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KALACHAKRA Overview
Alexander Berzin
Kalachakra means "cycles of time” and is a Mahayana Buddhist
teaching in the highest class of tantra.
In it, the Buddha presented a system of external, internal and alternative
cycles of time.
The external cycles deal with the motion of the planets through the heavens
and various cycles or
divisions of time measured by their motion in years, months, days and so
forth. The internal cycles treat
the cycles of energies and breaths through the body, and these are parallel
to those of the external
world. The alternative cycles involve the various meditation practices
of the Kalachakra system of
Buddhafigures ("deities”) used to gain control over or to purify
the former two cycles. In other words,
external and internal cycles of time occur due to collective and individual
impulses of energy ("winds of
karma”). One may experience them in either a disturbing or a nondisturbing
manner, since states of
mind relate closely with subtle energy. With the Kalachakra practices,
one works to overcome being under
the influence of uncontrollably recurring external and internal situations
(samsara), such as astrological,
calendrical, and biological cycles. No longer limited or disturbed by them,
one is able to realize one’s
fullest potential to benefit others as much as is possible.
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Buddha taught The
Kalachakra Tantra more than 2800 years ago in
presentday Andhra Pradesh, South India. Later generations preserved the
teachings in the northern land of Sham-bhala and reintroduced them to
India in the tenth century of the modern era. From India, Kalachakra study
and practice spread to Burma, the Malay Peninsula, and Indonesia,
but died out in these areas by the fourteenth cen-tury. Indian masters
transmitted them to Tibet several times between the eleventh and thir-
teenth centuries, and later Tibetan masters spread them further to Manchu
China, Mongolia, Siberia, and East Turkestan. At the start of the twentieth
century, the last czar of Russia even commissioned a Kalachakra temple
in his capital, St. Petersburg.
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Kala-chakra has received prominent attention in the medical
and astrological traditions of Tibet, Mongolia,
and Central Asia. This is because the science of calculating the Tibetan
calen-dar, a great portion of the
Tibetan astrono-mical and astrological teach-ings, and a certain small
portion of the Tibetan medical
knowledge, particularly the formulas for mak-ing precious-gem medicines,
derive from the Kalachakra
literature. The Mongolian traditions of these sciences developed, in turn,
from the Tibetan ones.
According to His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, the line of Dalai
Lamas does not have a special
relation with Kalachakra. Nevertheless, Kala-chakra practice has been a
favorite of the First, Se-cond,
Seventh, Eighth, and the present Fourteenth members of his line. Since
the time of the Eighth Dalai
Lama, its ritual and medita-tion practices have been a specialty of the
Namgyal Monastery, the personal
monastery at the Potala of the Dalai Lamas.
No restriction exists on the number of times a master may confer the Kala-chakra
empowerment
(initiation) and His Holiness admits no special reason in offering it so
frequently. His Holiness explains
that he bestows it simply when people request him and the circumstances
are conducive. The current
Kalachakra empowerment in Graz, Austria, is the twenty-seven-teenth time
His Holi-ness has given it,
and the third in Europe.
Unlike with other tantras, masters traditionally confer the Kalachakra
empowerment on large crowds.
Buddha first bestowed it on the king of Shambhala and his large entourage.
Several centuries later,
a great master in Shambhala offered it to the entire population to unite
them and thus avert annihilation
in the face of a threatened in-vasion. In this way, the Kalachakra empowerment
became linked with world
peace and, subsequently, its conferral has attracted more people than does
any other Tibetan Buddhist
event. The reason, perhaps, is that by receiving it, one establishes a
special relation with Shambhala.
In keeping with the theme of "cycles of time,” periodically there
occurs in history an invasion of the
civilized world by barbaric hordes, which try to eliminate all possibilities
for spiritual practice and growth.
According to predictions, another such invasion will occur approximately
422 years in the future, and a
terrible war will begin. At that time, help will come from the land of
Shambhala and the barbarians will
suffer defeat. The victory will herald a new golden age, in which everything
will be conducive for spiritual
practice, particularly of Kalachakra. All those who have received the Kalachakra
empowerment will be
reborn at that time on the victorious side.
Triumph over external hordes and establishment of a spiritual golden age
symbolize victory over the
internal barbaric forces of disturbing emotions and the subsequent attainment
of enlightenment.
Thus, the highest motivation for receiving the empowerment is to gain access
to the Kalachakra teachings
and practices now, and by means of them to achieve enlightenment in this
lifetime to benefit others as
much as is possible.
Not everyone who attends the empowerment will share this lofty motivation.
However, as His Holiness
explains, the most important feature of the empowerment is the opportunity
it affords for large crowds
to gather in a peaceful, friendly atmosphere and to engage in the constructive
action of listening to
spiritual teachings. When the ancient master of Shambhala conferred the
Kalachakra empowerment on
the entire population, his aim was not to convert everyone to Buddhism.
He wished to encourage people
of all backgrounds to reaffirm the ethical and altruistic values of their
own religions or humanitarian
creeds. Sincere practice of ethics and altruism is the most effective method
for establishing external and
internal peace.
It is undoubtedly from a distortion of the word "Shambhala” that
Western romantic authors derived the
idea of "Shangrila” - a Paradise on Earth. The Earth may contain
some idyllic place representative of
Shambhala. The journey to this fabled land, however, is a spiritual one,
which takes the sojourner to a
higher spiritual realm. Shambhala represents the innately joyful nature
of the subtlest level of
everyone’s mind, replete with the full ability to overcome problems
and to realize its potentials.
True help from Shambhala to overcome barbaric forces comes from within
one’s heart and mind,
not from outside.
The Kalachakra empowerment awakens and reinforces the innate nature of
one’s heart and mind to
become a Buddha and helps to purify some of the grosser obstacles that
would prevent that attainment.
To receive the empowerment, one needs an appropriate attitude as preparation.
Therefore, teachings on
the graded path to enlightenment (lam-rim) normally precede the empowerment.
First, His Holiness
explains refuge, namely putting the safe direction in one’s life that
that the Buddhas have indicated with
their teachings and attainments (Dharma), and which the community of highly
realized practitioners
(Sangha) have attained in part. This direction is to work on oneself to
overcome one’s problems and
shortcomings, and to gain the full qualities that would enable one to benefit
others. He further teaches
about behavioral cause and effect (karma). To avoid suffering and problems,
one needs to stop acting
destructively; to achieve happiness, one needs to behave in a constructive
manner.
Next, His Holiness explains "the three principal pathways of the mind” that
one needs to develop for
making spiritual progress. The first is renunciation, namely the strong
determination to be free from
one’s problems. Then comes bodhichitta: the altruistic wish to benefit
everyone as much as is possible
and, for fulfilling that aim, to overcome one’s limitations and realize
all one’s potentials. Finally,
one needs a correct understanding of reality (voidness) -- everything is
devoid of existing in impossible
ways. One may imagine things to exist in an assortment of impossible manners,
such as imagining that
someone exists inherently as a monster, or as an enemy whom one could never
love. No one, however,
exists truly in those ways. As His Holiness explains, everyone may benefit
from developing the three
principal paths of mind, whether one intends actually to take the empowerment
as a practicing Buddhist,
or merely to attend as a "neutral observer.”
The Kalachakra empowerment entails a preparation day ceremony and the actual
empowerment.
The most important preparation is the taking of the bodhisattva and tantra
vows. The vows include
promising to restrain from acting, speaking and thinking in negative ways
that would prevent one from
helping others fully, and pledging to restrain from behaving in ways that
would damage one’s spiritual
practice. All Buddhist practitioners may take the bodhisattva vows if they
wish, but only those who also
pledge to keep the tantra vows will actually participate in the later visualization
procedures and actually
receive the empowerment.
Observers are not obligated to take Buddhist vows and have no commitment
from the ceremony.
Nevertheless, they are welcome to witness the rest of the ritual. They
need not watch passively, however,
as if attending a spectacle or an exotic anthropological event. The procedures
offer many opportunities
for observers to develop positive feelings and thoughts, similar to those
of the full participants.
The actual empowerment involves a complex process of entering the "mandala” or
symbolic world-
structure of Kalachakra and receiving inside a series of empowerments analogous
to the stages of
human development. The empowerments purify progressively more subtle obstacles
and plant,
or awaken and reinforce, "seeds” for progressively more advanced
levels of the practice.
The mandala constructed from colored powders for the ritual is a two-dimensional
blueprint of a three-
dimensional palace in which the Kalachakra Buddha-figure couple dwells.
As father and mother,
their union symbolizes the union of method and wisdom. The symbolic world,
with its palace and
surrounding grounds, contains 722 figures, representing a transfiguration
and purified alternative to the
manifold factors that constitute the universe and the human body. All are
emanations of the spiritual
master conferring the empowerment. The participants try, to the best of
their abilities, to visualize and
feel that their surroundings are this mandala world; His Holiness is the
central Buddha-figure Kalachakra;
and they and each other transform through a variety of special, pure forms.
The visualizations requested of the participants are extremely complex.
More important than clarity of
detail are motivation and attitude, namely a strong determination to be
free, a heart set on becoming a
Buddha to benefit all, and an understanding that nothing exists in impossible
ways. If, on this basis,
the participants take the vows sincerely and feel with conviction that
the procedures they visualize are
actually occurring, they can be confident that they have received the empowerment.
At the end of the
ceremony, participants and observers alike offer prayers to travel the
full path to enlightenment
presented in The Kalachakra Tantra.
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