The Five Certainties

Five factors are of crucial importance if transmission is to function: time, place, teacher, teaching, and audience. For authentic, lucid, and potent communication—all these ‘certainties’ must be present and conducive to transmission.

The time must be conducive to transmission. It must be a balanced juncture and there must be a sense of the moment being pivotal. The time must be auspicious—there are certain times when relative circumstances are not aligned in a way that will facilitate transmission. The right teaching, given at the wrong time, will possibly mean little. At the wrong time certain information could even cause obstacles to practice. It is a delicate consideration and one that is essential in the transmission of térma. This is a factor—if not taken into account—that can make the words and decisions of Lamas seem eccentric or unpredictable. The térma teachings are dynamically connected to time in terms of their efficacy. We think that most people will have come across the notion of bad timing. Bad timing can often ruin relationships—how many people must have said or thought: ‘If only we’d met each other earlier or later in our lives’. This is not simply an esoteric consideration but one that threads its way through every aspect of our lives. It is not easy to have wholehearted appreciation of the banquet we are being offered, if we have stumbled upon it after pigging out on vile motorway stodge.

The place must be conducive to transmission. The environment needs to be one which is supportive to what is happening. This is why the transmission of Dzogchen method and view is often given in special places of great natural beauty—places where the play of the elements is spectacularly present. Tantric transmission, on the other hand, is usually given somewhere that has been charged (through mystic potentiation of the place—vajra mandate and vajra association). Often, a great deal of effort is put into the preparation of the place. In the case of Dzogchen transmission, this effort is usually expended in the vigorous pursuit of getting to the place—which may involve hours of hard riding, walking, and climbing up into some remote and elementally wild location. In terms of Tantric preparation, the place is often ornamented with the symbolism of the tradition. Special connective methods are enacted through the outer means of ‘offerings’ of many different types. This kind of ritual activity primes the mind, voice, and body of those who need to receive transmission through the vajra dance of thought, sound, and gesture. To actively and vibrantly appreciate the nature of Tantra, it is vital to engage with the sphere of symbolism as method. Living the view of Tantra can be significantly supported by the importance and urgency involved in actualising the outer signs of the tradition.

The teacher must be capable of giving transmission. The teacher must have the qualification of being able to provide connection to the power of the lineage in terms of time and place. The Lama may be fully realised, but can he or she function (in terms of facilitating the self-emergence of the innate realisation of disciples) in this time and this place? The Lama must have lineal authenticity and his or her connection to the tradition must be seen to have validity. The Lama must inspire devotion and enthusiasm for practice and for living the view. The Lama must have the capacity for unfettered/unbridled communication in terms of oral, symbolic, and direct transmission. The Lama must be able to inspire the disciple to move beyond doubt into the free space of practice and the effective means of practice (samaya—damtsig—commitment). The Lama should be the one who co-ordinates the conditions of time, place, teaching and audience. If the Lama cannot conjure with these factors, Vajrayana will merely be ‘intellectual information’ or ‘spiritual entertainment’.

The teachings must be authentic for transmission to take place. Authenticity means that realisation can be achieved through practice and entry into the view of the teaching. This means that the Lama must know the heart of the teaching as his/her own experience—otherwise there is nothing to transmit. If the teachings are merely a collection of re-iterated fields of knowledge that have been intellectually accumulated, then there is no teaching. The teaching must be alive—it must be lived experience, and there must be unbroken transmission of the teaching. This means that there must always be connection with the state of realisation.

For transmission to be recognised, the audience must find themselves perched on an experiential threshold from which transmission is possible. This requires a degree of devotion and commitment—a willingness to abandon self-delusive, self-protective, and evasive strategies. There needs to be preparation. Often with the great masters, such as Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche and Jomo Sam’phel, preparation is useful—but not absolutely necessary. Such masters have the power to create the mandala of conducive factors through their sheer non-dual presence.

All the five necessities—Lama, teaching, time, place, and Sangha—need to be in tune with each other. If one factor is missing then there is no transmission. It is said that it is difficult even for a good practitioner to receive transmission if there are other Sangha members who do not have sufficient confidence and devotion.