Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse from the Shangpa Masters

222 Timeless Rapture
vajralike concentration within the nature of reality, he is known as
Vajra Bearer. As is said:
Why is he called Vajra Bearer?
Whoever is endowed with all buddhas’ wisdom
And mind of awakening
Is the Victor Vajra Bearer,
Chief of all transcendent buddhas.
Therefore, the Buddha who perfected renunciation and realization
is outwardly Shakyamuni and inwardly Vajra Bearer. Their
common nature is the body of ultimate enlightenment; they epitomize
the three bodies of enlightenment. (The Collection of Shangpa
Masters’ Biographies, pp. 2-4)
Therefore, in general, tantric practitioners reflexively recognize Vajra
Bearer as the form Buddha Shakyamuni displayed when he taught tantra.
A doctor at the office might greet and treat patients while wearing street
clothes, but in the operating room the same doctor can be virtually unrecognizable
in surgical dress. Vajra Bearer is none other than Buddha Shakyamuni
dressed appropriately for the teaching of tantra. The two forms
reflect different activities, not a distinction in hierarchy. Although Buddha
Vajra Bearer has an ethereal, superhuman form, “the body of enlightenment’s
perfect rapture,” many Buddhists believe that Shakyamuni himself
was not merely a human being who attained enlightenment during one
lifetime. We consider him a sublime manifestation of an enlightenment