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2.6  The tantric ridiculous thoughts on releasing souls from suffering

The people of Tibetan Secret Schools always declare: “Tibetan Secret Schools are the most experienced in releasing souls and the releasing method is supreme; its releasing effect is the best and superior to that of the exoteric Buddhism.” But from the viewpoint of the way-seed wisdom, the tantric method of releasing souls from suffering is total nonsense; this method cannot benefit the dead and may only make them feel funny due to the absurdity.

For example, as stated in The Six Yogas of Naropa:

 

When one is dying, the four elements (earth, water, fire and wind) of one’s body will dissolve in sequence. The state generated during the dissolution will make one confused, panic and extremely painful so that one will become indecisive and follow one’s karma for reincarnation. To avoid that, one should frequently practice the eight methods of facing death; through that practice, one will be able to stay calm and conscious when dying. There are various states of dissolution during death: When the earth dissolves into the water, one will feel like oneself crushed to death under a high mountain; when the water dissolves into the fire, one will feel like oneself drowned by the large waves; when the fire dissolves into the wind, one will feel like oneself burned to death by the big fire in the forest; when the wind dissolves into the consciousness, one will feel like oneself blown up to the high clouds by the raging wind and falling to death immediately.

 

In addition, when the earth dissolves into the water, one can mentally see the bright sun in the cloudless sky; when the water dissolves into the fire, one can mentally see the smoke; when the fire dissolves into the wind, one can mentally see the fluorescent light; when the wind dissolves into the consciousness, one can mentally see a very bright lamp on a windless plain. When those scenes show up, one knows one will die. At that time, one should think “My death being impermanent and all dharma being empty,” and visualize a seed-syllable appearing in the air and become the deity immediately. If the deity embraces a female consort, one should visualize her too. When one dies with visualizing one’s body, speech and mind being the same as those of the deity, one will become buddha immediately.

Most of the dying people will become afraid of cold or heat prior to death. Those who are afraid of cold will fall into the fire hell, while those who are afraid of heat will fall into the ice hell. To avoid those conditions, the practitioners must disregard the cold or heat during death, concentrate on reciting the mantra, and visualize that they become the deities they practice daily. Then they must visualize the lights emitting from their hearts to invite the wisdom buddha (the couple-body buddha) at their clean places (their visualized lower places) to come and merge with them. Once such visualization is achieved, they become buddhas right away. This is the method of “becoming buddha from the bardo body during the intermediate existence.” To avoid their panic or fear at the moment of death that leads to hell, the practitioners should diligently practice all mentioned conditions, including the dissolution of the four elements, the visualization of “my death being impermanent and all dharma being empty,” the union of them and their deities, the feelings of cold or heat, etc. ^{[62: 179-180]}

The above statements do not conform to The Agama Sutra, in which Buddha Sakyamuni said that, during dying, the virtuous persons will feel like in a wonderful dream and seeing many celestial ladies around; they will then be happy, desirous, and thus be reborn in the heaven of desire-realm; for those persons who hold the five precepts, they will first lose consciousness as if in the deepest sleep, and then regain consciousness through the bardo bodies to recognize their deaths; for those who slander the buddha, dharma, or sangha (monks or nuns, whether ordinary or supreme), or those who replace the orthodox Buddhism with the heresy (such as those of Tibetan Secret Schools, who replace the orthodox Buddhism with Couple-Practice Tantra from the heretical Tantrism and declare that it is the ultimate Buddhism), they will first suffer many kinds of pains and become completely unconscious due to extreme pains prior to death; then, after recovering from unconsciousness, they are suffering in hell already; thus, for the persons who commit such a grave sin, they will be completely unconscious during dying; they will not go through the intermediate existence, nor will they experience the pains of the dissolution of earth, water, fire, wind, emptiness and consciousness during dying.”

As for the bodhisattvas who attain samadhi and realize prajna, they will neither face the evil states nor feel any pain during dying, if they did not slander their teachers, damage the dharma or have their past evil karma becoming mature. Only the persons who have done some evil karma that are not serious enough for hell will experience several kinds of pains during dying, including the dissolution of the four elements. Those are the karmic retributions they doomed to receive.

Therefore, the dying process taught by Tibetan Secret Schools is nothing but ridiculous fantasy and inconsistent with the Buddha’s teachings. If a practitioner tries to guide the deceased to go through the dying process told by Tibetan Secret Schools or written in The Lotus Born’s book, The Tibetan Death, the spirit of the deceased will get into endless waiting for the absurd fantasy to come true. Sooner or later the spirit will get impatient and will start to laugh at the practitioner who still keeps on saying in nonsense. The spirit may even be disturbed and start to blame the practitioner, which will be harmful to both the practitioner and the deceased.

In addition, the content of The Tibetan Death is completely from The Lotus Born’s own absurd fantasy. It does not conform to the All-seed-wisdom and even contradicts with the Buddha’s teachings. For example, in his fictitious teachings, The Lotus Born says that during the intermediate existence, there will be one different buddha each day to guide the deceased, regardless of their virtues and deeds when alive. That is against what Buddha said: “The deceased can not be reborn in Amitabha’s pure-land without sufficient virtues.” Buddha also said that one should concentrate on buddha-remembrance without the slightest distraction so as to can be reborn in the pure-land (Ultimate-bliss Pure-land). Thus, an excellent buddha- remembrance practice is the requirement for the rebirth in the pure-land. Buddhas do not voluntarily and un-selectively serve every deceased by offering the guide everyday.

Furthermore, the daily appeared “buddhas” mentioned in The Tibetan Death are the “reward-body buddhas” of Tibetan Secret Schools. Each of those so-called “buddhas” always hugs a woman and enjoys the lustful happiness. But all the true buddhas have purified their bodies, speeches and minds, and are absolutely free from even the slightest habits. Therefore, the true buddhas will never appear as the pose of couple-practice and never enjoy the lust either. Obviously, those are the ghosts or deities in disguise.

The Tibetan Death is in direct contradiction to All-seed- wisdom. In that book, The Lotus Born says that at the moment of thorough death, the deceased should regard their conscious clear-lights as the emptiness natures of the dharma-bodies, or so-called the permanent, pure consciousnesses. If they can recognize those clear-lights, they have validated the dharma-body buddhas and hence become ultimate buddhas. As stated in The Tibetan Death:

 

In order to help the deceased to validate the true reality, the reciting person should say: “Listen, honorable one! You are experiencing the pure clear-light of the true reality. You should recognize it. Honorable one! The nature of your wisdom is always empty, colorless, and formless. It is the true reality, pure consciousness and nature of Buddha Samantabhadra-raja’s dharma realm (referring to the tantric Samantabhadra-raja buddha who enjoys the happiness of copulation through the couple-practice). The emptiness nature is not void. It is the wisdom nature with brightness, happiness, attentiveness, and without obstruction. The emptiness nature and pure consciousness fit seamlessly to form the state of perfect enlightened dharma-body—the boundless light, Buddha Amitabha—that has neither birth nor death. Regard your own wisdom nature as the emptiness nature of the buddha, and treat it as your own pure consciousness. This will then make you stay peacefully in the holy state of the great enlightenment.”

Repeating the above statements clearly for three to seven times will allow the deceased to remember the realization methods taught by their gurus, to treat the pure consciousnesses as the basic clear-lights, to make themselves, who have recognized their true natures, merge with the dharma-bodies permanently, and thus to ensure their liberation. ^{[139: 46-47]}

By the above thoughts and compositions, Tibetan Secret Schools claim that they have the best research and experience on death, and that they are the most capable of helping people become buddhas after death. But those claims are actually imaginary and ridiculous. Preaching to the deceased with those kinds of sayings will cause them to commit the sins of severe deception, which will make them fall to hell with endless suffering. It is really a pity that the innocent persons will fall to hell just because of the absurd teachings of Tibetan Secret Schools.

Why does it become so? It is because the manifested clear-light of wisdom is actually the awareness mind (the sixth consciousness), not the true reality (the eighth consciousness). Thus, they will commit the sin of severe deception by regarding the awareness mind as the true reality and declaring themselves as buddhas. Originally, the deceased can be reborn in a good place due to their wholesome karma, but they may fall to hell instead because of such wrong teachings. That is just like one stupidly following wrong medical advices and making a healthy child suffer or even die due to an unnecessary surgery. Thus, all practitioners, including the tantric ones, should seriously and wisely judge the teachings of Tibetan Secret Schools in order not to repeat the same tragedy.

Furthermore, the tantric practitioners always think that the deceased can become buddhas during the intermediate existence if they can combine the mother and son clear-lights:

When the wind dissolves into the consciousness, the deceased will see firm but tiny fire, as stated earlier. When the consciousness dissolves into the central-channel of the body, the deceased will first see a white light followed by a red light, and then experience very deep darkness. Shortly, the darkness disappears and a bloody red light flashes away. After that, a bright white-yellow light follows. At that time, the life has gone out of the body. There are two components of the white- yellow light. One is the mother light, and the other is the son light. The mother light is attained through daily practice, while the son light is from the buddha. Upon dying, one can become buddha only if one combines the mother and son lights. During daily practice, there is only the mother light; one should visualize the son light combined with one’s mother light. The visualized son light is the light of emptiness rather than the real son light from the buddha. If well practiced before death, one can easily and accurately combine one’s mother light with the son light during death. When one is dying, one’s Chi will first enter the central-channel of one’s body; then, the bright-drop will rise to the middle of one’s heart; the knot in the heart is thus opened to allow the bright-drop to continue its way to go out through the crown aperture in one’s head. Once the bright-drop exits from the crown aperture, the person dies together with a scene of white-yellow light. At that time, the deceased should think: “My death is impermanent and all dharma is empty.” they also should visualize their own bodies becoming deities and merging with the buddha lights. This is the method of becoming buddha by the bardo body. One should engage in such visualization during daily practice. The rise and outburst of the bright-drop must follow the rise of Chi from the secret place and the abdomen heat. ^{[62: 180-181]}

Tibetan Secret Schools falsely think that people’s death is due to the leaving of the bright mother light, rather than the Alaya consciousness as told by Buddha Sakyamuni. They think the body is held by the mind of clear-light, i.e., the sixth consciousness and visualized bright-drop. This heretical statement is totally different from Buddha Sakyamuni’s teachings. Yet ironically, they cherish that method as the genuine Buddhist practice, endeavor to cultivate it and keep it in secret to prevent the verification and challenge from the outsiders. Therefore, for the past thousand years, most of the tantric disciples did not know what they had diligently practiced was wrong and that they had ignorantly committed the sins of severe deception and slandering the true Buddhist dharma. It is so regrettable that they devoted themselves to pursuing the ultimate truth and ended up with such grave sins.

 

2.7  Visualization being able to achieve the dual operations of bliss and emptiness

In Tibetan Secret Schools, there is a visualization practice, which belongs to the most secret oral pithy instructions, can let the practitioners achieve the dual operations of bliss and emptiness. Those who use it to attain that state are entitled buddhas too:

 

The way of practice is to melt the bodhi mind (bright-drop), descend it from the top of head to the secret place (the sexual organ) and then ascend it from the secret place back to the top of the head again. The four joyful minds will arise during the motion of the bright-drop in each direction. The practice of guiding the bodhi mind up and down is very important. As for the abdomen heat, it does not matter since that will be attained as long as one fulfills the practice of guiding the bodhi mind. A venerable sir once said: “it is not necessary to use the abdomen heat to melt the bodhi mind (the visualized bright-drop) or to guide the bodhi mind to the central-channel. All that one has to do is using the visualization to melt the bodhi mind and to guide it up and down.” Although the wonderful method of melting the bodhi mind without the abdomen heat has not been stated in tantras, I will instruct you right now. You should cherish it, and never show it to the public because it is the most secret oral pithy instructions.

 

How to perform this practice? At first, one must visualize one’s root guru above the head as deity. (Original note: One who practices the dakini of Naropa can visualize the deity as a male because the buddha is genderless; thus, either a male or female is acceptable.) Then, one must visualize offering the most beautiful dakini to the guru and the guru hugging the dakini with delight. After that, the red and the white nectars (from the visualized guru’s and dakini’s genitals) descend and enter one’s head. At that time the bodhi mind (bright-drop) of the great-happiness chakra on the head melts. Then, the melted mind descends to the throat and melts the bodhi mind (bright-drop) of the reward chakra. A joyful mind will arise during melting one bodhi mind at each chakra, and totally four joyful minds will arise during each downward or upward melting sequence of the four bodhi minds. That is exactly a secret method to melt the bodhi mind through visualization rather than the practice of inner abdomen heat. It will be the best practice if a male practitioner can control the bright-drop entering the secret chakra without ejaculation. But it is not easy. Another safer practice is to avoid letting the bright-drop enter the secret charka by guiding it upward right after reaching the place beneath the navel. Thus, the bright-drop can never enter the tip of the secret place (the male glans) so that he will not ejaculate. In case of ejaculating, he will get a serious illness, or even be killed. You should be cautious about practicing it. … Therefore, the male practitioner should avoid having sex with a woman (practicing Couple-Practice Tantra) before he can practice that method perfectly. You must know this reason and should not try the physical exercise before you really attain the achievement successfully. Otherwise, that will cause your death. ^{[62: 192]}

 

It also states:

Dwelling in the way mainly relies on knowing emptiness. Once one knows it, one will correspond to the way gradually. The clear-lights are also important because the root of practice is to emit the light during death. The clear-lights can be classified into the mother and son lights. The mother light comes from the inside of one’s body, while the son light comes from the outside through cultivation. Both lights of mother and son merge perfectly and will become one. That is the unsurpassed wondrous way and the practitioners must know it. ^{[62: 292]}

If a male practitioner fulfills the visualization of descending the bright-drop to the tip of his pestle and perceives the great bliss without ejaculating, during enjoying the great bliss, he can bring forth another notion to observe that the touch of bliss is formless and with the pure nature; thus, both the touch and feeling of bliss are pure and without any form, namely “emptiness-nature.” Then, he further observes that the perceptive mind enjoying the great bliss is also formless and with “emptiness-nature.”  Because such great bliss is generated from the perceptive mind, the bliss and emptiness goes together, and thus called “the union of bliss and emptiness.” In this way, if one can always stay in the great sexual bliss and maintain the operations of the bliss and those two kinds of “emptiness-nature” continuously, it is called fulfilling the great-seal of Highest-yoga: “the union and dual operations of both bliss and emptiness.” And it is also regarded as accomplishing the ultimate Buddha way. However, even after “attaining Buddhahood” through those tantric practices, the practitioners are still unable to realize their eighth consciousnesses and misconceive the visualized bright-drops as the eighth consciousnesses. They never see the way of Great-vehicle and get the prajna wisdom.

Such tantric practices of attaining Buddhahood do not relate to the Buddha dharma and not have any value at all. Those are all the heretical illusions which were introduced, from the tantric weird practices, into Buddhism. However, Tibetan Secret Schools secretly cherish such dharma and flaunt it to the exoteric Buddhists by proclaiming their superiority. In Couple-Practice Tantra, through either the visualization or physical consort exercise, they regard experiencing the formless nature of the lustful touch all-over the body as the gist of verifying the “emptiness-nature,” “all dharma being empty” and “complete omniscience” (omniscience on the bliss all-over the body). Those totally belong to the heretical Tantrism. All the Buddha followers must be aware of this fact and avoid being misled.

Moreover, when I composed this book, the visualization of the dual operations of bliss and emptiness was mentioned. Out of curiosity, as well as responding to some tantric practitioners’ accusations on my criticism being entirely based on my own assumptions or deductions, I took some leisure time to practice the visualization of the dual operations of bliss and emptiness, and found that the achievement of “the dual operations of bliss and emptiness” does not require the perfection of cultivating the bright-drop and Chi-practice. Those methods are only useful for the “dull people” with inadequate skills, and to help them learn how to expand the duration of their orgasm. That is, practicing the bright-drop is not necessary for those tantric practitioners with competent skills.

Furthermore, the “emptiness-nature” verified through the dual operations of bliss and emptiness simply belongs to the conscious state and has totally nothing to do with the Buddhist true emptiness-nature. The real emptiness-nature defined in the Buddhist doctrine is the nature of the eighth consciousness, the thus-come-store. Even being intangible and invisible, the perceptive mind during the dual operations of bliss and emptiness is still the conscious mind, belonging to the existence of the three-realms since it still corresponds to the five mental functions of the particular states. Moreover, the feeling of happiness is not produced by the conscious mind; it is generated by the eighth consciousness through the healthy body, together with the perception of the conscious mind and the intention from the Manas consciousness etc. It is definitely not generated by the mind-consciousness of the perceptive mind. However, those gurus of Tibetan Secret Schools are ignorant of this common sense, and still unwisely claim that the feeling of happiness is generated from the perceptive mind. That is the reason why the tantric visualization for the dual operations of bliss and emptiness is illusory and far away from the Buddha dharma.

Besides, the gurus of Tibetan Secret Schools teach their disciples to practice the visualization on the guru, called a kind of “Guru-yoga.” However, some rotten male gurus often utilize Guru-yoga of the dual operations to order female disciples to perform such visualization everyday: “I visualize my guru as my deity appearing in vast celestial body, and he embraces a dakini in copulating posture to generate lustful joy; From their genitals, the “nectar” descends and instills into my head, and that will purify my sin and eliminate my evil karma.”

After the female practitioner can conduct the practice of visualization skillfully, the male guru orders her to visualize: “I myself become dakini, embrace my guru, make love with him and enjoy the great sexual bliss; meanwhile, my guru teaches me the reasoning of the dual operations of bliss and emptiness.” Thus, through the long-term visualization like that way, the female disciple will naturally admire and adore the male guru, so she will request her guru’s individual teaching. Later on, the male guru and female student will have an abnormal sexual relation.

As a result, the guru and student are tangled with the love feelings, and their cravings for sex are upraised. Both of them stick together with desires, and always think about the physical exercise of Couple-Practice Tantra. As time passed by, their secret affairs will be exposed someday. Once that sexual scandal explodes, the genuine Buddhism will suffer from the unexpected disaster caused by Tibetan Secret Schools, and become the scapegoat blamed by the society. The following is a quote as the evidence:

During the period of the degenerate dharma, there are many gurus who violate their precepts. They often utilize the visualization of Couple-Practice Tantra in Guru-yoga to gradually deceive their believers into sexual misconduct. Therefore, if a female disciple has a conservative attitude to her male guru, she has better visualize the “Vajradhara” instead of her guru and practice the Vajradhara Guru-yoga. That will be safer. ^{[62: 348]}

The above passage, generated from a tantric guru with the written form, has its background reason and is never the groundless writing. Those affairs happen very often at the practice-centers of Tibetan Secret Schools. But those are still unknown because they are not yet exposed. I will not be surprised at hearing the sexual scandals happened at their practice-centers. Only the people who are totally ignorant of the fact of Tibetan Secret schools will be surprised. In summary, the dual operations of bliss and emptiness are also achievable through only visualization, not necessarily through the physical exercise with a female consort.

 

2.8  The delusion of becoming buddha by merging with the buddha’s light

The tantric practitioners consistently advocate that, through the practice of visualization, one will be able to visualize the bright-drop and clear-light, merge one’s clear-light with the buddha’s light, and thus become buddha after death. They believe that is a wonder way of becoming buddha:

Within forty-nine days after death, the buddha comes to guide the deceased everyday. When the buddha comes, His light is shining in all directions. As that bright light glitters, the people who have never cultivated this practice before death will always fear and escape. Only the skillful practitioners know it is the buddha’s light and will neither fear the light nor run away. Then, they will visualize themselves as buddhas and emitting the same clear-lights, from their hearts, as the buddha’s. As soon as both of the lights are merged, they can suddenly become buddhas. This is the method for a bardo body to become buddha. ^{[62: 281]}

It also says:

When visualization has been practiced appropriately, the substitute for the bardo body, rather than the bardo body itself, will be able to become buddha after one’s death. If grasping the bardo body, one will be unable to become buddha. As for the substitute for the bardo body to become buddha, this actually means, during the intermediate existence, the bardo body visualizes the self body, changes itself into the buddha’s appearance, and then becomes buddha. ^{[62: 281]}

In fact, the visualization in that way is only one’s internal image of the sense-object. Such a method is identical with an ordinary person’s dream that results from the wandering thoughts. The tantric practitioners wrongly believe that if one can visualize the deity as buddha before death, with the same visualization, one can visualize one’s bardo body as buddha and becomes buddha after death. That is an absurd thought. Why? Based on the respective karmic retribution, each sentient being’s bardo body differs in size and superiority; it can not be changed by any visualization. No matter how large the size of visualized deity was before, the size of the bardo body after death is decided by one’s karma. It is impossible to change that size through visualization after one’s death, not to say becoming buddha. Therefore, it is absurd to make an attempt on attaining Buddhahood through visualization.

Moreover, the sense-object formed by visualization, which is only one’s internal image and not the true dharma. If the tantric practitioners are unaware of its illusive nature and insist that their visualization equals to the real one, they will be unable to convince other people and incompatible with the real world because of their irrational thinking. Thus, they may become cynical and generate many afflictions. That is not what a wise person should do.

Furthermore, the tantric visualization is illusive and based on the conditioned phenomena and existent states. If the practitioners practice it to pursue further mystery, they are likely to be haunted by those ghosts, deities, or demons. Thus, they will become absent-minded or even demented and their life-long endeavors of practice will be useless. They cannot even have a normal life; let alone learn how to practice or realize the Buddhist dharma. In the psychiatric asylums of some major hospitals in Taiwan, there are many mentally disordered patients who practiced visualization. They have lived there for several years, but still do not have the sign of recovery. Therefore, the tantric practitioners should be very cautious about the visualization practice. Also, the saying that a substitute for a bardo body can become buddha is a serious wrong claim. Further details will be illustrated in the next section, and also in Section 14.20.

The tantric saying about one’s clear-light of “the true mind” merging with the buddha’s light is a gross delusion. The Treatise on the Establishment of the Doctrine of Consciousness-Only had pervasively criticized that fault. Buddha Sakyamuni had refuted that explicitly at many places in The Great Nirvana Sutra too. However, the patriarchs of Tibetan Secret Schools never verified the way, neither did they understand Buddha Sakyamuni’s refutation, so they had that illusory thinking. The Buddhist learners should know the real fact. I will elaborate on this issue again in Section 14.20 later.