Dalai Lama Foundation Study Circle Montreal

In the Mahayana ’cause and effect’ refer to totally supreme emptiness and supreme immutable bliss. The Brief Explication of Initiations (Shekhoddesha) [included in the Kalachakra cycle] says:

That bearing the form of emptiness is the cause,
That bearing immutable compassion is the effect.
Emptiness and compassion indivisible
Are called the mind of enlightenment.

The indivisibility of these two is a Cause Vehicle in the sense of being the means by which one progresses, and it is an Effect Vehicle in the sense of being that to which one is progressing. Such a Vajra Vehicle has reference to Highest Yoga Tantra and cannot occur in the lower tantras. For the supreme immutable bliss can only arise when one has attained the branch of meditative stabilisation (in the system of the Kalachakra) and thus the branches of mindfulness and those below must be the means of achieving it. The three lower tantras do not have all the factors that are included in these causal branches. (p.107)

–from Tantra in Tibet by H.H. the Dalai Lama, Tsong-ka-pa and Jeffrey Hopkins, published by Snow Lion Publications

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