The Tree of Enlightenment

You can see how, in the Vajrayana tradition, a close correspondence
is drawn between the ordinary level of experience
and the purified level of experience. is correspondence
is established through the idea of microcosm and macrocosm.
Specifically, the Vajrayana supplies a special psychological and
physiological scheme of the elements of experience precisely so
that they can be subjected to the direct and efficient manipulation
of the mind. is scheme employs the centers of psychic
energy and the channels through which psychic energy flows.
What I have tried to do in this chapter is show that, in the
Vajrayana system of psychology, physiology, and cosmology, as in
Vajrayana myth and symbol, we do not have an arcane and exotic
portrayal of haphazard or arbitrary forms. Rather, we have a
very carefully designed system which accords with the fundamental
principles of the Buddhist path to liberation. What we
have is really just a particularly rich and colorful development of
the suggestions we have seen in the earlier Buddhist traditions,
in the psychology of the Abhidharma and in the Perfection of
Wisdom literature. In the Vajrayana tradition, all these suggestions
receive a very definite content. e Vajrayana supplies colorful,
bright, and attractive representations of the various components
of psycho-physical experience, and a description of how
their transformation can be achieved through the gradual purification
of one’s mode of being.
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