Brief History.
In the
usual way that the word is used, Kālacakra refers to one of the main Tantric
deities of Vajrayāna Buddhism. However, in a wider sense the word refers to the
whole collection of philosophies and meditation practices contained in a set of
texts based around the Kālacakra Tantra.
The Kālacakra Tantra is more properly called the Kālacakra Laghutantra, as it
is said to be an abridged form of an original text - the Kālacakra
Mūlatantra.
It is said by the Tibetan historian Tāranātha, that the Mūlatantra was taught
by the Buddha on the full moon of the month Caitra in the year following his
enlightenment, at the great stupa of Dhānyakaṭaka in India. This teaching had
been requested by the king Sucandra from Sambhala (often written "Shambhala".
In original Sanskrit texts the form is usually equivalent to "Sambhala", but in
Tibetan texts it is written equivalent to "Shambhala".)
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Mañjuśrī Yaśas, said to be the author
of the Kālacakra
Laghutantra |
Sucandra returned to Sambhala and wrote the Tantras in textual form there. He
composed the explanatory Tantra in 60,000 lines as a commentary on the original
Mūlatantra of 12,000. A later king of Sambhala, Yaśas, wrote the abridged form
of the Tantra, the Kālacakra Laghutantra. This is about one quarter of the
length of the original Mūlatantra. This text survives today, and is generally
known simply as the Kālacakra Tantra.
The next king was Puṇḍarīka, and he composed a commentary on the Laghutantra
known as the Vimalaprabhā. This also survives to this day, and both these texts
are available in the original Sanskrit and Tibetan translation. However, the
original Mūlatantra, if it ever existed, has been lost, although significant
sections remain in quotations in the Vimalaprabhā and some other texts. The
existence of these quotations does not of course prove that the Mūlatantra ever
existed as a complete text.
Having been preserved in Sambhala for many centuries, the teachings of the
Kālacakra cycle were brought into India around the middle of the 10th century.
Roughly 60 years later, in 1027, the Kālacakra was introduced into Tibet.
Naturally, the period of translation and adoption lasted a couple of hundred
years, and the significance of the date 1027 is that the new Tibetan
chronology, based on the Kālacakra system, started in that year.
Among the early teachers of the Kālacakra in Tibet, two, who happen to be
almost exact contemporaries, are normally agreed to stand out: Dolpopa Sherap
Gyaltsen (1292-1361) and Buton Rinchen Drup (1290-1364). Kālacakra is practised
my most of the different traditions within Tibetan Buddhism, but the two
foremost are the Gelug, based largely on the teachings of Buton, and the
Jonang, based on Dolpopa.
The
Kālacakra teachings.
The
general content of the teachings of Kālacakra are usually categorised in two
ways. First by ground, path and result, and second by inner, outer and other.
The categories of ground, path and result are common to many Buddhist tantric
systems, but the inner, outer and other division is peculiar to
Kālacakra.
The ground is essentially the normal state that beings find themselves in.
Buddhism states that the essential characteristic of that state is suffering,
and so the ground covers the Buddhist theory of why this suffering exists, how
that state is maintained, and of course, how within that state there exists the
potential to overcome the causes of suffering and achieve
enlightenment.
The path is the description of the practices that are to be followed in order
to remove the causes of suffering and achieve enlightenment. The result - some
maintain that perhaps "goal" is a better translation - is the state of
enlightenment once the causes of suffering have been completely
removed.
This classification of the contents of the Kālacakra system into ground, path
and result, and the division into inner, outer and other, correspond to
different chapters of the Kālacakra Tantra. In other words, the Kālacakra
system is explained in the Tantra in this structured manner.
The Kālacakra Tantra is divided into five chapters. The first chapter deals
with the outer Kālacakra: the physical world, in particular the calculation
system for the Kālacakra calendar. It also covers the basic symbolism of the
Kālacakra system and describes a set of machines, ranging from catapults and an
irrigation machine to a merry-go round for use at the spring festival!
The second chapter deals with inner Kālacakra, and covers the inner world of
human existence, dealing with the processes of gestation and birth, the
classification of the functions within the human body and experience, and the
vajra-kāya - the expression of human physical existence in terms of channels,
winds, drops and so forth. In particular, human existence is described as
consisting of four states: the waking state, dream, deep sleep, and the
so-called fourth state, which mainly refers to orgasm. The potentials (drops)
which give rise to these states are described, together with the processes that
flow from them. These first two chapters comprise the ground Kālacakra,
describing the state of human existence as it is.
The next three chapters describe the other Kālacakra and deal with the path and
result. The third chapter deals with the preparation for the meditation
practices of the system, the initiations of Kālacakra. There are two main sets
of initiations in Kālacakra. The first of these is the preparation for the
generation process meditations of Kālacakra. This set of initiations is known
as the Seven Empowerments Raising the Child. The point of this name is that the
generation process (often misleadingly called a "stage") meditation purifies
the process of life, from the moment of conception up to the stage of puberty.
In the initiation, the student is introduced to this process by the teacher,
who guides the student through the basic process from conception, through
gestation, birth, learning to talk, and so forth, up to maturity. This first
set of initiations requires the use of the Kālacakra powder maṇḍala, and this
is therefore described in the third chapter.
The next set of initiations is known as the "Higher Empowerments", and
symbolically purifies the process of life after puberty. For this reason, there
is much sexual imagery in these empowerments. They specifically prepare the
student for the perfection process meditations of Kālacakra, known as the Six
Yogas.
The fourth chapter explains the actual meditation practices themselves: both
the meditation on the maṇḍala and deity of Kālacakra in the generation process,
and the perfection process of the Six Yogas. These two chapters, three and
four, thereby describe the path of Kālacakra.
The final fifth chapter describes the state of enlightenment that results from
the practise of that path, and thereby covers the result Kālacakra.
Last
updated 7th December 2004.
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