Tilopa

Tilopa

Tilopa is one of the most authoritative and renowned Indian mahasiddhas and masters of mahamudra and tantra. He received various tantric teachings and unified them and transmitted to his disciple, Naropa.

Tilopa, known as Prajnabhadra, was born in the town of Chativavo (Chittagong, which is now in Banladesh), into the Brahmin caste. His birthplace is also recorded to be Jagora (in eastern Bengal, India?). His father was Pranyasha and mother, Kashi.

When he grew up he learned all the doctrinal treatises of Brahminism. While he was wandering in various places asking for alms, he finally came to a temple and, seeing that the monks lived a life of renunciation, he entered the monastic life and became a learned in the Tripitaka, the three collections of the teachings of the Buddha.

He was empowered into the tantric mandalas by his master, and learned acharyas, and engaged very diligently in meditation practices on those instructions at different places, such as Somapuri. After a short time, he had a unique experience and great wisdom was born within him from this realization. He received further teachings from different persons and had many sacred visions and made great accomplishments over the years.

Tilopa received teachings and transmissions especially the "Four Special Transmission Lineages" from great tantric masters of India. Among his many masters, the Great Brahmin Saraha, Acharya Nagarjuna, and Matangi played very important roles in his development. For 12 years, Tilopa devoted himself totally to his practices and attained realization.

It is also said that from ultimate point of view, Tilopa had no human teachers and he received the full mahamudra and vajrayana transmissions directly from Buddha Vajradhara.

Meaningless Illusion

Kye ho! Listen with sympathy!

With insight into your sorry worldly predicament,

realizing that nothing can last, that all is as dreamlike illusion,

meaningless illusion provoking frustration and boredom,

turn around and abandon your mundane pursuits.

-- Tilopa

The clouds that wander through the sky have no roots, no home, Nor do the distinctive thoughts floating through the mind. Once the self-mind is seen, Discrimination stops.  - Tilopa

Like the state of space, the mind transcends thought. Set it at ease in its own nature, without rejecting it or maintaining it. When the mind is without objective content, it is Mahamudra. Through familiarisation with that, supreme enlightenment is achieved.

~Tilopa

The life of Tilopa

A key figure for the Karma Kagyu lineage is the Indian master Tilopa (988-1069), one of the 84 Mahasiddhas or highly realised yogis. Tilopa is often depicted at the top of the traditional paintings (Tib. thangkas) of the Kagyu refuge trees.

He first became a monk at the temple of Somapuri in Bengal. It is said that one day a dakini (female embodiment of wisdom) came to him in a vision and offered him her knowledge. Tilopa requested her teachings and received the initiation into the Chakrasamvara Tantra. He practiced this teaching at Somapuri, but when the monastery saw him take a female consort for the practice of union yoga, he was forced to quit the community.

Tilopa profited from his expulsion by travelling throughout India, searching out many teachers and learning their methods. He earned his living during this period by grinding sesame seeds (Sanskrit: Til) for oil – giving him the name by which he became known. It is said that he was given direct transmission of Mahamudra by the Buddha Vajradhara (Tib. Dorje Chang), who became his main teacher. Although he chose to live his life in remote and inhospitable regions, his fame as a meditation master brought him excellent students. The most important for the Kagyu lineage is Naropa, as he is the one who later on transmitted the teachings to Marpa.

Easy is right

It was Chaung Tzu, the crazy Taoist master, the genius of the absurd, who used the phrase 'easy is right'. It is a phrase that any religious seeker would do well not to take seriously. If this phrase hangs about loosely in the psyche as one is delving into oneself, it is very probable that the dead seriousness, do-or-die attitude and air of pompousness that seem to necessarily characterize the religious pursuit—but which may well be impediments in the quest—die a natural death at the hands of a sense of humor, a light-heartedness, an ability to step lightly without giving oneself airs.

And 'natural' is the keyword. If spiritual discovery is a revelation of one's own nature, it could not possibly be anything but natural. But practices, disciplines and rituals that are often anything but natural, are generally considered pathways to the divine. So much so that a curious idea has taken root: that this world is terrible and full of sin. One has to turn one's back on it and become an ascetic, forsake worldly pleasures and do penance, if one wants to encounter the divine. Perhaps that is not true. Perhaps, the divine is not separate from existence, but immanent in existence. But that idea, curious or not, is the view of the majority. 

( Yet another account of Tilopa  ...

For many years, Tilopa performed priestly duties for the king of Visnunagar. Grateful for the sage’s effort, the king rewarded him 500 gold sovereigns a day. Despite the success of his work and the handsome offerings, he was very uneasy and distracted; thinking his life is meaningless and that he is yet to discover an essential teaching which cannot be found in luxurious surrounding, he wanted to leave to seek enlightenment by living as a yogin. However, whenever Tilopa attempted to resign, his disciples refused him permission to leave.

Finally, one night, he left in guise of a beggar’s torn clothes. By dawn, he arrived on a cremation ground where he lived quietly for some time, practicing his sadhanas and begging for food in town. One day, on the road he met Naropa, who became his faithful and devoted servant.

After years of practicing, the defilements that troubled Tilopa vanished and he attained mahamudra-siddhi. He acquired the siddhis of Body, Speech, and Mind, and became universally renowned. After setting innumerable beings on the path of enlightenment, he ascended to the Paradise of the Dakinis.)

A few verses from Mahamudra.

Cease all activity that separates,

abandon even the desire to be free from desires

and allow the thinking process to rise and fall

smoothly as waves on a shoreless ocean.

The one who never dwells in abstraction

and whose only principle

is never to divide or separate

upholds the trust of Mahamudra.

The one who abandons craving

for authority and definition,

and never becomes one-sided

in argument or understanding,

alone perceives the authentic meaning

hidden in the ancient scriptures.

These are the great Tilopa’s oral instructions. On the completion of the twelve hardships, Tilopa taught these on the banks of the river Ganges to the Kashmiri pandit, the wise and learned Naropa. Naropa taught The Twenty-Eight Vajra Verses to the great interpreter, the king of translators, Marpa Chökyi Lodrö. Marpa finalized his translation at Pulahari in the north of India. Ken McLeod translated this into English in Los Angeles in the southwest of the United States, working from the efforts of previous translators and various commentaries.

I bow to Vajra Dakini.

Mahamudra cannot be taught, Naropa,
But your devotion to your teacher and the hardships you’ve met
Have made you patient in suffering and also wise:
Take this to heart, my worthy student.

For instance, consider space: what depends on what?
Likewise, mahamudra: it doesn’t depend on anything.
Don’t control. Let go and rest naturally.
Let what binds you let go and freedom is not in doubt.

When you look into space, seeing stops.
Likewise, when mind looks at mind,
The flow of thinking stops and you come to the deepest awakening.

Mists rise from the earth and vanish into space.
They go nowhere, nor do they stay.
Likewise, though thoughts arise,
Whenever you see your mind, the clouds of thinking clear.

Space is beyond color or shape.
It doesn’t take on color, black or white: it doesn’t change.
Likewise, your mind, in essence, is beyond color or shape.
It does not change because you do good or evil.

This is the fundamental approach of Tantra—which is really not an approach at all; and is probably best communicated through a joke Osho tells about a butcher friend in the same context. It was near closing time. A man came to the shop and asked for a chicken. 

The butcher went inside and brought out the only bird, threw it on the scales and said, "Five rupees." The man thought a little and said he'd like a bigger chicken. The butcher went inside again, waited a while, came out with the same chicken, threw it on the scales and said "Seven rupees." The man thought again, and said, "Tell you what, I'll take both." And the butcher was in a fix. 

This is what Tantra does: it says, "I'll take both," and in the very statement deals a deathblow to duality, which cannot exist without choice. And this is transcendence.

The darkness of a thousand eons cannot dim
The brilliant radiance that is the essence of the sun.
Likewise, eons of samsara cannot dim
The sheer clarity that is the essence of your mind.

Although you say space is empty,
You can’t say that space is "like this".
Likewise, although mind is said to be sheer clarity,
There is nothing there: you can’t say "it’s like this".

Thus, the nature of mind is inherently like space:
It includes everything you experience.

Stop all physical activity: sit naturally at ease.
Do not talk or speak: let sound be empty, like an echo.
Do not think about anything: look at experience beyond thought.

Your body has no core, hollow like bamboo.
Your mind goes beyond thought, open like space.
Let go of control and rest right there.

Subhuti

(“Subhuti lived in the crowd -- nobody even knew his name -- and when this news came that flowers were showering on Subhuti everybody wondered, 'Who is this Subhuti? We never heard about him. Has it happened by some accident? Have the gods chosen him wrongly?' -- because there were many who were higher in the hierarchy. Subhuti must have been the last. This is the only story about Subhuti.” – OSHO)

Dakini

Mind without projection is mahamudra.

Train and develop this and you will come to the deepest awakening.

You don’t see mahamudra’s sheer clarity
By means of classical texts or philosophical systems,
Whether of the mantras, paramitas,
Vinaya, sutras or other collections.

Ambition clouds sheer clarity and you don’t see it.
Thinking about precepts undermines the point of commitment.
Do not think about anything; let all ambition drop.
Let what arises settle by itself, like patterns in water.
No place, no focus, no missing the point —
Do not break this commitment: it is the light in the dark.

When you are free from ambition and don’t hold any position,
You will see all that the scriptures teach.
When you open to this, you are free from samsara’s prison.
When you settle in this, all evil and distortion burn up.
This is called "The Light of the Teaching".

Hidden for centuries in a sealed-up cave in northwest China, this copy of the 'DiamondSutra' is the world's earliest complete survival of a dated printed book. It was made in AD 868. Seven strips of yellow-stained paper were printed from carved wooden blocks and pasted together to form a scroll over 5m long. Though written in Chinese, the text is one of the most important sacred works of the Buddhist faith, which was founded in India, and was originally expressed in Sanskrit

The foolish are not interested in this.
The currents of samsara constantly carry them away.
Oh, how pitiable, the foolish — their struggles never end.
Don’t accept these struggles, long for freedom, and rely on a skilled teacher.
When his (her) energy enters your heart, your mind is freed.

What joy!
Samsaric ways are senseless: they are the seeds of suffering.
Conventional ways are pointless. Focus on what is sound and true.
Majestic outlook is beyond all fixation.
Majestic practice is no distraction.
Majestic behavior is no action or effort.
The fruition is there when you are free from hope and fear.

Beyond any frame of reference mind is naturally clear.
Where there is no path you begin the path of awakening.
Where there is nothing to work on you come to the deepest awakening.

(A telephone operator in San Francisco says that the city's Chinatown receives fewer calls than any other area of similar size in the city. And with a straight face she explained the reason: "I guess there are so many people named Wing and Wong that people are afraid they will wing the wong number.")

Alas! Look carefully at this experience of the world.
Nothing lasts. It’s like a dream, like magic.
The dream, the magic, makes no sense.
Experience this grief and forget the affairs of the world.

Cut all ties of involvement with country or kin,
Practice alone in forest or mountain retreats.
Rest, not practicing anything.
When you come to nothing to come to, you come to mahamudra.

A tree spreads its branches and leaves.
Cut the root and ten thousand branches wither.
Likewise, cut the root of mind and the leaves of samsara wither.

Though darkness gathers for a thousand eons.
A single light dispels it all.
Likewise, one moment of sheer clarity
Dispels the ignorance, evil and confusion of a thousand eons.

What joy!
With the ways of the intellect you won’t see beyond intellect.
With the ways of action you won’t know non-action.
If you want to know what is beyond intellect and action,
Cut your mind at its root and rest in naked awareness.

(A rich man asked Sengai to write something for the continued prosperity of his family so that it might be treasured from generation to generation. Sengai obtained a large sheet of paper and wrote: 

Father dies, son dies, grandson dies.” 

The rich man became angry. “I asked you to write something for the happiness of my family! Why do you make such a joke as this?” 

“No joke is intended,” explained Sengai. “If before you yourself die your son should die, this would grieve you greatly. If your grandson should pass away before your son, both of you would be broken-hearted. If your family, generation after generation, passes away in the order I have named, it will be a natural course of lfe. I call this real prosperity.”)

Let the cloudy waters of thinking settle and clear.
Let appearances come and go on their own.
With nothing to change, the world you experience becomes mahamudra.
Because the basis of experience has no beginning, patterns and distortions fall away.
Rest in no beginning, with no self-interest or expectation.
Let what appears appear on its own and let conceptual ways subside.

The most majestic of outlooks is free of all reference.
The most majestic of practices is vast and deep without limit.
The most majestic of behaviors is open-minded and impartial.
The most majestic of fruitions is natural being, free of concern.

At first, practice is a river rushing through a gorge.
In the middle, it’s the river Ganges, smooth and flowing.
In the end, it’s where all rivers meet, mother and child.

When your mind is less acute and does not truly rest,
Work the essentials of energy and bring out the vitality of awareness.
Using gazes and techniques to take hold of mind
Train awareness until it does truly rest.

When you practice with a sexual partner, empty bliss awareness arises.
The balancing of method and wisdom transforms energy.
Let it descend gently, collect it, draw it back up,
Return it to its place, and let it saturate your body.
When you are free from longing and desire, empty bliss awareness arises.

You will have a long life, you will not gray, and you will shine like the moon.
You will radiate health and well-being and be as strong as a lion.
You will quickly attain the ordinary abilities and open to the supreme one.

May these pith instructions, the essentials of mahamudra,
Abide in the hearts of all worthy beings.

Danger of choice

Whichever way one looks at it, the root, the starting point of division and fragmentation is the act of choice. Which is why J.Krishnamurti spoke so emphatically about choice-less awareness, perhaps the most sparse and delightfully cultural definition of an awakened state. In the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tsu also greatly emphasizes the danger of choice, and the divisions it creates. As a matter of fact, scores of enlightened masters have emphasized this point.