Brief History.
In the usual way that
the word is used, Kalacakra refers to one of the main Tantric deities of
Vajrayana 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 Kalacakra Tantra.
The Kalacakra Tantra is more properly called the Kalacakra Laghutantra, as it
is an abridged form of the original text - the Kalacakra Mulatantra.
It is said by the Tibetan historian Taranatha, that the Mulatantra was taught
by the Buddha on the full moon of the month Caitra in the year following his
enlightenment, at the great stupa of Dhanyakataka in India. This teaching had
been requested by the king Sucandra from Sambhala (often written
"Shambhala").
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Manjushri Yashas, said to be the author
of the Kalacakra Laghutantra
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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
Mulatantra of 12,000. A later king of Sambhala, Yashas, wrote the abridged form
of the Tantra, the Kalacakra Laghutantra. This is about one quarter of the
length of the original Mulatantra. This text survives today, and is generally known
simply as the Kalacakra Tantra.
The next king was Pundarika, and he composed a commentary on the Laghutantra
known as the Vimalaprabha. This also survives to this day, and both these texts are available
in the original Sanskrit and Tibetan translation. However, the original Mulatantra, if
it ever existed, has been lost, although significant sections remain in
quotations in the Vimalaprabha and some other texts. The existence of these quotations
do not of course prove that the Mulatantra ever existed as a complete text.
Having been preserved in Sambhala for many centuries, the teachings of the
Kalacakra cycle were brought into India around the middle of the 10th century.
Roughly 60 years later, in 1027, the Kalacakra was introduced into Tibet.
Naturally, the period of translation and adoption took a couple of hundred
years, and the significance of the date 1027 is that the new Tibetan
chronology, based on the Kalacakra system, started in that year.
Among the early teachers of the Kalacakra 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). Kalacakra 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 Kalacakra
teachings.
The general content of
the teachings of Kalacakra 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 Kalacakra.
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 Kalacakra system into ground, path
and result, and the division into inner, outer and other, correspond to
different chapters of the Kalacakra Tantra. In other words, the Kalacakra
system is explained in the Tantra in this structured manner.
The Kalacakra Tantra is divided into five chapters. The first chapter deals
with the outer Kalacakra: the physical world, in particular the calculation
system for the Kalacakra calendar. It also covers the basic symbolism of the
Kalacakra 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 Kalacakra, 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-kaya - 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 Kalacakra,
describing the state of human existence as it is.
The next three chapters describe the other Kalacakra and deal with the path and
result. The third chapter deals with the preparation for the meditation
practices of the system, the initiations of Kalacakra. There are two main sets
of initiations in Kalacakra. The first of these is the preparation for the
generation process meditations of Kalacakra. 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 Kalacakra powder mandala, 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 Kalacakra, known as the Six
Yogas.
The fourth chapter explains the
actual meditation practices themselves: both the meditation on the mandala and
deity of Kalacakra in the generation process, and the perfection process of the
Six Yogas. These two chapters, three and four, thereby describe the path of
Kalacakra.
The final fifth chapter describes the state of enlightenment that results from
the practise of that path, and thereby covers the result Kalacakra.
Last updated 8th December
2004.
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