Three Vajras

The Three Vajras, namely "body, speech and mind", are a formulation within Vajrayana Buddhism and Bon that hold the full experience of the śūnyatā "emptiness" of Buddha-nature, void of all qualities (Wylie: yon tan ) and marks[1] (Wylie: mtshan dpe ) and establish a sound experiential key upon the continuum of the path to enlightenment. The Three Vajras correspond to the trikaya and therefore also have correspondences to the Three Roots and other refuge formulas of Tibetan Buddhism. The Three Vajras are viewed in twilight language as a form of the Three Jewels, which imply purity of action, speech and thought.

The Three Vajras are often mentioned in Vajrayana discourse, particularly in relation to samaya, the vows undertaken between a practitioner and their guru during empowerment. The term is also used during Anuttarayoga Tantra practice.

In Tendai and Shingon Buddhism of Japan, they are known as the Three Mysteries (三密 sanmitsu).

Nomenclature, orthography and etymology

The Three Vajras is an English rendering of gsang ba gsum (Tibetan); which has variously been rendered as: Three Secrets, Three Mysteries, Three Seats, Three Doors and Three Gateways. Another Tibetan orthography that explicitly mentions Vajra (Tibetan: rdo-rje) is: rdo rje gsang ba gsum. The full Tibetan title may be rendered into English as 'the three secrets of the noble ones' (Tibetan: phags pa'i gsang ba gsum) which are: body (Tibetan: lus and sku); voice/speech (Tibetan: gsung) and mind (Tibetan: thugs). Another full title: sku gsung thugs mi zad pa rgyan gyi 'khor lo may be rendered as "Inexhaustible adornment wheel of Body, Speech and Mind" where the term 'khor lo is the Tibetan term for chakra (Sanskrit).

Vajra Body

The Vajra Body (Tibetan: rdo rje'i lus; sku rdo rje; ). In explicating the term rdo rje'i lus, the Dharma Dictionary states that it denotes: "The human body, the subtle channels of which resemble the structure of a vajra."[2]

Vajra Voice

The Vajra Speech/Voice (Tibetan: rdo rje'i gsung; gsung rdo rje). In elucidating the term, the Dharma Dictionary states that it denotes: 'vajra speech', 'vajra words'.[3]

Vajra Mind

The Vajra Mind (Tibetan: thugs rdo rje; Sanskrit: citta-vajra) is defined by the Dharma Dictionary as: mind vajra, vajra mind.[4]

Exegesis

The Three Vajras are often employed in tantric sādhanā at various stages during the visualization of the generation stage, refuge tree, guru yoga and iṣṭadevatā processes. The concept of the Three Vajras serves in the twilight language to convey polysemic meanings, aiding the practitioner to conflate and unify the mindstream of the iṣṭadevatā, the guru and the sādhaka in order for the practitioner to experience their own Buddha-nature.

Speaking for the Nyingma tradition, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche perceives an identity and relationship between Buddha-nature, dharmadhatu, dharmakāya, rigpa and the Three Vajras:

Dharmadhatu is adorned with dharmakaya, which is endowed with dharmadhatu wisdom. This is a brief but very profound statement, because "dharmadhatu" also refers to sugata-garbha or buddha nature. Buddha nature is all-encompassing ... This buddha nature is present just as the shining sun is present in the sky. It is indivisible from the three vajras [i.e. the Buddha's Body, Speech and Mind] of the awakened state, which do not perish or change."[5]

Robert Beer (2003: p. 186) states:

The trinity of body, speech, and mind are known as the three gates, three receptacles or three vajras, and correspond to the western religious concept of righteous thought (mind), word (speech), and deed (body). The three vajras also correspond to the three kayas, with the aspect of body located at the crown (nirmanakaya), the aspect of speech at the throat (sambhogakaya), and the aspect of mind at the heart (dharmakaya)."[6]

The bīja corresponding to the Three Vajras are: a white om (enlightened body), a red ah (enlightened speech) and a blue hum (enlightened mind).[7]

Simmer-Brown (2001: p. 334) asserts that:

When informed by tantric views of embodiment, the physical body is understood as a sacred maṇḍala (Wylie: lus kyi dkyil).[8]

This explicates the semiotic rationale for the nomenclature of the somatic discipline called trul khor.

The triple continua of body-voice-mind are intimately related to the Dzogchen doctrine of "sound, light and rays" (Wylie: sgra 'od zer gsum ) as a passage of the rgyud bu chung bcu gnyis kyi don bstan pa rendered into English by Rossi (1999: p. 65) states (Wylie provided for probity):

From the Basis (of) all, empty (and) without cause,
sound, the dynamic potential of the Dimension, arises.
From the Awareness, empty (and) without cause,
light, the dynamic potential (of) Primordial Wisdom, appears.
From the inseparability, empty (and) without cause,
rays, the dynamic potential of the Essence, appear.
When sound, light and rays are taken (as) instrumental causes
(that) ignorance (turns into) the delusion of body, speech (and) mind;
the result (is) wandering in the circle (of) the three spheres.[9]
ཀུན་གཞི་སྟོང་པ་རྒྱུ་མེད་ལས།
སྒྲ་ནི་དབྱིངས་ཀྱི་རྩལ་དུ་ཤར།
རིག་པ་སྟོང་པ་རྒྱུ་མེད་ལས།
འོད་ནི་ཡེ་ཤེས་རྩལ་དུ་ཤར།
དབྱེར་མེད་སྟོང་པ་རྒྱུ་མེདླས།
ཟེར་ནི་ཐིག་ལེའི་རྩལ་དུ་ཤར།
སྒྲ་འོད་ཟེར་གསུམ་རྐྱེན་བྱས་ནས།
མ་རྟོགས་ལུས་ངག་ཡིད་དུ་འཁྲུལ།
བྲས་བུ་ཁམས་གསུམ་འཁོར་བར་འཁྱམས༎[9]

Barron et al. (1994, 2002: p. 159), renders from Tibetan into English, a terma "pure vision" (Wylie: dag snang ) of Sri Singha by Dudjom Lingpa that describes the Dzogchen state of 'formal meditative equipoise' (Tibetan: nyam-par zhag-pa) which is the indivisible fulfillment of vipaśyanā and śamatha, Sri Singha states:

Just as water, which exists in a naturally free-flowing state, freezes into ice under the influence of a cold wind, so the ground of being exists in a naturally free state, with the entire spectrum of samsara established solely by the influence of perceiving in terms of identity.

Understanding this fundamental nature, you give up the three kinds of physical activity--good, bad, and neutral--and sit like a corpse in a charnal ground, with nothing needing to be done. You likewise give up the three kinds of verbal activity, remaining like a mute, as well as the three kinds of mental activity, resting without contrivance like the autumn sky free of the three polluting conditions.[10]

Kukkuraja's instruction to Garab Dorje

Kukkuraja's instruction to Garab Dorje entailed a teaching of the Three Vajras in relation to Vajrasattva, Atiyoga and Kulayaraja Tantra:

"Everything without exception is the Divine Body-Speech-Mind," he had said. "The Divine Body-Speech-Mind is all-encompassing. Thus know your ultimate identity to be Vajrasattva, the Divine Body-Speech-Mind." As the Tibetan text of the Kulaya-raja Sutra (Kun.byed.rgyal.po'i .mdo) states: "When everything is seen as the Great Self-identity (bdag.nyid.chen.po), it is known as Atiyoga."[11]

Five fundamental aspects of an enlightened being

The Three Vajras are subsumed within the 'Five fundamental aspects of an enlightened being'. Namkhai Norbu et al. (2001: p. 176) lists the English rendering with the associated Tibetan language term:

The body (sku), voice (gsung), mind (thugs), qualities (yon tan) and activities (phrin las) represent the five fundamental aspects of an enlightened being.[12]

Emanation theory and the five fundamental aspects of an enlightened being

Main articles: tulku and trikaya

Mindstream emanation (Sanskrit: nirmana body, nirmanakaya; Tibetan: sprul-sku, sprul-pa) theory is fundamentally related to the five fundamental aspects of an enlightened being:

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ '32 major marks' (Sanskrit: dvātriṃśanmahāpuruṣalakṣaṇa), and the '80 minor marks' (Sanskrit: aśītyanuvyañjana) of a superior being, refer: Physical characteristics of the Buddha.
  2. ↑ Dharma Dictionary (2007). Source: (accessed: January 5, 2008)
  3. ↑ Dharma Dictionary (2007). Source: (accessed: January 5, 2008)
  4. ↑ Source: Dharma Dictionary (2007) (accessed: January 5, 2008)
  5. ↑ As It Is, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, Rangjung Yeshe Books, Hong Kong, 1999, p. 32
  6. ↑ Beer, Robert (2003). The Handbook of Tibetan Buddhist Symbols. Serindia Publications. ISBN 1-932476-03-2 Source: (accessed: December 7, 2007)
  7. ↑ Rinpoche, Pabongka (1997). Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand: A Concise Discourse on the Path to Enlightenment. Wisdom Books. p. 196.
  8. ↑ Simmer-Brown, Judith (2001). Dakini's Warm Breath: the Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism. Boston, USA: Shambhala. ISBN 1-57062-720-7 (alk. paper). p.334
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Rossi, Donatella (1999). The philosophical view of the great perfection in the Tibetan Bon religion. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications. p. 65. ISBN 1-55939-129-4.
  10. ↑ Lingpa, Dudjom; Tulku, Chagdud; Norbu, Padma Drimed; Barron, Richard (Lama Chökyi Nyima, translator); Fairclough, Susanne (translator) (1994, 2002 revised). Buddhahood without meditation: a visionary account known as 'Refining one's perception' (Nang-jang) (English; Tibetan: ran bźin rdzogs pa chen po'i ranźal mnon du byed pa'i gdams pa zab gsan sñin po). Revised Edition. Junction City, CA, USA: Padma Publishing. ISBN 1-881847-33-0, p.159
  11. ↑ Dharma Fellowship (2005). Biographies: Pramodavajra, Regent of the Divine. Source: (accessed: November 15, 2007)
  12. ↑ Norbu, Namkhai (author, compiler); Clemente, Adriano (translated from Tibetan into Italian, edited and annotated); Lukianowicz, Andy (translated from Italian into English) (1999, 2001). The Precious Vase: Instructions on the Base of Santi Maha Sangha. Second revised edition. Shang Shung Edizioni.

References