Psychology of Buddhism. Monograph

Leaving one’s life in the process of mulatantra is strongly discouraged, like any kind of intentional killing of oneself in European culture. In my opinion, it is the most appropriate way for a highly spiritual human to leave his body and end his earthly life. It is said that Buddha defeated Mara, or death. I believe that it is not the physical death that he defeated, but the fear of death. He showed that death was the supreme bliss, and thus deprived it of its power.

However, paranirvana is not death in the ordinary sense of the word. It is beyond the boundaries of the lokas where existence and reincarnation is possible. It annuls “the law of death”.

If we accept that paranirvana annuls the law of death, than leaving this life in the process of mulatantra would seem an absolutely right way to go.

Meditation on Death

Death and various phenomena that accompany it constitute one of the basic objects of meditation in Buddhism.

As it has been stated above, there is a whole group of practices associated with the perishable nature of living beings (“the ten impurities”, or “asubha”). These are parts or states of corpse: a swollen corpse (uddhumataka), a corpse with patchy discoloration (vinilaka), a festering corpse (vipubbaka), a corpse falling apart (vichiddaka), a corpse eaten by animals (vikkhayittaka), several corpses scattered about or thrown together in a pile(vikkhittaka), the corpse of a person violently murdered, cut and dismembered (hatavikkhittaka), a blood-stained corpse (lohitaka), a corpse infested with worms (puluvaka), a skeleton (atthika).

These practices, as well as participation in death ceremonies (Christian burial and funeral service, cremation in Hinduism, corpse dismemberment in Tibet, etc.) have enormous transformational potential.

Participation in death rituals can give a great insight into such concepts as anatman, anitya and dukkha. For example, the Christian farewell kiss on the forehead or hand of the dead body is an important part of initiation into death for Orthodox people.

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However, it is evident that European people experience considerable difficulties with meditation on the 10 parts of a dead body, which is so widespread in Buddhism. In most cases it evokes great psychological resistance.

For this reason, at the retreats and workshops devoted to the problem of death and dying, we have been using directed visualizations and texts from Buddhist literature (mostly from the Tantrayana). These are the texts cited below.

Death and Decomposition Visualization

The practice is to be performed in absolute solitude, preferably in the wild.

Find a comfortable, safe and secure place. If you cannot sit in a lotus position for a long time, find something to sit on, so that your crossed legs do not make you feel uncomfortable during meditation. Experience shows that it is better to sit with your back against a tree. The tree will provide good support for your back and give you a feeling of security.

Before you start, try to provide ideal conditions for your consciousness: nothing should distract your attention, neither sounds, nor your body, smells, taste or visual images.

Close your eyes and relax as deeply as you can. Relax your mind, feelings and body. Enter the inner silence of your consciousness, see what distracts you most and try not

to get distracted...

Take 33 deep and slow breaths. After you breathe in for the 33st time, exhale completely.

All people die after they exhale completely.

Imagine that it was your last exhalation and watch what is going to happen with your

body.

Watch your body getting covered with thick slime, “the sweat of death”.

Watch your body relax completely and its excretory canals get empty.

Watch your tongue swelling, filling your mouth, turning blue and growing stiff. Look at the skin. It turns pale, swells and becomes covered with discolored patches. Millions of cells which constitute your body begin to explode, which is caused by

putrefaction gases, and your body swells even more badly.

The skin starts to tear and water leaves the body, at first in the form of pus.

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But when the friable masses of internal organs begin to burst the body open, the skin and muscles are torn by the flow of waters and blood leaving the body; the water that has created the illusion of bodily strength and flexibility goes away.

Look at the changes that occur in the internal organs: your lungs, heart, liver and kidneys rot and turn into a homogenous mass of filth and stench, teeming with worms.

Brain also undergoes changes. Worms get into the head through the mouth, ears and eyes, where they hold a sumptuous feast.

And finally the whole body begins to melt: the hair and nails fall off, the skin, muscles and tendons fall apart completely. The body gradually collapses, exposing the skeleton.

Meanwhile, the feast of worms and other devouring creatures comes to an end, leaving a bare skeleton with empty eye sockets, a dropped jaw, a spine, shoulder bones, pelvic bones, ribs and bones of hands and legs...

Watch the skeleton getting covered with a fine grid of destruction.

Watch how the lines of the grid become wider and wider, so that bones gradually break into pieces.

Watch the pieces being eaten by time, become thinner and turn into ashes.

When you see that the body, which has once been full of life, turns into earth, end the practice.

Take a slow deep breath. Then breathe out and open your eyes.

Paranirvana, Leaving or Potential Awakening

In Buddhism, dying is considered to be one of the most important natural processes and a part of human existence. It is said to be accompanied by very specific changes in consciousness.

Tantric Buddhism attaches considerable significance to the process of dying, as death is considered to be a powerful natural transformational process that can be used pragmatically. Skillful use of the process and the moment of death itself allows the meditator to achieve a complete and irrevocable transformation, the ultimate awakening, paranirvana.

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At the moment of death the subtle consciousness of clear light presents itself to the practitioner; it is free from feelings and physiological processes. If the practitioner manages to give the right direction to his free consciousness, he achieves liberation.

Consciousness undergoes enormous changes in the process of dying. It can be divided into the following stages:

1. “Earth turns into water”.

The first element to be “dissolved”, or, in other words, lose its strength, is the element of earth, which represents components of the body, eyes and objects of visual perception. It gives a feeling of “falling down through the earth”. Vision becomes blurred.

Body weakens and loses its color. It is accompanied by visions similar to a mirage (like an image of water created by sun shining on sand).

2. “Water turns into fire”.

Water element is the next to be “dissolved”: it represents components of feelings, also ears and objects of sound perception. It causes dryness of mouth and nose, cessation of the ability to feel bliss, suffering or indifference. One stops hearing a ringing sound and ceases to perceive any kind of sound at all. This stage is accompanied by visions of clouds of grey smoke.

3. “Fire turns into air”.

At this stage, the element of fire is being dissolved: components of recognition, nose and objects of smell perception. The body becomes cold. One ceases to smell and to recognize features and names of those who surround him. Breathing pattern changes: inhalation shortens and weakens, while exhalation becomes longer and stronger. It is accompanied by a vision of a firefly swarm, sparkling in the middle of clouds of smoke.

4. “Air turns into consciousness”.

The element of air represents polymodal experience, tongue and objects of taste perception. Breathing and other bodily functions stop, the tongue swells and turns blue, taste is no longer perceived. There is a vision of a flame, like that of an oil lamp wick gradually dying out. The sense of touch ceases to function: one ceases to feel whether something is soft, coarse, etc.

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5. “Vision turns into expansion”.

The fifth component, consciousness, starts to dissolve. This process consists of several stages. At first one has the vision of white. It is a vision of white light, which is like a pure autumn night sky lit by moonlight. It is caused by the processes taking place in the subtle energy body. The energy which moves along the right, left and peripheral canals, situated above the heart, enter the central energy canal through its upper end. The crown chakra opens and the drop of white substance received from one’s father goes down through it and approaches the heart.

The next vision is the one of a “red expansion”. It is a vision of red or orange light, which is like a pure autumn sky lit by sunlight. It happens when the energy moving along the right, left and peripheral canals, situated below the heart, enters the central energy canal through its lower end. It opens the navel chakra and the drop of red substance received from one’s mother goes up through it and approaches the heart.

7. “Expansion turns into achievement”.

The next vision is called “black achievement”. It consists of two stages. The first vision is similar to the pitch darkness of night sky in autumn. It happens when the energies that function over and below the heart unite and the white substance and the red one penetrate the indissoluble drop, which is situated in the heart and consists of white and red substance. At the second stage one enters a state similar to fainting, which is not accompanied by any visions at all.

8. “Achievement turns into clear light”.

Finally, there is awareness of clear light, which is in the nature of all living beings.

Here it can be called “the clear light of death”. It is a vision similar to the clear sky at dawn, free from moonlight, sunlight or darkness. It is caused by dissolution of all energies into the subtlest energy and full dissolution of red and white substances in the indissoluble drop in the center of one’s heart. This is the moment of death.

In the course of the process of dying all biju are dissolved in alaya vijnana.

Seeing the clear light of death is like comprehending void. It is an extremely significant moment: if the practitioner is able to consolidate his grip on this state, he will not have to return to the coarse levels of consciousness. The only thing that will be left is to

attain liberation. It happens so because dense bodily energies disappear and therefore cannot

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“drag consciousness down” to the coarse level. The awareness of clear light is strong enough to destroy the potential for rebirth which has been accumulating in the course of countless lives. This awareness is usually compared to the light which is able to dispel in a moment millions of years old darkness. However, if one does not achieve awareness of the light, the whole process goes on in reverse order.

9. Intermediate state.

The indissoluble drop breaks up, subtle energy and thought leave it and the white substance received from one’s father now moves down from the heart, while the red substance received from one’s mother goes up. It is an intermediate state between death and next life. It is accompanied by acquisition of a special intermediate state body, which is made of subtle energy. One has the same visions as described above but in reverse order

(“black achievement”, “red expansion”, etc. till the vision of a mirage). The difference is that they are not accompanied by dissolution of elements and movement of substances: the one who is in the intermediate state does not have any substance at all, except for the subtle energy.

The duration of intermediate state is not the same for everybody. It is possible that next life starts in a moment. If it lasts for a long time, in a week comes the “minor death”, accompanied by the above described progressive and reverse processes. This may be repeated up to seven times. In any case, next birth will take place in no more than 49 days (It depends on the form that one will take in his next life. The “day” can last for a long time, as, for example, one day of gods lasts for thousands or millions of human years).

Those who are to be reborn in the world of passions or forms get into the intermediate state between death and life. And those who are to be reborn in the world without forms get into this world at once after they experience the clear light of death, and the reverse processes do not take place.

These processes take place in case of both natural and accidental death, as well as death resulting from disease. However, in the last two cases they are faster and less conscious.

As soon as one gets into the intermediate state, karmic connection with his body is being broken. One does not consider the body to be his anymore and is not attached to it.

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Anahata Puji (Purification of the Heart Chakra)

Please sit down in the position that you usually use for meditation. Hold your hands in some mudra (for example, energy mudra: place the thumb, middle finger and ring finger together; the index finger and the little finger are extended) and place it near the svadhisthana (the sacrum).

Close your eyes and make your breathing even. Direct your breathing and awareness towards the middle of your chest, where you will have to find a throbbing energy center. In the Indian tradition, this energy center is called the heart chakra, or anahata. In Christianity it is referred to as the spiritual heart.

Then do the morning practice of the Right-Hand Path Tantra (Dakshinchara), which is called puji anahata. It aims at purifying and filling with energy the spiritual heart. To do this, simply take 21 breaths through the heart chakra.

Breathe slowly and gently into the heart chakra, then breathe slowly and gently out of the heart chakra. Be fully present and aware when you breathe in, be fully present and aware when you breathe out.

When you breathe in, breathe in the pure energy of Brahmavihara, the energy of enlightenment, the realm of the four sublime attitudes, the four immeasurables – joy, equanimity, loving kindness and compassion.

When you breathe out, breathe out the defiled states of consciousness: envy, irritation, pride, anger, negative attitude towards oneself, towards others and the world. Let your spiritual heart become stronger and purer with every breath you take.

After you have inhaled and exhaled this way for 21 times, imagine that your spiritual heart is a glowing sphere of energy.

Feel that this light, this energy is filled with the presence of the most important human qualities: Equanimity, Joy, Loving-kindness and Compassion.

Try to feel the four immeasurables inside yourself, experience them inside yourself. Spread their energy over your body, fill your feelings, desires, thoughts, dreams and stream of consciousness with them.

When you have filled yourself with the state of arhat, open your eyes and look at the animate and inanimate world with the eyes of your heart, with the eyes of the four sublime

attitudes. And try to live in these states in your everyday life.

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AFTERWORD

I started to write this book in Lumbini, near the lake where prince Siddhartha was

born.

I sat on the balcony at dusk and listened to the chorus of evening excitement: cicadas’ musical practice, birdsong, monkeys making guttural sounds, frogs croaking from the lake nearby and a lot of other sounds I could not identify. Half-lying in a large wooden armchair, inhaling thick nectar of evening air and smoke of Black Virginia tobacco from my

Italian juniper pipe, I was thinking: “What psychology, what theory, what practice...”

My nirvanic state was filled with complete calm. There was no sense in asking questions. My eternally unsatisfied Ego kept silent. Everything pointed to the fact that life was self sufficient. I did not need anything. Life was perfect.

I felt too lazy to reflect upon psychology. Even to think about the fact that I was reflecting upon psychology. I felt all the more lazy to consider what others think about this extremely strange science. In peace and quiet of simple living there is no need to remember about it.

On that balcony I came up with a sacrilegious idea: psychology is a science for those who are unsatisfied, whose life is not full, for anxious and troubled people.

In Buddhism there is a concept of six lokas, or six worlds. Each world is inhabited by specific creatures, who have their own vision, resulting from specific conditions of life, as well as particular habits, basic emotional states, character and a way of communicating with other creatures and with the world itself.

As far as I understand, lokas correspond to mental states. We travel across them in the course of our life. At the same time, they correspond to different worldviews, they are a kind of “assembly stations”, or vantage points, from which we look at the world.

Our world, our everyday life is inhabited with creatures from different lokas.

The highest of these realms, the god realm, is similar to the Garden of Eden, paradise, or Elysium. In Buddhist tradition this loka is referred to as “sukhavati” (“the deva realm”, “the pure land”, or “a place of great bliss”). It is believed that it was created by

Buddha Amitabha. It is situated at a distance of a myriad of worlds away from the land of

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people. It has a wonderful climate and palaces made of gold, silver, coral and precious stones. Sukhavati is inhabited by bodhisattvas who have achieved nirvana immediately and those who have been honored to be reborn for their merits on the path of personal development. They live in “perfect happiness” for “immeasurably long time”.

If we take lokas as mental states or identities, we can say that we dwell in the sukhavati realm in the moments of harmony, when smiling people surround us, when we feel strong and the atmosphere is pleasant and lively. At such moments we think it will last forever.

From the point of view of emotions, paradise may take various forms: aesthetic delight, mystical ecstasy or instasy, awe, a feeling of mystery, a feeling of soaring, the pleasure of working, exultation, being surprised by the discovery, thrill, the joy of being.

Those who are creative partake of the fruits of paradise. Creative work cannot be compared to the pleasures of living in a warm climate or dwelling in “palaces made of gold, silver, coral and precious stones”. It can take the form of creative ecstasy, associated with tremendous excitement, boundless energy and enthusiasm, uncontrollability and overwhelming emotions, bordering on ravishing madness. It can also take the form of instasy, which is more disciplined and systematic. When the thinker merges with thinking as a process and his thoughts as a content of this process, we may become witnesses to the most extraordinary beauty of the world, the beauty of creative thinking. Even observing those who create brings enormous pleasure. This meditation on the truth, the quiet delight and joy we get from contemplating the beauty and perfection of the world makes bodhisattvas weep in their realm of “eternal bliss”.

A mother hearing the cry of her first child, is not she in heaven?

Or when she watches her baby making first steps, is not she in heaven?

Or when she realizes that her son’s voice is breaking?

Am I not in heaven when I catch a child’s eye, or listen to a teenager’s “serious” talk filled with naive simplicity, or watch sunset in summer?

The gates to the highest loka are always open. Human consciousness has the potential for living in heaven.

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But in order to get there we have to get into a state of clear consciousness. It makes us live a full life. It is when there is nothing to add and nothing to take away, when you do not want to change anything.

Your life becomes self-sufficient.

But as soon as you say “Oh, it is going to rain...”, you are exiled from heaven.

When you say that it is too warm or too cold, you are exiled from heaven.

When you look at somebody and say that he or she is stupid, you are out of heaven. When you look at a woman and say that she is not good enough for you, you are

thrown out of heaven.

When it seems to you that your car is not as good as your neighbor’s, you are cast out of heaven.

Heaven means making no judgments. Existence and consciousness are identical. Consciousness is existence, and existence is consciousness.

Existence is always self-sufficient, it is beyond attitude, judgment and the urge to change it.

A minute ago I came back from the seaside. A half an hour spent at the seashore at night in solitude was enough to realize that waves were completely indifferent to my appearance, meditation and disappearance.

Reality is as self-sufficient and perfect as it was a billion years ago. It is indifferent to our thoughts about it. Whether we discover black holes or high energy density, whether we state that there is something to be added here or to be taken away there, it just does not care.

The world is perfect.

If we become like it, we will always be in the sixth loka.

The gates to sukhavati are always open.

There are no guardians.

And it is not as far as the others say.

But we cannot enter it with our ego-consciousness. Ego-consciousness does not exist in heaven.

In a sense, being in heaven means attaining pure consciousness, which exists and

perceives, but makes no judgments and does not want to change anything.

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