Mind Seeing Mind

Mahamudra and the Geluk Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism

Roger R. Jackson

• Publisher: Wisdom Publications
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781614295778
• eBook ISBN: 9781614296010
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Buddhism

A definitive study of one of the most important practices in Tibetan Buddhism, with translations of a number of its key texts. Mahamudra, the "great seal, " refers to the ultimate nature of mind and reality, to a meditative practice for realizing that ultimate reality, and to the final fruition of buddhahood. It is especially prominent in the Kagyü tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, so it sometimes comes as a surprise that mahamudra has played an important role in the Geluk school, where it is part of a special transmission received in a vision by the tradition's founder, Tsongkhapa. Mahamudra is a significant component of Geluk ritual and meditative life, widely studied and taught by contemporary masters such as the Dalai Lama.
Roger Jackson's Mind Seeing Mind offers us both a definitive scholarly study of the history, texts, and doctrines of Geluk mahamudra and masterful translations of its seminal texts. It provides a skillful survey of the Indian sources of the teaching, illuminates the place of mahamudra among Tibetan Buddhist schools, and details the history and major textual sources of Geluk mahamudra. Jackson also addresses critical questions, such as the relation between Geluk and Kagyü mahamudra, and places mahamudra in the context of contemporary religious studies. The translation portion of Mind Seeing Mind includes ten texts on mahamudra history, ritual, and practice. Among these are the First Panchen Lama's root verses and autocommentary on mahamudra meditation, his ritual masterpiece Offering to the Guru, and a selection of his songs of spiritual experience.
Mind Seeing Mind adds considerably to our understanding of Tibetan Buddhist spirituality and shows how mahamudra came to be woven throughout the fabric of the Geluk tradition.

PART 1

THE BACKGROUND TO GELUK MAHĀMUDRĀ

1. Mahāmudrā in India: Hindus and Buddhists, Sūtras and Tantras

OVER THE CENTURIES, the Sanskrit term mudrā — usually derived from the verbal root mud, meaning “to enjoy”¹⁰ — came to convey a wide range of meanings, but the most basic seem to involve sealing, stamping, or signifying. Drawing on such sources as the Mahābhārata, kāvya literature, the Purāṇas, and the Rājataraṃgiṇī (roughly dateable to the early centuries of the common era), Monier-Williams defines it as:

a seal or any instrument used for sealing or stamping, a seal-ring, signet-ring . . . , any ring . . . ; type for printing or instrument for lithographing . . . ; the stamp or impression made by a seal &c; any stamp or print or mark or impression; . . . an image, sign, badge, token . . . ; authorization, a pass, passport . . . ; shutting, closing . . . ; a lock, stopper, bung . . . ; a mystery.¹¹

Although a derivative meaning, the best-known referent of mudrā — perhaps stretching back as far as the Vedic period — is as a symbolic gesture or hand position displayed in ritual, dramatic, and artistic settings. In a dramatic context, such as that of dance, it expresses a character’s intentions or actions. In an artistic medium such as sculpture or painting, it identifies a human or divine figure and particular actions or attitudes associated with that figure. In a religious setting, the mudrā effects, confirms, or “seals” various aspects of yogic and/or ritual performance.¹² The term mudrā is used widely — and in a variety of different senses — in Indic religious traditions, including many forms of Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as Jainism. Some mudrās, considered especially important or “great,” are referred to as mahāmudrā.

Seals and Great Seals in Hindu Traditions

In Hindu traditions, mudrā carries all of the meanings just mentioned and more. It is a particularly significant term in the Hindu tantric culture that flourished from the mid-first millennium CE onward, frequently intersecting with similar Buddhist and Jain cultures. For our purposes here, I would define tantra as “an esoteric tradition of thought and practice, rooted in South Asia, that requires empowerment by a qualified master and has as its aim the exercise of power over divinities to the point where one identifies one’s own body, speech, and mind with one or more of those divinities and, in the end, transforms onself into one of those divinities.” Visualizations, maṇḍalas or yantras, mudrās, mantras, and the manipulation of both external forces and energies found within a “subtle body” are part of most (but not all) tantric traditions, while sexual, scatological, morbid, and/or wrathful imagery, as well as transgressive behavior, occurs in some (but not all) tantric traditions. The presence of one or more of the above-listed elements in a tradition does not assure that it is “tantric” (for those elements are the common currency of many South Asian traditions), nor do all of the elements have to be present to assure that a tradition is tantric. Indeed, the efforts of traditional and modern scholars notwithstanding, there is no “essential” defining characteristic of tantra, merely a set of interlocking features like those listed above. In Hindu traditions generally regarded as tantric, four major usages of the term mudrā can be identified.

The first is its best known sense: as one of a multitude of hand gestures (or, secondarily, body positions), demonstrated by deities and employed in ritual by humans to effect certain ends. A clear account of the tantric sense of this is provided by Douglas Brooks:

By showing the mudrā, the Tantric creates a physical manifestation and visual display of divine form; not only do mudrās give “shape” to the divine in a ritual context, they also provide a conceptual link to the qualities or attributes of divinity that are made part of the Tantric’s personality. As the Tantric adept shows the mudrā in the course of contemplative worship (upāsana), he or she acquires the power associated with that particular aspect of divinity. The adept is said to achieve the level of realization with which the mudrā is associated. The mudrā literally “seals” the relationship between the adept and the deity invoked in the form of the mudrā.¹³

The second tantric usage of mudrā is as a type of fermented grain, cereal, or kidney bean employed in tantric rituals as one of the “five m’s” (pañcamakāra) spurned by brahmans and used especially by tāntrikas of the “heroic” (vīra) type: liquor (madya), fish (matsya), meat (māṃsa), grain, cereal, or beans (mudrā), and copulation (maithuna). The Mahānirvāṇa Tantra specifies that this mudrā is of three kinds: superior, middling, and inferior: “The excellent and pleasing kind is that made from Shāli rice, white as a moon beam, or from barley or wheat, and which has been fried in clarified butter. The middling variety is made from fried paddy. Other kinds of fried grain are inferior.”¹⁴ In some sources, this type of mudrā is considered originally or primarily to have been fermented, hence to have intoxicating qualities;¹⁵ in others, it consists of any savory treat.

The third tantric meaning of mudrā, found especially in Śākta systems that developed in Bengal and elsewhere, is as a synonym for śakti, in the specific sense of “the consort of a male adept, or the female counterpart of a male divinity.”¹⁶

A fourth Hindu tantric usage of mudrā is as the clear, blissful awakened state of consciousness — that of Śiva — attained by the adept of Kashmir Śaivism, a tradition that arose around the same time as some of the later Buddhist tantric systems. Thus, the Śiva Sūtra (2:5) states, “When the knowledge connately inherent in one’s own nature arises, [that is] Śiva’s state — [the gesture of] the one who wanders in the sky of consciousness.”¹⁷ The commentator, Bhāskara, explains:

Pure Knowledge is said to be the light of one’s own nature (svāloka) which dawns when [the yogī] emerges from the higher stages of contemplation . . . . [At the same time] it is the uncreated and connate (sahaja) power . . . , inherent in one’s own nature. As it is such, the vitality of Mudrā expands within it. It is Śiva’s state, called [the gesture of] “the one who wanders in the Sky of Consciousness” because it is risen . . . in the sky of Śiva and because [it is the power of awareness] which moves . . . in the expanse . . . of the firmament of one’s own consciousness. It is the dawn of realisation [in which the yogī perceives] his identity with [Śiva], the object of [his] meditation. And so, [this gesture] that possesses the contemplative absorption . . . which penetrates into one’s own nature, is Śiva’s state.¹⁸

The addition to the term mudrā of the adjectival prefix mahā, or “great” (or a synonym), is relatively rare in Hindu contexts, but a number of instances, and several different usages, can be found. The most common sense of mahāmudrā, it would seem, is as a particular body position (āsana), especially important in the yoga traditions of Śākta tantrism. Mahāmudrā is described by Ajit Mookherjee as an āsana “in which the practitioner sits with the left heel pressed against the perineum (yoni-place) and the right leg stretched out, while holding the right foot with both hands.”¹⁹ It is one of a number of śakticālanā (energy-moving) mudrās²⁰ that “are combined with postures, breath-techniques and mantras to awaken Kuṇḍalinī.”²¹ According to Arthur Avalon, once the position has been assumed,

Jālaṃdhara-Bandha²² is then done. When Kuṇḍalinī is awakened, the Prāṇa [energy] enters the Suṣumnā [central channel], and Iḍā and Piṅgala [the left and right channels], now that Prāṇa has left them, become lifeless. Expiration should be done slowly, and the Mudrā should be practiced an equal number of times on the left and right sides of the body. This Mudrā, like other Haṭha-yoga Mudrās, is said to ward off death and disease.²³

Swami Muktananda adds that, through mahāmudrā,

all the nadis are activated and physical inertia dispelled. It aids the retention of semen. The body becomes calm and glowing, the digestive fire gets stronger, the senses become easier to control, and the process of aging is slowed down. When practiced constantly, it eradicates diseases su...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Publisher’s Acknowledgment
• Contents
• Preface
• Permissions
• Technical Note
• Introduction
• Part 1. The Background to Geluk Mahāmudrā
• Part 2. Early Geluk Mahāmudrā
• Part 3. Later Geluk Mahāmudrā
• Part 4. Perspectives on Geluk Mahāmudrā
• Part 5. Translations
• Appendix A: The Geluk Mahāmudrā Uncommon Proximate Lineage
• Appendix B: The Geluk Mahāmudrā Uncommon Distant Lineage
• Appendix C: Keutsang Jamyang Mönlam’s Outline of Highway of the Conquerors
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author
• Copyright