate such clarity from an agitated mind, from rajas, it is like the efforts of worldly people. There is little benefit in this. After some time, we will experience only disappointment and emptiness.
Clarity is generated precisely through effortless, uninhibited presence. It occurs naturally—that is, without plans, desires, or intentions. It is like the sun shining naturally: it has no desire to illuminate the earth. People say that the sun gives us joy, warmth, and so on, but the sun has never thought about any of this; radiating and manifesting warmth in this way is simply its nature. In the same way, radiating and manifesting clarity becomes natural when we are rooted in our awakened nature.
What enables us to generate clarity? The fact that our mind is uninhibited, wide open, and unstained, and that we abide free from concepts and from anything whatsoever that has name and form. Abiding in such an uninhibited state endows the yogi with unprecedented inspiration and insight. His qualities do not diminish from day to day but grow stronger.
In our youth, we are usually full of ambition. We have a great deal of prana, and it seems to us that we are ready to move mountains, which is why all young people are highly ambitious. But as the years pass, our reserves of prana gradually run dry, while accumulated experience, fixed ideas, and conditioning increase, and the mind becomes constrained. Therefore, as they approach forty, people become much more humble and less ambitious. There is even a saying: “The steep hills have worn the horse out.” One might say that samsara puts them in their place.
Only a practitioner does not lose his Shakti, and samsara does not manage to wear him down. Outwardly, he may be humble, but his inner spirit blossoms over the years because his clarity and vital force accumulate; as the years pass, he experiences ever greater inspiration because his mind opens wider and wider, and he clears more and more space within himself. As a result of this inspiration, clarity is continuously generated within him, purifying everything impure that was present in his karmic vision.
