This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Chaplaincy Speaker Series: "Exploring Vajrayana-Informed Chaplaincy" with Lama Justin von Bujdoss. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Chaplaincy Speaker Series: Exploring Vajrayana-Informed Chaplaincy - Lama Justin von Bujdoss

The following talk was given by Lama Justin von Bujdoss at The Sati Center in Redwood City, CA on July 06, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Thank you, Jim, and everybody here. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm coming to you from Massachusetts, where I'm in the process of setting up a retreat center. I have a PowerPoint presentation to share, so I'll pull up the slides in a little bit.

What I'd like to share with everybody here are some of the critical nuances that I think the Vajrayana¹ brings to chaplaincy, which, for better or worse—probably for worse—tend to be underrepresented within the context of CPE² and Buddhist chaplaincy more generally. This is for a host of reasons, some of which are centered around the tendency for a lot of Vajrayana sanghas and religious-based organizations to keep to themselves. They can be a little too traditional in their thinking and not want to engage in many of the forward-thinking, integrative approaches that you find, especially within the context of Zen and Buddhist chaplaincy, but also other Buddhist traditions as well.

Chaplaincy Speaker Series: Exploring Vajrayana-Informed Chaplaincy

We're going to be looking at what I like to call Tantric Buddhist spiritual formation and engaged chaplaincy, exploring Vajrayana-informed chaplaincy in particular. As I mentioned, much work has been done to engage the way that spiritual formation impacts ministry work through chaplaincy broadly speaking. In Buddhist chaplaincy, much of the conversation has been advanced through various Zen-based lineages. But the question becomes: what of Vajrayana, or Tantric Buddhism? How do the unique expressions of this rich and dynamic Buddhist tradition inform chaplaincy and caregiving?

Here we have this image from the Nyingma³ tradition. There are four major traditions you find in Vajrayana Buddhism: the Nyingma tradition, which is the earliest, and then the Kagyu, the Sakya, and the Gelug. This image here is of two Buddhas: Kuntu Zangpo⁴, who is the Blue Buddha, and his consort Kuntu Zangmo, who is the White Buddha. Here they're represented engaged in sexual union. The sexual union represents this complete settling into natural, aware being. The Vajrayana tradition is very visual, and there's a tremendous amount of art that I'm sure everybody here is relatively familiar with.

The Basis of Primordial Purity

The basis of Vajrayana Buddhism is what I am describing here as a basis of fundamental primordial purity. There are two passages here from two different tantras. One of these states: "Oil is always naturally present in mustard seeds and sesame seeds; likewise, Buddha nature and its respective luminosity manifest in every sentient being who takes physical form." And from the Self-Manifestation of Awareness Tantra: "Authentic Buddha mind is present in the continuum of every sentient being as dimensions of awakening and pristine wisdoms."

Both of these statements, and there are countless others, demonstrate the point of orientation we can have from the perspective of the chaplain. In particular, it is that all beings, because of their fundamental Buddha nature, or Tathāgatagarbha⁵, have this essence of primordial purity, or spacious awareness, or natural liberation at their core. It has been my perspective within the context of chaplaincy to regard this as true of all the people I work with and to try to create the supportive causes and conditions for people to be able to recognize this within themselves.

Here's this image of Machig Labdrön⁶. She was a yogini who lived in 11th-century Tibet and is the founder or creator of the practice of Chöd⁷, which is this offering of visualizing your body being cut into pieces and offering it to all these different kinds of demons, which I'll go into. The essence of the practice is rooted essentially in Prajñāpāramitā⁸ literature and this fundamental understanding that the self is inherently illusory. The work of a practitioner, or in this particular case, a chaplain, or somebody who is at the end of life or experiencing illness, or somebody who might be incarcerated, is generally struggling with hope and fear, anxiety, and kleshas⁹—these emotional clusters, these emotional habits and patterns. The practice of Chöd is this technique of freeing ourselves from these by countering the difficult emotions that arise.

The Four Reliances

This is common in a few different aspects of the Buddhist tradition, but these Four Reliances aid in training, meaning-making, and the establishment of a tantric Buddhist ground of spiritual formation rooted in direct experience, which we could say is an authentic embodiment of the tradition. These Four Reliances are:

1. Rely on the Dharma, not on the individual.
2. Rely on the meaning, not on the words.
3. Rely on the certain meaning, not the apparent meaning.
4. Rely on primordial wisdom, not on consciousness.

In a way, you could say that this is the laying of the ground of a tantric hermeneutics, a way of interpreting and experiencing everything that we encounter. For example, "rely on the Dharma, not the individual" is a great way of touching in with people who might, for example, be Catholic and have a tremendous amount of fear of their local clergy. This isn't necessarily because of anything the clergy have done, but often they end up becoming these symbolic references that can lead people towards feelings of guilt and shame, a sense that they've done something wrong, or a very static relationship to ethics. This is a great example: to rely on the spirit of the faith tradition, the spirit of the Catholic ethos.

Similarly, "do not rely on the words, but rely on the meaning." This gives people the therapeutic power to interpret, to unpack and explore the real meaning, not necessarily the direct literal translation. "Do not rely on the apparent meaning, rely on the certain meaning"—a meaning that causes certainty, an experiential meaning. For example, in the Zen tradition, "thou shalt not kill" is addressed in a way I love. We could say you shouldn't kill, but killing can be so many things: interrupting people, not being completely present, is killing the opportunity of what it means to be engaged. It's about getting into a very experiential essence of what is being experienced.

"Do not rely on consciousness, rely on primordial wisdom." This seeks to remove what we might say are the biases of self-clinging and self-cherishing based on the way we experience things through the different sense consciousnesses. We're trying to move beyond our patterning. In one way, you could say we're trying to be even more than we have been perhaps wired to be.

Unique Spiritual Modalities

We're touching into other modalities for training. Particularly powerful and unique spiritual modalities that we find in Vajrayana include the practice of Yidam¹⁰, Dakini Yoga¹¹, Chöd (which we'll get into in a moment even deeper), and Mahāmudrā¹². Mahāmudrā is one form of open awareness practice, an open awareness sitting. This is a fractalized image that I made of one particular, very famous and prominent yidam, Vajravarāhī¹³, a semi-wrathful female Buddha.

With respect to yidam practice, Judith Simmer-Brown, a scholar at Naropa University¹⁴, summarizes that a yidam is a personal meditation deity that functions as a potent ritual symbol, simultaneously representing the mind of the guru and lineage of enlightened teachers, and the enlightened mind of the tantric practitioner. Recognizing the inseparability of these two is the ground of tantric practice. The term yidam is a contraction of the Tibetan words yid-kyi-dam-tshig. Yid refers to mind, and damtshig refers to samaya¹⁵, or commitment. In other words, the state of being indestructibly bonded with the inherently pure, liberated nature of mind.

The practice of deity yoga, or yidam practice, takes the form of visualizing oneself as a particular Buddha, perhaps reciting the mantra of that particular Buddha, having a sense that your body has transformed into the very body of that Buddha, and the location of where you happen to be as the mandala¹⁶ of that particular Buddha. Let's say somebody is in a surgical ICU in the initial recovery stages of a rather intensive surgery. If one is a practitioner of yidam practice, this allows them to transform the nature of the experience in that moment, which can include a whole host of very normal emotions: fear, anxiety, tentativeness about whether the surgical process was effective, and somatic experiences around pain.

I used to cover a head and neck surgical unit, and oftentimes people would have very complicated cancers removed from the brain, the skull, or ocular cancers. The amazing thing is that the cancer could be removed, but the difficult thing is then understanding how relatively deformed a person's appearance might be in comparison to the way they used to look. Yidam practice is a very powerful way of being able to transform a lot of the intense emotion that may arise in a clinical setting like this. One is orienting towards experiencing their own being as a particular Buddha. The location, a surgical ICU—a place that is clinical, cold, and not necessarily the most comforting—can be transformed into the abode of whatever Buddha or deity one is visualizing oneself as. The sounds in the room become the sounds of the mantra; one's own breath becomes the breath of the deity.

The Five Dakini Samayas

Deity practices, or yidam practices, have different samayas, different commitments that one is supposed to uphold as a practitioner of a particular Buddha lineage. This is an excerpt of the samaya vows related to the Cakrasaṃvara Tantra's five dākinīs. Each of the samayas is connected to different dākinīs, different female spiritual beings.

• The Buddha Dākinī samaya is, with devotion, to venerate the guru on the top of one's head and to meditate in loving-kindness towards sentient beings. Within the context of Vajrayana, the guru fulfills a very important role because they serve as your personal Buddha; that relationship becomes quite sacred.
• The Vajra Dākinī samaya is to enjoy what's called the "five meats and the five nectars," which symbolically represents the five sense organs (eyes, nose, tongue, ears, skin) and the five skandhas¹⁷. One is to engage in the direct experience of phenomena and also to meditate in the samadhi of complete non-thought. This is pointing out how to experience non-duality through all sense consciousnesses and sense organs.
• The Padma Dākinī samaya is to enjoy the mudra and meditate on bliss, perform fire offerings, and sing and dance. These are different ways of performing bhakti¹⁸, or devotion-related spiritual practices.
• The Karma Dākinī samaya is: whatever arises in the consciousness, do not suppress it; act directly. Within the context of trying to liberate our mind in Vajrayana, we try to make use of everything. The Vajrayana view is very "green" in the sense that we are recycling every single kind of experience, physical sensation, thought, and occurrence.
• The Ratna Dākinī samaya is to offer great feasts and tormas (ritual cakes), abandon attachment, and roam in the wilderness. This is an exhortation around being active and, as we'll see, going to places that might be scary and trying to train within this.

Other excerpts include: "Without anguish or calculation, with forceful insight, trample on hesitation. Exercise desire abruptly, cut attachments. Through yogic discipline, bring whatever is encountered to the path." This is great for hospital chaplains in particular. The speediness and stress of responding to emergency rooms, psychiatric units, or critical emergencies anywhere—all of it is brought to the path. Finally, "Always roam in charnel grounds¹⁹ and perform the yogic discipline of insight." The charnel ground image is very central to Vajrayana. This is about going to places where the remembrance of death and our own impermanence is always in our face. This brings benefit to us as practitioners. A good chaplain is somebody who they themselves have had to wander through this kind of wilderness as well.

The Practice of Chöd

Here is an image of the refuge tree for Machig Labdrön's lineage. She was inspired by the Indian yogi Padampa Sangye²⁰, who came to Tibet, and a particular Vajrayana tantric Buddhist lineage came directly from him (the Father Tantra lineage). On the other side is Vajravarāhī (the Mother Tantra lineage), with her spiritual entourage of dākinīs and Dharma protectors.

The practice of Chöd presents an even more bold and daring ethos. There's this very well-known quote from Machig Labdrön: "Confess your inner faults. Approach what you find repulsive. Help those you think you cannot help. Anything that you're attached to, give that. Go to the places that scare you."

As a chaplain, I worked for five and a half years on Rikers Island for the New York City Department of Correction, including through the COVID pandemic. I saw and experienced a tremendous amount of violence and spiritual pain. The staff death rate increased by 500 to 700% during COVID. I am presently the chaplain for New York City's Potter's Field, or public cemetery. This is where all people who pass away who are not identified or do not have loved ones to pay for their burials are brought. I've blessed over 5,000 bodies in that work. Anybody who's done work in hospice as well can connect to this.

Approach what you find repulsive—that which is difficult, unnerving, scary, or uncomfortable. Help those you think you cannot help—this is about getting past our own discomfort and blind spots. Anything that you're attached to, give that—those moments when we might be with a patient who reminds us of a loved one, and their passing causes us to experience a tremendous amount of difficult emotion, which is very natural. Giving that up, making an offering of it to all Buddhas and bodhisattvas, and feeling this pain with awareness is a way of transforming it to connect more deeply with others.

Within the context of Chöd, there's this practice of making offerings to these four different kinds of maras²¹, or demons.

1. The Material Mara is related to outer objects of perception. This can be associated with compounded form and is subject to our perception. The ultimate material mara is attachment to our own body.
2. The Immaterial Mara is the relationship to inner disturbances, sometimes perceived as invisible external forces. This is also called the mara of afflictive emotion, our kleshas.
3. The Mara of Exaltation is the excitement and attachment to positive experiences that arise in practice, for example: "I've experienced increased insight, I've experienced increased compassion." This can lead to us being puffed up, egotistical, and stuck.
4. The Mara of Inflation is attachment to an existent self.

In the practice of Chöd, we really seek to delve into the way these maras show up for us on a daily basis and in our practice. I now have two students, one training to be a CPE educator and the other a hospice chaplain, both of whom have made the contemplation of these four maras the backbone of their chaplaincy practice.

The practice of Chöd really means "to cut." In a subtle way, the practice of Shamatha-Vipassanā²² forms this type of cutting, helping to sever the three poisons: ignorance, aversion, and attachment. As Machig Labdrön's biography states: "To sever the root of mind itself... to sever the five toxic emotions... to sever extreme views, disturbed meditation, and hopes and fears about results. In activity, to sever all inflation—this is the definition of severance or Chöd." There's this direct work to surgically parse out and cut away all of these different things that keep us stuck, in pain, and experiencing disease and disharmony.

Mahāmudrā: The Six Nails of Tilopa

The practice of Mahāmudrā is an open awareness meditation. This instruction comes from the mahāsiddha Tilopa²³, an Indian saint from the 9th-10th century. He was a cow-herd, most likely of water buffalo. This instruction is called "Tilopa's Six Nails" or "Six Points," and it's a very important practice on how to orient the mind into the experience of open awareness.

1. Don't recall: Let go of what has passed.
2. Don't imagine: Let go of what may come.
3. Don't think: Let go of what is happening now.
4. Don't examine: Don't try to figure anything out.
5. Don't control: Don't try to make anything happen.
6. Rest: Relax right now, and rest.

I've been practicing this instruction for 30 years now, and I find with every year that goes by, it becomes more profound. I've also used this in supporting people in a whole host of settings who are experiencing different kinds of spiritual pain, anxiety, fear, anger, and difficult emotions. I've modified it for correction officers, incarcerated people, hospice patients, hospital patients, folks on psych floors, friends, and family. It's a particularly profound instruction, especially the ideas of letting go of the past and the future—letting go of stories, hope, fear, and expectation.

The Pacification of Suffering

I want to share briefly this heart song from Padampa Sangye, who inspired Machig Labdrön. It's the condensation of his teaching called the Pacification of Suffering, which is the essence of the practice of Chöd.

When the body becomes ill, the pacification of suffering is binding space and awareness as one. When subtle conceptualizations arise, it is abrading the afflictions by releasing them. When sleeping alone in private, the pacification of suffering is residing in raw awareness. When in the midst of a crowd, it’s the act of confronting whatever arises. When it is dull, shaking it by yelling “Hey!” When it’s distracting, cutting the root. When excited, it’s relaxing into the expanse of mind. When chasing after conceptual objects, it’s facing the truth of suchness.

When illness arises, it brings benefit. Whatever feelings arise are a treasury of bliss. When dying occurs, take it on the path. The Lord of Death is a treasury of bliss.

This ethos of being directly engaged and immersed in everything that is happening is about being a chaplain or a practitioner in the vernacular, not up high in some bizarre ivory tower, but a practitioner of the people. And "of the people" means of all the worlds within us, not just limited to some overly clean and neat Buddhist idea of the way things should be.

The Dying Process and the Bardos

One of the greatest benefits that the Vajrayana tradition brings is this intense understanding and technology of the dying process. Within the context of death, we use the term Bardo²⁴ quite a bit. Bardo is a term that means an interval of time. There are many different kinds of bardos: the bardo of life (from birth to death), the bardo of the dream state, the bardo of meditation. But three are associated with death:

1. The Chikha Bardo: The painful bardo of dying, the process leading up to death.
2. The Chönyid Bardo: The luminous bardo of dharmata, right after physical death.
3. The Sidpa Bardo: The karmic bardo of becoming, the process leading to rebirth.

The process leading up to physical death involves the dissolution of the elements. The element of Earth dissolves into Water, Water into Fire, Fire into Wind, and Wind into Space. At that point, the person physically dies. This process can begin six months before death or just one week; there's no universal timeframe.

• Earth Dissolving: The body weakens, feels heavy, and vision begins to dim. Internally, there can be increased confusion, emotional outbursts, and paranoia.
• Water Dissolving: Bodily fluids dry up, fever can be experienced, and hearing loss occurs. Internally, the mind becomes hazy, nervous, and irritable.
• Fire Dissolving: The warmth of the body begins to fade, starting from the extremities. The mind is alternately clear and unclear.
• Wind Dissolving: The breath rattles with long exhalations and short inhalations. The sense faculties completely cease, and breathing stops. Internally, visions arise according to a person's tendencies.

After what we call clinical death, over a period of time, the 80 conceptions of the ordinary mind begin to dissolve. This is all of our karmic and emotional patterning, our kleshas. As these dissolve, internal signs appear, like a vision of a radiant white sky filled with moonlight, followed by a radiant red sky. When the white and red energies meet at the heart, there's an experience of blackness, which is considered the clear light mind. This is a moment post-death where a practitioner can experience liberation.

In the post-death bardo state, one experiences visions of peaceful, semi-wrathful, and wrathful deities. These are all just the natural arising energies and tendencies of our own mind. The mantra OM ĀH HŪṃ, BODHICITTA, MAHĀSUKHA, JÑĀNA-DHĀTU, ĀḤ is beneficial for those in the bardo. It can be recited for others to help them, in that post-death state, to experience whatever occurs as the natural, liberated essence of their own mind, so they can re-arise in whatever form is most ideal for them and all sentient beings.

I will pause the presentation here and open it up for questions.

Q&A

(The transcript includes a detailed Q&A session discussing the use of imagery in Vajrayana, the differences from other Buddhist traditions like Theravada and Mahayana, the value of confronting difficulty, how to translate specialized concepts for a general audience, and the role of the chaplain in intense, traumatic environments.)