The Tantra of Caṇḍa­mahā­roṣaṇa
Dependent Origination

Then the Blessed Lady said:

The Blessed One then said:

Then the Blessed Lady said, “May the Blessed One present the analysis of ignorance, and so forth.”

Then the Blessed One said:

“With regard to this, ignorance is to be unaware of what to abandon and what to adopt. The meaning is that, directly after death, the insubstantial mind assumes a physical shape.

“From this ignorance arise formations of which there are three types: (1) the formations of the body are exhalation and inhalation, (2) the formations of speech are speculative knowledge and analytical knowledge, and (3) the formations of mind are attachment, hatred, and delusion. Ignorance, combined with these formations, exhales and inhales; it wanders to and apprehends material objects, and it analyzes and apprehends that which is immaterial; it becomes infatuated, hostile, or bewildered. [F.329.a]

“From these formations arises consciousness, which is sixfold: eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, nose-consciousness, tongue-consciousness, body-consciousness, and mind-consciousness. When combined with these six, ignorance sees, hears, smells, tastes, feels, and cogitates.

“From this consciousness arise name and form. Name is the four aggregates, starting with sensation. Form is form alone. With these two put together and rolled into one, we have what is called name and form. The meaning is that ignorance takes on the form of the five aggregates that are grasped onto. Among these, sensation is threefold: pleasurable, painful, and neutral. Perception is the internal description of things after apprehending their particular forms. The formations are the primary and subsidiary mental states that apprehend the particular circumstances of general things. The consciousnesses have already been described. Form has the nature of four elements: (1) earth is characterized by heaviness and hardness; (2) water, by liquidity and fluidity; (3) fire, by heat and the ability to heat; and (4) wind, by its changing course, diffusiveness, and its being set into motion easily.

“From name and form arise six cognitive fields‍—eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind fields. When combined with these six, ignorance sees and so forth, as explained previously.

“From these cognitive fields arises contact‍—meeting with forms, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, and the sphere of mentally cognized features.

“From contact arises craving, which is the desire for happiness.

“From craving arises grasping, which is seeking out the desired object.

“From grasping arises becoming, which is entry into the womb.

“From becoming arises birth, which is one’s visible emergence. This is the acquisition of the five perpetuating aggregates. [F.329.b]

“From this birth arises old age, which is being old and worn-out, and death, which is the cessation of mind and its contents.123 Then, reflecting on old age and death, one becomes overcome with grief. One laments, ‘I have not striven for liberation.’ Plagued by diseases, one is overcome by pain. Thinking about it again and again, one falls into depression. Even though one is already depressed, one is further assailed by misfortunes and becomes exasperated.

“The meaning is as follows. A being in the intermediate state after death possesses the full range of the six cognitive fields up to their furthest limit, which entails the fields governed by ignorance and so forth. Although remaining in just one place, that being will look at the three worlds and see a woman and a man making love. Driven by the karma created in his previous lives, he will perceive the couple making love in a form that corresponds to his future form of existence. Upon seeing them, the meeting occurs with great intensity.

“At that point, if one is going to be a man, one sees oneself in the form of a man. One feels extreme passion for one’s future mother and is overcome by intense hatred for one’s future father. The passion and the hatred are sensations of pleasure and pain respectively. Wondering how to have sex with the female, one is bewildered by that sensation, which is neither painful nor pleasurable.

“Then, out of great craving, which is impelled by the wind of one’s previous karma, one decides to make love to her. Upset, one thinks, ‘Who is that man having sex with my woman?’ Thinking this, one enters through the fontanel of one’s future father just like a falling star. Because one resides in the mind‍—the mind that abides in the father’s semen‍—one perceives oneself making love to one’s future mother and grasps at the pleasure. At that point, one has become essentially identical to the semen. Because of being excited with great passion, one passes through the central channel and emerges from the father’s vajra. Passing through the channel of the goddess of the Vajra Realm located in the orifice of the mother’s lotus, one is established in the birth channel of the womb. [F.330.a] Subsequently a new life begins by internalizing the secretions.

“In due order, the stages of conceptus, embryonic nucleus, compacted matter, lump, and fetus with limbs unfold, and eventually one is born within nine or ten months, emerging through the same way that one entered. Thus a birth takes place.

“If, however, one is going to be a woman, one feels passion for the future father and hatred for the future mother. One then sees oneself as having a female form. Entering through the fontanel of the future mother, one falls into the vagina, becomes fused with the semen, and remains in her birth channel. Then, in the same way as before, one emerges and is born.

“So in this way, people are born into the world through ignorance and the rest. And these people are only the five aggregates. These five aggregates circle unhappily around in saṃsāra. But those who seek liberation should not occupy themselves with this suffering.

“After the cessation of ignorance and the remaining links, the aggregates will also cease.124 This cessation, however, would be an empty state125 of no value to the seekers of liberation, who should not occupy themselves with useless things.126

“For such seekers, existence is not liberation, but nor is nonexistence.127 They should instead practice the secret union of wisdom and means that is devoid of both existence and nonexistence. This union has the nature of great bliss;128 it is the glorious lord Acala himself; it is the mind that has the single form of the four joys; it abides in neither existence nor nirvāṇa; it is liberation.129