Meido wrote: ↑Fri Jun 26, 2020 9:46 pm
Of course Zen - like Japanese mikkyo (Shingon, Tendai, Shugen) - lacks the same understanding of channels and chakras that developed in later vajrayana.
To put it succinctly, the reason we have four empowerments in HYT is that we have what are called the four mandalas: the nāḍīs, nāḍī syllables, bindu, and vāyu.
The dependent origination of the human body begins with the ālayavijñāna mounted upon what is known as the "great prāṇavāyu" merging with the reproductive material of a male and a female. The mind is not differentiable from the vāyu (aka winds or airs) in any meaningful way. Thus, the newly formed zygote is shaped through the internal movement of vāyu/mind and its movement forms nāḍis in the body, which are in the form of syllables, filled with bindus, that are propelled by vāyu over the process of human gestation.
The shape of our body, our perception of the world, our thoughts, afflictive disposition and so on is largely governed by this anatomy. So, to recap: based on conception there is the mandala of vāyu; based on the reproductive material of the parents, there is the mandala of bindu. Based on the formation of knots (grantha) in the naḍīs, there are syllables. And finally, based on the full development of the human body there is the external structure of the nāḍī system, which one should understand as the arteries, blood vessels, and nervous system in the human body, These nāḍīs contain the other three elements, the syllables, bindus, and vāyus. The four empowerments are the purifier of the basis purification, these four mandalas. If we fail to attain buddhahood during the empowerment, then we have the method of practicing sadhanas with the creation and completion stage. The creation stage has two parts: the outer creation stage and the inner creation stage. The outer creation stage purifies afflictions of our bardo experiences, conceptions, gestations and deaths from beginningless lifetime, and all the activities of daily life, eating, sleeping, wearing clothes, sex, etc. The inner creation acts as a purifier for the four mandalas described above. However, creation stage is not sufficient for buddhahood, though it is sufficient for awakening on the impure bhumis. For buddhahood, one needs to practice the completion stage practices with its prāṇāyāma practices, sexual yogas [which frankly are a lot of work and not really that erotic], etc., because the creation stage is largely a conceptual samadhi framework, unifying appearance and emptiness, while the completion stage is what takes one beyond mind with nonconceptual samadhi of clarity and emptiness, bliss and emptiness, and great bliss and emptiness, also known as the connate. The completion stage is how one enters the state called sahajajñāna or mahāmudra.
Cakras in the body are places where arteries, nerves, and blood vessels all work together to produce various major functions in the body: the brain for example is understood to govern sense cognition, hence it is called the mahasukha cakra, the cakra of great bliss. The throat cakra governs speech, swallowing, and so on, hence it is called the sambogacakra. The heart cakra governs consciousness and circulation, hence it is called the dharmacakra; the navel cakra governs metabolism and the development of the body, hence it is called the nirmanacakra, and there is another mahāsukha cakra in the genital region that governs reproduction.
The crown cakra represents the nirmankāya and is the basis for its realization; the throat cakra represents the sambhogakāya and is the basis for its realization. The heart cakra represents the dharmak̄ya and governs it realization. The navel cakra represents the svabhavakāya, and governs its realization. The four empowerments condition these four cakras and plant the seed of the four kāyas in them.
The knots formed in the nạ̄dīs because of our karma and affliction govern how we perceive the world. For example, there is a nāḍī in the body, which, if one's vāyu gets "stuck" there, will cause one to experience the world as a preta experiences the world. The idea here is that all of our experience of the six lokas is actually predicated on our bodies and how it is formed. Therefore, the way to prevent rebirth in the six lokas is to purify all causes for rebirth in the six lokas through understanding the dependent origination of the body.
All of our beginningless past-life samsaric experience is actually stored in our present physical form, which is the expression of traces of karma and affliction. Therefore, the Buddha has taught us that the fastest way to eliminate all karma and affliction as well as is traces is to use the body as our method. Not only that, but through the use of physical bliss, and various types of prāṇāyāma, one can rapidly induce profound samadhis that in sūtric contexts take not only years to develop but lifetimes, because the process of advancing on the paths and stages over many lifetimes corresponds to a bodhisattva taking birth in more and more refined bodies until such bodhisattvas cease taking birth in upper half of the desire realm at all after the eighth bhumiu is realized. This process of constant rebirth is bypassed in Vajrayāna, because in Vajrayāna one works directly with the dependent origination of the body inwardly, not outwardly. It is for this reason that Vajrayāna asserts its superior ability to lead a superior practitioner to full buddhahood, characterized as freedom and omniscience, within a single lifetime. Rather than predicating its practice on renunciation; Vajrayāna predicates its approach on transformation; therefore, Vajrayāna practitioners do not need to abandon using meat, alcohol, sexual activity, etc., as they must in common Mahayāna. These activities are all transformed in the context of the sadhana practice. The process of attaining buddhahood is based on the increasingly subtle states of samadhi which are cultivated in each of the completion stage practices, which are connected with the process of straightening the knots of the nāḍīs, then purifying the bindus, and finally, working with the vāyu mandala in the end. The samadhi associated with these three stages of completion practice are increasingly more subtle. While a consort, whether physical or visualized, is not necessary for the first of these three phases, in many Vajrayāna systems it is argued that one is needed for the final two phases of completion stage practice if one is to attain buddhahood in this life. Also the consort has to be the same level of practitioner as oneself. For example, an unawakened bodhisattva cannot have an awakened consort, and vice versa. Some Vajrayānas systems however claim that such a consort is not needed at all. So there are some arguments about this issue.
Thus, the whole point of this kind of HYT practice, to put it plainly, is to reverse dependent origination of the body/mind complex in toto through practices that are directly based on the anatomy of the human body, understood through how it develops in the process of gestation.
