Notes from reading Chogyan Trungpa, The Tantric Path of Indestructible Wakefulness.

When you visualize, the whole idea is that you are trying to break through something. Eventually, you are supposed to transcend the deities that you visualize. The deities are not regarded as objects of worship or objects of accomplishment. It is the same with shamatha practice: eventually you are supposed to transcend your focus on the breath. So a visualization is a kind of temporary measure, another Band-Aid. It may be a colorful one, but you are still supposed to take it off when the wound is healed. A visualization is a kind of prop or trick. That is why we refer to it as upaya, or skillful means. [pp. 427]

Identify a yidam (deity)

You are supposed to receive your own basic yidam first, and that allows you to practice the rest of tantra. […] Your teacher has been seeing you a lot, […] that allows you to be given a yidam appropriate to your emotional style or destiny. First you receive your own basic yidam, and then you may be introduced to other yidams. [pp. 419-420]

Deities in tantra have a purely situational existence, which brings our insight to its fullest point, but they are not regarded as external existents. Buddhist tantric deities are simply expressions of our mind. [pp. 433]

It has been said in many of the tantras that whatever the deity, if you visualize the image of the deity on the basis of blind faith or one-pointed belief, you are cultivating egohood. So nontheism is a very important point. [pp. 436]

samayasattva and jnanasattva

There are two aspects of the yidam: the samayasattva and the jnanasattva. The samayasattva is the image visualized by you. [It] is your version of the deity that you have visualized. [It] is what you create with your visualization. The jnanasattva is what legitimizes your visualization by descending into it. […] In visualization practice, you invite the greater wisdom forces to descend into your visualization. [pp. 421]

It is important in tantric practice to understand the meaning of samayasattva and jnanasattva. It is an important point for tantric practice. The jnanasattva is anything that makes your ordinary little mind exasperated. It is like an explosion from inward. It is just there—unmade, unborn, unoriginated. The jnanasattva is the transcendental aspect of the deity; it is shunyata and wisdom. It embodies the five wisdoms and anything good that you think of. The jnanasattva is not a spirit, and it is not exactly shunyata. If it were purely shunyata, there wouldn’t be anything or there would be everything, so it would be very confusing. And in the absence of confusion, it would still be very confusing. If it were an external deity coming down, it would be very difficult to dissolve it like a snowflake melting into a lake. [pp. 422]

We are not talking about a mysterious force or energy. It is your receptivity, your state of being, that determines how transparent the jnanasattva could be. If you are self-conscious, if you are holding on to your ego and your defense mechanisms and are a clumsy old fool, the jnanasattva will be a clumsy old fool in the disguise of a jnanasattva. Such a jnanasattva is very difficult to dissolve. [pp. 423]

In tantra, there are no visualizations without the samayasattva and the jnanasattva. We should be very clear about that. The samayasattva-jnanasattva relationship destroys the clinging of ego. Without that, the visualization becomes purely imagination. In fact, it has been said in the tantras that if you visualize without the jnanasattva descending, or if you visualize without the awareness of shunyata, you achieve rudrahood, the building up of ego. [pp. 423]

If it weren’t for the samayasattva and jnanasattva, your visualization could become an ego trip, because you are just imagining yourself to be a yidam, which you are actually not. [pp. 424]

Preparation

Start with formless meditation, empty yourself out, contemplate on emptiness.

The best way to prepare for visualization is through regular sitting practice, rather than by playing with your perceptions or with phenomena. [pp. 427]

In order to visualize properly, there needs to be some kind of mental training at the beginning. You need to have some reconciliation with your thoughts and emotions, and you need to allow them to come through. In vipashyana experience, anything that occurs in your mind is not rejected and not accepted. [pp. 425]

Visualization (Creation)

tibetan: kyerim (“level of manifesting”); sanskrit: utpattikrama (“creation stage”)

Visualization practice is based on imagining a certain image, figure, or person in your mind. This image or being that you are visualizing is the highest ideal of its type that you could possibly come up with. This being, or yidam, is sparkling clean and dressed in an elaborate costume or outfit, adorned with all kinds of ornaments, and holding scepters or other items. The idea is to identify with such figures and to work with them as if they actually existed individually. [pp. 418-419]

Divine principle of letter - Visualize and experience the seed syllable (bija mantra).

> Note: _Bija mantras can also be used as a spell. Once you have achieved a particular sadhana and identified with the deity, you can use the bija mantra as a creative or destructive spell._ [pp. 428]

Divine principle of sound - Visualize the divine sound principle, sending forth rays of light from the bija mantra that you have visualized, and fulfilling all the actions of samsara and nirvana. [pp. 429]

Divine principle of ??? - Having heard the sound of the bija mantra, it is then transformed into visual symbolism, symbols like vajra for the vajra family, jewel for the ratna family, etc.

Divine principle of form - Final stage, a particular form takes shape from the symbol or seed syllable, creates the visualization of the deity.

> _When you visualize, you are visualizing your particular version, concept, and understanding of a particular deity. Therefore, a philosophical and spiritual understanding of that deity is important. Otherwise, you are just throwing yourself into a foreign culture. Without having some idea of the deity's significance, you have no way of relating with it. So before you visualize, you have to come as close as you can to knowing the complete story of the figure in question._ [pp. 425-426]

Divine principle of mudra- Place various mudras, symbols or scepters in the hands of the visualized deity.

Divine principle of mark/sign - Once the visualization is complete, you practice the repetition of a mantra in which you bless or consecrate yourself as a complete mantric being or mantric principle. […] At this point you are completely involved in the practice, which is a question of becoming an actual deity rather than purely a principle. [pp. 429]

Non-visualization (completion)

tibetan: dzogrim (“completion level”); sanskrit: sampannakrama (“completely gone stage”)

Dzogrim is the absence of visualization. It refers to a meditative state that is a sophisticated form of shunyata experience, probably on the level of mahamudra. [p. 419]

After practice - When you have completed a session of visualization practice, everything is dissolved back into the charnel ground. After your meditation, you remain in the charnel ground continuously. You practice meditation in action. At this point you do not need to continue the repetition of the mantra. In postmeditation, you should have an awareness or imprint of the mantra repetition taking place as part of your thought process, rather than actually doing it on the spot. [pp. 429] In the postmeditation state, you see and hear and think in the same way as the deities that have been given to you. [pp. 430]

Appendix

List of Yidams

Links:

• https://www.visiblemantra.org/bija.html
• https://tibetanbuddhistencyclopedia.com/en/index.php?title=Hundred_Peaceful_and_Wrathful_Deities