Buddhism: Reflections on reciting Chakrasamvara mantra 50K Times as part of Ngöndro practice.

There are a couple of prefaces I feel like I should give as someone engaging in a Vajrayana practice. First, I am not a monk (surprise!). This means that I am not as well-focused as a Buddhist monk might be. Although I’ve been relatively good, I don’t always have time or mental space to engage in my practice as well as I should. Of course, this is related to being human!

Second, I am a Westerner who was not raised in a Buddhist tradition. I have practiced inconsistently, and only formally took refuge in a sangha this year—and from afar at that. Nonetheless, I have had good support and many good online resources. Yet I am also a bit of a “mad spiritualist” who has both taken up a Kagyu Buddhist practice on top of an Enochian practice.

Those nuances having been laid out, a bit of background about Ngöndro practice. It is considered a preliminary practice to the generation and completion phases of Vajrayana practices. The key to Ngöndro, I have found, is sustained propagation and emanation of love toward all sentient beings. Bodhicitta is considered the highest form of this love, and comes in relative and absolute forms. Essentially, on the one hand, one wishes for all sentient beings to realize Buddhahood (relative bodhicitta), and on the other hand, one also recognizes the inherent emptiness of all phenomena (absolute bodhicitta). Note that both forms are required for a wholistic view of bodhicitta. Without relative bodhicitta, one can easily lapse into nihilism. Without absolute bodhicitta, there is little hope of making progress: to some degree, things would just be as they are and the ability to actually realize Buddhahood would be limited due to some essential quality of fixity that could never be changed (this gets into the larger idea of all of reality having Buddha nature).

Incorporating bodhicitta into the Ngöndro path is vital. In practice this means I do not count progress towards reciting a mantra if I have not held bodhicitta towards all sentient beings while doing so. The practice I do is visualizing myself as the yidam Chakrasamvara in union with His dakini consort Vajravarahi as I recite his mantra.

The effects of this are what one would expect: working on the subtle body system and energetic changes. I’ll add that my path has surely not followed a “protocol,” but rather has mutated in interesting ways. Vajravarahi has joined with three other beings: Tara as well as the Enochian entities of the Daughter of Fortitude (or Babalon, if you prefer Crowley’s name), who is associated with the Aethyr of ZIP, and Galvah, identified with the “Mother in Heaven” by Aaron Leitch. At each of the four directions (and for each of the four faces/elements of Chakrasamvara) they unite with me in this visualization. I have also had a personal spirit consort who has arisen and taken her place at various directions but has settled within my torso (for now), enmeshing her heart with mine for further subtle body work.

It has been just under a year since I received the empowerment to begin practice and began doing so. I cannot pretend that things have gone entirely smoothly, and indeed during this past year it has been a rollercoaster across different dimensions of my life (for example, a close relative started treatment for cancer just before I took the empowerment). This, in turn, has made practice more difficult. Nonetheless, returning to the practice again and again has been helpful each time, and I intend to take less time than a year to finish the second half of the 100K mantra recitations, and then to move on to 100K prostrations.

Other effects of the Ngöndro practice are an easier time incorporating the sense of the clear light mind/dharmakaya, as well as not noticing any conflict between this practice and Enochian (if anything, they sort of complement each other well in my view, and the entities seem to understand each other and why, in my case, I use both). Beyond that, I don’t have a good conclusion, since nothing has been concluded, so I will simply sign off for now with the intent of giving more updates as they are relevant.

Bridging Buddhism and Enochian, Part 6: Considering the Pure Lands

Before I get into my analysis of the Pure Lands, let me note how this is related to Enochian in my mind. Mainly, the concept of Pure Lands remind me of the Enochian word pibliar, which means “places of comfort.” Pibliar itself is striking to me, for why have such a different word for heaven, unless it is not about heaven? Pibliar appears in the seventh spoken Enochian call, the translation of which is quite lovely:

“The east is a house of virgins singing praises amongst the flames of the First Glory; wherein the Lord hath opened His Mouth, and they become 28 living dwellings in whom the strength of men rejoiceth and they are appareled with ornaments of brightness such as work wonders on all creatures. Whose kingdoms and continuance are as the Third and Fourth; strong towers and places of comfort, the seats of mercy and continuance. O you servants of mercy, move, appear, sing praises unto the Creator, and be mighty amongst us. For to this remembrance is given power and our strength waxeth strong in our Comforter.”

I’ll digress to note the here the astrological, kabbalistic, and numerological implications: there’s a clear reference to the 28 lunar mansions (“28 living dwellings…appareled with ornaments of brightness [stars]”), and the implication of the moon (“waxeth”). The ordering of the dyads would suggest that the Third or the number 3 relates to strong towers, a seat of mercy, while the Fourth or the number 4 suggests places of comfort and a seat of continuance–but a clear reading of the text suggests a switch of significations, which should instead be as follows: 3, strong towers, a seat of continuance; and 4, places of comfort, seat of mercy. This corresponds well with 3 as Binah/Understanding and 4/Chesed/Mercy.

As I mentioned: I digress. To the analysis: in Buddhism, pure lands or buddha-fields are reminiscent of an actual location or place. Indeed, the Buddha Amitabha’s pure land of Sukhavati is described as millions of Buddha lands to the west, whereas other Buddhas’ pure lands also have directions: Aksobhya’s pure land of Abhirati to the east, Ratnasambhava’s pure land of Srimat to the south, and Amoghasiddhi’s pure land of Karmaprasiddhi/Prakuta of the north. Vairocana hosts Akanistha-Ghanavyuha. Note that “millions of Buddha lands to the west” (I’ve read in some sources “west of earth”) suggests a continuum of what is extruded out–presumably from Earth–and that this itself is reminiscent of both the celestial sphere of astrology, but also the Sambhogakaya or “body of enjoyment.”

Thus, we have the Earth (or other physical worlds) as the place of the actual bodies of Buddhas, or Nirmanakayas, the extrusion or reflection of these into Sambhogakayas and perhaps a similar extrusion of pure lands (which resemble metaphorical “fixed stars” mentioned by my friend Cody P.), and finally a Dharmakaya, which is an inconceivable aspect of being a Buddha. This makes the physical world very important, for we have a means of experiencing or even integrating all pure lands at once. To that end, as practitioners, it may be worthwhile to not only attempt to travel or project astrally to a pure land, but also to consider using the technique (from what I loosely “Hermetic Kabbalah”) of pathworking (i.e., finding paths from one Pure Land to another). The latter will likely help the seeker discover more about their own particular set of “fixed stars” which could guide and inform the particular Sambhogakaya they can develop.

Relating the Dharmakaya to Enochian, it reminds me of the phrase from Hermeticism (specifically Book of the 24 Philosophers) which I found referenced here: “God is an infinite sphere, the center of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere.” To that I’ll add that for me, the Divine must also have the Buddha nature.