This article is the fourth of fifteen articles inspired by the ‘Inspiration-Prayer for Deliverance from the Dangerous Pathway of the Bardo’, in which I shall be aiming to show meditators how each one of the ten deities of the Dharmadhātu Mandala can be felt in the fields of the body as profound suprapersonal sources of somatic healing and wisdom. Those who read the whole series of articles – and it is intended that these articles should be read in sequence – will be able to incorporate these reflections into their meditation practice in a systematic way. The first article in the series can be found here; and brief summaries of all the articles can be found here.
I offer these reflections without any claim to the authority of any particular tradition, or school of thought. I am adding my own personal and idiosyncratic commentary to the other commentaries that are available on the Five Wisdoms, and on the archetypal Buddhas of the Dharmadhātu Mandala, only because I believe passionately in the preciousness of this information. I cannot help feeling that there should be much more engagement with this knowledge than is evidenced on the Internet – much more discussion, reflection, contemplation and meditative self-enquiry which takes this primordial mandala as the integrated whole that it is. I sincerely hope that the thoughts that I am sharing will be supportive of this work, and supportive of those who share my love of the mandala wisdom.
In this article, I make reference to the five-fold ‘System of Practice’, that has been used, within the Triratna Buddhist Community, as a framework for thinking about the dimensions of meditation practice and the Dharma life more generally. Sangharakshita’s model originally identified Integration, Positive Emotion, Spiritual Death (i.e. Insight), and Spiritual Rebirth, as four key stages. To these four, a fifth component – Receptivity – was later added – usually as a third ‘stage’. While I am in complete agreement regarding the importance of receptivity and the need for its inclusion in the model, but I do not agree with the addition of it as an additional stage. In my own experience Receptivity is integral to the foundational Integration stage – and therefore to all the subsequent stages. The placement of Receptivity third in a series of five stages, does however reflect the reality that meditators generally come to an appreciation of the importance of Receptivity after they have been engaged with the goals of Integration and Positive Emotion for some time. It certainly fits my experience that a reframing of meditation through an emphasis on Receptivity is necessary for the sort of deepening of practice that is necessary for the emergence of the subsequent stages of Spiritual Death (Insight) and Spiritual Rebirth (Bodhicitta).
I need to acknowledge, and indeed emphasise, that where I have suggested, in these articles, that Receptivity should be given greater primacy, and have proposed that five of the ten deities can be considered to embody Receptivity are particularly supportive of the initial ‘Integration’ phase (and that the other five are more ‘expansive’ can strongly support us during the subsequent ‘Positive Emotion’ stage), this is an observation from my own explorations, and certainly goes beyond the standard interpretation of Sangharakshita’s model. I do not however, believe my suggestions are in conflict with Sangharakshita’s emphasis. I prefer to think of my ideas as a respectful engagement with his; as building on the foundation that his work has given us; as affirming the value of his original four-fold model; and as a tentative contribution to the process by which the Triratna meditation practice model is being forged in the furnace of experience.
In this article, I hope I can begin to tentatively explore how the kleshas and Wisdom energies, that I spoke about in the last article in this series (here), are located in the fields of the body, and on how we can begin to ‘hold the tension’ between those opposite groups of energies – as they appear as polarities within our bodily-felt experience in meditation practice. Each quadrant of the mandala points to an opposition between an egoic manifestation on one side, and a mysterious transcendent aspect on the other – which we can think of an aspect of our true nature as embodied Consciousness. We need to hold the tension between these opposites. By being careful not to deny the reality of either pole, while paying special attention to the ever-present somatic resonance of the transcendent reality, we begin to heal, and move towards our goal. Mandalas are complex multi-dimensional images of the many and various inherent oppositions within the psyche – which are the obstacles to our integration. Each quadrant of the mandala therefore describes a tension to be held – a polarity to be reconciled – and each axis of the mandala describes a tension to be held and reconciled also.
The Dharmadhātu Mandala as a Ten-Fold Meditation Cycle
I prefer to meditate on the ten archetypal Buddhas, not only as five apparent ‘couples’ as in the ‘Inspiration-Prayer’ – with one male-female pair representing each of the Five Wisdoms – or as five female Buddhas and five male Buddhas. Rather, I meditate first on what I have come to think of as the five ‘receptive’ deities (three female Buddhas and two male ones), and then on the five ‘expansive’ deities (three male Buddhas and two female ones). The two diagrams below, show these two groups of five deities – each with the ‘Dharmic Principles’ that I find useful for identifying the aspect of the Five Wisdoms that they personify, represent, or embody.
In the course of the articles in this series, I shall be explaining the words that I have chosen for the ‘Dharmic Principles’ and expanding upon them. There are two of these ‘Dharmic Principles’ for each Wisdom – one for each of the ten archetypal Buddhas in the mandala. The eight ‘Dharmic principles’ that are shown in the four quadrants of the two mandala are either brahmavihāras (Equanimity, Appreciative Joy, Loving Kindness, and Compassion), or are closely related Dharmic principles, which I call Qualia (Being, Embodiment, Uncaused Happiness, and Life Energy). While the Five Wisdoms are usually defined as the aspects of wisdom that arise as the emptiness of each of the skandhas is recognised, I, like many others, regard the brahmavihāras as an equally important way in to an understanding of them – and absolutely key to our bodily-felt experience of the Wisdoms in meditation. In previous articles on this website, I have already written quite extensively on each of the brahmavihāras and their related Qualia, but will be systematically examining each one of these Dharmic principles as we progress in this series of articles.
Whenever we use a single word for a Dharmic principle in any context, there is a loss of meaning. A word, as Buddhist tradition tells us, can only ever be a conceptual ‘pointer’ – a finger pointing at the moon, not the moon itself. In the Buddhist tradition, we nevertheless are forced to use these single word conceptual labels as placeholders for the larger meaning, trusting that our listeners will engage in the meditative enquiry that the word invites, and will take the time to unfold the layers of meaning that are held within. So, I use these Dharmic principles somewhat tentatively, aware that they are just ‘the words that have worked for me’ – and hoping that my readers will either connect with them, or perhaps find alternative words that work for them.
I am suggesting that we can, if we wish, approach the ten deities as two separate cycles of five Buddhas: one cycle culminating with White Tara, and a second cycle culminating with Vairocana. In this article, I shall be explaining in more detail the distinction that I make between the ‘receptive’ or ‘yin’ deities and the ‘expansive’ or ‘yang’ deities, but essentially, I regard the ‘receptive’ deities as more related to foundational processes of psychological integration (i.e. the ‘Integration’ stage in the Triratna system of practice), whereas the ‘expansive’ deities as more related to our social, relational, and ethical engagement and with our evolving embodiment, skills, generosity, and emotional positivity in communication, relationships, and work (i.e. the ‘Positive Emotion’ stage in the Triratna system of practice).
Integration, Positive Emotion, and Receptivity
Founded by the English Buddhist, Sanghakshita, who had practiced Buddhism in India for twenty years, the Triratna Buddhist Community, which was where I first encountered Buddhism in the early 1980s, follows an approach which approaches meditation via the two foundational principles of ‘Integration’ and ‘Positive Emotion’ – the first two stages of what became known as the Triratna ‘System of Practice’. In the context of meditation, these principles find expression in the ‘Mindfulness of Breathing’ practice (Integration), and the Mettābhāvana, or ‘Cultivation of Loving Kindness’ (Positive Emotion), but they can also be engaged with more broadly as ‘aspects of the Dharma life’. There is a compelling intuitive logic to the idea that Buddhist meditation needs to combine these two key ingredients – they are felt to be a reflection perhaps, within our initial explorations of meditation practice, of the ultimate Buddhist goals of Wisdom and Compassion – a transformed mind and transformed heart.
I need to emphasise again, as I have already done in my preamble to this article, that this proposed incorporation of a systematic approach to the Dharmadhātu Mandala into the Triratna ‘System of Practice’ model, is only a tentative sharing of understandings that work for me – and certainly does not reflect the views of Sangharakshita, or the consensus within the Triratna Order.
Also once again, we need to be aware that these ‘Integration’ and ‘Positive Emotion’ stages are an attempt to conceptualise subtle dimensions of our spiritual development process – they do not assert absolute distinctions. Clearly the Dharmic principles that contribute to our initial ‘Integration’ stage process are in themselves extremely ’emotionally positive’ developments, and our integration process is not complete without the inclusion of the Dharmic principles that I am categorising here as those of the ‘Positive Emotion’ stage. Indeed, these more expansive and extraverted Dharmic principles cannot be embodied in a fully integrated way unless those related to the earlier ‘Integration’ stage are established.
There is a third foundational meditation practice taught within the Triratna Community – the ‘Just Sitting’ practice. Over the years, the increasing recognition of the importance of this practice, and its subtle attitude of openness, receptivity, and allowing our experience, rather than sustained personal effort to change our experience, has led to the formal inclusion of ‘Receptivity’ as a fifth element in the Triratna ‘System of Practice’ – usually inserted as a third stage, after Positive Emotion. Those who have read my previous article in this series, will know that I strongly agree with the inclusion of this additional dimension. I also believe it encourages a more Mahayana attitude to meditation practice. The idea of cultivating a receptivity towards, and a devotional relationship with, the suprapersonal forces that drive spiritual evolution, became increasingly important as Buddhism developed. This Mahayana spirit, of surrender to the great work of the Bodhisattva, has always been at the heart of the Triratna approach, and is at the heart of these reflections on the Dharmadhātu Mandala – which are inspired by Padmasambhava’s ‘Inspiration-Prayer’.
The Relative and the Absolute
While it has been proposed that Receptivity can be regarded as a third ‘stage’, coming after Integration and Positive Emotion, and before Spiritual Death (i.e. Insight), and Spiritual Rebirth, I prefer to see Receptivity as foundational and primary – perhaps even as a necessary precursor for the Integration and Positive Emotion stages.
Others will understandably regard it as necessary to initially present meditation practice primarily an act of a personal moral will – even if that personal will is later going to be found to be non-personal, and as an appearance that can be understood in terms of the ’empty’ samskaras skandha – the impersonal Life Energies of volition. There is a very subtle balance to be found here. Although this is very difficult to conceptualise, we actually live simultaneously in the relative and absolute. It is as if we have one foot in the personal world view, of individuality and of taking responsibility for ourselves, and moral agency, where we make choices, and exert ourselves, and make seemingly personal efforts; while our other foot is in the universal, and in the recognition that the self is an aggregation of illusory cognitive-perceptual components (skandhas) and that Consciousness is an objective, collective, and unitary phenomenon.
I regard receptivity as our bridge between those two, seemingly incongruous, worlds. It is through Receptivity that we forge an internal relationship between the two, and ultimately reconcile them into a relational unity – as we rest receptively as the universal Consciousness, while also actively engaging with the appearance in which we find ourselves. In my previous article (here), I spoke about how I see White Tāra / Ākāshadhāteshvari, the female Buddha counterpart of the male Buddha Vairocana, is our personification of this attitude of resting as Consciousness – which I regard as the core and essence of the Buddha’s Mindfulness practice. One of the best ways of finding that subtle Mindful way of being that I have been calling ‘resting as Consciousness’, is to feel the receptive presence of White Tāra / Ākāshadhāteshvari ‘behind us’ as Padmasambhava’s ‘Inspiration-Prayer’ verse suggests (below). White Tāra is many things – she is Connection, Spaciousness, Emptiness, and Relatedness – and she is also the quintessence of spiritual receptivity to suprapersonal forces. And one of the ways in which we can integrate this quality of receptivity, is by making ourselves receptive to her.
When, through spiritual ignorance, I wander in samsara,
on the luminous light-path of the Dharmadhātu Wisdom,
may Blessed Vairocana go before me,
and White Tāra behind me;
help me to cross the bardo’s dangerous pathway,
and bring me to the perfect buddha state.
The Dharmadhātu Mandala, with its ten archetypal Buddhas, calls us to understand how Integration, Positive Emotion and Receptivity combine to provide a comprehensive approach to meditation – and I shall be doing my best to explain this in the course of this series of articles. I have come to regard these three factors as equally important, and see a great benefit in giving emphasis to Receptivity either from the outset, or at the earliest possible stage. The spiritual receptivity with which we are blessed by White Tara’s presence behind us, allows us to stand on a profound spiritual threshold. It is as if we stand with the absolute world behind us, and the relative world before us – holding the tension between the two.
Whatever our preferred emphasis, it is important to understand that the ten archetypal Buddhas, and our receptivity to the suprapersonal energies that they represent, can serve us even during the foundational stages of our practice, as well as in the subsequent insight and bodhicitta stages (Spiritual Death and Spiritual Rebirth). We could perhaps imagine the double, or quadruple (or multiple) circumambulation of the mandala that I am proposing, as an ongoing spiral (or helix-like) process of receptivity, in which the Five Wisdoms are visited and revisited at higher and higher levels of Integration, emotional transformation (Positive Emotion), insight (Spiritual Death), and embodiment (Spiritual Rebirth), as we progress on the Path of the Dharma.
It needs to be acknowledged that although, as novice students of meditation and/or Buddhism, our psychological frame of reference may be an entirely personal one, with an illusory egoic will in the centre of that frame, in reality there are always suprapersonal forces at work in us. All our motivations (samskaras skandha) are ultimately recognised to be non-personal, universal, and life-serving – but this only becomes clear when people are able to step out of the egoic frame of reference. The Buddha understood all this very well indeed, and was an extraordinarily gifted teacher and facilitator of self-enquiry, but it was not until the Mahayana and Vajrayana stages of Buddhism’s development, that these ideas were fully articulated.
The Mahabrahmavihāras – Suprapersonal Forces at Work in our Lives
We saw for example, in the Mahayana phase of Buddhism, the development, out of the pre-Buddhist notion of the brahmavihāras (upekshā – Equanimity; muditā – Appreciative Joy; maitri / mettā – Loving Kindness; and karunā – Compassion), a refinement of understanding in which it was acknowledged that the brahmavihāras have two aspects – a suprapersonal, or absolute, or archetypal dimension (mahupekshā; mahumuditā; mahamaitri / mahamettā; and mahakarunā). The archetypal dimensions of the four brahmavihāras were called the mahabrahmavihāras – each being prefaced with maha which means ‘great’.
Hence there was a recognition that the personal brahmavihāras are only a resonance, or a reflection in the relative world, and finding expression in our individual lives, of aspects of the absolute that are the mahabrahmavihāras. Both aspects are in fact non-personal. When we acknowledge that the root of the brahmavihāras is in the absolute – in Consciousness – and stop personalising our experience of the brahmavihāras, we open ourselves to a new level of practice, in which the brahmavihāras become doorways into Insight, and into even that deeper level of transformation that Buddhist tradition calls the arising of the bodhicitta.
I took the mahabrahmavihāras as my starting point for a long series of some forty articles, which can be found in the ‘Meditation’ menu of this website. One of my aims in those articles was to raise awareness to the suprapersonal aspect of the brahmavihāras, and to show the way that people can acknowledge the suprapersonal, or archetypal aspects of the brahmavihāras in meditation practice. The perspective that I proposed in those articles, is one in which the mahabrahmavihāras are regarded as inseparable from, and implicitly present in, the brahmavihāras. I also aimed to help my readers to understand the value of practicing all of the four brahmavihāras in a single meditation session – that is, in a meditation ‘cycle’ – and I am proposing something similar with the ten deities of the Dharmadhātu Mandala.
The Lost Teachings of the Nalanda Monastery
One of my main aims in this current series of articles, is to help students of Buddhism to recognise the antecedent roots of the Five Wisdoms and of the ten deities of the Dharmadhātu Mandala, in the various formulations of the Dharma that the historical Buddha used in his teachings. Of these, clearly the brahmavihāras are one of the main ones, but I shall also be talking about the ‘Five Spiritual Faculties’, and ‘Four Foundations of Mindfulness’ – and of course the five skandhas, five kleshas, and the five Realms. If the vast hand-copied libraries of the Mahayana had not been burned by India’s Moslem invaders, we would have a much better sense of how the Dharmadhātu Mandala evolved, and these connections would be much better known. In the absence of those texts, we have to read the Bardo Thodol with reference to our own experience, and need to do what we can to work out those connections for ourselves.
It needs to be said, and acknowledged as a historical fact, and as context for our study of the Dharmadhātu Mandala, that the great Indian monastic university of Nalanda, where Padmasambhava studied, practiced, and taught, before taking the Mahayana teachings to Tibet, was quite probably the greatest spiritual institution that the world has ever seem – a extraordinary powerhouse of spiritual knowledge. I cannot help feeling that anything that we can do, through our own self-enquiry, to understand the spiritual knowledge in Padmasambhava’s teachings, is in some way also recovering the lost spiritual knowledge of Nalanda in our own experience, and is deeply worthwhile – and is much needed for the world’s healing.
Receptive (Introversion) and Expansive (Extraversion) Stages
In my experience, the energies of the five deities of the initial ‘receptivity’ (Integration) stage, create a psychological and ethical foundation on which a further more externally relational and ‘expansive’ (Positive Emotion) stage can be built. There ultimately needs to be a balance between the somatic experience of ‘receiving’ and ‘integrating’ on one side, and the experience of ‘expanding’, ‘relating’, and ‘responding compassionately’ on the other, but in my view, the establishment of a capacity to rest receptively as Consciousness (to be truly Mindful) needs to come first – or it is likely that the ‘Positive Emotion’ stage will not be understood or practiced correctly.
To acknowledge this need for balance, and to name this polarity in psychological functioning, Carl Jung invented the terms ‘Introversion’ and ‘Extraversion’. These are very subtle and generally very poorly understood ideas, but are of enormous value if we are interested in personality, integration, wholeness, and particular problems of the psychological shadow that we see in spiritual practitioners and spiritual communities. I have written several articles previously about the Shadow archetype, primarily though a Buddhist frame of reference (here, here, here, here, and here), and shall be incorporating this foundational vigilance into the approach to meditation that I am describing in this series of articles.
Transcending the Subject-Object Dichotomy
I hesitate to make these connections, but they are very powerful and undeniable, and they take us to the heart of the Buddha’s teaching. The notions of Introversion and Extraversion give us a way of understanding the fundamental egoic defenses that prevent us from going beyond the subject-object dichotomy. In the context of the egoic perception and decision-making process that are described by both the ancient Indian five skandhas, and the Buddha’s ‘Four Foundation of Mindfulness’, Introversion is a subjective orientation and Extraversion is an objective orientation – and we need to make both orientations conscious before we can reconcile them.
Buddhist wisdom invites us to recognise that Consciousness (the empty vijñāna skandha) is both subjective and objective. We eventually come to see a similar transcendence of the subject-object dichotomy in the other four skandhas. When we get deep into our enquiry into the other four skandhas we find that, while there is egoic identification, each of the cognitive-perceptual functions also tend to operate either subjectively (Introversion) or objectively (Extraversion), but rarely both. Once we begin to release egoic identification, and the choice of Introversion and Extraversion is made conscious, then the transcendence of the subject-object dichotomy in regard to the four functions becomes a possibility.
What I am calling Receptivity is an introverted mode of relationship to Consciousness, in which we have a sense of receiving positive psychological energy from suprapersonal sources. This Receptivity is very unlike our ordinary egoic expression of Introversion however, because it involves a balancing dimension of inner extroversion – a profound acknowledgement of the inner ‘otherness’ of the archetypal Buddhas. Similarly, what I am calling Expansiveness is an extroverted mode of relationship in which, while our focus is outward and other-regarding, we recognise ourselves as ‘subjective’ sources of positive psychological energy from ‘inner’ suprapersonal sources. While this Expansiveness is focused on the outer ‘other’, and on the whole social and even global context, it is very unlike our ordinary egoic expression of Extraversion however, in that it acknowledges that everything in the external world, including ourselves, is animated by interior energetic dimensions – the Dharmic, or suprapersonal forces, which are personified by the archetypal Buddhas, are at work in all human perceptions, decisions, motivations, and activities.
Padmasambhava’s Understanding of the Shadow of Egoic Consciousness
We cannot afford not to consider the possibility that the unconscious Shadow of egoic consciousness will show itself in our lives as Buddhists. The brighter the light of our conscious intention, the darker will be the potential Shadow in our individual personality, or in our group dynamics. This is why the Buddha so frequently urged his students to be aware of the kleshas. Even the Buddha did not exclude himself from this vigilance and ethical scrutiny, and he was relentless in his invitation to his students to engage in an ongoing practice of fierce self-confrontation in this regard. The mandala wisdom that Padmasambhava gave us, is an aspect of the All-Accomplishing Wisdom. It provides us with a framework for such a self-confrontation – it allows us to be systematic, direct, and effective, in the task of cleaning up the energetic mess that is our accumulation of egoic kleshas.
Padmasambhava needs to recognised as a spiritual master who embodied the particular type of psychological wisdom that recognises, confronts and integrates the shadow. This is highlighted in his mythologised biography. We are told that Shantarakshita, the first scholar-monk who was to sent to Tibet from Nalanda, encountered a peculiar problem when he tried to build monastries in Tibet, in which all the building work achieved during the day (i.e. by the conscious mind?), was torn down at night by the local demons (i.e. by the unconscious mind?). Padmasambhava, when sent to replace Shantarakshita, overcame this problem, supposedly by a magical process through which the destructive energy of the demons was harnessed, so that they became ‘Protectors of the Dharma’. We can understand this literally if we like, bu there is wisdom in understand it metaphorically. Padmasambhava was not only Enlightened – he powerfully embodied the intuitive All-Accomplishing Wisdom aspect of Enlightenment, and was extremely astute regarding both collective and individual psychological dynamics.
Padmasambhava and the All-Accomplishing Wisdom
In pointing out Padmasambhava’s psychological genius, I do not wish either to lessen our appreciation of his extraordinary social skills in the complex task of his mission to Tibet, or to disparage the idea that he was an actual magician. On the contrary, I believe it was his psychological knowledge of the dynamic play of conscious and unconscious forces in the psyche that gave rise to both of these gifts. The essence of the All-Accomplishing Wisdom is the recognition that the volitional energies of the samskaras skandha are ’empty’. This wisdom came to be symbolised by the vishva vajra, the Vajra Cross, a central symbol in Vajrayana Buddhism, which is essentially a mandala.
All of the three ‘aspects of the Dharma life’ that I have been addressing here – Integration, Positive Emotion, and Receptivity – can be thought of as ways of confronting and uprooting the kleshas, and overcoming the tendency of the egoic mind to generate incongruous Shadow attitudes and perceptions, or to form rigid impermeable defences against unconscious contents that actually need to be seen and recognised, and subjected to ethical scrutiny. The potential of these healing principles, is only fully realised however, if we acknowledge the polarities within the psyche, which are shown by the axes of the mandala.
Meditation, if we understand it incorrectly, and practice it incorrectly, can paradoxically actually generate kleshas – can generate Shadow. The egoic mind always generates kleshas. It may lessen some of the kleshas, but it will often generate more kleshas in the process – only wisdom fundamentally removes them. As meditators we need to be aware that for every attitude of egoic consciousness, there is always a complementary opposite attitude – a Shadow. Shadow may be temporarily repressed into unconsciousness, but will be held somewhere in the somatic fields of the body, and will always return in some form – unless it is systematically rooted out.
The most fundamental way in which we can stop generating kleshas is by resting as Consciousness – and systematically familiarising ourselves with all of the ten dimensions of Mindfulness that the mandala describes. Once we have gained familiarity with the way Consciousness is embodied in us, we can break the reactive cycle by which these kleshas are sustained simply by stepping out of the egoic mind into a state of Mindfulness. Mindfulness literally means ‘remembering’, and even if we can only remember to embody Consciousness for a few moments at a time, this can be very healing – especially if we can find that capacity to rest as Consciousness in the midst of life difficult challenges – when our are being ‘triggered’. If we could practice this sort comprehensive Mindfulness really effectively and consistently, we might not need to meditate. For most of us however, systematic meditation practice is an absolutely essential part of the energetic clean up that we need.
Systematically Rooting Out the Shadow Kleshas
It is my belief, that the best way to build our vigilance, and build our immunity to Shadow is though mandala-based approaches to meditation and Mindfulness practice – either all four of the brahmavihāras; or all four of the ‘Foundations of Mindfulness’; or all five of the Wisdoms; or all ten of the deities of the Dharmadhātu Mandala. The systematic and comprehensive nature of these models means that they have a way of revealing Shadow kleshas and rooting them out. I personally also believe that the direct study of Carl Jung’s ideas about the mandala structure of the psyche can be of enormous support to Buddhists who wish to understand and address Shadow dynamics in themselves and their communities. Jung treasured the mandala wisdom in Padmasambhava’s teachings precisely because they addressed the Shadow of the egoic mind so comprehensively.
Jung borrowed enormously from Buddhism, and Buddhists would do well borrow from him – perhaps even regarding him as one of their own. He based his own mandala model of the psyche on the Dharmadhātu Mandala – unfortunately without acknowledging it – fearing that this would undermine the legitimacy of his theory. I feel sure however, that he was aware that he was propagating Padmasambhava’s ‘All-Accomplishing Wisdom’ – the mandala knowledge of the complementary nature of consciousness and unconsciousness within the egoic mind. The All-Accomplishing Wisdom is particularly important for the world because it addresses the psychology behind fascism, economic power, and war – the psychology of power, domination and violence – which Buddhist tradition speaks of in terms of the Asura Realm.
Jung witnessed the Shadow of unconsciousness in himself, and in his patients, and students, and having witnessed two World Wars, the Holocaust, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, and the Cold War, Jung feared for human civilisation. He often expressed the view that the only hope for humanity was in a confrontation with the unconscious with the mandala as our guide. He envisioned a cultural confrontation is which religions might become psychologically wise by recognising themselves as the carriers of universal spiritual knowledge. He hoped that his mandala-based psychology might support this process, and protect the world from the destruction and self-delusion that was described in the Realms, or lokas, of Buddhist tradition.
Taking a Deep Dive into the Mandala Wisdom
When we see the ten deities grouped as two arrangements of five Buddhas in the particular way that I have shown above, we reveal several dynamics within our somatic anatomy that are not at first apparent. The polarities across these mandalas from east to west and from north to south are not just feminine-masculine oppositions, they are key polarities between Dharmic principles that belong together in the Enlightened mind, but cannot be reconciled on the egoic level. I shall be talking about how we can use the breath to support the integration of these pairs of Dharmic principles – a somatic integration that is keenly felt in the body, and leads rapidly to significant corresponding changes on the level of our personality and our ethical and relational functioning.
In these articles therefore, I shall be approaching the ten deities of the mandala in a perhaps rather curious order – not only making the distinction between the five ‘receptive’ and five ‘expansive’ deities, but also highlighting the polarities, or oppositions, within the mandala structure. I very much hope that my readers will bear with me as we take this deep dive into the energetic complexity of the Dharmadhātu Mandala. I have no doubt that if you are willing to read the whole series and gain the necessary overview, you will find this information not only intellectually illuminating, but a powerful boost to your meditation practice. My intention here is to find a way of exploring and unfolding these deeper dimensions of the mandala wisdom, so as to make these powerful deities more accessible and directly supportive to us in our meditation practice, and to reveal the dynamics of the suprapersonal forces of the mandala within our somatic, or bodily-felt experience.
William Roy Parker 2020
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