Draft:Karmapa’s Practice Manual on Severance/Text

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Practice Manual on the Profound Severance of Evil Object
by Karmapa Rangjung Dorje

Namo Prajñāpāramitā

Completely quieting all conceptual elaborations,

not entering into the duality of existence and peace,

showing the middle way free of extremes,

Mother of the Victors, having bowed to you,

I write the instructions for cutting off discursive thought

in order to sever by the meaning of non-inflation 

the devil of dualistic clinging totally entangled

by habitual patterns since beginningless time.

There are three stages in taking up the practice of esoteric instructions in

severing devils: the preliminary, the main part, and the conclusion.

I. Preliminary

To embark, there are the esoteric instructions of going for refuge and engendering the enlightened attitude. With the desire to practice this, sit down cross-legged in whatever place is appropriate. Place your hands in the equipoise mudra and think, “In order to liberate all sentient beings equaling space from the suffering of cyclic existence and establish them in omniscient buddhahood, I will practice the esoteric instructions of the perfections.” 

Meditate on a throne encrusted with various jewels in front of you in the sky. Upon that, on a seat of lotus and moon, is the Great Mother Perfection of Wisdom. She is the color of smelted gold with one face and four arms. Her upper right hand holds a vajra, the upper left a volume of text, and the two lower hands take the position of equipoise. She is adorned with all the precious ornaments. Meditate on the completely perfect buddha on the crown of her head, adorned with the thirty-two major excellent marks, the eighty minor exemplary marks, and the accoutrements of the nirmāṇakāya. Around that meditate vividly on all the buddhas and bodhisattvas, together with the root and lineage lamas and so on, inseparable from Lady Lapdrön.  

(1) Common Offering and Refuge

Make offerings of flowers and so forth and mentally emanate as many as possible. Think that you are offering exquisite forms, sounds, smells, tastes and textures that exist in limitless infinite world realms. Meditate that all sentient beings prostrate and go for refuge. 

If you prefer elaboration, add the seven-branch prayer. If you don’t like it, then mentally confess sins, rejoice in merit, request the turning of the dharma wheel, supplicate for the buddhas not to transcend misery, and depend on the path of totally omniscient enlightenment. With that yearning aspiration, [recite this] three times:

From now until attaining totally omniscient buddhahood, I and all sentient beings equaling the reaches of space go for refuge in the Great Mother, the Perfection of Wisdom. We go for refuge in the perfect genuine Buddha Shakyamuni. We go for refuge in the buddhas of the ten directions. We go for refuge in the dharma. We go for refuge in the sangha. We go for refuge in the precious lama together with the lineage. May all sentient beings be liberated from suffering and the causes of suffering, and be established in great bliss.

(2) Uncommon [Method] of Offering the Body

Think of your own body as food of a hundred flavors, white and round as the supreme mountain. First cut off the head and offer it to the lama and Jewels. Imagine that they partake of it with delight. In the same way offer all the limbs, extremities, and inner organs. Furthermore, if you like elaboration, give to the protectors of the holy dharma, the eight classes of gods and spirits, the creditors, and all the guests of compassion and imagine that each of them gets whatever they desire in their sphere of activity. Then, without reference to the offerer, the act of offering, or all the offering substances, such as the body, rest in equipoise in the state of total quiescence of all elaborations. This is the ultimate going for refuge. Abiding in that is the intention of a buddha. Meditate diligently on this esoteric instruction of the entry into going for refuge and engendering the aspiration.

II. The Main Part

This has three parts: instructions for meditation without recollection and mentally doing nothing for those of superior intellect, instructions for separating body and mind for the middling, and the practice of casting out the body as food and severing conceptual elaborations for the inferior. 

A. Superior

We all have failed to cut off these inflating thoughts throughout cyclic existence without beginning. Based on thoughts fixated on rejecting and accepting samsara and nirvana, we experience the tangible objects of form, sound, smell, taste, and texture directly with our senses, and intangible positive and negative mental sensations. Without realizing it, they become binding, and through that power they become the devils of the death lord, the afflictive emotions, and the aggregates. Fixation on exaltation based on attachment to the path’s meager qualities is the devil of a god’s child. Once you understand that this has occurred from incorrect thinking about all of these, the remedy is to be without the embellishment of conceptual thought. In the ultimate sense, there is no established existence whatsoever to the harm and harming of gods and demons, self and others, and samsara and nirvana. Also, in the conventionally true sense, [these phenomena are] without concept, appearing while lacking inherent nature, “for example, like a dream.” Once you know that, meditate without thinking, without examining, without projecting, and without concentrating. All the sūtras and tantras say that if you abide in this it is the Buddha’s intent. That is the instruction of meditation without recollection and without mental activity.

B. Middling

The esoteric instruction for separating body and mind has two parts, but the blessing, Opening the Door of the Sky, can be learned elsewhere. For the regular meditation, take a comfortable posture, or stand up, and so forth. Meditate that on the sole[s] of your feet the essence of prāna-mind is a white vital essence drop the size of a bird’s egg, appearing yet without intrinsic nature, like the moon’s reflection in water. It shoots up by stages and emerges out of the crown of your head to blend with space as you utter p’e (phaṭ). With no discursive thought engaged in the mind, whatever of the four daily activities you are doing, do not waver from that state of nonthought.

C. Inferior

Now, in the third there are two parts: The root is the practice of casting out the body as food and the branches are to engage the proliferation of discursive thoughts. 

1. The Practice of Casting Out the Body as Food

When beginners are doing the practice, if fear, anxiety, and thoughts of gods and demons arise, or there is attachment and clinging to the body, in general cast it out as food. For this, meditate as much as the mind can manage on your body as white and round. In front of you are the eight classes such as creditors and so on, headed by those nonhuman beings that cause you harm. Meditate clearly on all of them, and cultivate this intention:

Since beginningless time I have taken innumerable bodies under the

power of ignorance. They have only been meaningless. Now again this

body, which is made up of thirty-two impure substances from crown to

sole, will quickly destruct. This time I will make a gift of the body in

order to realize its essence, and in order that I and all sentient beings

equal to space will completely consummate the perfection of generosity.

Thinking that, imagine that you cut off your own head and cast it out in the midst of all those spirits. Likewise cast out and give away everything: the five solid and five hollow viscera, limbs, extremities, and so forth. “Meat lovers: eat the flesh! Blood-lovers: drink the blood!” Giving to the lovers of bones, skin, feet, brains, sense organs, viscera and so forth, imagine that they partake of it. Then rest in equipoise without referencing any of it: the recipients, the self that gives, and the body that is given. This is the practice of the bodhisattvas. It says in the Verse Summary:

[Bodhisattvas] would give up their head and limbs without hesitating. 

Knowing that all phenomena are empty and hollow,

if they wish to completely give up their own flesh, 

what need to mention giving up external things at that time?

This is the general practice of casting out the food. The specific practice of casting out food is to cut off whatever is occurring, such as sickness and so on, by visualizing it and casting it out many times. Afterwards, rest directly in the abiding nature as described above.

2. The Branches

When roaming through haunted grounds for enhancement, and in order to clear up obstacles of sickness and spirits and such, take up the practices of “Severing Delusion” (‘khrul gcod) and those from the seventh of the Steps of Vital Points. In going to areas of nonhuman beings’ activities or their destinations, the superior individual will go at dusk without trepidation. The middling goes at noon and stays wherever it is pleasant. The inferior should carefully examine it and stay there. In general, if fixating thoughts of self and other, gods and demons, and faults and qualities are not cut off, even if one goes to a haunted place it is of no use. While it is certainly the case that, if thoughts are severed, wherever one dwells is the same, nevertheless, having gone to those dwelling places of fierce gods and demons, [the spirits] can’t bear it and become apprehensive about being made into a meal, so many apparitions will occur. Regarding those, the superior practitioner understands that they are mental apparitions and rests in their invalidity, the middling separates body from mind, and the inferior practices casting out the body as food as described above. Thus the circumstances turn into spiritual powers. By understanding that everything is a mental apparition, you attain the confidence of fearing nothing whatsoever. [But you could get] conceited about your practice through cutting off some devils. If you become fixated on your joy and bloated mind at that time then [it is a case of] medicine turning to poison, so do not accept or reject anything. 

Now, there are four parts to the actual branches: the manner in which apparitions occur, evidence of success, the way to pacify temporary obstacles, and the instructions on not turning back.

a. The Manner in which Apparitions Occur

Although many are explained, they can be subsumed into three: actual, felt, and dreamt apparitions. Actual [events] are all of these: humans and so on beating you, unjustly afflicting abuse and so on, rendering praise, veneration, or extolling your qualities and so forth, tigers, wolves and so forth displaying ferociousness, lightening, hail, gale winds, leprous corpses, and so on. 

As for felt experiences, there is nothing that does not occur: fear, anxiety, the appearances of fire, water, wind, and earthquakes, flesh-eating cannibals and so forth—one could not speak of them all. Also, gods and lamas and nonhumans and so forth making prophecies. 

Dream apparitions are limitless and cannot be written here. In short, all of these are nothing other than the apparitions of one’s own mind. 

b. Evidence of Success

The immediate evidence of success is the subsiding of apparitions and a sense of well-being, clear consciousness, respectful bowing of humans and non-humans and so forth. The ultimate evidence of success is that although things occur, they occur as apparitions of the mind. Though there is consciousness, it is consciousness of mental apparitions. Faithful devotion to the lama and Buddha is born. Compassion for all sentient beings arises. Ultimately, when freedom from all elaboration has arisen directly in one’s being, it is the evidence that you have been successful. 

c. The Way to Pacify Temporary Obstacles

For superior practitioners, obstacles don’t occur. For the average practitioners, they occur but disappear through the understanding that they are not truly existent. For the inferior practitioner, when you first meditate, even if humans and other beings cause obstacles to meditation through any good and bad means, you should recognize them and not fall under their power. If fear and so forth occur, [contemplate] who it is that is feared. Is earth feared, or water, or fire, or wind, or is space feared? If it is somehow all of those that you fear, [remember that] there is no place anywhere that all of them are absent. On the ultimate level, even the buddhas do not see anything that could harm the mind. On the relative level, how could the illusory ever harm illusion? By resting directly in that contemplative experience it is cleared up. 

If somehow you don’t have the direct experience and are beset by hopes and fears, at first do not roam in haunted retreats. Rather, apply yourself to virtuous activities. In general, obstacles are cleared up just by the casting out of food and so forth described above.

d. The Instructions on Not Regressing

Mere recollection suffices. Furthermore, if you hold the bad as being only bad, you regress (ldog). If you flee in fear of external circumstances, you regress. If you fixate on the difficulty of the temporary evidence of success, you regress. Therefore, once you know that absolutely everything is without true existence and do not give in to the power of discursive thought, you will not regress. In general, everything that has not become the path of buddhahood is mistaken (log pa), and if it has become the path it is unmistaken. 

Some people say that for suppression practices (log non), [you should] disturb springs, cut down trees, and cause avalanches. No matter what one does about each [instance of] evil ones (gdon can) and such, there will be no apparitions and it only causes further sickness and pain. The yogin never in anyway does anything whatsoever without purpose. To do so would be to contravene the vows of a bodhisattva.

III. Conclusion

The conclusion has two parts: the sacred oaths and the benefits. The sacred oaths in general are to not contravene the vows of individual liberation and of the bodhisattva. The temporary sacred oaths at the time of practicing Severance are: no god offerings, no demon beatings, no hope for nirvana, no fear of samsara—freedom from all conceptual thought. For the benefits, it says in the Verse Summary:

Whoever makes the perfection of wisdom their protector,

who respectfully holds and comprehends this,

will not be afflicted by poison, weapons, fire, or water.

Evil and devils will find no opportunity.

The ultimate practice of the Severance Object of the Perfection of Wisdom is the combination of the work of the holy lamas and my own personal experiences, set forth by the one named Rangjung Dorje in the mountain retreat of Lhateng. 


iti
Here is the poem:

Alas, beings at the end of time!

The meaning of this perfection

is the total quiescence of elaboration.

Do not create dualistic notions about duality.

Thus will you know the meaning of Severance.

Upon examination, it is understood this way

in three aspects of outer and inner and secret.

Outwardly, non-dharma is non-virtue:

killing, stealing what is not given,

sexual misconduct, gossip, slander,

lying, harsh words, envy,

malice, wrong views—these ten nonvirtues

are abandoned in order to practice Severance daily,

and their antidotes, the ten virtues, increase.

This is held to be outer Severance.

Inwardly, the aggregates, constituents, and sense-bases,

unrealized, are the devils binding you to samsara.

In order to cut them off,

realize that form is like foam,

feelings are impermanent as bubbles,

perceptions are like seeing watery mirages, 

formations are similar to the plantain’s pith,

consciousness is like an illusion,

sound is the nature of echoes,

smell, taste, and textures are all

the same as the dew on the grass.

That realization severs the clinging.

That is held to be inner Severance.

Secretly, the abiding ignorance,

with its neutral formations,

is taken as the root of samsara.

In order to conquer this trouble-maker,

realize that the clinger, like an illusionist,

clings to the illusion-like objects.

Not lies, not truth, not both.

That very inexpressible meaning,

not meditation, but familiarization, 

cuts off the belief in the transitory collection.

I understand this to be the supreme Severance.

Those not knowing this meaning in this way,

say, “I have the supreme instruction.”

Based on the courage of a braggart,

such an individual that causes harm 

to vermin and lesser ghosts

is carried off by the demon of concepts.

Some, in whom a bit of experience has arisen

based on clearing away lesser diseases and spirits,

arrogantly claim, “There is no dharma besides this.”

They are possessed of wrong views.

Some, not realizing the meaning here,

speak out wrongly against Severance.

Both of these accumulate the karma of rejecting dharma.

Beings are terribly afraid of this, 

as occurs in sūtras, but is not told here.

Therefore, all you sublime individuals,

do not ponder the words, focus on the meaning

and straightforwardly enter the middle way.

The victorious ones teach in this way.

These are the words spoken again and again

by the one with the name Rangjung Dorje.

The poem condensing the meaning of Severance is finished.

The lineage is: Genuine perfect Buddha, Mañjuśrī Lion of Speech, Āryadeva, Indian Dampa, Lapdrön, Khambuyale, Jñānajola, Namtshowa, and Rangjung Dorje.

Sarvamangalam. Virtue!

• Footnotes