Re: The Mahasiddha and His Idiot Servant, by John Riley Perk
Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2019 1:01 am
Chapter 4: Commentary
I felt my luck was turning. I believed that because I was willing to do anything to be close to Rinpoche -- especially the things that other people didn't want to do, like washing dishes, cleaning house, and ironing clothes -- I had somehow tricked Rinpoche into taking me on the retreat so that he could instruct me in how to become an enlightened siddha.17 It did not occur to me until years later that he was the one who had tricked me by going along with my whole trip. This was also the beginning of seemingly unrelated events that began to undermine my habitual patterns of operating.
It's interesting that Rinpoche was willing to go through my whole gun attachment with me even to the extent of making me his bodyguard. It was the beginning of his helping me create my ultimate fantasy world, with occasional hints that there might be other realities. These other realities had the effect on me of creating extreme anxiety and panic.
My mind could not grasp even intellectually the idea of impermanence or the idea of groundlessness. That challenged the idea of "I" being a solid entity. I was afraid of things I couldn't see and did not understand. And I was terrified of ghosts. Having experienced them in my early childhood they brought terror and panic. Rinpoche had the ability to make seemingly unimportant comments at the exact moment that they became magnified in my mind. It was his timing that terrified me. He seemed to be able to read my mind before the thoughts had been formulated. I began to have the uneasy feeling that I did not know what kind of being he was. And that meant that all my manipulated power over him to whatever end was useless. This brought up the interesting dilemma of how I was going to get what I wanted.
The acid trip where Rinpoche focused my mind by working with Duncan and the "great turnaround" was my first realization of looking at phenomena as they really are, without logical intellectual or other mental projections. Needless to say, that state didn't last very long -- a matter of hours; then I was thrown back to my ordinary mode of operation very quickly. My aggression in wanting to confront Max Rinpoche turned into playing tricks, so he introduced to my mind an alternative way of dealing with the situation which was more creative and playful. One might call it my early introduction to crazy wisdom, where one uses the energy as it arises then joins with it and presents reality. People say "Be here now. "But for someone lost in illusions this makes no sense unless it can be shown in actual, ordinary, on-the-spot situations. That's what the crazy wisdom teacher does continually. Sometimes the student gets it and sometimes he doesn't. Most of the time, I didn't. But much later there was some realization.
The episode with Myson, the dog, blindfolded sitting on the floor, reflected my basic state. The candles on either side of his head related to aspects of bad and good, or samsara and nirvana. The potato as a representation of the phenomenal world whacking one on the head was initiated by the guru. If one turns one's head one way or the other, one's ears catch on fire. At this point one is still blind. Reacting to the fear and pain by trying to escape, one is overpowered by even more emotional traumas. The conditioning aspect of scraping the chair across the floor formulates how one will react, thus perpetuating how we perceive the world. When the chair is scraped later on, in our confused state of mind we run because we are reminded of our basic pain. The sound of the chair is basic emptiness -- a state that we are most terrified of -- so we run.
The idea of my own death was extremely terrifying to me. It meant not only the termination of my bodily pleasures and delights but also the termination of what I had built up as the image of John Perks. The end of all of that created extreme anxiety, and somewhere within the deep recesses of my mind I panicked as my I-ness began sipping away. I would have run away, but I was in love with Rinpoche and he kept offering me new opportunities related to my fantasies to explore and feel safe in -- which of course he ultimately undermined. Although my devotion was somewhat primitive, it was there to stay forever.
Although I did not realize it at the time there seemed to be connections between the killing of the bird at the retreat and Siddha Vyadhalipa; between the hunting Mahasiddha Savaripa; and between the action with the dog and Mahasiddha Kukkuripa. Later, while practicing the Sadhana of Vajrayogini and meditating on the actions of my guru while in retreat, I found my connection to these three Siddhas to be one of remarkable coincidence, in that I was able to take instruction from other beings such as birds, fishes, and dogs. And as examples, the compassionate lives of these Siddhas are always of great inspiration to me.
The following are condensed outlines of stories of these Siddhas from Masters of Mahamudra by Keith Dowman:18
Siddha Vyadhalipa was a bird-catcher. "His remarkable sadhana consisted of first sharpening his concentration into samadhi19 by contemplating cutting the throats of model birds, and then traveling the villages killing birds in order to provoke compassion and ahimsa (non-violence) in his audience before restoring the creatures to life. Such action is called 'wise penitential activity' . . . and the paradoxical, apparently crazy skillful means of the yogin with mahamudra20-siddhi.
The Mahasiddha Savaripa was a hunter. As a hunter, "he kills to survive and survives to kill." He was a member of the Sahara tribe. "sabaras were a wild, aboriginal, outcast, hunting and gathering tribe from the Vindhya Hills. Sabaras were also 'corpse-workers' in Bengal" . . . and therefore considered as untouchables. On a hunting trip, Savaripa ran into Lokesvara, an emanation of Avalokitesvara, where he is shown the continual cycle of karma of his actions. Realizing his perpetual entrapment, "Lokesvara gave him a fulltime Sadhana to practice ... and for twelve years Savaripa meditated upon undirected and unstructured sublime compassion in a thought-free state and he attained the supreme realization of Mahamudra, whereupon he sang:
The Mahasiddha Kukkuripa was a wandering yogin practicing and begging for his food. He discovered a starving dog. He took her to his cave and fed her. "After twelve years of continuous practice of mantra he attained magical powers -- prescience and divine insight -- and the gods of the Thirty-three Sensual Heavens invited him to their paradise. He accepted their invitation, and set out on a ceaseless round of self-indulgent feasting and pleasure provided by the gods.
Meanwhile, the dog fended for herself in the cave, rooting around for whatever she could find to sustain life. But she was not forgotten. Even while the yogin feasted on the gods' offerings, he told them of his dog, saying that he must return to guard her. "
The gods said, "'Don't be so foolish! Please remain with us here. 'This kind of divine remark persuaded the yogin to postpone his return, but eventually his love for the dog won, and he returned to her.
He found her in the cave where he had left her, and he patted her on the head in greeting. At that moment the dog became a Dakini, and the Dakini spoke to him like this:
Then she showed him the symbolic union of skillful means and perfect insight, and after an irreversible, infallible vision of immutability had arisen in his mind-stream, he attained supreme realization. "
_______________
Notes:
17 Siddha -- One who has attained success in his practice thereby gaining magical power.
18 Reprinted by permission from Masters of Mahamudra: Songs and Histories of the Eighty-Four Buddhist Siddhas by Keith Dowman, the State University of New York Press © 1985, State University of New York. All rights reserved.
19 Samadhi -- meditative state of total absorption; mind is experienced free from distraction.
20 Mahamudra -- "Great Seal" -the realization of emptiness which affects all experience.
I felt my luck was turning. I believed that because I was willing to do anything to be close to Rinpoche -- especially the things that other people didn't want to do, like washing dishes, cleaning house, and ironing clothes -- I had somehow tricked Rinpoche into taking me on the retreat so that he could instruct me in how to become an enlightened siddha.17 It did not occur to me until years later that he was the one who had tricked me by going along with my whole trip. This was also the beginning of seemingly unrelated events that began to undermine my habitual patterns of operating.
It's interesting that Rinpoche was willing to go through my whole gun attachment with me even to the extent of making me his bodyguard. It was the beginning of his helping me create my ultimate fantasy world, with occasional hints that there might be other realities. These other realities had the effect on me of creating extreme anxiety and panic.
My mind could not grasp even intellectually the idea of impermanence or the idea of groundlessness. That challenged the idea of "I" being a solid entity. I was afraid of things I couldn't see and did not understand. And I was terrified of ghosts. Having experienced them in my early childhood they brought terror and panic. Rinpoche had the ability to make seemingly unimportant comments at the exact moment that they became magnified in my mind. It was his timing that terrified me. He seemed to be able to read my mind before the thoughts had been formulated. I began to have the uneasy feeling that I did not know what kind of being he was. And that meant that all my manipulated power over him to whatever end was useless. This brought up the interesting dilemma of how I was going to get what I wanted.
The acid trip where Rinpoche focused my mind by working with Duncan and the "great turnaround" was my first realization of looking at phenomena as they really are, without logical intellectual or other mental projections. Needless to say, that state didn't last very long -- a matter of hours; then I was thrown back to my ordinary mode of operation very quickly. My aggression in wanting to confront Max Rinpoche turned into playing tricks, so he introduced to my mind an alternative way of dealing with the situation which was more creative and playful. One might call it my early introduction to crazy wisdom, where one uses the energy as it arises then joins with it and presents reality. People say "Be here now. "But for someone lost in illusions this makes no sense unless it can be shown in actual, ordinary, on-the-spot situations. That's what the crazy wisdom teacher does continually. Sometimes the student gets it and sometimes he doesn't. Most of the time, I didn't. But much later there was some realization.
The episode with Myson, the dog, blindfolded sitting on the floor, reflected my basic state. The candles on either side of his head related to aspects of bad and good, or samsara and nirvana. The potato as a representation of the phenomenal world whacking one on the head was initiated by the guru. If one turns one's head one way or the other, one's ears catch on fire. At this point one is still blind. Reacting to the fear and pain by trying to escape, one is overpowered by even more emotional traumas. The conditioning aspect of scraping the chair across the floor formulates how one will react, thus perpetuating how we perceive the world. When the chair is scraped later on, in our confused state of mind we run because we are reminded of our basic pain. The sound of the chair is basic emptiness -- a state that we are most terrified of -- so we run.
The idea of my own death was extremely terrifying to me. It meant not only the termination of my bodily pleasures and delights but also the termination of what I had built up as the image of John Perks. The end of all of that created extreme anxiety, and somewhere within the deep recesses of my mind I panicked as my I-ness began sipping away. I would have run away, but I was in love with Rinpoche and he kept offering me new opportunities related to my fantasies to explore and feel safe in -- which of course he ultimately undermined. Although my devotion was somewhat primitive, it was there to stay forever.
Although I did not realize it at the time there seemed to be connections between the killing of the bird at the retreat and Siddha Vyadhalipa; between the hunting Mahasiddha Savaripa; and between the action with the dog and Mahasiddha Kukkuripa. Later, while practicing the Sadhana of Vajrayogini and meditating on the actions of my guru while in retreat, I found my connection to these three Siddhas to be one of remarkable coincidence, in that I was able to take instruction from other beings such as birds, fishes, and dogs. And as examples, the compassionate lives of these Siddhas are always of great inspiration to me.
The following are condensed outlines of stories of these Siddhas from Masters of Mahamudra by Keith Dowman:18
Siddha Vyadhalipa was a bird-catcher. "His remarkable sadhana consisted of first sharpening his concentration into samadhi19 by contemplating cutting the throats of model birds, and then traveling the villages killing birds in order to provoke compassion and ahimsa (non-violence) in his audience before restoring the creatures to life. Such action is called 'wise penitential activity' . . . and the paradoxical, apparently crazy skillful means of the yogin with mahamudra20-siddhi.
The Mahasiddha Savaripa was a hunter. As a hunter, "he kills to survive and survives to kill." He was a member of the Sahara tribe. "sabaras were a wild, aboriginal, outcast, hunting and gathering tribe from the Vindhya Hills. Sabaras were also 'corpse-workers' in Bengal" . . . and therefore considered as untouchables. On a hunting trip, Savaripa ran into Lokesvara, an emanation of Avalokitesvara, where he is shown the continual cycle of karma of his actions. Realizing his perpetual entrapment, "Lokesvara gave him a fulltime Sadhana to practice ... and for twelve years Savaripa meditated upon undirected and unstructured sublime compassion in a thought-free state and he attained the supreme realization of Mahamudra, whereupon he sang:
In the forest of unknowing there lurks a deer,
The deer called Alienation;
Drawing back the great bow of means and insight,
Letting fly the single arrow of ultimate truth,
The deer dies -- yes, thought dies!
Then the flesh is a feast of non-duality,
The flavor is a taste of pure pleasure,
And the goal, The Magnificent Stance, is accomplished."
The Mahasiddha Kukkuripa was a wandering yogin practicing and begging for his food. He discovered a starving dog. He took her to his cave and fed her. "After twelve years of continuous practice of mantra he attained magical powers -- prescience and divine insight -- and the gods of the Thirty-three Sensual Heavens invited him to their paradise. He accepted their invitation, and set out on a ceaseless round of self-indulgent feasting and pleasure provided by the gods.
Meanwhile, the dog fended for herself in the cave, rooting around for whatever she could find to sustain life. But she was not forgotten. Even while the yogin feasted on the gods' offerings, he told them of his dog, saying that he must return to guard her. "
The gods said, "'Don't be so foolish! Please remain with us here. 'This kind of divine remark persuaded the yogin to postpone his return, but eventually his love for the dog won, and he returned to her.
He found her in the cave where he had left her, and he patted her on the head in greeting. At that moment the dog became a Dakini, and the Dakini spoke to him like this:
Well done! Well done! You have proved your worth.
You have overcome temptation,
Returning to receive supreme power.
The mundane power of the gods is delusory
For they retain a notion of self,
And fallible pleasure is not so great.
Now your Dakini will grant you supreme realization,
The immaculate pure pleasure that has no outflow.
Then she showed him the symbolic union of skillful means and perfect insight, and after an irreversible, infallible vision of immutability had arisen in his mind-stream, he attained supreme realization. "
_______________
Notes:
17 Siddha -- One who has attained success in his practice thereby gaining magical power.
18 Reprinted by permission from Masters of Mahamudra: Songs and Histories of the Eighty-Four Buddhist Siddhas by Keith Dowman, the State University of New York Press © 1985, State University of New York. All rights reserved.
19 Samadhi -- meditative state of total absorption; mind is experienced free from distraction.
20 Mahamudra -- "Great Seal" -the realization of emptiness which affects all experience.