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Chapter 13 - True Buddha Tantric Talks
Recently a disciple had a Vajra Acala empowerment. He started to cultivate the dharma. He saw Achala appearing in his dream. Achala did not touch his head, neither give him any things, nor radiate lights. Instead Achala took a glance at him, and turned his back. Achala did not grant him any wish and was talking to him with the head facing the opposite direction. He asked me was any thing wrong with that?
My reply is as follows: The cultivation of Tantra must follow a standard progression. You must perfect them step by step, and not to take a short cut. If you have an Amitabha empowerment, and start to cultivate Amitabha as your root deity. And after quite a while, you still do not have any spiritual response, you must think for a while, why is it Amitabha Buddha never touches your head in your dream or meditation or why does Amitabha never radiate light? Have you ever experienced any auspicious signs of spiritual response? Are you taking a short cut ? If you do not have spiritual response in cultivating guru yoga, and yet try to cultivate Amitabha as root deity, you are considered taking a short cut. Although you have received the empowerment, you do not have the necessary tell-tale signs to carry on with the cultivation.
How do we go about? After having spiritual response in your cultivation of guru yoga, you may cultivate the root deity. But first you must receive a root deity empowerment to be in line with the dharma. Many things we do may be considered out of line such as not doing the minimum number of times in certain rituals. Take an example, for four basic rituals, we must clock at least 250,000 times to be considered in compliance with the requirement. The Eastern Tantra of Japan has decreed that a cultivator must perform at least 200 fire puja rituals then he is qualified to receive Acharya empowerment. This is the progression. Without the tell-tale signs to cultivate, it is of no use to receive empowerment. How do you know you have the tell-tale signs? After the empowerment, Amitabha Buddha will appear in your dream. He will touch your head, show you his illuminating golden body. These are the tell-tale signs that you can commence your cultivation of Amitabha as your root deity.
The next level of cultivation is Vajra dharma, then you can progress to the most profound tantra. To sum up the progression in the cultivation of True Buddha Sect, first we cultivate four basic ritual, then guru yoga, followed by root deity, thereafter vajra, and finally the most profound Tantra. Before you progress to the next level of cultivation, you must meet the requirements of Tantra, and must have the necessary auspicious signs and spiritual response.
At times you may have to consider downgrading your cultivation to a lower level, if you do not have any tell-tale signs to carry on. For instance, after root deity empowerment, you do not have any spiritual response, then you may want to consider downgrading yourself to receive guru yoga empowerment, or to receive again the root deity empowerment and restart the cultivation all over again. If you do not have any tell-tale signs in cultivating four basic rituals and yet you ask for guru yoga empowerment, it is unlikely that you will be successful.
These are the Tantric requirements. In the beginning, we were not strict on these, but now as we have so many disciples, we have to enforce them. It is said to receive guru empowerment, you need twenty years of cultivation, 12 years in Mahayana, and 8 years in Tantra.
The disciple thinks his foundation is good, after receiving the Achala empowerment, he is able to cultivate the Achala Vajra dharma. He is wrong to assume that. As he has not experienced any spiritual response with his root deity yet, therefore Achala appeared with the back facing him. He is lucky that Achala did not give him a kick. But if he really has a sound foundation, Achala will come to touch his head the night he received the empowerment. This is the tell-tale sign that he can carry on with the cultivation. In short, without any tell-tale signs, you must not cultivate even if you have received the empowerment. You must carry on with the cultivation of root deity or even a lower level of guru yoga. If there is no spiritual response in the cultivation of guru yoga, then it is better to do Maha prostration and four basic rituals daily.
When you have spiritual response in the cultivation of four basic rituals, you are sure to have a transcendence to the Western World, as Vajrasattva has the ability to enlighten you.
Its better to cultivate at a lower level than try to cultivate the most profound Tantra at the beginning. By so doing, you are not following the order of progression. Unless after Achala empowerment you have the tell-tale signs which confirm your cultivation in previous lives, you must not aim too high, and carry on with the cultivation.
If you have not cultivated in your previous life, you must start from a lower level, you must not descend from the air to cultivate the most profound Tantra as if you are from the SWOT team; you must progress from the first storey to the second, third, fourth, than the fifth. The progression order is both logical and in line with the Tantra.
What are the signs of spiritual response?
Yesterday we talked about tell-tale signs after empowerment, which are auspicious signs that appeared after receiving empowerment. Today we are going to talk about the signs of spiritual response. In fact, we have talked about spiritual response on many occasions previously. We consider the root deity appearing in our dream, or meditation to touch our head or radiating lights on us as spiritual response. In the Susiddhi Sutra, signs of spiritual response experienced by cultivators are explained in detail. A cultivator should show a few types of auspicious signs if he is experiencing spiritual response.
Our sect has reduced the cultivation session to once a day, and yet many disciples could not do it. Surely they will not experience any spiritual response.
If a person always falls sick, and looks tired and fatigued all the while. And he does not radiate any light. Or his body odour is very strong, and never recalls his root deity, worse still he forgets to do cultivation. Or he is simply lazy and have many nightmares, in which others wanted to kill him, or he wanted to kill others, or just did bad things in his dream, i.e. he never have any good dream at all. These phenomena will show he is not experiencing any spiritual response.
The true signs of spiritual response are those just mentioned by me. A cultivator will have auspicious signs; be full of dharma bliss; like to do good deeds; and is fond of cultivation. His body will radiate lights and emit fragrance. He will have good dreams. These are mentioned in the Susiddhi Sutra. We know that Buddhism is an accommodating and flexible religion that is why it can be divided into five vehicles (forms of practice).
The earliest form is human realm, which teaches us how to be a human-- a kind and perfect human being. Human realm is considered the foundation of Heaven realm. As a perfect human being can be uplifted and be born as a god; and can continue to cultivate and eventually become a deity. This is the Heaven realm. If a deity in the heaven realm continues his cultivation, he may become a realizer by hearing, and be in that realm. Generally speaking, heaven realm is also the foundation of realizer realm. Once in the realizer realm, and able to get rid of attachment of ego, a person can reach the Bodhisattva realm. A bodhisattva will succour other sentient beings. The Bodhisattva realm stems from the realizer realm. A person in the Bodhisattva realm will have very little karma to stop him from enlightenment. We can say Bodhisattva realm lays the foundation for Buddhahood. Buddhism classifies the five levels of achievement as five vehicles.
These five realms are considered righteous and not the evil ways. A perfect person is considered righteous; so is the cultivation of god and deity. When I first follow the faith of Taoism, I always think of gods and deities. I enshrined the image of Peach Pond Golden Mother, a great deity, in fact the deity of highest order in the eyes of Taoists. Her mission is the same as a Bodhisattva i.e. to succour all the sentient beings. Most people and religious sects consider themselves following the right belief , and yet they reject the Peach Pond Golden Mother and other deities. In the eyes of Buddhism, this is incorrect. A lot of Buddhists, and dharma masters who claimed to be following the right belief dislike the idea of enshrining gods and deities. But the fact is that from Buddhism point of view, it is within the purview of Buddha. There should not be any difference. The so called difference if any is mainly created by human beings themselves.
What is the only thing left in the universe?
If we have to define what is really the right vehicle then only Buddhahood that is perfect can be considered. The remaining vehicles such as Bodhisattvas, realizers, arhats, all the deities and gods, saints are considered incorrect ways - heresy, since they are not perfect yet.
Buddhism is flexible and accommodating to consider all sentient beings as Buddhas. Deity that comes to liberate us therefore deserves our full respect. The True Buddha School advocates all vehicles are right beliefs. There is no such thing as evil way, and heresy. In other words, there are no evil ways, or heresy in my mind. Everybody is a Buddha, the only difference is what level of perfection each has achieved.
Only Buddha has achieved the true perfection. Bodhisattva is less perfect. And a realizer is less perfect than a Bodhisattva. Likewise a being in the heaven realm is less perfect than a realizer; and a human being is less perfect than a heaven being. As long as they are from the five realms just mentioned, we must respect them. Even those that are not from the five realms, we must still show our respect. The most important word in this world is "Respect", other words are immaterial. In other words, if we need a word to describe the universe, the word should be "Buddha", all other words should not exist.
If you can understand this, you will have the thought of Yoga, which is itself a form of spiritual response.
Om Mani Padme Hum
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