Tantric Trainings

A Difficult Point Concerning Samaya

by Khenpo Yönten Gönpo

The great, vajra-like body, speech and mind
Are originally and spontaneously perfect, unconditioned.
If you realize this truth, the nature that is equality,
Then thoughts, ideas and perceptions are utterly pure.
All the vows that exist are contained within this,
And all remain perfectly pure.

This is the secret of the enlightened body, speech and mind
Of all the buddhas;
It is the samaya beyond transgression or impairment.
In reference to the mental capacities of beings to be trained,
This is known by the term "beyond maintenance".

The enlightened activity of all the buddhas
Is the great action that is non-action.
Therefore, those who fail to realize this definitive meaning,
And who give credence to ordinary thoughts and ideas
Will impair their samaya and fall into infernal realms.

In view of this, the profound texts,
The great secret tantras, say:
"If you fail to understand these works,
However much you might guard, impairments will occur.
And it will be exceedingly difficult to escape
The experiences of infernal realms, so terrifying,
And the sufferings of saṃsāra, so intolerable."

To put the same point the opposite way:
To know that all phenomena
Arise without truly arising
Is also the samaya, the activity —
I wonder: is it not genuinely so?

The Original Samaya

This is the true meaning of samaya. Samaya is not just vows. Samaya has much more to do with relationship. To understand what it is the vows point at I want you to understand a bit of the history. Very early when tantra was in it’s early beginning, 700-900 CE. There was a great period of time in Tibet back then of great creativity because the government was not involved in saying what was right and wrong about religion. Tibet was not a religious government at that time so creativity came forth. At that time the original samaya was both an oath and the Buddha’s consciousness. You formed the relationship through your teacher with the Buddha’s consciousness of all the Buddhas of the four times. To maintain samaya is only to maintain that relationship. In the beginning it was symbolized by a simple mudra. Which was your hands grasped together symbolizing a moon disc, with your two pointer fingers together pointing up symbolizing a vajra on top. Students would make this simple mudra of body, speech, and mind, touching their head, speech, and heart, and so enter into and solidify that relationship. 

“Within the sky expanse of Samantabhadra the bodhicitta pearl is emitted. At the center of Samantabhadri’s expanse, the stirring of Samantabhadra’s body, there comes the supreme samaya of yoga. May I receive it with the thought of being pleased. To the offering of this samaya, worship, interactive, interrelating, the unsurpassable samaya substance, the supreme ambrosia, may the Bhagavan Buddha Heruka receive it and be thoroughly pleased and bestow the magical siddhis.”

This is way back before it got codified into a whole set of things. To understand where it comes from it is simply a matter of maintaining the relationship with all Buddhas of the four times through your teacher. And as such, includes the relationships to all sentient beings – the entire webwork of bodhichitta throughout the universe. 

From there it went into some categories. 

1. The five to recognize. 

2. The five not to be rejected. 

3. The five to be undertaken. 

4. The five to accept. 

5. The five to be cultivated. 

In some systems it’s still seen this way. But since that time it has been codified into a series of codes.

The five to recognize are the five-fold concepts of the aggregates and the elements. Recognizing that the aggregates – your experiences – and how you experience through your sensations and the elements that make up the human body are themselves a mandala of the forms of the five wisdoms.

The five not to be rejected are the five poisons of emotions. Not to reject or abandon feeling, being, aliveness. Not to grasp for or avoid.  

The five to be undertaken is to be willing to commit every breakage of the earlier samayas for the sake of bodhichitta. That means you need to be willing to take life, to take what is not given, to engage in sexual misconduct, to lie, and to utter harsh words, if these are necessary for the sake of all life in the universe. 

So perhaps you wonder, when would it be necessary to kill? Bacteria are alive. Would you not give an antibiotic to someone suffering from bacterial pneumonia as a physician? You are killing. You are breaking the vinaya. Would you take what is not given? When you see a two-year-old with a cigarette lighter or a pack of matches, do you not take it from them? They don’t want to give it to you. You will get a lot of yelling from the child, but you take it anyway. Would you engage in sexual misconduct? That is rare to be necessary, but sometimes it could be. You don’t try to pull this shit until you are truly sure what is necessary and what isn’t. It’s not undertaken lightly. It is only undertaken when one has the realizations to know. Such as a physician kills a lot of bacteria, but they have the training of a physician to know when antibiotics are appropriate or when they will simply be killing the gut fauna needlessly. And a doctor who doesn’t know the difference between viral and bacterial infection, one has not business prescribing antibiotics that kill. 

The five to accept are the red and white bodhichitta, excrement, urine, and he marrow of human bones. Understand this was for brahmans. This came out of the brahman culture. What this is about is not about eating shit or not. What this is about is whether you have “big deals” in your mind about what is clean and unclean. You are supposed to get over it. Tantra is designed to break your mindstream patterns of adhesions – your energy channels. They are belief systems taught to you from childhood such as “I’m not worth anything,” “I am not good at math,” “being angry is wrong, I must never show my feelings.” What are your patterns? 

Brahmans were given from childhood incredible patterns of clean and dirty. Certain people were dirty, untouchable. Even if their shadow fell upon you, you needed to undertake ritual purification for weeks. Menstruating women were sent out to a special hut. They could not cook in the kitchen or attend temple. 

These five substances for you, are probably not a very big deal. We have fecal transplants, even pill form to help cure certain diseases. And menstruation isn’t that big a deal. Unless you have problems with it. The idea here is to go past concepts. This is stuff that will drive a brahman past concepts. What is going to drive you past concepts? Reflect on this.

The five to be cultivated are the five samayas to recognize by means of growing familiar with them. These are the methods of bodhichitta, the methods of practice, the way of doing it, the way of recognizing shunyata, of maintaining bodhichitta. 

The Root Samayas

The Outer Three as relates to the body:

To avoid stealing, sexual misconduct, and taking life unless those circumstances are such that it is necessary for the sake of all beings. And you better be sure because you are going to get the karma for it regardless. You need to be willing to take on the negative karma of doing them for the sake of all beings. You still perform the actions, and you still get the results. 

The Inner Three:

To avoid abusing your parents, and vajra family. Which includes your own body, the dharma, other sentient beings. This includes asceticism, excess fasting, being hard on yourself, and casting bad spells on yourself such as walking around going “I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot.” every time you do something foolish. 

The Secret Three:

To avoid striking or fighting with a vajra relative, criticizing the ornaments or way the choose to present themselves, making inappropriate sexual advances to others, stepping on or over your lama’s shadow, acting carelessly with your body and speech in the lama’s presence. 

The Fourteen Root Downfalls

These root samayas have matured since their origins so that nowadays they have become as follows.

1. Don't be treating the vajra master with contempt.

2. Don't be transgressing the words of the buddhas.

3. Don't be angry and cause dissension with your vajra brothers and sisters.

4. Don't abandon love for any beings.

5. Don't abandon bodhichitta.

6. Don't belittle the teachings of one’s own or other’s philosophical beliefs

7. Don't disclose the secret teachings to beings who are not fully mature.

8. Don't abuse one’s own aggregates.

9. Don't doubt the pure nature of phenomena.

10. Don't maintain loving relations with evildoers.

11. Don't be conceptualizing phenomena.

12. Don't cause discouragement to those who have faith.

13. Don't be failing to rely on the appropriate samaya substances.

14. Don't disparage women.

1: Don't be treating the vajra master with contempt.

Anyone who has given you a wang/empowerment, anyone who you have gone to and felt allegiance to as a teacher, do not hold them in contempt. This doesn’t mean you have to do everything they tell you. This doesn’t mean you have to agree with how they perceive things. You can say to yourself “I do not understand where they are coming from. I think this may not be the right teacher for me.” and wander off quite happily. That is not breaking samaya. But if you wander off going “Do you know what he did? He did this and that and the other.” and you are feeling disparagement and verbalizing disparagement; you break the relationship rather than simply allowing it to naturally cool by wandering off. This is super important, perhaps the most important of all the precepts. 

2: Don't be transgressing the words of the buddhas.

There are a lot of words of the buddhas. If you take them all literally, they transgress each other. Therefore in order to do this you must look where they are pointing. And they are pointing at the singularity which is the union of shunyata and bodhichitta – Dharmakaya and Nirmanakaya as Sambhogakaya. Sambhogakaya where all the gods are born. Keep your eye on what is pointed at. Just as two fingers point at the same object but not in the same direction – sometimes in completely opposite directions; look to where they come together. 

3: Don't be angry and cause dissension with your vajra brothers and sisters.

This means no bullying the idiots in the sangha. From time to time it will occur to you that someone is an idiot. From time to time it will occur to them that you are an idiot. Those are thoughts. We think all sorts of weird stuff. Don’t sit on them and twirl. Don’t fight with your vajra brothers and sisters. Don’t make groups. Don’t make cliques. Don’t make in groups and out groups. Don’t make dissension in your sangha. If you don’t get along with a particular person – it happens – leave them be. If you don’t get along with them you don’t have to go around them. But don’t bother them about it. And they will return to you the same kindness, we hope.

4: Don't abandon love for any being.

All sentient beings, no matter how confused they may be in a particular moment – and if you look among your governments you will see a great deal of confused fools running about with their head up their butts – they can’t help it. Hate the action. Hate the result that they are going to have to deal with. But don’t hate the sentient being. Don’t abandon love for any sentient being. No matter how foolish their behavior is. When your toddler get’s ahold of your lipstick and draws all over the white wall with it, you do not abandon love for your toddler. You might be pretty pissed off they did that. You probably yell a bit. So do understand that it is important to not abandon love for any single being. You can really hate what they are doing. Imagine the worst political person you can think of. Realize how they scrabble for power in terror. They live in an asura realm, not even a precious human rebirth. And as all asuras they will fall into the occasional hells where they are born armed and armed others attack you and you fight back and in stress, fear, and anger you fall lower and lower into the hells. Someday, you are going to have to go dig the poor fool out of there. Because once they were your baby, your puppy, or kitten. And it’s hard to watch your child who was a miser in a past life suffer the repercussions in this life. You wanna fix it. But no matter how much you throw at it, you cannot. Do not abandon love. In the long body in the fullness of time, that current scrabble of political terrified action who’s harming others to keep from sinking into fear – in the fullness of time you will give birth to them. In the fullness of time they will give birth to you. Don’t hate. 

This doesn’t mean suffer fools gladly. This doesn’t mean have no limits. If you have a toddler you must set limits. Because they can’t. It’s not a lack of setting limits. You can still love them while you set limits. It’s a kindness to do so with clarity. To be able to say the word “no” without anger or fear.

5: Don't abandon bodhichitta.

Bodhichitta must at least be an aspiration such as “I want to have bodhichitta” at the very least. Do not abandon that. You may not always feel bodhichitta. You may not always be willing to feed yourself to the mama tiger, but you wish you could. That is what this means. 

6: Don't belittle the teachings of one’s own or other’s philosophical beliefs.

This means you don’t put down people’s beliefs to them. You let them believe their own beliefs no matter how weird it may be to you. That can be difficult sometimes. For instance, conspiracy theories, or medical theories that pop up. And yet since people believe these things, you let them do so. This doesn’t mean you cannot answer questions about your own belief. But you don’t poo poo on their beliefs. 

7: Don't disclose the secret teachings to beings who are not fully mature.

You cannot always tell who is ready for what. Do you best by simply not disclosing secret teaching to those who have not already received them. You can refer them to teachers saying such exists. But don’t be spreading dharma rumors or contribute to that online. Don’t argue with those who do either. 

8: Don't abuse one’s own aggregates.

Some people take this to great extremes such as not cutting fingernails or hair on their head. Or an interpretation to not drink any alcohol. The interpretation being presented here is much more of a “don’t be mindless of your recreation and do it to the point of getting yourself harmed.” Understand your limits with alcohol and stay within them. If you cannot, then don’t drink. Keep the health of your hair by trimming your split ends and protect its health. Treat your aggregates – your body – with kindness and common sense. Now if your teacher holds more detailed interpretations here, then you go with what your teacher says. Some teachers believe you should never cut your hair for example. This is a good one to look at what it’s pointing at, and do not get caught in the endless interpretations.

9: Don't doubt the pure nature of phenomena. 

This means all the stuff of the world are to be recognized as the mandala of your yidam. Your aggregates are to be recognized as the form of your yidam and treat it as such. Do not be conceptualizing phenomena the best you can.

10: Don't maintain loving relations with evildoers.

This is about recognizing that you are influenced by your environment. One of the standard interpretations of this is not to spend more than three weeks living with a non-tantric person. The exception to this is children or parents. Also, to not live more than three days in a house of someone who strongly disapproves of tantra. These are not the interpretations being taught here though. But instead a strong advice to be careful who you hang out with. Do not spend a lot of time with people who strongly dislike tantra in your living situation. It will affect you. The exception is your children and parents. They may not like tantra due to their own religion. And kids are always rebelling what their parents are into. Don’t debate with them but love them anyways. It will be challenging to practice sadhanas in a disapproving household. So pay attention to the people you surround yourself with and how they feel about your practice. They don’t have to practice, but they have to not look negatively at your practice. Try your best to live with people with the same moral systems in this life. 

11: Don't be conceptualizing phenomena.

This means not to believe in your belief systems. Not to believe things are the way you think they are. To believe things are the way you see them is the height of ego hubris. Because everyone sees things differently. Never trust a thought or a fart.

12: Don't cause discouragement to those who have faith.

Teaching anyone is a risk. A risk that you may say too much and shake their faith. Remember the original mudra with hands together. Hands together is the relationship. This is about relationships. The moon disc with a vajra on it is bodhichitta the life-force of the universe. Interactive relationships is what this is all about. Don’t break people’s faith, even if that faith is in another religion. People need their faith. 

13: Don't fail to rely on the appropriate samaya substances.

These substances are the five meats and the five nectars. The five meats are dog, cow, elephant, human, and horse. Why these five? They were forbidden to brahmans. Remember that Buddhism was a radical rebellion against the caste system of the brahmans. See it in this context. 

The five nectars are menstrual blood, bone marrow, feces, urine, and semen. These are symbols. Their purpose is to break your pattern. You are not supposed to literally eat them. Their purpose is to break your patten of good & bad, clean & unclean, like & dislike. Often we may symbolize this on our altar as black tea and yogurt as the symbols of menstrual blood and semen. Menstrual blood is the symbol of shunyata. Semen is the symbol of bodhichitta. They come together in the Sambhogakaya – where all the archetypes are born. This is the life-force of the universe which is bodhichitta as emptiness, and emptiness as bodhichitta. This is what this precept is pointing to.

14: Don't disparage women.

You are not allowed to be misogynous. Women are not a lower rebirth. 

Twenty-Five Branch Samayas

1. The five to be recognized. 

2. The five to be accomplished. 

3. The five to be accepted.

4. The five signs of warmth that are not to be rejected. 

5. The five to be practiced. 

The five to be recognized and recognize their natures. Who’s nature? The five aggregates are all about how you perceive the world. The five elements are about how form dances. The five faculties have to do with sense organs. The five consciousnesses are part of the five skandhas teachings. Recognize and understand these. 

The five to be accomplished are the five buddha families – vajra, ratna, padma, karma, and buddha. What this means are the five wisdoms – mirror-like wisdom, wish-fulfilling jewel, the essence of real bodhichitta, all-accomplishing wisdom, and the infinite openness of awareness.

The five substances to be accepted at the time of accomplishment are menstrual blood, bone marrow, feces, urine, and semen. The meaning and symbolism has already been explained.

The five signs of warmth to not be rejected are the five poisons of emotions – fear & anger, miserliness & want, dissatisfaction & “never enough,” lust. These transform into the five wisdoms. These are the fuel that lead to the five to be accomplished. Do not throw them away. 

The five to be practiced but not until the signs are manifest. They are the three negative actions of the body – killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct – and lying and gossip. There is a time for everything, even these three actions of the body. The meaning and symbolism has already been explained. You don’t do them just to do them, but you open up to allow that there maybe circumstances and contexts to let go of our held beliefs of what is right and wrong. Context is everything, and there are no rules. Everything depends on circumstances.  Be careful!