Vajrasattva: The Secret of the Four Wisdoms Trekcho, Togal and Bardo

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© 2014 Richard Chambers Prescott. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 02/18/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4918-6368-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-6369-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-6367-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014902996

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Contents

First Section

Introducing the Purpose of this Text

Second Section

Setting The Bardo Stage

In One Sweeping Glance

First Bardo

Dying and True Death

The Question to be Answered

Consciousness Transference, Phowa

Second Bardo

Beginning of Peaceful Appearances The Stages of Peaceful Appearances

The Four Male And Four Female Gatekeepers

The Six Buddhas of the Six Migrations

Vajrasattva’s Secret Appears

The Ten Rigpa Receptacles and Rigma Dakinis

The Realms of Dakinis

Intention of Buddhas and Herukas

Phowa Concepts

Trekcho, Togal and Phowa

The All Sweeping Panorama of Deities and Deitesses

The Five Wisdom Luminosities, Peaceful and Fierce

The Buddha Family:

The Vajra Family:

The Ratna Family:

The Padma Family:

The Karma Family:

The Skull and the Heart

Six Migrators

Remaining Peaceful and Fierce Apparitions and Meanings

The Four Enlightened Acts

Vajra Pacification Clan

Pacification of Chod’s four beguiling conceptual clouds.

Ratna Enrichment Clan

Padma Subjugation Clan

Karma Wrath and Transformation Clan

Third Bardo

Modern Parallels

Disembodied Experiences

Living Without a Material Body

Bardo and Togal Similarities

Observing the Living

Disembodied Effects

Fearless With Head Held High

Trekcho and the Four Kayas

Bardo Mind

Bardo Mind Unfinished

Six Lights, Six Migrations

First Sealing the Unborn

The Second is the Five Methods of Sealing Womb Doors.

Sealing the Five Doors of Rebirth

When Bardo Mind Continues

Five Enlightened Wisdom Realms

Thirty or More Dimensions

The Four Form Realms

The Border of the Five Enlightened Worlds

The Four Formless Realms

Clues to the Nature of the Formless

Five Wisdom Realms

Self Ceasing in the Clear Genuine Part, the Luminous Void

Third Section

The Gathering of the Four Wisdom Lights

Into The Hollow Clear Passageway

Within The Higher Vajrasattva

The First View of the Four Wisdoms, The Kati and Vajrasattva

Four Lamps Throwing Out the Four Wisdoms

Four Lamps within the Four Wisdoms

The Four Lamps Appearance

Longchenpa’s Light on this Mystery

Hidden Word Meanings of Trekcho and Togal

Kadag’s Ineffable Translation

Twelve Wonderments

Super Vajrasattva

The Gathering of the Four

Mega Vajrasattva

Vajrasatva and Vajratopa Embracing

Sounds, Wisdoms, Thigle Clusters, Empowerments, Kayas

Words of the Lion of the Sakyas on Great Decease

Razor Sharp Trekcho

The Awakened

The Nine Layers of Tantra

Yeshes and Rigpa

Shesrab and Rigpa

Deity Guises of the Four Wisdoms

The Kayas

Kaya Mysteries

Kati, Lamps and Togals

The Variations of the Kati and the Lamps

The Nuclei of Singularity

Bardo and Togal

The Kati’s Appearance

Phowa

Looking Back at the Peaceful and Fierce Appearances

Phowa Assistance

The Twenty-One Phowa Exertions

Stages of Dying, True Death and Trekcho

Phowa Intentions

Two Way Mirror

A Deeper Insight into Togal and the Lamps

Fourth Section

A Glossary of Explanations of Words, Terminology and Ideas on the Four Wisdoms

Trekcho Methods

Four More Trekcho Stages

Four Thought Liberations

Four Mahamudra Phases

Four More Mahamudra Phases

Four Form Meditations

Four Formless Mediations

The Four Elements

Four Buddhas And Dakini Deity Forms

Four Deity Mandalas

Five Skandhas

Five Prana Winds (rlung)

Four Empowerments

Four Kayas

Four Joys or Delights

Four Vedanta States & Four Tibetan States

Four Mudras (Set One)

Mudras (Set Two)

Mudras (Set Three)

Four Mudras (Alternative Traditions)

Four Seals of Doctrine (Dharma)

Four or Five Vidyadharas

The Four Khecaris, Sky Voids

Four Pramatas (Experients) Within the Void

Four Forms of Vak in Shunyata (Void Actuality)

Four Immeasurable Boundless Feelings

Four Noble Truths

The Eight Fold Noble Path

The Four Watchings of the Lion of Sakya

3,600 Thigles In Kalachakra

The Three Sections

Four Semde

Four Longde

Four Mengagde

Four Empties (Void Appearances)

in Dying Stages and the

Four Bardo Deaths,

White Appearance, Red Increase,

Black Near Attainment,

Translucent Diaphanous Luminosity

Four Antidotes of Vajrasattva in Dzogchen Preliminaries

Four Preliminary Stages of Dzogchen

Four Light Rays of Four Kayas As Four Togals

At One In Padmasambhava and Vajrayogini

Dzogchen Preliminaries:

The Excellent Path to Omniscience

Four Chod Pa Cuttings, The Skull Bowl with the Kayas

Comparing Japanese Rishukyo Version of Vajrasatva and the Four Passions

Fifth Section

A Compressed Outline of Trekcho and Togal Practice in the Nyingma, Bonpo and Kagyu Methods

Separating Samsara’s Six Migrations from Nirvana

Trekcho, Letting Go

The Six Crucial Charges

Kati

The Four Lamps

Rigpa Tsal

The Four Togal Appearances and the Practice of Clear Light

Three immobilities, Three Motionless Positions that Hold the Ground of the Genuine.

Three Waiting Gestures, Staking Down The Three Attainments

Three Doors (Body, Speech, Mind) as Four Abidings

Through the Four Togals

The Four Assurances

The Seven Behaviors

Three Dream Conditions

Types of Death

Trekcho and Togal as One

References as Resources

of Facts, Ideas, History, Words

of Language or Pure Inspiration

Introducing the Purpose of this Text

Common tradition is that when one writer quotes or references another writer, the individual references and book locations are noted. So it is very curious that I have not quoted one single sentence of words, translations, text or commentaries, except for words of the Lion of the Sakyas as they have come down to us through history past, and otherwise, three or four quotes and a few word renderings of Tibetan presented in the Resources. I have only written of the thoughts, coming out in my own words, that were ignited as feelings of inward inspiration from the highly excelling upliftment found when studying Dzogchen systems and methods, then taking shape in my own conceptual conveyances. Of course, my own forty years of heart’s research on what is within this text is presented here, yet would not have been written without the upliftment and inspiration of Dzogchen.¹

I must assert that this essay is in no way, nor tries to be a teaching text, a manual, nor a guidebook on Trekcho and Togal or Bardo, for I am in no way at all possible, a teacher, an expert nor a guide in these practices. Nor do I ever wish to be one. This essay is an answer to a life long question I have had since reading the Bardo Thodol as a young person. What is the true meaning of Vajrasattva, the Mysterious Passageway and the Union of the Four Wisdoms? It just so happens that after one goes through all possibilities of what this means one finally comes to the sacred secret teachings of Dzogchen’s Trekcho and Togal and Bardo. So I have had to explain what little or nothing that I know about these special secret and restricted practices to answer the primary question this text attempts to answer.

In great respect for the Nyingma tradition, I, whole heartedly surrender my deepest apologies, if I have overstepped my boundaries in answering this essay’s fundamental inquiry. To the Nyingma these subjects are restricted for the most serious students and practitioners. There is good reason for this, because without being grounded in Trekcho one may not engage Togal for it may just lead to deeper illusion, a support-less dream delusion. Without confidence in the decisive encounter with the Luminous Void, Kadag, the Four Appearances of Togal may only fortify the mind’s hallucination and magnification of the unreal. I certainly hope this text will not do that, nor can I see how that could ever happen by reading this work.

Now, the Nyingma thinks the Pure Void is without Luminosity, strictly speaking, for the Luminous is what knows, a knowing energy and so not the Void, which can be an abysmal view of empty blankness instead of Shining Voidness. Yet, in fairness, from the perception that Dharmakaya is the Void. Sambhogakaya is the Luminosity. Nirmanakaya is the Compassionate Love as Emanating Resonance, one might become caught by a thought that there is difference. So recall now that the Three Kayas are ever the non-dual essence of Rigpa. They are only undivided Rigpa as Pure Presence and would not exist without Rigpa. Where is there difference or separation now?

In Buddha’s first teaching the nature of mind is not mere mind, it is Clear Light and it is Void, this is not an abysmal view. See the Dalai Lama’s main mentor of Dzogchen, Dilgo Khyentse on the Clear Light interpretations of the Prajnaparamita. This first turning is simplified by saying it is the abandonment of body, speech and mind in the Void. In all minds there is nirvana (void or emptiness) and luminosity or knowingness simple and direct, as samsara’s appearance, so then calling the inner nature of the mind, empty luminosity, has both ideas. Yet is not Void Luminosity the same as the Luminous Void, where the imagined distinction of nirvana and samsara vanishes.

Buddha’s second teaching was Void is Form etc. and Form is Void, etc., in the Prajnaparamita, so bringing us back to the non-dual view of the illusory Samsara mind and Nirvana Void This second turning is phrased as abandoning the grasp upon the illusory self and all phenomena as Void and Void is all phenomena, moving through every aspect of the Dharma teachings, even the Buddha, the seekers, etc.

The third teaching is the nature of Clear Light Void. This third turning of the wheel is on the abandonment of illusory grasping at the Void, when no illusory self is there to grasp.² There is a secretive fourth teaching, a fourth turning of the wheel which pertains to the Tathagatagarbha, the One Thus Gone. Some believe this is the source of Sakyamuni’s Tantra teachings.

Of great interest is the belief that the Lion of the Sakyas taught the Kalachakra, the Vajrabhairava, otherwise known as Yamantaka, the Heruka or Chakrasamvara and supposedly the secret Vajrayana Tantras were given by a mystical manifestation of the Buddha, unknown if he was in two places at the same time while alive or if it was one year or hundreds of years later after his final passage as One Thus Gone. Of the three or four known records of the Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma, some are attended by other buddhas, bodhisattvas and arhats from other realms. If so, then what would be so amazing if the Dharmakaya Buddha appears in the luminous Sambhogakaya or the Nirmanakaya emanation, as ‘ja’-lus, the Rainbow Body. Yet a great number of Buddhist believe there are only Three authentic Turnings.

Historically, it was most likely around the Fourth century C.E. and maybe more toward the Eighth century that Mahayana Buddhism meet with the Guhyagarbha or Guhyasamaja Tantra, giving birth to the Vajrayana path and with that the command that one must hold one’s lama as the Buddha himself came to be. Around the time of Padmasambhava, Eighth century C.E. it would seem. It is no surprise that within Vajrayana the state of Buddha Nature became symbolized with Vajrasattva. This focus on the lama (Lamaism) as Buddha is quite a deviation from original teachings that say be a Lamp to yourself and other directly recorded words of the Lion of the Sakyas. Historically, it was in the eleventh century that the Kalachakra Tantra came to be and the other Tantras mentioned above, a century or more before.³ As far back as the second and third century, China had contact with Tantra and that is another doorway to join with early Mahayana.⁴ It is a complex lacing together of ancient ideas. Now after the command that the lama should be treated as the living Buddha, abuses grew abundantly, not just in Nyingma, but especially in the twelfth and thirteenth century when under the line of Tilopa… , Naropa, Marpa and Milarepa, students were literally tortured by their teachers all in the name of purifying karma, which from the Dzogchen view, does not even exist. The five most awful acts of karma are vaporized by Dzogchen. Where did the Kindness and Love of the Buddha go to, with all these Siddha people, who became strange creatures of an unusual evolutionary branching out.

Yet one thing stands true, it was Garab Dorje (200 B.C.E.) who gave out the first recorded words we know of on pure Dzogchen. Garab was not first, Dzogchen has been with us for who knows how long, perhaps seventeen thousand years as Bonpo legend goes. Nevertheless, this would separate Garab Dorje and Vajrayana from original Dzogchen, historically speaking, by nine or ten centuries.

Some of this rings historic, some sounds legendary. In history it is seen that Padmasambhava first brought Tantra to Tibet in the eighth century C.E. Yet Tantra is so old it could be indigenous to the Bon, where 4,000 year old singing bowls used in Bon and Buddhist ceremonies were found in a 2,400 B.C.E. excavation of a Bon Temple, discovered in Zhang Zhung territory.⁵ Tantra may have existed even before Mohenjo-daro, and certainly during that time, long before Vajrayana Dzogchen. Keeping all this in mind, then the very nature of Kadag, Samantabhadri, as Void, is never dual from Samantabhadra as Luminosity or Rigpa Knowingness. Where can you not find some sounding note of this truth? Why be so busy about splitting these atoms of subtlety?

In Bonpo Dzogchen these secrets of Dzogchen are available to any who wish to study them. It is completely opposite to Nyingma who restrict these secrets with fear inducing threats of harm to oneself and others, and lengthy visits to hell regions, if you give them out. Ridiculous. Could it be more harmful than reading the cruel and barbarian ideas in the Bible and other books from the Abrahamic traditions. Really? Seriously?

Vajrayana and Nyingmapa anxiety may come out of their fear that you may find out what is said⁶ about the four defeats, for by Sutra these acts are defeating or falling in your practice, but here they are named Wrathful Acts of the Herukas: the acts of killing, stealing, lying and sexual acts such as adultery, etc., etc., and etc. in one of their main source texts, the Guhyagarbha Tantra. Simply, the view is that the criminal acts and the victims acted upon are both only Emptiness, so no karma exists to accumulate. (This is not a secret to others. The Samurai play, Atsumori by Motokiyo is about the ghost of a slain samurai telling his slayer about Emptiness and Nirvana.) This may have a curative meaning to the victims, if you can see that what has been done is only Emptiness and Nonexistence, taking the victim above and out of the trauma that has been brought upon them or anyone. Even to one who does these things it can be a freedom from karma, for who has not done an act of word or deed that is regretted. Yet this transcendent release does not so easily apply to Vajrayana rules, which really is hypocrisy. Then too, as a free ticket to commit these crimes by the vajra master or by the disciples of crazy wisdom, in the protection of the so called master lama is psychopathological madness. Also, this should clearly show you how wrong is their behavior of a free license to insult, abuse and belittlement, until you feel like a smudge of dirt. But don’t almost all religions have unbelievable cruelties in them seeking control by fear, over others. In defense, the rest of Longchenpa’s commentary on the Guhyagarbha Tantra is outstanding, truly, teaching Compassion and Evenness, Nyam Pa Zhi or Nyam Pa Nyid⁷ at every turn of the page. The actual Tantra only has two short paragraphs about the four defeats. It makes you wonder if some tampering was done to this text, no doubt at all, in the last thousand years. Probably so, like so many sacred books that are bent to fit personal agendas.⁸ Please see subtitle, Fearless With Head Held High, for more on clearing karma’s illusions. There can never be any curse or failure on you with Natural Great Perfection.

The Kagyu Dzogchen text, no different from Jigmey Lingpa’s Yeshe Lama is freely and openly there for all to study and practice if they wish. One in particular is The Sun’s Life giving Force or the explanation of the Intrinsic Meaning of the Indestructible Light that is the Sublime and Most Mysterious and Unsurpassable Message of all spiritual pursuit by rTse-le sNa-tshogs rang-grol, translated and commented on by Herbert Guenther, called Meditation Differently, it covers everything that these restricted texts cover on Dzogchen’s Trekcho and Togal and augmentative practices. This book has been denigrated for its translation method, but I for one see it as thorough and courageous new expressions, powerfully conveyed, empathic to the Western mind patterns. So in respect of all traditions I ask forgiveness for all mistakes made in this writing, for my heart’s intention is only to help in some small way and know that this Wisdom will persevere any persecution of the world’s opinions.

It is spiritual warfare over who is right and who is wrong. A long battle of small minds, but every tradition has some bone to pick with others. Jigmey Lingpa wrote, because of his dislike of the Gelugpas, calling them foxes who sneak around talking behind the backs of others and they is turn called Dzogchen people, simple Sun Gazers, whose practice was only optical illusion.⁹ It goes on. One lama attacked my question about Vajrasattva presented in this writing. He said it is only a a challenging appearance in the Bardo about the union of the Four or Five Wisdoms. It has nothing to do with Togal. Yet look, the second Togal describes this Vajrasattva, the Secret Passage and the Four Wisdoms, in the Yeshe Lama. So how could it be that it has nothing to do with Togal? That is his hard formed fixed opinion, and it is a contradiction right in your face by those who need to be right, those who have the pride of the learned. For if you pay attention and read on, the task completion of Amoghasiddhi only comes when Trekcho and Togal are fully accomplished. The words describing these two are a little different, yet the meaning is exactly the same, without a doubt. (See the subtitle, Hidden Word Meanings of Trekcho and Togal.)

That thinking of a learned ego is just there, from old days to now, but I don’t care for it, as I believe that this Vajrasattva and the Four Wisdoms are an imbedded clue to the higher practice of Trekcho and Togal, put there by Tibet’s first historical teacher of Tantra, Padmasambhava, author of the Bardo Thodol. If that fixed opinion is so, then why is the Kati rtsa of Togal called the Mysterious Way of Dorje Sempa (Vajrasattva) in the Sun’s Life Giving Force? This is the important channel in Dzogchen upon which the Four Lamps and Four Togals are encountered. So at least it appears to be a hidden Tantric indication of the higher Dzogchen practice, and not simply the mere union of the Four or Five Wisdoms. As with all beliefs the battles go on and will continue and the different sects will continue to hive off into their own circles of believing what they want to believe, then insulting others in turn.

This is not the way of an Enlightened Heart and this is why I feel the solitary practitioner is a much, much better way, than that of any organization, institution, following or whatever. You will unfailingly find there an ego who wants to be superior and those who want to be the inner circle closest to the so-called superior. I passed through one Vedanta following who called the inner circle the teacher’s Gestapo, by those who were not included in the Gestapo circle. It was so casual the way everyone else used the term as if they thought this is naturally the way it should be. Did we not learn anything from WWII, about domination power trips? So appropriate is the word Gestapo, it is a strange and weird mind scramble. People just follow along like a herd of lambs to slaughter. Seriously?

I do not know why the fundamentalist Nyingma have such a pick with those who see Dzogchen differently. The Dalai Lama is friend to the Bonpo, showing kindness and acceptance to them and all humanity on this globe and he has accomplished all Nyingmapa Dzogchen practices. I heard a story from him telling of a Lama trapped by Chinese invaders, who said for him, the only danger he was in was that of becoming angry. This is a true Lama, he declared. The Bonpo Dzogchen has a saying about treating one’s enemy as one would an only daughter or son. This expresses the same Love, Kindness, Compassion and Equanimity as the Four Immeasurables of original Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. Yet, as in all religious or spiritual beliefs there are those fundamentalist who find pleasure in the contagion of hateful poison, their cold hearted arrogant restrictions generating an attack upon others with speech so sharp and abusive it will slash your heart causing more damage to your spiritual health, than the ego they abusively claim to be freeing you from. I for one, see these Nyingmapa fundamentalists suffer from dissociative narcissistic personality disorder, at one moment telling of the beauty of Dzogchen, then the shift in perspective comes, their mood changes and whatever they said before contradicts itself, by masterful abuse techniques they learned from their abusive crazy teachers, so they can in turn raise themselves so they may abuse others. I do not abide any hypocrisy in matters of truth, scientific or spiritual. Do not fall for these lizards of lies and deceptions. They are disease to your spiritual health, for anyone who stops your creative expression and seeks to control you, is not your friend. These types may be powerfully expert in Tibetan Dzogchen teachings for they think they have the only correct view, but their hearts are full of rot, hate and anger, if anyone challenges their arrogance in thinking their own way is true, their reply is you are wrong. This is such a problem in Tibet, there arose the Rime Movement, meaning unbiased or non-partisan to all, because some lama sects would hold only to their own tradition and show aversion and prejudice toward all others. Can you believe it? I apologize for not treating enemies as an only child, as Bon Dzogchen advises, but how else can one paint the spectrum of honorable to sociopathic behaviors vividly.

It is nothing new to me to be exiled, excommunicated, thrown out or driven away, for I have always felt an inner correcting impulse to speak up and write about contradictions, confusions and loopholes discovered in different traditions and for that I have been considered a polluted outcast, cursed, rejected and belittled by the so-called compassionate wisdom of some systems of belief. These ridiculous abuses, some so mean and terrible that you would not believe. If you want to keep your own Light, which was definitely among the last advice of the Lion of the