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Why Practice?
The 5 Stages:
1 - Accumulation Stage
2 - Preparation Stage
3 - Insight Stage
4 - Meditation Stage
5 - Perfection Stage
Tantra
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have studied and received teachings from many great teachers, and I've read books by many amazing & experienced Buddhist authors, but there are three teachers and three authors that stand out the most from this illustrious group.
The first is Lati Rinpoche, who taught me that you can have intense practice and good humour at the same time. Second is Khyabje Zong Rinpoche, who gave me my most important Tantric initiations and taught me the importance of kitchen-sink Buddhism and keeping it real. Lastly is my root Guru, Geshe Khenrab Tobgyal, who became known as Geshe Khenrab Gajam in Canada. He taught me about keeping humble, keeping your practice pure and always working to provide easy access to the Buddha's teaching for everyone.
In terms of inspiration for writing, I'd like to thank Glen Mullen for being the first person I knew to demonstrate that Buddhist teachings can be expressed in easy to understand, plain English without any loss of meaning. I'd like to thank Gareth Sparham for showing me, in his work with Zong Rinpoche, the magic that can happen when a great Lama and a good translator can express Dharma for Western minds. I'd also like to thank Alex Berzin as the first person I met who demonstrated enthusiasm for the search for more modern and accessible terminology for complicated Buddhist terms.
I'd also like to thank my Dharma friends and students whose inquisitive nature, challenging ideas, and warm friendship make all of this Samsaric existence worthwhile.
Finally I'd like to thank my wife Maureen. As it says in the Vajrayogini practices, she cuts off our bondage to preconceptions. I feel that she was a gift sent to me by Geshe-la and Zong Rinpoche to ensure that I always keep my practice and my explanations pure and real. She's been an absolute necessity in my own spiritual quest.
PREFACE
During the course of the last few years, I have been grateful for being able to apply the techniques and understandings that I have learned from my Buddhist studies and practice. There were other areas though, where my knowledge, understanding, and ability to use these teachings faltered. I realized that this was mostly because there are parts of what I'd learned that I had not yet made a strong connection with.
I realized that this was partly because I had not yet translated these teachings into more western and modern concepts that I could then apply to my personal situation. My understanding in certain areas was still too theoretical, worded in older terminology, and not yet practical.
Therefore, I have written this book in an attempt to set out the Buddhist teachings of the Stages of the Path (LAM RIM) in a way that would avoid the pitfalls that I had to work through when I was learning about Buddhism. I have tried to word things so that our western, linear, rationalist, nihilistic, cynical, and materialistic minds would not fall prey to assumptions that don't really exist in the Buddha's teaching.
Many of the English translation of Buddhist terms and presentations of Buddhist concepts remain from a time of minimal understanding of the Buddhist context and so I have made some attempt to address the most important of these in this work. As an example, even the translation of the Buddhist Poisons as Greed, Anger, and Ignorance would be easier to relate to and more recognizable using terms that reflect their more modern manifestations as Dissatisfaction, Frustration, and Confusion.
When my fellow Dharma students and I learned the Buddha's teaching starting back in the early 1970's, we were exposed to all of the teaching in quick succession, in a foreign language, using examples from an ancient agricultural culture, translated using terms from the European exploration of Buddhism of the late 1800's and early 1900's.
Also we were unused to following a path when it came to Spiritual matters. From our upbringing, we thought of spirituality as mostly about faith and belief and trying to force a "no good" person doing the "wrong" thing into being a "good" person doing the "right" thing. As a result, with Buddhism, we ended up with teachings, practices, and commitments that we took part in and then had to learn about after the fact, which sometimes took years to decipher and understand, let alone try to integrate into our lives.
Often, in my years as a Buddhist, I have had to regroup, find the beginning and start fresh. This made me think that, if I could present the teachings as a clear, and realistic, step by step process, using everyday words, it would not take others years and years to have a strong basic understanding and real spiritual accomplishment as it has for myself and other western Buddhists that I have known.
We do not often follow a linear path in our spiritual progress. We are usually thrust into a new perception of reality or a new reality is thrust upon us and we have to adapt and adjust our beliefs and reactions accordingly. At times like these, it is helpful to be able to rely on some techniques and approaches to what's happening that will make our transitions smoother.
I hope that everyone who reads this can have an even greater ability to use these ideas and techniques to help them cope with life's miseries and challenges. I hope it helps them become freer of their sufferings, gain mastery over their reality and make advances towards being able to help others by exposing their own BuddhaNature.
Larry Reside, July 17th, 2009
INTRODUCTION
The Five Stages on the Path to Buddhahood
and The Concept of the Five Buddha families.
Tibetan Buddhism has a teaching called the Five Paths. Sometimes people can be confused by this because they might think, "What happened to the Eightfold Path taught by the Buddha?". This is a valid question and one reason why some of the terms I will use are not the same as in other books on Buddhism. These Five Paths are actually Stages of development and are used in Tibetan Buddhism to outline a set of actual steps to Buddhahood that, if used sequentially and thoroughly, can lead to continual, progressive spiritual development. I feel the importance of this aspect of the Teaching has not been emphasized enough in the past.
As outlined in the Table of Contents, these are: The Accumulation Stage, Preparation Stage, Insight, Meditation and Perfection Stages. I intend to explain the contemplations and exercises belonging to each of these stages in an order and level of detail that hopefully would allow a reader to advance page by page through this book and, at the same time, make spiritual progress on each stage along the way.
However, as part of my discussion of the Accumulation stage, I need to try to explain and define the concepts of Karma and Reincarnation to a Western/Modern audience that has a difficult time with these concepts (me too, for a long time).
The method of explaining this that I have found Westerners can connect with the easiest is the Concept of the 5 Buddha Families found in Tibetan Buddhist Tantras such as the Tibetan Book of the Dead. By understanding the connections between our body/mind components, the elements of existence, and both the wisdom and the neuroses within our world, we can perform the magic of transforming our ordinary self into our Buddha Nature. That is why I will focus a fair part of this work on the 5 Buddha Families. I will explain them here briefly and go into more detail later on.
The Buddha said that we are composed of 5 Skandas or Collections (usually called the 5 Aggregates (What the heck is an Aggregate anyways???)) but Skanda can also be translated as heaps or piles - hence my choice of "Collections". These are our collection of Consciousnesses, our collection of Intentions, our collection of Perceptions, our collection of Feelings and our collection of Forms. These belong to the Buddha, Karma, Padma, Ratna and Vajra families of Energies which are known as the Families of the 5 Buddhas or the 5 Wisdom Families.
The Buddha Family begins with the passive energy of Awareness. The Active energy in this family is Experiencing. The Skanda associated with the Buddha Family is Consciousness and the element associated with it is the Space element. The Wisdom aspect of the Buddha Family is Complete Awareness or Wisdom, & Concentration and the neurosis associated with it is Dullness, Confusion, or Self-centredness.
The Karma Family involves the passive energy of Capacity or Control. Its Active energy is Acting or Transforming. The Skanda of the Karma family is Intentions and the element is the element of Wind. Its Wisdom aspect is Skillfulness & Enthusiasm and the neurosis associated with the Karma family is Doubt, Envy or Restlessness.
The Padma Family involves the passive energy of Appreciation. The active energy is Uniting. The Skanda involved is Perceptions and the element is Fire. It manifests in a Buddha as Curiousity, Compassion & Morality and the neurosis associated with the Padma family is Longing, Obsession, or Manipulation.
The Ratna Family has its passive expression in Balance. Its active expression is Nourishing. The Skanda involved in the Ratna family is Feelings and the element is the Earth element. This involves the Buddha quality of Equanimity & Generosity and the neurosis is Attachment, Miserliness, or Pride.
The Vajra Family has the passive energy of Clarity. The active energy is Organizing and Resolving. The Form Skanda belongs to the Vajra family and the element associated with it is the Water element. The Wisdom is the Wisdom of Intelligence & Patience and the neurosis is Anger, Pessimism, or Superiority.
These were defined in the Tantras taught by Padmasambhava in Tibet and the Tibetan Books of the Dead and related Tantric teachings are based upon them. (see diagram)
These energies and how we work with them, either skillfully or neurotically, create our world and the suffering or joy that exists within it. By learning about and understanding how these manifest in our world, we can learn to become more skillful and less neurotic. This is the goal of these teachings.
Sutrayana teachings are referred to as the gradual path to Buddhahood and Tantrayana teachings are referred to as the quick path. Though I will be writing about the Buddha's path from the Sutrayana position, I will be interpreting it using Tantrayana concepts.
I hope that this combination will provide greater insight to the path than Sutrayana or Tantrayana teachings alone. My hope is that by practicing along with this book, many realizations will be achieved while walking the sutra path with a tantric viewpoint which will increase the speed and effectiveness of our attainments once the Tantric path is actually undertaken.
I wish you all the best of luck on your spiritual journey.
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