Five Dakinis | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Tools to Deepen Your Practice”

All the practices, no matter what they look like or sound like or seem like, are heading in that direction of gradually awakening more and more to the awareness of the sphere of truth. Wisdom is then the accomplishment of a state of such non-attachment that one realizes the emptiness of phenomena by simply [Jetsunma effortlessly and blissfully breathes out, her eyes and body completely relaxing]. I don’t know how else to describe it except to just show you that posture. Just…[Jetsunma once again breathes out as noted above].

Because the same as your touch is bliss. The same as your smell is bliss. The same as your tongue is bliss. How does it happen then that we’re so darned uncomfortable? How does it happen then, according to the Buddha’s teachings, that so many sentient beings are revolving so helplessly in samsara, so lost, so unable to understand how to understand, or how to awaken, or even how to live virtuously so that in the future they’ll be happy? How does this all happen?

Lord Buddha said it during the course of his actual physical life, when he said, “All suffering arises from desire.” So while you can say that the fundamental space of the five lights is the same as the five primordial Dakinis, they are activity not separate from the Buddha nature. And yet these five senses hold on to us. Well we think they do, although we did create them. But with their grasping nature, they cause us, because we have the strong habitual tendency, to constantly react and constantly react and act really neurotically because we don’t understand. To be neurotic is to not understand the situation and to act inappropriately repetitively. That’s pretty much us. We do not understand the emptiness of self-nature and so we constantly act differently.

So, these five primordial Dakinis that are your senses and that someday you will awaken to are now—because we are clinging, because we have not renounced, because we believe in phenomena and we believe in the solidity of everything, and because we are really revolving in dualism—we would have to consider them like five nasty whores. Because they trick us. They seduce us. They say to us, “Come and play with me and I will give you anything.” And when’s the last time you got anything from a skanky whore. (laughter) [Jetsunma: I did not say that!”] Our five senses actually keep us in a constant state of inflammation, because while we’re grasping to the solidity of phenomena, we’re constantly reacting. While we’re constantly reacting, we’re constantly acting neurotically, out of accordance with the nature of reality. And so we’re being tricked, seduced.

The senses have many tricks. As front runners for our consciousness of duality, they like to trick us by building us up. You know, we can see and hear things that make us feel very proud and make us feel as though we are worthy of praise. You know, we can arrange phenomena any way we want. That’s the amazing thing about it. And it can become very seductive. We can absolutely crap out on our practice and yet with our five senses, we can manage to create in our consciousness of duality a scenario in which we’re looking pretty good. We can wear the right clothes and have the right beads, and you know we can look pretty good. And so that’s the deceptive nature of the five senses.

How difficult it is to understand that that which helps us negotiate around is actually the very nature of bliss. How to understand that the opposite side of the very clinging that we do so tightly that prevents us from awakening to the primordial wisdom state, is liberation? Well, that’s wisdom and that is the kind of wisdom that we strive for as we practice.

From The Spiritual Path: A Compilation of Teachings by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

How do phenomena express themselves as they do? Each sentient being, within its own nature and even within the form in which it arises, contains an essential seed or drop that is the nature of mind itself. Just as all things emanate from Nature and can be understood as the spontaneous arising of that Nature—all phenomena that you as an individual perceive, including your individuality, can be considered the emanation or activity arising from that same mind-drop or essential seed.

Correct view describes that natural drop as being neither small nor big but both and neither. Since this Nature is indivisible, the only difference must be in perception. Literally everything you see is a reflection of your karma as it formulates itself into the perceptions of the five senses. The more you try to contrive understanding with the five senses, the more you try to “nail down” your perceptions, the more confused your perception will be. Data that are based on a system of logic organized by the five senses—cannot give you true wisdom of the realization of the uncontrived Nature.

Since the five senses will always support the ego, they can be considered demonic in their influence. In their enlightened state, however, they can be considered the five celestial wisdoms: they are the components of the activities and qualities of the Buddha Nature itself. They are the five underlying blissful expanses, completely one with emptiness. They are the celestial opportunities, the celestial messengers by which miraculous activity can enter into the world of samsara in order to benefit beings. They are five goddesses or dakinis even though, used as they are, they are five whores.

Within each of us is blissful mind expanse. All spontaneous activity occurs directly and inseparably from that expanse. The dakinis are depicted as distributors, upholders of the fruit of one’s karma. Does this mean that there are dakinis who are separate from you, who are doing something to you? No. It is through the perceptions of the five senses in their unenlightened state that one’s punishments are meted out. There is no one outside of you who causes your suffering.

Karma is completely implemented through the perceptions of the five senses, which survive in some form from life to life. Even though your nose, ears, and brain are gone, the underlying karmic pattern remains to reactivate itself in other incarnations. However, you now feel a totally self-contained involvement with everything you experience. You honestly feel that you suffer because you are too tired, because you have insufficient food or money, because your body hurts. The five senses create these incorrect perceptions.

“How,” you may ask, “can I free myself of these demons, these witches who cause me suffering?” You must want to be free. Unfortunately, you do not. Oh yes, all sentient beings want to be happy, and you are trying to be happy. But you compulsively believe that you can be happy by resolving the scenarios presented by these five senses. These scenarios are not measured and apportioned. Their essential form is not something that can be balanced. The only recourse is to strive to perceive True Nature, renounce the affliction of these five witches, and take refuge in the five celestial wisdoms and the five-natured blissful expanse of emptiness.

The Seduction of the Five Senses

Five Demons or Dakinis