The Five Buddha Families, by Francesca Fremantle

It is possible to look at our whole lifeour experience and our mindas a mandala. The mandala is a
ground of possible transformation, and the mandala of samsarathe confused, chaotic, basic groundis
also the mandala of nirvana. Tantra says that samsara and nirvana are one, that there is no difference
the very same energy which is distorted, confused and cloudy, and which generates the samsaric world,
can be the pure, vibrant colours of the enlightened Buddha wisdom.

The Buddha wisdom, which is beyond imagination, naturally appears in the mandala in the five different
kinds of enlightenment, or five wisdoms. This is known as the five Buddha families. These five contain
the possibility of both confusion and wisdom, samsara and enlightenment. We can see every single
aspect of life in terms of these five familiesemotions, thoughts, environment, nature, living beings, art,
music, colours, jobs that people do, organisations, every kind of thing that you could think of. This is a
way of seeing the Buddha-nature in absolutely everything, and the potentialities for waking up through
every event that comes into our lives. This is the whole point of looking at the world in this kind of way
it is to really get us into the frame of mind of realising that nothing is irrelevant to the path. Every
single thingwhether it is pleasant or unpleasant, painful or happycan be used as part of the path, can
help wake us up, and inherently has the qualities of wisdom.

The basis of the mandala is primordial basic ignorance, the ignoring of our true nature. This is how the
whole mess that we have got ourselves into started, by a little seed of ignorance, by refusing to dance
with the natural play of energy. Nobody actually knows how this started or why, it is just the basis of our
present situationa kind of cloudy ignoring, which spreads through the whole samsaric mandala and
provides the basic ground for it. At the same time, this ignorance is extremely intelligent.

Imagine what intelligence it takes to decide to ignore reality and to gradually build up the whole
fantastically complicated structure of personality, individuality and egohood! And it goes on deliberately
ignoring things as they are, deliberately cutting itself off and thinking it is one thing in opposition to
everything else, building up this whole magnificent, wonderful edifice of human beings. This energy of
intelligence, however, might just as well be put to good use, and turned into wisdom and enlightenment.
That is the whole dynamic behind the mandala. This same energy could just as well be enlightenment
and is, in fact, but we dont realise it.

In a sense, the five Buddha families are neutral. Although we call them the Buddha families and the
enlightened families, they are just neutral things as they are. They are identified by the five different

colours of white, blue, yellow, red and green. This is why these colours are so important in Vajrayana
art. Whenever you see these five colours they remind you of the five kinds of wisdom.
The mandala is a big circle in the centre of which is a small circle, and this is then divided into four
quarters in the four directions. This is the basic structure of all mandalas.

The circle in the centre could be called either the first or the last. I will refer to it as the first one. It is a
kind of intensification of ignorance. At the centre of The Wheel of Life we have the three kleshas
ignorance, grasping and aversion. The Tantric version of this is a kind of intensification of these three
plus another two which have grown out of them.
The family in the centre is called the Buddha family or the Tathagata family because it is the first basic
one of all the Buddha families. And it has this quality of intelligence which has decided to ignore the
situation and turn itself into ignorance. In its positive aspect it is very open, meditative, calm, peaceful.
Above all it has a spacious, open quality, like the element of space. The mind is compared to open space,
clear and pure. When it is distorted, however, in its negative aspect, it becomes cloudy and turbulent,
ignorant, confused. And this becomes more intense in Tantra. Instead of the word `avidya meaning
`ignorance, we use the word `moha which is more than just ignorance; it is delusion or illusion. Rather
than just ignoring the situation, the mind has by now actually manufactured deceptions in order to
persuade itself that this ignorance is justified and good, and this is a basic feature. It is what lies behind
all the other kleshas or poisons, all of them depend on this basic ignorance.
These five families, by the way, are often used as a kind of Buddhist psychology, and people are often
anxious to know which family they belong to. The point is, however, we contain all of these five
qualities in the way that enlightenment is one and indivisible. It is true that some people manifest much
more in one particular way than another, and usually we go through different phases. We might go
through different characteristics many times in one day. On the other hand, one quality might persist
over a longer time.

This particular aspect of samsaric ignorance would make a person very laid-back, lazy, slow, perhaps
lethargic. There is also the quality of not wanting to be open to situationsthe telephone or door bell
rings and you just dont want to know who it is, however important it might be, you dont want anything
to do with it. Or if there is a sudden noise in the street you might decide to ignore it. This has something
to do with the animal quality in the six realms, the quality of not being fully conscious, of not being selfconscious. Deciding to stay in bed all day instead of getting up to face the world is another example of
this. All of these sorts of things come into the quality of ignorance. At the same time there is always the
possibility of suddenly flipping over to the other side where there is this vast openness and spaciousness
which is open to all possibilitiesthe enlightened side.

There is a particular Buddha-wisdom connected with this called thedharmadhatu wisdom.

The dharmadhatu is the totality of everything that exists. Dharma can be interpreted in two ways
either as the truth, the law, or as the totalities of all the dharmas, which are the basic elements of
existence. Anddharmadhatu really contains both of these meanings. Sometimes it is called `the realm of
truth or `the level of truth. Dhatu means something like a level, dimension, realm or sphere of truth, or
a reality, things as they are. Trungpa Rinpoche called it `the all-encompassing space because it is the
element of space and contains everything, contains all existence. So this is the wisdom of
the dharmadhatu. This word `wisdom means, perhaps, `gnosis; it is knowledge which is nondualistic,
knowledge which is completely one with the thing it knows, complete understanding, complete
absorption into that knowledge. It is usually translated as `the five wisdoms which sounds nicer than
`the five knowledges, the wisdom of all-encompassing space.

The Buddha who is pictured in the centre of the mandala, is Vairochana. His name means The Irradiating
One, The One Who Sheds Light All Around. He is white. The realm of space in the centre is blue
because blue is the colour of space. So we have two colours thereblue and white.
When you meditate on a mandala, you are always placed in the centre of it. And you sit facing the east.
Then you go around clockwise. If you think of a mandala hanging on the wall in front of you, east will
be at the bottom. The colour there is again blue and white. The Buddha Akshobhya is blue, but the circle
that he sits in is white, symbolising water. This is called `the Vajra family. Vajra means the hardest kind
of stone; it can be used to signify both diamond and the thunderbolt, and contains the qualities of both.
Diamond is bright; it is the stone that can cut any other stone, and is brilliant and pure. The thunderbolt
is immensely powerful. Together they give the idea of indestructibilitybrilliant, pure, powerful,
indestructible nature. This might seem incompatible with Buddhist ideas, something that is
indestructible, immovable and unchanging. But the name of Akshobhya, the Buddha here, means The
Immovable, The Unshakeable. He is also connected with the bodhisattva called Vajrasattva whose name
means Indestructible Being.

This is a very important concept in Vajrayana based on the awareness of emptiness and nonself. It is
only when you realise the nonexistence of self, personality or individuality, that there can be genuine
being, genuine presence. One can feel this in meditation. Paradoxically, the less sense of `me there is,
the greater sense of actual reality and being, and this is the beginning of Vajra-being, Indestructible
Being.
This Vajra, then, in the case of this family, is very sharp and cutting; it is almost like a sword, and very
hard. It also has an intellectual quality. The quality of this Buddha family for instance would apply to all
intellectual pursuits, and all activities that bring in thinking, logic and reasoning. It is sharp, clear and
precise; it has the clarity and brilliance of the diamond. People with this quality usually have very
logical, sharp minds and clear ways of looking at the world. At the same time this clarity can become
hard and cutting and can turn into hatred and anger, and this is the poison, the klesha, of this family.
Basically, it is a kind of divisiveness, enmity, that kind of thing. It has the ideas of anger, hatred and
aggression within it.

The five qualities, by the way, really cover the whole range of possibilities of emotions; it is just that
they are divided into five, so we have to think of a very wide spectrum of emotion with each one of
them.
We often think of anger as hot and fiery, but if you look into it carefully it is quite easy to see how anger
and hatred can be based on this intellectual quality and can have a very clear, logical quality to it as well.
It is easy to switch from one to the other. The element connected with this family is water. When it is
cloudy and turbulent with waves, it is like the cloudiness of anger, the confusion which anger and hatred
brings into our minds. When it is calm and clear, on the other hand, it is like a mirror reflecting
everything very accurately.

The wisdom connected with this family is called `the mirror-like wisdom. This is a kind of knowledge,
an understanding of everything without judgement, condemnation, praise or blame; it simply reflects
everything very accurately, very clearly without reacting in any way. That is the second Buddha family.
The third Buddha family on ones right handor on the left going round clockwise if you are looking at
the mandala up on the wallis called the Ratna family, and this means `jewel. Its colour is yellow, and
the Buddha here is referred to as Ratnasambhava which means A Mine of Jewels or A Birthplace of
Jewels. Jewels not only refers to the three jewels of Buddhism, it also stands for every kind of spiritual
and material wealth, all kinds of riches, pleasures and beautiful and precious things in life. Anyone
connected with this family will have a feeling of richness and generosity about them. It doesnt
necessarily mean they are rich; they may simply want to share whatever they have, even if they have
nothing. Such people have very generous, extrovert kinds of personalities.
This Buddha family is connected with the earth. It is like the earth herself who welcomes everyone who
lives on her and doesnt complain at what we do, she just patiently bears everything. The colour is
yellow, and this indicates all kinds of richnessgold, sunshine, butter, honey, all kinds of lovely golden,
rich and ripe things. And the Buddha Ratnasambhava sits with the gesture of giving.

The distorted or negative qualities of Ratna would be possessiveness because of all this richness. It is
actually called `pride, and is a sort of pride or arrogance mixed up with possessiveness. It still has the
quality of generosity. Very proud, rich people might, for example, want to impose their wealth on others.
They might go around giving presents whether they are wanted or not, totally oblivious to other peoples
feelings of humiliation. Or an extremely generous, warm-hearted person might want to feed everyone
and keep inviting them to dinner, absolutely stuffing them with food and be very offended if they dont
take more. The negative and the positive qualities are, of course, completely mixed up.
In life every negative thing has a positive side, and every positive quality has a possible negative side
which often comes from just overdoing it. It can be described as a wave of honey coming towards you.

We may like a little honey, but we dont want to be completely swamped in an ocean of it. Or, we could
liken it to ripe fruit which becomes over-ripe and rots. There are all kinds of similes one could use.
We can see this Ratna quality in nature and in all kinds of things. It is connected with the ripeness of
summer. Probably in our climate it would be better if it was connected with autumn. The wisdom here is
called `sameness, which is its literal meaning. And this refers to the fact that everything is based on the
same enlightened essence, that everything shares the same basic nature. It could also be translated as
`equality or `equanimity. It has these two sidesseeing the equality and the same nature in everything,
and the one quality of enlightenment in everyone and everything, and also equanimity when applied to
ones mindlooking on everything with equal-mindedness.

The next one is visualised behind one, or at the top of the mandala in the west. The Buddha of the west
is Amitabha, and its colour is red. He is also red and is connected with the element of fire. This whole
family is called The Lotus Family, Padma, which is a red lotus. And the lotus flower has particular
symbolism. It grows out of a muddy swamp but blooms completely pure, completely beautiful,
untouched by the mud. On its own the lotus is a symbol of enlightenment which comes out of samsara.
It couldnt grow or flower without the mud of samsara, so the slimy mud is absolutely necessary for the
beautiful flowering of the lotus.
The lotus is the seat of most of the deities, both in Hinduism and Buddhism, so it is a symbol of creative
power, the sort of pure womb from which the deities arise. The great guru Padmasambhava took
Buddhism from India to Tibethis name means `born from a lotus and the legend is that he appeared as
an eight year old child in the centre of a lotus on a lake. The lotus, then, is the sort of creative, warm,
compassionate aspect of Buddhahood. The emotion associated with it is desire or passion, a kind of
intensification of trishna, grasping or thirst. It actually covers the whole range of emotions connected
with thislove, grasping, wanting, lust and desire. Any kind of passionate warmth of feeling comes into
this. It therefore has enormously positive qualities as well as very obvious negative ones. We could not,
in fact, be here without basic love or desire. The whole universe continues through the power of love.
But love is really a neutral quality. We think of desire and lust as something evil or, particularly in
Buddhism, as something undesirable, but desire also fuels our practice, our longing for enlightenment,
so it is an extremely positive quality.

I think this is one of the easiest families in which to see the close relationship between the confused or
samsaric aspect and the enlightened aspect. Love and desire are so fundamental to our nature. The
element of fire both warms and gives us light. The name Amitabha means Limitless Light. Another
aspect of him is called Amitayus, Limitless Life, Eternal Life. So this family is very important and most
people seem to have a great affinity with it.

One idea behind this whole theory of the five families is that we each have a particular affinity with one
or another of them, and it is through connecting with this that we can become enlightened in Tantric

practice. That is why in theBook of the Dead, the bardo [the in-between state] is actually something that
is happening to us every moment. It is not just after death that these five Buddha-principles appear to us.
What that means is that, in fact, the whole range of enlightenment is waiting to receive us and shine into
our hearts at any moment, and awaken in our hearts. We will actually get in touch with it or merge with
it through the particular quality that we have an affinity with.

Suppose there are five people waiting to welcome you at a party. If you already know one of them, you
will probably go to that person. Or, if you have never seen any of them before, you might take a liking to
one and go towards that person rather than any of the others. So it is with the qualities of enlightenment.
We will respond to one of them more than the others.

I have not yet decided on a proper translation to mean the wisdom of Amitabha. In Sanskrit it
is pratyavekshana which actually means `looking down onto or into things in detail. The implications
of this wisdom is that you have a tremendous curiosity and love of all the different things and people on
earth, and you investigate and look into everything. If we are curious about something, it means that we
like or love it. People dont usually take the trouble to investigate something they are not fond of. It
therefore includes the qualities of caring.

There is a little difference between the Tibetan and Sanskrit words for this wisdom. In Sanskrit it usually
means something like `investigation or `enquiry, but it also has a definite sense of caring and looking
after, a looking into something, and this connects with the compassion of Amitabha. This idea does not
come across in the Tibetan which means something like `the separateness, `the difference of things, so
it means understanding or looking into different things. This has very often been translated as
`discriminating wisdom, but I dont like that very much. Govinda translated it as `distinguishing
wisdom and perhaps that would be a good way. There does not, however, seem to be any word which
combines the caring and warm aspect of it. I dont know whether I have managed to explain what lies
behind it. It basically means `to appreciate the different qualities of everything.
All the wisdoms bring out a different aspect of relationship. The Dharmadhatu wisdom is all-inclusive, it
contains everything; the mirror-like wisdom sees with great clarity; the wisdom of equanimity, equality,
sees the underlying sameness of everything; and, in contrast, distinguishing wisdom appreciates the
different qualities of everything.

Finally, the fifth Buddha family, the last one in the northwhich is on ones left handhas the colour
green and is connected with action. The wisdom is called `the action-accomplishing wisdom. The
element is air or wind and has the quality of movement and action. It is also connected with life itself
because air, our breath, is the most essential thing in life. Like wind, it goes everywhere and pokes itself
into every corner. Also, it is restless, always moving. The positive aspect of this family is that it will

always be able to accomplish whatever it sets out to dothe opposite of the laziness and ignorance of
the first family. It will always stir itself and stir other people, and be ready to act whenever action is
necessary. The negative aspect, however, is envy or jealousy and is connected with ambition. In extreme
cases it can become a kind of paranoia. It is connected with the idea that `I have to accomplish
something, but perhaps someone else is going to do it first or do it better, or perhaps I wont be able to
accomplish it. This is when all negative qualities could be seen as lacking confidence in ones positive
qualities, or when ones positive qualities somehow seem to disappear or let you down. This is the case
with envy, the poison of envy. You think everyone else is having a better time than you, getting more
than you, or getting promoted instead of you. You feel you will never be able to finish what you have set
out to do, or that everyone is out to get you. That is the paranoia aspect of it.

The name of the Buddha here is Amoghasiddhi whose name means `unfailing, infallible success. So,
this is the quality that arises from Bodhisattva actionabsolutely correct, spontaneous action which
cannot help but succeed in its objective. This is the action of Amoghasiddhi.

His gesture is of fearlessness. Many deities make this gesture with one hand, usually with their left hand,
and the gesture of giving with their right hand. Fearlessness takes away the fear of losing out, of
paranoia and envy. It completely does away with the need for jealousy because you know that you are
complete in yourself and will have total success. The green colour which we usually connect with life is
very appropriate. Green should be the colour of air and wind, I think, although of course air and wind
has no colour of its own. But to me it gives the idea of hearing the wind rustling through the leaves or
over long grass. Wind does seem to have a green sound somehow, so it seems very appropriate.
Everything that is alive, all the greenness of nature grows and moves; it is never static. If it is static, if it
dies, then it immediately loses its green colour. So, green is a very good colour for life.

The point is to recognise the five qualities in ourselves and to realise that all of our negative emotions
can be transmuted into wisdom. It takes a lot of practice, of course, to even begin to have a glimpse of
what that means. Still, just to think about this mandala principle can give tremendous hope, and to
realise that enlightenment has no other basis than what we are now. Enlightenment does not come from
anywhere else; it grows like the lotus out of our own mud. These very qualities that we have in ourselves
and that so often manifest in a negative way as the five poisons can equally manifest in a positive way as
all the good qualities of the families and can be transformed into wisdom. Sometimes, if you are in the
grip of a very intense form of emotion, like intense sudden anger or intense passion, for example, you
can catch a glimpse of the pure energy behind that, and also catch a glimpse of the wisdom that lies
behind it. The practices of the Higher Tantras are deliberately concerned with using these emotions,
arousing these emotions in a purely interior way, and working with that energy.

Q. Can I ask how this connects with emptiness?

A. The whole thing is based on emptiness. Emptiness is inseparable from luminosity. This is what it says
in the Tantras. There is a beautiful passage in the Book of the Dead where it describes how, at the
moment of death, your consciousness sinks right down into your pure, basic mind. Then it says that this
mind is emptiness. But it is not blank. It is radiant, vibrant, vivid luminosity.

In Indian thought the mind has always been described as being made of lightconsciousness in light.
We cannot appreciate the pure quality of this light, however, without first experiencing emptiness. We
have cluttered up this light. We have confused the clear, pure qualities of this light and the empty quality
of space; we have frozen it, cluttered it up and dimmed the light. Practice always has to go through
emptiness first, and then see that emptiness is formless yet all potentiality, luminosity. All these colours
then sparkle out from the luminosity, which is the idea that everything arises out of this clear space of
mind.
All visualisations start from emptiness and then at the end are dissolved back into emptiness. Emptiness
therefore is the source and the ending, the underlying essence of everything. Emptiness without the
luminosity, however, would just be something dead, sterile and very boring.

Note:
All the five Buddhas are sitting cross-legged and have a specific gesture. Vairochana in the centre makes
a gesture of teaching, turning the wheel of the Dharma, and the fact that he is in the centre symbolises
the wheel of Dharma. The Vajra family, the symbol is the vajra is derived from the ancient Indian
symbolism of a thunderbolt. It is like a round ball of thunder with five sparks of lightning coming out
from each end. These five prongs also symbolise the five Buddha families.
All these families contain all the other qualities within them; they are a kind of infinite regression like
mirrors reflecting each other, and cannot be separated. It is purely for the convenience of our
imaginations that we separate enlightenment into these five qualities. They are totally interconnected,
and each one contains all the others, and that is symbolised by the five-pronged vajra of the Vajra family.
Akshobhya of the Vajra family is sitting with the earth-touching gesture, which is what the Buddha did
after Mara had attacked him. He touched the earth as a witness that he had not been shaken by all these
temptations of Mara. That is why his name means The Unshakeable One.