Skywalking

“When you visualize yourself as a deity, for example, first you have your belief, your version of you, which is called the samayasattva. You visualize yourself as the deity; it is your version of you. Then along comes what is called thejnanasattva- the body of wisdom, the buddha-nature quality- which arises as another visualization in front of you. That visualization comes to you and is united with your basic notion of yourself. So finally you become Buddha completely; you become the deity completely, and you begin to act like one. That is called vajra pride. That's an important part of visualization. The important part of that pride is to believe that you are that- you have three eyes, you have three tongues, and you have flames around you, or whatever it is that you are visualizing. You are that, you really are! Visualizations are not just fantasies. They are a part of you, so the pride is believing in that part of you. If you have the potential of growing a beard and you don't shave, then the beard grows. It's part of you.

ln the process of visualization, finally you begin to visualize the whole world as a mandala, a sacred space, and every sound as mantra, or sacred utterance. The whole world and everyone in it is included. Such vajra pride, or indestructible pride, does not need any relative reference point. It is inborn belief that doesn't need relative support. In fact, once you begin to check back to your relative reference world, once you begin to doubt, you lose the vajra pride. You might be afraid that you can't survive without relative support, but you survive better if you don't have to question your talent, if you don't have to compare and look for relative support. You just work with what you can do. It's a fundamentally positive thing. Relative support actually diminishes your talent, because you begin to question yourself, you begin to compare yourself, you begin to have doubts. Comparing yourself doesn't help. It diminishes your confidence.

Vajra pride might seem to be a dangerous path that could easily stray into a kind of false enlightenment. The danger of vajra pride's turning into ego pride comes when you start using it to suppress the negative things you feel about yourself, your irritation with yourself. You try to use the logic of vajra pride for that. Then it ceases to be vajra pride anyway. It's impossible to turn 100 percent vajra pride into ordinary pride. But once you try to use it for mundane purposes, it is no longer vajra pride. At the beginning of the path, ego may seem to be in control of the situation. In fact, the whole spiritual journey may start out as a gigantic ego trip. The ego brings us to the dharma by saying, "Gee, I'd like to get enlightened and do all this stuff I've read about." We have to use that. You just begin where you are. It's quite a simple process. You start with ego's version of enlightenment, and at a certain stage, ego finds that it is threatened by your commitment to the path, and it begins to wear away, to drop out. At that point, we are approaching the cliff we need to leap from, which is suicidal for ego.

There is actually a succession of sudden shocks until you fall off the last cliff. Whenever there is a cliff, ego tries to avoid it, tries to come back to a safer place by using the same logic constantly and by not being willing to take any chances. At a certain point, ego begins to find that its version of enlightenment doesn't match the teachings, the genuine dharma. But it ignores that. It creates it’s own teaching. Whenever there's a cliff, it says, "No, I'm not going over that cliff. I'm going to survive; so I'll make my own teaching." When a situation feels very uncomfortable, I would say there is more reason to approach the cliff then, because there is some gap, some crack that has appeared. When neurosis is coming up more vividly, there is often a gap. So that's a great opportunity.

When you actually make the leap, there is no landmark at all, not even limitlessness. It's completely all or nothing. Or youcould say it's either one or everything. You can afford to leap; therefore you don't have to hold on to anything. At the same time, when we talk about all, or unity, that doesn't mean to say that the situation becomes completely depersonalized.

There is still all of that particular person's point of view, even when we are speaking of the buddhas, the awakened ones. That's why there could be different enlightened realms, which we often refer to as the three kayas: nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya, and dharmakaya. Even within the ultimate realm of dharmakaya, Samantabhadra, Vajradhara, and many different types of dharmakaya buddhas exist.*

*[The three kayas, or the trikaya, refer to three fundamental aspects, or bodies, of enlightenment. Kaya literally means "body." Dharmakaya is the ultimate realm of wisdom beyond reference points. Sambhogakaya is the realm of compassion
and communication. It literally means the realm of enjoyment. Nirmanakaya is the buddha that takes human form, which refers to the historical Buddha but also to the enlightened teachers we may encounter now. In Tibetan vajrayana
Buddhism, the dharmakaya is personified in visualizations. Two of the most important dharmakaya buddhas are Samantabhadra and Vajradhara. The point the author seems to be making here is that even in the realm of ultimate truth,
there is still an immediate, personal quality to wakefulness or sanity, as personified by these buddhas. In fact, rhe universal quality gives rise to the personal quality of enlightenment.- Eds.]

They are all, therefore they are one. They are all; therefore they are individual, personal. I hope that you will be able to put into effect what we've discussed, in practical ways. No doubt what we've talked about might clarify your problems, but at the same time, the discussion might confuse us more. That confusion is the starting point. It is what we have to work with in everyday life. We have been talking extensively about the importance of appreciating and working with our mundane life as a source of sanity and awareness. Often there is a perceived conflict between our ordinary life and sitting meditation. Seeing a conflict between those two comes from the inability to perceive the background of panoramic awareness that is present in our daily situations. There is always an undercurrent of panoramic awareness that acts as guidance. That is the source and inspiration for being skillful in daily life. Relating to that does not mean having to be rigid and careful, or overly watchful. Nevertheless, there should be some acknowledgment that the space of awareness is there. There should be just a fraction of a second of acknowledgment. Through this acknowledgment, a sense of spaciousness spontaneously arises that provides the right perspective, or distance, between action and reaction.

For the beginner, relating to this awareness may require some level of watching oneself or deliberateness. In the long run, however, watching doesn't come into the picture. For instance, if a chaotic situation happens, there is uncertainty about how to deal with that, and that uncertainty flashes back on us. That uncertainty itself becomes space. In other words, each time there is doubt, the doubt itself brings a kind of bewilderment, but that bewilderment becomes space, spaciousness. In that way, a sort of natural, inbuilt understanding of the situation happens. In that sense, there is a shock absorber that is always present.

That kind of awareness is based on a certain amount of trust, or optimism. Basically, nothing is regarded as a failure or as dangerous. Rather, whatever arises is experienced as part of a creative and loving relationship toward oneself That subtle confidence and optimism automatically bring skillful means,
because we realize there is no need to be panicked. We have a warrior's attitude toward life, which could also be described as faith or belief in our life, or possibly as devotion to our experience and our world. Whatever happens, we always have a fundamental positive quality about our experience of life. Such faith could be said to be the source of an almost magical performance. If a person relies on that confidence, it is almost as though she is going to perform a miracle, and she is taking quite a chance that the miracle might not happen. However, because she has confidence, she almost knows it will happen, and she does what she has to do, and the miracle does happen. That kind of fundamental positive approach runs right through all situations in dealing with life. It also becomes a meditative experience, because it is a purely optimistic attitude without watcher, without ego, without centralizing in the self or being careful. This whole positive flow can only happen if there is no centralized security. Instead, there is basic faith and belief in one's wholesomeness, in one's fundamental healthy situation.”

~ CHOGYAM TRUNGPA, WORK, SEX, MONEY