A CRITICAL TANTRISM"When (the bodhisattva) asked (the question) abovementioned, all
the tathiigatas told the bodhisattva in unison as follows:
'Attain (the mind of enlightenment first) through the meditation of
observing your own mind carefully, by reciting the following mantra,
as many times as you like, the efficacy of which is established by
nature.
Om cittaprativedham karomi
(Om I will pierce my mind into its bottom.)
Then, the bodhisattva said to all the tathagatas as follows:
'I was taught. 0 Reverend Tathiigatasl I see the appearance of the
lunar disk on my heart.'Here, we must notice first the fact that svacittapratyave/cym;asamiidhiinena
and prakrtisiddhena rucijaptena mantrena are appositional. The word
pratyavek:;m;a instantly reminds us the process of observing each of the one
hundred and sixty monadic minds individually as we have explained in the pre-
vious chapter. In the Vairocaniibhisambodhi-siitra, one was able to "pierce
one's own mind to its bottom" and attain the completely purified mind of
enlightenment only by completing the entire process of accumulating "infinite
materials of both meritorious deeds and knowledge for an unimaginably long
period of hundreds of thousands of millions of innumerable aeons" (seep. 181 ).
Here, however, the mantra "Om I will pierce my mind into the bottom" replaces
the entire process. This is not astonishing, however, for a Tantrist, for the simple
reason that a mantra has such a miraculous efficacy by nature (prakrtisiddha).
The laborious process of promoting one's own mind by observing layers of one
hundred and sixty monadic minds incessantly and by overcoming them through
actual deeds for the benefit of others, which continues for nearly eternal period
of the three great uncountable aeons, was thus replaced by an easy practice of
simply reciting a mantra as many times as one likes. Here, even upiiya, our
direct and actual exertions for the benefit of others, was replaced by a symboli-
cal deed, not to speak of prajiiii, a mental operation of observing the essence-
lessness (siiyatii ~ii). Herein we find a critical turning point from Mahayana
Buddhism or especially the Vairocaniibhi-sambodhi-siitra to Tantrism.
In addition, the attainment of the mind of enlightenment is depicted symboli-
cally here through the appearance of the lunar disk on the heart. This means that,
if one can manipulate the symbolic figure which appears in his mind in medita-
tion, one can conversely control the world of reality through it. This idea of con-
trolling the world of reality through the manipulation of symbols is represented
in the five-stepped process of attaining enlightenment which can be summarized
according to the three factors above-mentioned as follows:^36
I. The step of piercing into the mind of enlightenment ( :@~~:t:IH..').
a "Attain (the mind of enlightenment first) through the meditation of
observing your mind carefully."