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As for the actual basic methods, although there are many ways of asserting mahamudra, there are two when divided according to the sutras and tantras.

On the basis of our efforts to eliminate obstacles and build up positive force, we now proceed with the actual meditations on mahamudra. Although there are many ways of explaining them according to different mahamudra lineages, we can condense them all into two – the sutra and tantra traditions of mahamudra. This division does not refer to a difference in the mahamudra great seal of reality that is realized, but to a difference in the level of mind used to realize it.

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The latter is a greatly blissful, clear light mind manifested by such skillful methods as penetrating vital points of the subtle vajra-body and so forth.

The latter tradition of mahamudra, that of the highest class of tantra, anuttarayoga, entails harnessing and utilizing clear light mind for understanding and realizing mahamudra. There are various methods for reaching, manifesting and then activating this subtlest level of mind. One involves working with the subtle vajra-body.

As humans, we are born with a body having various levels of components we can use as an inner circumstance for supporting meditation practice. On one level, our body has six constituents, namely the constituent spheres of the elements of earth, water, fire, wind and space, as well as consciousness. On a more subtle level, we have, in addition, a vajra or diamond-strong body consisting of energy-channels as what abides, energy-winds as what courses through them, and energy-drops as what can be led by the latter through the former.

This subtle vajra-body is the gateway for reaching to subtlest, primordial clear light mind which arises simultaneously with each moment of experience. But, in our present, ordinary situation, the swarm of our conceptual thoughts – both conscious and personal, as well as preconscious and primitive – denies us access to that subtle body and, through it, that subtlest level of mind. Therefore we need to silence and eventually rid ourselves of the swarm of our coarse and subtle conceptual minds in order to penetrate vital points of the vajra-body so as then to be able to use the constituents of that body to make manifest primordial clear light mind. As this is rather difficult to accomplish, we need a forceful method.

One such method for activating the vajra-body is to take as our object of meditation the stages of progressive dissolution of our external and internal circumstances. This refers to dissolving, which means withdrawing, our mind from our environment, the beings within it and the elements of our body. We do this by focusing on certain vital points of our subtle vajra-body and gathering in to them and dissolving there, through progressive, sequential stages, the energy-winds that carry with them the levels of mind that give rise to appearances of the environment and so forth as objects of our cognition.

In A Lamp for Further Clarifying the Five Stages [of Guhyasamaja], a commentary on Tsongkhapa’s The Pure Stages of the Yoga of Guhyasamaja, Kedrub Norzang Gyatso has explained that there are basically two methods for manifesting clear light mind through the gateway of triggering, in meditation, the stages of progressive dissolution. The Chakrasamvara system uses the generation of the inner flame, or tummo, and the four levels of joyous awareness it induces, while the Guhyasamaja system employs certain sophisticated practices with the energy-winds, such as vajra-recitation. Moreover, there is also the Nyingma method of dzogchen meditation that accomplishes the same, but without inciting experience of these progressive stages.

Basically, there are two ways to manifest simultaneously arising, primordial clear light mind. One is through stopping the deceptiveness of the conscious and preconscious levels of conceptual mind through a pathway of manipulating various aspects of the subtle vajra-body. This is accomplished by means of either the Guhyasamaja or Chakrasamvara methods. The other major approach, the Nyingma method, stops the deceptiveness of these two coarser levels of mind by taking thoughts themselves as the object of focus, without conscious manipulation of any aspects of the subtle vajra-body. Although these two major approaches are very different, they each lead to the same accomplishment.

The various tantric traditions of mahamudra, then, employ such diverse and skillful means as these to manifest the clear light mind that is simultaneous not only with each moment, but also, through other methods, simultaneous with a greatly blissful awareness, or “great bliss.” They then utilize this simultaneously arising clear light mind for understanding voidness itself.

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The mahamudra of the traditions of Saraha, Nagarjuna, Naropa and Maitripa, it is the quintessence of the anuttarayoga class of tantra as taught in The (Seven Texts of the) Mahasiddhas and The (Three) Core Volumes.

The above explanation of the tantra level of mahamudra practice is in accordance with the works of such greatly accomplished mahasiddha masters as Saraha, Mahasukha, Nagarjuna, Naropa and Maitripa, especially concerning the complete stage practices of anuttarayoga tantra. This level of mahamudra meditation is, in fact, the quintessential practice of this highest class of tantra.