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3.8  Eating meat for practicing inner heat

There are two purposes for tantric practitioners to eat meat: to achieve the concentration of inner heat and to strengthen the body in order to keep from ejaculating during practice. As stated by Yogi C. M. Chen:

The practitioners must eat meat for practicing the Chi of inner heat and the red or the white bodhi. The Buddhist (Original author’s note: Vajra-vehicle) tantric regulations on food are widely used by the practitioners who practice Highest-yoga Tantra. After they have fulfilled the first and the second empowerments, the visualization of deity and the practice of Chi to hold the breath for two minutes, they start to eat meat for health. Both the yoga and dakini practitioners must eat meat to absorb animal hormones to improve the concentration of inner heat. They must attain this concentration to keep their internal red or white bodhis unchanged. Therefore they are allowed to eat meat. ^{[32: 1077]}

The Buddhist learners of Great-vehicle generally understand that Tibetan tantric practitioners must eat meat because of no grain, vegetables or fruit on Tibetan highlands. But in fact, there are two important reasons for them to eat meat: to improve the sexual capability of practicing inner heat and Couple-Practice Tantra, and to sustain the achievement of the red or the white bodhi bright-drop. Even Dalai Lama still ate beef when he visited Taiwan where lots of delicious vegetarian foods are available. Therefore, the lack of vegetarian foods in Tibet is not the real reason.

The practitioners who practice inner heat need many animal proteins. For males, those foods can enhance their sexual capabilities so that they can stay in orgasm without ejaculation for a long time, and thus have the opportunity to realize the non-duality of happiness and emptiness. Due to this wrong view, the experienced diligent tantric practitioners always eat meat and thus violate the Buddha’s teachings in The Lankavatara Sutra and The Surangama Sutra.

Yogi C. M. Chen further said:

The practitioners who cultivate inner heat must eat the meat of yellow mice, spread the bile of big oxen (Original author’s note: Guru Norlha said that they are big wild oxen in the high cold mountain.) on their skin and spread the grease of yellow geese on their feet. ^{[34: 532]}

Tibetan tantric practitioners eat meat and, moreover, use the bodies of rare animals, such as the meat of yellow mice, the bile of big oxen, the grease of yellow geese, etc. as the practice methods in order to ensure their success of practicing inner heat and Couple-Practice Tantra. Nevertheless, such kinds of achievement are all heretical illusions and unrelated to the Buddha dharma. For those practices, they kill sentient beings, eat their meat, take their bile and thus fulfill the evil karma. How foolish they are!

In order to do the tantric practice, they look for many kinds of food to enhance their sexual capabilities as ordinary people do:

If you are not a yoga practitioner like Tilopa, you had better not eat fresh fish. You can go to any Chinese fish market to buy recently dried fish for cooking. This kind of fish contains asparagine and can avoid the degeneration of testicles, clean fat and enhance the sexual capability. The Polygonum multiflorum (a Chinese medical herb) has black color with the shape like a penis. In Chinese medical science, the black food can enhance the functions of testicle and kidney. The carrot has an orange-red color like blood with the shape like a dog’s penis and can thus enhance the functions of sex and making blood. On the first, second and third days of every lunar month, when the energy flows to the secret chakra (sexual organ), the practitioners should eat those kinds of soup, but not at dinner time. If they want to have sex, they must make it after 11:00 p.m. or later. ^{[32: 1085]}

For those females who cultivate Couple-Practice Tantra, the foods are different:

The similar regulations on food can apply to female practitioners if they are qualified and keep the same precepts. The only change is replacing this medicine with the medlar. Both the shape and color of a medlar are similar to a female labium. Eating it can benefit the female’s body and mind. … The dried oyster has the same effect on females. Each part of the oyster without shell is similar to female genitals; the external wraps are similar to labia majora and labia minora; the internal part is similar to a clitoris; the part outside its mouth is similar to the pearl of pudendum; even the hair-like stuff of oyster is similar to the hair around genitals. Eating the oyster, which has similar features to female genitals, can help a female on both her body and mind. ^{[32: 1086-1087]}

Such kinds of theories and methods of tantric practices all look for the fruition and wisdom on sexual desires. It is no wonder that those concepts, deeds and regulations on food all relate to sex. How can such weird and evil schools be named as Buddhism and confuse people? The elder and the venerable of exoteric Buddhism should all deal seriously with this thing and never support them in order to keep from the replacement of Buddhism by heresy. Otherwise, the genuine Buddhism will disappear soon.

3.9  Three kinds of samadhi realized by Tibetan Secret Schools

The dhyana (meditation) mentioned by Tibetan Secret Schools is in fact different from the orthodox dhyana of Buddhist samadhi. Practitioners can never attain the real samadhi by practicing tantric methods. Those methods described by Tsongkhapa all relate to offering, chanting and visualization, which have nothing to do with Buddhist samadhi. As stated by him in the Extended Treatise on the Progression of the Esoteric Path,

There are three kinds of attained samadhi: through the heavenly-body, through the heavenly-mantra and through the heavenly-true-meaning. The first one is rough; the second one is subtler than the previous one; and the last one is the subtlest. The samadhi arises in the body in the sequence from rough to subtle gradually. At the beginning, one should make one’s heavenly-body clear and stay long in union. One should frequently practice the intention of visualization so that the heavenly-body will become more and more clear. … Before chanting, one should achieve the samadhi firmly through visualizing the heavenly-body; it is the most important. ^{[21: 103]}

“The samadhi through visualizing the heavenly-body” mentioned by Tsongkhapa means one should visualize oneself having a huge heavenly-body which will be used as a buddha-body when one becomes a buddha in the future. Once fulfilling this visualization, one will achieve “the samadhi through visualizing the heavenly-body.” Such a kind of samadhi was invented by Tsongkhapa and is totally irrelevant to the real samadhi of the Buddha dharma.

Tsongkhapa further illustrated the “post dhyana” as:

One can attain the solid dwelling state mentioned in The Sutra on What Bodhisattva Wonderful-Arm Asks, generate the supreme joy on both body and mind, and bring forth the feeling of comfort through different rough or subtle concentration by practicing heavenly-body, holding mind, practicing wind, practicing fire, etc. The joy and warmth can then be induced, and one can thus attain the no-discrimination samadhi of strength, happiness and brightness. ^{[21: 105]}

However, it is definitely impossible to achieve the decisive nature of no-discrimination through the practices of bright-drop and Chi because they have nothing to do with the Buddhist no-discrimination wisdom, nor can one attain the samadhi through those practices because the bright-drop depends on other conditions and is irrelevant to the arising of samadhi. The dependence of bright-drop is also mentioned by another tantric guru as follows:

The nature of the bodhi bright-drop comes from the water-realm and one should practice the self-mindfulness and self-attachment on this nature. As stated in the praise, “The nature of the bodhi bright-drop is generated from the water element and becomes the fire element due to the warmth from motion.” That is the entity of blood. ^{[34: 359]}

Although samadhi is also a dependently arising dharma, it can only be attained after one gets rid of all sound, image and Chi. Nevertheless, the tantric dhyana totally focuses on the visualized image, Chi and bright-drop. It is by no means the real Buddhist four-dhyanas and eight-samadhis, which can be attained by the heretic too. With such tantric methods, one can never attain samadhi because the practices of bright-drop and Chi are in fact obstacles rather than the help for attaining samadhi. Although the tantric gurus proclaim they have achieved bright-drop, Chi and samadhi, their practices are irrelevant to the real samadhi. Please refer to Section 3.4 for the details on the reason why tantric practices cannot fulfill samadhi.

Even if tantric gurus can attain the heretical samadhi, the levels of samadhi attained by them will be very low because their practices relate to the lust of the desire-realm. According to the genuine Buddhism, the attainment of even the lowest level of the real samadhi, the first-dhyana, requires the practitioner to subdue (or eliminate) the greed for lustful desires. By contrast, all ancient or modern tantric gurus practice their “tantric samadhi” according to Couple-Practice Tantra, which all focuses on the sex. It is therefore impossible for them to attain the true four-dhyanas, eight-samadhis, four measureless minds, etc. Because they cannot realize those states, they define four-dhyanas, eight-samadhis and four measureless minds by themselves, and proclaim their achievements according to their definitions in order to gain people’s respect. In fact, they cannot attain any real samadhi at all. All tanric practices contradict the theory of the real samadhi and are based on the theory of Couple-Practice Tantra, which is only a sexual exercise in the desire-realm. Thus they can never possibly achieve the first-dhyana, which is beyond the desire-realm and can be attained only after getting rid of all sexual desires. In addition, if they have attained any super-natural power, the levels of the power must be very low since the levels of super-natural power attained depend on the respective levels of samadhi they have.

Some other outrageously arrogant tantric persons proclaim that the achievement of Chi-practice can surpass the seed-wisdom of consciousness-only. For example, both Chen Chun-long and Ding Wen-guang announced arrogantly on the Internet,

Because the study of consciousness-only has only developed till the stage of “the sixth and the seventh consciousnesses changing on the cause, and the fifth and the eighth consciousnesses perfecting on the fruition,” it must be further supplemented with the theory of the tantric Chi-practice. … Why do Tibetan Secret Schools emphasize Chi? It is because that is closely related to “the enlightenment and becoming a buddha.” … But Tibetan Secret Schools have made more detailed supplements to the study of consciousness-only. Tibetan Secret Schools think that “the calm mind” causes “the smooth Chi” or vice versa; both are interactive. In order to achieve “the calm mind” or “the stable state of the sixth consciousness”, it is better to directly use the method of “the smooth Chi” rather than lots of meditative sitting methods in exoteric Buddhism or secret schools. Therefore, “the smooth Chi” (Original author’s note: the balance among the red bodhi, the white bodhi and all kinds of energy) is the basis of “the calm mind” and also the basis of “the sixth and the seventh consciousnesses changing on the cause, and the fifth and the eighth consciousnesses perfecting on the fruition” of consciousness-only. ^{[226: 9]}

Both of them are totally ignorant of the Buddha dharma and explain “consciousness-only” by their imagination on “tantric Buddhism”. They misunderstand consciousness-only and wrongly explain the relationship between it and Chi. In fact, Buddha Sakyamuni has already taught the self-nature of four basic elements of the universe in the seed-wisdom of consciousness-only. From His teachings, we can know the relationship between the thus-come-store and four-elements, and thus further understand the essence of Chi and the cause of its arising.

Knowing that principle, I took only a few days to exercise the tantric Chi-practice during the writing of this book and could easily guide the Chi to the tip of my pestle. I found that the achievement of Chi-practice is only a combination of four-elements of one’s body and is still within the scope of life-and-death cycles. It in fact results from the successful operation of the eighth consciousness according to the intentions of the sixth (mind) consciousness and the seventh (Manas) consciousness. One will never succeed the practice by depending on only the mind consciousness without the self-nature of four-elements from the eighth consciousness. The Chi in one’s body is actually achieved based on the seeds of that self-nature, which are stored in the eighth-consciousness, the thus-come-store.

However, both Chen Chun-long and Ding Wen-guang or even tantric dharma-kings and so-called “reincarnated” great practitioners of four secret schools are all completely ignorant of this knowledge. Why would I say that? It is because that none of the dharma-kings, living-buddhas, rinpoches, etc. of Tibetan Secret Schools has realized the eighth consciousness, the thus-come-store. Without realizing the eighth consciousness, how can they realize the self-nature of four-elements in the thus-come-store? How can they attain the general-phenomenon-wisdom of prajna? Without having attained the basic general-phenomenon-wisdom of prajna, which any enlightened person has, how can they understand the more advanced seed-wisdom of consciousness-only? Without realizing and knowing all of these, how dare they arrogantly boast that their practices, which correspond to the mind consciousness, are superior to the seed-wisdom of consciousness-only? Both of them advocated on the Internet that the practice of “the calm mind, the smooth Chi and the stable state of the sixth consciousness” will enable practitioners to attain Buddhahood. They wrongly think that the ordinary worldly practice, which is superior to the seed-wisdom of consciousness-only, can achieve the Buddhahood fruition. They are just like the students of elementary schools who do not know algebra or geometry, regard the basic arithmetic as the most wonderful mathematics, and thus dare to devalue the mathematics professors of universities by ridiculing them on not knowing mathematics. It is really funny!

Although they boast that the practices of “the calm mind and the smooth Chi” will enable practitioners to achieve the state of “the sixth and the seventh consciousness changing on the cause, and the fifth and the eighth consciousness perfecting on the fruition,” all their views are still within the scope of the conscious-self of perceptive mind and will not really enable practitioners to eliminate the self-view at all. Without breaking the heretical permanence view and realizing the first-fruition of sound-hearer, how can they possibly know the prajna wisdom of the seventh-stay bodhisattvas (the lowest level of The Wisdom of Wonderful Observations and Equality)? Without the lowest level wisdom of the sixth and the seventh consciousnesses in the cause ground, how can they generate The Wisdom of Accomplishing Deeds and The Wisdom of Great Mirror from the fifth and the eighth consciousnesses of the Buddha ground? Thus their sayings are all illusions. Both of them have completely no idea of the basic knowledge of seeing-the-way in Great-vehicle, but dared to wrongly criticize the more advanced wisdom learning on the seed-wisdom of consciousness-only and to falsely talk about the way to Buddhahood. How arrogant they are!

With such ignorance of the Buddha dharma, they criticized me on the Internet with the following wrong views:

Thus we know that some practitioners who have proclaimed their enlightenment and have thus committed severe deceptions will get angry and publish books requesting for debate once they are criticized. Those practitioners requested the following pledge and published it in their books: “Anyone who loses in the debate must kill oneself for responsibility.” Such a hatred attitude of making other persons die contradicts the liberation state of all buddhas or bodhisattvas on “the dual operations of compassion and wisdom.” The persons who have that attitude must be unenlightened and we do not need to care about their arguments. ^{[226: 9]}

In addition, they downloaded the file of above passage, made a printed copy with the red note of “Page 135, The Wrong Views versus Buddha Dharma, by Pings Xiao” and mailed it to our association in order to influence someone so that he could stop me from “refuting the tantric evil and manifesting the orthodox truth.” That behavior just reflects their ignorance of the Buddhist regulations.

According to the regulations of the unconcealed hearing assembly for distinguishing right from wrong in ancient India, after the original proposer submits a statement of debate on the first meaning truth and invites anyone to debate it in public, anyone can freely go on the platform to challenge that statement if one has any different viewpoint. But in order to prevent any mischievous person from disturbing the assembly, the king will send an armed force to maintain the order and to carry out the regulations. Before going on the platform, the challenger must pledge that if he loses in the debate, he will either kill himself for taking the responsibility or become the winner’s disciple. After the debate, if the loser breaks his promise, the king will order the force to kill him. This is the exact regulations on the ancient unconcealed hearing assembly in India.

Although the challenger must make the pledge, the original proposer must make the same pledge too so that both sides will treat this matter seriously. Under these regulations, anyone must earnestly consider before one requests a hearing assembly or challenges other people, and thus the quality of the assembly can be maintained.

However, both Chen Chun-long and Ding Wen-guang did not dare to come to debate but made distortional attack on the Internet. They did not have confidence on their views and are afraid of other people’s laughing as well, thus slandered me on my action for protecting the right dharma. In fact, my announcement of making the pledge is not only for the challenger, but also for myself. Both sides are in exactly equal position and none can assure of anyone’s survival. It is also possible that I may have to kill myself if I lose. How could both of them claim that I want to make other persons die? It is irrational.

The statement of “making other persons die” with which they slandered me is only an excuse for them to step away. It is because I have another statement in the announcement that any dharma-masters who have been criticized by me can come to freely discuss with me in private without the request for making any pledge. But till now, both of them do not dare to come to debate even in private and only made the wrong and distortional statements with dishonest reasons. This proves that they do not understand the Buddha dharma. (Editorial note: None of the dharma-masters who were criticized have come to debate even in private till now. Some of them made excuses like “Pings Xiao is a layman and we disdain to debate the dharma with him.”)

History shows that dharma-master Hsuan-tsang once traveled in the countries of Indian and asked every king to hold an unconcealed hearing assembly with the same regulations. By such actions, all irrational evil sayings disappeared, the true Buddha dharma was protected and the genuine Buddhism flourished in India at that time. Can we say such behavior of dharma-master Hsuan-tsang as “making other persons die?” Can we blame him for violating the principle of “the dual operations of compassion and wisdom?” Can we say that he “did not get enlightened?”

Besides, after dharma-master Hsuan-tsang returned to China, he hung a banner with the words “The True Realization of Consciousness-only” high on the city gate of Chang-an, the capital of China, to express his realization level on the first meaning truth and would accept any request for debate from other dharma-masters. But until his death, none had come to debate with him. Can we blame dharma-master Hsuan-tsang for his “arrogance” and “making other persons die?” Not only dharma-master Hsuan-tsang but also Thus-come-sage of ancient India took similar action to protect the genuine Buddha dharma. Can we blame them for their right deeds on protecting the true dharma?

Both Chen Chun-long and Ding Wen-guang did not dare to debate the dharma either in public or in private, but instead they hid behind the Internet to criticize me with distorted fact to back them up, mailed the printed copy to one of our members and tried to influence him to cause problem for me. Such behavior is not open and upright at all.

In addition to their ignorance of the Buddha dharma, they do not know the real meaning of “the dual operations of compassion and wisdom” either. They use the tantric version of “the dual operations of compassion and wisdom,” which is only a state of sexual happiness during the couple practice, to praise themselves for the achievement. But, in fact, for those practitioners who want to achieve the dual operations of compassion and wisdom, they must first realize the eighth consciousness, the thus-come-store, attain the prajna wisdom gradually, eliminate the nature of ordinary beings, bring forth the unchangeable mind, learn the all-seed-wisdom of consciousness-only and attain the way-seed-wisdom. Then they must bring forth the great compassion to stand out to refute the evil views of Tibetan Secret Schools despite the strong influential power of these schools and rescue the people who are misled by those tantric theories. Disregarding their own lives, they dare to accept any challenge to debate the true dharma in public or private, eliminate the wrong thoughts, protect the right ones, and thus keep practitioners away from all evil tantric practices. Having attained the seed-wisdom, they can have the insight into the views and standpoints of all tantric dharma-kings and gurus. The persons who have shown the behavior as said above can really be regarded as “having achieved the real dual operations of compassion and wisdom.” By contrast, those dharma-kings, living-buddhas, and rinpoches of Tibetan Secret Schools are silent and cannot say anything about my criticism of their evil tantric theories. With the fear of debating on the true Buddha dharma, how can they be called “having achieved the dual operations of compassion and wisdom?”  They are just like Chen Chun-long and Ding Wen-guang, who could only make distortional criticism on my back and would not dare to debate with me for the truth.

Furthermore, Chen Chun-long and Ding Wen-guang falsely state that the achievement of Chi-practice can lead to Buddhahood:

Why do Tibetan Secret Schools so emphasize Chi? It is because that Chi closely relates to “the enlightenment and becoming a buddha.” … The theory of Chi-practice is not complete yet by far. Ancient people tried to explain the enlightenment of breaking the emptiness by the theory similar to neurophysiology (the theory of the Chi-channel), and tried to understand which nerve (Chi-channel) makes this thing happen. It is really a great breakthrough since the ancient time to explain the sage’s enlightenment using the theory of the Chi-channel in neurophysiology. Chinese have lots of heritage of Chinese medicine and Tibetan Chi-practice. We should screen the gold from the garbage, set up more perfect theories and make them succeed. Maybe we can develop some new techniques to invent new Western medicine so that both attachments of self and dharma can be eliminated more quickly, and thus enable practitioners to achieve the practice faster. This will benefit countless people and honor our ancestors. Now Dalai Lama of Gelug School allows the best scientists around the world to conduct research work on the lamas who have attained inner heat. But the Buddhists in Taiwan still privately propagate that “the Chi-practice is a heresy rather than Buddhism.” ^{[226: 9-10]}

However, anyone who can really achieve the Chi-practice, realize the eighth consciousness and even attain the way-seed-wisdom, will understand that the Chi-practice is only a heretical conditioned method and has nothing to do with the Buddha dharma. The achievement of Chi-practice never enable practitioners attain any Buddhist wisdom—any wisdom of seeing-the-way in three-vehicles. As for the concentration state of breaking the emptiness, apparently, both Chen Chun-long and Ding Wen-guang have not realized it and hence totally have no idea of its absurdity. They do not know that it is only a state of concentration, wrongly relate it to the Buddhist enlightenment, and even ridiculously use neurophysiology to explain the state of breaking the emptiness. How foolish they are!

As stated in The Shurangama Sutra, Vol. 6,

Hence, Ananda, one can never attain samadhi without eliminating lustful desires. It is just as if one who cooks sand for rice can only get the hot sand rather than the rice. That is because sand is not the original cause of rice. If you ask for the Buddha’s fruition without leaving lust, the body is still lustful even you get enlightened. With such a lustful origin, you will have to transmigrate within three paths without ending. How can you realize the Thus-come One’s nirvana? If you want to make progress on the Buddha’s bodhi way, you must eliminate all the lustful senses on both body and mind, and eliminate the nature able to eliminate desires too. If there is any saying like this, it is the Buddha’s saying. Otherwise, it is the Devil’s saying.

Therefore, the theories to achieve “the non-duality of happiness and emptiness, and complete omniscience” through bright-drop, Chi-practice, Couple-Practice Tantra are all heretical illusions. Why? It is because all tantric practitioners practice the Buddhist way without eliminating their lustful minds and deeds. With such lustful origins, they will have to transmigrate within three paths without ending. How can they possibly realize the Thus-come One’s nirvana? If they want to make progress on the Buddha’s bodhi way, they must eliminate all the lustful senses on both body and mind, and eliminate their natures able to eliminate desires too. If there is any saying like this, it is the Buddha’s saying. Otherwise, it is the Devil’s saying. Thus the tantric practices of using bright-drop, Chi, Couple-Practice Tantra to attain Buddhahood are all the demons’ deeds. Such kinds of teachings are all the demons’ sayings.

In addition, if both of them deny the existence of Couple-Practice Tantra, which has been handed down orally from generation to generation in secret schools since ancient time, it will further prove that they are new in and ignorant of tantric practices. With such ignorance of Tibetan Secret Schools, how can they have the qualification to debate the tantric dharma for Tibetan Secret Schools?

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