Introduction to Tantra: The Transformation of Desire by Lama Thubten Yeshe, Philip Glass Page A

thoughts that keep diverting our attention. We try to focus on a particular object only to discover that our mind has drifted somewhere else. Our attention span is almost as short as a young child’s and we have great difficulty penetrating deeply into any one thing. As a result we find it impossible to gain true realizations. What is the cause of all this mental wandering? It is our overwhelming sense of dissatisfaction. We are continuously searching for something that will satisfy an undefined, inner longing, but this search is never successful. Even when we do find something pleasurable, the satisfaction it gives us is short-lived and soon we are on the lookout for something new. This restlessness is a characteristic of our dualistic mind and becomes all the more obvious when we sit down and try to concentrate in meditation.
     
    The bliss that arises while contemplating the clarity of our consciousness is a powerful antidote to this restlessness. It has the ability to provide a calm and deep satisfaction unmatched by ordinary pleasures. Because you feel fulfilled experiencing this bliss, your mind is not even tempted to wander elsewhere, and your concentration increases effortlessly.
     
    We have all had the experience of being so absorbed in something that we remain oblivious to things that would ordinarily distract or disturb us.
    Similarly, if we contemplate deeply and continuously enough upon the formless clarity of our own mind, it is possible to stop perceiving the forms, sounds, smells, and so forth that come to us through the doors of our senses.
    As these sensory experiences and our gross conceptual thoughts subside, the gateway to superstition closes and we become aware of an upsurge of ecstatic, blissful energy from within. This tremendous surge of bliss happens spontaneously; we do not have to fabricate it in any way. And the more we experience this deep internal state of bliss, the more profound our absorption into it will become. This opens the way for us to experience expansive, liberated, and all-encompassing states of consciousness that are presently unknown to us.
     
    RI P ENI NG OUR ENLI GH TENED P OTENTI AL
     
    The clear, pure, and blissful state of mind that we have been describing exists within each one of us right now. Yet the fact that we have this fundamentally pure nature does not mean that we are already enlightened. Until we rid ourselves of hatred, greed, jealousy, and all the other symptoms of the false ego shrouding our mind, we are certainly not enlightened. There is no such thing as a buddha with delusions. But beneath the gross levels at which these delusions function there is something more subtle, more basic to our nature.
    And it is this essential aspect of our human consciousness that has the potential of becoming fully awakened and everlastingly blissful.
     
    The question, then, is: How can we get in touch with and fulfill the enlightened potential of our essential nature? The practices of tantra are specifically designed to accomplish this extraordinary transformation as quickly as possible but, as we have already mentioned, we cannot jump into these practices unprepared. In other words, we need to ripen ourselves by means of the various preliminaries. The three principal aspects of the path that we have discussed—renunciation, bodhichitta, and emptiness—are the common preliminaries to tantra. In addition, it is important to train in what are sometimes called the uncommon preliminaries. These include such things as receiving the appropriate tantric initiation, or empowerment, and keeping the various commitments of the empowerment, purifying oneself of obstacles to successful practice, accumulating a store of positive energy and, as will be discussed in the next chapter, gaining inspiration through the profound practice of guru yoga.
     

    Vajradhara

9
    Inspira tion a nd the Guru
     
    TH E NEED FOR I NSP I RATI ON
     
    BEFORE WE CAN BOARD THE LIGHTNING VEHICLE of tantra, we