DHARMA TRANSFORMATIONS

About life, death and meditation,

and human development towards enlightenment

Jörg Fitz/Kunga Dordche

1992, 2018

VADCHRADHARA

Vajradhara - Dorje Chang in Tibetan - is a fundamentally inclusive manifestation that a Buddha can transform into when guiding teaching of the tantric path is actualized. His color is primarily midnight blue and his nature is like an essentially illuminated and mirrorlike clear diamond. Dorje Chang dwells with significance awareness in the all-pervading reality. He holds a bell in his left hand and a diamond-like scepter (a so-called Dorje) in his right. His arms are crossed in front of his heart, which essentially symbolizes the integration of an optimal dynamic dharma approach... namely of wisdom and method in union... of feminine-toned wisdom embraced by masculine energy-shaped methodical approach, which in summary can be umbrella-termed as perfected significance awareness. He protects, reflects, and guides in all dimensions of existence.

FOREWORD

The present Dharma essay is a developed version, adapted to writing, of a lecture I gave in December 1991 at Lund University. The lecture, titled "Meditation, Spiritual Transformation Dimensions and Human Development," concluded the Philosophy Circle's autumn term lectures, which had the theme Human being and her symbolic world.

The essay seeks to pedagogically summarize and clarify, especially the Mahayana Buddhist teaching. Not only love and compassion produce bridges between people, but also significance-aware understanding. Surely Buddha Shakyamuni, who can teach different groups in many ways, would agree with the following motto that introduces the 20th century philosopher and science theorist Stephen Toulmin's monumental three-part work on Human understanding:

A man demonstrates his rationality,

not by devotedly confessing to fixed ideas,

stereotypical procedures or unchangeable concepts,

but by the way in which and the occasions upon which

he changes these ideas, procedures, and concepts.

Jörg Fitz

1992, 2018

INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY

In the following, we will provide an overview of the six seasons of existence dimensions that principally include a human's entire life cycle. The account can be simplified as a map of the four seasons and the transition periods between them, and how we at different levels of maturity can experience and relate to these seasons.

The background matrices for the exposition here are mainly branches of the Mahayana teaching, however in some respects updated in a somewhat more contemporary relevant language. The presentations of Buddhist teachings can be developed in certain respects if they are somewhat reformed with, among other things, philosophical language, scientific theoretical, and psychotherapeutic methods. This is primarily to adapt the systems to our time, it´s language, and needs. Regarding experience and knowledge of extraordinarily matured and enlightened levels of existence, Mahayana Buddhism constitutes an unsurpassed system. In particular, this applies to the meditative knowledge that has been transmitted and kept alive within the Tibetan form of Mahayana Buddhism - the one called Vajrayana. It is very important that this precious enlightenment teaching does not fade away now, when it is needed more than ever. Herein lies the primary motive for why certain tantric knowledge, which has been kept secret for about 1000 years, has begun to be revealed and in the following is given a relatively precise compilation in Swedish. This mainly refers to the section on the conditions of dying below.

The account will be composed under 6 main headings, namely:

1) The conditions of ordinary life,

2) The conditions of favorable life,

3) The conditions of meditative life,

4) The conditions of dying,

5) The conditions of enlightenment, and

6) The conditions of the intermediary being and becoming.

THE CONDITIONS OF ORDINARY LIFE

In our time, it is still considered in some places that we have stepped forward in our development when we have shaken off the notions of ensouled beings populating spiritual dimensions in the cosmos. These notions are sometimes regarded as myths that we must disperse with the help of our objectively measurement-oriented research.

This materialistic and dualizing viewpoint is narrowing and cannot be generalized very far. To a large extent, it unreflectively proceeds from the premise that our prevailing scientific principles and procedures represent a rational and responsible scientific theory that serves the purpose of exposing myths, preconceived opinions, and unfounded beliefs. In this premise, it has not yet fully recognized that this very philosophy of science is itself a kind of myth... in many ways still our time's academic myth. During the first half of the 2000s, this scientific theoretical stance will surely be viewed in many places as a contributing cause to our wisdom-spiritual degeneration. Previously, we at least projected spiritual beings and forest nymphs into certain natural areas and forest caves. Now these ensouled beings are instead replaced with, e.g., barrels of atomic waste that are buried in these caves. The invalidity that afflicts our time's materialistic view is composed precisely of the narrowing attitude that the consequences of materialism reflect more developed, more valuable, and more realistic conditions than consequences which spiritual viewpoints can bring about.

Our time's scientific theoretical myth also contains in most places a further ingredient that we neither have sufficient distance from nor understand the significance of, namely the nihilistic perception of reality, according to which reality beyond the physical and biological phenomena and events is fundamentally constituted of nothingness.

Thus, our time's academic myth, from which we have not yet fully awakened, contains among other things the belief that an unconscious nothingness can be read between the lines of more or less complex physical organisms that relate to each other in accordance with what primarily the social Darwinian view implies. In this myth, it is further believed that this outlook is realistic, objective, and mature - indeed, even enlightened. However, people are now at least beginning to think more extensively about what the so-called dark matter and dark energy consist of. Yet it is not quite recognized that the prevailing scientific theoretical attitude needs to be revised considerably to invite more significant questions and explanations.

In general, it is not yet recognized that our unenlightened outlook actually manifests reflections of projections behind the scenes to a large extent, even if thoughts have been reflected in that direction. Even less do we clearly realize where these projections come from, i.e., partly what enables and partly what produces these creations. To the extent that we search for explanatory hypotheses, we often - in a circular reasoning manner - direct our attention in the wrong direction, believing that a materialistic-nihilistic view is an indicator of a mature, realistic, objective, and academically trained mindset.

This view can certainly provide a complementary picture in some contexts, but is actually, in a more mature context, in generalizing form, an expression of a rationalizing defense against troublesome experiences that might initially follow for some if one opens up to more spiritual and, above all, wisdom-spiritual consciousness. It is thus, among other things, a question of an unconsciously cunning avoidance aimed at protecting oneself against the insights that could be actualized here at a first glimpse of an awakening.

For such an awakening to feel motivated to realize, one should first have a relevant insight into our ailments and obstacles. It is difficult to realize this insight if one is not prepared to view the conditions of ordinary life from a wider and more wisdom-aware perspective, i.e., from a less ego- or system-framed position.

Let us round off this first section with a summarizing characterization of the conditions of ordinary life... that which most people on our earth live with... so that we thereby also clarify the conditions that cause and maintain our deceptive notions, not least our materialistic-nihilistic view.

We ordinary people mostly unreflectively follow our tendencies, habits, fixations, and cloudy perceptions, from the time we are born until we are struck by illness, accident, or we age and die. Usually, we confuse the spatiotemporally condensed phenomena and beings with actual reality and unreflectively expect impermanent things to be more lasting than they are. We often experience changeable conditions that can also cause suffering as desirable and tend to cling to them.

We often waste time on activities that do not lead to such long-term valuable conditions for us and are often under the influence of some of the eight worldly concerns: being attached to 1) gain, 2) pleasure experiences, 3) fame, and 4) being praised, as well as harboring aversion to 5) loss, 6) displeasure, 7) bad reputation, and 8) blame. We like when the stock market goes up and dislike when it goes down. We like food, wine, sex, and music, but dislike solitary seclusion in the quiet and oxygen-rich forest. We like to be celebrated on our birthdays and dislike when someone speaks in negative critical terms about us behind our backs. We like when we are praised for toiling in the sweat of our face by skiing the Vasaloppet and dislike if we would be criticized for it.

We humans often engage in protecting our closest relatives from other similar humans who protect their closest in a similar way... and whom we sometimes even regard as strangers or enemies to be kept at a distance. We often embrace attitudes, such as feeling inadequate or dissatisfied, without persistently seeking to remedy this. We take care of our family and our animals, fence in and guard.

At night, we generally sleep as if unconscious in our dark ignorance. Most often during sleep, dream images flash by without us caring about their meaning or how and why they arise. To the extent that we remember a dream, it can often be reproduced in an alienated state, and we often tell it as if we have seen a TV movie in which we ourselves are not involved at all. Recognizing that one has staged the entire dream world oneself is usually not considered, much less reflectively seeking an explanatory and insight-bringing understanding.

Perhaps some do not recognize themselves in this à la carte characterization, but regard it as a caricature of a corner of humanity. Perhaps one has then forgotten that one might belong to a small favored fraction of humanity. To the extent that one consciously and actively intends to seek to realize a liberating development away from the ordinary life's ignorance, which does not promote spiritual and spiritual transformations, one should first and foremost clarify what constitutes a good soil for such development. A clarification of such a fundamental prerequisite will come below, under the heading The favorable life´s conditions.

Before that, however, we can first interject that one can, of course, very well consider the ordinary life's conditions and development in a richer way. An example is C. G. Jung's analytical psychology, which among other things combines a depth psychological view with both a spiritual outlook and a Darwinian perspective. Jung seeks above all to demonstrate how our, according to him, age-old inherited archetypal program, which for long periods exists potentially in our collective unconscious, affects our personal development and all stages of life. This life cycle in humans, more or less enriched with archetypal influences, begins with birth, ends at death, and is to be governed by the self, as Jung calls it. Even though Jung's system is one of the richer ones that the Western world currently has about the human life cycle, it has still not integrated, among other things, the doctrine of karma, the concept of enlightenment in a qualified sense, knowledge about more conscious meditative states, and the death and rebirth process. Jung's shamanistically oriented exploration was also influenced by his Protestant background, which contributed to him never really seeing the decisive common denominators behind what he called Western and Eastern world views. In a comment to The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation ((11), 1969:xxxvii), he even says: "You cannot mix fire and water. The Eastern attitude stultifies the Western, and vice versa. You cannot be a good Christian and redeem yourself, nor can you be a Buddha and worship God. It is much better to accept the conflict, for it admits only of an irrational solution, if any."

Of course, there are solutions to Jung's dualizing problematization. One starting point is presented below towards the end of the section The conditions of enlightenment. Another starting point is the understanding and tolerance that is generated in our psyche when our meditative experience has reached the point where we gain insight into previous incarnations, both our own and others'. At this level, one can also easily see that the division that Jung makes into "West" and "East" has about the same relevance as the fact that person A one day walks on the left side of a road, and views the vista from there, and the next day walks on the right, and views the surroundings from there. Even Jung's own view is, in extension, principally in accordance with this consideration, that is, that it is like a sub-branch of a whole and multi-branched tree. There is a significant reason why no so-called "religious war" has ever been waged in Buddhism's long history. With an obedience- and faith-based God-centered religion, it becomes difficult to bridge the suggested problems, which history has incessantly shown. With a holistic-embracing enlightenment teaching like Mahayana Buddhism, the principal method for solving the conflict is implanted in one's psyche when one begins the practice of this path. As Evans-Wentz puts it bluntly: "To the clear-seeing, humanity is one family, externally transcending geographical demarcations, national limitations, and every fettering concept born of the unenlightened mind" ((11), 1969: viii).

THE CONDITIONS OF FAVORABLE LIFE

What composes unusually favorable human existence conditions is primarily a series of fundamental freedoms, such as the following:

(1) Freedom from having been born in a barbaric country, where conditions for understanding an ethically developed enlightenment teaching do not exist.

(2) Freedom from having been born into a culture that embraces extreme views, such as eternalism (the belief in eternal life) or nihilism (the belief that reality's final nature is nothingness, absence of life) or the denial of the causal doctrine (whereby one believes that phenomena can arise without cause).

(3) Freedom from having been born in a dark age, when enlightenment teachings or the valuable qualities of enlightenment are not known; this as a consequence of no Buddha having been present.

Furthermore, as a human, one should also be free from circumstances such as being under the influence of:

(1) too much envy, pride, aversion, desire, confusion, and ignorance,

(2) corrupted companions,

(3) others' enslaving control or power over oneself,

(4) too crude or numbed mentality, which can lead to base actions and prevent one from experiencing an adequate fear of the consequences of these.

One should also have been favored with:

(1) actually receiving Dharma teaching from a qualified teacher,

(2) a level of motivation that makes it possible to keep the enlightenment teachings alive, and

(3) the presence of a community that studies and applies Dharma teachings... to seek to realize maturity towards more enlightenment on one's own is as difficult as building a large anthill as a lone ant in an area where no one else cares about such a thing.

Now that the favorable human existence is defined, one should apply this description to one's own life situation. The reader will probably recognize that they currently live under comparatively favorable circumstances. This should lead to realizing that one has to take advantage of the value of such conditions. ... Let us, with a metaphor, assume that for some reason we had ended up on a unique island that was full of wish-fulfilling jewels. It would be regrettable if we just toured around and then left empty-handed without even wishing that we all might soon be freed from suffering and ignorance.

The first thing one could do to take advantage of one's favorable position is to contemplate impermanence and death. In this contemplation, one has to realize and reflect on the following three conditions:

(1) it is absolutely certain that we will die. Only for an enlightened one are the conditions somewhat different. We will come to this topic shortly.

(2) it is, however, uncertain when we will die.

(3) the only thing that can help us when we die, is our integrated and applicable meditative experience.

The second thing one has to do to initially make the best use of one's favorable human living conditions is to contemplate karma. This means reflecting on the causal laws and thereby gaining insight into the laws of cause and effect and thus about our actions and their causes and consequences. More specifically, one of the most crucial insights involves understanding that every specific action - be it mental, verbal, or physical - has, more or less, its corresponding consequences. If one sows barley seeds, barley grows and not oats or cornflowers. If, for example, one acts with a loving motivation, this will in one way or another lead to fortunate consequences. If, on the other hand, one acts with a hostile attitude, this will bring about suffering... perhaps not always for the one at whom the hostility is directed, but definitely for the one who has expressed themselves with hostile intentions. It is important here to understand that even a seemingly insignificant action or thought can have extensive consequences over a long time, just as a small cherry pit can lead to a full-grown tree, or a significant choice can lead to, for example, many people's lives being saved.

One should further combine the contemplation that the time of our death is uncertain with the contemplation of the inevitable consequences of our actions.

Thirdly, one has to take advantage of one's favorable human existence by contemplating the sufferings that afflict all levels of existence where one has not yet realized liberation from karmic bindings of various kinds, and thus also conditions that causally necessitate rebirth. This also applies to the highest celestial levels of existence.

These contemplations should, in the somewhat intelligent person with a low level of aspiration - but which still goes beyond that of the ordinary person - lead to seeking to live in such a way in the present life that one causes better rebirth in the next.

For a person with a mediocre level of aspiration, the contemplations above should result in the dedication to seek to realize a suffering-free state of being for oneself, and that at the onset of death one only has minor bindings to the body, speech, psyche, or existence itself left to detach from, after which perhaps a state of non-dynamic peace, a stationary nirvana, occurs. For a person whose level of aspiration goes beyond the mediocre, the contemplations above will result in the awakening of the thought of enlightenment. A brief presentation of this we shall begin the next section with.

However, we need to emphasize here that the awakening and realization of the thought of enlightenment will hardly be successful if it is not preceded by three steps. These three steps consist of developing a) impartiality, b) love, and c) compassion. If Mahayana is simplistically symbolized by a full-grown tree, then these three steps represent the tree's roots, the realization of the thought of enlightenment the trunk itself, the various methods the branches, and the qualities of enlightenment the fruits.

By impartiality is meant here an attitude of equanimity, beyond the attitudes of enmity and friendship or aversion and attraction, whereby one regards all living beings as a sound physician does, and not as, for example, a military person, party politician, missionary, biased defense attorney, or businessman. One has to realize that we are essentially alike in all essential respects.

By love is meant that one desires to bring happiness to living beings. To, for example, display to others that one is virtuous and benevolent, whereby one does not significantly care about reading others' needs and wishes or what the effect of one's actual actions really becomes, is not love. It is then more about self-absorbed childishness... for example, confirmation-seeking behavior. Or to, for example, generally mix in a parentally toned and somewhat responsibility-avoiding thought that it is really 'God who is love' often generates more problems, since it is not enlightenment-oriented and not holistically embracing significantly guiding. One often generalizes too unawakened and confuses, so to speak, one of several roots of the tree of life with the entire tree, even if of course the purpose in the unconsciously framed conditions one finds oneself in can be well-intentioned. As long as one is insightfully aware of such a generalization and that one thereby temporarily just wants to express a feeling like an opera singer, this is of course a life-promoting attitude. To, for example, experience in an Atlantic-wavy and heavenly manner: "oh, today I feel like a goddess of love who loves everyone in the cosmos," is indeed a wonderful condition... we should have such waves of feeling more often. If the generalizing thought 'God is the cosmic love' is not accompanied by significant wisdom consciousness, it will in the long run restrict human development... not in relation to a child's needy outlook, but in relation to an enlightenment-oriented person's vision.

By compassion is meant here a solidarity-feeling desire to alleviate the suffering of living beings. To, for example, lament someone's sorrows and worries, without this being accompanied by an attitude to seek to remedy this, is not compassion. It is rather a common, and in our culture often acceptable, defense against compassion. More developed compassion consists of mirror-like and empathetically experiencing within oneself someone else's suffering and seeking to transform this into such energies and approaches that the suffering person needs and wishes for. Compassion is not just about correcting others because one believes oneself to know best. That is rather arrogant manipulation, which incidentally can also be a defense against accepting compassion. Deeper compassion is partner to the insight that all beings live in a mutual dependency relationship with each other, and that one could just as well be in someone else's situation. This insightful empathy composes a significant motivational chord to the natural awakening of the thought of enlightenment and embarking on the Mahayana path.

THE CONDITIONS OF THE MEDITATIVE LIFE

The enlightened thought

What distinguishes the Mahayana vehicle from other systems is not the positive valuation of love, mercy, compassion, and wisdom, but the enlightened thought in a qualified sense. This potentially inexhaustibly rich and valuable attitude can be described in many ways. Essentially, however, it can be defined as the intention to realize a fully awakened being for the welfare of all living beings. This refers to a dynamic being that essentially corresponds to a Buddha's level of maturity. At such a level of development, one has integrated many extraordinary qualities, such as being able to communicate with different beings at any time and in any language whatsoever in order to promote someone's or some people's development toward enlightenment. A fully awakened one needs nothing more for "their own" development. He or she does not need to sit on a throne for their own sake and be respected, receive gifts, be informed about people's situations or anything else. A Buddha-conscious being has cultivated the enlightenment thought to full maturity, which naturally entails that in such conditions one has nothing else to devote oneself to than contributing to all our development and perfection. A Buddha's approach to needy beings is as natural as when we put a plaster on an injured finger on our own hand, drink a glass of water when we are thirsty, or show a questioning person the way.

For a Mahayana practitioner, the enlightenment thought is thus the alpha and omega, and one often begins a meditation with this intention and concludes it by dedicating one's continued life to this dynamic existence.

Once the enlightenment thought has been awakened and cultivated, the meditative stages of development (in non-tantric contexts) proceed in three main steps, if we take it somewhat schematically. The first is called samatha, the second vipassyana, and the third consists of the simultaneous practice of samatha and vipassyana. In the following, these three developmental seasons are described in a brief, principled way. We will not go into the more practical method aspects in this context.

Samatha

Samatha means approximately to dwell in peace. The intention of this meditation is to stabilize the psyche at a subtle equilibrium level. This meditative stabilization has to be combined with soft compliance. It is a matter of a spiritual energy quality which, poetically expressed, can be likened to glossy silken-nectarous consciousness, which enables the meditator without effort or resistance to easily change their attitude. One has, so to speak, one's psyche at one's disposal like a tamed elephant and a crowd of attentive and cooperative servants.

First, mental subtlety is realized, after which the body is increasingly permeated by a soft watery and subtle wind energy. This frees us from coarse, hard, and dry qualities. Even the skin of such a person can become softly glossy, and the human configuration becomes calmly energy-rich and subtly alive. When the dynamic goal of samatha meditation has been achieved and one is stably in a balanced equilibrium state, objects and phenomena in one's psyche tend to dissolve and the psyche can merge with space. The psyche can, however, easily maintain concentration on an object if that attitude is chosen. Strong sounds in the vicinity of the meditator need not be disturbing. The subtlety, lightness, the distanced presence and coexistence, and the undisturbed concentration in the psyche can be developed to the extent that one could, for example, dwell in such conditions that one could count the molecules in a mountain.

The meditative stabilization will also affect one's sleep, so that it becomes more meditative and freed from increasingly regressive components. Heavy and dark sleep no longer exists at this level of being. One has also been freed from such tendencies as, for example, harmful intentions, sensory irritations, and doubts. In order to cultivate samatha meditation, longer periods of withdrawal from samsaric life are needed, whereby one can meditatively, increasingly free from disturbances, allow oneself to be influenced perceptually and energetically by the Buddha mandala one is meditating in.

Vipassyana

When meditative stabilization has been realized and our psyche can naturally be effort-free like a steady lighthouse, whatever the context, it is time to begin vipassyana meditation. This is a clarifying and insight-inviting meditation that aims to bring to light the essential nature of formations and the phenomenal world. When this is realized, we have pulled up the root of our sufferings, namely the attachment to the instinctive experience that there is an autonomously existing self. We have to revealingly realize that there is no such independently existing "I" or "self." When this is directly realized through one's own experiences, our ego-grasping, egocentric tendencies, and conceptual fixations will successively dissolve and the main producer of our sufferings and problems will dissipate. If there is no root-causing producer of suffering and limitations in our psyche, no conditions will develop that cause these.

The procedure of this analytical meditation has two principal main steps. First, one realizes that the so-called 'self' is synonymous with neither our body nor our psyche nor both. Thus, upon closer analytical examination, we will not find a single being that has inherent existence. This of course does not mean that we do not exist as persons in the conventional world. There is naturally some person with human form and with a name walking around here on earth in our relative world. But to experience this individual as an autonomously existing being can now also be seen as a delusion, when we look at the whole with a stable and clear penetrating wisdom mind that has opened itself to beyond-conventional conditions. It is thus by no means a question of any form of so-called psychotic state... and it naturally makes sense to use the terms 'I' and 'you' in the conventional world, which we need. A so-called psychotic person often cannot move significance-consciously and easily between these worlds... and unfortunately neither can most within the psychiatric care system, which is why one usually only medically seeks to reduce these "symptoms." When one cannot significance-consciously help a psychotic person to see the beings they are unconsciously identified with by explanatorily placing them in a wider, meaningful, and beyond-conventional context, one instead, based on the systems one is familiar with, tries to conventionalize the so-called psychotic person back into the cultural system prevailing in the environment one lives in.

Thereafter, we have to assure ourselves that all other phenomena do not exist autonomously, as they seem to do with our framing attitude. In reality, after careful analysis, it is realized that objects have no substantial self-existence, but exist only thanks to interdependent conditions like, for example, dream-image-like creations, illusions, or echoes. Phenomena and individuals seem in our ordinary world to have self-existence, but they do not really exist in the way our conventional cognitions interpret it. An echo can be manifested thanks to sound waves created by several resonance conditions... so just an echo in itself does not exist. We have to recognize that our experiences and perceptions contain reflections of projections in all our psyches. The whole can be likened to, say, a music film that has been created by many different producers and conditions... plus the movie theater with all the spectators. We thus have to see through our ordinary experiences in a significant way. When this contemplative analysis is applied in a stabilized meditative state, it eventually results in the experience of an essentially empty, illuminated, clear, endlessly space-like and basically enabling consciousness that does not create any formations or phenomena. This insight is the dynamic goal of vipassyana meditation.

'Emptiness' in this context thus actually refers to the fact that the conditions that cause us to experience autonomously existing phenomena no longer exist... the creators of these conditions – the ego-attachment defenders – have completely ceased their activity... the field here is completely emptied of these producers... that's all!... there is thus no emptiness in itself either.

When this meditative condition temporarily ceases, forms and phenomena begin to appear again, perhaps for some first as vague shadows and gradually in increasingly concrete formation. Even if persons and phenomena begin to appear in one's sphere of experience as if they exist there on their own side, one can now... in a post-meditative period... also recognizingly see these more or less as projections, echoes, reflections, or reflections of our own and others' projections. Thus: the reflections can now appear as if they exist autonomously within the conventional system, but also differently: that which seems to have independent existence can also easily, with shifting attitude, in one's experiences appear as reflecting projections. So, we realize with the help of this form of meditation, that phenomena and beings behind our conceptualizing system-coulisses do not really exist as they appear in our conventionally calibrated psyche. Hereby we have brought vipassyana meditation to a conclusion and we now have to proceed to the next moment, namely to unite samatha with vipassyana.

The simultaneous practice of samatha and vipassyana

By uniting stable calm and effort-free focusing with the clear emptiness consciousness and thereby being able to regard beings and phenomena as freed from autonomous existence, we will successively accumulate more and more valuable and healing qualities. Through samatha we accumulate increasingly good karmic fruits and through vipassyana increasingly wisdom. These conditions in conjunction with love, empathy, and significant knowledge constitute largely the essence of the Mahayana path... and also the essence of our development's dynamic destination: significance-awareness.

Through continuous cultivation thereof, the periods between meditations will successively become shorter and shorter, which eventually results in our being able to perceive constantly changing phenomena in conjunction with essential clarity consciousness with increasing ease... we can also call it dynamic nirvana awareness in conjunction with samsara. Thus, we do not see that phenomena and beings are empty, but we simply see that they have no autonomous self-existence. These are natural chords in pure consciousness. One gains increasingly easy access to, let us call it, enigmatic consciousness, whereby we see through our dualizing, limiting, and obscuring attitude and can more directly see, among other things, the so-called outer and inner world as aspects of the same whole. One can also, for example, see some living beings as if they have a transparent energy crystal united with the heart, which naturally and without effort clarifies the surroundings. It is nothing mystical or magical, nothing remarkable, nothing that requires special gestures or ceremonies... it is simply about being significance-aware dharma-attuned. It is essentially a beyond-divine consciousness, even if this dynamic being has needed to be preceded by one also having become acquainted with many divine spheres to accumulate development-promoting karma and to gain urgent insights... by, among other things, freeing oneself from increasingly subtle attachments. This beyond-divine clear reality consciousness is now also simultaneously not separate from the divine spheres, since it is beyond the time-spatial dimensions... and thus not separate from anything at all, but is omnipresent.

By this stage, we have now entered a so-called bodhisattva's way of life. When their life has essentially been brought to maturity, like, say, a new moon that has gradually rounded until it is full-moonly in a clear midnight blue and smooth water surface, is of the same nature as and consciously in the same whole as the reflecting moon, then we have experienced an intimately central glimpse of Buddha awareness.

If we succeed in this in the present life, then all is not just well and good, but we have had the privilege of realizing the very best of conditions. We will then naturally be able to be of optimal benefit to all in the cosmos, and we need not, for example, worry with fear for our own death, since we are then in conditions where no karmic factors remain that can cause unconscious rebirth. If we are not in such conditions, we do well to prepare ourselves for dying by beginning to study more carefully what happens then. With that, we have reached the next section: The conditions of dying.

THE CONDITIONS OF DYING

Tantra

Mahayana has methodologically two main paths, one called the sutra path, the other the tantra path. Within the tantric path, the process of dying, the rebirth process, and what happens in between have been carefully described. The reason why Buddhist tantra has been interested in these processes is that at advanced tantric levels, one intends, with the help of special meditation methods, to seek to accelerate the realization of enlightenment by transformatively bringing consciousness to dying, rebirth, and the changes in the intermediate being in between. It is, among other things, a question of the tantric meditator successively seeking to bring more consciousness to the unconscious moments in these events. These meditations are modeled after the actual death and rebirth events. The meditations are thus analogous to or holodynamically reflecting compositions to corresponding events in most people. They are designed so that we take advantage of the conditions at death and seek to transform ourselves so that we gradually become less unconsciously under the influence of factors that in an undirected way cause dying and rebirth.

Liberated beings’ ways of dying

If we have succeeded in realizing enlightenment in the present life, we do not need to go through the processes of dying and rebirth at the time of death. With such conditions, we can travel onwards in four different ways:

(1) One’s psyche dissolves and unites with the beyond-samsaric reality consciousness, with Dharmakaya. It is like when the outer and inner space unite, when for example a house collapses.

(2) Like when a flame from a fireplace goes out, nothing remains but the ashes from the logs.

(3) Space is filled with light above the dying person when their psyche leaves the body and unites with this light.

(4) Special yogis (those who have a so-called rainbow body) do not even leave a physical body behind when they die.

These are the most advanced tantric practitioners’ ways of leaving the present form of existence. Moderately experienced tantric practitioners pass away with a peaceful state of mind whereby they feel confidently assured that they will realize liberation. One can hereby die in one of the following ways, if we are content with three examples:

(1) to die as a poor beggar, who does not need to fear any surprising circumstances, or

(2) to die as a snow leopard that withdraws to regions that are cut off from attachments to various conditions, or

(3) to die as a happily insightful fool, or like a completely problem-free small child who is completely unconcerned about the conditions of dying.

Ordinary people, who cannot die in this way, should however study the processes of dying and rebirth, so that their lives and attitudes can be corrected as a consequence of increased understanding of these dimensions.

The eight sequences of dying

Certain careful tantric descriptions of how we die are based on wind energy, or just wind, which is hereby regarded as one of our most fundamental functions. These winds or energy waves can be seen as carriers of different levels of our consciousness and thought stream, like a horse that carries its rider. Through a series of dissolutions that the different wind energies, thoughts, and consciousness spheres go through, both the outer and inner dying are gradually completed. Dying begins with four sequential dissolutions of wind energies that are connected with the four elements earth, water, fire, and wind (which in humans correspond to solidity, liquid, heat, and movement). This is followed by a further series of four dissolution sequences, which results in the actual dying. Let us in the following briefly schematically describe these eight sequences.

1. The first dissolution sequence

During the first dying sequence, it is the earth element that dissolves, i.e., the wind that is related to the solid and hard components in our body (such as the skeleton, muscles, and physical organs) loses its capacity to be the bearer of consciousness.

Outer signs: The body becomes weaker and the eyelids cannot be opened or closed.

Inner signs: Mirages appear.

2. The second dissolution sequence

During the second dying sequence, the water element dissolves. When the wind that is connected with the earth element has dissolved, a kind of water wind becomes more manifest. It is not that the wind of the earth element dissolves into and transforms into the wind of the water element, but first one wind dissolves, which means that the other becomes more manifested.

Outer signs: All fluids in the body (such as saliva, blood, urine) dry up, feeling disappears, and inner and outer sounds are no longer heard.

Inner signs: Smoke appears.

3. The third dissolution sequence

When the sequence of the water element's dissolution has subsided, the wind with the fire elementmanifests, whereby outer and inner factors dissolve simultaneously.

Outer signs: Metabolism ceases, one can no longer remember names of close relatives, one loses the ability to smell, inhalation becomes weaker and exhalation stronger and longer.

Inner signs: Fireflies and sparks appear in the smoke.

4. The fourth dissolution sequence

The wind element's dissolution begins to manifest. The different types of wind move towards the heart during the fourth dissolution sequence.

Outer signs: Inhalation and exhalation cease, no activities can be performed any longer, the tongue thickens and becomes shorter, one can no longer experience taste nor experience the difference between soft and coarse.

Inner signs: Small flames of light that are somewhat spitting/hissing as they are about to go out. Up until now, the coarser winds and factors have dissolved. Inhalation and exhalation have ceased. Before the fifth dissolution sequence begins, there may be some chance of returning to life, but once the fifth cycle begins, there is no return. However, according to the tantric way of seeing, one has not died yet. The cessation of breathing is not a criterion for final death.

5. The fifth dissolution sequence

During the fifth dissolution sequence, 80 indicative conceptualizations dissolve, plus the winds that carry these thought fragments or suggestive concept formations. This happens in three phases. The first phase contains coarser movements of the winds that carry a group of 33 conceptualizations. The second phase contains less coarse movements of the winds that carry a group of 40 indicative conceptualizations. The third phase contains a weak movement of the wind that serves as a carrier for the remaining group of seven indicative conceptualizations.

Inner signs: First phenomena appear that resemble burning tea lights, then an empty clarity with whitish light appears - like a clear night sky during autumn that is illuminated by whitish moonlight.

6. The sixth dissolution sequence

The fifth dissolution sequence results in the appearance of whitish clear consciousness. This subtle consciousness consists of clear emptiness filled with pure light. It is free from coarser conceptualization, but is still somewhat dualizing. The sixth dissolution sequence means that this dualization, plus the winds that carry it, dissolve. It is followed by clearer and more subtle conditions appearing - this time filled with a reddish, sun-like light.

7. The seventh dissolution sequence

During the seventh dissolution sequence, the reddish, elevated mental state dissolves, which first results in an emptiness that is filled with thick radiating darkness, which in turn usually ends with one sliding into unconsciousness for a shorter or longer period.

8. The eighth dissolution sequence

The sequence of radiating black emptiness is the last mental phase in the dying process. One is now close to the final attainment. This sequence is also usually called the near attainment's radiating darkness. When the dissolution of this black consciousness is completed, a very clear and naturally colorless emptiness consciousness begins to dawn. It has the natural purity of the dawn sky on an autumn day. This dawn is completely freed from the three causes of impurities: moonlight, sunlight, and darkness. This is equivalent to directly dwelling in conscious union between the clear emptiness and stabilized meditative equilibrium, which we described above under the section The conditions of the meditative life. This can be called death's thoroughly empty and clear light consciousness, because it is freed from all conceptualizations, all appearances of white, red, and black light plus all winds that serve as carriers of these conditions. Only now has the last moment of the real, actual dying taken place. Most people are said to remain about three days in emptiness's clear light consciousness. If, however, the physical organs have been very affected by e.g. illness, this may mean that these people will hardly be even one day in this consciousness. On the other hand, tantric meditators can extend these three days with a smaller or larger number of extra days. Let us hereby move on to and linger for a while at this moment, the conditions of enlightenment.

THE CONDITIONS OF ENLIGHTENMENT

If one examines the dissolution of the black consciousness more carefully, one can discern that the final moment in the process of dying consists of the essence of the white fatherly and red motherly components merging in the heart, whereby the final energy entity dissolves. This energy droplet constitutes the most basic seed of human existence and becoming. It is created through glimpses of karmic wind and dualizing reflection. The impure portions of the white and red components will now, in the form of pus, lymph, and blood, be secreted from the nose and the genital organs. This is the external sign that the human has now died. Up until now, some form of mental activity and energy movement has taken place in the body. This also means that until now, one should leave the body alone, and not mentally disturb the dying person. When the last subtle movement glimpses of dualizing reflection have dissolved, the essence of the actual, unfabricated enlightenment manifests.

This unfabricated basic condition cannot be fully described or understood with the help of conventional language and thinking. Nevertheless, it has of course been assigned many indicative designations, depending among other things on tradition. Among these designations, one can find the following:

• the ultimate truth

• the absolute reality

• the final transcendent knowledge

• recognition within the sphere of non-thought

• consciousness's reunification with its essence

• the spontaneous presence of light

• the fundamental clear emptiness

• the original natural purity

• the all-ground

• the clear light of bliss-emptiness, etc...

  
  

One could also supplement with the following designations:

• clear, pure, and basic reality-consciousness where there is no longer anything at all to address, as well as the umbrella designation for all indications:

• essential significance-consciousness.

Let us then integrate aspects of our understanding thus far through a distinction that both allows us to see the dimensions of dying from a more inclusive level and facilitates the understanding of the relationship between enlightenment and the dimensions of dying. Perhaps this is, by the way, one of our most fundamental ontological distinctions.

The intended differentiation is: indicative and actual enlightenment. By indicative enlightenment is meant here the various dissolution sequences that culminate in dying. These sequences first indicate that the various sensory states dissolve (through the appearance of mirages, smoke, sparks, etc.), thereafter that conceptualization dissolves (through moon-like white light), thereafter that mental consciousness itself dissolves (with the sun-like red-orange light), and finally that the ignorance aspect of the fundamental reality dissolves and is eliminated (through the clarification and dispersion of the black light). When all these indications have dissolved, the actual enlightenment will necessarily manifest. This naturally pure and omnipresent dharma-consciousness permeates everything from the beginning and will forever exist hereafter. It can therefore also be regarded as the basic prerequisite for everything. The most fundamental ailment in the universe is an ignorant unawareness together with unrecognizing dualization. It is this ailment that fundamentally darkens and prevents the realization of significance-aware recognition of dharmakaya, which always exists everywhere both within and beyond all of us. It is this darkness of ignorance that for a brief moment dissolves in the final phase of dying, which enables the stripped, clear, immaculate, reality-consciousness to be revealed. This emergence of the ultimate authenticity in the moment of dying happens for all of us, even for animals. Animals and ignorant humans, however, are unable to recognize the significance of these processes. They unconsciously yield to their darkening habit patterns... and thus to repetitions. The consequence of this is easy to understand: a beginning of rebirth has again been set in motion. This cyclical wandering is generally repeated by humans and other beings again and again and again, without knowing it.

For meditators and dharma practitioners who are well familiar with the conditions and processes described above, however, liberation will become easy when death occurs. Liberation at this point is sometimes likened to a mother-and-child union. 'Mother' here refers to the original, actual, enlightenment, and 'child' refers to the results in one's psyche that dharma practice and meditations have led to. This result droplet mixes with the ocean like old friends who recognize each other with joy when they meet again and embrace each other.

It is interesting to note in this context that people with so-called near-death experiences who have grown up with other cultural frames of reference, such as Christianity, may here experience a loving father figure consisting of light that the dying person tends to want to be embraced by. This points to the fact that the dynamic aspects - for example motherly, fatherly, divine, youthful, autumnal, etc. - that the clear light can reveal to the dying person in this context, are to be regarded as a karmic and cultural question. The significant aspect here is the recognizing merging with the clear light consciousness. If people could be made to realize just this, immeasurably beneficial consequences for humanity would follow... and among many other things, many religious and ideological disputes could be transformed into pleasantly piquant exchanges of digestion-promoting spices between recognition-smiling beings. Then the academic world's wonderings about what this dark matter and energy might be would also get their answers. If wisdom consciousness is not included in the dying person's conditions, then e.g., a God-oriented union may result in a divine world at some level, which one can intermediately stay in for a short while or which one can be reborn into and stay in for a longer season. A union with a fully enlightened Buddha consciousness, however, results in or into wisdom-spiritual conditions... which we will return to in the next section.

All different Buddhist systems agree that this basic reality-awareness, i.e., Dharmakaya, a Buddha's essence, constitutes the basic prerequisite for our enlightening liberation. A Buddha's innermost nature thus always naturally permeates every living being. Despite the fact that it eternally, both beyond-space-time and within-space-time, is like this, most of us earth dwellers and others have not recognized it yet. To the extent that one has knowledge of this, one has nevertheless generally, due to e.g., confusion and attachments to various impermanences, not yet stabilized the easy accessibility of a naturally pure and enlightened being.

And with that we arrive at the next section: The conditions of intermediate being and becoming.

THE CONDITIONS OF

THE INTERMEDIATE BEING AND BECOMING

As mentioned in the previous section, the actual enlightenment manifests when the last subtle glimpse of movement of karmic wind and dualization dissolves in the final phase of the radiating dark light. The conditions of enlightenment can then last for different lengths of time, depending primarily on meditative experience and recognition ability. Towards the end of this stay in enlightenment, whether it has lasted a second or a very long time, a movement glimpse occurs again. The nature of the movement glimpse of karmic wind and dualization that concluded the dying process is the same as the movement glimpse that now initiates the exit from the clear emptiness's light consciousness.

The intermediate period begins precisely when the entry into the actual enlightenment is initiated and when the consciousness and the wind that supports this form of being leaves the old body. The consciousness can pass out through any of the openings in the body, preferably through the fontanelle opening at the top of the head. The intermediate being ends when one is reborn into, for example, the life that we humans now find ourselves in.

The intermediate development is initially the reversal of the dying process, like playing a video film backwards. The sequence of the eight phases is thus as follows, if one notices the inner signs:

1.    The clear light,

2.    the radiating darkness of near-achievement,

3.    the expanding red light,

4.    the appearance of the white light,

5.    small flames of light,

6.    fireflies and sparks,

7.    smoke, and finally

8.    the mirages.

Beings in the intermediate existence have a formation that is supported by wind energy in the various transformation phases. This is a very subtle mental form that has approximately the appearance that it will have in the next incarnation. This mental formation is sometimes called an odor-eater, because it nourishes itself on odors. In essential respects, it subtly has all sensory faculties and all limbs. It moves around and can hurry about and search for a place of birth. It cannot be destroyed or hindered by anything except birthplaces such as a woman's womb. It can move anywhere with the speed of thought.

The length of the intermediate period can vary, depending on many factors, including which rebirth dimension the intermediate being is karmically destined for. For some, it might take a few days. If one does not find conditions to initiate the rebirth process within a certain period, one can undergo a small dying process again, with first the eight dying phases and then these in reverse order flickering past, after which one is again born into the intermediate being. Such a cycle can take place several times. In this case, it can involve deeply ingrained and unconscious repetition patterns with attachment chords that operate in the intermediate being... as when, for example, so-called spirits or ghosts visit houses they have lived in before. When TV programs allow mediums to get to know and help spiritual beings further on their journey, it concerns intermediate beings with precisely these conditions.

Intermediate beings can be seen by other intermediate beings who are at the same level. Those who reside at a more inclusive and subtle level can also see others at a less conscious level... but the reverse relationship does not apply. Clairvoyant meditators can also see intermediate beings.

The direction of movement of intermediate beings can generally, somewhat simplified, be divided into three main categories: upwards, forwards, or downwards. If one is to be reborn in higher states among gods with form, one proceeds upwards. If one is to be reborn as a human, the direction of movement will be straight ahead, and if one is to be reborn in lower states, for example among animals, the direction of movement will be downwards, head first. If, however, one is reborn in one of the formless dimensions, no intermediate being will be actualized. Instead, a formless meditative stabilization is realized from within the actual enlightenment at the time of death.

For an intermediate being to be reborn through a woman's womb, a number of conditions need to be fulfilled, including that a prospective mother is not ill and not in a menstrual period, that for example just then some form of mutual attraction and sexual union takes place between the prospective mother and father, that the father's sperm cells do not have any defects, etc. When the intermediate being in a dream-like way sees its potential future parents having intercourse, and if one is to be reborn as a man, for example, a spontaneous desire for the woman and perhaps a tendency to envy the male partner may be awakened. The intermediate being will, precisely through, for example, its prevailing feelings, cause conditions for entry into the prospective mother's womb... provided, of course, that she is fertilized. This entry into the womb can happen in different ways. One is that the consciousness of the intermediate being is first projected in through the man's mouth or possible opening on top of his head, after which it continues down and out through the man's phallus and then into the mother's vagina. Another way is that the intermediate consciousness is projected directly into the mother's womb. The intermediate consciousness establishes contact with the new life by blending with the seminal fluid, the mother's blood, and the egg that is fertilized. If no fertilization of the egg occurs, the intermediate being may have to go through a small dying and rebirth process again and search for new rebirth conditions.

Thereafter, the basic chord of the fetus develops in many ways under the influence of the mother's conditions, her consciousness, and the nature of the attitude she has towards her pregnancy. We humans have to become much more aware of how significant pregnancy conditions are and that we are potentially dealing with a complex human being already from the time of fertilization. These fetal conditions will then in some way influence us more or less for the rest of our lives. Many categorizations and diagnoses of us humans largely have their explanatory origin dynamics here, without us earthlings, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, and doctors being aware of it. We often only see symptom patterns.

About the biological development of fetal life, we today have much more detailed mappings than what is described in Tantric Buddhist literature, not least thanks to the epoch-making electron microscopic photographs of this development that Lennart Nilsson and others initiated.

CONCLUDING WORDS

Melvin Morse expresses towards the end of his book about near-death experiences (9:193): "What if the transformative properties of the near-death experience could become available to all those who seek the power to change their lives for the better." The crucial thing here is to understand that the realization of this wish is to be found in the depth of our psyche and that the way there is through enlightenment-oriented meditation. When Morse and other researchers of near-death experiences make this connection sometime in the future, much explanatory light can be spread over the groping research here on our earth.

If we want to contribute to more conscious rebirths and more meaningful development in the future, this will hardly be possible at a deeper level without a dharma- and karma-conscious holistic orientation in our lives. Herein lies the breeding ground for the motivation to develop a naturally responsible significance awaresness.

LITERATURE

Literature on the dimensions of ordinary and beneficial life:

(1) Geshe Rabten, The Essential Nectar, Wisdom Publ., London, 1984 (ch. 1-8).

Literature on the dimensions of meditative life:

(2) Sakya Pandita, Illuminations, Lotsawa, 1988.

(1) Ch. 9, 12, 13

(3) Leah Zahler (ed), Meditative States in Tibetan Buddhism, Wisdom Publ., London, 1983.

Literature on the conditions of dying:

(4) Tsele Natsok Rangdröl, The Mirror of Mindfulness. The Cycle of the Four Bardos, Shambala, Boston, 1989 (ch. 2).

(5) Lati Rinpochay & Jeffrey Hopkins, Death, Intermediate State and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism, Snow Lion Publ., New York, 1979, (ch. 1).

Literature on the dimensions of enlightenment:

(4) Ch. 3.

(6) Tulku Thondup Rinpoche, Buddha Mind, Snow Lion Publ., New York, 1989, (ch. 12, 13).

(2) Ch. 8.

Literature on the intermediate being and on rebirth:

(4) Ch. 4.

(5) Ch. 2, 3.

(7) Fremantle F. & Chögyam Trungpa, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Shambala, London, 1987.

(8) Evans-Wentz, W. E., The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1957. Swedish translation: Evans-Wentz, W. E., Den tibetanska dödsboken, Berghs förlag, Stockholm, 1988.

Literature on near-death experiences:

(9) Morse, M., Närmare ljuset, Om barns nära-dödenupplevelser, Natur och Kultur, Stockholm, 1991.

Literature on criticism of the doctrine of rebirth:

(10) Willson, M., Rebirth and the Western Buddhist, Wisdom Publ., London, 1987.

Literature on comparison between Western and Eastern perspectives:

(11) Jung, C. G., Psychological Commentary. Foreword to The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation, ed. by Evans-Wentz, W. Y., Oxford Univ. Press, London, 1954, 1969.

Literature on Jung's psychology:

(12) Stevens, A., Jung. Hans liv och verk, Gedins förlag, Malmö, 1991.

Literature on principles and procedures regarding tantric meditation:

(13) Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Cultivating a Daily Meditation, Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, Dharamsala, 1991.