Re: The Mahasiddha and His Idiot Servant, by John Riley Perk
Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2019 8:48 pm
Chapter 8: Dreaming Reality
HE TOOK MY HAND IN HIS AND SAID, "YOU ARE THE BEST PERSON WHO CREATES YOUR CONFUSION INTO PRODUCTIVITY, INTO DESTRUCTION. WOULDN'T YOU SAY THAT?" I WAS STUNNED. THEN HE CONTINUED, "YOU'VE TAUGHT ME A LOT. I REGARD YOU AS TEACHER. THIS IS NOT THE END, BUT THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING. AT THE SAME TIME WE ALL OWE YOU SO MUCH."
-- The Kalapa Court, January 10, 1982
Sometime during the day or night I awoke in a state of panic. My heart was pounding and I began to hyperventilate and gasp for air. I rushed to the toilet and vomited up the half case of red wine consumed the night before and other indescribable objects. I felt like living death. Crawling back to bed I fell asleep immediately. Dream, reality, hallucination merged into one.
There is a house, painted blue, three stories high, on a hillside overlooking a river with a green forest beyond. Trungpa Rinpoche, Khyentse Rinpoche, and His Holiness the Karmapa are arranging symbols on the floor of one of the rooms. They ask me if I can read them. Some seem familiar, but I realize I won't be able to read them using words. These symbols can only be read with some type of inexpressible intuition and even then cannot be pronounced verbally. This realization makes me very anxious and Rinpoche tells the others, "He's freaking out again." A radiant green light fills the room.
I am lying on my back in moorland. I can hear the insects and birds busy in the gorse and the heather. The sky is brilliant blue with occasional small, white, puffy clouds. The full sun illuminates the whole countryside. Sitting on a central mound of soft moss and small flowers are three figures. I recognize one as the Indian yogini Laksminkara. Her brown sensuous form shows through the rainbow silk robes. She has golden bands around her wrists and anklets around her ankles. Her eyes are deep brown and her jet black hair is done up in a topknot. She smells of heavy jasmine.
Sitting very close to her, wearing purple robes embroidered with golden Celtic designs, is the Goddess Brigid. Her skin is brilliant white, like porcelain, her eyes are blue, and her black hair hangs loosely down to her waist. She smells of tulips, heather, and wet earth. Both women turn their eyes toward me and smile. There is some kind of recognition, but of what I don't know.
Then I notice that below them, resting in the long, warm grass, is a large white cow with red ears. Her eyes are closed, showing long lashes. Her udder is full of milk and she is chewing slowly on her cud and resting contentedly. A warm wind blows gently across the landscape, playing amongst the beings on the moss knoll. It wafts across me, drifting around my body. I can smell, hear, see, and feel the vision in front of me, and my being fills with joy. The cow transforms and turns into the deity Cernunnos. He is young, sixteen, with the velvet horns of a stag upon his head. He says, "Realize constant, intuitive, mystical experience." He repeats slowly, "Constant, intuitive, mystical experience." Laksminkara speaks: "When you look for mind there is no mind, its essence is emptiness. When you look for mind and emptiness, duality becomes self-liberated." Then Brigid adds, "May you realize the clear nature of mind, which is Buddha." "Do you remember that?" they ask me, looking at me curiously.
Time seems to stop in expectation, waiting for an answer. My nauseated mind struggles to answer. And then the whole vision fades and is replaced in an instant by a small island in the vastness of a great blue lake. I seem to be floating in the air, translucent and light like a feather. Below, the island is covered with an abundance of wildflowers and fruit trees. Two human figures appear sitting in the summer grass. To the right I recognize Cartimandua, Chieftaness of the North British people. She is tall and fair, with blue eyes and long, braided red hair. Cartimandua is regal in her purple robes, golden twisted neck ring, and golden wrist cuffs. She has the bearing of a true empress.
On her left is seated the Bodhisattva Kuan-yin. She has loosely draped white robes and wears a necklace and crown. Her black hair is in a topknot. Leaning on one arm with her other arm draped across a bent knee, Kuan-yin is seated next to a small willow tree. Above the clear lake, dragonflies with transparent wings play across the surface of the water. A large, silver-pink fish swims idly, now and then leaping from the water and creating a splash on the calm surface.
I am engulfed in a cloud of dragonflies. Their translucent wings beat upon my body like the hands of many lovers. They have the eyes of Avalokitesvara. All of my hair pores become mirrors of the great void. My I-ness goes endlessly, constantly displaying only radiant compassion as it disintegrates.
The voice of Trungpa Rinpoche brings me back with the question, "Well?"
In irritation, I'm about to say, "Well, what?" when behind me out of a great white light arises a huge, meteoric iron mountain. Wild animals of all kinds, along with multitudes of demons, roam around its base. Trapped and unable to climb, they just howl and snarl and fight constantly amongst themselves. I am filled with a sense of fear. Then on the mountain peak dances Machig Labdron. Dressed in the skins of demons and wild animals, she holds a hand drum and a thighbone trumpet. She is completely terrifying, capable of striking fear into anyone attached to an illusion of any kind.
Next to her is the Morrigan, the great Phantom Queen. She has the power of prophecy and she can also change herself in an instant from a beautiful maiden to a. hag. She is dancing also. Around them circles a flock of crows, cawing loudly in alarm. In the sky, thunder and lightning punctuate the scene with sound and flash. The figures are dancing and sing loudly above the din the song of Machig Labdron:28
As the vision dream shifts, Rinpoche's voice sounds in my ear, "No hope for you."
I am bathed in an intense yellow light. From it all around arises a tropical rainforest, alive with beings singing, humming, and calling. Myriad flowers of all shapes and colors hang on vines and grow out of trees or the earth. On a small mound illuminated by shafts of yellow light sits Marguerite Porete, the Christian Beguine teacher. "How did I know her?" I ask myself, but can not answer. I see she is dressed in the habit of a Christian renunciate and holds a mirror in one hand and a Christian cross in the other. I feel very connected to her but I don't know why.
Then I see next to her Danu, the Goddess, smiling broadly at me. We are so familiar, she and I. Her eyes of hazel with flecks of green and gold fix on mine. I notice her teeth are very white. She is completely nude and is full-figured with large breasts. Her areolas are prominent with succulent nipples. Her skin is shining mahogany and her long black hair falls in a braid down her ample back. She has massive hands with long, webbed fingers and ivory nails. In the ferns around these women scampers a small dog. It ceases its play now and then and jumps on one, then the other, of the two women to be fondled and petted. Together, they sing to me from the lotus sutra:
In the roar of a tornado all the visions and all the inhabitants dissolve into brilliant copper color, green, blue, white, and yellow. The colors form a rainbow that whirls about me in a clockwise direction. A brilliant red light appears in front of me, joining with all the colors in a swirling rainbow as large as myself It crackles with electricity and serpent tongues of fire.
Then, in a flash, it forms a deity. She has bright, deep green eyes and crimson, flowing, wild hair. She is nude and her skin is light spun gold. She is translucent.
A strong, almost overpowering hypnotic smell of flowers, like hyacinth or honeysuckle or lilac, fills my nostrils. She is surrounded by flames and smoke, rather like the Cosmic Fire. Her arms are now draped about my neck and her legs entwine my waist. She has no weight but I can feel slight energy where she touches me. With great intensity she looks directly into my eyes. I hear the chanting sounds of the familiar Heart Sutra:
The sounds of the mantra reverberate in my mind over and over and over again. The gold skin of the deity begins to blaze with the intensity of the mantra's resonance. The five colors begin to swirl in the deity's heart center. The illusion disintegrates into my whole body and my mind which have become one. The swirling wheel of colors then streams into my heart. Bliss and joy arise. I hear the words from a song of Machig Labdron:
"Wake up now, Johnny," says Rinpoche gently.
Still in the dream I awoke, and hearing sounds, made my way to the kitchen. Shari was preparing Rinpoche's breakfast. I focused my eyes on the kitchen clock, which gradually registered in my thought as 4 o'clock. Glancing then to the outdoors I ascertained it was afternoon. Shari had the radio on and the words came out with the music. It sounded like The Beach Boys. The words floated in the air ... a girl in an Eastern dress wanting rescue for old time's sake. Her heart was breaking, could somebody throw her a lifeline ...
I turned to walk out into the garden when the space abruptly became very solid. My glasses broke as my face hit the unopened patio door. Shari turned around from her cooking.
"Hey, John, are you okay?" What's John? I thought. The music continued. Now I'm adrift in the China Sea.
Something managed to organize Rinpoche's breakfast tray and something managed to tape together the broken glasses and also managed to ascend the stairs to Rinpoche's bedroom. I set the tray down next to the bed and looked at him. Our eyes met and the space between us seemed to grow small and then large. My mind reeled with the words "somewhere near Japan."
''Are you okay, Major?" softly inquired the Prince.
I struggled to put things together into a coherent statement and then blurted out, "I have absolutely no idea."
He looked at me intently and said, "Maybe you should become a teacher."
And at last finding solid ground, I muttered to myself, "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" He continued to look at me, waiting.
"Well, I don't know anything," I responded finally. "How could I be a teacher?"
"On the spot," came the reply.
"What is that?" I asked.
"Unborn," came the answer.
"Unborn? Unborn?" I struggled to make meaning out of the words. "That does not make any sense," I said.
"Exactly," came back to me.
Up to this point neither one of us had actually spoken a word. It was just a quick series of flashes.
Then Rinpoche said, out loud, "Exactly."
Everything fell away into the seeming reality of the room. I looked past his head into the window and the street beyond. It had started to rain. I came back again to his face. He said again, "Exactly."
I waited. Nothing happened. He reached for his teacup. I reached for the teapot and feeling the weight in my hand I poured the tea into the waiting cup. Our eyes met and when he smiled I felt my body warm up with the radiation.
After his death, years later, I visit Rinpoche near Gantock. He is staying in a house with tall arches, aglow from inside with a yellow light. He is dressed only in a translucent gold shawl draped across his shoulders. He has many attendants. I prostrate and touch his feet. He says he is happy to see me and asks if I need anything. I reply that at this time in my life I am continuing to join with the energies that arise. "That's good," he says. Turning to his companion he asks if she has any advice for me. She answers, "He has such a wonderful voice. He should use it more often." I thank them both and receive the radiating warmth of their smiles. The now-ness quality of the situation is transparently real.
_______________
Notes:
28 Machig Labdron and the Foundations of Chod, Jerome Edou, Snow Lion Publications, 1996, p. 162.
29 The Dalai Lama explains, "We can interpret this mantra metaphorically to read, 'Go to the other shore,' which is to say, abandon this shore of samsara, unenlightened existence, which has been our home since beginningless time, and cross to the other shore to final nirvana and complete liberation." © Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, 2002. Reprinted from Essence of the Heart Sutra: The Dalai Lama's Heart of Wisdom Teachings, with permission of Wisdom Publications, 199 Elm Street, Somerville, MA 02144 U.SA., http://www.wisdompubs.org.
HE TOOK MY HAND IN HIS AND SAID, "YOU ARE THE BEST PERSON WHO CREATES YOUR CONFUSION INTO PRODUCTIVITY, INTO DESTRUCTION. WOULDN'T YOU SAY THAT?" I WAS STUNNED. THEN HE CONTINUED, "YOU'VE TAUGHT ME A LOT. I REGARD YOU AS TEACHER. THIS IS NOT THE END, BUT THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING. AT THE SAME TIME WE ALL OWE YOU SO MUCH."
-- The Kalapa Court, January 10, 1982
Sometime during the day or night I awoke in a state of panic. My heart was pounding and I began to hyperventilate and gasp for air. I rushed to the toilet and vomited up the half case of red wine consumed the night before and other indescribable objects. I felt like living death. Crawling back to bed I fell asleep immediately. Dream, reality, hallucination merged into one.
There is a house, painted blue, three stories high, on a hillside overlooking a river with a green forest beyond. Trungpa Rinpoche, Khyentse Rinpoche, and His Holiness the Karmapa are arranging symbols on the floor of one of the rooms. They ask me if I can read them. Some seem familiar, but I realize I won't be able to read them using words. These symbols can only be read with some type of inexpressible intuition and even then cannot be pronounced verbally. This realization makes me very anxious and Rinpoche tells the others, "He's freaking out again." A radiant green light fills the room.
I am lying on my back in moorland. I can hear the insects and birds busy in the gorse and the heather. The sky is brilliant blue with occasional small, white, puffy clouds. The full sun illuminates the whole countryside. Sitting on a central mound of soft moss and small flowers are three figures. I recognize one as the Indian yogini Laksminkara. Her brown sensuous form shows through the rainbow silk robes. She has golden bands around her wrists and anklets around her ankles. Her eyes are deep brown and her jet black hair is done up in a topknot. She smells of heavy jasmine.
Sitting very close to her, wearing purple robes embroidered with golden Celtic designs, is the Goddess Brigid. Her skin is brilliant white, like porcelain, her eyes are blue, and her black hair hangs loosely down to her waist. She smells of tulips, heather, and wet earth. Both women turn their eyes toward me and smile. There is some kind of recognition, but of what I don't know.
Then I notice that below them, resting in the long, warm grass, is a large white cow with red ears. Her eyes are closed, showing long lashes. Her udder is full of milk and she is chewing slowly on her cud and resting contentedly. A warm wind blows gently across the landscape, playing amongst the beings on the moss knoll. It wafts across me, drifting around my body. I can smell, hear, see, and feel the vision in front of me, and my being fills with joy. The cow transforms and turns into the deity Cernunnos. He is young, sixteen, with the velvet horns of a stag upon his head. He says, "Realize constant, intuitive, mystical experience." He repeats slowly, "Constant, intuitive, mystical experience." Laksminkara speaks: "When you look for mind there is no mind, its essence is emptiness. When you look for mind and emptiness, duality becomes self-liberated." Then Brigid adds, "May you realize the clear nature of mind, which is Buddha." "Do you remember that?" they ask me, looking at me curiously.
Time seems to stop in expectation, waiting for an answer. My nauseated mind struggles to answer. And then the whole vision fades and is replaced in an instant by a small island in the vastness of a great blue lake. I seem to be floating in the air, translucent and light like a feather. Below, the island is covered with an abundance of wildflowers and fruit trees. Two human figures appear sitting in the summer grass. To the right I recognize Cartimandua, Chieftaness of the North British people. She is tall and fair, with blue eyes and long, braided red hair. Cartimandua is regal in her purple robes, golden twisted neck ring, and golden wrist cuffs. She has the bearing of a true empress.
On her left is seated the Bodhisattva Kuan-yin. She has loosely draped white robes and wears a necklace and crown. Her black hair is in a topknot. Leaning on one arm with her other arm draped across a bent knee, Kuan-yin is seated next to a small willow tree. Above the clear lake, dragonflies with transparent wings play across the surface of the water. A large, silver-pink fish swims idly, now and then leaping from the water and creating a splash on the calm surface.
I am engulfed in a cloud of dragonflies. Their translucent wings beat upon my body like the hands of many lovers. They have the eyes of Avalokitesvara. All of my hair pores become mirrors of the great void. My I-ness goes endlessly, constantly displaying only radiant compassion as it disintegrates.
The voice of Trungpa Rinpoche brings me back with the question, "Well?"
In irritation, I'm about to say, "Well, what?" when behind me out of a great white light arises a huge, meteoric iron mountain. Wild animals of all kinds, along with multitudes of demons, roam around its base. Trapped and unable to climb, they just howl and snarl and fight constantly amongst themselves. I am filled with a sense of fear. Then on the mountain peak dances Machig Labdron. Dressed in the skins of demons and wild animals, she holds a hand drum and a thighbone trumpet. She is completely terrifying, capable of striking fear into anyone attached to an illusion of any kind.
Next to her is the Morrigan, the great Phantom Queen. She has the power of prophecy and she can also change herself in an instant from a beautiful maiden to a. hag. She is dancing also. Around them circles a flock of crows, cawing loudly in alarm. In the sky, thunder and lightning punctuate the scene with sound and flash. The figures are dancing and sing loudly above the din the song of Machig Labdron:28
Attachment to any phenomenon whatsoever,
From coarse form to omniscience,
Should be understood as the play of a demon.
Form is neither white, red, blue, nor green.
Form is devoid of presence,
Devoid of appearance,
Devoid of cessation.
All phenomena are equanimity.
The perfection of wisdom herself is equanimity.
When you are meditating on non-dual Paramita
The local gods and demons cannot stand it,
And in despair cause magical interference of all kinds,
Real imaginary, or in dreams.
Recognize them as the miraculous display of your own mind.
Do not concentrate your awareness on these obstacles.
Remain at ease, serene in the very nature of this recognition.
When you are absorbed in a natural serene state
These miraculous displays will be naturally pacified,
And once appeased in the essence of phenomena
They will appear as friendly to you.
As the vision dream shifts, Rinpoche's voice sounds in my ear, "No hope for you."
I am bathed in an intense yellow light. From it all around arises a tropical rainforest, alive with beings singing, humming, and calling. Myriad flowers of all shapes and colors hang on vines and grow out of trees or the earth. On a small mound illuminated by shafts of yellow light sits Marguerite Porete, the Christian Beguine teacher. "How did I know her?" I ask myself, but can not answer. I see she is dressed in the habit of a Christian renunciate and holds a mirror in one hand and a Christian cross in the other. I feel very connected to her but I don't know why.
Then I see next to her Danu, the Goddess, smiling broadly at me. We are so familiar, she and I. Her eyes of hazel with flecks of green and gold fix on mine. I notice her teeth are very white. She is completely nude and is full-figured with large breasts. Her areolas are prominent with succulent nipples. Her skin is shining mahogany and her long black hair falls in a braid down her ample back. She has massive hands with long, webbed fingers and ivory nails. In the ferns around these women scampers a small dog. It ceases its play now and then and jumps on one, then the other, of the two women to be fondled and petted. Together, they sing to me from the lotus sutra:
All Buddhas with bodies of a golden hue,
Splendidly adorned with a hundred auspicious marks
Hear the Dharma and expound it for others.
Such is the fine dream that ever occurs.
In the dream you are made Empress, or Emperor.
Then forsake that palace and household entourage
Along with the utmost satisfaction of the five sense desires,
And travel to the site of practice under the Bodhi tree.
On the lion's seat, in search of the way,
After seven days you attain the wisdom of all the Buddhas
Completing the unsurpassable way.
Arising and turning the Dharma Wheel
You expound the Dharma for the four groups of practitioners
Throughout thousands of millions of Kalpas
Expressing the wondrous Dharma free of flaws
And liberating innumerable sentient beings.
Finally, you enter Paranirvana,
Like smoke dispersing as a lamp is extinguished.
If later, in the samsaric world, one expounds this foremost dharma,
One will produce great benefit like the merit just described.
That is the dream within a dream.
In the roar of a tornado all the visions and all the inhabitants dissolve into brilliant copper color, green, blue, white, and yellow. The colors form a rainbow that whirls about me in a clockwise direction. A brilliant red light appears in front of me, joining with all the colors in a swirling rainbow as large as myself It crackles with electricity and serpent tongues of fire.
Then, in a flash, it forms a deity. She has bright, deep green eyes and crimson, flowing, wild hair. She is nude and her skin is light spun gold. She is translucent.
A strong, almost overpowering hypnotic smell of flowers, like hyacinth or honeysuckle or lilac, fills my nostrils. She is surrounded by flames and smoke, rather like the Cosmic Fire. Her arms are now draped about my neck and her legs entwine my waist. She has no weight but I can feel slight energy where she touches me. With great intensity she looks directly into my eyes. I hear the chanting sounds of the familiar Heart Sutra:
OM GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA
("Go, go, go beyond, go totally beyond, be rooted in the ground of enlightenment.")29
The sounds of the mantra reverberate in my mind over and over and over again. The gold skin of the deity begins to blaze with the intensity of the mantra's resonance. The five colors begin to swirl in the deity's heart center. The illusion disintegrates into my whole body and my mind which have become one. The swirling wheel of colors then streams into my heart. Bliss and joy arise. I hear the words from a song of Machig Labdron:
The roots of anxiety are embedded in the delusion
That every one of us is an island unto ourselves,
Alone and separate from each other.
If you would be free of this suffering
See the workings of your mind as but a single thought
A retinue of Goddesses that vanish into the sound "AH"
As the rainbow vanishes into the heavens
All enlightened beings past, present, and future
Have but a single essence.
To intuit this essence, learn the true nature of your own mind.
Then, let go and dissolve into unstructured reality--
This tensionless state is the yogin's life.
"Wake up now, Johnny," says Rinpoche gently.
Still in the dream I awoke, and hearing sounds, made my way to the kitchen. Shari was preparing Rinpoche's breakfast. I focused my eyes on the kitchen clock, which gradually registered in my thought as 4 o'clock. Glancing then to the outdoors I ascertained it was afternoon. Shari had the radio on and the words came out with the music. It sounded like The Beach Boys. The words floated in the air ... a girl in an Eastern dress wanting rescue for old time's sake. Her heart was breaking, could somebody throw her a lifeline ...
I turned to walk out into the garden when the space abruptly became very solid. My glasses broke as my face hit the unopened patio door. Shari turned around from her cooking.
"Hey, John, are you okay?" What's John? I thought. The music continued. Now I'm adrift in the China Sea.
Something managed to organize Rinpoche's breakfast tray and something managed to tape together the broken glasses and also managed to ascend the stairs to Rinpoche's bedroom. I set the tray down next to the bed and looked at him. Our eyes met and the space between us seemed to grow small and then large. My mind reeled with the words "somewhere near Japan."
''Are you okay, Major?" softly inquired the Prince.
I struggled to put things together into a coherent statement and then blurted out, "I have absolutely no idea."
He looked at me intently and said, "Maybe you should become a teacher."
And at last finding solid ground, I muttered to myself, "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" He continued to look at me, waiting.
"Well, I don't know anything," I responded finally. "How could I be a teacher?"
"On the spot," came the reply.
"What is that?" I asked.
"Unborn," came the answer.
"Unborn? Unborn?" I struggled to make meaning out of the words. "That does not make any sense," I said.
"Exactly," came back to me.
Up to this point neither one of us had actually spoken a word. It was just a quick series of flashes.
Then Rinpoche said, out loud, "Exactly."
Everything fell away into the seeming reality of the room. I looked past his head into the window and the street beyond. It had started to rain. I came back again to his face. He said again, "Exactly."
I waited. Nothing happened. He reached for his teacup. I reached for the teapot and feeling the weight in my hand I poured the tea into the waiting cup. Our eyes met and when he smiled I felt my body warm up with the radiation.
After his death, years later, I visit Rinpoche near Gantock. He is staying in a house with tall arches, aglow from inside with a yellow light. He is dressed only in a translucent gold shawl draped across his shoulders. He has many attendants. I prostrate and touch his feet. He says he is happy to see me and asks if I need anything. I reply that at this time in my life I am continuing to join with the energies that arise. "That's good," he says. Turning to his companion he asks if she has any advice for me. She answers, "He has such a wonderful voice. He should use it more often." I thank them both and receive the radiating warmth of their smiles. The now-ness quality of the situation is transparently real.
_______________
Notes:
28 Machig Labdron and the Foundations of Chod, Jerome Edou, Snow Lion Publications, 1996, p. 162.
29 The Dalai Lama explains, "We can interpret this mantra metaphorically to read, 'Go to the other shore,' which is to say, abandon this shore of samsara, unenlightened existence, which has been our home since beginningless time, and cross to the other shore to final nirvana and complete liberation." © Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, 2002. Reprinted from Essence of the Heart Sutra: The Dalai Lama's Heart of Wisdom Teachings, with permission of Wisdom Publications, 199 Elm Street, Somerville, MA 02144 U.SA., http://www.wisdompubs.org.