Essence of Vajrayana. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso
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guardians at the foot of their tree, and they hold a torma and a skullcup.
In each charnel ground there is a lake, in which there lives a naga holding a jewel. The nagas have half-human, half-serpent bodies, with a canopy of snakes behind their head. They are of different colours, wear silken garments, and are adorned with jewelled ornaments. Above each lake there is a cloud. There is a mountain, at the summit of which there is a white stupa, and at the foot of which a wisdom fire blazes.
Throughout the charnel grounds are corpses in varying states of decay. Some are lying down, some standing up, some walking and some crouching. Some are headless, some being eaten by animals, some impaled on stakes, some hanging by their hair from trees, and some half-consumed by fire. Wild birds and animals such as ravens, owls, vultures, wolves, jackals and snakes inhabit the charnel grounds. Spirits, such as yellow givers of harm in tiger skins holding clubs, zombies, and terrifying naked cannibals, wander around uttering the sound ‘Kili Kili’. Tantric practitioners such as Siddhas, Knowledge Holders, Yogis and Yoginis also abide in the charnel grounds, keeping their commitments purely and single-pointedly practising Heruka’s path. They are naked, with freely hanging hair, and are adorned with five mudras. They hold hand-drums, skullcups and khatangas, and they wear crowns adorned with skulls.
The eight directional guardians are: Indra, Vaishravana, Varuna, Yama, Agni, Kardava, Vayuni and Ishvara. In addition to these there are two other directional guardians – Brahma, who protects the upper regions, and Bhumi, who protects the lower regions. We can sometimes include another five directional guardians – Surya, Chandra, Bhadra, Ganesh and Vishnu – making fifteen in all. All fifteen directional guardians residing in the charnel grounds are emanations of Heruka appearing in mundane aspects; and whenever we offer the torma to the mundane Dakas and Dakinis we invite these guardians together with their retinues from the eight charnel grounds to receive it. All the beings abiding in the charnel grounds face the central Deity and instil the place with a sense of wonder.
The charnel grounds have great meaning. They are the nature of Heruka’s omniscient wisdom, and all their features are emanated by Heruka to teach us how to practise the stages of the path of Sutra and Tantra. The corpses symbolize impermanence and the faults of samsara, particularly sickness, ageing and death. The lake symbolizes conventional bodhichitta, the naga the six perfections and the ten perfections, and the jewel held by the naga the four ways of gathering disciples. Because corpses are ownerless they also symbolize selflessness. These features remind us to practise renunciation, bodhichitta, profound view and the six perfections.
The wild animals symbolize generation stage realizations, and their eating the corpses teaches us to destroy our ordinary appearances and ordinary conceptions through the power of our generation stage practice.
The tree symbolizes the central channel, which is the basic object of completion stage meditation. The directional guardian at the foot of the tree symbolizes the downward-voiding wind just below the navel, and the regional guardian at the top of the tree symbolizes the life-supporting wind at the heart. The fire at the base of the mountain symbolizes the inner fire of tummo at the navel, and the cloud symbolizes the white bodhichittas in the crown chakra. The eight charnel grounds themselves, four in the cardinal directions and four in the intermediate directions, symbolize the four joys of serial and reverse order. The mountain symbolizes the immovable equipoise of spontaneous great bliss mixed with emptiness, and the stupa at the top of the mountain symbolizes the three bodies of a Buddha.
Completion stage meditation on tummo, or inner fire, causes the downward-voiding wind below our navel to reverse and flow up through the central channel, which in turn causes all our inner winds to gather into the central channel and dissolve into the life-supporting wind at our heart. This causes the white bodhichitta in our crown chakra to melt and descend through our central channel, giving rise to the four joys of serial and reverse order. The final joy, the mind of spontaneous great bliss, then mixes inseparably with emptiness and gradually abandons the two obstructions. When our mind is completely purified in this way, we attain the three resultant bodies of a Buddha – the Truth Body, Enjoyment Body and Emanation Body. Thus, these aspects of the charnel grounds teach us how to attain full enlightenment by training in the yogas of completion stage. Milarepa once said, ‘I have no need of books because everything around me teaches me Dharma.’ In the same way, through simply contemplating the features of the charnel grounds, sincere Heruka practitioners develop a deep understanding of the phenomena of the basis, path and result, and strong enthusiasm for practising the stages of the path of Sutra and Tantra.
Inside the circle of eight great charnel grounds is the protection circle of the vajra ground, fence, tent and canopy, surrounded by five-coloured wisdom fires swirling counter-clockwise. In the centre of these are the four elements, Mount Meru, the lotus and the crossed vajra, all of which have been described previously.
Standing on the centre of the huge crossed vajra is the celestial mansion, which is constructed like a large square house with an elaborate entrance on each side. It is approached from the four directions by stairways that lead up through the prongs of the vajra to its ground floor. The jewelled walls have five layers, which from the outside in are coloured white, yellow, red, green, and blue. Around the top of the wall and overhanging it is a red jewelled moulding studded with rectangular, triangular, circular, and half-moon-shaped jewels. Upon this are four layers of golden bands, each separated by a series of supports made from six precious substances. Upon these, and extending beyond, are parallel rafters whose ends form the shape of sea-monsters, with full-length and half-length strings of pearls hanging from their mouths. Overhanging these are ‘sharpu’, special jewelled decorations, suspended from the eaves. Around the edge of the roof runs a white parapet in the shape of half-lotus petals. This is adorned with eight victory banners embellished with beautiful creatures, and eight other banners, all set in golden vases. At all four corners of the roof monkeys sit on the parapet, holding parasols adorned at the top with a jewel, crescent moon and blue half-vajra.
Around the outer foot of the wall runs a red ledge upon which stand sixteen offering goddesses of various colours and postures, each with three eyes and four arms. Each of the four entrances has an open porch, with a high double door leading into a short hallway that leads into the main chamber. At the outer corners between the doorways and entrance halls, as well as at the four outer and four inner corners of the mansion, stand half-moons, upon which rest red jewels adorned at the top by vajras.
At the front of each entrance, upon square pedestals, four pillars set in vases support an eleven-tiered archway. Above each archway is a Dharma Wheel flanked right and left by a male and a female deer. Each archway is adorned with both types of banner, and with monkeys holding parasols. The eastern archway is decorated with white Dharma Wheels, the southern archway with yellow jewels, the western archway with red lotuses, and the northern archway with green swords. To the right and left of each archway, set in golden vases, are wish-granting trees bearing the seven precious possessions of a king. In the space around the celestial mansion are Siddhas, two on each side; and emerging from clouds are offering gods and goddesses holding garlands of flowers, making everything exquisitely beautiful.
Inside the celestial mansion are four concentric rings of eight pillars, which support the circular vajra beams underneath a four-stepped ceiling. On the very top of the mansion is a square lantern adorned with a golden roof and surmounted by an eight-faceted jewel and a five-pronged vajra. Inside this is a precious jewelled case containing the scriptures of the Heruka root Tantra.
The ceiling and floor of the mansion are white in the east, green in the north, red in the west, yellow in the south, and blue in the centre. On the floor is a four-tiered circular platform, each tier smaller than the one below it. Each of the three lower platforms is in the shape of a large wheel with eight petal-shaped spokes. On the lowest platform are the sixteen Deities of the body wheel, on the second platform are the sixteen Deities of the speech wheel, and on the third platform are the sixteen Deities of the heart wheel.
At the four inner corners of the mansion, and at the doorways to each hallway, stand the eight Deities of the commitment wheel. In the very centre of the top platform is an eight-petalled lotus of various colours. Upon the petals in the cardinal directions stand the four Yoginis of the great bliss wheel, and upon the petals in the intermediate directions are skullcups brimming