Gelek Rinpoche - Solitary Yamantaka Teachings.pdf

series: Vajrayana teachings - 2

SOLITARY YAMANTAKA TEACHINGS on the Generation Stage

Kyabje Gelek Rinpoche teachings USA 1993-1998. This manuscript is only to be read by those with full Yamantaka initiation

A Jewel Heart Transcript

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This transcription contains the extensive Yamantaka teachings that Rinpoche gave during the period February 1993 – July 1995 in Ann Arbor, the additional teachings on the mantra visualisations given at the winter retreat 1997/98, and parts of the Yamantaka teachings given in Malaysia in 1985. Also inserted are notes of a detailed Yamantaka teaching Rinpoche gave at the Tibet House in New Delhi in March 1981, These notes – taken by Sandy Finkel – are marked S<…>S. The transcription has been moderately edited. Questions and discussions have been put together at the end of a subject or a chapter and reviews are to be found in the chapters V and VII. The headings in bold type non-italic correspond to and are numbered in accordance with the outlines. Headings in italics are addditional. For the sake of clarity and easy study sometimes words in the text are printed in bold type. For the same purpose a glossary and an index have been provided. The notes serve as references for study in detail, as clarifications for foreign words, and as account of the added information. Seed syllables, mudras and illustrations are to be found in chapter XII, Appendices. Drawings of the Yamantaka mandala, of the causal Vajra-holder Manjushri, and of the result Vajra holder Vajra Bhairava are to be found opposite the chapters IV, VI and VIII respectively. The transcription of the tapes was done by Hartmut Sagolla. The drawings of Yamantaka and Manjushri, bell, vajra and skull-cup are by Marian van der Horst. In correcting and giving suggestions for more clarity, several members of the Jewel Heart mandala the Netherlands took a considerable share. Please note: The transcription has not [yet] been checked with Rinpoche, nor have we been able to solve all unclarities in the text. Sandy’s notes do sometimes differ from Rinpoche’s teachings or Tri Gyaltsen Senge’s sommentary; that needs a check. The Tibetan is phonetic and not all checked. Therefore, a request to the reader: anything that is found to be incorrect, anything that gets clarified more by Rinpoche, or anything that needs to be added, please let us know, in order to get an improved next edition. Address: Bergstraat 38, 6591 GP GENNEP, The Netherlands. Tel. (31) 485 516 709. Email: [email protected] Any mistakes found are due to the lack of understanding from my side. Nijmegen, second edition, August 1998. Marianne Soeters © Ngawang Gehlek 1997.

CONTENTS I

INTRODUCTION Brief explanation of the general development of this teaching The origination of this teaching with an account of the originator and the lineage The explanation of the merits of the teaching in order to develop respect and faith therein. How to listen and explain such a teaching as this How to guide the disciples by the actual teaching

II

PRELIMINARIES Entreaty to the Lineage Instant generation Consecration of Vajra and Bell Consecration of the inner offering Consecration of the preliminary offering and torma Offering the preliminary torma Consecration of the offerings of self generation Vajrasattva meditation recitation Questions and answers

III GENERATING THE SUPREME FIELD OF MERIT; OFFERING THE PRACTICE OF THE SEVEN PURITIES Review Accumulation of various merits: corresponding to causes for optimal human rebirth (endowed with six elements from the womb of a Jambudvipa human being) Accumulation of merits from the supreme field Accumulation of merit from the lower field IV TAKING DEATH AS DHARMAKAYA Meditation on the wisdom of the basis of shunyata as dharmakaya: corresponding to realization of clear light of death Meditation on protection wheel to block obstacles The common protection wheel The uncommon/special protection wheel V

REVIEW BY MEANS OF THE EXTENDED PRAYER Discussion on the daily practice and its difficulties

VI TAKING BARDO AS SAMBOGAKAYA Generation of environment of the mansion, wherein enlightenment takes place Questions and answers

5 8 10 25 36 41 49 50 70 81 87 98 106 118 121 132

143 143 148 150 167 181 182 201 201 206 215 224 233 233 244

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VII

Yamantaka teachings Generation of occupant, the Causal Vajra Holder Questions and answers Towards nirmanakaya

245 256 274

REVIEW BY MEANS OF THE OUTLINES

277

VIII TAKING REBIRTH AS NIRMANAKAYA The actual method of meditating birth as nirmanakaya Purification of sense bases and body, speech, and mind Method of entering the wisdom beings, empowerment, and sealing

331 332 343 348

IX ACTIONS REPRESENTING THE ACTIVITIES OF BUDDHAHOOD Review Making offerings and praise Meditation of the precise and coarse Recollection of the purities Manner of doing recitation

357 357 361 369 379 380

X

395 395 400 400 405 406 408

CONCLUSION & IN BETWEEN SESSIONS Offering torma Manner of bidding farewell Prayer Reabsorption Verses of good fortune Yoga between sessions

XI COMPLETION STAGE

411

XII APPENDICES

417

XIII GLOSSARY

429

XIV LITERATURE

443

XV

445

INDEX

I INTRODUCTION Tsongkhapa said: ‘One who can enter this path is very fortunate’. Think about this carefully and be happy and listen joyfully with a happy mood, not with a long face. You know, when you draw these little doodles you have to make sure that the lines go ☺ rather than . So listen with that happy mood. You should avoid the three faults of listening1 and create the six awarenesses2 according to the normal teachings system given in the Ganden Kagyu Lam Rim tradition. With that, do kindly pay attention to this dharma teaching. Basic Lam Rim overview S<. If we want to attain enlightenment it is essential to generate bodhicitta. We should cherish others instead of cherishing ourselves. With the mind of a bodhisattva, even simple actions, like giving a small piece of food to a dog, can be actions leading to enlightenment. The mind of a bodhisattva has two qualities: 1) the desire to attain enlightenment; 2) to do so for the benefit of all sentient beings. Bodhicitta should grow from seven stages3. The root is karuna [compassion]. Extraordinary karuna is like what arises when a mother sees her only son in grave danger – that much compassion we should generate. We are the mothers of all sentient beings. All beings are suffering incredibly. Before developing compassion for others, one must have compassion for oneself. If we have compassion for all beings and the great wish for them to be relieved from their sufferings, we realize that the only way we will be able to do this is by first attaining enlightenment. Lama Tsongkhapa said: If thinking of one’s own suffering does not even move a hair, where are you going to develop great compassion for all sentient beings?

First we must develop compassion for ourselves. We are deprived of happiness and we are suffering in samsara. Meditate on this and gain realizations on this. When this has been realized you will gladly give up the pleasures of this life. When you fully realize the extent of suffering in cyclic existence, you will even give up the pleasures of the gods. To give up good food, nice clothes and other materials is not as hard as to give up your good name. The point is not to give up good food, but to give up one’s attachment to good food and clothes and likewise to a good reputation. Attachment to a good reputation is difficult to give up. We want our teachers to be pleased with us and our friends and family to like us. ‘Hairy renunciation’, i.e. artificial or improper renunciation, is likened to a cat, whereas proper renunciation is likened to a tiger. 1

See Gelek Rinpoche, Lam Rim teachings, pg. 69. Literature: Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in our hands I, pg. 92-104; Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in the palm of your hand, pg. 105-117. 3 Literature: Gelek Rinpoche, Lam Rim Teachings, pg. 453-84. 2

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Yamantaka teachings Because we are in samsara our existence is in the nature of suffering. The latest scientific discovery: a nice hot cup of coffee in the morning causes cancer. Buddha discovered years ago that everything within cyclic existence causes suffering. These things, food and clothes, etc., cause suffering, but to give them all up it is an extreme action. Use them with limitation and detachment. Have an appreciation of life. The precious human rebirth is more precious than a wish-fulfilling gem and more rare. We do not know when we will die. Remember impermanence. The Seventh Dalai Lama said [in his Melancholy Visions of Imperfection]: From very birth, life pauses not for a moment, But races onward toward the great Lord of Death, Life is a walk down a wide road leading to death; A melancholy scene, a criminal being led to his execution. 4

[He says]: From the moment we are born, we are running towards death. We may call ourselves living beings but we are running towards death. We are like a man taken to the gallows, but we don’t realize it. If we look carefully, we see changes in our body every day – we are constantly getting older, drawing closer to death. When you die, nobody can help you. Pabongka wrote a verse on this. Though you struggle to speak your last words, Your will and expressions of sorrow, Pitifully your tongue dries up, and you can’t make yourself clear – An intense sadness overwhelms you. This is going to happen to you! 5

[He says]: Imagine that all the words you have always wished to convey to your loved ones, cannot be said because the power of your tongue has already died; the best food given to you at your death bed cannot be tasted and enjoyed; the nicest soft clothes one puts on a dying person cannot be felt. When this is fully realized one will immediately stop all non-virtuous actions. When you die, you leave everything behind – all your friends, family, possessions, bank balance, and even your body. The only thing which accompanies you is your imprint of virtuous and non-virtuous actions. Dharma should be one’s guide through life. Meditate! It is not sure which will come first, tomorrow or our future life. Don’t procrastinate, practice dharma today. Take refuge in Buddha, dharma and sangha. This is the door to Buddhist dharma. Actually, you take refuge not to buddha Shakyamuni, but to your own eventual attainment of buddhahood. Buddha is the one who shows you the path. He cannot instantly enlighten you. Buddha cannot wash away all your sins, but by giving you the true path, you can help yourself. Dharma is the actual true path, represented by texts. Sangha are those who help you along the path. Absolute sangha must have realized shunyata, but a group of four or more monks or nuns can represent the sangha. We take refuge in the three gems because we are suffering, and Buddha, dharma and sangha are the only things which can help. One must follow the advice of the refuge taking. It is not enough to go to the doctor, be diagnosed, and have medicine prescribed – one must take the medicine. It is important to practice morality through the abstention of the ten non-virtuous actions. Not killing is not a virtue in every situation. Only when the opportunity to kill arises, then whether one kills or not is a non-virtue or a virtue. If we are bit by a bedbug, anger arises, and we rejoice in squashing the pest – this is the perfect killing. The cause is anger, the action is complete, and there is no regret. Practice of the ten virtuous actions is a cause for obtaining a good future life. Deva realm inhabitants are called three-stage persons because they know past, present and future lives. Shariputra’s main disciple, who was so devoted to him when he was a human being, died 4 5

G. Mullin, Songs of spiritual change, pg. 136. Kyabje Pabongka Rinpoche, Heartspoon.

Introduction

7

and went to the deva realm. When Shariputra went there to continue to teach him, the disciple was not interested in studying dharma, but preferred to indulge in sensual pleasures. But since a deva will eventually fall to a lower realm, the suffering continues. Only by being completely freed from samsara, can one be rid of suffering. All samsaric pleasure is like a prison. Some people are content to be in jail with three square meals a day, a bed, clothes, etc., but if you are content to be in prison you will never get out – seek liberation. Ignorance is the root of samsara. If one wants to escape samsara, one must eliminate the original cause. What can cut ignorance? Bodhicitta? Taking refuge? These all help but will not directly cut ignorance. Only the realization of emptiness can cut the root of samsara. Understand that there is no inherently existent I and that self-grasping encourages development of attachment. All dualistic notions are due to this grasping of a permanent I. Compassion and love are not the opposite of ignorance, so bodhicitta alone can not eliminate it; wisdom, which understands that the I does not truly exist and understands the nature of shunyata, is the way to cut through ignorance. Wisdom cannot be applied without first developing single-pointed concentration. One must be rid of subtle and rough depression, and subtle and rough scattered thoughts. To accomplish this, one needs pure morality. The three higher trainings are wisdom, concentration and morality. Even if Buddha came today, he would have nothing more to say than these three higher trainings. Remember that all sentient beings have been our parents and have been as kind to us in the past as one’s parents of this life. Meditate on love [gratitude] for all sentient beings. When this has been developed we look at all beings and try to determine what is lacking in their lives. What do they need and what can help them? Happiness and the cause of happiness can help them. Develop the mind which wishes happiness and the cause of happiness for all beings. This is meditation on love. Develop the mind which wishes the ending of suffering and the cause for the separation from suffering for all sentient beings. This is meditation on compassion. Then decide that ‘I will take the responsibility for giving permanent separation of suffering to all beings’. This is the special mind. At the moment we have no power to do this, but the power to help all beings lies in attaining the ultimate state of buddhahood. We decide to attain enlightenment in order to benefit all sentient beings. The desire to attain enlightenment with bodhicitta motivation is a good desire. With the sutrayana path it takes eons to rid oneself of negativities and to accumulate enough merit. There is no time to wait for eons – sentient beings are suffering. Develop the wish to attain Vajradharahood as soon as possible – in this degenerate age, in this very life time. By following the tantric path one can attain enlightenment in as little as three years and three months or twelve years; if not in this life one can attain enlightenment within eight lives or at least within sixteen lives. As we listen to this teaching visualize that we are not in an ordinary building but seated within the mandala of Dorje Jigje6. The lama is not an ordinary person but Dorje Jigje Pawo Chigpa, complete with nine faces, thirty-four arms, sixteen legs, fully decorated. All the students are two-armed Vajra Bhairavas without implements [and ornaments]7. >S.

In order to avoid the three faults of listening, you try to remember the example of the bowl: when you pour food into a bowl, the bowl should not be upside down, it should be clean, there should not be holes. All these are the usual explanations, so I am not going to repeat them here.

6

Short for Dorje Jigje Pawo Chigpa. Dorje Jigje, in sanskrit Vajra Bhairava, means Vajra Terrifier. Pawo Chigpa means Solitary Hero. Yamantaka Solitary Hero is in sanskrit Yamantaka Ekavira [Yamantaka is short for Yama-antaka, and means Terminator of Death; Ekavira means Solitary Hero], in Tibetan Shinje she. Yamantaka is also called Yamaraja; raja means king and Yama means the Lord of Death. 7 This is the way of listening during a complete teaching, usually after an initiation. Also see page 8.

8

Yamantaka teachings

{I} BRIEF EXPLANATION OF THE GENERAL DEVELOPMENT OF THIS TEACHING S<. While listening to the teaching we should have positive thoughts and intentions without the influence of the eight worldly dharmas. Even a wish to listen to the teaching to prevent our falling into the three lower realms is not a motive which will lead to liberation. Collect all thoughts concerning selfish wishes for this life or future benefits and listen with good intention, with the altruistic desire to liberate all sentient beings. After attaining enlightenment, to his less intelligent students, Buddha Sakyamuni taught about non-attachment, to his medium intelligent students, he taught Prajnaparamita, and to the students of the very highest intelligence he taught tantra. There are twelve thousand laws of dharma, twelve branches of Buddha’s teaching, three baskets and sutra and tantra divisions8. >S.

This is going to be a vajrayana teaching based on the Solitary Hero Yamantaka. In order to make it a complete vajrayana teaching, you have to pay attention to a number of things. The way to enter into the vajrayana teachings is through initiation. There are different systems of initiations in the lower tantras – kriya-, charya- and yoga tantras – and the maha anuttarayoga tantras. In the maha anuttarayoga tantra we have the four initiations, the vase initiation, the secret initiation, the wisdom initiation and the word initiation. The four initiations and the different stages of the path we have covered in quite a detail as far as the initiations is concerned9, not as far as the path is concerned. From here on we are going to go into detail into the path. In general when you study vajrayana, once you have the basic idea of maha anuttarayoga tantra, then in order to study the practice in general, you continue with a particular deity. For that purpose we have here chosen Yamantaka. Most of you had the complete teaching of Yamantaka during a winter retreat, but we did not go into detail there. In these vajrayana weekend sessions we will try to go in depth a little. However, you cannot count this as a complete teaching – it is more some kind of an explanation rather than a teaching with the four different styles of teaching10. Here we do not cover that part. I like to make that clear. The way I am going to talk to you here, is just like we did in the Lam Rim teachings. Very similar. The reason? This will be just like teachings in the monastery. When you study in the monastery you are taught this way, not getting official teaching of explaining page by page, but ‘teaching teaching’. ‘Teaching teaching’ actually has a lot of rituals to be done. In the Yamantaka teaching for example, you have to have at least a connected torma offering. You have to make a lot of tormas, the sadhana you are saying has to be the longest sadhana, there is a torma offering for invited guests as well a torma offering for the dharma kings. All of those are necessary. Since we have limited time that is not going to be possible. So we’ll do it as learning part. Then at the end somewhere we can do one weekend with all the formalities so that the teaching becomes complete. That is how we like to proceed. For the Solitary Hero Yamantaka there is only one commentary written by Tri Gyaltsen Senge11. There are several Yamantaka commentaries, but they are mostly on Yamantaka Thirteen Deities. What we are going to use is the Solitary Hero Yamantaka. I try to compare two commentaries, the Thirteen Deity Yamantaka commentary by Ngulchu Dharmabhadra12 and Tri Gyaltsen Senge’s commentary on the Solitary Hero Yamantaka. Between the two of them I try to cover as much relevant information as possible. The teaching we follow here is on the sadhana. 8

See note 14 on page 9. In general vajrayana teachings. Not [yet] transcribed. 10 For the four different styles of teaching see Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in our hands, vol. I, pg. 25. 11 1678-1756. Translated into English: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I. 12 b. 1722. 9

Introduction

9

S<. The outline of the teaching on the two stages of Dorje Jigje Pawo Chigpa was developed by Kyabje Ling Rinpoche according to the tradition of Kangsarpa Dorje Chang. The best way to teach this is called yung ti or experience teaching13. The lama teaches one step at a time, proceeding onto the next step only when the student has meditated and gained realization of that which had been taught. Another system, nem ti, is also an experience teaching involving four rounds of teachings. Of the four rounds there is one long explanation, one medium, one abbreviated explanation and a recap. What we will receive is only a single explanation. >S.

Shantideva has said: Leisure and endowment are very hard to find; And since they accomplish what is meaningful for man, If I do not take advantage from them now, How will such a perfect opportunity come about again? Bodhisattvacaryavatara Ch. I, vs. 4

He said: ‘The precious human life is so difficult to find, if you do not achieve your purpose here, if you hope to get another opportunity, it will be very difficult’. This is touching on the point of embracing the qualities of the human life up until attaining the enlightenment level. This is the essence of dharma and we have to take its benefit. The way and how to take the benefit out of it is very simple. The earlier Tibetan lamas and also people in the society used to say: ‘Whatever earlier buddhas did is the practice of the future followers’. Looking at the Buddha and just copy the way he has practiced is exactly what is called ‘following the footsteps’. To put it into nicer words: Buddha’s biography is nothing but the practice of the future disciples. In other words: what Buddha did, you copy; that’s all. What did Buddha do? Everything he had experienced and gained knowledge of he spoke about and that has become the dharma teaching. If you look at it, all his teachings are nothing but the direct opponents to the different types of delusions. Any dharma teaching you pick up, any word Buddha has said or what is recorded, any utterance you pick out of the 120 volumes of the Buddhist canon, – you will not find a single thing which is not a direct opponent to some of the different delusions. The Tibetans say that there are 84000 delusions and 84000 types of illnesses. What it boils down to is that all the teachings, either sutra or tantra, always are an antidote to one or the other of the different delusions. That’s how it becomes easy. The buddhist system, the philosophical teachings, will tell you that there are the 84000 teachings, which can be condensed into the twelve types of teachings, and from there into nine and finally into the three baskets, and so on. The delusions are rooted in ignorance, then follows attachment, then anger. The three baskets can easily go against these three principal delusions. Whether you talk about the twelve branches, the nine branches or the three baskets14, it is either mahayana or hinayana teaching. There is no third one. In the mahayana we also have the causal teachings, the sutrayana, and the result teaching, the vajrayana. Again, there is no third, everything goes either into this or that part. There are also different tantras in the vajrayana teachings, divided according to the different needs and the mental capacity or the emotional state of the individual follower. This way the four tantras have come into being. I am not going to list them, you know them15. Out of the four tantras the most commonly accepted, most outstanding is the maha anuttarayoga tantra. Nobody will dispute that. This is also divided into two different tantras, the father and the mother tantras. S<. To attain enlightenment there are two paths, the paramitayana or sutrayana and the vajrayana or tantra path. The vajrayana path is very extraordinary. Lama Tsongkhapa said it is known to all

13

See note 10 on page 8. Buddha’s teachings are categorized in many different ways: For the twelve categories of teachings see Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, pg. 96-97, the nine categories are derived from those twelve and contain each three divisions of: the Tripitaka. See Glossary. 15 Kriya tantra – dya gyu; charya tantra – chö gyu; yoga tantra – neljor gyu; maha anu yoga tantra – lama me gyu. 14

10 Yamantaka teachings like the sun and the moon16. The sutra path is the causal vehicle; by practicing the six paramitas one creates the cause for enlightenment. The tantra path is the result vehicle; by transforming oneself into the form of the deity, one practices at the result level. The vajrayana path uses our pure body, pure implements and pure environment which are the result body of the deity, the result body that we shall attain upon enlightenment. As a power exercise we transform our body into the body of the deity, and we are sitting in the deity’s mandala. We generate divine pride and a clear mind. Offering goddesses are making offerings filling all guests with bliss. All sentient beings are transformed into the enlightened deity as well. Creating the nirmanakaya is different in vajra- and sutra paths. The cause for dharmakaya is not different, though. Sutra wisdom and tantra wisdom is the same wisdom. The dharmakaya is the direct result of the wisdom, the understanding of shunyata17. Tantra means mind and protection18. Mind is the ordinary mind of ourselves which is protected from ordinary feelings through divine pride and clearness of the deity. All appearance is Dorje Jigje. All sound is Dorje Jigje’s speech or mantra. All thoughts are Dorje Jigje’s mind. There are four levels of tantra, three lower tantras and maha anuttarayoga or lame tantra. The first, bliss seeing, is kriya tantra. The second, bliss touch, is charya tantra, the third, bliss hearing, is yoga tantra and the fourth, supreme bliss of union, is maha anuttarayoga tantra. In the lame tantra first we look or study, then we touch or begin to practice and last we hold or completely embrace the practice. The inner practice is the actual practice. The outer practice entails activities such as washing, eating, etc. In the two lower tantras the outer practice is more important and in yoga tantra both are equally important. In every higher tantra, method and wisdom are inseparable united. Method is the relative truth, the illusion body19. Wisdom is clear light20. Father tantra emphasizes method or illusion body and mother tantra wisdom clear light. Vajra Bhairava is a father tantra. Lama Yongdzin Rinpoche said that according to the teaching of Chöni Lama, even though clear light is discussed in the Vajra Bhairava tantra, the ultimate point of this tantra is the illusion body. There is the example of making a momo – one may cut up meat, add onions, salt, and vegetables, but the overall product is the momo. Likewise with father tantra; the illusion body is the emphasized ‘product’. Within father tantra there is attachment used as method, Guhyasamaja [tib. Sangwa dupa]; anger used as method, the three types of Dorje Jigje: red, black and Vajra Bhairava ; and there is a system using ignorance as method, the Rigalati tantra – no longer in existence – which used sleep as method. At a very high level, attachment and anger can be directly transformed and used, but at our level, attachment and anger should be suppressed. The Dorje Jigje tantra uses anger as method in many wrathful activities found in the practice. According to Dorje Chang, tantra is divided into two: word tantra and meaning tantra. Word tantra is what we talk about. Meaning tantra has three divisions: 1) base – the bliss-void mind of a base person; 2) path – the generation and completion stages; 3) result – the full enlightenment, i.e. the buddha Vajradhara position. >S.

{II} ELABORATED EXPLANATION OF THIS PRACTICE {1} The origination of this teaching with an account of the originator and the lineage This has three parts: How Buddha taught tantra. 16

Clarifitation by Sandy: It needs no introduction; just as everyone is familiar with the sun and the moon, do they know the vajrayana path. 17 Emptiness. 18 Tantrayana is also called mantrayana. Mantra means mind-protection; man [from the sanskrit manas] is mind and tra is protection. 19 Tib. gyulü, also called illusory body or miracle body. 20 Tib. ösel.

Introduction

11

How Mahasiddha Lalita revealed this teaching by obtaining it from the Secret Treasury of the Dakinis of Ogyen and brought it to the Land of the Arya (India). How that line of teaching came unbroken to the Land of Snow up to the great root Guru.

{i} How Buddha taught tantra The longest Yamantaka tantra was supposed to have 100,000 verses [skt. slokas], but many hundreds of years after Buddha’s teachings many of the mahayana teachings have disappeared and among them this detailed Yamantaka tantra. However, the 300 verse tantra was available, not for use for everybody, but seven important chapters have been taken out of it. Out of hundreds of Yamantaka tantras21we have only three, togdun, togsum and tiu togpa. Togdun is the Tantra in seven chapters and talks about the stages of development22. Togsum is the Tantra in three chapters23 and talks about the peaceful and wrathful activities. Tiu togpa contains methods to do magical things through the skin of an animal called tiu. S<. In tantric practice each tantra has to have its own tantra. The Yamantaka tantra has three different kinds of tantra available in our land today. Earlier there were quite a number of them, but tantra is such a thing, if it does not serve much purposes, I think the dakinis take it away. Before Lalitavajra came in, the Yamantaka tantra was completely not available. There are short, medium and long tantras of Dorje Jigje. The long tantra is one lahk24, [representing] the nirmanakaya. The medium tantra is Manjushri teaching to buddhas and bodhisattvas25, which represents the sambogakaya. The short one is available at the heart level and is the dharmakaya. Read Jamyang Shepa’s history on the development cycle of this Vajra Bhairava for details on this26. The root tantra has been taught in the Pure Land. ‘It was taught, is taught, and will be taught’. This tantra will always exist. The Manjushri tantra says the same – that the buddhas of the past, present and future tell this tantra and there is a continuity of the teaching. The Dorje Jigje tantra was taught by Buddha at the same time he taught Kalachakra tantra and most other tantras. Buddha Vajradhara taught this on earth to control Maha Ishvara27. When Buddha gave the Prajnaparamita teachings on the Vultures peak, this was also taught. Inside the banga, the secret part of Vajra Dakini, Dorje Chang found this teaching. The whole mandala of Dorje Jigje could be found within her lotus. This tantra was requested to be taught by Nazo Sugchenma, a manifestation of Vajra Vetali28, the consort of Dorje Jigje. In the mandala of Ishvara himself, symbol of attachment, Dorje Jigje appeared in order to subdue him. Dorje Jigje’s erect organ is the symbol for overcoming attachment. Dorje Jigje also controls Brahma, symbol of ignorance, and Vishnu, symbol of anger. It was taught in the iron city of Kapala, the city of yamas. In the city are seventeen strong steel forts, and when Dorje Jigje landed on the city, his sixteen legs squashed sixteen of the forts and 21

Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 4-7. Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret. Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 4, nt.1. According to notes of teachings by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso: 1) Receiving the initiation and doing the retreat of the Yamantaka sadhana; 2) The mantra YAMARAJA... and the recitation of the other mantras of Yamantaka; 3) The ways of achieving the various powers and abilities of the four types of actions; 4) More methods of doing further retreats; 5) The drawing of images and the writing of scriptures; 6) Making of ritual-fire offering; 7) Achieving powers for various actions by merely relaying on samadhi and concentrations. 23 See Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol I, pg. 5, 149, 153. 24 A lahk is a Hindi word meaning one hundred thousand. 25 Clarification Sandy: This is not the Manjushri nama samgiti. 26 Not translated into English. 27 Shiva. 28 Vajra Vetali is a synonym for Vajra Zombini, in Tibetan Dorje Rolangma. [Reference: R. Thurman, Wisdom and Compassion, the sacred art of Tibet, pg. 233]. 22

12 Yamantaka teachings his erect organ pressed the last one. He uttered the eight wrathful sounds, HER HER HE HE HO HO HAY HAY which represent the eight acceptances. He controls all yamas and [so] they act as Dorje Jigje’s protectors. They have promised to uphold the teachings and protect the followers of Dorje Jigje. When Buddha attained enlightenment, his vajra body, -speech and -mind turned into the form of Vajra Bhairava and he was able to subdue all the maras with Vajra Bhairava ’s various weapons. >S.

Basically the Yamantaka tantra is out of the four tantras a maha anuttarayoga tantra. In maha anuttarayoga tantra you have father tantra as well as mother tantra. This is a father tantra. Out of the father tantra this tantra emphasizes being able to use anger/hatred as a path. Certain tantras will emphasize using passion/attachment as a path, certain tantras will emphasize using anger/hatred as a path. This one is using anger/hatred. To use anger/hatred as a path three are emphasized mostly: Red Yamantaka and Black Yamantaka [and this one, Vajra Bhairava]. You can visualize Yamantaka as the angriest of angry, very fearful. This is wisdom appearing wrathful. The deepest fearful evil is ignorance. The picture of evil we mostly have, is somebody colored very fearfully, with horns, ready to chew any human being. When you want to conquer such evil you need something more wrathful than that. That is why the youthful, sixteen years old, sweet, nicelooking, wonderful young Manjushri has taken on the fearful physical form of Yamantaka. Buddha took that fearful form, said the tantra and then it was carried by the consort of Yamantaka at that time, Dorje Rolangma. She became the keeper of this particular tantra, in Dakiniland.

{ii} How Mahasiddha Lalita revealed this teaching by obtaining it from the Secret Treasury of the Dakinis of Ogyen29 and brought it to the Land of the Arya (India) Some time after the period Buddha lived in many teachings disappeared. When there are no practitioners, the tantras do not remain much longer. When there are only few practitioners left, the dakinis come and take the remaining practitioners with them. They pack up all the tantra and whatever teachings on it are left, and keep them in their own treasury. Yes, really, they do that, it is their commitment. How did it come to India? Ngulchu Dharmabhadra says: ‘This tantra remained in Central India, known as Uddiyana’. Uddiyana is now known as Orissa in India. The Tibetan documents read it as Ogyen. Almost all revealed vajrayana teachings are from there, so almost everybody will tell you Uddiyana is the Land of the Dakinis or the land where Padmasambhava comes from. It is the home of vajrayana. So, this tantra is supposed to have remained in the dakiniland, in a place called Odivisha. You can find that mentioned in the Vajrayogini tantra. Ghantapa of the Heruka bell tradition remained in the forest of Uddiyana. I am sure you have heard the story, I don’t have to repeat it30. In India today almost all vajrayana Buddhism is dead. Buddhism was totally gone in India, it only restarted a little bit from Sri Lanka, and finally the Tibetans and Ladhaks came down from the north. In Central India everything was totally gone, no Buddhism left at all, but even then in Orissa you could find all sorts of vajrayana sacred places. For example, the Heruka tantra has twenty-four sacred places in common with the hindu tradition. Because it is shared with the hindu, it is still a very living tradition there. In Orissa it is more or less dead but you can still see a lot of ruins in the vajrayana style. Lalitavajra, the first one in the lineage, read the Jampel tsa gyu, the sutra or tantra called Expression of the names of Manjushri [skt. Manjushri nama sangiti]31, and in there he found a verse, the only verse available: 29

Tib., Skt. Uddiyana. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Guide to dakiniland, pg. 10-12. 31 Unclear whether is referred to the sutra Manjushri nama sangiti – Expression of the names of Manjushri [for the Tibetan name see Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, Anthology of well-spoken advice, pg. 376] or the tantra Jampel tsa gyu [skt. Manjushrimulatantra] mentioned in Tsongkhapa’s presentation of the five qualities of Vajrabhairava (Reference: H. Guenther, Treasures of the Middle Way, pg. 26 and 28). 30

Introduction

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Dorje Jigje jig pa kyab tro yi gyal po tug gyi ming du lag du tuk a ne kying ru kya wa tsig pa po ha la ha la dong gya pa shinje gyalpo. There is this terrifying Dorje Jigje, the king of all the wrathful, with six eyes and six hands32 who has fearful fangs, who says ‘ha ha’ with a hundred faces and is the king of Yama too.

When the great panditas looked at this text they were wondering who this Hala Hala with hundred faces would be. They compared it with other texts – there is also an Avalokiteshvara with hundred faces – but they said: ‘No this is bound to be another one, because in the text it says ‘Hala Hala Bongawa .’... Lalitavajra couldn’t find anything more. So he kept on practicing Manjushri. Particularly he put in constant efforts for twenty years to be able to see Manjushri and talk to him. He was totally devoted to his search. At the end of the twenty years of practice of the peaceful Manjushri, Manjushri told him: ‘If you go to Uddiyana, you will find the complete tantra of the Yamaraja33 over there’. S<. Mahasiddha Lalitavajra was born as a Brahmin somewhere in Orissa. He studied in Nalanda and was a master of the Three Baskets34. When he threw the flower into the mandala it fell onto Manjushri. While reading the Manjushri nama sangiti he discovered a verse which says that Yamantaka’s wrath kills all wrath, and that he is the Raja35 of yamas and controller of all hindrances. This verse intrigued him and he began to investigate but nobody could tell him anything about it. One pandit told him that it is available only in Ogyen and not on earth. So he decided to go there. >S.

Lalitavajra needed to go fast and in order to perform the magic fast moving, he had to use material power, as he did not yet have the mantra power at that time. So he collected different materials, of which one happened to be the sindhura. That is orange colored earth or mud, sindhu, which the dakinis put on their forehead as a mark, and is considered very important and very secret. In those days, however, all the great pandits and scholars were using the sindhu on their feet and Lalitavajra did so also. He started walking, moving around from place to place and finally landed physically in Uddiyana – Dakini Land – or a place almost leading there. Now while he was walking suddenly his way was blocked by a terribly old, poor-looking, dirty lady in rags. Lalitavajra’s attitude was like ‘I am the great scholar and I can’t be bothered by who she is, let me pass through’. But no matter how much he tried to pass through, the lady was always there. Finally the lady came near to him and wanted to ask him something. But he said, ‘Who is she, the dirty bitch, talking to me?’ and sort of kept going away. Finally he realized this was getting him nowhere. He went round and round and wherever he would go, the lady was always there. She was sitting and he was walking and walking until finally he got back to the lady. Then he said, ‘I am the great pandit and siddha Lalitavajra’ and she answered: ‘Never heard of. I have heard of hundreds and thousands of pandits and siddhas, but I never heard of Lalitavajra. Anyway, where are you going and what do you want?’ He said, ‘I am looking for some teachings of the Buddha that are missing’. The lady said, ‘Oh, what is it about?’ He answered ‘You won’t know’. And she said, ‘Where are you going? Where do you think you can find this?’ and he only said, ‘I am looking for it’. Then she said to him, ‘Do you know what happens with these tantras when they go missing?’ and he said, ‘I do not know’. ‘Then if you do not know, how come you call yourself a great pandit?’ and then she said: ‘What happens is that this teaching disappeared from the human land and is now kept by the dakinis’. He said: ‘That much I have sensed, but now I need somebody who knows where’. Then she said: ‘I will tell you one thing: what you are looking for is near Uddiyana and its name is probably Yamantaka tantra or Vajra Bhairava tantra. But if you want to go to Uddiyana with sindhu on your feet, you’ll be dead! Therefore listen to me, wash your feet, clean your body totally, put the sindhu on 32

That refers to the one of the kinds of Yamantaka, called Dungdu, see page 24. See note 6 on page 7. 34 Skt. Tripitaka. 35 King. 33

14 Yamantaka teachings your crown instead of on your feet, and then go. It is not so easy to go through. Do you know any mantras to get through?’ He said: ‘I am the great pandit Lalitavajra’. She did not say anything to that, but suddenly she transformed into a female ghost, jumped up and by the power of mantra hung him upside down. He was almost dying, he was shocked and when he regained consciousness, he began to think about this old woman and started praying to her – whoever she might be. The old lady appeared again and this time she was laughing: ‘I told you, you have to learn to behave, change your dress, do not put the sindhu on your feet and go nicely. You are the great pandita, but still you end up hanging upside down!’ and she started laughing again. Then she released him. He washed, changed his dress and put the sindhu on his crown. She taught him a few mantras in case any dakini wanted to harm him, so that he could challenge attacking dakinis. Ultimately he reached the area and saw a young woman collecting water. Looking at her he noticed her feet were not touching the ground while she was walking, they were a little above the ground. So he was very impressed and followed her and while she was collecting water he kept asking her: ‘Where am I? What is so extraordinary here?’ and she said: ’There is somebody with a buffalo head and I know all this, I have all the methods’. He passed by many ladies and many gatekeepers and hundreds and thousands of dakinis of all different levels and the first thing they did is attack, they always attack, but he had those mantras to say, so they could not keep up the attacks anymore. He was led from one gate to another until he finally came to the principal deity. That happened to be this old lady! She knew that Lalitavajra was coming to collect the missing tantras. Then of course, Lalitavajra got down on his feet and started praying and bowing down and obeying everyone. She happened to be Yamantaka’s consort, Dorje Rolangma or Vajra Zombini. When you look at the lineage, the first one in the lineage is Yamantaka and the next one is the consort Dorje Rolangma. Rolang is zombie, walking corpse; ro is corpse, lang is standing and walking and ma is a female. So finally Lalitavajra was able to be there and see Dorje Rolangma. She gave the initiation and teachings of this Yamantaka to Lalitavajra in her place in the Dakiniland. S<. One day Lalita met an old woman on the road. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked. ‘I am going to Ogyen’ Lalita replied. Then she told him to wash the vermilion powder36 off his feet because the dakinis use it as a sacred mark on the forehead. He did not heed her advice and so, when he later came across a group of dakinis and they saw the vermilion powder, they beat him up and hung him upside down, with mantra. Then the old lady appeared, helped him to get free and gave him some mantras to protect himself, should he come across any more dakinis. When he finally came to Ogyen he was amazed to discover that the Principal Dakini was none other than the old lady, Vajra Vetali, [tib. Dorje Rolangma] and it was she who gave him the initiation of Vajra Bhairava . Lalita practiced for three months and developed heat37. >S.

Then he asked the dakinis’ permission to take the Yamantaka tantra and at first they consented, but then after they had terrible dreams they canceled their permission. Finally Dorje Rolangma said that the tantra should be given, but in it, there are many powerful activities. And she said, if she was going to give the tantras to the human beings, they were bound to misuse them. Therefore it would be preferable not to give anything, but they would have a meeting and consider it anyway. All the high ranking dakinis had a meeting and finally they came to the conclusion: ‘Yes, we will give you certain portions which will be absolutely useful but certain portions we are not going to give you at all, because you are going to misuse them. We ourselves will give it to you, but we will not allow you to copy anything, we will not give you the original, we will simply allow you to read and whatever you are able to memorize in seven days, in our library, Dharma-gayi, that is what you can take. No more’. Lalitavajra looked through those tantras and they were so huge – he said: ‘There is no way I can do this in seven days’. So instead of reading, he started praying to Manjushri and Manjushri appeared and 36 37

Skt. sindhura. Tib. tummo.

Introduction

15

said to him: ‘There is a great purpose in doing this and Vajra Zombini will give you whatever you need, you just look through’. And then by the blessing of Manjushri – who in reality is Yamantaka and Vajra Zombini – several portions of the cupboard where the tantras were kept, opened by themselves and without moving his hands one after another the books came out. Lalitavajra just saw them and by the blessing of Manjushri whatever he saw he got into his head. So Lalitavajra memorized all three different tantras and brought them back to the human land. When he went to Dakini Land, he had to walk there, but when he returned to Nalanda, it was just ‘zap’ and he landed. S<. He was given permission to memorize the tantra, but for seven days only. So he prayed to Manjushri to help him. Most of the volumes of the Vajra Bhairava tantra came out of the shelf and with Manjushri’s help he had only to glance at a page to memorize it. He still was not able to get the whole tantra memorized but the dakinis said that what he had was enough for worldly people. So we must go to Ogyen ourselves to receive the rest of the text. Lalitavajra then came back down to earth where he competed with other non-buddhist siddhas. He performed the feat of eating an amount of poison equal to that which a man can carry and he won the competition, whereby all the competitors converted to Buddhism. >S.

After Yamantaka and Dorje Rolangma the lineage began with Lalitavajra in the sacred land, and from there it was brought to the human land. From Lalitavajra it continued to Amoghavajra, Padmavajra, Dipamkara Rakshita and a couple more in India. Finally it came to Tibet; from Ra Lotsawa to the late Kyabje Ling Rinpoche it continued in that lineage.

{iii} How that line of teaching came unbroken to the Land of Snow up to the great root Guru. S<. In the lineage line, Lalitavajra, Amogha-vajra, Jnana Kara Gupta and Padma-vajra [Yeshe Jungne Padma], are all Indians. The next one, Dipamkara, also known as Bero, was a Nepali. Bero had no arms or legs – they were cut off by a Nepali raja. His disciple Ra Lotsawa was the first Tibetan to receive this teaching. Although Ra Lo traveled many times to India and Nepal, he had never received the Dorje Jigje teaching. Ra Lo went to Swayambhu, where he met a powerful man who offered to teach him, but Ra Lo refused to be his disciple. This enraged the man and he threatened to destroy him. That night lama Bero had terrible dreams and told Ra Lo to meditate all night in a cubicle fortified with iron slate with a mantra inside. That night, flaming purbas38 were thrown at him, but by the power of the deity and lama Bero, that disturbance turned back onto the sender. That destructive siddha died within seven days. His own power turned on himself. Ra Lo was very powerful, but he did not practice pure morality, even though he would ordain monks. A Kadampa geshe39 criticized him for this which angered Ra Lo and he threatened to destroy the geshe within seven days. The Kadampa geshe read sutras and placed statues around him for protection and six days passed without incident. But on the seventh day a flaming purba struck the geshe and killed him. Ra Lo then publicized the fact of his great power. Ra Lo looked for Bero who was dead, but he found him in the forest alive. It was here that Ra Lo received the Vajra Bhairava initiation. Bero instructed him to meditate for a long time on Dorje Jigje. Ra Lotsawa brought the Vajra Bhairava tantra to Tibet but he was not actually the first. Other translators came but for many reasons it was not acceptable to the pandits of Tibet at that time. Other forms existed but Ra Lotsawa’s was considered the best. >S.

Ra Lotsawa. Ra Lotsawa is one of the earlier very important Tibetan translators40. Ra Lotsawa went mostly to Nepal and India. He was young and belonged to a rich, noble family. He was proud, very, 38

ritual daggers. Also see page 19. 40 Lotsawa means translator. 39

16 Yamantaka teachings very proud and because of that it was very difficult to get along with him. Ra Lo was so proud that he would not sit on any seat where anybody else had put his feet or sat before, he’d say it was dirty. It always had to be fresh for him and therefore he carried his own seat around everywhere. That’s the type of person he was. Ra Lo came to Nepal to study and he had a very funny master, the great mahasiddha Bero. Tilopa, Naropa, Bero – you would call them madmen, really, they all were a funny types of persons. They were not like the normal, respectable type of human beings at all. Bero lived in Nepal, a very great mahasiddha, very powerful and well-known. But his professional work was so terrible that he got into trouble all the time. He was called Bero Shagdrum41 which signified he had no hands and no legs. They had been cut off by the king’s policemen. His profession was to see after the prostitutes. Somehow he got into trouble with some prince or princess and was caught by soldiers. They cut off one hand. Then some of these queens – there were hundreds of different queens – sneaked out and Bero got caught again and they cut off another hand, so Bero Shagdrum had no hands and no legs, as later they too were cut off. That was Ra Lotsawa Dorje Drak’s great master. In Ra Lo’s biographical notes – very funny ones – this town is mentioned and even today this city in Nepal is still called Jambu. It is a big town close to the capital, Katmandu. Ra Lo was always showing off, wearing new clothes and white shirts all the time. One day he met a very powerful hindu yogi, that everybody feared because of his black power. He told Ra Lo: ‘What a show-off young man you are, but your face shows you are somebody. If you follow me you will be great, if you do not follow me, you will only be somebody. So would you like to become my follower? I will teach you powerful things’. Ra Lo in keeping with his character said: ‘I am the disciple of the great master Bero, the armless and legless. I ride a horse right now and I am not going to get down from the horse and ride a donkey. Never!’. Then the hindu tantrika was very upset and embarrassed, because this happened in public and he said: ‘If I do not destroy you within seven days I will not be named so and so’. Ra Lo got scared a little bit, but nevertheless he said: ‘I am Ra Lo and I am not going to ride a donkey after having ridden this horse I have, and I will see you after seven days’. Immediately he went to see his master Bero. The moment Ra Lo came in Bero said to him: ‘Did you break any commitments to the vajra-master? I had a bad dream. I had a dream where the sun fell down, the moon fell down and the stupas were upside down. That is very bad. Probably you have broken some vows, maybe particularly a root tantra vow; the first is insult to the spiritual master’. Ra Lo said: ‘No, on the contrary, I met so and so and he said to me, if I would follow him, I would be great and if I would not follow him I would only be a somebody and he asked me if I would like to follow him. Then I told him that I am the disciple of Bero, the handless and legless and told him that I was riding a horse and that I would never get down from the horse to ride a donkey. Never!’ Now Bero asked: ‘So he was upset. Was that in public?’ And Ra Lo said: ‘Yes, there were people around and when I challenged him everybody started staring’. Then Bero said: ‘You should not have done that, you made a great mistake. We have to protect you, he will definitely be after you. All right, get a big mud pot, a huge one, big enough for you to fit in. You have to stay in your own house, because people will be watching you now. Close your door, go sit in the mud pot and cover it with a slate. On the slate you’ll write the mantra AKA SAMARANZA SHAMARA RAYA SAMA RAYA, on the inside and the outside. It is not sure when he is going to strike but it will definitely be during the night. Most probably it will be the night from the sixth to the seventh, but you cannot take a risk, so even if someone has to come and feed you, you better sit in the mud pot for seven days. And keep saying the Akasa mantra’. And Bero gave him the Lion-faced Dakini teaching. So Ra Lo hid in the mud pot. Bero had also told Ra Lo to write this mantra on the door of his house. In the third night a burning dagger [tib. purba] came, just like a bullet. Nowadays it is very easy to describe. It is just like on television these satellite thunderbolts – a dagger-shaped bullet with fire at the back.

41

His sanskrit name in the lineage prayer is Dipamkara Rakshita.

Introduction

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The burning-fire projectile came and hit the door, but because the mantra was written on it, the dagger could not go through, it turned back. This happened again and again. It came, hit the door and turned back. The hindu tantrika became very angry and in the seventh night lama Bero told Ra Lo again to get into the mud pot and stay there. Then, in that night a much smaller and shorter dagger came, hit the door and the door broke into two pieces. Then another dagger came, hit a pillar and broke it. The house collapsed, but the pot was not damaged. Then a third dagger came, hit the pot-cover: ‘BAM’ and returned. That night this famous man died. Probably, whatever black magic he had sent out, had returned to him and killed him. That event made Ra Lo famous. The local people did not know that Bero Shagdrum, the master, was really the great man, they thought Ra Lo was. After having received the teaching of the Lion-faced Dakini, of course, Ra Lo was very proud and especially after winning the war with this famous man, Ra Lo became even more proud. Before he returned to Tibet, he sent lots of messages saying: ‘The most powerful person on earth, Ra Lotsawa Dorje Drak, is coming. Whoever wants to challenge him, is most welcome’. And Ra Lo always bullied every other master. He was rich, belonged to a good family, was powerful and a scholar, everything. He thought: ‘If I am not someone, then who is?’. He was a great person, everybody respected him, but he really scared the hell out of all the other teachers – to use normal language. Finally, Lalub Jangchub Dorje, who was very senior and well respected, gave a teaching and while he was teaching, Ra Lo started to insult him. Lalub Jangchub Dorje said: ‘The kids make a lot of noise today. Kids still have many things to learn’. At that time Ra Lo was in his early forties whereas Lalub Jangchub Dorje must have been in his seventies. Ra Lo became very angry and he started to send daggers, and to make storms and while Lalub Jangchub Dorje was teaching, he let the wind blow so strong that the tent in which the teaching took place was carried away by the storm. Lalub Jangchub Dorje knew that it was Ra Lo doing this, and he thought it was important to teach this young man a lesson. Lalub was meditating on love and compassion continuously. Whatever Ra Lo said and sent not only did not hit Lalub or disturb his teaching, but instead it all returned and hit Ra Lo’s disciples. And even Ra Lo himself was hit by the ricochet he directed towards Lalub. But he did not die. He was shocked for a while and then woke up again. Then Ra Lo was embarrassed and became shy and very small. He later described that himself, saying that he became smaller than an insect. Lalub had been able to control Ra Lo’s pride – it had totally gone. But Ra Lo was not satisfied. Although he was feeling small and his pride was totally gone, he still was not satisfied. He thought: ‘There must be something more powerful that I still don’t know about, otherwise how does Lalub Jangchub Dorje do what I cannot do?’ So he went back to see Bero Shagdrum Dorje once again. And Bero said: ‘I have given you all the teachings you need. There is nothing else you need’. Bero lived in a cave and when Ra Lo came, he did not let him in. He blocked the entrance all the time. So Ra Lo hid in the forest and tried to get into the cave whenever he saw a chance. Bero had given instructions to the people around him and especially in the evening they did not let anyone near. But one evening Ra Lo somehow managed to sneak into the cave. Bero was not there! Ra Lo was very surprised: ‘How come he is not there, he does not have legs and hands to move?’ He went back again the next day and again Bero was not there. Then Ra Lo thought: ‘In the evening he is going somewhere. I must sit and watch’. He kept hiding between the trees and watched. In the evening some of Bero’s disciples looked around to see if there wasn’t anybody and when they thought there was nobody Bero came out – and he walked! He had legs and hands and everything and he walked! Ra Lo sneaked behind him and followed him into the forest. Bero went far away deep into the forest. Finally, when he stopped, Ra Lo hid to see what Bero would do. Bero now took off all his clothes and sat down naked. He had a big Yamantaka [painting] and he made offerings and practiced there. While he was doing this, Ra Lo suddenly came out and tried to get hold of him. But the moment Ra Lo came near, Bero flew off into the air from up where he kept shouting: ‘How did you get here, you stupid fool!’ He threw branches of trees at him, but whatever Bero did,

18 Yamantaka teachings Ra Lo just sat there. Then Bero came down and Ra Lo said to him: ‘Whatever it is that you are practicing, you have to give me the teaching’. Bero refused, he said: ‘No’ and Ra Lo said: ‘Then I will die here’. They had an argument. Finally, while he was still talking, Bero suddenly disappeared, totally gone. Ra Lo knew that he had gone back to his cave and so he also returned and found him there. And Bero had no legs and no hands again as a result of having been punished by the king. He was just sitting there. Ra Lo again requested Bero to teach him whatever it was that he was practicing. He had to beg for several months. Everyday one said no and the other said yes. They kept doing it for months. Finally, after a long time, on the 29th of the 9th month, Bero gave in. The wrathful practices if possible are done on the 9th or the 29th, otherwise on the 19th; these are the three days of the month auspicious for practice. Bero gave him the complete Yamantaka initiation and teachings, and with that Ra Lo actually became the most powerful person in Tibet. During the preparation night of the initiation Ra Lo had a dream. He dreamt that he was riding on the sunrise, sitting on a cloud, riding on the water – all this showed, that he was going to become a tremendously powerful person. Then Ra Lo returned to Tibet. S<. Ra Lo had a difficult time returning to Tibet. His boat turned over and he lost his teachings and he was confronted by other obstacles, but he finally arrived safely. He became very famous and powerful. Ra Lo boasted that he had killed thirteen bodhisattvas including Tarmadote, Marpa Lotsawa’s son, and yet his life span was only getting longer instead of getting shortened, the usual consequence of killing. Marpa had a practice of transference of consciousness42 which he passed to his son Tarmadote. Ra Lo considered this very dangerous and decided to kill Tarmadote. One night Marpa had a bad dream. Four-armed Mahakala asked him for his small heart. The next day there was a village fair which was actually an illusion created by Ra Lotsawa to lure Tarmadote. Although Marpa’s wife begged her son not to go, he was insistent, so Marpa sent Milarepa to go with him as his servant. At the fair Tarmadote drank much and on the way home he took both horses with him and made them run. Then many crowds came and scared the horses which shied and bolted so that Tarmadote’s leg got caught in the stirrup smashing his head into thirteen pieces. He was still alive though, so Milarepa entered a trance and gathered up the pieces and took them to Marpa. The damage was so great that Marpa decided to put his son’s soul into another body. Ra Lo knew this and ordered the yamas to have no deaths for seven days. Marpa’s wife volunteered to have her son’s soul transferred to her own body, but Marpa refused her offer. After seven days a bird died. Tarmadote’s soul was transferred to that pigeon who traveled to India, died and became Timo Sangdupa, thus the transference line ended in Tibet43. Later Milarepa’s student Rechung Mijumpa met Timo Sangdupa and presented a gift of longevity to Milarepa after returning from his trip to India. Meanwhile the feud with Lalub Dorje had not been settled. Ra Lo set up a device to destroy Lalub and his followers. >S.

Since then, Ra Lo was one of the most important and powerful central figures. Not only his power, but also his words were great. Power is nothing to be surprised about, but also his words and teachings – even up to today everybody still thinks of Ra Lotsawa. When Ra Lo passed away, he passed away in a power competition. How did it happen? He had a power competition with Ngo Lotsawa, also a very powerful person. Ngo Lotsawa was cleverer than Ra Lo, who was very proud and thinking that surely he’d win, no one could defeat him. But Ngo Lo was very clever and shrewd. A week passed in the power competition and Ra Lo, who had become old, was not really paying much attention, he was just protecting himself. He was not really doing much. But Ngo Lo tried his best, one week passed and two weeks passed, nothing happened. And suddenly.... Ngo Lo was very clever. In the Tibetan tradition, when somebody has passed away, you immediately send a note and some offerings to different lamas and rinpoches to request them to pray, for in42

This [tib. grong-’jug] is a special practice connected with the practice of ejection [tib. phowa.] [The life of Marpa the translator, pg. 155]. 43 The story is to be found in The Life of Marpa, pg. 156ff.

Introduction

19

stance to make the transference of the soul and whatever other prayers. What Ngo Lo did, he wrote a letter saying that Ngo Lotsawa passed away last night, suddenly, and that prayers were requested. He also distributed money to everybody and sent a letter to Ra Lo. Ra Lo received that and thought: ‘Oh, I did not do anything, but I am sorry, he attacked me and his things returned on him. Poor chap’. That is how Ra Lo was thinking, really believing that Ngo Lo had died. So he relaxed a bit and was not concentrating anymore and then Ngo Lo attacked. And Ra Lo died. The very moment Ra Lo was attacked and dying, he meditated on Yamantaka, put up one horn… and through that Ngo Lo died, too. That’s what happened. If you play with power so much, then even such great persons like Ra Lo have to pay the consequences. S<. Ra Lo had a power competition with Ngo Lotsawa, a student of Marpa. Ngo Lo tricked Ra Lo by sending him a letter which stated that he had died. Ra Lo relaxed and was caught off guard by Ngo Lo who succeeded in killing him. But from the bardo Ra Lo was able to kill Ngo Lo, thus both were wiped out. ‘Ngo Lo destroyed Ra Lo with power, Ra Lo destroyed Ngo Lo with horns’. >S.

Ra Lo had reasons for his actions, he did it all for good reasons. ‘Including Tarmadote, the son of Marpa, who was protected and accompanied by Milarepa as his servant, thirteen great bodhisattvas I destroyed’, Ra Lo said himself. The reasons? There were so many magical powers around and transferring of life44– all this was cleaned up by Ra Lo. In the process he had to destroy thirteen great bodhisattvas, including the son of Marpa. And Ra Lo said: ‘For that, I will not go to the hell realm, because this is my specialty’. That is true, but on the other hand, even Ra Lo had to go to the hell realm, though for a very short period. It is said, for only a time as short as it takes a ball to bounce back from the ground. Just like that Ra Lo touched the hell realms and bounced up again. Even he had to do it, because of karma – killing thirteen great bodhisattvas in the process. Ra Lo did several exorcisms. He had them all under control. Not only that. Although Ra Lotsawa had a wife and children, he started giving the bikshu vows45. Geshe Chekawa came to Ra Lotsawa with that problem. Geshe Chekawa was shocked to see that someone who was not a bikshu and did not have the bikshu vows, could give them to others. So he said to him: ‘People say you are very famous and powerful, but I think you are doing a disservice to Buddha’s teaching, so please be compassionate and stop what you are doing. How can you give bikshu vows? You are not a bikshu, you have wife and kids. You are not allowed to do this’. Then Ra Lotsawa got angry and said: ‘Who are you to tell me this? If I do not destroy you within seven days, do not name me Ra Lotsawa’. That’s what he always did, you know. Ra Lotsawa, a person who had power, who had developed a state where you can maintain your bodhicitta from dripping out46, who is permitted to use consorts and all this – that is different. That’s why it is possible that persons like Ra Lotsawa who had consorts and children, were still allowed to give bikshu vows and nobody would say it wasn’t right. Not only Ra Lotsawa did that, there were many. In India, persons like Naropa and Tilopa, and at the time of the first highest buddhist masters47, Nagarjuna and Asanga etc. did those things. They are great persons who can do whatever they want to. But persons like us, we cannot. If we look at great persons and try to copy what they are doing, we ourselves will be the losers. So we must know where our limits are. One of the Demos, Laong Jigme Deleg Gyatso, my father's incarnation, the regent of Tibet, after the Seventh Dalai lama, was well respected and very well behaved, but sometimes he went hunting. So somebody said to him: ‘You are a lama. How can you hunt animals and kill them?’ He said: ‘It does not matter. You come with me’. And he took him along and he shot a deer and removed the skin, taking care that it remained in one piece, and then he took out all the flesh, bones and meat and after he enjoyed it, he took out his mala and put it together with the bones, back into the skin and then the deer got 44

See page 42. Monk’ s vows. 46 See page 28. 47 Around the beginning of the christian era. 45

20 Yamantaka teachings up and went. Yes, really, that is no joke. If you have the power to re-produce it, if you can pick a fruit from the tree and then put it back again, and it can function, if you have that capability, you are allowed to do it. Until then, sorry. That was Ra Lo. Where did he get all these powers from? In the beginning, it was from the Lion-faced Dakini and later from Yamantaka. That’s why Yamantaka is referred to as ‘King of the Wrathful Deities’. Even the Karma Yama offering48 is for protection. When you are alone by yourself or when there is a group of you together, whenever there is trouble then you make these offerings constantly for a few days and it will get better. That is very true, everywhere. It can happen with everybody. It happens with me and it is true. If you make this offering, it will create a lot of good karma and collect very good merit and even if the evil disturbances are not destroyed, they are being pacified and all sorts of black magic played on you will be returned, not returned to the person who sent it, but pacified, they’ll vanish. So this is very effective. Even here49 during the Lam Rim teachings there were constant disturbances and I was having a cold and cough and fever all the time and even medicine did not help, and then we made these offerings for the first time and from that night onwards I got better and I noticed also a few people who were having it got better. So it really happens, we are experiencing it. So everybody should do that. If you do that, it will be very helpful. You cannot do it every day, but whenever there are problems. It is very easy to make that particular torma, it does not have to be that big, but sixty-four offerings should be there, 4x4x4. Alfred can show you how to make the torma. At the same time, you also do the offering to the lords of the site, the local spirits. We do not want to harm them. We sort of make friends with them, give them gifts and say: ‘Be happy, do not disturb us and we will not disturb you’. Shinje or Yamaraja has a number of different traditions. Sakya, Kagyu, Nyingma, all of them have this Yamantaka practice and some of them just call it Shinje practice or Yamaraja practice or something like that. The physical appearance of this deity differs. Ra Lotsawa – as we mentioned to you – has five systems50, Nyi Lotsawa has another system, Kyo Lotsawa has a different system and Shang Lotsawa has a different system. I think they went into the different traditions, and perhaps this will explain why earlier Tibetan teaching traditions have different systems. The Kagyu tradition has its own lineage, which has been brought up completely by Marpa Lotsawa, and so do the other traditions. With the exception of the Gelugpa they all had direct links to early Indian pandits and different translators. That’s why you have so many different interpreters and their different systems. I think this tells you a little bit of how these different traditions have developed. The Gelugpa collected [lineages] from various places. The later development of the Gelugpa tradition, I think, is really the Tsongkhapa tradition. However, during the period of Tsongkhapa it was not yet known as Gelugpa. Je Tsongkhapa Tsongkhapa had so many disciples; wherever Tsongkhapa moved thousands of people moved. You must have heard that sometimes when he moved to another place and everybody followed him, when the last ones arrived in the new place he had already moved on to another. It was all traveling – the gypsy style. A couple of years before Tsongkhapa died he still did not have a real seat. Tsongkhapa went everywhere. Invited by different people he went here and there, spending time giving teachings and practicing and there were all his followers too, thousands of them. When I say thousands I do not mean two or three thousand: ten to twenty thousand were going with him all the time – everybody, you know. Maybe the life style was different, not like these days. 48

Karma Yama is the oath-bound King of Yama’s obeying Manjushri’s commands. For the torma offering to Karmayama see page 377. There is also a special offering ritual for Karma-Yama: Ritual Words of the Sixty-four (Offerings), by Pabongka Rinpoche. 49 Referring to Malaysia. 50 See page 24.

Introduction

21

They did not call it Gelugpa at all. Tsongkhapa wore that yellow hat, but he was not the only one. Bodong Rinpoche started wearing one in the same period and there was a Bodong tradition, that I do not think exists anymore. When you look at the paintings of Bodong Rinpoche, you see they wore the same yellow hat. There are two, Bodong51 and Butön52, both of them almost in the same period. Bodong is a little younger than Tsongkhapa and Butön is a little older than Tsongkhapa. There was a big debate between Khedrub Je, one of the outstanding disciples of Tsongkhapa and Bodong Rinpoche, the one who had written 125 volumes of writing. Bodong Rinpoche was great. He built a stupa, I believe in South Tibet, and he had four groups of secretaries at the four sides of the stupa. He used to circumambulate the stupa, and dictate to the secretaries, and in one group of secretaries there were seven or eight of them. What he told them was probably about vajrayana, a lot of details – Bodong had so many Kalachakra things –and to the group on the one side of the stupa he is talking about astrology, to another poetry and to yet another geomancy and all these things. He did that together, walking round and dictating everything. That’s why he has 125 volumes of collected works. Butön, the older one, always tried to check how correct or incorrect something was. Je Rinpoche, Tsongkhapa, at that time was doing practice and he made lots of decisions. The Tibetans made a saying on that: Ton ma tong Bu le tri, ta cho mo cho Je le tri, yina ma yin Butön le tri’ If you want to know whether something is anywhere, whether you heard about it or not, ask Bodong and whether it is right or wrong, ask Butön and whether that can be taken as correct or not, ask Tsongkhapa.

Between the three of them I do not think any of them bowed to anybody. They were completely independent. Tsongkhapa in his young age wrote his famous Golden rosary of eloquence in two volumes, dealing with the Prajnaparamita, the transcendental studies. Bodong Rinpoche brought up eighteen contradictions against it, called Eighteen elephant loads of contradictions. But later, just after Tsongkhapa passed away, Tsongkhapa’s Praise to Buddha53, dealing with emptiness, became quite popular and famous at that time; people memorized it. Butön Rinpoche had already passed away and Bodong in South Tibet heard about it when lying in his room. He heard a beggar in the street repeating this praise. Bodong, who was a very learned person, thought: ‘Wow, I never heard this before, it has to be Nagarjuna’s work, who else can do that?’ At the end of the praise Tsongkhapa says: ‘By the shining of the moon light I began to see the light54’. Then Bodong Rinpoche thought: ‘In that case it has to be Chandrakirti’s work, for sure’. But at the end of that verse Tsongkhapa says: ‘When Chandrakirti’s moon shines on top of that which I saw by the kindness of the guru’...55 At that point Bodong Rinpoche jumped up from his bed, ran out of the room and it is said he even jumped down from the staircase – to catch the beggar who kept going on. He got hold of him and asked: ‘Who wrote it?’ And the beggar said: ‘I don’t know’ and then: ‘Do you have the book?’ and the beggar said: ‘No’ and then: ‘Do you know it by heart, then please come and sit down and say it again all the way’ and finally he found out that Tsongkhapa had written it. Then Bodong Rinpoche immediately packed up a huge amount of gifts – he was the one who wrote these eighteen contradictions – and with regret he went to Ganden with a big group – at that time Ganden Monastery was already built. But by the time he reached there Tsongkhapa had just passed away and it was almost the time of the funeral, not really the funeral – because they preserved Tsongkhapa’s body – but the time when they offered prayers and so on. [Bodong still made his offerings]. Inside the stupa or tomb where Tsongkhapa’s body was kept there was supposed to be a famous 51

Bodong Choglay Namgyal of Jonang [1375-1450]. Reference: Cabézon, A dose of emptiness, pg. 15 and R. Thurman, The Central Philosphy of Tibet, pg. 69. In the last reference it is stated that Bodong taught Tsongkhapa Kalachakra. 52 Buston Rinchen Drub [1290-1364]. Some references to be found in R. Thurman, The Central Philosphy of Tibet, pg. 59. 53 The Short Essence of True Eloquence, in R. Thurman, The Central Philosphy of Tibet,, pg. 177-184. 54 So I went to the night-lily garden of the treatises of Nagarjuna, Prophesied to elucidate rightly the principle of your final vehicle, Free of extremes of being and nothing. 55 There I saw, by the kindness of the Guru, illumined by garlands of white light, the true eloquence of the glorious Moon (Chandrakirti).

22 Yamantaka teachings Mongolian tent which Bodong Rinpoche has presented at that time and there were a number of golden and silver things which Bodong Rinpoche is supposed to have picked up and thrown in the air while praying – that’s what he did at the end. Somebody said that the offerings Bodong Rinpoche picked up and threw in the air landed in the Pure Land of Tushita. At the time Khedrub Je was a very young, proud, bright guy, there was this big debate between Khedrub Je and Bodong Rinpoche56. Khedrub Je refused to bow to Bodong Rinpoche and debated with him. And in those times, in big debates, they used to write everything down, document it. I have seen it because the available manuscript came to Tibet House in New Delhi and I was able to edit it. It is so funny. It is clear that Khedrub Je is very sharp and there is no question that Bodong Rinpoche really lost, there is no way you can argue about that. Khedrub Je was also a little rude to Bodong Rinpoche. At that time Bodong Rinpoche was so well known and he came round with like fifty people for that debate and Khedrub Je went by himself and I do not think he even had a single disciple at that time. It was absolutely clear that Khedrub Je had won, but everybody there kept it sort of quiet. Then they referred the case to one of Tsongkhapa’s teachers and two other lamas to make the decision. Each one of them said: ‘We pay great respect to Bodong Rinpoche’, no other comment. That is a funny way of making a decision; it was because Bodong Rinpoche was so well-known at that time, so probably it would have been very embarrassing to decide otherwise. Khedrub Je was known as Changra Chondze at that time, some bright young guy from a family known as Changra. There are two different lineages: the teaching lineage and the initiation lineage. The initiation lineage comes through Lalitavajra all the way through to the Sakyapa lama Chöje Dhöndrup Rinchen, and from then onwards to Tsongkhapa and the Gelugpa tradition, through Pabongka and Kyabje Ling Rinpoche. The teaching lineage started from Je Rinpoche and went through Jetsun Sherab Senge. It did not go through Khedrub Je and not through Pabongka, but came via Kangsar Dorje Chang to Kyabje Ling Rinpoche. So the lineages are different: who got the initiation from whom and who heard the teachings from whom; that is how it works. Anyway, there is the continuation of an unbroken lineage. And if people keep on practicing this on the basis of the lineage, using the guru-yoga as the basis of all work, then it becomes a living tradition. You must have noticed that we start the vajrayana weekends with the Guru yoga and we do not conclude the practice, but we do all other things we have to do, including the teaching, in between. S<. Ra Lotsawa is considered to be a second Lalitavajra and a manifestation of Dorje Jigje himself. Ling Rinpoche is considered to be a reincarnation of Ra Lotsawa and a manifestation of Dorje Jigje. The [initiation] lineage continues from Ralo to Chorab, Yeshe Senge, Bum Senge, Jetsun Galo, Sherab Senge, Yeshepel and Dondrub Rinchen. Dondrub Rinchen had many dreams of Yamantaka but he wished to meet him face to face. In a dream Jigje told him that he would appear the following year at a designated place. When Dondrub Rinchen went there he found the baby Tsongkhapa. He took care of him and gave him initiation at a young age and together they went from Amdo to Central Tibet. Tsongkhapa is a manifestation of Manjushri, Chenrezig and Vajrapani. He studied with many great teachers, especially Rendawa. It is for Rendawa that he wrote the Migtsema prayer. There are several biographies of Tsongkhapa, one by Char Geshe, a short one by Khedrub Je and a secret one by Jamyang Choje, the founder of Drepung monastery. Tsongkhapa became famous by age 36. At that time he wanted to go into retreat and renounce but as he had a great many students who wished to continue to study with him, lama Umapa requested Manjushri to convince Tsongkhapa not to forsake his students by going into retreat. But Manjushri told lama Umapa that in this degenerate age it is far better to go to a quiet place and to practice than it is to talk to others. 56

Cabézon, A dose of emptiness, pg. 15.

Introduction Thus Tsongkhapa went into retreat with eight of his students and did much purification and accumulation of merit. By sacrificing one purifies past non-virtuous actions, so they did many prostrations, underwent food deprivation and other hardships. They also accumulated merit by making offerings. So this retreat did not focus on mantra recitation but rather on purification and accumulation. One disciple ate only one juniper berry per day. Four students never returned57. At the place of retreat there was a statue of Jampa [Maitreya buddha] in ill-repair and they decided to undertake the task of repairing it but they were so poor that the accumulated wealth of Tsongkhapa and all his students was only 6.5 sho [less than a cent]. Among Tsongkhapa’s great contributions were two great teachings: the sutra Lam Rim and the tantra Ngag Rim, the main feature of which was the ordering of the teachings of sutra and tantra. Khedrub Je was a student of Tsongkhapa and a teacher of Sherab Senge but Tsongkhapa passed on the lineage to Sherab Senge, the founder of Gyume, the lower tantric college. He stayed in retreat above Sera monastery and wrote four volumes of commentary on Guhyasamaja. Panchen Losang Chogyen was the first Panchen Lama. He lived a very long time and was the tutor of the Fifth Dalai Lama. Konchog Gyeltsen, a simple, poor monk, feared many of the teachings were in danger of extinction, so he went to request a private audience with Panchen Rinpoche. Officials denied his request, thinking he was unimportant and poor and suggested he attend a public audience. The Panchen Lama himself then inquired if there had been any visitors who wished to see him and when they reluctantly disclosed that one old monk had come, the Panchen Lama allowed him a private audience. Konchog Gyeltsen then received all the teachings he had requested, which was three months worth of teachings. At this time the Panchen Lama could not see so he read the text with his finger tips. Konchog Gyeltsen is the founder of the Segyu lineage. The other lineage is Ensa ninggyu. Panchen Losang Chogyen feared that the Geluk sect was in danger because the Fifth Dalai Lama was both a Nyingma and Geluk practitioner. He willed to live a long time to make sure it did not decline. After the Fifth Dalai Lama wrote a particular text, he was satisfied. There are two accepted lineages of this teaching. The long one begins from Lalitavajra and the short one begins from Lama Tsongkhapa. Tsongkhapa received the Dorje Jigje wang58 directly from Dorje Jigje and the lineage continues on from there as in the long lineage. Kangsar Dorje Chang59 lived during the time of Pabongka. He was a very fast reader and he once gave a lung60 consisting of 110 volumes in just three days. He decided not to reincarnate. Kundiling Dzasa was a student of Kangsar Dorje Chang. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche was born in 1903, the incarnation of the tutor of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. He joined Drepung Loseling. He was the Gyuto Lama umdze61 and the senior tutor to His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. Gelek Rinpoche took initiations and teachings from Ling Rinpoche, Trijang Rinpoche and the Dalai Lama many times. He received the initiation from Lhatsun Rinpoche fifteen times or so. Lhatsun Rinpoche was a very old lama who received many teachings from Mongolia. He is considered to be a manifestation of Tara and was a treasure holder of teachings of all sects. He died in Tibet during the Cultural Revolution. Gelek Rinpoche will pass on this teaching now as it has been passed on to him in an unbroken lineage from Buddha Shakyamuni to Lalitavajra, through Ling Rinpoche to himself. >S.

57

They died there. The Tibetan word wang means a full initiation. 59 The teaching lineage comes through him. See page 68. 60 Oral transmission. 61 chant master. 58

23

24 Yamantaka teachings

{2} The explanation of the merits of the teaching in order to develop respect and faith therein. S<. A quality teaching should spark some development in the student. The perfect teaching should be the essence of the Buddha’s teachings and followers, the great path accepted by siddhas and scholars. One should experience the development of siddhis, not delusions. It is better to receive a mahayana teaching, one which focuses on bodhicitta, but in order to attain enlightenment one must take the highest path of maha anuttarayoga tantra. Dorje Jigje Pawo Chigpa is father tantra using anger as method. >S.

The father tantras are principally geared towards developing the illusion body for the individual practitioner. The mother tantras are principally geared towards the development of the clear light and [the coincidence of] bliss and void; and also towards the development of bliss by raising the psychic heat, [tib. tummo] as well as by the dripping of the essence, [tib. tikle] – which is red or white for females and males respectively. If you look at the enlightened beings you will see a physical form. This is the illusion body – the appearance side. If you look deeper into it, you will see the empty side of it – tong jor. There are certain traditional Tibetan systems and certain lamas who accept a neutral tantra in between the father and the mother tantra, such as the Kalachakra tantra and I think they also count the Hevajra tantra as such. Our tradition, Tsongkhapa’s, does not accept that and emphasizes that all maha anuttarayoga tantras are neutral tantras and therefore that the counting of father-, mother- and neutral tantras is slightly foolish. There are a lot of reasons for that. These are the different ways how the traditions take it and it is not our quarrel. What we do is, we follow from whoever we learn. Yamantaka basically falls into the father tantra category, Heruka/Vajrayogini into the mother tantra. Heruka is known as the ‘jewel tip’. If you have the mandala you put the important jewel on the roof top and the queen of England does so with the crown jewels. In that sense Heruka male and female is the outstanding mother tantra, and likewise, in the Gelugpa tradition, the Guhyasamaja tantra is considered the outstanding father tantra. Yamantaka, or Lord of Yama, or, Lord of Death, or King of Yama [Yamaraja] or whatever, they all are Shinje. There are two of them, red and black Yama62. Black Yama is divided into three: Thana, Dungdu63 and the one here, Jigje. Even for that there are different systems, that of Ra Lotsawa64, Kyo Lotsawa, Chang Lotsawa, Me Lotsawa and Nyi Lotsawa65,– basically five important systems. These come to us through the translators, these earlier Tibetan interpreters. They went to India and had different teachers, took the different initiations from them, translated [the teachings] and brought them to Tibet. Basically you can say there are five different Yamantakas, that came into the Tibetan system. How it was taught was totally dependent on the translator and his guru and his lineage, that’s why there are all these different systems. Today we may complain that the translators translate in different ways, but it is not that different from the earlier Tibetans. All these different translators each had totally different masters and even the Yamantaka they brought looked totally different: one would have one face and two hands, another nine faces etc. All these differences are there. In that way we are not too badly off today. Even for the Yamantaka introduced by Ra Lotsawa, there are different systems. There is the five deities system, and there are the systems of Yamantaka with nine, with thirteen, with seventeen and with forty-nine deities. These are the five kinds of Yamantaka from Ra Lotsawa. I do not know if the teach62

Red Yamantaka = Raktayamari. Black Yamantaka = Krishnayamari. Yamari means Enemy of Yama. Literature: R. Thurman, Wisdom and Compassion, the sacred art of Tibet, pg. 289, 231-235. For the different names of Yamantaka also see note 6 on page 7. 63 Yamantaka with six eyes and six hands. 64 Picture and description of a Ra Lotsawa form: R. Thurman , Wisdom and compassion, the sacred art of Tibet, pg. 282-3 and G. W. Essen, Die Götter des Himalaya I, pg. 168-9. 65 For forthcoming literature on this see Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 5, nt. 3.

Introduction

25

ing traditions of the five deities and the nine deities still remain. The Thirteen Deities, the Forty-nine Deities and the Solitary Hero Yamantaka are there66. The Red-Yama teaching that came through the Tsongkhapa teaching tradition, has been disconnected, it is no longer there. However, it still remains in the Sakya tradition. H.H. the Dalai Lama tried to take that teaching from Kyabje Teching Rinpoche from the Sakya and he tries to get it back in the Tsongkhapa tradition, but so far he has not done so. Besides I am not sure if it is going to fit in the Tsongkhapa system at all. So, publicly known are the Thirteen deities Yamantaka67, the Forty-nine deities Yamantaka and the Solitary Hero. The Solitary Hero Yamantaka is considered more profound and more important than the Thirteen Deities Yamantaka. For example, if you take the initiation of the Solitary Hero you have the commitment of saying the sadhana; in the Thirteen deities system you don’t. Also in the Solitary Hero practice you have the uncommon protection wheel68 of the ten wrathful deities – the Thirteen deities does not have that. The Solitary Hero is easier to meditate on – just a single solid being instead of thirteen different fellows. Not only that; Tsongkhapa considered this as his innermost and most secret practice. The Thirteen Deities is what you give commonly. When people request Yamantaka but you are not very happy to do it and you feel obliged to give it, then that’s what you give. It is like putting it a little bit outside rather than inside. Five qualities of the Solitary Hero Yamantaka practice69 When Tsongkhapa had conversations with Manjushri, Manjushri told him that this Yamantaka has five extraordinary qualities. This was revealed much later. Do you know what happened? Tsongkhapa was asked by one of his teachers, Rendawa from the Sakya tradition: ‘Whatever you hear from Manjushri, the essence, would you please write that down and give it to me’. So Tsongkhapa used to do that and in some cases he said to Rendawa: ‘Would you please keep this under your pillow, do not let anybody see it and when you have memorized it would you put it in the fire?’ Tsongkhapa kept all that really secret, but Rendawa sometimes leaked little bits and one of these is this ‘five qualities of the Solitary Hero Yamantaka practice’. Both [the Thirteen deities and the Solitary Hero] Yamantaka have these five qualities in common for but they are focused more on the Solitary Hero. It was whispered quite far from one to another, up to Changya Ngawang Chonden. He finally wrote down those five qualities and talked about them. Actually there are eight qualities, but somehow sometime they were combined together and made into five. Changya Ngawang Chonden was the previous incarnation of the famous Changya Rolpai Dorje, who lived in the 1700s. They, the Changyas, were the famous Chinese Emperor’s gurus, according to the Tibetan tradition and according to the Mongols and Mandchus. That’s why all these big temples were built. The first were Sakyapas and Karmapas and after that they built these big Gelugpa temples and even today they still have these big monasteries in Beijing, I was told. The late Panchen Lama collected a lot of incarnate lamas over there, hired a lot of different teachers and trained them, even in the late eighties. The monasteries are still there. They were the Changyas and Tukems and a number of Mongol Tibetan teachers. The Changya Hoghtutus’ reincarnation is still available.

66

For different forms of Yamantaka and their mandalas see Loden Sherab Dagyab (Dagyab Rinpoche), Ikonographie und Symbolkik des Tibetischen Buddhismus, vol. F., pg. 152-183. 67 Literature: R. Thurman, Wisdom and Compassion, the sacred art of Tibet, pg. 284-286. 68 Also called protection rim or protection realm. 69 Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 101-102. For Tsongkhapa on those five qualities, see H. Guenther, Treasuren on the Tibetan Middle Way, pg. 28-32.

26 Yamantaka teachings Actually there are three outstanding Tibetan lamas with equal status in those areas. These are the Dalai Lama of Tibet, the Changya of China and the Halha of Mongolia. Changya’s reincarnation is in Taiwan, I heard, I do not know. Halha’s is in Tibet. When the Chinese took over Mongolia in the forties, the Halha Jetsun Dangpa was dethroned by the communists. The Dalai Lama escaped to India, but Halha Jetsun Dangpa could not escape. He passed away and his reincarnation has not yet been found. The Communist government declared they would not accept any reincarnation, because Halha Jetsun Dangpa is supposed to be the spiritual and temporary head of both inner and outer Mongolia. During the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s visit to Mongolia – not visit, he was kicked out of Tibet by the British and went to Mongolia – there were very funny relations between him and the Halha Jetsun Dangpa. At first he welcomed the Dalai Lama as guest and allowed him to stay as long as he needed to – as long as Tibet was occupied by the British. So there were two big lamas in one small city, known at that time as Bakure, later changed into Ulan Bator, which means ‘red hero city’. They did not get along very well. I came across some very funny stories of these two. The Thirteenth Dalai Lama liked horses and he liked to ride. So did the Halha Jetsun Dangpa. And they had all these attendants riding with them, about thirty or forty on each side, and probably they went to the same places, riding back and forth and waiting who was going to be first to get off the horse. Neither one wanted to be the first and finally they got off at exactly the same moment. There are all sorts of funny, funny stories. At the end of the Mongol government’s period, when the Chinese took over, the reincarnation of Halha Jetsun Dangpa was recognized in Tibet and I do remember him very well. He joined in Drepung Gomang, because of the Mongol connection and was called Halha Jetsun Dangpa. When I was a little boy, Jetsun Dangpa used to come and visit my father. The funny thing I remember is that at that time he used to wear very nice clothes, old Russian brocade. I admired that. First, I remember, he came wearing these old brocades, later on he started bringing his young daughters. He was married and had children. I used to feel funny – this lama was strange, wearing nice brocades and all these kids around. That’s why I remember him very well. I saw him later in India. He was a Tibetan refugee now. I saw him in Mysore and there was no special treatment for him. He was treated just like any Tibetan citizen, dumped in one of the resettlements. He used to ride a bicycle and tried to sell me books, which I bought, because I know who he was. But something happened two years ago, I was told. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Dharamsala government suddenly found there was another big lama there. So he was invited to Dharamsala and they put up a big throne for him and... I do not know, something happened. He is probably in his sixties or early seventies and has now become a big lama again. That is the Jetsun Dangpa story. So, the Halha, the Dalai Lama and the Changya earlier in Asian Buddhist history were considered as the top lamas, along with the Panchen Lama. The three of them had political power, Changya, Dalai and Halha. The Panchen Lama never had political power, but spiritually he was very important. Spiritually, the Panchen Lama was considered more important than the Dalai Lama, because most of the Panchen Lamas were teachers of the Dalai Lamas. S<. The Jigje tantra is especially important during the degenerate age. Tsongkhapa said that our spiritual development can never be completed without a deity like Jigje. The Vajra Bhairava Tantra is special in that it embodies characteristics of both mother and father tantra. The fact that Jigje holds human intestines and a fire brazier in his hands shows that within this practice are included all the teachings from Sangwa dupa which focuses on the illusion body. Since Jigje carries a khatanga in one of his hands this symbolizes that also the clear light of mother tantra, the essence of the teachings in the Heruka tantra, the joining of bliss-void, tummo, etc. are all included in him. In his right hand, Jigje points the dinzup or threatening mudra into the sky, ordering other deities to give his practitioners immediate siddhihood. The same mudra pointing downwards threatens the worldly hindrances not to disturb his practitioners or he’ll destroy them.

Introduction

27

The man impaled on a stick signifies that no matter how sinful a man may have been, whether he has killed his father or mother or [committed] any of the five heinous crimes, that by following his teaching even he can attain Enlightenment. Through the wrathful practices one gets peaceful siddhis automatically and vice versa. >S.

1. Protection from obstacles. In order to protect the individual practitioner from the obstacles, the wrathful Manjushri is considered to be most important. He protects from what? Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche used to say: Practitioners are like business persons. The aim of business people is to make good profit. The practitioner’s aim is also to make the best profit, which is to reach enlightenment. To that aim you need good business. To do good business you need a good commodity. But even if you have the scope for good business and good materials, if you do not have good protection, then when you are shifting your things, the robbers will come and steal them.

In old Tibet people would travel in large groups, so the robbers would not come and rob them. In our modern times, we have the insurance policies. The insurance policy for vajrayana practitioners is the Yamantaka practice. a. Yamantaka protects from obstacles such as illnesses, imbalance of the five elements, the effects of spirits etc. They normally are categorized as external disturbances, outer obstacles. b. Then, your mind is not stable. I don’t mean to say you are going crazy or something, but you are not in a good mood, you have very strong delusions, emotional imbalances, and sometimes you become extremely important and busy and that takes away time from your practice. [These are the inner obstacles]. In traditional old Tibet, for example, the lamas who do mo or are very good at astrology say it takes time away from their practice. There were a number of lamas in Tibet, like Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche – I do not mean to say Trijang Rinpoche has any obstacles – and my father, well, you would not believe it, sometimes there were hundreds of people lined up in the street, trying to see them. My father, Demo Rinpoche, had a very interesting character. Sometimes he just would not see anyone. He’d just shut the door. Everybody would line up for hours and not move and then he’d say: ‘Shut the gate outside’. But people wouldn’t go, so after a while he’d say: ‘All right, send them in’. Or maybe he would be playing games inside and the people would be waiting outside. We used to play Majong games which take two to three hours and there would be hundreds of people waiting for him outside. Unfortunately some of them were very sick, too. Then my mother would say: ’Rinpoche, please, there are some sick people out there’ and then they’d take the sick people through the back gate and bring them in. That’s what happened. During Tsongkhapa’s period, there were Tsongkhapa, Bodong Rinpoche70 and Lama Shang. They were the three most important ones in that period. The Nechung, the Tibetan government oracle, was very mischievous all the time. He had his own little duty to fulfill and he wanted to do something. The lineage of the Dalai Lamas had not really begun yet, but the first Dalai Lama was a disciple of Tsongkhapa. Somehow Nechung wanted to build the Dalai Lamas’ lineage up and so the competition on whose reincarnation system would prevail, was between Gungtang Lama Shang – Tsongkhapa did not have a reincarnation, so there was no problem – and Bodong Rinpoche. Nechung wanted to do something mischievous and presented a very nice pen to Bodong Rinpoche.71. So Bodong Rinpoche was busy all his life writing and composing. Lama Shang built a new monastery called Gungtang monastery. He gave instructions to the painters never to draw any fire. If you look at the Gungtang monastery, those deities and protectors don’t even have the wisdom fire surrounding them, it is not drawn. Gungtang Rinpoche gave strict instructions. But in the end the painter drew a monkey holding an incense stick and from that smoke wafted.

70 71

See note 51 on page 20. The story is also to be found in Gelek Rinpoche, Lam Rim Teachings, pg. 445-6.

28 Yamantaka teachings Somehow Nechung took the opportunity to go into that monkey and soon the incense really started burning and the whole monastery burned down completely. These are the inner obstacles. c. Then there are also the secret obstacles, obstacles of the channels or nadis [tib. tse], the air or energy trouble [tib. lung] and the drop [tib. tikle] obstacles. The yidam that can protect from all these obstacles, is considered the most important yidam. That is the first quality. S<. In this degenerate age we are lazy, stupid, unable to hold vows; there is no respects for lamas or vajra brothers or the Dharma. There is no shame nor fear of blame. Immorality abounds, people are full of doubt with strong tendencies of ego grasping and readily give up the Dharma. Yamas and rakshas have a strong influence. At this time in particular Jigje is the best deity. The above mentioned cannot hinder you if you practice four times a day with pride and clear appearance. >S.

2. The method of developing the illusion body. If you look at Yamantaka’s hand implements, out of his thirty-four hands, one is holding the intestines of a human being and another one is holding a stove. He is not going to make a barbecue, but stove and intestines symbolize something. These hand implements are actually signs, marks of belonging. When you put a mark on a piece of paper, legally it becomes different. When you have signed it, it becomes binding. Actually, by putting a sign you are telling something, you’re giving a message. Here, holding human intestines and a stove, is telling you something. Human intestines is a sign of the illusion body. So showing that, is telling: ‘I also carry the quality of Guhyasamaja – developing the illusion body’. So the second quality is that the Yamantaka practice has the whole complete method of developing the illusion body. 3. Mother tantra practice. Again, if you look at Yamantaka’s hand implements, you see he carries a khatanga. What is a khatanga? There are different kinds of these sticks they carry around. One is the trident [tib. katvang tse sum], normally known in the west, then there is the one with the single pole, and the mother tantra deities carry a khatanga which has a vajra on the top and then [three] skulls. The khatanga normally is the exclusive sign of the mother tantra, but Yamantaka carries a khatanga, too. That gives you another message: just like the Heruka or Hevajra tantras have a method of developing the psychic heat power [tib. tummo], burning and melting the source of joy from the head, Yamantaka has that too. The sexuality brought into the spiritual path is not ordinary sex. It is uncommon, extraordinary sex, and the essence dripping is not from the balls or kidneys, but right from the crown. It is almost the essence of the brain which is melting and dripping through the central channel and that’s why if you drip it out you die. This is the essence of the mother tantra, a practice through which you acknowledge the bliss and that bliss recognizes emptiness. The combination of experiencing the bliss and recognizing the emptiness becomes bliss-void. Such a practice is the special way to develop the clear light, a method emphasized by the mother tantra and also clearly given in this practice. That’s the message of the khatanga. It is telling you: ‘Not only do I have the intestines and the cooking stove, but I also have the khatanga. This means that not only I have the father tantra’s special emphasis of practice but I also have the mother tantra practice here’. 4. Wisdom, priority of siddhihood, obtaining enlightenment forcefully. What does the stove do? In the stove you make a fire. Fire represents wisdom. So Yamantaka carrying the stove says: ‘My practitioners have a much better and quicker chance to develop wisdom than anybody else’. In addition to that Yamantaka has the threatening mudra72 in the air, which is telling the nonsamsaric yidams and deities: ‘You should give priority of bestowing siddhihood on my practitioners. If you won’t, I will not let you go easily, I am not going to take it kindly’. That is an additional quality – siddhihood on an overriding priority basis. Then there is a hand with a spear piercing a human body from anus to mouth. This is not an indication that Yamantaka is homosexual – it is trying to tell you that no matter how heavy your non-virtues 72

For a drawing see Chapter XII: Appendices.

Introduction

29

may be, even if you have all five of the limitless non-virtues and every single worst thing ever possible, even then the practitioner is able to obtain enlightenment forcefully. It is not easy, but forcefully you get through. The combination of these three together is the fourth quality: the great wisdom, Yamantaka telling others to confer siddhihood and the possibility that one can forcefully obtain enlightenment. 5.: Wrathful and peaceful means. The fifth quality here is absolutely uncommon and extraordinary. That is: while you practice wrathful [meditations] you achieve all the peaceful means and while you practice peaceful [meditations] you achieve all the wrathful means. Whatever you do, you achieve both. With all other deities you focus on the peaceful and wrathful [activities] separately, here you focus on both. So if you practice Manjushri, you achieve the wrathful Yamantaka siddhihood, and if you practice the wrathful Yamantaka, you also achieve the peaceful Manjushri accomplishments. This is like the latest electronic development: my shaver nowadays has an automatic converter for 220 or 110. Just like that Yamantaka has the automatic converter for peaceful and wrathful inside. Also very important here is also that a) when you focus on Tsongkhapa, at the same time it is Lama Manjushri; b) when you focus on the wrathful Manjushri, Dorje Jigje, at the same time it is the Yidam Manjushri; c) and when you focus on the Dharma King Chögyal at the same time it is the Protector Manjushri. In short, Lama Manjushri, Yidam Manjushri and Protector Manjushri – that is one of the Ganden Kagyu’s or Kadam’s extraordinary qualities73. We have been talking about obstacles and things like that. No matter how many you count, outer, inner and secret, ultimately it will boil down to two. Obstacles obstruct, they can harm you, they won’t let you progress. What can they do? Only two things: either obstruct you physically or obstruct you mentally – nothing else. What are the most important obstacles preventing the fortunate ones from reaching liberation? Two things: the mind obstacle, destroying your mental capacity and wisdom, is the ignorance, and the physical destruction is death. Yama is supposed to be the one who destroys the physical existence and ignorance is the culprit who destroys the mental alertness. Sem jung mong ba lu gyi shinje de: ignorance can destroy the mind and Yama can destroy physical existence. Mong jong sherab dzo wa jamyang sho: in order to destroy the ignorance and give you the wisdom, who is better than Manjushri, the embodiment of all the enlightened beings’ wisdom? Therefore Manjushri is the Outstanding One. Also, to conquer Yama, who can be better than Dorje Jigje? She dang jom la po jung Jigje do: outstanding to hit the club on the head of Yama, who else is it than Dorje Jigje? He is known as Yamaraja, the king of Yama, as Yamantaka or as Dorje Jigje. He is so fearful and wrathful that even the yamas are scared to death when they see him and they will drop their clubs. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche used to say: Dorje Jigje tong sana tong shinje hlak sha shog The moment any other wrathful ones, even yidams, see Yamantaka, they are so scared, so stunned and shocked, that they drop their hand implements.

The story of Yamantaka74 Yama is supposed to be created by the karma of all existent sentient beings. He is supposed to be the judge of taking life. That’s why on those old Tibetan drawings you see the messengers of Yama taking people down or up. They look into the mirror of karma and say: ‘Oh, you have very positive things, you better go to heaven and you have negative things…’. But even though death is like a law of nature, there are corruptions from time to time.

73 74

Ganden Kagyu tradition, Kadam tradition, New Kadam tradition and Gelugpa tradition are synonymous. Some small stories with interpretation to be found in: D. Cozort, The sand mandala of Vajrabhairava, pg. 20.

30 Yamantaka teachings Once Yama became wild and became a very big threat to the existence of all human beings [by taking people before their time]. Then Buddha manifested or rather Buddha urged Manjushri to manifest in a wrathful form – Yamantaka. Buddha had to manifest very fearfully, because he had to be more fearful than Yama who is already very fearful. Yama is the original example of evil – horns and buffalo face and all that. To control evil, you need something more powerful than evil itself. Yamantaka has two horns and a buffalo type appearance and with that he is able to control evil. A person who wants to control evil, has to look evil, like a person who has to talk to human beings, has to look like a human being. Therefore Buddha manifested himself in the form of Yamantaka. Another hindu-buddhist myth tells the story that Yama had built his own little nest seven layers under the Southern Continent. Down there, there is an iron palace, in which nobody that isn’t wanted can get in. It has sixteen wings and a hall. On either side of the central hall there were eight wings. Yama remained in the central hall. He was in that period very busy, full of lust, enjoying material pleasures, half drunk with blood. Then suddenly there was a thunder shaking the whole city and Yama wondered what’s going on. He said: ‘What is going on? Who is there in this world, that is more powerful than I am?!’ Then Yamantaka put each of his sixteen feet on one of the wings of the iron palace and he crushed the central hall by his erect phallus [skt. linga]. It hit Yama on the head. He was in a state of shock and could not even get up. And in the sixteen wings of the palace the soldiers were unable to move. So finally Yama has to surrender. He said: ‘I give the essence of my life in your hands. Whatever your wishes are, I am at your command. If I go against your orders may my head crack’. This is how he got the name Yamaraja – King of Yama. That’s what you find in the beginning of the mantra: OM YAMARAJA SADOMEYA. That is how Yama was conquered. He had to promise from then on only to take a person’s life if karma permitted it. That is how Yama even became Yamantaka’s protector, and changed into Kalarupa75 Therefore if you read in the texts: ‘From the seven layers below the Southern Continent he is coming...’ it is because of that. That’s why Yamantaka is considered to be most important. Not only that. Normally it is also said that Yamantaka practitioners have a long life, too. Like Ra Lotsawa76. – Now this is a little bit a negative way of explaining. – Ra Lo, one of the outstanding Kadampa teachers, used to say: ‘I have killed thirteen bodhisattvas who have obtained high stages, including Marpa’s son, but I will not go to the hell realms – this is my special quality’.77 Out of these thirteen, one was a Kadampa lama who was very committed to the vinaya rules. He had said: ‘Look, you are a crazy person, you drink and you have a woman and you wear robes, not only you wear robes, but you give the monk’s vows as well. Please have some kind of respect for Buddha’s teachings and at least stop giving vows’. Like this the well-known Kadampa lama78 made his statements a public appeal. Ra Lo replied: ‘To drink and to have a woman companion is wise method. I have no downfalls of the vinaya rules, therefore there is nothing wrong with my giving vows. And you who are stupid and cannot understand that, I will see that you will not exist after seven days’. That’s what he had written and that Kadampa lama died on the seventh day. Normally, killing or harming others’ lives is the direct cause of shortening life, but Ra Lotsawa lived over hundred years. That’s why they say Yamantaka is not only the wisdom deity, but also a longevity deity. There is a longevity initiation and there are also a lot of longevity practices through the yellow Yamantaka. Praise of Manjushri

75

Dharma king Chögyal. Also see page 15. 77 The story: Gelek Rinpoche, Transforming negativities, ch. XI; Nalanda Transl. Comm, The Life of Marpa, pg. 156-178. 78 See page 19. 76

Introduction

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We have been talking about the qualities of the Solitary Hero Yamantaka and in order to make it simple and easy to understand – which will be part of the teaching anyway – today I like to do the longer praise in your sadhana79which says, Nyi me tun mong ma yin kyab pai ku. O Manjushri! Your being is non-dual, exclusive and all-pervading. The first word, nyi me, is non-dual. What does that word mean: non-dual. This is going to be a little difficult, but if you put a little effort in it, you will get it. The word nyi me has two different systems of explaining: one on the basis of dharmakaya, the formless mental part, and the other on the basis of rupakaya, the physical form. From the dharmakaya point of view, non-dual means there is no separation of bliss and void. What happens if they separate? If bliss separates from void, it is contaminated; if bliss recognizes the emptiness it becomes uncontaminated. So non-duality here means: from the dharmakaya point of view, inseparable bliss-void. In other words there is no bliss without void. Void here is emptiness, not just void or empty. It has to be empty of [something]. That’s why it is called: detong yerme kyi yeshe. Even the Dalai Lama’s book is called Union of bliss and emptiness. That is the same thing: wisdom which acknowledges emptiness with bliss, or bliss which acknowledges emptiness. If you have a lot of bliss but cannot catch it with the void, it will just be bliss. And if you have void which has no bliss, then it becomes just void, nothing more, so it really does not have the essence. In Nagarjuna’s Precious Garland80 it says that intelligent bodhisattvas understand emptiness before they grow the bodhimind. They would not be bodhisattvas at that time, even though they have the understanding of emptiness before the bodhimind, while normally the bodhimind comes first. Right? Normally after developing bodhimind you enter the path of accumulation, then the path of action and on the third path, the path of seeing, you will probably see emptiness face to face. That’s why they call it the path of seeing. Intelligent disciples do pick up emptiness before, but that emptiness is not an emptiness which is influenced by compassion. In sutra we talk about compassion. In tantra the essence of compassion is bliss. The sanskrit word for compassion is karuna and the literal translation on the basis of the Indo-European language system is ‘stop bliss, stop joy’ – bengkor. Stop joy here means: stop the joy that is contaminated and by stopping this contaminated joy you develop uncontaminated bliss. Gelugpa lamas will not say it often, but a lot of Nyingma lamas will tell you: tongnyi nyingje nyingpo gye81 – emptiness with the essence of compassion. If the person knows what he or she is talking about, that really refers to bliss-void. That bliss is the essence of compassion which stops the contaminated bliss and develops uncontaminated bliss. And that is pure bliss. That’s why it is nyieme tunmong mayinpa non-dual, inseparable and exclusive. This bliss-void non-duality is not mentioned in any part of the sutra nor in any part of the lower tantras. It is an exclusive membership privilege of the maha anuttarayoga tantra. Then kyab pai ku. Kyab means pervasive and pervasive means everywhere. The idea here is that whatever exists is known to the enlightened mind and the enlightened mind is the non-dual mind, which finds itself wherever there is existence. Ku is form, in this case dharmakaya form, not a physical form. From the rupakaya point of view the explanation changes. When we talk about the enlightened stage – the buddha-stage, the buddha Yamantaka stage or the buddha Manjushri stage, the buddha Shakyamuni stage or whatever enlightened stage – we talk about union, not the union of male and female, but the union of body and mind. The combination of the clear light and the illusion body is called union. The illusion body is the body in which people obtain enlightenment and clear light is the mind with which you obtain enlightenment. So the union of clear light and illusion body is the ultimate union – the buddha stage. That union of clear light and illusion body is exclusive to the higher tantric club members, but can be obtained before you become enlightened. When you look at the completion stage, there is the quiet79

In the sadhana just before recollecting the purities. tib. Rinchen trengwa, skt. Ratnamala. The quote not [yet] found. 81 Tongnyi is emptiness, nyingje is compassion, nyingpo is heart or essence. 80

32 Yamantaka teachings ness of the body and the quietness of the mind and at the end of that you have the pre-enlightened union and then the next one is called ultimate union. Pre-enlightened union is also complete union, but a union with efforts of learning82. The ultimate union will be the no-more-learning union83. So even at the ordinary level, i.e. before the enlightened level, you can also have that union, exclusively reserved for the maha anuttarayoga tantra card holders. That is tun mong mayin kyab pai ku, [inseparable], exclusive, pervasive – the state where quite naturally, wherever the mind is, the body is also. Now we are particularly looking at Yamantaka, his body- and mind qualities – they are non-dual, exclusive and pervasive. Between pervasive and exclusive there is no contradiction. People might say: ‘If it is exclusive how can everybody get it?’ Well, pervasive does not necessarily mean accessible. That the enlightened level has access to all, does not necessarily mean that all on the outside have access to the enlightened level! Kun la nyom dze gyetwa kun gyi yab By acting equally toward all, you are the Father of all Conquerors; The first letters deal with the relative part. It is said that all the enlightened buddhas always had Manjushri as their teacher. During the contemplative period Manjushri guided them and made them develop compassion and bodhimind. Remember, there are the seven stages, the exchange stages and the eleven stages through which all the buddhas have become enlightened beings. How does the bodhimind grow? The root of the bodhimind is great compassion. What does distinguish great compassion from ordinary compassion? It is equal compassion towards all sentient beings. The object of great compassion is all sentient beings; the aspect of great compassion is the desire to remove their pains. Ordinary compassion is not necessarily focused on all sentient beings, maybe on one or two or many, but not on all of them. Kula nyom dze means equal to all. [When we say great compassion is characterized by its] focus on all beings, we call that the relative explanation. It is great equanimity. Great equanimity is the equanimity which is the basis for all the seven stages of developing bodhimind or even for the exchange stage of developing bodhimind. This last one has a special equanimity, remember, a little different from the seven stages equanimity. These equanimities are the basis for compassion, which in turn is the seed for bodhimind. A human being takes birth on the basis of the seed of the father, as we all know. Likewise, in order to become a young bodhisattva or buddha, there has to be father-like seed: compassion. In other words, Manjushri is the father [yab] teacher who makes them grow the bodhimind. That is the relative explanation. The absolute explanation is: compassion is the essence of wisdom, which has grown out of equanimity. That’s why it says: ‘By acting equally with everything’. Gyelwa means conqueror or victor, one who has gained victory over something, one who has won the war over the delusions and the imprint of the delusions. S<. Manjushri is the teacher to show us all the path to enlightenment and thus he is the father of all conquerors. There is not a single example of one buddha who was not born from a bodhisattva mind. All deities take different shapes for different purposes, but in reality they are all one. >S.

Chö gyi ying gyi gyelwa kun gyi yum as the Dharmadhatu you are the Mother of all Conquerors; What does dharmadhatu mean? We all know the Dharmadhatu centers, started by Trungpa Rinpoche. Cho is dharma and yin can be translated either as ‘essence’ or as ‘kick’– like if you smoke a cigarette or drink something, you get a kick. Dharmadhatu is the essence of dharma, which refers to the emptiness. This emptiness again is the bliss-void. The bliss is a big kick – they do really have a good kick here. Bliss-void, which is the essence of all phenomena, is the mother [yum] of all buddhas. That is the wisdom which once it is developed, will become the clear light, out of which the dharmakaya will grow, so it is the mother of all buddhas.

82 83

Union needing practice, tib. slob p’ai zung jung. Union of no more learning, tib. mi slob p’ai zung jung.

Introduction

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What is Buddha, particularly what is Yamantaka or Manjushri? It is nothing but the wisdom which clearly understands the nature of reality. That wisdom itself takes the physical form of an enlightened being. This is especially the case with Manjushri: the wisdom being has taken some kind of physical form with a face and hands etc., so it has become a deity or a yidam, and instead of flesh and blood and bones, it is made out of wisdom. That’s why it is the mother, too. When you look at that terrifyingly looking Yamantaka, when you try to take it in the path and see what it is made of, this is what you are going to see. Ye she sem par gyelwa kun gyi se as a Wisdom Being, you are the Child of all Conquerors. The bodhisattvas, whether male or female, are considered children of the Buddha. Chandrakirti’s Madhyamikavatara says in the beginning: nying tö sangye tring nam tub wang kye sangye jangchub sempar le trung shing nying je sem tang nyi su me lo tang jang chub sem ni gyal se nam gyi gyu Hearers and middling realizers of suchness Are born from the Kings of Subduers [buddhas] Buddhas are born from bodhisattvas The mind of compassion, non-dual understanding, And the altruistic mind of enlightenment Are the causes of Children of Conquerors.

The first verse of his text is a praise to the compassion. It says: ‘Pratyekas and sravakas are born from buddhas and buddhas are born from bodhisattvas and bodhisattvas are born from compassion, hence the bodhisattvas are earmarked to become buddhas, so therefore the bodhisattvas are called family members of the Buddha. They become children of the Buddha, children who will obtain the stage of the Buddha’. So, not only is there a father and a mother, but there is also a son, the result. When the father and the mother have a sexual kick, what you get is the children. Likewise, when this enlightened level of compassion, which is the bliss-void, and the method, which is the illusion body, unite, the result they produce is bodhisattvas, bodhisattvas who will be shouldering the responsibilities of the enlightened. That’s why the wisdom-beings are the children of the enlightened beings, or in other words: their continuation. Chag tsel jampal pal gyur dzog pa kyo I prostrate myself to you, O Manjushri, who is complete in glory. That does not need much explanation here, except that you have to know that Yamantaka is inseparable from Manjushri. When you really look at Yamantaka, what it boils down to is that there is nothing but compassion and wisdom. There is not even flesh, blood and bone, it actually is the compassion and wisdom taking a physical form. S<. ‘I prostrate myself to Manjushri’. In Tibetan this is chagtsello. Chag means to give respect to a person because you recognize his fine qualities. Tsal means desire. We express our desire to obtain his qualities. ‘Manjushri who is complete in glory’. Manjushri is smooth. He is devoid of the roughness of delusions. He is glorious because he has attained enlightenment and has completed the path with perfect development. >S.

Cho gyi ku la jam dang mi mang yang Si sum duk par ma lu dul wai chir tuk je tab kyi tro gyel kur ten pa Although in Dharmakaya neither love nor hate is found, through the enactment of your compassion the presence of a King of Fury is revealed

34 Yamantaka teachings to subdue all evils in the triple world. In the dharmakaya, there is nothing we call hate or lust, so there is no lust of trying to get something or of getting close to someone and there is no hate of pushing away, however si sum... ‘in order to conquer all evils in the triple world…’. Normally we count as the triple world the kam sum, the sa ö, sa teng, sa la – on the ground, under the ground, above the ground. Another way of counting is: the samsaric gods, the nagas and the human beings. What are the evils of the triple world really? Death, bardo and rebirth. These make the individual continue in the samsaric world. Death pushes the bardo and bardo pushes the rebirth. They are the three realms in which we normally get lost or stuck, so that we have to continue in samsara. What is samsara? It is the continuation of attachment to identity. In Tibetan: gye nyieng gen le pungpo gyun – the contaminated conditioned form continues. The moment you talk about attachment it becomes contaminated desire, in normal American spiritual language: you cannot let go. So they tell you to let go. That’s what I hear. Different people may get different messages, but what I hear is: you cannot let go of the attachment to the identity, therefore it continues, cycling through death, bardo and rebirth. That is the real evil within us that makes us circle in samsara. So the triple world is the world of death, the world of bardo and the world of rebirth. Jigje shinje she la chag tsel lo. I prostrate myself to Bhairava Yamantaka, the Terrifying Opponent of the Lord of Death. That is the Yamantaka you are looking at. When we come to the sadhana I will have to explain this verse and here I have to give you a little background of what Yamantaka really is, so I am trying to kill two birds with one stone. Tro gyal. Tro means wrathful and it can also mean anger. Anger is not a good translation here. Jig means frightening and Je means the one who makes you afraid – the Vajra Terrifyer, that is what Dorje Jigje really is. He is not just a conqueror of the three evil worlds of death, bardo and rebirth. As I mentioned to you earlier, when you practice Yamantaka the wrathful way, you achieve the siddhihood of the peaceful Manjushri and when you do the practice of the peaceful Manjushri, you also achieve the siddhihood of the wrathful Yamantaka. Not only this. If you look into the Heruka or Vajrayogini sadhana, in the ‘bardo as sambogakaya’ practice you only have a little squiggle [tib. nada], or even if you have a letter84 BAM you focus more on the squiggle. In the Guhyasamaja practice you have Dangpo Gonpo, the First White Lord, but this particular Yamantaka practice, unlike any other, has something different: in the bardo as sambogakaya practice, bardo lung, here you have Manjushri. That is the normal Manjushri, exactly the same Manjushri appearing here as sambogakaya – that is the one. Then, even in the nirmanakaya wrathful stage, you also have a Manjushri face. There are nine faces, three at the center, three at the right and three at the left. The three at the center are the wrathful buffalo face, above that a wrathful terrifying face and above that the peaceful Manjushri; although it is semi-wrathful, it is peaceful compared with the huge, wrathful face down there. In addition to that you have the wisdom being Manjushri. So Manjushri appears here ‘as Manjushri’ on three different levels. Not only that. In the tradition Tsongkhapa brought from Manjushri, there is an uncommon practice. It is not like the Vajrayogini uncommon inconceivable practice. Here it is the uncommon practice of combining the wrathful and peaceful Manjushri together, which is considered as one of the practices we normally do not talk about much. It’s there, it is for those who need it and benefit from it, but it is not something you would like to make public. That’s what Yamantaka really is: the deity that is both wrathful and peaceful at the same time. That gives you two messages. One, when you look at Yamantaka, what do you see? You don’t just see a physical form. When you dig into it deeply, you’ll find it is so peaceful, so loving and so kind; it is 84

Letter, syllable or seed syllable (BAM etc.) are synonymous. As the sadhana uses them both ‘letter’and ‘syllable’ we didn’t chose for either of them.

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ultimate love and ultimate compassion. At the same time it is ultimate roughness. I mentioned earlier what Kyabje Ling Rinpoche used to say: ‘Yamantaka is so wrathful, all other deities will drop their hand implements, because when they see him, they are so scared!’ The other message we get is: if the Yamantaka we’re looking at is made out of all these different things instead of being made of flesh and bones, if I want to achieve that [Yamantaka state or Yamantaka qualities], what do I have to do? When want to be that Yamantaka or like Yamantaka, I need these same things. That again gives you two messages: first of all you can look at the result Yamantaka which is shown in the pictures, and at the same time when you want to become like that, these are the qualities, these are the causal requirements. Therefore ‘I prostrate myself to Bhairava Yamantaka’. That is basically it. S<. ‘The terrifying opponent of the Lord of Death’. There are four ways of being terrifying. There is male terrifying, rishi terrifying, mara terrifying but Vajra Bhairava terrifying is the most terrifying. ‘Opponent of the Lord of Death’ [Yamantaka] has outer, inner and secret meaning. The outer refers to Vajra Bhairava who controls the yamas in the iron city of Kapala. Inner refers to the three poisons of delusion: attachment, anger and ignorance, which are all eliminated through the practice. Wisdom kills the inner Lord of Death [Yama]. Vajra Bhairava is the nature of wisdom. The secret Lord of Death ‘travels through the route of the sun and moon’. This is a reference to the right and left nadis which normally block the passage of energy through the central psychic channel. Here the sun represents the right side and also method, father and white bodhicitta. The moon represents the left side and also wisdom, mother and blood. Death travels through the right and left. The avadhuti is the central channel, roma is white on the right and the kyangma is red on the left. Thoughts ride on the air and go either through the right or left but normally not through the center. Deluded thoughts, influenced by attachment, anger and ignorance travel the path through the sun and the moon. Only at the time of death and when you attain enlightenment do thoughts pass through the central channel. Otherwise the central channel is not clear. Through meditation one can unknot the central channel. This is the purpose of dzok rim85. Dorje Jigje is inseparable from wisdom-emptiness and bliss which stops thoughts from passing through the right and left nadis and dissolves them into the central nadi. He stops undesirable karma and stops lung as well. By stopping undesirable karma, the central nadi is clear, energy dissolves and stops the secret Lord of Death, cutting the root of samsara. Manjushri stops the functioning of energy through the right and left nadis. (Reference to the sutra on the twelve interdependent links). Tsongkhapa said that the principle disturbance to body and mind is the Lord of Death and that Vajra Bhairava is the greatest opponent. Our mind can be killed by ignorance, our body can be killed by the Lord of Death but Vajra Bhairava made Yama into his servant. This is a good practice for longevity. People who practice Dorje Jigje usually live a long time. Ra Lo lived for 180 years. Lobsang Lundrup Pandita said: ‘This teaching has included all the important points of father and mother tantra. It is a quick path whereby tremendous blessings can be obtained. Dorje Jigje is an extraordinary deity. The opportunity to practice kye rim and dzok rim86 is as rare as the appearance of a Buddha on earth or the opening of an utambara [flower.] [As to being a quick path, vajrayana is likened to the following:] If you put a snake into a tube of bamboo, it can either come out in one of two holes: up or vajra heaven, down or vajra hell. >S.

You have to remember that each and every deity’s practice has its own way of explaining, saying this is the best of all. However, talking about Yamantaka, there are certain extraordinary qualities here, like the five qualities we mentioned earlier87, which can’t be found in any other deity’s [tantra], Also there are a lot of uncommon qualities in the Vajrayogini practice, of which you’ll hear more later. 85

Completion stage. Generation stage and completion stage. 87 See page 25. 86

36 Yamantaka teachings

{3} How to listen and explain such a teaching as this This has three outlines: 1. Qualities of such a teacher. 2. Qualities of the disciples receiving the teaching 3. Actual manner of giving and receiving the teaching.

{i} Qualities of such a teacher a) The most important thing here is: the teacher must be qualified: kind, developed and must know what he or she is talking about. That is absolutely necessary. b) Also, the teacher must have an unbroken lineage to his teacher. This in effect means your teacher has to be a living teacher. It is not possible to have a dead teacher, maybe appearing through someone’s delusions, maybe early in the morning when one is still half asleep and half in samadhi having appearances within these delusions, or maybe seemingly manifesting through somebody in a trance and talking – all of them are disqualified. c) The teacher must not only be alive, but also he has to have a practice, and not only must he have a practice, he himself must have received that particular practice from another living teacher. Tsongkhapa had a lot of visions of Manjushri, but the teachings Manjushri gave to Tsongkhapa are not counted as unbroken lineage. The unbroken lineage is the lineage that has gone from Buddha to the Indian teachers, from them to the earlier Tibetan teachers, like Sakya, Kagyu or Nyingma, then to the Kadampa tradition and finally onto the New Kadampa, the Ganden Kagyu system. That is counted as unbroken lineage. Not what Manjushri said to Tsongkhapa – that is not counted as teaching. Tsongkhapa has recomposed what Manjushri has told him. Tsongkhapa even recomposed the Three principals of the path, given to him by Manjushri, and the lineage counts from then onwards. It has to be like that and that is important to know, not only in this particular Yamantaka, but on the whole in Buddhist practice, particularly in Tibetan Buddhist practice. It is absolutely necessary to receive the teachings and initiation and guidance from a living master. You can get information from anywhere else, but you have to check if it is genuine or not. Basically that is the rule. So the vajra-master has to be alive and qualified, as described in the qualities of the vajra-master and in addition to that he has to be part of an unbroken lineage. Do not make a mistake on that. I said the lama has to be alive. Then the question rises: what happens if your lama dies, do you have to find another living lama? No, that is not necessarily the case, unless you need one. If you have had all the teachings and all the practices, you can pick up information anywhere and then it is not necessary. So it is not always necessary to have a living teacher, but if you take the teachings, it has to be from a living teacher, not through visions and all this. Though there are very exceptional cases. Particularly in the Gelugpa tradition – with the exception of a very, very outstanding person – we almost discount the possibility that somebody receives teachings through visions. Also what other particular traditions have, those termas, revealed hidden traditions, for Tsongkhapa and for his disciples this has almost become a disqualification rather than a qualification. Particularly these gongters, teachings found in trees and rocks or just appearing in somebody’s head and being thus revealed. You do not have to criticize but.... What Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and Kyabje Ling Rinpoche and also Kyabje Gomo Rinpoche did, just not commenting, not talking about it, and if somebody else says something you say ‘great’ but you do not take it as serious as if it came from actual people with five senses, teachers with the traditional teaching and practice, sharing their experience. I just casually mention this; I do not mean, they are bad or wrong or anything, do not misunderstand, I am not criticizing them. Their traditions are very great, but let us keep it there. S<. The lama must have received initiation and teaching from an unbroken lineage, must be wellversed in the sutras and tantras, must have karuna for all beings as well as for himself. He must have the knowledge that he is suffering, must have studied with great teachers, done guru yoga and have done a retreat. >S.

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In addition to the qualities of the vajrayana-master88 the teacher or spiritual master who is giving this teaching, first has to have received a full-fledged initiation. Mind you, just to sit with other people in the initiation lane does not necessarily mean the person has obtained the initiation. Having obtained an initiation means you have really understood what has been going on and also an imprint has been laid solidly, so that the seeds of the four kayas are properly laid within you. When that is done, then the initiation is obtained. Just sitting there and drinking water and having the vase put on one’s head does not mean you have obtained the initiation. Even though we are just substituting, when you take it two, three, four, five, six times, you’ll understand more and then one day probably it will really link up. If you are busy and there are reasons that you can’t do it, then it is fine, otherwise you should take it very often. The more often you can take it, the more beneficial it is, because number one: it purifies completely, number two: you really begin to understand it better. The moment of the initiation itself is not the time for teaching, then you cannot explain it properly. If you would do that, it would not only take the whole night, but even another day on top – impossible. So you have to take it often and each time you’ll understand it better. When by doing so the seeds of the four kayas within you are properly and thoroughly laid, then it really means you have obtained the initiation. Then you take the teaching of the development stage89 and of the completion stage. Completion stage – that is difficult right now, particularly in the case of Yamantaka practice it is difficult. In the case of the Vajrayogini practice there are special permissions, you can even practice it without the development of the development stage, but in Yamantaka you do not have that permission, so the completion stage is only sort of being outlined, you can read and hear only that much. For your development of the development stage, you should take proper teachings and learn it properly and meditate. In addition to that, a person has to have had done at least one retreat. This retreat means also saying a certain number of mantras: at least 10,000 A RA PA ZA NA DHIH, 10,000 YAMARAJA SADOMEYA, 100,000 HRIH SHTRIH, and 10,000 YAMANATAKA. In addition to that, for the wisdom being 10,000 OM HRIH SHTRIH VIKRITA NANA HUNG PHAT HUNG HAH ANDZE. In addition to that, you have to do a fire puja90, to complete the retreat. When you have done that, you are among other things authorized to carry out activities, including performing self-initiation, giving initiation to others and giving teachings. Before you can and are allowed to give teachings of course you must have properly received them yourself. But not just that; whatever the important and difficult points in the teachings are – there are certain things that are not mentioned in the books – you have to be able to say the right thing. If possible, you should have a certain development that you may be able to relay to others. If you don’t have that, you have to have the perfect message and then – the most important thing – even if you cannot give the full message, do not add anything. Do not cook up something and then relay that. That really does a lot of damage for the future. Okay? That is called sele, it means: it is not proper anymore, it has not remained pure. Do not add anything – that is very important. That are the qualifications for the teacher, which I do not have at all. However, I have obtained it. I have been fortunate enough to have a great master, and I took the Yamantaka initiation not less than thirty times. That is quite sure; maybe even much more than that. I also took the teaching several times, I do not remember exactly, but it must have been six, seven times. And as for the retreat, I said at least the required number of mantras and beyond that I don’t know. In a retreat one is supposed to gain closeness to the yidam and also to gain the confidence of the yidam. I gave an example somewhere: When you are initiated, you know the person and can personally make a 88

To be found in Gelek Rinpoche, Guru devotion: How to integrate the primordial mind Development stage and generation stage are synonymous. 90 For the fire-puja see R. Thurman, Yamantaka Ekavira, materials for retreat, pg. 210-262. 89

38 Yamantaka teachings request. And when you do the retreat, not only you get introduced, but you sit in the house and meet the members of the family and also gain the confidence of the head of the family. If you are a member of the family, but you do not gain the confidence of the head of the family, you may not be allowed to do everything you like to do, you may only be allowed to do certain things. If you gain the confidence of the head of the family, then you can operate the bank account and do everything. Similarly, when you do the retreat, you are supposed to gain the closeness and confidence of the yidam. Whether I gained the confidence or not – I do not think so – however the numbers supposed to be said, have been properly said. Otherwise I am not qualified at all. It happens now like in a Tibetan saying: When you go to the nomad people, of course you are not the person who sits on the top, but then the dogs bark from behind, and you move a little bit up and finally you sit on the top.

Just like that, pushed up from behind. The dogs bark, you know, so you have to move up a little bit. If you keep sitting there, they will bite. That is it exactly: you give this teaching, you give that teaching, bark, bark, bark, so you have to move up a little bit. That’s what is happening. Whatever the case may be, the motivation of the teacher is of utmost importance. Since amongst the people here many are teaching or are going to be teachers, please remember that somebody said: ‘Please have a good motivation’. Whether there is only one single person, or there are a hundred or a thousand people, of each one of them you must think, they have all come here to learn, to pick up, to gain something. So with all the good motivation of helping them you think: ‘May this also help and may this also help’. Before you are going to say something, you have to think whether this is going to help them or harm them. Some [teachings] may go in a contradictory way, in such a case you should withdraw. But then, something may be helpful. Whatever may be of help, you have to give – with good motivation, with a helping attitude, always. You need a good motivation. Never think of getting money. Never, never! If you think like that, you will also think: ‘Oh, if I am able to say this, I will be able to impress that man’. And that is a totally wrong thought. So, please don’t! You do not have to impress anybody. But you have to give them a good teaching, whatever you have. You give them good information. And do not add anything. If you do not carry the full thing, that does not matter. But do not add anything – adding up will create trouble. Have a good motivation! That is very important. Whether you teach one man or a thousand people, it is the same thing – you must have a good motivation. Also, whatever points you are going to teach, you must meditate on them beforehand. You go over them and meditate and pray, also to the lineage, like ‘That I am going to talk this and this, may it be effective and helpful’. If you do that, then even if you have very little to say, it will have its effect on people. And if you do not do that, if you just read a lot of books here and there, get all the information, prepare an impressive lecture with terrific language and poems and you give that, it will still be dry. It will be totally dry, it will have no effect on the persons listening. The person who has listened will think: ‘Yes, I have listened, I heard it’ and that’s all. Finished. Listened and heard – that is not Buddha’s teaching. If you say ‘Buddha’s teachings’ it should have effect on the mind of the people. The mind should be soaked with the teaching. Then the mind will gain control and will be able to function differently. If that happens, then Buddha’s teaching works. If that does not happen, if you tell that Buddha did this and that and you say a lot of names like ‘the Western Paradise’, ‘Sukhavati’ and all this, it will not help. Try to help the individual mind. That’s what you must keep in mind, particularly when you teach. What’s most important for these teachings: not to add anything. That’s it.

{ii} Qualities of the disciples receiving the teaching They should be kind, compassionate. There is a very important point here. It says here91,

91

Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 7.

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According to the Tantra in Seven Chapters the disciple definitely has to be: one with unbroken commitment, and less doubts, one who is humble and has great respect to the yidam, mandala and vajra master and one who is definitely following the Buddha’s teaching and who does not show his development and make a big announcement of every little thing that happens to him.

Tibetans give the example of the little sparrows – if they have seven grains in their stomach, they will not remain quiet, they’ll go round and say: ‘chi, chi, chi’ while all they have is only seven grains – one should not be like that. And it says, One should not be an angry person. One should have great compassion and one should be able to say mantras and meditate and one should have hesitation to act non-virtuously. Someone like that is called a good qualified disciple.

People like these are fit to be shown the mandala of Yamantaka. And then such a disciple needs to observe four points or conditions in order to receive the completion. 1. You need strong, unshakable faith – intelligent faith, not stupid, blind faith. Blind faith would be: if somebody says something good then you say ‘Wow, this is good, I like to be good’ and if somebody else says it is bad then you become very doubtful and think ’Oh, maybe it is bad’. An example. There are three thieves and there is a Brahmin. The Brahmins are the most important caste in the Indian tradition. They consider dogs as dirty, but goats as great. This Brahmin goes out every morning with his goat. So these three thieves make a plan. ‘Let us get that goat from the Brahmin and we can have a good dinner. The Brahmin is not going to give us his goat, but we can get it if we can convince him that it is not a goat, but a dog’. Another thief asks: ‘How can we convince him that the goat is a dog?’ The first one says: ‘Where there is a will there is a way. Let’s go’. So the three of them stay in separate areas and when the Brahmin comes round one of them comes close and says: ‘How funny, look at this Brahmin taking a dog!’ The Brahmin thinks, ‘What a stupid guy, he cannot even figure out the difference between a goat and a dog’. Then he hears two more people talking to each other: ‘Look at this funny Brahmin, he is taking a dog!’ Now he thinks: ‘What?’ and he starts looking at the goat and is still convinced it is a goat. These people must have been mistaken. But then he hears a third person talking to someone: ‘Look at this Brahmin, he is taking a dog!’ and then he starts thinking: ‘Probably it is a dog’ and he chases it away and the thieves get the goat. That’s how it goes. If you have unshakable faith and you are convinced, then no matter who tells you what, you know what you are doing. You have a strong devotion and a strong method and it makes a difference to your life, it is having effect – that is called unshakable faith. If it is not unshakable, then the goat can become a dog. You need a profound faith in the deity and in the spiritual master who is inseparable from the deity. As I told you many times before, whatever you might think, it makes no difference to the spiritual master, but it does make a difference to the development of the individual. Since everybody wants development and no disadvantage, it is recommended to look in that manner. 2. Then you need wisdom, clarifying wisdom, not creating doubt. Intelligent wisdom can change into corrupt wisdom. Good wisdom will analyze and things become clearer and you develop better understanding. Bad wisdom will create tremendous doubt and give no solutions and everything becomes doubtful. That is called she che – not wisdom, but the opposite of it. It makes use of good intellectual capacity for being suspicious, skeptical. That goes exact the opposite way: instead of making matters clear and lucid, it will make them unclear and doubtful, so you get nowhere. That is one of the obstacles. Sherab gyi tetsom mi tsawa – wisdom should not be used to create doubt, instead it should make things clear and perfect. 3. Your concentration should be strong and single-pointed, tingdzin de shek pa, at whatever level you are concentrating. If you are concentrating on the lineage guru prayer, your concentration should be single-pointed. If you are concentrating on the instantaneous rise, it should be single-pointed. If you are concentrating on purification, it should be single-pointed. And particularly, if you are concentrating on

40 Yamantaka teachings the death as dharmakaya, your concentration should be single-pointed, bardo as sambogakaya, it should be single-pointed, rebirth as nirmanakaya, it should be single-pointed. If you are saying mantras, your concentration should be single-pointed. 4. Your practice should be very quiet. You should practice very quietly, not loud. You maintain the secrecy. It is not that there is something to hide. Maybe sometimes you are worried that if your companion asks you about it, you cannot tell them. We are not talking about that secrecy. You can say: ‘I am doing Yamantaka practice’, but you do not have to reveal completely how to develop great bliss and all this, you do not have to go into detail. To somebody who you know will think it is terrible, better not talk about it. And to somebody who has broken commitments or who has developed a dislike to the deity, mandala or vajra-master, it’s better not to talk to them. It is recommended particularly strongly not to eat, not to mix with those people. In the 1970s sometime, Kyabje Song Rinpoche was about to give the teachings on the Heruka body mandala. I went there to attend the teaching. It was in Dharamsala and one of my teachers, Gen Nyima, a teacher I particularly took teachings on Madhyamika from, was staying with somebody else. That somebody else wrote very ‘funny’ poetry a couple of years earlier. This poetry was directed against Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and a little bit against Kyabje Ling Rinpoche also. I went to see my teacher there and he asked this guy: ‘Do you have any more soup left?’ and he came and said: ‘Yes, I do, but I think he would not like to have my soup’. Gen Nyima started scolding him: ‘What nonsense are you talking? Bring some soup’. So he brought a nice big bowl of soup and it was really good Tibetan tukpa, extremely well made and I enjoyed that. After that I walked to the Tushita Center, where Kyabje Song Rinpoche was giving the teachings. During the teaching I was falling asleep. Song Rinpoche started looking but no matter what I did, pinching myself, putting sugar in my mouth, putting tiger balm here and there, I was falling asleep. So at the end of the teaching – there were maybe about 2000 people there, many westerners also – Song Rinpoche asked: ‘Kusho, today you were falling asleep like anything, what happened?’ and I said: ‘I do not know, Rinpoche, I had some nice soup this morning, maybe that has something to do with it’. And he said: ‘What kind of soup? Where?’ and I told him and he said: ‘Oh, now you have broken a commitment, you have to be purified. Come early tomorrow morning, I will do the purification’. And for seven days he poured water on my head. He said: ‘You should never have had food coming through that person’s hand. If you do, you break your commitment’. Song Rinpoche kept pouring water over my head for seven days. That maybe a little bit too extreme, but that’s how it works. Lalitavajra has said in his tantra: ‘First you make your guru happy’. What does that mean? It means to begin with the guru-devotional practice, complete the normal Lam Rim stages – they should be developed within the individual completely – and finally one should obtain initiation in this mandala and protect the commitments. In addition to that, one who has unshakable faith, who has great compassion and who has a desire to become a buddha within the short life time, that one has the requirements to be a vajra disciple. If any of these conditions is missing, then one is not fit. That is the way to see whether or not you are qualified to be a vajra disciple. This is how you measure the lama and how you measure the disciple. And when you find all is fit, then that is how you go. S<. The quality of the student should be a strong sound foundation in the sutras and perfect faith in the tantric teaching. The students should have unshakable faith in the Three Gems and must be able to see the guru as Vajra Bhairava himself and have faith in him. They should practice restraint from the ten non-virtuous actions and should give up all selfish thoughts, having cultivated bodhicitta. They should have listened to a number of teachings and be well-read and hardworking. If the above qualities are not present, the student should at least have a centered mind, be intelligent, able to listen carefully with pure motivation and must have a great desire to learn. ‘If even these

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qualities are lacking,’ said Dharmakirti, ’there is no hope for the student, but I will teach to benefit myself at least’. The proper way to listen is as two-armed Vajra Bhairava seated within the mandala with profound faith in the guru and respect for my fellow students who are my vajra colleagues. When going to sleep, visualize that you are sleeping under the protective hand of Lama Vajra Bhairava. The student wishing to practice Vajra Bhairava can keep this practice secret. Some yogis of the past appeared to be only sutrayana or Lam Rim practitioners, but at the time of death some clue was discovered to suggest that they were tantric practitioners. We should be that secretive. Do not tell people that you are going into retreat or do not tell anything else about your practice. The student should have already developed a foundation in the common practices. That is very important. Without bodhicitta, samadhi and an understanding of emptiness, it is very dangerous to practice tantra. Lama Yongdzin Rinpoche92 said that practicing tantra without a Lam Rim base is like putting a small child on a horse. When the horse runs, at best the child will fall off and only get hurt. A person without the foundation in the common practices who has no idea of wisdom and who merely performs rituals and recites mantras, will not succeed in tantric aims. It is better to practice gradually, first with an understanding of the Four Noble Truths, Prajnaparamita, concentration and wisdom. Lama Yongdzin Rinpoche said: ‘If you want to reach the top floor, you must start at the ground floor and work your way up one step at a time’. Without the common practices, reciting mantras will bring you nothing but hell. There is a story of two men who went into a Jigje retreat. The first practitioner died while in retreat. Shortly afterwards, his friend, still in retreat, was visited by a ghost in the form of Dorje Jigje. The man, practicing without bodhicitta, attained nothing more than the state of a blue, buffalo-faced ghost with horns. ‘Everybody may have their own deity and mantras, but they have no real Dharma’. >S.

{iii} Actual manner of giving and receiving the teaching Having all the general qualities and particularly those for tantra, we normally always have to be visualizing ourselves in the form of the yidam and everything you see is pure form. You have to try to visualize that way. Why? Because ordinary appearance and ordinary acceptance [concepts] in vajrayana are the real obstacles. Now we have shifted from the delusions like anger, hatred and jealousy to ordinary appearance/perception and ordinary concepts – these are our common obstacles now. That’s why every feeling and everything should be seen as pure – not only you are pure, but you should look at everything as pure, the land, the air, the water, the wood, everything. You have to be perceiving it and later it becomes reality for the individual. That’s why the Nyingmapa lamas tell you to look upon all males as Avalokiteshvara and upon all females as Tara and upon all sound as mantra and whatever is happening, they are good things happening. That is a very positive way of looking. Actually vajrayana is an extremely positive religion. Aura mentioned to me once, that you keep thinking that you are a fully enlightened being is so extremely positive. At the same time you also have to make sure you do not start egoboosting. It should go against pride, therefore not to ego-boosting.

{4} How to guide the disciples by the actual teaching This has 4 parts: 1. Attitude of the person who will practice. 2. Place where the practice will be done. 3. Manner of collecting at that place the necessities of the yogi. 4. Method of the actual practice.

92

Probably referring here to Yongdzin Ling Rinpoche. The title ‘yongdzin’ indicates being a tutor of the Dalai Lama.

42 Yamantaka teachings

{i} The aptitude of the person who will practice This is what sort of persons can practice; it comes in addition to the qualities of the disciple93. What you really need to practice vajrayana is the best recommended physical conditions. And the best recommended conditions are met if you have a human body. To do vajrayana practice the human body is regarded superior to the samsaric gods’ body or even to the body of the inhabitants of the Pure Land. Also, particularly for this practice, human beings born from a mother’s womb are superior to those born from a lotus. Why? Because of the six elements and the channel- and chakra systems we have within our body: the secret channels and secret chakras. On this level the connection between body and mind is very different. One of the reasons why Ra Lotsawa went after Marpa’s son is because of the lineage of transferring the soul from one body to another94. One of the major reasons was that people would misuse it. But also this. When doing transference of the soul, there may be some problems with the connection between the chakra system and the consciousness, so that the very few people who have the opportunity of using the body-mind connection, will lose that opportunity. I am not very sure if there are disadvantages, at the time one has to practice the completion stage, if the function of the connection of our channel system with the sexual organs, even the gross ‘veins’, is disturbed. I remember, a Tibetan lay gentleman in Delhi – a father of eleven kids from three or four wives – who became a monk later in life and who had a hernia problem. The doctors wanted to do an operation. But someone else – I do not know who – told him it might be better not to have the operation, as it could easily happen that certain veins or psychic channels connecting in the region where he needed the operation, would be cut. Later on the hernia became a big problem and he just had to have the operation. I was talking about it to Kyabje Ling Rinpoche and we were saying that, as this guy was not practicing the completion stage anyway, he was surely better off having the operation. I just wanted to bring up this story here to show that: ‘mi ngai kyi kam drug ken – persons born from the womb with the six elements’ are considered to have the best basis on which to do vajrayana practice. I am not sure what sort of an effect such an operation will have on someone’s vajrayana practice.

{ii} Place where the practice will be done Lalitavajra said in the tantra: The best place for you to meditate is on the cemeteries or near the river, or in the middle of the woods or in places where there is one little tree in the middle of nowhere.

These are the recommended places. Why? Lots of ghosts come there. If you have a single tree in the middle of nowhere, there will always be ghosts there. When I was a kid, I used to have a place called Gonpasar, a little retreat between Sera and Drepung, Gonsar Rinpoche’s place. There are two Gonsar Rinpoches – one is called Gonpa Sartse, whose reincarnation is Geshe Rabten’s student Gonsar Tulku in Switzerland. And there is another incarnate Lama, Gonpa Sarshö. He had a bigger retreat and one of my teachers, Geshe Yundung Rinpoche, from whom I learned the Tibetan alphabet and a lot of Lam Rim meditations, and who is one of the four outstanding pillars of Pabongka’s disciples, lived there. When I was four years old, the first place where I was taken before I went to Drepung, was Gonpasar, to Gen Yundung Rinpoche. He was not just a geshe with geshe degree, he was more than that. I used to learn from him and I went to Gonpasar all the time. Later I got a bigger cave just opposite, a nice cave with three rooms – a nice bedroom with glass windows, a living room and a kitchen 93 94

See page 38. See note 77.

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with running water inside the cave, and also two store rooms. Such a nice cave I had, you could comfortably fit twenty people in there. That’s where Tsonden Rinpoche taught the chöd. It was his cave which he later gave to my father and my father gave it to me. Later, after Gen Rinpoche passed away, I did not go to the Gonpasar retreat but to my own cave up there. Looking from the window I could see people coming from the distance. Tsonden used to come up and I used to beg him to come early. You know I had hesitation to read and memorize, so when Tsonden came we could talk and chit chat – that’s how I got a holiday. But he had to do his practice, then after that he would pick up a bowl of yogurt and then come up, so it was always after eleven o’clock. But he came anyway. And I did my tsok there. In the evenings when I did my left-overs preta offerings I always heard a noise – as if some people were walking around. One day I was looking down the mountain, and just below the window down there is a big open field with nothing but one big tree. And you could see little fires coming out and they made a group over there – a big ghost meeting. I used to see them, sometimes two or three hundred little fires gathering around and sometimes they all became one big fire and whenever I did this left-overs tsok offering, all these fires would come up ‘prrrrrr’ to where the left-over tsok goes, you hear them running. I don’t know whether they take anything or not, but you could hear them running and you could see all these fires coming into the cave and then back out to the tree and eat there or whatever it is they do. So when it says ‘if there is one tree’, that’s what it means. It says95: Also cross-roads and mountain peaks and empty spaces and also dead cities – Downtown Detroit is perfect – and places where a lot of people are doing magical plays, in such beautiful places you put your comfortable cushion and lay the tangka of Yamantaka in front of you.

The reason why you lay the tangka in front of you is that you may be able to concentrate and meditate. These are the places they mentioned where you can meditate. In another tantra, pung sa le shu bai gyu, it says: go wherever earlier great teachers stayed who have blessed the place. In short, it all depends on the individual. If the individual’s stage is good enough, you can go into the cemeteries. The cemeteries are recommended if you already have a good development, it will help you to move faster or further your development. Take Nyi Lotsawa and Ra Lotsawa for example. Ra Lotsawa and Nyi Lotsawa started attacking each other with magical powers. Ra Lotsawa was very powerful with Yamantaka and Nyi Lotsawa was very strong with Mahakala. Nyi Lotsawa tried to attack Ra Lotsawa but nothing happened, so Nyi started meditating and through his meditation saw what was happening. He saw Ra Lotsawa as a huge Yamantaka, so he knew he could not do anything. At the same time Ra Lotsawa tried to counterattack Nyi Lotsawa and nothing happened, so Ra Lo started meditating and saw a huge Mahakala with a huge stomach and in there Nyi Lotsawa’s house, his servants and attendants. So they attacked each other, but neither could destroy the other or do anything to the other. This is considered to be an exercise which will develop you further, like the military exercises you see these days. So if you are at that level you can go to the cemeteries where there are lots of ghosts. Not only can you practice chöd there, but you can also say your sadhanas and meditate. I will tell you an interesting story. When I was a kid we used to go to Jamyang Kuncho, a little village, a full day’s horse ride from Drepung, where all the – I should say – bright monks of the three monasteries96 went during the winter to learn logic and all this. No matter whether you were from Drepung, Ganden, Sera, Tashi Lungpo, Gyuto, Gyume or wherever, the total administration was run by that particular small monastery called Ratö. And the protector of that particular monastery is Setrabpa, so97somehow we got a special treatment over there. 95

Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 8-9. Ganden, Drepung, Sera. 97 Setrabchen is the special protector of Gelek Rinpoche and Jewel Heart, and of the Nyare College in Drepung univertity, where Gelek Rinpoche belonged to. He was a favorite protector of the Kadam tradition. He also is the special protector of Dagyab Rinpoche and Dagyab university in Kham. Literature: R. Thurman, Wisdom and Compassion; the sacred art of Tibet, pg. 308309.( with picture). 96

44 Yamantaka teachings Sometimes some of the monks were taken away by ghosts, particularly by pungo subde. It happened a number of times and sort of became common. And when it happened the first thing they’d do is run to the Ratö monastery official and immediately do a tea-offering for Setrabpa. They’d call one of us, if possible the abbot of Ratö or some senior lama, or whoever is senior by rank or whoever is available. You were a little bit scared but still you’d go and make the tea offering to the Setrabpa image and then go on the roof of the monastery with a little gong. There we said a little prayer, called the Loden Sherab98 prayer, and then started beating the gong. What happens is, these individuals who have been taken away by the ghost, sometimes have covered miles and miles, sometimes have crossed a river somewhere, or sometimes have gone up in the mountains, somewhere between the rocks, where nobody can go. Wherever they are, the moment they hear the first beat of the gong, they would stop. Until then, they would be running. They would be running by themselves until they hear that gong. That is true! It has happened three or four times in that short period I lived in Tibet. And somebody with completely new shoes now would have holes, the feet would stick out completely; they had run that fast. They get some recollections sometimes of going through a river, sometimes they have a recollection of certain villages they recognize and sometimes they lose their memory completely. Controlled by that ghost they are in such a state that only at the first gong sound they will stop. Then we had to go and search. We have found some of them up in the rocks, they got stuck there and could not go down anymore, so we used to carry ropes and try to pull them out. So if you are capable, it will be a good exercise and if you are not capable then you will end up in trouble, you end up on a rock. Some people were never found – they were gone completely. Most of them were found. If you practice in the cemetery, something is there for sure. People got scared in Jamyang all the time and I myself saw this particular ghost once. I really saw it – so nice. It was funny. You know, the Ratö dratsang99 used to give you some soup sometimes, a thick marzipan type of soup, with very thick dough and cooked dumpling. The monks from Drepung, Sera and Ganden, somehow did not like it that this particular monastery took control. So they made a tremendous amount of jokes on Ratö Dratsang. In Drepung and Sera, when there are meetings, either they beat the gong or different things, but nobody would beat a drum – and in Ratö they beat a drum, a huge drum and that goes ‘dang’ and when there is something else or special happening they’d beat twice ‘dang dang’ and after that they used to blow a conch shell ‘boooo’ to indicate that the message was completed. Do you know what sort of jokes we used to make? ‘They have this soup and then say danga danga – that means enough – and when more monks come they go ‘dangimindu dangimindu’ – not enough not enough – and at the end they go [imitating the conchshell] – pour more water pour more water’. Jokes like that, poor Ratöpas. Anyway, all the monks would go to get this particular soup and they at for two, three days, a good meal. They used to give you big serves. One day I was giving a teaching to a group of young monks. Back in Drepung they were supposed to debate, and I had to prepare them for it; I taught them where to start and what to do, these sort of things. I was to do so until it was time for me to attend another lecture myself; if I would not be on time, my attendant, Dasha Di, would beat me – though never in front of many people – because unless somebody beat me or pinched me, I would not move. So, when it was time to go, Dasha Di would look through the door curtain, indicating that I should hurry up now. And I knew that if I could not finish, he would even open the curtain and come in, and if you would not stop then, he would growl or something like that. But these monks in front of me were preparing and did not move, and this Ratö Dratsang meeting was almost halfway through. Ratö Dratsang used to give us special status, because we were Nyare, we had the same protector. In order to leave my room, I first had to step down the platform, then I’d be on the floor where all the monks sat and I had to cut across them. My teacher Gen Pema Gyaltsen – who later became abbot of Loseling – had already started teaching the second chapter; I was supposed to attend and I was late. So I grabbed my book and put it on my shoulders. I put on my boots – I didn’t even have time to tie them – and had to walk across six or seven 98 99

Literature on Loden Sherab and the connection with Setrabchen: Chökor 23, pg. 20. The Tibetan word dratsang means [monastic] college.

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hundred, maybe even a thousand monks, sitting outside waiting for their bowls of soup. I sort of jumped in between them and went across. Having done so, I passed a small street and I happened to look in that direction... There was such a nice donkey! It was a small one. Such a beautiful donkey. It had all these different colors, almost like a peacock, red and blue and green; and it was looking at me with really bright eyes. All I could think was: ‘What a beautiful donkey! I have never seen anything like it in my entire life!’ I went up to be able to touch it. But when I got there... there was nothing, the place was empty. Then suddenly I saw Pasha, an old man carrying cow dung at his back, walking away. But there was no donkey anymore. It had disappeared. Then I began to get scared. That donkey must have been the ghost! Then Pasha came back and it was okay. A couple of days later a quite well-known geshe was teaching in Ratö. In the evening he went up and one of his students sat on the throne where usually the abbot would sit. It was late at night and there was nobody else in the room but him. Because he heard his teacher coming, he covered up his head with his robe completely. When the teacher was near, the student started getting up slightly; that’s when the teacher noticed there was ‘something’ there. He was scared, thinking this was a ghost. So he started going backwards, talking to himself: ‘Oh, I forgot my bowl! I’ll have to go back to get it’. By the time he started turning, the student got up and started shouting:’ Gen, Gen, it’s me!’ Then the teacher got so angry, he was going to hit him. Did I tell you the story of ‘Amala che ring joang sho – mother, please show your long hand’? There was a guy in the Pembo area in the north of Tibet. He had a mother who used to be busy nights. I am not sure if she was a witch, but I do know that she was definitely a ghost. She used to attend the kind of meetings I referred to earlier as these little flames coming gathering around the single lonely three. At night this young guy’s mother went somewhere, all the time. She’d go in the kitchen, sit on a small box, and just take off. The son witnessed that and wondered what his mother was doing. One day he decided to hide himself in the box. That night, his mother came to the kitchen again, sat down and took off as usual. Only she noticed that the box was somewhat heavy, and it seemed to make a few noises. ‘What is wrong with this box tonight?’ she thought. But she didn’t pay any attention to it anymore and went to the gathering. There she remembered that she had forgotten to bring a spoon that somebody had requested. They were having a ‘King of tsog’ festival and for that purpose wanted to make some offerings in skull cups. Then someone said: ‘The great mother may use her long hand’. And she did. She used her long hand and with it picked up the spoon that was still in the kitchen at her house. The next day she was spinning wool and when the woolen thread fell down from the first floor she called her son and said: ‘Bring that up’ and he said: ‘Amala, please, use your long hand’. She got so mad that she turned him into a dog. A Yamantaka practitioner in Pembo area told his attendant: ‘If anybody comes to see me today, don’t stop him, let him come in’. He made a tukjuma torma, the 64-offerings torma, and waited. By evening he asked: ‘Has anybody come?’ They said: ‘Nobody came.’ He kept on asking and then the attendant said: ’Not a single human being came, but there is a dog coming’. ‘That is what I am waiting for; let that dog in’. Sometimes ghostly activities are not necessarily that bad and it also has a lot of advantages – even turning that guy into a dog is not necessarily bad, because he can come back as a human being and function again. We heard the Ra Lotsawa and Nyi Lotsawa story and we heard about all these ghost places where you can go because it helps you to develop further. Some people may still have the question why cemeteries are good and why the single lonely tree is good. If you are capable of handling it – that is always the point – cemeteries are good, because they are supposed to be places where there are ghosts. Ghosts are sometimes useful, because if you can deal with them, they will help you to develop. Not as a kind help, no; they will try to harm you and threaten you and then will give you the opportunity to challenge them and to see how good you are. And if you are not good, you run away. If you are okay with it, you just sit there and do whatever you have to do.

46 Yamantaka teachings It is recommended for the highly developed people, not for everybody, because it may cause you more problems than help. If you are not capable of dealing with that, then the better practice places are where some of your teachers have meditated, or places that have been blessed by the different enlightened practitioners – you are better off to practice in those places. S<. For us it is better to practice in some place where humans and animals cannot disturb us. It should be a place free from fear where we can feel happy, comfortable, undisturbed, and where necessary items for survival exist. If one can practice in one’s own home, that is the best place. One’s meditation seat should face towards the South if it is convenient. South is the direction of Yama, the Lord of Death. Since Vajra Bhairava is the opponent of the Lord of Death, we face South during retreat. If it is inconvenient to do so, imagine you are facing South. All the directions are named imputations and don’t inherently exist anyway. >S.

{iii} Manner of collecting at that place the necessities of the yogi When we teach this, we are basically talking about a retreat – what you do and how you do it –, not about the everyday sadhana practice. The everyday practice instructions come as part of the retreat instructions. Though retreat instructions are available separately100, from those who have received maha anuttarayoga tantra initiations it is expected that they keep certain ritual implements such as vajra, a bell and a damaru. There is also something called a changteu, which looks like a damaru, only it’s a little bit bigger. All these are necessary. That is why everybody has been given images of them, printed on paper to represent them. Even though you may have your physical vajras and bells and so on, this is still considered more important, because this is something which you do not exhibit. In particular the vajra and the bell are taken out in the open and people see them, and use them. But the ones on paper, you normally keep them to yourself, including the bone costume. I will talk about the bone costume later, when we will talk about Yamantaka’s instantaneous rise. S<. You should place ritual objects before you. You should have dorje and bell, a chanteu, which is a hand drum similar to a damaru, a kapala or skull cup, one water jar with a spout and one without, which are the bumpa of activity – with spout – and of non-activity – without spout. Facing you should be an image of Dorje Jigje Pawo Chigpa. Below the image the torma offering should be placed. There are five tormas. The central torma is for Vajra Bhairava . The two strips on the sides represent roma and kyangma and their meeting in the center signifies the central nadi. Sun and moon decorations should be present on the top of the tormas. To the right of the central torma is a pyramid-shaped torma for the direction protectors. There is one torma for Chögyal, the Dharma protector, one for the Dakinis, and one for Shidak101. The Shidak torma should be white with no meat or alcohol and should contain the three sweet materials102 only. The other tormas should be made of the finest materials available with a little meat, chang103 and dutsi ribul104 mixed in. You can put a tin of high quality, a tin of luncheon meat and a bottle of alcohol aside in a special place as a substitute for tormas. In front of the tormas place the outer offerings105. First put the three water offerings. Ghande is offered at the heart level symbolic of Manjushri blessing the mind. All doubts are then cleared leaving no obstructions of mind. Manjushri is the manifestation of all enlightened minds and wisdom grows quickly with his blessing. The offering bowls are placed from the deity’s right to left for the 100

Kyabje Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo, Meditation of Vajrabhairava; The procedures for doing the serviceable retreat of the Glorious Hero Vajrabhairava with the sadhana ‘Victory over evil’. R. Thurman, Yamantaka Ekavira, materials for Punya house retreat. 101 Shidak is the local land spirit. 102 The torma contains three white substances: milk, yoghurt and cheese, and three sweet substances: rock sugar, honey and brown sugar. 103 Tibetan beer. 104 Nectar pill. 105 For a drawing see chapter XII Appendices.

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front generated deity, and from our right to our left for that self-generated deity. All offerings should be procured honestly. They should be pure, not gotten from those who have broken vows, not obtained illegally or through deceit. Lalitavajra said, When you have a beautiful flower garden, bees will automatically be attracted to it. Likewise, when you have the proper implements and offerings nicely arranged, the Deity will naturally come.

It is important to keep ritual objects well hidden. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche suggested that you can even keep a printed copy of the ritual objects which you keep hidden from others. >S.

{iv} Method of the actual practice This has two parts: 1. Development stage. 2. Completion stage. These are the two most broad outlines. For us at this moment only the first one will be applicable. The completion stage will not apply to us. The development stage is the most important one now. The development stage has two parts: 1. How to practice the actual method of the development. 2. By firm development stage the method of attaining. This is stabilizing the practice, attainment of siddhihood. The first one has two parts: 1. Yoga of the sessions. 2. Yoga between sessions. That means how to behave in the sessions and what to do in between the sessions. Enumeration is part of the Tibetan system. They like to say that there are three of this and four of that and so on – that makes it easy to learn things by heart.

II PRELIMINARIES S<. Before actually beginning the practice with the entreaty of the lineage it is good to do some preliminary practices such as Lama Chopa guru yoga or Ganden Lha Gyema along with Tsongkhapa’s lamrim-prayer, the Foundation of all perfections106. Do this slowly and really concentrate and generate bodhicitta. At our stage of development we should be spending more time on the preliminaries than on the actual practice. When Atisha was in Tibet he had a visitor from India. ‘What’s new at Nalanda?’ Atisha asked. The Indian proceeded to tell him about a Hevajra practitioner who recently had attained gyu shu, a low level of hinayana development. Rather than be surprised at the relatively low level of attainment, Atisha was surprised that the practitioner did not go to hell, as that is the usual consequence for those who practice tantra without bodhicitta. Luckily, the Hevajra practitioner had renunciation, so he attained something as opposed to going to hell. Motivation is very important. Lama Serlingpa in Sumatra gave Atisha the teachings on bodhicitta. With bodhicitta motivation even simple activities can work towards your enlightenment. >S.

[i] YOGA OF THE SESSIONS: This has three parts: 1. Beginning of the session. The preliminaries. 2. The actual session. 3. The end of the session.

<1> BEGINNING OF THE SESSION – PRELIMINARIES This has eight parts: 1. Entreaty to the lineage. 2. Instant generation. 3. Consecration of vajra and bell. 4. Consecration of the inner offering. 5. Consecration of the preliminary offering and torma. 6. Offering the preliminary torma. 7. Consecration of the offerings of self generation. 8. Vajrasattva meditation recitation.

106

Tib. Yönten gzhi gyurma.

50 Yamantaka teachings

Entreaty to the Lineage The initiation lineage The guru-yoga now – the lineage. Everything from here to the Vajrasattva practice, is part of the preliminaries. Although this is not part of the actual practice, it is absolutely necessary. Because it is said: The guru lineage prayer, lagyu sanden, is not part of this [the sadhana], however it blesses the individual mind and it is absolutely necessary.

How do you do the lineage prayer? Let me tell you what you do. On your crown you have a lotus. You visualize the center of the lotus to be bright. Right in the middle are the stamen – out of which the bees get the essence of the flower – and you visualize them standing like little saffron sticks with the pistil in the middle. People who have a problem visualizing in detail, can just think that a white or a multicolored lotus opens and reveals – maybe not very clearly – golden dots. I’m sure you can get that picture. It has to be a strong lotus which can carry a hundred people, not a fragile flower that would break down. In the center, equivalent in size to the stamen, above it and not touching, is a moon disc. Above that there is a sun disc. We now have the image of the lotus, the moon and the sun. When you focus on the moon, it should have a cool nature. Not a dry coolness, but cool and humid. When you focus on the sun, it should have a warm nature, and the heat is dry. (It’s just like the newer heating systems that come with a humidifier.) Above that, you should visualize your own root master in the form of Yamantaka.107 All the lineage masters sit on top of one another, like in the Lama Chöpa field of merit, where you see all Manjushris right above Tsongkhapa. In reality all of them are your own root master, only now in the form of Yamantaka with one face and two hands. One above another they go right up to Vajra Zombini, the consort of Yamantaka, who is also the keeper of the tantra. Basically all Buddha’s tantras are kept by Vajrapani. That’s why along with Manjushri and Avalokiteshvara he is counted as one of the three most important deities. The attorney general of the United States is the keeper of all the laws, whilst particular states, like Michigan, still have their own attorney general; just like that, Vajrapani is the keeper of the tantras in general and Vajra Zombini is the tantra keeper of the Yamantaka tantra in particular. Everybody there is in Yamantaka form, except the consort who has a lion’s face. According to Kyabje Ling Rinpoche’s teaching – this is not written anywhere – here you visualize Dorje Rolangma as a lion-faced dakini, with one face and two hands. She is not the same as the Lionfaced Dakini [Simhamukha]108! When you normally refer to Vajra Zombini, she does not have a lion face. Only, here she is presented with a lion’s face. During the lineage prayer, somehow, you have to meditate on her while she has a lion’s face. The deity at the top has the full Yamantaka form. In short: the top one is the full-fledged Yamantaka, then comes the consort – with the lion’s face – and after that everybody is in the form of Yamantaka with one face and two hands. In the long lineage prayer you can find how many there are. It also depends on the individual. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche used to joke here: ‘If someone asks you how much money you have in your pocket, you ‘ll know, but if someone asks you how many lineage gurus, you have to count them on your fingers’. There are three systems of visualizing the lineage masters. 107 108

Also see page 66 and Dagyab Kyabgön Rinpoche, Kommentar zur Praxis des Alleinstehenden Helden Yamantaka, pg. 19. For Simhamukha [Tib. Sengdongma] see: H. W. Essen, Die Götter des Himalaya, I- 174, 176-177 and II-161, 162.

Preliminaries 51 1. Normally, in the Yamantaka practice, it is recommended to use the ‘one on top of the other’ system. The reason why you do it that way, is because it has great omens for the longevity of the teaching. 2. If you feel uncomfortable visualizing them and meditating on them this way, you can have them sitting in a circle, like people on chairs around the stage for a concert. If you want to use this circle system, then the root guru, who is the most important, is in the center. The lineage gurus, beginning with Lalitavajra in front of the Guru, sit [clockwise?] in a circle. In the case of Vajrayogini – the Sakya system – this circle system is used. They say that if you are short of money, visualizing the lineage gurus sitting in a circle will bring you more money. And I found that to be true, personally. But you can’t spend your time visualizing the lineage this way because of financial reasons. However funny it may seem, it does have an effect. Kyabje Lhatsun Rinpoche or Ling Rinpoche – I don’t know which one of the two – once told me so, so it really does work. But it is not going to immediately solve your financial problems. 3. In yet another system you visualize your root guru in the form in which he appears to you during the teachings, [the all-in-one collection]. Some people find that easier than having to project some unknown figure. You can use whatever system is easier for you. Each one of them appears in the form of Yamantaka, and their nature is that of wisdom. Their bodies are of an absolutely clean, clear light nature. Even if you visualize an ordinary human beings’ physical form, you should nonetheless visualize it in light nature. All the lineage lamas are there. When you close your eyes, you see all these blue figures and on the very top, in a terrifying manner: Yamantaka. I do not know who, but somebody said you should not visualize them like the coolies of South India, but as light natured blue figures. They are not built up one by one, but suddenly appear ‘zooooom’ as soon as you look, like when you press a button on the computer, it goes zrrrrr.... So, you think that you have the lotus, moon and sun, and as soon as you think of the root guru, the whole visualization of the whole lineage ‘zoooom’ suddenly comes up, all of it. Then you should say the prayer and concentrate on all of them. In the long sadhana they are in groups of three per verse. When you say the first verse, you focus on the three on top. S<. There are three possible visualizations for the lineage. You can visualize them sitting on top of the other with Vajra Bhairava on top and your root guru seated directly above your head, or they could be visualized in front of you gathered in a group as in a gallery, or they could all be visualized as embodied in one Lama Dorje Jigje. If one wants health and prosperity, visualize them as in a gallery; if one wants everlasting teaching, visualize the lineage in a line above your head, and if one wants speedy development, visualize them all in one109. By meditating them in the form of Dorje Jigje we can understand that they are all individually separate yet in actuality are all one, no different from Dorje Jigje. All attained great siddhis through this method. >S.

O Pervading Lord Manjushri-Vajra, the Opponent of Yama; O foremost of Dakinis producing all joys within the Master; O Lalita, who has reached the state of Great Union: Please, bestow upon me the two kinds of siddhi. ‘O pervading Lord Manjushri-Vajra’. In Tibetan he is called Jampel Dorje. The first words of the verse are a praise to the root of this teaching, to the Baghawan Shri Vajra Bhairavaya who is actually Buddha himself, having taken the form of Yamantaka, the opponent of the Lord of Death, Yama. All wisdom beings of all enlightened beings have taken a form – the peaceful form is Manjushri and the wrathful form is Yamantaka or Yamaraja. So Yamaraja is Manjushri. Sometimes in the tantras you will 109

For the all-in-one way of visualizing, also see page 51.

52 Yamantaka teachings find reference to the ‘peaceful and wrathful Manjushri’. Even the prayer at the end of the short sadhana will say: ‘…by the peaceful and wrathful aspects of Manjushri110‘. The next one mentioned in the first verse is Vajradakini, also known as Dorje Rolangma or Vajra Zombini. She is the most important dakini, also called ‘foremost of Dakinis.’ In your visualization the lotus cushion of Yamantaka should almost be touching the head of Dakini Dorje Rolangma. Vajra Zombini is the most important keeper of the treasure of this tantra. That’s why Vajra Zombini is the principal consort of Yamantaka. And that’s why there is a line that says: ‘Oh, foremost of Dakinis producing all joys within the master’. In the practice of Yamantaka and also in general, ultimate enlightenment has been referred to as: ‘the combination of voidness and bliss,’ or as ‘the combination of method and wisdom.’ There is a reason why this verse says: ‘producing all joy within the master’. Right now I am just giving you the hint. Then Lalitavajra111: ‘Lalita who has reached the state of great union’. Great union is the state of the ultimate siddhihood that you can get, the state of the ultimate achievement. What you gain by practicing is the ultimate development, which is buddhahood, or enlightenment. Here it is referred to as: ‘great union’. Union is the outer projection, the example which indicates the inner development. Lalita is the first normal human being to be counted among the lineage. He looks like an Indian guy with a dhoti112 on. Really true. If you look at the mahasiddhas, they are not respectable or conservative looking at all – they are very gypsy-hippie types, quite filthy. Or maybe they are fishermen, like Tilopa who burned fish alive in the fire and then ate them, or he just swallowed raw fish. Today we respect those mahasiddhas, but if one of them would live today, we would not at all be as kind and acknowledging. We would not even know it is a mahasiddha. Particularly those who claim to be mahasiddhas, with a shining forehead, are not necessarily mahasiddhas. You know, if today we had a mahasiddha, he would look exactly like this old musician around here, who is called Shaky Jay. I am not saying he is a mahasiddha nor am I saying that he is not, but if there is a mahasiddha today, he is going to look like Shaky Jay. If you look at the founder of the Drukpa Kagyu tradition, Drukpa Kunleg – he was definitely worse than Shaky Jay. No one had any idea where he lived. You would see him running in the streets, doing all sorts of mean things to different people all the time – and he is the founder of the Drukpa Kagyu tradition! He carried bow and arrow and had a dog for a companion. I will tell you a story. An old lady died. The most expensive, valuable thing she had possessed was a very nice turquoise. She had told her family: ‘The moment I die, please give this turquoise to that guy Drukpa Kunleg and ask him to pray for me’. The family switched the turquoise, but he said: ‘This is nothing – take it back’. So they had to get the real turquoise and the moment he got it he said: ‘The old lady will experience liberation, the small turquoise will go into my quiver’ and he threw the precious stone away. Whether it went into the quiver or into the sewage system, who knows? That’s what he did. I wanted to say this about mahasiddhas. If we’ll have one today, he’ll be like that. Next come all the lineage lamas from Lalitavajra up to Ra Lotsawa. From Lalitavajra to your root master everybody is a Yamantaka with one face and two hands, all sitting one on top of another. The lotus cushion of one almost looks like it’s touching the next one’s aura. By the way, for those who listen to the tape – the oral transmission is not conferred by listening to the tape. It can not be substituted that way. Only information can be picked up. Oh Mahasiddhas, Amoghavajra and Jnanakaragupta; O Padmavajra, who controls mind and energy; O exalted Dipamkara, Lord of Sutra and Tantra: Please bestow upon me the two kinds of siddhi.

110

The sadhana text says Manjughosa, an emanation of Manjushri. For the story of Lalitavajra see page 12. 112 waistcloth. 111

Preliminaries 53 Here are the two Guptas, Amoghavajra and Jnanakaragupta [tib. Jeshe Jungna], and Padmavajra. Then there is the Dipamkara Rakshita113. I do not think this is the famous Dipamkara Atisha114, the author of Lamp on the Path to enlightenment, who is known in Tibetan as Marme dze, which means ‘light’ or ‘the one who clears the darkness’. This Dipamkara is called in Tibetan Bero Shagdrum. You cannot visualize their faces, because you have not seen their photos or pictures. However you can visualize some early Indian siddhas. With this verse the lineage in India is over. Now the lineage goes to Tibet and continues. O Ralo Dorjedrak, the Mighty Wizard; O Chorab, the Eyes of the World; and your main son, Venerable Yeshe Senge and exalted Bum Senge: Please bestow upon me the two kinds of siddhi. All four are of one family, the family of the Ra: Ralo Dorjedrak, Ra Choerab, Ra Yeshe Sengge and Ra Bum Sengge. The first one is the famous, powerful Ra Lotzawa of whom you have been hearing the stories115. The lineage of Kyabje Ling Rinpoche goes through him. Ra Chörab and Ra Yeshe Senge are disciples of Ra Lotsawa Dorje Drak. I am not sure if Ra Yeshe Senge and Ra Bum Senge are sons or nephews of Ra Lotsawa Dorje Drak. O Jetsun Galo, who reversed the battle with the four maras; O All-knowing Ones, Sherab Senge and Yeshepel, O Dondrub Rinchen, who spontaneously fulfills the two aims: Please bestow upon me the two kinds of siddhi. Then follow Jetsun Galo and Sherab Senge and Palden Zangpo. Up to Choje Dondrup Rinchen, who I think is a Kagyupa, the lineage comes both from the Sakyas as well as from the Kagyu. Then it comes to Tsongkhapa. O glorious Losang Drakpa, a Second Buddha; O Sacred Khedrub and Sherab Senge; O Exalted Pelden Zangpo, who gained the Supreme Union: Please bestow upon me the two kinds of siddhi. Losang Drakpa is Tsongkhapa116, always referred to as ‘the Second Buddha’ [tib. Gyelwa Nyipa.] He had two outstanding spiritual sons. The first one is Gyeltsab Dharma Rinchen117 and the second one is Khedrub Gelek Pelzangpo118. Both were already great and learned mahapandits from the Sakya tradition before they became followers of Tsongkhapa. When Tsongkhapa began teaching, he became very famous and had more and more followers and even much later more and more people became his followers. From 1357 onwards until 1959, the Gelugpa tradition developed enormously in Tibet, so much so that at least ninety per cent of the Tibetan population became followers of Tsongkhapa. How Gyeltsab Je and Khedrub Je met Je Tsongkhapa. Many monasteries and many traditions had started changing and a few of the senior traditions wanted to defeat Tsongkhapa by means of debate. For that purpose they selected two outstanding scholars of those days, Gyeltsab Rinpoche and Khedrub Rinpoche. They were sent out to debate with Tsongkhapa, and to listen to his teachings. Both Gyeltsab Je and Khedrub Je wore the yellow hat. These hats were made in the style of the Indian pandit hats. Normally Indian pandit hats were pointed slightly down towards the front, which indicates respect, but when someone wanted to debate, it was customary to wear the ‘proud panditas hat’, that is with the tip pointing straight up. Both Gyeltsab Je and Khedrub Je, 113

The Nepalese Yampuwa Bero Shagdrum. For his connection with Ra Lotsawa see page 16. Atisha, [tib. Jowo Je] has as ordination name Dipamkara Shrijnana [tib. Pel mar me dze yeshe]. 115 See chapter one, various places. 116 1357-1419. 117 Gyeltsab Je; 1364-1432. 118 Khedrub Je; 1385-1448. 114

54 Yamantaka teachings wearing their hats in this manner, came with their retinues, asking for Tsongkhapa. They didn’t call him Tsongkhapa or Losang Drakpa, but instead (because he had a big nose) they called him: ‘the big nose from Amdo’. So they asked around: ‘Where is the big nose from Amdo staying?’ Then they met a lady, a manifestation of Tara. They asked her: ‘Where is this big nose?’ She asked them: ‘I don’t know who has a big nose. I can see big noses in your faces, so who do you mean?’ They said: ‘You must know whom we are talking about – this Amdo lama with the big nose’. Then she said: ‘I don’t know whether his nose is big or otherwise, but the great Jetsun Tsongkhapa Losang Drakpa is giving teaching over there at the other side of the town. If you want to see him, you should go there. That’s what she said. And Khedrub Je, who was sharp-minded and intelligent, thought: ‘There must be a reason why even an uneducated woman like this, talks in such a sarcastic way.’ Gyeltsab Je was much older than Khedrub Je, who was actually slightly wrathful by character, very easily irritated. Gyeltsab Rinpoche was old and slightly dull, but a very learned scholar, the sort of person that goes for it, no matter what he has to do. So Khedrub Je had second thoughts and became a little hesitant. Whereas Gyeltsab Je had no hesitation at all and went straight on, wearing his yellow hat. Tsongkhapa gave a teaching and was particularly elaborating on some points where they did not agree – about emptiness. While he was teaching about emptiness in a rather elaborate way, the two entered, slamming the door with a bang – Gyeltsab Je came in first – and walked through. When Gyeltsab Rinpoche walked through, everybody turned, but Tsongkhapa paid no attention and did not stop teaching. Khedrub Je felt some hesitation because of the way the lady had talked to them. So he stayed behind Gyeltsab Rinpoche for a while, while Gyeltsab Rinpoche walked straight in. Tsongkhapa refused to look at Gyeltsab Rinpoche. He kept on talking no matter what the other did. After some time Gyeltsab Je stood right in front of Tsongkhapa’s throne, but still Tsongkhapa paid no attention. Then he attempted to climb onto the throne. The moment Gyeltsab Je got on the throne, Tsongkhapa moved aside a little and let him sit there. So there he sat. Since Tsongkhapa refused to react, Gyeltsab Je started pushing, but still got no reaction; Tsongkhapa just kept on talking. Then for Gyeltsab Je there was nothing more to do but to just be quiet. So he sat there for a while and started listening to what Tsongkhapa was talking about, for two hours. After two hours Gyeltsab Rinpoche removed his hat and started to move down slightly and he started looking for Khedrub Rinpoche. He found him sitting at the back. Khedrub Rinpoche had already taken his hat off right from the beginning. Gyeltsab Rinpoche started to go down the stairs of the throne… Later Tsongkhapa said that that was a very good omen. Because Gyeltsab Rinpoche is the manifestation of Avalokiteshvara and Khedrub Je is the manifestation of Vajrapani and Tsongkhapa himself the manifestation of Manjushri. Thus these three, wisdom, power and compassion had been combined together. And Tsongkhapa’s moving aside a bit to let Gyeltsab Je sit next to him was a good omen for Gyeltsab Je to become the first throne holder and Tsongkhapa’s successor. That is how Gyeltsab Je and Khedrub Je joined Tsongkhapa. They are Tsongkhapa’s two most important disciples. That is why on pictures of Tsongkhapa, you always see these three different persons together. From them, Gyeltsab Je is not in this lineage, but Khedrub Je is, Khedrub Gelek Basar. Gelek Ba is Khedrub Rinpoche’s name. And the syllable ‘Ba’ is equivalent to the Sanskrit ‘Shri’. In English you cannot translate that as ‘sir’, it is more a sort of an honorary title. When Khedrub Je and Gyeltsab Je came to debate Tsongkhapa, they had removed their hats and offered them to Tsongkhapa [as a token of his unsurpassed excellence]. But Tsongkhapa gave them back and told them to keep their hats. Later when Tsongkhapa had passed away, people started to worry what to do and to say they needed somebody. That is where the yellow hat of the Gelugpa had its origin – it referred to the hat of the Ganden Tripa, the Ganden throne holder, the head of the Ganden monastery. The chairman of the Ganden monastery always becomes the head of the Gelugpa. The first one was Gyeltsab Rinpoche and the second one was Khedrub Rinpoche. At first, Gyeltsab Rinpoche refused to be head of the Gelugpa. He said that he was an old man, that he couldn’t do anything, and things like that. Everybody was saying: ‘But we need somebody to repre-

Preliminaries 55 sent Tsongkhapa, or at least someone to sit on the throne.’ And they started to ask people. But nobody wanted to be head of the Gelugpa, because everybody was scared. Then Khedrub Je came up with a clever plan for which he needed a scarf he had with him in his pocket. You also have to know that Khedrub Je was an outstanding poet. He announced: ‘Gyeltsab Je has to be the first one!’ When he came, Khedrub Je said to him: ‘Come, and sit up there on the throne!’ But Gyeltsab Je answered : ‘No, no, no! Not me! There are so many others, thousands of learned ones!’ Then Khedrub Je replied: ‘Okay, Let us say that the oldest one among us, should sit on the throne’. And no matter how long Gyeltsab Je looked up and down the rows, there was nobody older than him. He was the oldest one there. He said: ‘Listen, I am not going to be the representative of Tsongkhapa, but I will go and sit there’. So he agreed to sit there. Now immediately, Khedrub Je got up and said: ‘I looked up and down our ranks and found that Gyeltsab Rinpoche is the most senior of all of us and I also find him suitable by knowledge and by everything.’ Then he said a very beautiful poem. And while he continued to say his poem, he took out the scarf from his pocket and decorated Gyeltsab Je with it. Gyeltsab Je could not get up, no matter how he tried, because Khedrub Je kept pressing him down! This poem, which became famous, starts like this: ‘By the great master who allowed you to share the throne with him, the second Buddha’s representative, I pray to you, the Second Master. Your body is the intelligent body of beauty and your sound…’ This is how Gyeltsab Je became the first Ganden throne holder. When he sat there he had to wear something on his head, and as he had this old yellow Indian style pandit hat, he put that on and since that time all the Ganden Tripas wear this type of yellow hat. This is how this Yellow hat sect started. It was not founded as such at all. In the beginning there were only Tsongkhapa and his disciples or followers. There was not a sect at all. Then others started calling them ‘those wearing the yellow hat’. The name Gelugpa also came much later. The [main] monastery is Ganden. So the Gelug sect is not founded by Tsongkhapa. It was only much later that it came to be the Gelug sect. Next is Jetsun Sherab Senge119. He is the founder of the Lower Tantric College. Though Gyeltsab Je and Khedrub Je are the two most outstanding disciples of Tsongkhapa, there are many others. From among them, Jetsun Sherab Senge, also an actual disciple of Tsongkhapa himself, had received the responsibility of founding a tantric college. We have two tantric colleges, the Upper [Guyto] and Lower [Guyme] one. The oldest one of them is the Lower Tantric College120. According to the Gelugpa tradition, these two are the ultimate places to study tantric practices. Whenever you have doubts, this is the place where they can be cleared. The Lower Tantric College is a very strict-disciplined group. It started with fifty people and Tsongkhapa had said the maximum capacity should be five hundred students. Up to 1959 there were never more, but also never less than five hundred students. If there are five hundred students already, then newcomers have to wait. It was so strict! His own nephew and best disciple Jey Kunga Dondrub121 had to be kicked out, because he really couldn’t cope with these disciplinary rules. He then, together with five hundred people, founded the Upper Tantric College, which was comparatively slightly more relaxed. This is how the two tantric colleges came into existence. It is always important to enter into the study of sutra, before you enter a tantric college. In Tibet until 1959, if you were not a member of a monastery, where the sutra teachings were principally studied, you couldn’t join a tantric college. One of the basic qualifications needed to join a tantric college was to be listed as, or to be a member of any of the sutra study groups. This strongly indicates that no real tantric practice can be done, unless you have the perfect base of the sutra practice. Whether the tantric practice can be effective or not depends totally on your practice of the Lam Rim. If you do not have a firm basic foundation of the Lam Rim, then no matter what you do – e.g. saying many mantras – with-

119

1383-1445. Upper and lower are referring to the geographical location. 121 A leading disciple of the First Dalai Lama, Gyelwa Gendun Drup. 120

56 Yamantaka teachings out the influence of the bodhicitta and all other basic foundations, it will become a cause to be reborn as a powerful ghost. O Gendun Pel, Lord of the Doctrines of Sutras and Tantras; O Tashi Pak, who sees as it is the meaning of Tantra, O Samdrub Gyatso, who spontaneously fulfills the two aims: Please bestow upon me the two kinds of siddhi. O Tzondrub Pak, Lord of the entire Doctrine; O Dorje Zang, who holds the vast treasury of good teachings; O Sangye Gyatso, treasury-house of instruction: Please bestow upon me the two kinds of siddhi. O Losang Chogyen, a Lord amongst Adepts; O Konchok Gyeltsen, Holder of the Vajra; O Losang Yeshe, who manifests the dance of Amithaba: Please bestow upon me the two kinds of siddhi. In ‘who manifests the dance of Amithaba’ the translation of dance is a misunderstanding; dökr means manifestation, so it is ‘manifestation of Amithaba’. Losang Chogyen is the First Panchen Lama122. There are two ways of counting the Panchen lamas’ incarnations. One way is to count Khedrub Je as the first one. Counted like that, the next one is Lazub Chogyen Gyeltsen, then Jetsun ‘something’ and then Losang Chogyen. Counting like this the Panchen lineage has something like eleven or twelve incarnations. In the normally used Tashi Lungpo system, Panchen Losang Chogyen is counted as the first Panchen Lama. Panchen Rinpoche is an extraordinary spiritual master. He was the master of the fourth Dalai Lama. Many of the rituals of the Gelugpa tradition have come from Panchen Losang Chogyen. Those monks in Tibet who used to do the different rituals and do some things in the lay-people’s houses, used to say: ‘If Panchen Losang Chogyen had not been there, all the monks would have died with hunger’. Panchen Losang Chogyen remained in function up to a very old age. He extended his life something like three or four times. He lived over a hundred years, which is unusually long for Tibetans. They end their lives somewhere in their sixties or seventies, or, if it is very long in their eighties. The commonly explained reason for this remarkable feat was that the also remarkable Fifth Dalai was his disciple. The first Dalai Lama was Gendun Drub123. He was an ordinary, poor monk. Many incarnate lamas have titles and retinues. The first Dalai Lama did not have that. He was an ordinary, poor monk, who became a disciple of Tsongkhapa. Actually, he was more Khedrub Je’s disciple, because Tsongkhapa was already old and soon to be gone. But nowadays the publications from Dharamsala and elsewhere mention, that Tsongkhapa had Gendun Drub among his most outstanding disciples. To say that, has become a little bit of a political thing. Tashi Lungpo, the Panchen Lamas monastery, was founded by the first Dalai Lama, Gendun Drub. For Gendun Drub, Gendun Gyatso and Sonam Gyatso124, the first three Dalai Lamas, the title of Dalai Lama didn’t exist yet. They had no special name or nothing. The third Dalai Lama happened to be a prince, son of the Mongol King Attan. By this time in China the Mandshu reign was soon to begin. The title of ‘Dalai Lama’ was given during the reign of the Third Dalai Lama125. ‘Dalai Lama’ comes

122

Losang Chökyi Gyeltsen, 1570-1662. Literature: on the Panchen Lamas: R. Thurman, Wisdom and compassion, the sacred art of Tibet, pg. 274-275. 123 1391-1474. Literature: Gyelwa Gendun Drugpa, the First Dalai Lama, transl. Glenn H Mullin, Training the mind in the great way. Gendun Drub, the First Dalai Lama, transl. Glenn H Mullin, Bridging the sutras and tantras. 124 Literature: Glenn H. Mullin, Selected works of the Dalai Lama III. R. Thurman, Wisdom and Compassion, the sacred art of Tibet, pg. 268-271. 125 Sonam Gyatso, 1543-1588.

Preliminaries 57 from the Mongolian language. Literally it means ‘Lama of ocean-wide knowledge126‘; his knowledge being equivalently vast as the great ocean. In the title ‘Panchen Lama’ ‘pan’ refers to the sanskrit word pandit and ‘chen’ means big – therefore it means: great pandit. So the Panchen Lama’s title is Indian Buddhist terminology, while the title Dalai Lama is from the Mongolian language. The Fifth Dalai Lama127 was very politically-minded and very powerful. He came to power, holding Tibet as the ruler, and in 1642 founded the form of government in which religion and politics are combined, called a ‘temporal and spiritual rule’, that remained intact until 1959. The Fifth Dalai Lama is referred to as ‘The Great Fifth’. He was no doubt great and learned, in both political and religious sense. The Fifth Dalai Lama’s practice involved political activities as well as keeping this well balanced with religious practices. The number of political works this Dalai Lama wrote, runs into twenty-five volumes. He had Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu and Geluk practices, and even non-buddhist practices like Pembu. I think he did all this to keep the political balance straight. The first Panchen Lama we mentioned before, Panchen Losang Chogyen, didn’t pass away in spite of his old age. He kept on staying alive to correct the Fifth Dalai Lama, twisting as it were, his arm from behind. Panchen Rinpoche after some time became blind but remained until a very old age. The First Panchen Lama and Segyu Könchog Gyeltsen Segyu Könchog Gyeltsen128, the next in the lineage prayer, wanted a certain important practice and he knew that this practice was held by Panchen Losang Chogyen. Könchog Gyeltsen again was a poor, ordinary monk with no title or nothing. The Panchen Lama was one of the greatest, highest ranking lamas ever. He almost had his own counsel set-up, so to say his own government. The Panchen Lama and the Dalai Lama each had a similar government type set-up. One had political power, the other one didn’t. Besides that they looked the same. Both had a cabinet and a prime minister. Everything was the same. Only, they fought when they had to put their thrones together: whether they should face in the same direction, or maybe if one should face to the right. Or should one of them face downward? When the central government was in power, they said that the Dalai Lama’s seat should at least be ‘that much’ higher than the Panchen Lama’s. They fought wars for that. But otherwise there is no difference, the set-up is almost the same. At that time Panchen Rinpoche already resided at the Tashi Lungpo monastery. Very high titles have been given to him by the earlier king of Tibet, by the emperor of China as well as by the government of the Dalai Lama. He also had a lot of retinues. Segyu Könchog Gyeltsen, wanted to come and see Panchen Rinpoche. This monk who had nothing, was just carrying a few books on his back. He was a sort of a traveling crazy beggar-monk coming to this huge Tashi Lungpo monastery and demanded to see the Panchen Lama. So everybody said: ‘Who are you to want to see the Panchen Lama? Don’t be silly’. But he kept insisting that he needed to see the Panchen Lama. Finally, through his persistence, he got as far as outside the room of the Panchen Lama. There were twelve lord chamberlains and body-guard monks sitting there. He told them that he had to see the Panchen Lama. The lord chamberlain said: ‘What business do you have with the Panchen Lama? How can you want to see him?’ And this monk answered: ‘Whether or not I can – please, I have to see him. These five volumes I carry here on my back have a lot of important things in it. I think Panchen Rinpoche is the only person who knows about this and is able to give these teachings. I need the teachings and the oral transmission of these books I am carrying here’. The lord chamberlain said: ‘Are you out of your mind? Number one, you are nobody and this is the Panchen Lama. Number two, you want him to give you the oral transmission? He would have to read all this, five volumes? He cannot see anything, black or white – it is totally out of the question! You are crazy, get out!’

126

Usually said ‘Ocean of wisdom’. Gyeltsog Ngawang Lozang Gyatso, 1617-1682. Literature: R. Thurman, Wisdom and Compassion, the sacred art of Tibet, pg. 272-273. H. W. Essen, Die Götter des Himalaya, pg. 152-153. 128 Dorje Zinpa Könchog Gyeltsen, 1612-1687. 127

58 Yamantaka teachings In this manner his passage to the Panchen Lama was blocked. But he persisted and stayed there for over two months trying to gain entrance. At last he requested: ‘Could you at least, let it come to the ear of Panchen Rinpoche that there is somebody waiting here for over two months. If he says no, then I have nothing more to say; but until then I am not going to leave for sure. Besides, the Tashi Lungpo Labrang, the institute of Panchen Rinpoche, has to organize my upkeep as well, because I have nothing to eat’. They answered him: ‘Feeding someone for a month is no problem, but stop bothering Panchen Rinpoche’. And they kept feeding him. Finally one of the incarnate lamas who went to see Panchen Rinpoche regularly, noticed he kept seeing this monk all the time, went up to him and asked him: ‘Who are you and what do you want?’ and he replied: ‘Well, I am trying to see Panchen Rinpoche to make a request’. ‘Oh, I see’. In the meantime Panchen Rinpoche kept asking if there was somebody who wanted to see him, but they all said no, no, no. Then this incarnate lama who had talked to Segyu Könchog Gyeltsen, went to Panchen Rinpoche and just before taking leave, he said: ‘Today I saw an old monk near the gate. He looks like a very nice monk’. ‘Oh!? Where is he?’ ‘He is in your private secretary’s office. He has been waiting to see Panchen Rinpoche for over two months!’ Panchen Rinpoche said: ‘Please, tell him to come in straight away’ and he ordered his servants to fetch this monk. When they received this message, the lord chamberlains were very surprised. How did the old lama up there know about this monk? And why did he insist on seeing the tenacious monk? And why did this persistent monk insist on seeing the Panchen Lama? Officially, this was not in keeping with the protocol; this was quite against the normal procedures. But finally they said: ‘See this funny monk up there’ and they let him through. When he came into the room, Panchen Rinpoche greeted him and said: ‘I have been waiting for you for seven years. Why didn’t you show up till today?’ The monk answered: ‘I came across this book, and I got information that you hold the transmission of this teaching, only three months ago. Then immediately I packed my things and came here. But then, here in your own house, it took two months to see you’. Then Panchen Rinpoche kept him staying in his house for six months. He gave him the whole teaching and he also agreed to give him the oral transmission. He said: ‘I have to do it’. Nobody knew how he was going to do it, because remember, he couldn’t see! He just put his finger on the page and started reading by finger. It was a normal book and he just put his finger on the page and started reading it. Sometimes the finger didn’t even touch! This way he read the oral transmission. A lot of lineages come through them. Many times you find Panchen Losang Chogyen and Dorje Sempa Könchog Gyeltsen in a lineage. Dorje Sempa Könchog Gyeltsen is also called Segyu Könchog Gyeltsen – ‘se’ means monastery – because he is the founder of the segyu system. From Panchen Losang Chogyen onwards there are the segyu and ensa ninggyu129 guru-yoga lineages, i.e. the Ganden Lha Gyema and the Lama Chöpa. After that comes Panchen Losang Yeshe130, the second Panchen Lama. Dorje Sempa Könchog Gyeltsen took the teaching from Panchen Losang Chogyen and passed it on – or gave it back – to the second reincarnation of the Panchen Lamas, Panchen Losang Yeshe. So the lineage always goes: Panchen Losang Chogyen, Könchog Gyeltsen, Panchen Losang Yeshe. O Kelsang Gyatso, Lord of all Buddhas; O Exalted Rolpai Dorje, who grasps the meaning of Tantra; O Ngawang Tsultrim, Lord of the Doctrine: Please bestow upon me the two kinds of siddhi. Next, is Kelsang Gyatso, the seventh Dalai Lama131, ‘Lord of all Buddhas’, as the translation says. This translation is funny. In Tibetan it is Gyelwa Ongwo. In Tibet the Dalai Lama is often referred to as Gyelwa Rinpoche. Gyelwa is ‘someone who has overcome’, ‘victor’; Ongwo means something like 129

This lineage comes through Ensapa. See Gelek Rinpoche, Guru devotion; how to integrate the primordial mind, pg. 68. 1663-1737. 131 Gyelwa Kelsang Gyatso [1708-1757]. Literature: Songs of spiritual change, transl. Glenn H. Mullin. 130

Preliminaries 59 ‘greatest of great’. The Dalai Lama’s received the title of Gyelwa Ongwo since the Fifth Dalai Lama, known as ‘the Great Fifth’. The Tibetan lamas often had long, long titles, which made a kadampa lama say: The earlier lamas had a shorter name and greater quality, the later lamas have a longer name and shorter quality.

The seventh Dalai Lama is a very great person, a very great spiritual master. When I say great here, I am not referring to anything political, but to the outstanding spiritual master he was, although he was an reincarnation of the fifth Dalai Lama, who took the political power and became king ruler of Tibet. The Sixth Dalai Lama The sixth Dalai Lama132 was a very wild one, the wildest Dalai Lama we ever had. He was a true Avalokiteshvara, everybody has confirmed that unmistakably, yet he behaved so wild. The Sixth Dalai Lama, from the moment he was enthroned was the exact opposite of the Great Fifth. The Fifth Dalai Lama was very dignified and there were all these protocols and all these big, big affairs. Actually during the reign of the Fifth Dalai Lama, his labrang (or institute) had totally taken over Tibet. Therefore the general manager of the labrang of the Fifth Dalai Lama had matter-of-factly become the governor of Tibet. Desi Sangye Gyatso133, another very famous man and no doubt a learned scholar, was the Fifth Dalai Lama’s favorite. Later he became the governor. Desi Rinpoche tried to keep the young Sixth Dalai Lama a bit locked away with the young kids, so the people wouldn’t see him. The other kids were always scared. He was most notoriously wild and when he became seventeen years old, he terminated his service to Desi Rinpoche. He refused to wear the robes, kept his hair long, started to wear lay peoples’ clothes and had lots of friends of his age who were good at shooting arrows and all different sports. He was a very good musician too, one of the best musicians available. Among his friends the one that he liked most was a government officer called Tunga Targyewa, who was very good at horse riding and arrow shooting. He would ride on a horse and shoot arrows at different targets, one after another and really pinpointing them. As we said, the Sixth Dalai Lama liked him and always kept him company. Targyewa had a naughty character. He used to take the Sixth Dalai Lama with him and they would not show up for sometimes fifteen or twenty days, not a trace of them… Desi Rinpoche, the governor, was always very worried, thinking that the Sixth Dalai Lama was running everywhere, that something terrible like an accident could happen. And also that some people, especially the ladies, might come to the government with claims. Desi Rinpoche was always worried. So he sent out spies. Wherever the Sixth Dalai Lama spent the night, that house should be painted yellow. Then Desi Rinpoche would send somebody and pay them money. After some time, almost three quarters of Lhasa town had become yellow and Desi Rinpoche felt he could not keep control any more and decided to do something. He thought all this was due to Targyewa; therefore he had to be killed. A conspiracy was developed to kill Targyewa. Everybody was told to meet in the evening in the Potala. So the Sixth Dalai Lama came, together with a big retinue of all sorts of wild boys, walking up to the Potala palace. The conspirators had somebody hiding in a dark corner. The Potala is a very old building with dark rooms and besides it was evening, so it was quite dark. In this total darkness somebody was going to stab Targyewa with a dagger. That night – they had gone horse-riding quite far – before returning, the Sixth Dalai Lama had told Targyewa: ‘Today you must wear my clothes’. And he had taken off all his clothes, pants, gown and everything and he dressed Targyewa in his own clothes. Then he said: ‘Who is going to wear Targyewa’s clothes today?’ He looked around and saw a boy and said: ‘Oh, poor boy. Your time is over. Anyway, I shall pray and you will not go to hell’. Nobody noticed what he was talking about. He had this boy wear Targyewa’s clothes. So they walked to the Potala in the evening and naturally the man 132 133

Tsangyang Gyatso, 1685-1747. Literature: K. Dhondup, Songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama. Life-story pg. 1-52. Desi is governor. Literature: K. Dhondup Songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama, pg. 4-26.

60 Yamantaka teachings who was waiting to kill Targyewa was looking out for Targyewa’s clothes, because he could not distinguish faces in the darkness. Consequently he killed the servant wearing Targyewa’s clothes. The Sixth Dalai Lama had known what would happen. Otherwise there would have been no reason why he made them change clothes. He said: ‘This is definitely a conspiracy and I am going to make inquiries’. Remember, he was the actual ruler. So he made inquiries but nobody dared to open his mouth, because since the time of the Fifth Dalai Lama, Desi Rinpoche was powerful and he held the whole thing in hand. The Dalai Lama said: ‘All right, since I do not get answers by asking the human beings, I am going to ask the gods’. He summoned all the different oracles in Tibet: Nechung, Kardon, Lhamo Tsangpa, all the outstanding oracles. Then he told each one of them what had happened and that there must be a conspiracy. He asked who the people involved were and he demanded: ‘You have to give me the names, otherwise I am going to punish you all’. Nechung, the state oracle came round, made three prostrations and went off. The others similarly, one after the other. When Lhamo Tsangpa came, the Sixth Dalai Lama tied a thread around his finger, so he could not go. Now the Sixth Dalai Lama told Lhamo Tangpa: ‘You have to tell me. I have made inquiries among the human beings but I’m not getting answers from them. Now I want answers from the gods. What can you tell me?’ But Lhamo Tsangpa refused to say anything, because he had to oblige both Desi Rinpoche as well as the Dalai Lama. Finally Lhamo Tsangpa presented the Dalai Lama with a pen, saying: ‘This is a clue for you’. Then he went out. The Dalai Lama looked at the pen and thought: ‘Who uses a pen? - The secretary!’ So he said: ‘Lhamo Tsangpa has told me the pen is the clue, so it is the secretary!’ He got hold of the secretary and then naturally Desi Rinpoche had to come out and say: ‘I am responsible’. And he explained: ‘You are totally responsible for the whole of Tibet and you can’t go on behaving like this. Therefore I had to do this. I thought that Targyewa was the person spoiling you and that what we really needed was to get rid of him’. In fact, not only Desi Rinpoche, but a lot of people had been meeting and making this decision. But he said: ‘I am the one responsible.’ So the Sixth Dalai Lama insisted that Desi Rinpoche had to resign at once, and that is what he did. He lost his governorship. Desi Rinpoche finally was killed by groups of Mongols. And when he was killed, nobody protected the Sixth Dalai Lama any longer. The new Mongol rulers were mostly disciples of Kunjung Jamyang Sheba – also an outstanding spiritual master – who was very much set against the Sixth Dalai Lama. Desi Rinpoche right from the beginning had never liked Kunjung Jamyang Sheba. I don’t not know why, but somebody said: for some karmic reason. Because of Desi Rinpoche’s dislike of him, one way or another Kunjung Jamyang Sheba was always getting punished by the Tibetan government. So later, when the Mongols, the disciples of Jamyang Sheba, became powerful, they overpowered the Tibetan government. And the first thing they did was to kill Desi Rinpoche, who was found responsible. After Desi Rinpoche’s demise there was nobody left to protect the Sixth Dalai Lama, and finally he was exiled. He was taken away from the Drepung monastery by Mongol soldiers. The Dalai Lama belongs to the Drepung monastery. He is one of the Drepung reincarnate lamas. So the Drepung monks went out and grabbed the Dalai Lama out of the Mongol hands and brought him inside the monastery. Then they started talking. They said: ‘This is not the real Dalai Lama. How can the real Dalai Lama behave like this’. and they called the state oracle, Nechung, and told him: ‘Today you have to confirm if he’s real: yes or no’. They brought the images of Buddha, Guru Padmasambhava and Tsongkhapa and put them on the head of the Nechung state oracle, saying: ‘Today you will finally say yes or no, because this might not be the right incarnation’ and Nechung answered: ‘This is the true Avalokiteshvara and if this is not so, my head may break into thousand pieces and I may die’. He put the statues on his head and said: ‘This is the true Avalokiteshvara’ and repeated that he would be ready to die and disappear from the scene if that was not true. And he put vajra and bell on his head and again, confirmed it. After Nechung all other oracles confirmed this and said that it was the true Avalokiteshvara. Then Panchen Losang Yeshe, the second incarnation of the Panchen Lama, came running from Tashi Lungpo and said: ‘This is the true Avalokiteshvara, for god’s sake, do not touch him’. Panchen Rinpoche was very well

Preliminaries 61 respected because he behaved properly. Then everybody was convinced that this was the true Avalokiteshvara. However, the Mongols took him with them to China. From there the secret biography of the Sixth Dalai Lama starts. He had a brother who looked just like him, and this brother died in Xinhua province. Then the Mongols pretended: ‘This is the body of the Sixth Dalai Lama’. Meanwhile the actual Sixth Dalai Lama left China and went to Mongolia. And because of him Buddhism developed in Mongolia. At the same time, in Central Tibet they had recognized another sixth Dalai Lama, Losang Rinchen Jamyang Gyatso, who also was a very nice person. And especially the Amdo lamas have accepted both incarnations as Avalokiteshvara and both as the sixth Dalai Lama. Then they had the problem of having two Sixth Dalai Lamas. They had to quote from many places to make it credible. There are a lot of funny jokes about this, but I am not going to go into it now. The Seventh Dalai Lama was just the opposite. His name was Kelsang Gyatso. He was born on the Mongol side and it was quite difficult for him to come to Tibet, because neither the first nor the second Sixth Dalai Lama had passed away yet. The Seventh Dalai Lama remained for almost 25 years near the Tibetan border, practicing. He was a very pure monk with very strict discipline, the complete opposite of the Sixth Dalai Lama. He was totally well-behaved. Later he came to Tibet and became the ruler of Tibet. But he never bothered about political affairs. He devoted his time entirely to spiritual development and left the political management entirely up to other people. He was such a well-behaved man. He always said that he felt that only the vajra and bell belonged to him and that all other clothes and so on did not belong to him, but to the Tibetan government. Whenever there was a function, the Dalai Lama had to show off and wear nice clothes and shirts. So he used to send somebody to the governor with the request: ‘May I borrow some clothes tomorrow?’ It was all there for him, but he said he felt that it did not belong to him. He also gave many teachings and his collected work runs into about eleven volumes. Although he was unlike the Fifth Dalai Lama, he also has given a lot of essential teachings. The Tripa Ondo Rolpai Dorje is the famous Changya Rolpai Dorje134. He is one of the most famous teachers. He is a Chinese master who lived in Peking, where he was the teacher of one of the emperors. He is one of the Peking lamas educated by Tukem Dharma Vajra. He gained all his developments in China and visited Central Tibet only three times. During his first visit, he took a lot of teachings from the Seventh Dalai Lama That is how the lineage has come through. Rolpai Dorje is the one who, in China, along with 96 other people, translated the Kanjur, the selected works of the Buddha, into the Mandshu language. He is the first Changya Hotuktu. One of Rolpai Dorje’s reincarnations is the great Pabongka. The great Pabongka does not belong to the Pabongka lineage, but to the Rolpai Dorje lineage. How Changya Rolpai Dorje landed in China I’ll try to tell you the reason why Changya Rolpai Dorje landed in China. I have not taught this for thirty years. One of the teachers of the emperor was an old lama. The emperor’s crown prince always went to see this old lama, who also lived in the palace. The old lama always gave him some sweets and things like that, so they sort of were friends. And his request to the old lama always was: ‘Please, make me emperor’. And the lama would say: ‘Yes, you will be emperor. I’ll make sure you will be emperor the moment I die’. The old lama died and indeed, very soon after that he became emperor. At that time there was a war in that area – Tsongkhapa’s birth area – between the Chinese warlords and the local people. The warlords uttered the order that anybody younger then sixteen years of age should be killed. They did this because the people had started revolting, and to cut down the revolt the warlords now ordered all the young ones to be executed, so the old one’s would not be able to do any134

1717-1786. His name is also spelled Jangkya Rolpay Dorje. Literature: R. Thurman, Wisdom and Compassion, the sacred art of Tibet, pg. 276.

62 Yamantaka teachings thing. So the Chinese soldiers started chasing all the young people and killed whoever they could catch. A lot of young people were killed at that time. Changya Rolpai Dorje was only about ten years of age. So they were really afraid that he was going to be killed. His labrang-manager took him to a mountainplace between the rocks, where it was impossible to stay for any human being. Even his managers – there were two of them, one was very pro-Chinese and the other one was very much caring for him – they split. When they split the junior manager took the young Rinpoche and one or two attendants, and they went to a cave where there was not a living soul around. One day the emperor suddenly remembered that the reincarnation of that old lama should be somewhere out there. He wanted to save him, so he gave a very special order, saying: ‘Find the reincarnation of my old lama-friend and bring him to China. And anybody who hurts him or does anything to him, including the commanders, will have no other punishment waiting for them except getting their neck cut’. So everybody in the chain of command, from the warlords to the commanders in the field, was sure to get his neck cut if the boy would be harmed or killed. So they speedily took very good care to be looking out for the boy everywhere. The attendants of the boy were hiding, they didn’t boil water so they couldn’t even make hot tea, because the smoke could betray them. Then one day the young boy went round and collected all dry leaves and branches and made a big smoky fire on top of the rocks. The attendants said: ‘What a crazy thing to do! Well now, that is it! You have blown our cover. So far we have been hiding here so carefully, and now you have made that terrible smoke. They’ll come to fetch your neck’. They quickly put out the smoky fire. However, it had been noticed already. The pro-Chinese labrang-manager along with a group of twenty-five soldiers suddenly saw the smoke and came towards it. They did not reach them that day, but the next morning they came and caught the boy. Then they all thought he was going to get killed. They thought the purpose of this particular search was to kill him. They didn’t know yet that the commanders had orders not to harm him. None of these soldiers knew about any of this. On the way they did not show any respect for the boy at all. They made him walk. Only the caring attendant carried him a little bit, so now and then. The two of them had to march, while the whole group of soldiers was on horseback. They presumed this guy to be an evil one, so they showed no respect at all. When resting they put the boy and the attendant in chains, tied to the pillars of the tent. They kept him like a dog. That went on for a number of days. Then suddenly the junior officer started receiving more orders, saying to take care of the boy, and not to punish him etc. They didn’t know what this was all about, but they put him on a small horse anyhow. Until one day the reception committee, headed by a big Chinese general came. When they brought the boy to the general, they had him chained like a prisoner. But the reception committee and the big general came with some gifts and said: ‘Release him immediately!’ And they still didn’t understand what was going on. Then there was a very interesting exchange between the general and this young boy. The general said: ‘You are anti-Chinese, you are anti-Han’. He said: ‘No, I’m not’. ‘Then why did you run away when the Chinese were coming?’ The boy answered: ‘I didn’t run away from the Chinese! I had heard the killers were coming, who would not run away for a killer?’ Out of this a long conversation developed between the Chinese general and the eight or ten years old boy. It has been recorded, the questions and answers, it runs into ten pages. I read the biography, it is very interesting. I edited that book, that is why I remember it. If you look in the library, it is in the collected works of Tukem Dharma Vajra, the first volume is Rolpai Dorje’s biography. That is how Rolpai Dorje landed in China. The emperor took him as his personal favorite lama and he gave him the best education and the best possible treatment. He became a very famous and learned teacher. The Changya incarnation lineage is still going on, the last Changya passed away in Taiwan.135 This might not be the wrong place to mention, that about this time there were three top-lamas, by title, by rank, by power, by learnedness, by their qualities: The Seventh Dalai Lama in Tibet, who was the Tibetan spiritual and temporal ruler, a little later Changya Rolpai Dorje who was head of all the vajra135

The last Changya having passed away does not mean the incarnation lineage has stopped; maybe his reincarnation not yet been found.

Preliminaries 63 yana buddhist practitioners of China, and Halha Jetsun Dangpa, the head of the Mongols. The Halha [pronounce Kaka], just like the Dalai Lama of Tibet, was the temporal and spiritual head of both outer and inner Mongolia. When the Thirteenth Dalai Lama136 escaped from Tibet, the Halha Jetsun Dangpa137received him. The two didn’t go along well at all, because either one of them thought themselves to be the most important of the two. Truly speaking, in the old tradition the Dalai Lama and the Mongolian leader were of equal ranking, each having its own parcel. Changya Rolpai Dorje particularly became the head of all Chinese buddhists. Although he did not have political power, he had tremendous prestige and many privileges. He also happened to be a student of the Seventh Dalai Lama. Changya Rolpai Dorje visited Tibet after the death of the Seventh Dalai Lama to do the rituals and to pay him respect. He came as a representative of the Chinese government, as head of the Chinese buddhists and as student of the Seventh Dalai Lama. In Tibet a tremendous arrangement needed to be made for him. Because the Tibetans had to stick to their own rules. Both Changya Rolpai Dorje and Halha Jetsun Damba belonged to Drepung, and out of Drepung both belonged to the Gomang faculty. So actually Changya Rolpai Dorje had to join Drepung monastery like anybody else, but they made a big arrangement that he was going to give a teaching of Tsongkhapa’s In Praise of Interdependent Origination. All the Gomang geshes said that day: ‘Well, this is a big lama with Chinese power, with political power, so we are forced to attend his teachings’. A boy who has just joined the monastery normally is supposed to stand at the end of the hall. But here, with the help of political power they put him up on a throne and let him give teachings and made it compulsory for everybody to attend. So everyone said: ‘We are just wasting our time, but we can’t help it because we are forced to do so’. The Chinese also offered a lot of silver coins that day. So they made a joke: ‘We are going for both, collecting the silver and wasting time’. Changya Rolpai Dorje gave a very good commentary and when those geshes came back they said: ‘Wow, we have something more to learn from this guy. Interesting. His commentary is quite good, not bad. Where did he learn? He had no monastery, no companion to debate, where did he learn?’ Also there was the incident with the first Demo, who happened to be the regent of Tibet at that time. At that time there were Chinese ambangs [representatives] in Tibet. This now became a political issue. The Chinese documents said: The ambangs are the governors of Tibet. The Tibetan documents said: They are Chinese ambassadors. The ambangs insisted that the regent had to go on his way for two days to receive Changya Rolpai Dorje. All the heads of all important monasteries, all the abbots of the three great monasteries, and all the well-known lamas headed by the regent, and Tsongkhapa’s throne holder, the Ganden Tripa, all had to go on a two days journey on horseback to receive Changya Rolpai Dorje. Changya Rolpai Dorje was slightly surprised when he was told so. From a distance he saw all these lamas coming, headed by the regent. And a bit later he saw that everyone there, except the Ganden Tripa and the regent, started to get off their horses, and continued to walk towards him. You should know, that according to the Chinese protocol Changya Rolpai Dorje was not supposed to dismount. When he saw all those high Lamas walking towards him Changya thought to himself: ‘These are the great lama’s that run the country! I’m sure this here is the doing of the Chinese ambang, giving them a hard time. I have to get off my horse too!’ So then as soon as the regent got off his horse, Changya Rolpai Dorje also dismounted. And then of course everyone traveling with him had to dismount. They all kept asking: ‘Why? why? why?’ Because they couldn’t understand this breach of protocol. Later on Changya Rolpai Dorje in a statement explained what he had thought, and why he had acted in this way. Why did we emphasize him? Because Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo is supposed to be the reincarnation of Changya Rolpai Dorje, rather than being in the Pabongka lineage. This is the author of this particular sadhana138. Then next is Ngawang Tsultrim. O Jangchub Chopel, perfected one in Sutra and Tantra; 136

Literature: Glenn H. Mullin, Path of the bodhisattva warrior. Reincarnation of the 17th century Halha. Also see page 26. 138 Though the long sadhana states Gyelwa Kelsang Gyatso as the author, it was again adapted by Pabongka Rinpoche. 137

64 Yamantaka teachings O Losang Chojor Gyatso, the magnificent one called Drakri Dorjechang, the one of unequalled kindness: Please bestow upon me the two kinds of siddhi. Jangchub Chopel comes first in the incarnation-lineage of Trijang Dorje Chang. The late Drakri Dorjechang was a nephew139 to Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche. He was well-known for reading the oral transmission, a very speedy reader. He pretended to be not very learned. He would say very funny things, like: ‘The teaching tradition says this, but why, I wouldn’t know.’ He was also very strict. He used to keep a big stick for all these young incarnated lama’s. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche would not scold you, or hit you, but he liked to wear dark glasses, so you never knew if he was looking at you or not. That was his trick to keep you quiet. O exalted Lingtrul, the great Tutor, Holder of the Vajra; Named Losang Lungtog Tenzin Trinlay; and O Great Abbot Tenpa Chopel, noble magnificent one: Please bestow upon me the two kinds of siddhi. This is Ling Rinpoche, not the Ling Rinpoche we refer to, but the one previous to that140. Losang Lungtok Tendzin Trinlay, like Kyabje Ling Rinpoche is very famous, and became the teacher of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. Tenpa Chopel is a very, very great Gomang Abbot. O you who are the wisdom of all boundless Buddhas, arising as ‘The Wrathful Terrifier’ in the dance of a human as Dechen Nyingpo, the one of unequalled kindness: Please bestow upon me the two kinds of siddhi. That is Pabongka, always referred to as Dechen Nyingpo ‘Essence of great Bliss’ because he actually is Heruka in human form. O Great Guru, who in the Doctrine of the Able Ones resembles a Second Buddha, in scriptural and realization Dharmas are incomparable and whose enlightened activity pervades the triple world: Please bestow upon me the two kinds of siddhi. This is my late great master, His Holiness Yongdzin Ling Rinpoche141. He is considered to be an actual Yamantaka. He is in the reincarnation lineage of Ra Lotsawa Dorje Drak and Yamantaka, and within that, he is, in particular, the Solitary Hero Yamantaka. And the previous Ling Rinpoche, Losang Lungtok Tenzin Trinle, was also in the lineage. So some kind of special lineage order that falls on Ling Rinpoche. I have been very fortunate to have been able to obtain all these teachings and everything from H. H. Ling Rinpoche several times. The last one was in Mundgod, where the Drepung monastery is. It was about fifteen days of Yamantaka teachings he gave there. I don’t remember the exact year when H. H. told me: ‘Make sure you attend it’, and I did not realize that it was going to be the last one. It happened to be the last teaching he has given on Yamantaka and also the last one I attended. So we have the unbroken lineage up to here. [Next is a verse on Gelek Rinpoche himself] O Holder of the Treasure of the two stages of the Excellent Path, great Navigator leading the fortunate on the Path to Enlightenment, 139 140 141

A different Draki Dorje Chang from the one mentioned in this verse. Also referred to as Lingtrul Vajradhara.

1903-1983. One of the two main tutors of His Holiness Dalai Lama XIV. 97th Throne holder of Tsongkhapa. Abbot of the Upper Tantric College. In this function he was the successor of the previous incarnation of Gelek Rinpoche. Disciple of Pabongka Rinpoche. One of the main teachers of Gelek Rinpoche.

Preliminaries 65 O Ngawang Gelek Trinlay Namgyal: Please bestow upon me the two kinds of siddhi. How to practice the lineage prayer In the lineage visualization142 the Solitary Hero Yamantaka is on top and the consort Vajra Zombini is underneath him. Actually, in the case of the Solitary Hero you do not have a consort, but for union activities, you borrow one from Buddha Akshobhya143. Then Lalitavajra. By making this strong request you focus on all three of them. When you want to do it in detail, you first say the verse and then after each verse you say [from the Ganden Lha Gyema:] Oh glorious and precious root guru, come take your lotus- and moon seat at my heart And keep me safe in your great kindness, Bestow on me please the powerful attainments of your body, speech and mind. Or you can use: I pray to the precious Lama, Actuality of all past, present, and future Buddhas. Please, bless my personal process! You do these if you have all the time in the world. When you are saying this, you focus on the three of them particularly. But at the same time all the others are there. That does not disturb. You may even lose the moon and sun disc, that does not matter; our mind is not trained, so we can’t keep them together, but they are there. When you look back up you see them. Then, From them, five-colored light and nectar comes down, reaches your body, purifies all the nonvirtues in general and particularly all the obstacles to developing the guru-devotional stage: not having profound faith and respect to the lama and having doubt. All these non-virtues are washed out of your system completely and your body has become of light nature and pure. You can also visualize that The blessings come from their bodies: white light and liquid for peace, yellow for increase, red for power and dark-blue for wrath. Then the three of them dissolve into each other. Yamantaka dissolves into the consort, she into Lalitavajra, Lalitavajra into Amoghavajra. Then you go to the next verse, proceeding the same way, dissolving them into each other. So, from the top besides Yamantaka himself fourteen lineage masters dissolve down to Tsongkhapa and then another twenty down to Pabongka. You have to be able to visualize this and then finally to dissolve it again. Let’s count them: 1. Yamantaka, 2. Vajra Zombini [tib. Dorje Rolangma], 3. Lalitavajra, 4. Amoghavajra, 5. Jnana Kara Gupta, 6. Padma Vajra, 7. Dipamkara, 8. Ra Lotzawa, 9. Ra Choerab, 10. Ra Yeshe Senge, 11. Ra Bum Senge, 12. Jetsun Galo, 13. Ra Sherab Senge, 14. Yeshe Pel, 15. Dondrub Rinchen, 16. Tsongkhapa, 17. Khedrub Je, 18. Sherab Senge, 19. Palden Sangpo, 20. Gendun Pel; 21. Tashi Pak, 22. Samdrub Gyatso, 23. Tzondruk Pak, 24. Dorje Zang, 25. Sangye Gyatso, 26. Losang Chogyen Gyeltsen, 27. Könchog Gyeltsen, 28. Panchen Losang Yeshe, 29. Kelsang Gyatso, 30. Rolpai Dorje, 31. Ngawang Tsultrim, 32.

142 143

See page 50. Also see pg. 348.

66 Yamantaka teachings Jangchub Chopel, 33. Losang Chojor Gyatso, 34. Lingtrul Vajradhara, 35. Tenpa Chopel, 36. Dechen Nyingpo 37. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, 38. One’s own initiation master144. Finally the root master’s guru dissolves to the root master. Now you focus on the root master, who is inseparable from Yamantaka, as intensely as possible. It makes no difference whether you visualize him in the form of a human being inseparable from Yamantaka, or the other way round, in Yamantaka’s form inseparable from the ordinary human being. You can say the guru mantra here, if you want. Make a strong request and pray. And if you want to, if you have time, you can even say: pa kyö kyi ku dang da gi lu pa kyö kyi sung dang da gi nga pa kyö kyi tu dang da gi yi don yerme chig tu chinji lob This body of mine and your Body, O Spiritual Father, this speech of mine and your Speech, O Spiritual Father, this mind of mine and your Mind, O Spiritual Father, through your blessings may they become inseparably one. It is not necessary to do this. But if you are doing a retreat and you are all by yourself for three years or something, then you have all the time of the world, and you can do all this145. You say this seven times. In the Vajrayogini sadhana when making the Kusali tsok offering, you offer to the root guru seven times. Similarly you make the request here seven times. Why we do this? Because the enlightened stage has seven qualities. I think some translations say ‘seven kisses’146. At this point in the Vajrayogini sadhana, much more is happening: the lama is very fond of you. The lama wants to dissolve into you. You are very fond of the root-master. You want to jump up to the lama. The lama wants to jump down. You have this big zigzag going on, full push, and finally the lama beats you, melts into the light form, the size of a bird’s egg, and goes in. In this practice likewise, these things are never mentioned in this much detail. Finally the Lama dissolves into the light nature. By dissolving the lineage masters, you have obtained all their blessings and you are holding the vajra teaching within you. This covers the first visualization of the sadhana. There is a simple prayer at the end: By having praised thus, may I in all future lives be cared for by a Mahayana spiritual friend and live in accordance with the festival of the profound and extensive Dharma. To attain the Full Awakening for the sake of all mothers, may I win the battle against the four maras, negative conditions. Attaining the wealth of all siddhis – peace, increase, power

144

Sometimes Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and H.H. the Dalai Lama are inserted between 37 and 38. One can also insert other lamas one has received the initiation from. 145 Other possibilities of verses to insert here: from the Ganden Lha Gyema ‘O glorious and precious root guru..... bestow on me please the powerful attainments of your body, speech and mind.’ 146 Literature on the seven features of union: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 128-129. Mentioned in Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Tantric grounds and paths, pg. 198 as the seven pre-eminent qualities of embrace of an enjoyment body of a buddha: 1) A form body endowed with the major signs and minor indications; 2) embracing a wisdom knowledge consort; 3) a mind abiding in a state of great bliss; 4) this bliss realizing lack of inherent existence; 5) a compassion that has abandoned the extreme of peace; 6) an uninterrupted continuum of body; 7) unceasing enlightened deeds.

Preliminaries 67 and wrath, as well as the eight siddhis147, and so forth – may I become supreme in upholding the heart of the Teachings of the Able Ones. The lama dissolves into you, and you think that your mind – actually the mind of the being that you identify as you – and the lama’s mind become inseparable. [Concentrate on that with the three recogitions148.] Though you cannot pinpoint something as ‘this is it’ there is a combination of things which you identify as you. That consciousness now becomes inseparable from the guru’s mind. That’s why you pray that the mind, the body and the speech may become inseparable. Just like it is in the Ganden Lha Gyema guru yoga. Instead of physically remaining separate in your heart mandala, he becomes you and you become him and the two of you become inseparable. That’s very important. Why is it so important? Because when you finally become enlightened, you’ll become lama sangye ki ngowo – you become enlightened in the nature of the guru’s mind. Whichever guru-devotional practice you have, you do it here. And always remember it is recommended to meditate the guru. Keep him in mind all the time: his physical form, the tune of his voice, how he normally thinks and all of that. That’s how you do it; not just remember the guru’s face, and think this is him, but in this manner. And it works. There is no question, it works. The best protection, the best source of siddhi and the seed through which you grow, is this. If there is something wrong in that practice, nothing will grow. If you have multiple gurus, you have to think of all of them as one. Never mind if one of them is tall, another one is slim, still another one is fat and one of them has a good voice or a terrible voice, you do not separate them. You have to think them as one. That will give you some idea, why it is said that guru devotion is the root of all the practices. It is the seed through which spiritual development really grows. The biggest obstacle here is doubt, and things like that. It makes wisdom become wild and crazy. And instead of becoming crazy wisdom the good way, it becomes crazy wisdom the bad way. That is the biggest obstacle. Nothing will grow, nothing will develop. You will probably have gained a lot of knowledge and information, but still nothing will grow; and the best job you can have then is a nice job in the academic field. I do not want to insult anyone by saying this, but then that is probably the best way you can contribute. If you can achieve both, it is great, because the traditional system, especially Tsongkhapa, emphasizes that it has to be both, academic as well as practical. That is the best way. But if you lose the practice, you can only become an academic. Then it becomes like a dry tree. When a tree is dead, it does not fall down, but it becomes dry. If your interest is only academic and you do not meditate, you have a lot of information: ‘So and so said this, and Tsongkhapa said that, Tukem said that, Changya said this and Gungtang said so and Pabongka said so, Longchen Rabjampa said that and Rangjung Rigpai Dorje said this and Pakshi said that and Kunga Nyingpo said this…’ You can really become a great scholar, but you still have nothing. We need to have both. We don’t have to emphasize scholarship too much, but we need something solid. I might as well share a story to illustrate this. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche told this story in one of the big teachings in Tibet, in front of two to three thousand people. It is about a lady that was called Mrs. Lalu. She was like the ‘Iron Lady’ – she let nobody get in her way. She managed to live through the time of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and during the reign of the two regents and still she managed to remain powerful. She managed to live through the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s period in Tibet and through the Chinese Communist period – she remained a true Lady Lalu till the end. She was a very, very good dharma practitioner. Originally she was a Nyingma practitioner. Then in the early part of the 19th century there was 147

Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 97-98. The three recognitions: 1) that the nature of our guru’s mind is the union of great bliss and emptiness; 2) that our Guru’s mind has mixed inseparably with our own mind, transforming it into the union of great bliss and emptiness; 3) that our mind of great bliss is in the aspect of blue light. [adapted from Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Guide to Dakiniland, pg. 109].

148

68 Yamantaka teachings big trouble between her family and another family. She suffered defeat and was very upset by it. One day she had a stomach problem. And what she did, she chose to go to her own chapel and prayed there. Then she used the altar as a toilet, and let it all out… saying: ‘That’s it! There you have it!’ and she walked away. She remained in that frame of mind for a couple of years, until one day she met Pabongka Rinpoche. They sometimes met socially. Although in time she had become very skeptical, still somehow Pabongka Rinpoche was able to get through to her. Later she became one of Pabongka’s biggest benefactors. He worked out a nice small Vajrayogini practice for her. It was simple, and in order, so she was sure to be able to handle it and do very well. Then there was a very famous teacher, called Minya Amin. He was one of the outstanding, very learned teachers. At that time he happened to be Tsongkhapa’s throne holder, i.e. the Ganden Tripa. She thought that Pabongka, who at that time I think, had already passed away, had given her a very nice practice. And she thought it would be good to have a teaching on it. So she invited the Ganden Tripa, in order to receive a teaching on Vajrayogini. I don’t know what Minya Amin taught her, but she lost what Pabongka had taught her! Moreover she could not grasp what Minya Amin had told her, and was totally confused between the two. Later she approached Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, who was Pabongka’s best disciple, and asked him to give her a teaching. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche later stated, in public: ‘Ganden Tri Rinpoche is no doubt very learned; but he totally destroyed Lady Lalu’s small practice’. (Because of that public statement, tension developed a little there in Tibet, a tension that even came over to India with Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche.) If you have a small practice, add to it and make it solid, without destroying the fundament. Sometimes our study of the dharma can become too academic and that can destroy the fundament; that is not good. But when sometimes it is not academic at all, and plain stupid – nothing but following the words: ‘Dum, dum, dum,’ – that’s also not good. You have to have a little bit of wisdom. And you need analyzing, and working with your present subject, and when it has become clear and concise, then you should put it into practice. That’s the way all the old traditional lineage teachers have done it. I think we also should follow that.

The teaching lineage During the teaching, we follow the lineage of the teaching rather than the lineage of the initiation. When doing your sadhana you follow the lineage of the initiation, rather than the lineage of the teaching. The initiation lineage comes through Pabongka. The teaching lineage does not come through Pabongka, but through Kangsar Rinpoche. Lineages do sometimes change, depending on from whom you take the teachings. jik dze tro wo lo zang trak pei pel. she rap senge gyu chen chen pa pel. tsul trim zang po tse wa she rap zang. sol wa dep so chok tun ngo drup tsol. Jikdze trowo refers to Yamantaka. Then come Tsongkhapa Losang Drakpa, Sherab Senge, Gyuchen Chenpa, Tsultrim Zangpo and Tsewa Sherap. chö kyong gya tso tak po nam ka trak. nyi ma tra shi de lek nyl mei zhap, nam ka gyel tsen lo zang chö gyen la. sol wa dep so chok tun ngo drup tsol. Here we have Chökyong Gyatso, Takpo Namka, Nyima Trashi, Delek Nyima, Namka Gyeltsen and Losang Chögyen, the First Panchen Lama, kön chok gyel tsen nga wang chö den shab. she rap tar gye rol pei dor je zhap. kel zang tup ten de lek ten dzin la.

Preliminaries 69 sol wa dep so chok tün ngö drup tsol. Könchog Gyeltsen, Ngawang Choden, Sherab Dargye, Rolpai Dorje, Kelsang Tubten, Delek Tendzin. kön chok gyel tsen she rap gya tso che. zhang la wa tang lha po dor je chang. ka drin nyam me pel den zangpo la. sol wa dep so chok tün ngö drup tsöl. Könchog Gyeltsen (In the teaching lineage there are two Könchog Gyeltsens), Sherab Gyatso, Zhanglawa, Lhakpo Dorje Chang, Kadrin Nyamme, Palden Zangpo (a Mongolian from Inner Mongolia who came to Tibet). ngak wang yang chen gye pei lo tro kyi. tup ten nying po do ngak chö kyi tsul. tok me ma wei wang chuk ke pei chok. sol wa dep so chok tün ngö drup tsöl. This fifth verse is for Kangsar Rinpoche or Kangsar Dorje Chang. He is from Drepung. I believe Kangsar Rinpoche was still alive, when I was young. It seems they have taken me to see him, but I do not recall it at all. The first recollection that I have of him, is when I saw him on a photograph. That was when I was 13 or 14 years old. If you look at the pictures, you see that his head was egg-shaped. People kept telling me that Kangsar Rinpoche had an ushnisha, but I do not know. Kangsar Rinpoche became very famous. During the period of Pabongka there were four outstanding teachers in the Gelugpa tradition: Pabongka, Kangsar Rinpoche, Talungdra and Mogchog. The Chöd lineage and tradition comes from Mogchog and E-lama. The reincarnation of this famous E-lama is now in New York. He is married to an older American woman. The Yamantaka teachings come through Kangsar Rinpoche. The Yamantaka initiation comes to us through both Kangsar and Pabongka, but instead of naming both, they only named Pabongka. Kangsar Rinpoche was very famous, and unlike other Tibetan teachers of that period he was an extremely simple person. He did not let anybody come round, he had only one attendant and lived very simply. And one thing for which I admire Kangsar Rinpoche, besides for all his teachings, is that he declared that he would not have any reincarnation and that was the end of it. I think that was very good. Earlier, when a Tibetan lama said that he would not have a reincarnation, people insisted a little bit: ‘Please do have a reincarnation’. But when that lama would reject that, they would put a full stop there. They would not go on: ‘Of course, he did say he wanted no reincarnation, but we have to pick one anyway’. People did not do that. It seems that they now do it in America, though. Trungpa Rinpoche categorically denied that he would have a reincarnation, but a reincarnation has been picked up, and not just one, but two. tup pel ten la tup wang nyi pa zh in. lung tok tam chö dzin la da trel wa. nam par gyel wei trinle sa sum la. wang gur je tsün la mar söl wa dep Kyabje Ling Rinpoche has taken this teaching of Yamantaka from Kangsar Rinpoche. The sixth verse of the teaching lineage prayer is the name praise for Kyabje Ling Rinpoche. It would be nice, if during the teaching you could sometimes say the mantra of Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, because this is the teaching lineage. The sixth verse here, has the same translation as in the long sadhana of Yamantaka. lu ngak yid kyi tri ma kun chang te wang chuk gye den jam gön la ma yi. chin la nying la zhuk pei sem pa che. ge lek nam gyel zhap la söl wa dep

70 Yamantaka teachings [This verse is for Kyabje Gelek Rinpoche149.] de tar tön pe tse rap kun tu dak. tek chök ge wei she kyi je zung ne150. zap gye chö kyi ga tön gyi tso zhing. ma nam tön tu chang chup drup pa la gel gyen dü zhi yül le nam gyel te. zhi gye wang trak trup chen gye la sok. ngö trup kün gye jor wa rap gye shing. tup ten nying po dzin pei chok gyur chik. These last two verses are prayer. Remember what we have mentioned earlier: in the visualization one lama sits above the other and is in the form of Yamantaka with one face and two hands, except the consort of Yamantaka, Vajra Zombini, who is in the Lion-face Dakini’s form. They all dissolve into each other and become inseparable from you. Whatever understanding of emptiness you have, use that to concentrate on.

Instant generation151 Instantly I arise in the form of the glorious Vajra Bhairava, with one face and two arms152 which hold a curved knife and a skullcup. Why instant generation? Arising in a physical form immediately after the lineage prayer is Tsongkhapa’s tradition. Tsongkhapa gave the particular reason for this: You cannot bless certain materials that need to be blessed, when you are in your ordinary form. Therefore you have to rise as a deity here, because your next activity is going to be blessing the needed materials. Also having the three-kaya practice here indicates that the point of the sadhana is to familiarize and train the individual in the three-kaya practice. For the mind training of the individual it is best to do the three-kaya practice here as well as later on in de sadhana. At first I used to think that only the Gelugpas do it at this point, but then looking at texts that I saw that all the traditions do it this way. When I traced it back, I found that they all picked it up in the fifteenth and sixteenth century – Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu, Karma kagyu, Drikung kagyu, all of them. There are certain scholars in Varanasi doing research on this, and they found the same thing. Before the fifteenth and sixteenth century, they used to go straight through the sadhanas. After this period they picked it up. Here you have the practice you are going to do in detail during the actual session, in a short form, as a sort of a preliminary, which makes it easier to go through. For example: if you bring a strange new horse immediately to the racetrack and put it through a race, the horse will be giving you a lot of problems. In order for the horse to run the race properly, you have to show it which racetrack it is, from where to where and how fast it has to run, and things like that. Once the horse is familiar with the area where it has to run, it is easy to race it there. Similarly, the person who is doing this practice, if he or she at the beginning stage has a preliminary glimpse of the actual practice, it will make that person more aware of what it is all about and it will make it easy to actually do it. There are many other reasons why the instantaneous rise is important. In vajrayana practice the most important thing is: not to have ordinary perception and conception. Actually, ordinary percep149

Translation of the first line: ‘You have cleared the stains of body, speech and mind’. Rest not [yet] known. The first half of this verse says: ‘Therefore Buddha throughout all my lives, please be my mahayana spiritual guide… vast and profound Dharma…’ 151 Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I. pg. 11-14. 152 For an image see Chapter XII, Appendices. 150

Preliminaries 71 tion and conception are the very objects the practicing yogi wants to get rid of. And in order to familiarize yourself with that, it is recommended to practice the instantaneous rise here. Not only that. When you are having problems you can also use the instantaneous rise. As I mentioned before, Ra Lotsawa killed Ngo Lotsawa with one blow153, which he dealt by rising instantaneously as Yamantaka. One of his horns gored and killed Ngo Lotsawa, whose intestines were carried on Ra Lotsawa horns.

The three-kaya practice Dharmakaya When you rise instantaneously as Yamantaka, what happens is not that your ordinary flesh-and-blood body is turning into a Yamantaka look. Definitely not, otherwise there would have to be a Yamantaka with flesh and bones, intestines, and so on and there isn’t. This misunderstanding can be a big problem. What does this transformation do? We change our ordinary flesh-and-blood body, which falls into the category of the first noble truth, into an extraordinary body. 1. What we do is, we melt our ordinary flesh-and-blood body. This is a vajrayana technique we call dissolving. Remember, even during the initiation, light comes from the heart of the principal mandala and burns out our ordinary body completely. That burning here is almost like melting. You concentrate very strongly on that your whole body is completely melting into some kind of blue light that takes over, and after that it disappears completely. You have to make absolutely certain to visualize your physical body, in accordance with its actual size, going into the blue light – imagine that strongly! Finally the blue light disappears. Wherever the person was, there is nobody now, nothing, it’s gone. To imagine that our ordinary body disappears is not easy. That’s why we use the light to sort of bridge the gap. And then you think the light is gone – at least you can meditate on an empty cushion. That is number one. S<. Instantaneously you arise as two-armed Dorje Jigje. Blue light emanates from the HUNG at your heart and strikes all sentient beings and all environments. All is purified and the sentient beings transform into the form of Dorje Jigje and all environments into Jigje’s mandala. Then collect them and absorb them into yourself as Dorje Jigje. Then you dissolve from top and bottom into the HUNG at your heart and then the HUNG gradually dissolves into emptiness. >S. There are two melting systems: 1) Je shig is where one visualizes light emanating from the HUNG at your heart as Dorje Jigje, which strikes all sentient beings etc. [see above]. 2) In the other system, ke du rim, one simply melts from above and below into the HUNG. The HUNG then dissolves completely into emptiness. >S.

2. The place where you were, is empty now. That is not just an empty. You have to keep in mind that it is emptiness, which is the nature of reality. That ‘empty’ will acknowledge and recognize the emptiness of it. Whatever your understanding of emptiness may be, apply it here. And even if you don’t have any understanding of emptiness, you just think that the blankness you get with your eyes and with your mind, is not a blankness of blankness, but a blankness of emptiness. If you cannot think or imagine this, you can say to yourself: ‘That blank is not a blank of blank, but the blank of emptiness’. The person next to you may say: ‘I beg your pardon...’, but that doesn’t matter, because there is no next person there either. He is also in emptiness. This is acknowledging emptiness. If you have an understanding of emptiness, it will appear. If you don’t have that, you have to imagine it. And if you can’t imagine it, talk to yourself the way I told you to, just now. The basis is disappearing into emptiness and then recognizing the emptiness. Not only recognizing the emptiness, but also recognizing that emptiness is also the wisdom itself. You further recognize that this now is the result period, not the causal period anymore. The causal ordinary flesh-and-bone body is gone, the result of it is the wisdom – empty, acknowledging, recognizing the joy. Combined together, you recognize that as 153

See page 18.

72 Yamantaka teachings wisdom inseparable from bliss-void. If you cannot imagine it, just talk to yourself. You do not have to do it all the time, just a couple of times. And if you keep doing it, it will be like Dharmakirti said: Gom dang lha ma ma yinpai gom dang hayang yo ma yin If you get used to it there is nothing that can be called difficult.

Really. It is a matter of whether you are comfortable with it and whether you can get used to it or not. I remember somebody saying, it is so difficult to say the Tibetan prayers. Yes, it is difficult, because you are not used to it. In English the prayers are easy for you, because you are used to it. And because I am not used to it in English, that is difficult for me. Very simple. Whether it is dharma practice or spiritual meditation, or recognizing emptiness – when you get used to it, it becomes easy. Tsongkhapa did not make a big deal of meditation. He said: ‘The verb ‘to meditate’ is gom and the past tense of gom is ghom, and that means having gotten used to it.’ It’s that simple. We like to make meditation something mystical, but Tsongkhapa does not give it much attention. He says it is just mind training, and once the mind has gotten used to it, it becomes the past tense of ‘to meditate’. It is as simple as that. So, the most important thing when you are transforming your ordinary body into an extraordinary one, is that basically you are thinking; you are recognizing the signs of the death process, you are disappearing and remembering your motivation, and you bring in the awareness of emptiness and that awareness acknowledges the bliss-void combined together. This probably establishes the fundamental basis for the dharmakaya. So the instantaneous rise is not just something that goes: ‘Bing, bong, ready!’; It is a procedure you have to follow. In short, before you say: ‘Instantaneously I arise…’, you have dissolved the guru into you. Your mind and your guru’s mind have become inseparable, and you sit and concentrate on that for a little while. Then you acknowledge the three things154 and you make up your mind: ‘Now I am going into the instantaneous rise’. The moment you make up your mind, your body becomes a blueish light and finally disappears. Think and tell yourself: ‘Oh, my body is not there now, it is empty’. Say it to yourself, and think about it. And when you have established that ‘empty-ness’, you think about it again and say: ‘This is not just empty, but it is the emptiness of ‘empty-ness’. It is the clear indication there is no inherent existence’. How does emptiness work? When you look for a certain object and ask where ‘it’ is, when you take it apart to search for ‘it’, finally ‘it’ is going to disappear. It’s impossible point out: this is ‘it’. That’s why, when you take it apart and search for ‘it’, ‘it’ finally disappears. If you make an analysis, that’s what will happen, right? Look at your body. Now loose your hands, loose your nose, loose your ears, loose your eyes and your hair and your chest and your arms and legs: where are you going to find you? You may take the intestines, and the heart and the liver out, but even if you take everything out, you still cannot point out: ‘Ha! Here is me’. This is a clear indication that there is no true existence of me155. The existence of me is the combination of all these internal and external components like skin, flesh, bone, etc. put together. These parts put together, with the consciousness combined with it on top of that, that’s what you call ‘me’. That’s how you get a person, right? Without the consciousness, there is a corpse rather than a ‘me’. This is called: dependent origination. I am dependently existent, because my consciousness depends on my body for its existence, and likewise does my body depend on its parts. Keep in mind I am not really talking about emptiness yet, I’m just giving you a basic idea. Things exist collectively, in a dependent manner. That’s what recognizing and acknowledging emptiness really means.

154 155

See note 148 Called: selflessness of the person.

Preliminaries 73 S<. This is emptiness which realizes that everything is non-inherently existent. Remember at this point that nothing exists independently or is permanent by nature and that all existence is a dependent arising156. If one has no understanding of emptiness, you can substitute with the thought taken from the Prajnaparamita teachings that nothing exists by nature. But as Lama Yongdzin has said, one should not be content to have only such a limited understanding of the nature of shunyata this lifetime. The ordinary sutra level understanding of emptiness is not enough. One must cultivate the tantra level of understanding, which adds simultaneous, inseparable bliss. >S

3. This emptiness, this loose openness, is not at all a dry, hard emptiness; it is full of joy. The moment we mention joy, you may think it is a physical sensation. Maybe you think of sex, about an orgasm or something along those lines. But it is not that. We have only a limited understanding of joy. Openness is the joy. In such openness there is no tightness. You could say: just now the way we are looks great. But if you start looking at it in a different way, you find we are pushed into a small box and we cannot get out. It is terrible. The only time you get out, is when you die. In a way it is true that we are prisoners in this, let’s call it our ‘body-jail’. We are locked in completely and we can’t get out. Even if you suffocate in there, or even though you may experience pain and misery; no matter what is happening inside of you, you always have to be there. You are locked in. But openness really opens us up. Emptiness relieves you from that problem completely! You have openness. Try to enjoy this openness a little bit. That’s why it is said: citta dap gye avadhuti yi ö na – tong chen tru pai kun den ma – ösel je ka ma157.

Citta is heart. The heart has an eight-petalled [tib. dap gye] chakra or lotus. The central channel is called avadhuti. Tong chen tru pai kun den ma – it is great void, great emptiness, there is no activity. Ösel je ka ma – the beauty, the open female companion is inside you. Tong chen – the great openness, that’s what it really boils down to. I do not know why I am talking like that, but emptiness works that way. It is openness, completely free openness. That’s what it is, because when you really search for the existence in the interdependence and you really see it, you are free. The load of the mysteries will no longer be there. It is emptiness. Not a miserable disappearing empty, but ‘empty-ness’ with joy. It really becomes bliss-void combined. That is wisdom. It really cuts through ignorance, the ignorance of not knowing how we exist, not knowing what we are doing. So you sit on that, as strongly as possible, as long as possible. That truly is meditation on emptiness or selflessness. 4. Now you may acknowledge that as dharmakaya, saying: ‘This is my result dharmakaya’. Just label it. If you are able to produce emptiness, you are able to produce anything. You have provided space and in that space you can do anything. Everybody is telling me that if you have open land, you can build on it. Right? If you have openness, and if you want to, you definitely have the possibility to build up anything you want to.158 S<. This is the premeditation of the dharmakaya. Four qualities must be present: 1. the feeling of emptiness 2. the understanding of shunyata 3. the feeling of bliss 4. self-pride as the dharmakaya of Vajra Bhairava. These 4 must be experienced at once. >S. 156

Dependent origination and dependent arising are synonymous. Last part of a longer quotation: sung gyu sem min che pai te mo chin ji lob ya ki dak pa ka chod ogmin yeshe nga tsa dru lang du ye pai gyal yum yi ong ma kye wa sangye gyun du tra pa yi ku kesang tra tu tro pe sang gye jin tsen gang. Translation not known. 158 For these four points and its connection with dissolving the guru, see Dagyab Kyabgön Rinpoche, Kommentar zur Praxisdes Alleinstehenden Helden Yamantaka, pg. 21-24. 157

74 Yamantaka teachings The whole idea here is the three-kaya practice; either at the beginning of your practice, i.e. at the instantaneous level, or in the major practice. The three kayas correspond with the death, bardo and rebirth. These are the three miserable realms we talked about earlier: si sum duk pa ma lu du wai chir – the evils of the triple world. In sutra our objects of attention are the delusions: attachment, hatred, anger. Here in vajrayana it is: ordinary perception and conception, and also ordinary death, bardo and rebirth – these are the evils of the triple world. What we are trying to do, is beat them. We are trying to beat ordinary death so that we do not have to die; beat the ordinary bardo and substitute it in such a way that it becomes sambogakaya; and beat ordinary rebirth, so that it becomes nirmanakaya. This is the main aim and it is not a joke. So, if you do not want to die, that’s the way to go about it. You cannot hide under reincarnation. Instead you substitute death by dharmakaya. That is how you beat death. De chen tarpa di la me shinje kye wa cho la me. Remember, during the initiation you are told: ‘When you obtain this liberation, there is no longer a death for you’159. That’s what we mean. You beat death and go beyond. When you talk about having control over death and rebirth you have to realize that until you beat death you don’t have any control. It can come any day, without you knowing it. Here ordinary death is substituted by dharmakaya. Sambogakaya Out of that emptiness, we get a blue light popping up, like a bubble out of water. It is the size of your body. We know that our thoughts come up like that too. And so do our delusions, they come up like that, suddenly. From nowhere they pop up and make our ears red. Here, your ears do not become red, but cool – this nice, blue, cooling light comes up and it will be the size of the Yamantaka you want to meditate. If you say your sadhana sitting down, this blue light could be the size from your bottom to your crown, and when you say the sadhana standing up, it could be your size from the toes to the crown. In books they’ll tell you, the size of the blue light is like the size of the lower arm, elbow to hand, blue light, thick, short and radiating. You should recognize that blue light as your form, as your body. Sometimes it is nice to have a different body, especially if you want to hide from the bill collectors. Nobody will recognize you as blue light, for sure, so when the police is chasing you, become a blue light! [joke] Jokes aside, it is good to sometimes recognize this as your form, recognize this as your sambogakaya as your bardo. S<. Think that you would like to take on a grosser form in order to be of benefit to sentient beings. A multicolored lotus and sun seat appears160. Your mind in the shape of a cubit-high blue light appears on the sun set. You are that blue light; this is the sambogakaya of Vajra Bhairava. >S.

Nirmanakaya Then, out of this blue light, your head will start to come out and the hands and legs and you become a Yamantaka form. The instantaneous rise of Yamantaka is with one face and two hands. The picture I have in my traveling altar I think is Nagpa Dratsang. Alfred took that picture of the nice drawing in Drepung monastery in Tibet. He did not know what it was. He just thought it was interesting. From his picture, I made this small one and put it in my altar. That’s what the instantaneously-risen Yamantaka looks like. You recognize that as nirmanakaya Yamantaka. S< Now cultivate the motivation for taking the nirmanakaya. In the sambogakaya form one can only be seen by arya bodhisattvas, so you decide to assume a grosser form in order to benefit all sentient beings. The rays of blue light expand and transform into the nirmanakaya form of Vajra Bhairava with one face, two hands, two horns and a big nose with nostrils like molten copper pipes burning like the fire at the end of an eon. His eyes are red and bloodshot. The palms and 159 160

R. Thurman, Yamantaka Ekavira, Materials for Punya House Retreat, pg. 185. For the description of the lotus see: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I. pg. 12.

Preliminaries 75 soles are blood red. He has sharp fingernails and wears six bone ornaments. Dorje Jigje is smeared with human ash from cremated bodies and also crushed, unburned bone. A detailed description can be found in the commentaries by Lhundrup Pandita, Tri Gyeltsen Senge and Ngulchu Dharmabhadra. >S.

The meditations you can do up to now, are the lineage prayer and a little bit the instantaneous rise. As long as you have not read the next parts of the teaching, pick up the long Yamantaka sadhana, look at the long lineage prayer and do it slowly – if you have time. After that, you do the instantaneous rise. Have some idea of emptiness, and meditate on it a little bit. Then you continue with the short sadhana to keep your commitment. Remember: te tsom tsawa sam je jang si bu tru bu sa be gyur Even just raising a doubt on the emptiness, will tear samsara apart.161

Review instant generation 1. Dharmakaya. The moment you say: ‘Instantaneously I arise in the bodily form of the glorious Vajra Bhairava with one face and two arms, holding vajra and bell’, the first thing you do is dissolve yourself and every single thing around you. It all suddenly disappears, yourself included. It is also important not to think you are not there, but to think it is empty. There is a slight difference between thinking you do not exist, and disappearing. It is better to disappear, than not to exist. Every single thing becomes a big void, completely open, no blocks there. When you do not have a proper understanding of emptiness, and if even saying: ‘There is no inherent existence’ becomes inconvenient, it is better to think: great void, great emptiness, great openness. That helps and it substitutes for the time being. Wherever you look and try to focus on something – the mandala, the trees, the surroundings, the house, the companions, including your physical form – there is nothing to be seen, nothing to be touched, it is sort of great void. Think along these lines. Concentrate on that, and leave it there a little bit. It is also important to say: if you can focus on that emptiness for a little while, it has a lot of joy, because it is such openness, such a completely relaxed void state. That void is in the nature of joy. It not possible to separate these two. You can’t say: ‘This part is joy and this part is empty’. They are inseparable. This void-joy state somehow – without it having any physical form – is recognized by your consciousness as your dharmakaya. Here you may have to generate a mind, telling yourself: ‘This is my true dharmakaya’. Somehow, somebody within you gives that message to yourself. Somehow consciousness acknowledges that. That is your consciousness, that is your joy, that is your emptiness, yet you are not separate. There are different aspects: the aspect of emptiness, the aspect of joy, the aspect of the consciousness, the aspect of recognition and the recognizer – all of them are there. Ka na tongpa tonpa towa – whatever appears to you, it is all void. The void is joy. The joy is your nature, your consciousness, and that state is the state of dharmakaya. Since it is empty there is nothing physical to visualize, yet there is a picture of space-like openness. If you look on the television – the pictures of space you get from those satellite cameras, that is the projection you get. That is the sort of visualization I get when I think in that way, not because I saw those pictures, but my traditional way of visualizing and thinking produced that kind of image. So that sort of openness and clearness you see – you do not have to visualize clouds coming in, it is light nature – and you recognize this as your dharmakaya. The empty, the void dharmakaya is the substitute for death. 2. Sambogakaya. Then, somehow the consciousness will recognize: Well, it is a very nice and joyful state, but if I will stay here, it will defeat my purpose. The purpose of obtaining the state of enlightenment is to help all beings. So, if I stay in this state, no one can see nor hear me. Therefore I should rise from this joyful state into a physical form.

161

Aryadeva, Catuhsataka, [Four Hundred Verses] ch. VIII vs. 5: ‘By mere skeptical analysis, the cycle of existence is shattered.’

76 Yamantaka teachings The moment you put that thought into your mind it has to materialize. Later when you are fully developed, just the thought alone does the work. That is the vajrayana quality. It is interesting. Practitioners who are well developed, just put their thoughts on doing certain rituals, and that is enough, it works. For some people it does not work immediately, but if they make some adjustments, it will work. I don’t mean to blow my own trumpet, but… listen to this. I was in Delhi in the mid-seventies and I was sick. And Kushok Bakula of Ladhak came to see me and told me that I had to do a White Tara longevity practice. One of the Rinpoche’s attendants came and made all the tormas, and it was just a matter for me to sit down and do it. But I did not do it, feeling lazy, thinking: ‘I’ll do it tomorrow, I’ll do it tomorrow’ and that tomorrow never came. About ten, fifteen days later I was feeling better and I asked Bakula Rinpoche to come to see me again and to give me another physical check up. I did not tell him that I had not done the practice, because I was a little embarrassed about that. And he said: ‘Your retreat has worked very well, so, now you don’t need it anymore.’ When I told him that I had not done it, he replied: ‘I know’. This was of course a little embarrassing, but it has happened. That’s why I keep saying that Bakula Rinpoche has some kind of clairvoyance. He showed that many times. A number of people have great respect for him, but also quite a number of people do not like him, because he is a politician. (It worked that way, and it will be made possible for the individual later) So whenever you put your thoughts to it: ‘I have to rise in a physical form’ – then: ‘Pop!’ the light comes up: ‘Zang!’ It is very similar to what these people do, who teach you to become positive. When you keep thinking: ‘positive, positive,’ it becomes positive. It’s very similar to that. Aura mentioned to me a couple of years ago, that vajrayana is such a positive practice – you keep thinking you are walking around as a buddha. That’s what it is. The moment you think: ‘I have to rise in a physical form’, then almost simultaneously: ‘Ping!’ you become blue light the size of the deity. Don’t think of your ordinary physical form, but think of the size of the deity, that you’re going to meditate on. It is sometimes said, that when you meditate on a deity, you may make it bigger than the World Trade Center. That also helps to develop heat better. But in the overall practice Tsongkhapa raises a lot of objections to that way of meditating – it harms the individual. It may help to reach a few individual points faster; but in general there are a lot of obstacles. That’s why it is recommended to visualize the extraordinary body a little bit bigger than your body. That blue light in reality is also inseparable joy-void together with your consciousness, which has become the nature of that light, a physical appearance. Now it becomes easy. You visualize that blue light as a beam of blue light. I don’t think anybody will have a problem to visualize a beam of blue light, do you? If you do, ‘Star Trek’ will show you, except that the color will be different, and the light will be solid rather than sparkling. If the solidity becomes too solid and it shakes your emptiness, then switch back to the sparkling effect. If that sparkling effect makes you feel you’re on shaky ground a little, and you’re afraid of loosing yourself, then switch back to a big, thick, solid sort of tube light. You do not have to visualize that fluorescent tube itself, but just the light, which looks solid, but your hand would go through if you touched it, still, you cannot say it is not there. It gives you the nature of emptiness, because you cannot touch it, you cannot hold it, but it is there, you cannot say it is not there. Recognize that as your sambogakaya. And also think that this sambogakaya is substituting for your bardo. What we are trying to do in vajrayana is transform ordinary death, bardo and rebirth into extraordinary death, bardo and rebirth. That is the object of our practice. Therefore it is important that the void is substituting death. It is the dharmakaya. The whole purpose of the dharmakaya is not to have ordinary death. If you do not like dying; if you like to live forever, this is the way to do it. But: do not hide behind the idea of reincarnation. That’s what happens in the west – people like reincarnation, because they think thanks to reincarnation, you don’t have to die and because of it you can live forever. What these people do is, they deny death a little bit and say they will come back, as if they were going to the toilet and coming back, or like they were going out shopping, or just looking around outside this particular life to see what’s going on out there, or just as if they were going there for a visit and then come back. That is how people use reincarnation to attach some of their little romantic ideas to it. If you really do

Preliminaries 77 not want to die, the dharmakaya substitutes ordinary death. In the long prayer of the Vajrayogini practice it says: jang zhi chi wa bar dho kye wa sum ku sum lam tu kyer wai me jung tap lam dre tok pa kye wai min che chok dak lhar kye pai nel jor thar chin shok May I complete the yoga of deity self-creation, Best developer of realization of path and goal, Wondrous art of transmuting the unpurified reality Of death, between, and birth into the Three Buddha-Bodies!

Jang means practice. If you are saying your mantras; to make them perfect is ‘ngai jang i ö – I am practicing or learning’. Practicing the language is ke jang i ö and learning the dharma is chö jang i ö. Here the word jang refers to the base on which you practice, kyewa, bardo, chiwa sum – death, bardo and birth. The individual is trained to transform these into dharmakaya, sambogakaya and nirmanakaya. The method of training consists of the development stage and completion stage. The verse continues to say that the yoga of generating oneself into the form of a deity trains the mind of the individual. Jang is also ‘to use’; so here you use that, you let it absorb. You completely exhaust ordinary death, bardo and rebirth until it is finished, until you do not have it anymore, until you have moved out of it and replaced it with dharmakaya, sambogakaya and nirmanakaya. So you do not die. That’s how it works. Naturally, the physical part of the individual does not remain. Still, one does not go through death but through dharmakaya. So it’s not ordinary death we are experiencing, it is dharmakaya. The transition from one body to another occurs through dharmakaya rather than through death. That is the reason why in your practice you acknowledge that, and why the moment you think about rising: ‘Zooom,’ the light beam pops up. You recognize that beam as your sambogakaya, which is the substitute for your bardo. And if you can think of the five qualities of the sambogakaya162 it would be good; but it might not be necessary here. 3. Nirmanakaya. Then you will remember: Okay, now I have a physical form, but it’s exclusive, only for aryas to see, not for the other people who do not have the perfect karma of encountering me – or the luck or the capability to do so. You become exclusive, not from your angle, but from the angle of the other individuals. The sambogakaya is only visible to those who have seen emptiness, the aryas, the beings on the path of seeing, and above. On the path of seeing you encounter emptiness directly. Certain traditions call that: face to face with your own mind, which is actually seeing the emptiness. So only those on the third path and above, can see the sambogakaya level. Nobody else can. So your consciousness reads: ‘Yes, I have a physical form, but it is exclusively for aryas. I had generated thoughts to do more than I am able to do now, in this state, because I want to help everybody.’ You have to take that sort of attitude. The moment you have that thought, this light starts to get bigger and takes on a physical form: a head pops up, hands and the legs pop out, and you become a full Yamantaka with one face, two hands and two legs, (not the complete version with thirty four arms and sixteen legs). You have a buffalo head with horns. All this suddenly appears, just like: ‘Whoop!’ Nowadays with the help of computers it becomes easy to visualize this type of thing, because you have seen it. Again, if you trace it back, it is the nature of that joy-and-void-inseparable, called bliss-void, and that nature has taken on a physical form with hands and legs and head and so forth. That is your nirmanakaya. That is what reincarnation is – nirmanakaya. The word they use for the incarnate lamas, tul ku, really means nirmanakaya, while lung ku is sambogakaya and cho ku is dharmakaya. That is the actual cho ku, lung ku and tul ku within your own con-

162

See page 255.

78 Yamantaka teachings sciousness, within your own body. In the Nyingma tradition they say: Cho ku Kuntu Sangpo – Lung ku Ngawang Taye – Tul ku Padma Jungne163. This saying is generally making the external points; and when you practice individually, this is how you do it. So you recognize that Yamantaka as your nirmanakaya. Now, generally, when you arise in the deity-form, there are certain rules to follow, otherwise the rituals you do, will become improper. Vajrayana has certain ways and means taught by Buddha Vajradhara. It has a lot of restrictive, rules to follow, which may be a little conservative. The physical appearance of Yamantaka What does he look like in detail? That particular body doesn’t have any flesh and blood and it has a clear, clean light nature. Its nature is inseparable from bliss-void and the physical appearance is Yamantaka. This particular Yamantaka with one face and two hands is standing on an eight-petalled lotus. The four directional petals of this lotus are red, the south-eastern and the north-western petals are yellow, the south-western one is green and the north-eastern one is black. The center of the lotus is green and the stamen at the center again are yellow. Wherever you face, that is called east, (though you may physically face south). Sometimes when you start, you have to think you are facing south – however the principal yidam of the mandala always faces the eastern gate. The directions again arise dependently. Because of the east there is west, and because of the west there is east. So you can switch things around and call whatever direction you want ‘east’. You are also supposed to remember emptiness constantly. That’s why at every point you’ll be reminded of that viewpoint. The view is the way you observe and perceive things. That’s your view of existence, your way of perceiving existence. That is called tawa, ‘view’, which is equivalent to emptiness. It is called ‘view’ in order to emphasize just how you observe – what counts for you, and what counts for me? The way I observe, represents my viewpoint, it makes a difference to me. Remembering that becomes important. At the center of this particular lotus, there is a sun disc. It is equal in size to the center of the lotus and is a red, sort of ruby-colored glass chapatti164. It’s a sun disc, but think of it as a little thicker. It is lightnatured and there should also be heat. In the traditional teachings they always give you the example of the mandala from the mandala offering, put upside down. Above that you are standing, with the right leg slightly bent and the left one stretched out. From the heel of one foot to the heel of the other, there is a distance of five handspans proportional to the particular deity-size you have. How big is the full Yamantaka? That depends on your mind, and it depends on you, on whatever you want to. However, it is practical and easiest if you visualize him slightly bigger than your own body-size. That carries good omens. But in case if you have an encounter with a ghost or something like that, you have to have the Yamantaka as huge as possible, probably as big or bigger than mount Meru and maybe bigger than the whole universe. Then sort of everything is under control. The color of Yamantaka is dark-blue, and the face is very, very angry, a very angry fearful buffalo-face. It is not the American buffalo, which has a small head, but the real old Indian buffalo with a huge face. The horns are sharp and huge. All three of his eyes are huge and round, and blood-shot. All the veins in the eyes are completely blood red and the eye-balls shine like round ‘sun balls’. Between the eye-brows and nose there are wrinkles that go up, because when you get angry, you contract those facial muscles. They are known as the mark of the wrathful deities. It indicates anger. Yamantaka’s hair, as well as his eye-brows and lashes are all of the same color – blond, reddish-yellowish. 163

Cho ku Kuntu Sangpo means the dharmakaya is the ‘Always Good’; Tul ku Padma Jungne means the nirmanakaya is Padmasambhava. 164 Flat round bread.

Preliminaries 79 The eyebrows and the mustache and all other hairs are standing up and fire burns from them. It is the sign of wrath, a strong fire, like the fire that will destroy the universe at the end of time, burns from the eyebrows and from all other hairs. The two nostrils are like copper pipes heated in the fire. The air passing through is black and smoky. Make it as wrathful as possible. Since the outer, inner or secret evil is so powerful, Yamantaka, who is their direct opponent, has to be even more wrathful. That’s why we go the extreme of having red copper pipe burning nostrils with dark, smoky air going in and out. The mouth is wide open, the upper jaw being like the sky and the lower one like the ground. Blood is continuously dripping from his mouth. You have to think that it’s the blood of ignorance, of the inner evils, which are chewed by Yamantaka. He has four fearful fangs and his long, effective tongue is moving faster than lightning. This is difficult to visualize, you won’t get it, but when we talk in detail, that is how it works. So, it really becomes extremely wrathful. His two blue horns are very, very sharp. The ends of the horns turn into fire, they become flames, continuously burning. It is not like gas flames, but more like laser beams. The tips of the horns become thin laser-beam lights. The palms of the hands and the soles of the feet are red with fresh blood. His long finger-nails are hook-shaped. They are long and sharp like a cats’ claws. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche strongly suggests that you visualize them here in such a way that each of these hooks is capable of taking one hundred thousand evils at once. His body is huge, solid and round and also the hands and legs are big and solid. All his hairs and pores are emitting fire sparks, like when you are very dry and touch something, you get electrical fire sparks. His right hand is holding a chopper. That is the hand implement you, as Yamantaka, carry at the heart-level. It is a hooked chopper, so that you can pull out things and cut them. The left hand holds a skullcup filled with blood. Yamantaka’s six ornaments165 This Yamantaka has six bone ornaments, and in addition to that the bone belt, five dry skulls on the head, and also a mala of fifty fresh-human-heads stringed together. The head ornament is an eight-spoked chakra, put flat on the head. In the center of the chakra is a jewel. On top of that jewel, stands a five-spoked half-vajra, which represents the wishfulfilling jewel. From the eight spokes, three come out right in the front, two go on top of the ears, and three go at the back. When you have eight spokes, there will be eight spaces in between, and from these ‘empty’ spaces, eight pendent bone malas hang. Yamantaka wears a diadem of five skulls. Do not think of them as small ornaments, but think of real skulls with big holes where the eyes used to be – very fearful. These five skulls represent the five Dhyani buddhas. In the center you have Akshobhya, on his right side Vairochana, on his left Amithaba, at the outer right side Ratnasambhava and at the outer left Amoghasiddhi. From each of them, bone ornaments come down. There are half malas in between the five skull-heads. So it is a fully decorated bone head-dress, with five skulls. I do not expect you to visualize all that in detail. The ear ornament. These ear-rings are six-spoked wheels, which have small long malas coming out. The necklace. In the front it has sixteen spokes, at the back six spokes – so it is not only decorating the front but the back as well – and on the shoulders six spokes each. These chakras are interlinked by malas, it is almost a jacket. So it is a big necklace. You should visualize each of the mala beads as shining white abalone [tib. nya chi]. The bracelets are around various parts of the arms and legs, so also anklets. They all fall under the same category. If you want to make it more elaborate, you can put one of them on each knee as well.

165

For the relation between the bone ornaments and the six paramitas, see Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Guide to Dakiniland, pg. 121122.

80 Yamantaka teachings The fifth ornament, called saraka, is at the heart-level, both front and back an eight-spoked wheel, linked up by malas going together on each side, so there are a lot of malas going round.166 The sixth ornament, thalchen, is the great dust. If you go to India, you find Indian saddhus throwing the ash from fires onto their bodies. But here in Yamantaka’s case it is the ash of the human body after cremation that is smeared on the body on various points. The points are mentioned separately, they are almost the same as the accupressure points. For females the bone costume is the same, except the females do not put the ash on the body. That is the only difference. In the Vajrayogini practice or even in the Vajrasattva practice you read: the father has six bone ornaments and the mother has five. I do not know why, maybe it is just an old custom, or maybe the female tries to be less wrathful. There may be a little more than that, I think the human ash represents the white semen. The females don’t need that. That must be the main reason.167 Then there is something else: if you see something called a ‘bone costume’, don’t get fooled. These days, you can buy bone costumes from India and Nepal, made by Tibetans as well as by Nepalese. These are not correct. They cut just any bone they can get, and make something that goes round your body. Then they call it a bone costume and they sell it. Actual bone costumes are made according to a lot of rules. I am wondering what’s happening to all these Tibetan things, art, drawings, paintings, music? [Counterfeiting] is happening quite a lot now in the west, but nobody comments, not even the art critics. I’m beginning to wonder why. Probably they don’t know it, and when you don’t know it, you better keep your mouth shut. I thought I better mention it. From the body, instead of the aura, you now have the wisdom fire burning. If you look from a distance you will see nothing but a huge fire. All this is faultless and pure and it is the actual result, buddhahood, of the Baghawan Yamantaka. I think with that we have covered the instantaneous rise in quite some detail. Now you have the visualization. Visualizing oneself as the deity When you say that you turn from the sambogakaya into the nirmanakaya, what can you visualize? You can visualize all the details of the Yamantaka form with one face and two hands, horns, right leg bent, left leg stretched out, with hand implements and bone ornaments, whatever you’re able to visualize, as a whole picture. For some it is easy to visualize something in front of them, but to visualize yourself is difficult. What you can do is build up everything in front of you and then bring it to you, and do that repeatedly. If you keep doing that, after some time you’ll be able to do this visualization. Also, when you start doing bigger visualizations, you may lose the general picture when you start focusing on the face. You may have a little more of the buffalo-looking face, but you will probably forget all the other ornaments and so forth. That is not unusual, and it’s not a problem. It is almost like these pictures, which come closer and then go back into the distance – you can always zoom in and out and try to adjust that way. But don’t keep zooming in and out all the time, because you’ll waste a lot of time that way. Only if you want to get your focus clear, then that’s what you do. For example, you want to focus on the third eye; so you zoom in and have a look at it. Look at the pupil, look at the double lines on the eye, and then at the white of the eye and at the inside where all the nerves and veins pass through, etc. That is how you do it. Actually, this is not really the point here. It will come a little later, when you practice concentration. For that purpose you can focus on the third eye, whether it is Yamantaka’s or Vajrayogini’s or Avalokitesvara’s. In Avalokitesvara the wrathfulness is not there, but otherwise it’s the same thing. You can focus on the third eye, or on the tip of the horns. When you look at the pictures at the tip of the horns you will see a little flame going up and up – the artist has to draw it that way. In your visualization the horns become very sharp and thin, and then they themselves become laser beam fires. Later on you 166

Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I. pg. 14: ‘He is adorned by this brahminstring’. 167 Besides these six, Yamantaka also wears a waste-ornament: a girdle or apron with vajras and bone strands.

Preliminaries 81 can concentrate on the Manjushri on the head. That’s how you spend more time on concentration, zhine, in combination with vajrayana practice. Then these are the recommended objects to concentrate on. So whenever you say the ritual, spend some time on it, and make the picture a little better. But if you can’t get it right, it’s enough to have some kind of a blue body with a head and hands – whatever picture you can get – and focus on that. If even that is not feasible, if you can only get a blueish body with some whitish abalone shining on it, that’s okay. That’s the beginning of the visualization of yourself as a deity. Try to get it exactly at the point where you’re sitting. So don’t see yourself as a skinny little person or as a big fat one or whatever you look like, but try to see a big blue fellow, with a little white shine on his body instead – that’s enough. Then recognize that, and acknowledge: ‘This is my result nirmanakaya’, or: ‘This is Yamantaka’. If you can’t even manage to do that, then in that worst of worst cases you think: ‘Whatever the teaching tradition has prescribed for that particular point, I have it all with me’. That substitutes. That is the easiest way of doing it. If you do not have the back-up of all these thoughts we just explained, and if you just say the words, it will help you to keep your commitment all right, but it won’t contribute much to your mental development. In order to have mental development, you need some thoughts to back up whatever words you’re saying. When I say ‘some thoughts’, here it refers more to the visualizing, or the imagining, rather than to the sitting and focusing. So talking about Yamantaka, about how he looks, about how big he is, and how big the gap between the two legs is, talking about his big loose stomach and his thick solid body – following that with thoughts becomes analytical meditation. Applying what we’ve mentioned, and building up the image within you, after a little while, you’ll see it becomes complete. When it is complete, you just hold it; that is called concentrated meditation. Concentrated and analytic meditation should alternate. This is the three-kaya practice, the major practice of the sadhana. That is how you meditate when you say the words: ‘Instantaneously I arise as Yamantaka with one face and two hands holding skullcup and chopper’. The Thirteen deities Yamantaka, has a consort with him. Then we’d have to talk about what she looks like and in what way they hug; but since this is the Solitary Hero, we don’t have to talk about that. If you look at the outlines, we have covered the second item of the preliminaries – instant generation. Don’t lose the outlines, because the whole sadhana is organized according to those.

Consecration of Vajra and Bell Bell and vajra are very important: 1) They are the hand implements of the yidam. 2)They represent wisdom and method. 3) They both have an image on it, so have to be treated as a buddha image. Therefore bells and vajras are not to be put under chairs, and you shouldn’t sit on them. If you do, you’ll get a downfall just as if you would sit on a buddha image, or if you would jump over dharma books. Also you shouldn’t put them on the bare floor, or on a bare table. They must have a seat. Placing of vajra and bell. The bell has a face – this face has to face you. At the right side of the bell, (from your angle at its left) you put the vajra. And at the bell’s left side you keep the damaru.168 When you take them, you do it with crossed hands, so you get the bell in your left and the vajra in your right hand. When you put it back, again you do it with crossed hands. If I talk about the reasons behind that, it will take a long time. There is no reason to cross hands for the damaru, so you pick it up straightforward. At the right side of the vajra, (again: your left) you keep the inner offering. These are the rules, but sometimes you cannot keep them properly because of the limited room you have on the tray that you use. Actually, in the Tibetan tradition, we keep a very nice silver tray where everything just fits on exactly. The rice pot or flower pot from which during a ceremony rice or flowers will be thrown, will automatically go to the other side, because of the proportional looks. And if you have vases, you keep them behind that, or if you have a long tray, you can keep them in the line, too. 168

For a drawing see Chapter XII Appendices.

82 Yamantaka teachings From the beginning to the end169, you keep the bell and vajra in the hands. Bell and vajra have to remind you of great bliss and emptiness, that is why. When you do not have the actual words in the normal sadhana, then still you have to think here that the vajra represents the method and the bell wisdom, emptiness. Both are inseparable. In other words relative and absolute are inseparable.

Symbolism of vajra and bell It is important to know a little bit about what the vajra and bell symbolize and why they are important. Generally we distinguish the inner bell and vajra from the outer one. The inner bell and vajra are within the mind of the individual practitioner. The outer vajra and bell are symbolic for that. Bell and vajra indicate two things: 1) The external message: ‘I, the individual practitioner, have the development which the vajra and bell represent within me’. 2) For yourself, you are reminded of what vajra and bell represent. So holding the outer symbol gives a message of what you have within you. Outer vajra and bell When you are blessing the bell and vajra, you are blessing the external bell and vajra, the pieces of metal you handle. Sometimes you read in the textbooks: the real bell and vajra, or the inner bell and vajra, (in Tibetan: nang ki dorje or tson gyi don kyi dorje or ne don kyi dorje) are synonymous. Ne don kyi dorje is the ultimate vajra, tson gyi don kyi dorje is the actual inner vajra. Then you have exemplary bell and vajra or outer bell and vajra – again they are synonymous. The vajra. Let’s talk about the external vajra a little bit. There are single-spoked vajras, three-spoked, five-spoked, nine-spoked and crossed vajras. In the tantra itself, I think in the Dakinis tantra, it is said: ‘pe gu ze mu tji ba tan: nine-spoked, one-spoked, five-spoked, three-spoked etc. up to thousand-spoked vajras are available’. When you look at a vajra, you see these little spokes around; without these, so just one little stick, it’s called a single-spoked vajra. These days we don’t really see that at all. The three-spoked one is what you see in drawings – one spoke in the center, one on the right and one on the left. These are also known as ornamental vajras. Then what we normally see, is what in colloquial language is called: a five-spoked vajra – a central spoke with four spokes around. When you read in the texts about fivespoked vajras, it refers to those half vajras. (When there is a five-spoked vajra on the head ornament, it means the other half is not there.) In vajrayana, we call that same vajra a nine-spoked vajra, because it has four spokes on the top half and four on the bottom half plus the central one. Some people may say there are vajras which have nine spokes on top, nine under, plus the central one – a nineteen-spoked vajra. There are peaceful vajras and there are wrathful ones. The vajras with the spokes joined together at the top are peaceful vajras. Vajras with the spokes not joined, pointing outwards, are known as wrathful vajras, trowe dorje.170 This will probably do, to give you a basic idea. The crossed vajra is totally different. The spokes represent the same, but they are crossed, and put in the center is the yin-yang sign, indicating the union of male and female; but symbolically there is much more in that. Symbolism of the vajra. The center of the vajra – where you hold it – represents Vajrasattva. The upper five spokes represent the five buddhas. Around the vajra near the center there are eight lotus petals. They represent the eightfold path, which appears in the Thirty-seven wings of enlightenment. In sutrayana we talk about different minds; in vajrayana these minds appear as the eight close bodhisattvas: Manjushri, Vajrapani, Avalokitesvara, Ksitigarbha, the ‘Essence of Earth’, Akashagarbha, the ‘Essence

169 170

You are supposed to keep them the whole way, but of course you cannot – it’s a situation calling for common sense. For a drawing see chapter XII, Appendices. For some examples of different vajras see G.W. Essen, Die Götter des Himalaya, vol. 1, pg. 163 and vol. II, pg. 232-233.

Preliminaries 83 of Space’, Maitreya, Samantabhadra and Sarvanivarana-viskambini171. In the sutra mahayana they are called: the eight close children of Buddha. In vajrayana terms they are the transformed eightfold path, functioning when you become an official buddha. When you are functioning in the world as an official Buddha, like Shakyamuni Buddha, you have those eight bodhisattvas with you, and those eight are represented by those eight petals on the vajra. That is important. It’s the reason why it’s always said: do not jump over the vajra and the bell, and do not put them on the bare floor – they are representing the mind state of the enlightened beings. In the Sambuddha tantra they tell you exactly what those spokes and petals represent. When you put the vajra up the other way, the other side spokes are the five groups of dakinis [or the five consorts of the five buddhas]. The eight lotus petals of the lower half are the four door-dakinis and the four waking-up dakinis. The door-dakinis stand near the doors of the body (like the mouth and the anus, etc.) When you talk about the sixty-two deities within your body172, you have all of them. It is interesting – after Allen Ginsberg gave this benefit concert in Tibet House in New York, the next day we had a dinner with a few Tibetans. Samdhong Rinpoche and I were there and people came and said: ‘We all know it is common that in our religion you put deities at the head, throat and heart; but at the mouth and anus and places like that, is that really part of Buddhism?’ and the funny thing is both Samdhong Rinpoche and I opened our mouth together and said: ‘Yes, of course!’ The bell. There is the Vajrasattva bell, the Hero- and Heroines bell, and the Tathagatha or Buddha bell. A bell with vajras between two decorations is called Vajrasattva bell. There are those with five spokes and those with nine spokes. Now, the ones that are made in India are not necessarily correct; they sometimes make decorations just for commercial purposes. The old ones that don’t have any decorations at all and are completely smooth, are called Hero- and Heroines bells. This bell here has the Akshobhya face. Sometimes bells have the Vairochana face and instead of vajras they have chakras round – they are known as Vairochana bells. I’ve seen some of them even among the Indian commercial ones. Some of them have jewels, then you will recognize the face as Ratnasambhava and it is a Ratnasambhava bell. If you go really into detail, then wherever the flower falls during the initiation, that deity’s bell you pick up as your usual hand implement. This means there is a Tathagatha bell, for every one of the five Buddhas and their systems. To keep your commitment of vajra and bell, the five-spoked one is recommended. But the wisdom bell, or inner bell, is recommended to have nine, though you don’t need to have one physically. There is a big book on this by Tsongkhapa, Neljor Rolpai Ganden, and I think it either is ready, or it is in the process of being translated as Joy of a yogi or something. Symbolism of the bell. The Sambuddha tantra says the five spokes are the five dakinis. And the Tantra of the Vajradakini says: the open, empty space inside the bell indicates the three spaces. The bell has three portions you can recognize: 1) the spokes representing the dakinis, 2) a buddha face with a five dhyana buddhas crown, representing the five buddhas, and 3) the lower part, the bell itself. These three parts represent the three realms of existence: the realm on, the one under and the realm above the earth. That’s what the Hindu-Buddhist mythology tells you and the open empty space within the bell symbolizes that all the three realms are in the nature of emptiness. The clapper inside the bell represents the method, the simultaneously born great joy. The clapper striking the empty bell represents the fact that through that joy one sees the emptiness, and through the emptiness one gets a better understanding of what the great bliss is. Another symbolism is that the vajra represents Vajrasattva and the bell his consort. Here we are not talking about the Vajrasattva of the Vajrasattva purification, but Buddha Vajradhara referred to as Vajrasattva, as you will repeatedly find in the vajrayana texts, for example in the six-session yoga. The 171

The eight bodhisattvas are evoked in the dedication chapter of Shantideva’s Bodhisattvacaryavatara. See Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Meaningful to behold, pg. 361-62. 172 This refers to the Heruka body mandala.

84 Yamantaka teachings consort of Buddha Vajradhara is Dorje Yingchukma. When you move the vajra and bell in the hugging mudra173, it represents the seven kisses174 of the enlightened state. The sambogakaya is called enjoyment body. What do you enjoy? Being constantly within the taste of the seven kisses. The sound of the bell represents the fact that the sambogakaya continuously gives the teachings of the vajrayana. Inner vajra and bell What are the inner bell and vajra? In vajrayana you talk about method and wisdom. When we mention ‘method’ in the Lam Rim, we talk about bodhimind and related subjects; in vajrayana, ‘method’ refers to great bliss. Considering wisdom we don’t make such a distinction. It is emptiness-wisdom. With regard to that, nor vajrayana, nor sutra mahayana, nor even hinayana, make much difference. The intensity is different, but otherwise it is the same. The internal wisdom is represented by the bell, [is the inner bell], and the bliss within you, of whatever intensity it may be, is the inner vajra. You may really have a joyful nature, or a little bit of a comfortable nature within you, or you may only have a visualized, imaginary joy within you, or you may even have terrible confusion and miserable pain within you, whatever you may have – the confused, miserable pain will gradually change into a little more comfort through understanding. That comfort may develop into some joy and that may intensify and ultimately become bliss. The feelings and emotions we experience will gradually change and ultimately become bliss. The physical, sexual bliss is the example used for this. It is the only example we know at the moment, which we label as ‘a good time’ or ‘a joyful period’ or as a time to relax, or whatever you may call it – in reality the ultimate bliss is more than sexual bliss. Bliss is the inner vajra. Vajrayana methods are different from sutrayana methods. Concerning emotions we normally say that hinayana restricts them; mahayana makes some use of them; and vajrayana transforms them. We talk about that and as you know, it is not easy. Intensive emotions sometimes might not be bad. In normal life you may consider emotional persons a little too intense – that’s what people say – for vajrayana practitioners it might not be that bad. It is more difficult to handle, but not necessarily that bad. Secret or sacred vajra and bell Now we’ll talk about the internal physical symbolism. The method through which you can bring the bliss-void within the individual, also lies within the individual being. In other words, this will tell you how the individual practitioner can generate the bliss-void state within him- or herself. The vajra here represents you yourself, as well as your own secret vajra. The bell represents the consort and the consort’s... you figure it out. The center of the vajra – where you hold your fingers – represents the lower end of the central channel. This is where the four spokes from the top and the four spokes from the bottom join. These eight points represent the secret chakra, which has eight spokes. The clapper inside the bell is called ‘nose peak of the dakinis’, which does not refer to our ordinary nose. When – in the self-initiation sadhana – you bless the bell you are supposed to say: OM VAJRA GANTHA HUNG and ring to the eight directions. The eight directions represent the secret eight-spoked chakra of the consort. Then you bless the vajra: you say the ritual and show the vajra to the eight directions. Raising the vajra to the eight directions and ringing the bell to the eight directions, represents the male and female secret chakras respectively. In addition to that, it represents the male yogi’s sexual organ opening, and the dakinis’ eight corners of the sexual chakra, centralized by the dakini’s ‘nose tip’, which we have mentioned earlier. Talking of sexual union, the most important point is not the point where physically the sexual organs touch. The most important point is the center of the secret joy chakra, through which the individual functions, through which the energy functions. It’s the point where the two central channels join. What happens is that the air or energy, (not the dripping semen) which travels through the secret channel of the two individuals, joins – this is really one of the most secret parts of the vajrayana – at the secret point in the central channel, where the two energies in the form of air sort of push through within the 173 174

For a drawing see Chapter XII Appendices. See note 146.

Preliminaries 85 consort and the deity. You have to say consort and deity here; if you do not, you get a downfall! Whenever you have sexual union of this category, you should always have these three things in mind: lu la lha yi du she nga la nga gyi du she yi la cho gyi du she

your body is in the deity’s form your sounds are mantra your mind is recognizing emptiness

These are the major points. Within the intensity of the sexual union, the energy in the form of air pushes through, back and forth. The female energy enters the male and the male energy enters the female. The air is exchanged, pushes through and burns the psychic heat. Then the drops melt, and everything is joined at that level. That is the major point. Bell and vajra represent that. That’s how you look at the secret bell and vajra. Bell and vajra are not ordinary little metal objects, but are said to represent the mind of the Buddha. The stupas do the same thing, by the way, but this is not the place to talk about that. Both bell and vajra have a sun disc, which represents the burning of the psychic heat [tib. tummo], and a moon disc, which represents the white bodhicitta, or semen [tib. tigle], and also the melting of it. It’s very similar to other practices. Look at Heruka’s body – he always has a half-moon on the head and that represents: ‘I have the source of joy, the bodhimind’. Some of the saddhus and Sikh practitioners in India have a half-moon on their turban and whether they understand it or not they are telling: ‘I have a source of joy’. The really good bells and vajras also have a square with eight corners, representing the lung jung lung jungki gawa zhi – the semen melting from the crown. I think both males and females have a similar thing. When semen melts from the crown chakra to the throat chakra, to the heart chakra, to the navel chakra, to the secret chakra – that is the falling down part of it – the intensity of the joy is doubled for each level it drops to and then, instead of dripping out... The moment you lose that type of semen, no matter whether it is coming from the male or the female, it is contaminated. For it to remain uncontaminated you need to stop this from happening. By stopping it, you develop extraordinary joy, called uncontaminated joy. That is why they say that those who lose that, have nothing more to gain. They have blown it. If you don’t lose it there, you push it back to where it came from. It is called ‘the reverse four levels’ and they further intensify the joy, both on the mental and the physical level. That is what the square with the eight corners represents175. Symbolically, if you go into detail, it is tremendous. Anyway, we have to know a little bit about this. So there is an external, an internal and a secret level [of the symbolism and the functioning of bell and vajra]. Externally is what you see, internally is how it works. Internally it’s the mental development of the individual, the method part and the wisdom part. With ‘secret’ we refer to the physical points through which you open the internal wisdom and method level. This is not talking about ordinary sex, but about the combination of sexuality into the practice form. The point of the sexual joy rising within the individual is very much emphasized in the vajrayana texts, even long before the sexual revolution has come here. All these three different levels are represented through the bell and vajra. Now the common explanation: the vajra represents the inseparable bliss and joy of the Buddha’s mind, the bell represents the body and the sound of the bell represents the speech. So the body, mind and speech are represented by the bell and vajra. S<. The consecration of vajra and bell is not found in the Pabongka sadhana. This ritual is important during retreat. Here the three samayas are represented: the dorje as mind samaya, the bell as speech samaya, and oneself as Deity as body samaya. One pauses here to remember the special significance of the objects. The dorje is method and the bell is wisdom. Both are in absolute truth bodhisattva mind. According to the Gyume system, you pick up the dorje and bell at this point, saying: ‘the dorje is method, the bell is wisdom’, and then cross the dorje over the bell. Always be

175

Literature on these four joys: Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Clear light of bliss, ch. III.

86 Yamantaka teachings mindful of the inseparability of bliss and emptiness. According to the Gyuto system you do not pick the implements up here but at the mantra recitation. >S.

Then follow a lot of mudras. Very often, a/o. in the Vajrayogini you have this: OM YOGA SHUDDHO SARVA DHARMA YOGA SHUDDHO HAM and it’s something you have to do. It is not completely compulsory, but it’s done almost always .176

The way vajra and bell are blessed There are two ways of blessing them: a) Dissolving the bell and vajra into emptiness and then generating them. b) Blessing by remembering the meaning of them. In the detailed text177 it says: The vajra is liberative art and the bell is wisdom. Both have the nature of the ultimate spirit of enlightenment. When you say the words, you remember that the dorje represents the method; here the method is not just bodhimind. It is intensified bodhimind in the form of joy. And the bell is wisdom – from the gurudevotional practice level up to the enlightenment level, all of those levels of wisdom are represented by the bell. And vajra and bell together represent the ultimate bodhimind, which is bliss-void inseparable nature. One has to think about that. Whenever you see the bell, that is the message. Whenever you see the vajra, that is the message. Whenever you hold them, that’s what they are telling you, and whenever you hug somebody you are hugging within the framework of bliss and void together. That is the real close heart to heart hug – really! Then there is the mantra: OM SARVA TATHAGATHA SIDDHI VAJRA SAMAYA TISHTHA ESHTAM DHARAYAMI When you read the ritual, it is there. The Tibetan pronunciation of Sanskrit differs somewhat from the usual Sanskrit pronunciation. E.g. we don’t say ‘vajra’ but ‘benza’ and there are more examples. We say OM SARVA TATHAGATHA SIDDHI BENZA SAMAYA TETA EKATAM DARAYA ME, and the meaning is: ‘To achieve all Buddha’s achievements I will keep the commitment of the vajra’. The commitment of the vajra is all that we’ve mentioned. And then: VAJRASATTVA HI HI HI HI HI HUNG HUNG HUNG PHAT SOHA

This is the vajra mantra. These five HIs represent the five wisdoms and the three HUMs represent the body, mind and speech, inseparable from each other. The bell mantra is: OM VAJRA GHANTA HUNG. May Vajrasattva and company be pleased!

You have to think that the bell represents bliss-void. And you also have to develop joy. The joy of holding the vajra means: ‘I will clear the ignorance of all living beings’. That is the activity of dharma. ‘With joy I will hold this vajra’. To sum it up: basically this is how you bless bell and vajra, and this is what they represent. And we have the outer, the inner and the secret bell and vajra. Well, actually it is not secret, but sacred bell and vajra, because we are not talking about ordinary sex but about extraordinary things. S<. The actual dorje is the method to attain enlightenment. The absolute dorje is bliss. The actual bell represents wisdom from guruyoga to the actual attainment of enlightenment; the absolute bell is emptiness. Both are in the nature of the mind of a bodhisattva. In absolute truth they are in the nature of the mind of Buddha. Until the understanding of shunyata is attained, one can only have the relative truth mind of a bodhisattva. The first word of the mantra is OM. It is significant that the three letters OM AH HUNG, which represent vajra body, speech and 176

Gelek Rinpoche: Vajra Yogini teachings: ‘For this mantra there is a mudra, called chubai chakya. It is important to do this mudra. It is the hugging mudra and that is done by first doing the lotus mudra three times in front of your heart chakra and ending up with both forearms crossed in front of your chest’. [While holding vajra and bell]. 177 Yamantaka Ekavira, materials for retreat, pg. 99.

Preliminaries 87 mind, are all joined into one. The sounds HI HI HI HI HI represent the five different minds. Think: ‘I will hold this vajra and will not separate from the five minds of Buddha’. The drilbu or bell makes the sound of emptiness. It wakes up the mind from its state of ignorance. Think that you are making Dorje Sempa happy by holding the bell and waking up all beings from ignorance. Hold both, the vajra of bliss and the bell of emptiness, and fill up the space with the sound of emptiness. >S.

Consecration of the inner offering178 The material The offering is made to the supreme Field of Merit and is connected to the internal material of the body. That’s what you offer and that’s why it is called inner offering. The materials are connected with the inner being. You will know it when we come to it. But the material you read about here consists of the five meats and the five nectars or liquids. That’s the inner material that is connected to us. Why do you have this material? It is the most unwanted, most disgusting type of material that is connected with us and yet, we cannot get rid of it, at all. So we name them and use them, because for us they form the most important links to this samsaric existence. That’s why we try to transform them and then use them to make offerings. It’s a very helpful and very powerful practice. However, you cannot actually and literally use those materials. So as a base you use tea or alcohol. The earlier Tibetan lamas used chang, the Tibetan alcohol, but the monks and nuns who are restricted from using alcohol use black tea. And nectar pills are used. If you have a nectar pill you just throw it in the liquid you use and maintain it. As tea is very difficult to keep a long time, we recommend to use a good quality alcohol. For the inner offering I use a small bottle of whiskey and nectar pills of the Kadampa tradition. Using the right nectar pill Both Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and Kyabje Ling Rinpoche emphasized so much that you have to have a pure Kadampa tradition nectar pill. For Vajrayogini an authentic Sakya tradition nectar pill is not only allowed, but even recommended. Other nectar pills are not recommended for use, not because of a sectarian feeling, but for the simple reason that in some traditions some lamas started to literally use the five meats and five nectars in their nectar pills. This particular lineage of Pabongka and Ling Rinpoche insists that you can take blessing pills or anything from any of the Tibetan traditions, like Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu, but not any inner offering pills or nectar pills. They make an issue of this. What happened is, there were some great masters in the Nyingma tradition earlier, about two hundred years ago, who did make use of all these real ingredients. So, since then this particular tradition insists that this particular pill should not be used. There are several Kadampa nectar pills. The best nectar pill available is considered to be the one from the Panchen Lamas’ lineage, because during the First Panchen Lama in the 1700s we got a lot of nectar pills and each one of them actually came alive. They all got on fire and have been burning for a long time and when the fire had died down, the pills were still the same pills. This nectar pill is very famous and known as me bar ma – fire-burning nectar pills. They come from Tashi Lungpo, the Panchen Lamas’ monastery and they are the most recommended nectar pills in the Gelugpa tradition. The next recommended nectar pills stem from Pabongka’s life time. Pabongka went to Cimburi in South Tibet. There is a Heruka temple with a Heruka image which somehow landed in that very small place. This famous Heruka image is connected with the Indian mahapandita Nagpopa Kalapa. Kala is black. It is said to be the practice image of this siddha Nagpopa Mahakala. Nagpopa’s story. Nagpopa is very great. Actually Vajrayogini, Heruka’s consort, appeared three times to Nagpopa during his lifetime, to pick him up to the enlightenment level. And every time he missed the 178

Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I. pg. 15-19.

88 Yamantaka teachings opportunity because of his pride. Nagpopa was so proud, he normally wouldn’t walk. He used to walk with his feet a little above the ground in a very proud way. He had to be dressed up properly, and he almost acted like a Maharaja or like a Universal King. That was his style. Once Vajrayogini appeared as an old lady by a river. She was extremely sick with leprosy and almost everything was dripping out, and she said: ‘Please, help me to cross the river’. Nagpopa came with all his retinue and they all flew: ‘brrrrrrrrrr,’ across the river and the poor old lady was totally ignored. And now the last guy on the road was a novice monk. Every big important person went by, one after another, and he came and thought: ‘Oh, well, I must help this creature, whatever it may be’. He tried to pick her up, but he couldn’t do it. Then he took off his monks’ robe and took her on his back, and started to cross the river. In the middle of the river, she became Vajrayogini and he became Heruka and they flew in the air, and all Nagpopa had to say was: ‘Ohhhhh!’ That’s what happened the first time. The second time was during a tsok offering. Nagpopa was the vajra master, when a strange, hippie type of guy with a trident in his hand came and said to Nagpopa: ‘You, move! I should be the vajra master here!’ Nagpopa replied: ‘You? Vajra master means: he who has all the qualities and information, knowledge and development. A person like me is fit to be vajra master, not you’. And then this hippie guy said: ‘All right!, Good-bye’ and: ‘Zoooom!’ he went up in the air. It happened to be Heruka. Things like that. So the Heruka image in Cimburi, I’m not sure if it is still there, is supposed to have affected Nagpopa many times. Pabongka visited the site with a group of people and spent a night there. They made tsok offerings and during that tsok offering a tremendous amount of nectar came out of the mouth of that image. Pabongka caught it with his hands. It turned out to be the amount of one skullcup full, and on that basis he made nectar pills. And those are also recommended very strongly. We have only a very limited amount of nectar pills. I do not have spare nectar pills to give to everybody and some of you have some and some of you don’t. So what I have been doing is giving some drops from my little bottle, because there is a nectar pill in there. Those who don’t have anything yet, if you pick up a little sample bottle and give it to us, we will put a little drop in it. That will be the base of your inner offering. The usage of the inner offering is to clear obstacles, to make offerings, to purify yourself. There is a tremendous amount of use for the inner offering. It is very important and you have to make use of it all the time. For the inner offering you preferably use a skullcup, a kapala. It is recommended, but if you don’t have one, it doesn’t mean you are breaking any vows. The skullcup is not for exhibition, it’s just for hidden use. Real human skullcups have some usage, for a few wrathful activities, but otherwise not. Even if you only have a little bottle, it’s okay, it’s just a matter of how you visualize and meditate. We talk about skullcups, but except for a few places like big monasteries or tantric colleges, even in Tibet the skullcups are made out of silver, brass or copper, rather than using a real human skullcup. It is best to follow that, rather than to insist: ‘In the book it says you need a skullcup, so I must have a real one’. That’s not really that great an attitude. Not only it’s not great, it’s even not recommended, especially for initial practitioners like us. Therefore, to use bottles is okay. If you can afford it, you can buy a silver skullcup, but don’t buy these big, cheap Indian ones. They are getting worse and more expensive year by year. They are produced in Murdhabad or somewhere near Delhi; they’re really terribly ugly ones. They are heavy, they look yellow, the material has a little bit of brass mixed in, but it’s mostly zinc. You really don’t want that. In Nepal you get a better quality.

Clearing the obstacles Let’s say you have a skullcup in front of you. The liquid in there is your main inner offering material. You have to purify that material. The way you bless the inner offering is based on sang jang kye – cleared from the obstacles, dissolved into emptiness and then regenerated. By way of these three stages you generate the inner offering. OM HRIH SHTRIH VIKRITANANA HUNG PHAT.

Preliminaries 89 S<. While saying this mantra, remove the cap of the kapala. >S.

How do you purify? You are in the form of Yamantaka with one face and two hands, and you focus on the object in front of you. You purify it either from the HUNG in the heart of you as Yamantaka or from the activity mantra OM HRIH STRIH VIKRITA NANA HUNG PHAT, which appears in the form of a mantra mala at your heart-level. You don’t have to go into detail here. Just think there’s a mantra mala at your heart-level. If you do want to think in detail, there is a sun disc at your heart-level and in the center of it is the letter HUNG, surrounded by the OM HRIH STRIH VIKRITA NANA HUNG PHAT, (which is pronounced in Tibetan as OM SHRIH TRIH WUTITA NANA HUNG PE.) From there a wrathful deity chases away a number of obstacles. By obstacles here, we mean spirits179. When we’re talking about obstacles, it means there are a lot of spirits around. There are spirits who try to go anywhere where practitioners are practicing something. They like to go there as much as they can. The simple reason for that is that they are really running to try to gain benefit. Actually, they know better than we do, what they really need. But unfortunately they can’t do anything, because they are in a state of birth where they cannot help themselves much. They see the practice, that’s the reason why they come. So we keep driving them away, because we don’t want them to disturb us during our practice. There are a lot of those spirits in South-East Asia. It’s full of them, everywhere, no matter what you’re doing. Some of them are good, some are bad and some are harmless. They are there and you don’t bother much; that’s how best you treat them. Some are very wrathful and harmful. I normally try to avoid those harmful ghosts and try not to encounter them. But, I remember an incident. One day, when I was giving a teaching in Kalantan on the Malaysian East coast, a little girl was brought to me, a poor sweet little girl, about eleven years old [who was possessed by spirits]. I left her there somewhere until the talk was over and I didn’t bother much. But then: I could not run away either, so I had to deal with her case. Now that the talk was over, I told them to bring her into the room where I was staying, and as I didn’t want to make a public scene, I told everybody to go away and to leave her there. There were five or six people with her and I sent them out, but they didn’t want to go. One of them was the father, and he said: ‘You need at least two people’ and I asked him: ‘Why?’ He said: ‘You need two people to hold her, she is so strong! We took her to a big Rinpoche before. He told us to just let her go, and she went straight at him and slapped him in the face twice. So, we have to hold her’. I was a little scared too. I allowed one of them to stay and I also had Gelongla there. Anyway, she did not slap me at all, that was okay. There were so many ghosts there, one after another, terrible ones. They took out their tongues, and God knows what they did. They were very scared of me, and I was scared of them. They were really scared of me, and started running under a cloth and saying how scared they were. We had to chase them and pull them out of the girls’ feet and all that sort of thing. But gradually, one after the other went. At the end there was a very wealthy woman who had died there a number of years ago. She had been stabbed from the back and had become a ghost – a sad thing. And there was a monk whom she used to look after and help, and he had gotten angry and also became a ghost. The monk said he wanted revenge. I said to him: ‘You are wearing the Buddha’s robes, and now look at your condition! And what are you talking about revenge?’ and he said: ‘We need merit’. Then I said: ‘Okay, I will do a Avalokiteshvara fire puja and dedicate the merit to you and all the retinues of ghosts around. So now leave the woman alone and think of dying now and taking rebirth’. We made a deal that way and it finally went right, it was okay. So those ghosts that come in a trance, are seeking merit all the time, except a few who are good and who come with the purpose to help. Most of them come for merit. That’s why there are millions of spirits around. They are there all the time, and when you are a little bit down, it makes it easy for them to get into you and somehow gain benefit. When you are high, it makes it difficult for them to do that. They are afraid of human beings. We are afraid of ghosts, but they are also afraid of us. That’s how it is.

179

Also see page 99.

90 Yamantaka teachings This obstacle clearing is done repeatedly, it is important. And particularly if there are spirits around when you make the offering, the offering is not pure. That’s why the wrathful deity comes out of your heart as Yamantaka and drives away all the spirits that are there. S<. To scare away evil spirits, visualize oneself as Dorje Jigje with a crossed vajra180 at the heart marked by HUNG surrounded by a blue mantra mala. From the HUNG a number of Opponents of Yama emanate forth and chase all unwanted hindrances far, far away. Whatever emanates from the heart, must be collected back again. This is especially important at the dzok rim level but it is important to practice it during the kye rim. >S.

It is the good old Tibetan system to drive them behind the ocean – so now they have all come to this side of the ocean! [America]. That’s why there are a lot of emotions here. And now we start to drive them back the other way, the poor chaps, get sent back and forth. So the way you drive them out is either to have millions of wrathful deities chasing them away to the other side of the ocean – do not leave them in Europe! – or one single, fearful, wrathful deity who jumps from your heart and looks at these objects and all those spirits get scared and you can chase them away, like one blue jay chases away lots of sparrows. At the same time you say the activity mantra of Yamantaka, because this is the activity: purifying and clearing. Here you do not sprinkle any inner offering. Here the inner offering is not yet blessed, so there is nothing to sprinkle. It’s only mental imagination. So you do not throw it at every OM AH HUNG or every OM HRIH SHTRI.... So, you close your eyes and remind yourself that you are in the Yamantaka form and at the center of your heart-level – whether you have the mantra mala there or not – there is the HUNG. And lots of wrathful deities go out from your heart and chase all the spirits away completely from the inner offering, millions of miles away, (away from this universe anyway), with the activity mantra. Then, whatever the number of wrathful deities you have created to come from your heart, they all come back and dissolve to you. At the same time, while you say the mantra, the closed skullcup in front of you has to be opened.

Purification in terms of emptiness OM SVABHAVA SHUDDHAH SARVADHARMA SVABHAVA SHUDDHO HAM . The syllable OM consists of the letters A U M combined, which represent – as you know by now – body, speech and mind. It is not commonly taught that OM is made up of three letters, so some people may wonder about that. I have a tantra quote from the tantra Vajra Peak, [tib. gyu dorje tsemo], according to which the Sanskrit letters are transformed into different languages. According to that system the letter OM has A-U-M and that represents the body, speech and mind of all the enlightened beings. Not only that, their body, mind and speech also become inseparable, because A U M become one word and one sound: OM. If while saying OM you think of the inseparable body, speech and mind of all the enlightened beings, it creates an enormous amount of benefit. SVABHAVA – maybe I should give this explanation a little bit later. At the moment you can think, that while you’re saying the mantra, now the inner offering and all the phenomena are in the nature of emptiness. If you have an understanding of emptiness, you have to meditate on the emptiness of the inner offering. If you do not have any understanding of emptiness you may just think that all phenomena have no inherent existence, and that particularly this inner offering is in the nature of emptiness. And you think that the skullcup, and all the materials inside dissolve into emptiness. You can just think that they’ve totally disappeared, melted into the light nature and become empty. You have to think that, otherwise it won’t work. Not only do you recognize with your mind that all these things are empty, but this recognizing mind itself is also empty, void – it is openness. You also OM

180

Sun? See also 1 or 2 pages back.

Preliminaries 91 acknowledge that as joy, and you may think this is part of the result bliss-void. Bliss-void is one thing, but it is result bliss-void; result here meaning the mind with which you focus, and the things that appear around you when you become fully enlightened. So, there are four qualities. Not only 1) you dissolve all that into emptiness and acknowledge that as emptiness and 2) be aware of the fact that the acknowledging mind is also in the nature of emptiness and 3) that this is also full of joy, but further 4) you recognize that as the result mind, the mind when I become fully enlightened. This is the bliss-void inseparable nature of mind, very similar to the dharmakaya type of style181, but not really a dharmakaya. That’s how you acknowledge the bliss-void inseparable nature of mind when you say the OM SVABHAVA mantra, and that is what you visualize there. When you are alone you may say it very slowly and keep on thinking. You can even stop there and visualize it completely, but if you are saying it in a group, you can’t stop. You cannot hold up the group and say: ‘Hey, wait, I am not finished’. Also during group practice, it’s not necessary when you have missed a portion, to go back individually and repeat that for yourself while the others continue. It is even recommended not to do it. The group will cover that, it is part of the sangha discipline. So if you have missed a certain portion, the sangha has done it better than you, so that helps. In the Tantric college, if a monk was a little bit late, (although one is not allowed to be late), and he would start to catch up on the recitation by himself, he would probably be dismissed – kicked out straightway. So, if you are alone, you can visualize that way and take all the time you want to, unless you have dead-lines, which we….no, which you all do – I refuse to take dead-lines. When you get used to it, you can say it and think quite fast, and after a while when your mind is trained, it will go like a snap of the fingers. Remember, I told you there were lamas who could meditate the whole Lam Rim while they were putting their feet into the stirrup and then before riding away, they had finished. When the mind is trained, you can do that. When the mind is not trained, you can’t. All is empty. In front of you everything is empty. That can feel quite funny. You have a table in front of you with the inner offering, the table is gone....

Generation of the inner offering Within the sphere of emptiness appears YAM, and, from that, a blue bow-shaped mandala of air marked by banners. From that void suddenly the letter YAM appears. All these Sanskrit letters, instead of thinking: ‘Y A M’, you think: ‘Y’ and inside of that you have the ‘A’, because ‘A’ is the life of anything, without ‘A’ you can’t make a sound, you can’t say ‘YA’ without an ‘A’, you cannot just say ‘Y’. If you then just put a zero on top of that ‘YA’ it becomes ‘YAM’, in Tibetan and Sanskrit, both. You have to visualize that as quite big, and not flat, like it’s drawn on a piece of paper, but living. It is so important to think of all the mantras as living mantras, rather than to think of flat drawn letters. That YAM now transforms into a big air mandala, in front of you. Its color is blue. It is bow-shaped, a big bow facing you with the cut, like a chapatti182 cut in the middle and that cut facing you. You have to visualize it big enough. Even when you are imagining you have to follow rules; if you don’t follow the rules, it won’t work. At the corners of the bow, inside where the bow gets thinner, you have two vases, each of them having a triple banner in it. The banner is also not a straight banner just hanging, we are dealing with air, so the banner is moving in the air. On the banners there are three mythological animals183. One was born out of the fish and the fish eater joined together, one was born out of the conch shell and the sea lion joined together, and 181

Also see the four qualities of dharmakaya on page 184. A round flat bread, like Tibetan bread. 183 Literature: Dagyab Rinpoche, Buddhistische Glücksymbole im Tibetischen Kulturraum, pg. 149-151. In English: Buddhist symbols in Tibetan culture. 182

92 Yamantaka teachings one was born out of the snow lion and the garuda, with the head of one and the tail of the other. These last two animals first couldn’t get together but in the end became friends. Then they gave birth to a child animal. These are the mythological symbols for things that can’t get along. There are a lot of mythological stories behind that. When they are used as a mark on a banner, it thereby becomes a victory banner [tib. gyeltsen], victory over hatred, over anger, over jealousy, etc. Like those two creatures who couldn’t get together at first, but in the end they did, and they even had a kid together – that is the sign of victory. Only when that mark is put on a banner, it is called a victory banner; without that it’s just a banner. Here we don’t need those mythological animals, so these banners we visualize are plain banners [tib. palden]184. They are probably blue, because of the color of the air. S<. The creation of the kapala and its contents are considered to be shunyata practice in the form of result because they are created out of emptiness. First create the syllable YAM, dark-blue or black in color. This transforms into a blue, bow-shaped air mandala, the nature of bliss-emptiness. The straight side faces us. Chandrakirti says that normally one does not accept the idea of resultant shunyata practice. Although all things are emptiness, from emptiness they can grow again, so this concept can be accepted although it would not be adopted in the dialectical system. At the corners of the air mandala are two vases holding the poles of the triple banners. The flags are not static but are flapping in the breeze. There are no animals printed on these flags (palden, not gyeltsen). >S.

Above that is RAM, which becomes a red, triangular fire mandala. Above the air mandala you have the letter RAM. That becomes a fire mandala of a bright orange-red color. It’s triangular and the tip of the triangle faces towards you. The fire mandala is not supposed to go beyond the air mandala. It has to fit in there, therefore the bow has to be big enough to contain the triangle. The triangle is totally fire and the bow is totally air. The air takes the shape of a bow and the fire the shape of a triangle. Above that, three syllables of AH become a tripod of three human heads; above that, AH becomes a white skullcup. Then suddenly above that appear three letters AH, one at each corner of the triangle. Whether the AHs are red or white doesn’t matter, both are allowed. Then these three AHs become three human heads – freshly cut, the hairs hanging down, neatly cut in bangs. In this particular book I’m using here, they have described them in detail: They look very fresh, the eyes are sort of shining and looking, the teeth are white and smiling and the hair is neat and cut.

S<.They have their hair cut in bangs like the style worn by Nepali girls. >S.

Those three human heads represent nang che tob sum: nangwa karlampa, chepa marlam pa, nyiertob naklam pa – the stages of white, red and black appearance of the dissolution during the death process. It is cooking time – the three heads serve the purpose of a stove, so on the fire mandala you put three freshly cut human heads at the corners. Their faces are looking outwards, their backs looking inside and at the center of that, above, again a big letter AH appears. That melts into light and becomes a skullcup. The narrower part of the skullcup is in front facing you, so the east is facing you. You don’t have to sit inside the skullcup to find out where the east is. It is always facing you, the practitioner. The skullcup sits on top of the three heads, so it can be a little bit bigger, that’s okay, but it cannot be huge. The inside color of the skullcup is red, the outside is white. You should not think it is a small skullcup, it’s a very big one, not able to be measured with your arms length. S<. Above that appears a white AH with a reddish tint. This transforms into a vast skullcup which is white outside and red inside. The forehead should face towards us. Wherever the forehead is, is considered East. >S. 184

For a drawing see Chapter XII Appendices.

Preliminaries 93 It’s proportionately built. In vajrayana there are rules. Sometimes you make a big deal out of something, like the fire mandala should not go outside the air mandala, but on the other hand unimaginable things also become possible – like Milarepa who went and hid in a small yak horn and neither the horn became bigger, nor did Milarepa become smaller.185 He sits inside that yak horn and tells Rechungpa: ‘If you are equal to me, come in, there is a very nice, open place here’. You can read that in the Milarepa biography In vajrayana these sort of things are available, but in our visualization it has to be slightly proportionate. So, if you have a big inner offering you have a huge air mandala, a huge fire mandala, huge heads and a huge skullcup. There are a lot of reasons why the inside of the skullcup is red and the outside is white. We won’t go into that now. Up to here we have generated the base of the inner offering. Inside the skullcup appears: Inside the skullcup are ten inner materials [five meats and five nectars]. How you generate these inner materials differs slightly between the Guhyasamaja, the Heruka/Vajrayogini and the Yamantaka practice. I’m not talking about the Guhyasamaja here, but I should mention the Vajrayogini practice a little bit. There are a number of people here, who do both sadhanas, therefore I think, it’s important to mention it. Vajrayogini is mother tantra. Therefore the liquids occupy the main directions, east, west, north and south, while the meats are in the sub-directions, and more towards the edge. And in the center you have both of them, because four plus four is eight, so there are two inner materials left to be put into the center. Here, in the Yamantaka practice, the meats go in the main directions. That is for Yamantaka, not for Guhyasamaja – that is different again; not all father tantras are the same. in the east, from BHRUM, the flesh of a bull marked by GO; We’re going to name the materials. First the east – that’s near you – has the bull or the buffalo meat186. But that is not what it is. The five wisdoms and the five buddhas are involved. Out of the of wisdoms, this is the mirror-like wisdom. Out of the five buddhas it is the buddha of form187, Vairochana. The seed syllable you are generating here is BHRUM [pronounced DUM] which is white, standing straight up, towards the eastern side of the skullcup. The BHRUM transforms and becomes beef. The sadhana says flesh of a bull, in Tibetan it is palang i sha, that is cow as well as bull, so it’s beef. Pa is cow and lang is ox and palang is the name for bull, too. Maybe the translator wanted to use a stronger word, so he called it ‘bull meat’, instead of beef. The way you visualize it, is that the meat is already cut into pieces, yet the skin is still together. You know how the great Chinese chefs cook the suckling pig. They have the whole thing together, but it is already chopped, some sauces put on, and when they bring it in it looks like a whole pig. Until you put your chop sticks in there, you wouldn’t even know it was cut. You visualize in that manner. In this particular Yamantaka the way the beef is put in the skullcup, is with the left side down and the right shoulder up, and all the other animals around in the skullcup are put in in the same way. On the shoulder of the bull there is that small sign GO – that has something to do with the Sanskrit name. It is like the mark to indicate if it’s bull or beef. It’s a whole animal, including horns and tails and hoofs, their heads pointing [clockwise]. in the south, from AM, the flesh of a dog marked by KU; The sign for the dog188 is KU because in Sanskrit it is Kukuraja or Kuta. There is a Tibetan saying: When human beings talk to each other, one speaks and the other listens, but for the dogs it is, if one barks all the others bark.

The dog is in the south, yellow. With the east being right in front of you, going clockwise you have east, south, west and north. In the south, out of the five wisdoms this is the wisdom of equanimity and out of 185

See Gelek Rinpoche: Lam Rim Teachings, pg. 235. Symbolic for ignorance/rigidity. Ref. Dagyab Kyabgön Rinpoche, Kommentar zur Praxis des Alleinstehenden Helden Yamantaka, pg. 25. 187 Skt rupa; Tib gsugs. 188 Symbolic for pride/miserliness. Ref see note 186. 186

94 Yamantaka teachings the five buddhas it is Ratnasambhava189 – all appearing from the letter AM. If you can’t visualize all that, it doesn’t matter. When you say your sadhana, just think that is what is there, that is what is happening, and that substitutes. If you try to get it particularly clear, it will take the whole day to do it. That is probably not advisable. in the west, from JRIM, the flesh of an elephant marked by DA; In the west – the far side from you – there is the elephant190, colored red, marked by DA. Out of the five wisdoms this is the wisdom of knowing everything separately, the discriminating wisdom and out of the five buddhas it is the buddha Amithaba191. The letter from which it appears here is [pronounced] DZIM. in the north, from KHAM, the flesh of a horse marked by HA; This is the wisdom of activity and Amoghasiddhi buddha192. The meat is from the horse193. The horse is usually green because of the activity wisdom. The seed syllable in the north is KHAM and the horsemeat is marked ‘HA’. That is because horse starts with H (joke), in Sanskrit it is Haya, like in Hayagriva. in the center, from HUNG, the flesh of a human, marked by NA; In the center is Akshobhya Buddha194 and it is the dharmadhatu wisdom or space-like wisdom195, in Tibetan choying yeshe. The color here is blue, the mark is NA and the seed syllable is HUNG. in the southeast, from LAM, excrement marked by BI; in the southwest, from MAM, blood marked by RA; in the northwest, from PAM, white bodhimind marked by SHU; in the northeast, from TAM, marrow marked by MA; in the center, from BAM, urine marked by MU. Now all the five wisdoms are gone, there are only the five consorts left. They are the consorts of the five Buddhas. In the east is Vairochana and his consort is Kyema and she is in the south-east. Here the seed syllable LAM transforms into feces marked by BI. [The nectars go clockwise from the east]. Then in the south-west there is Mamaki and from the seed-syllable MAM comes blood marked by RA, that comes from ragta, which means blood in Sanskrit. Then in the north-west is the consort Gö Karmo, the White Dressed One. The seed-syllable is PAM which transforms into semen. The marking letter is slightly different, it is SHU. In the north-east is Drolma, Tara; her seed syllable is TAM which transforms into marrow, marked by MA. In the center is Vajra Zombini, consort of Vajra Bhairava ; the seed syllable is BAM and the liquid is urine marked by MU. S> urine marked by MU representing Vajra Vetali196 – that is in Tibetan Dorje Rolangma. >S.

Out of the five meats, here we have in the center the human meat. There are two ways of looking at this. One way is that the human body is covered in urine, the other way is: you put the human in front of the urine and see them separately . In the Yamantaka practice I think the two are separate, and in the Vajrayogini practice they are mixed, (so the human body is halfway up in the urine). The human body is lying down, the head towards you. In this case Vajra Bhairava is the principal in the center. You may be confused and think Akshobhya is in the center, but even out of the five buddhas, the principal deity’s place is occupied by the principal yidam, so Akshobhya is inseparable from Vajra Bhairava. You always have to look at it in that manner. 189

Corresponding to the skandha of feeling [Skt vedana; Tib. Tshorba]. Symbolic for attachment. Ref see note 186. 191 Corresponding to the skandha of perception [skt samnja; tib du shes]. 192 Corresponding to the skandha of compositional factors or volition [Skt samskara; tib ‘du byed] 193 Symbolic for jealousy. Ref see note 186. 194 Corresponding to the skandha of consciousness [Skt vijnana; Tib. rnam shes] 195 The flesh of a human is symbolic for hatred. Ref see note 186. 196 Vajra Vetali is Vajra Zombini, in Tibetan Dorje Rolangma. 190

Preliminaries 95 This is the principle of the vajrayana, you can’t separate any deity you look at, even from among the five Buddhas, from the yidam. That’s how it works. So Buddha Vajradhara is inseparable from Buddha Yamantaka, who is Buddha Akshobhya, that’s exactly how it goes. Whenever Yamantaka comes, he will be the most important one in the center and then the rest of the five buddhas will come. Out of the ten wrathful deities, again he becomes the principal. Wherever you see a mandala, that’s how it works. The reason why you mark these substances is not like when you plant flowers, you have this marker telling you whether it is a geranium or a zinnia. Here the purpose is to tell you that no matter which phenomenon you’re looking at, it can only exist as a combination of material and label (i.e. the name which you apply), but in reality it’s in the nature of emptiness. So the purpose is not to identify what substance it is; they are going to be mixed anyway. Now why do you create all this inside the skullcup? What is so important about a skullcup? The reason why the skullcup is white on the outside, is that white indicates the great bliss. The red on the inside represents the emptiness. Having both colors on the skullcup makes it to represent the inseparable blissvoid. I mentioned to you before that the kapala, the skullcup, is also known as dejong. This means ‘protection of joy’. Whatever material is inside it, in reality is inseparable from bliss and void. So it’s giving you a lot of messages197. Another question rises: the inner offering is also known as nectar. If it’s nectar, why don’t you only have liquid, why do you have these five meats in there as well? A tantra quotation for that is: You should eat the elephant meat, the horse meat and the big meat – that is referring to the human meat – and also make offerings of it to the deity. If you do this, the protectors will be happy with you.

You cannot take it literally, the eating of the horse meat, the elephant meat and the big meat, but that is why this inner offering has all these meats in there. ‘Protectors’ here is not talking about the dharma protectors, but about the principal of the mandala, the deity: Buddha Vajradhara.

Consecration or blessing of the inner offering Now the question is: how do you make this offering? What you do is: 1) you purify it; 2) you make it into nectar; 3) you make it inexhaustible. That is how you make use of it. It has to be nectar, because to the Supreme Field you only want to offer nectar. It has to be inexhaustible, because the number of guests and the usage of it is countless. The guests to whom you offer are many. Also by making this offering to the members of the mandala, particularly of the Yamantaka mandala, the deities will be happy. They’ll enjoy and appreciate your offering, and it helps them to give the siddhis to the practitioner as soon as possible. That’s why these inner nectar offerings are sometimes referred to as hook. Like when throwing out a hook to catch fish, you do this offering to hook the siddhihood as soon as possible. Sometimes it is also referred to as the five lights which clear the darkness of the obstacles. So, it makes the siddhihood absolutely clear. In the Lama Chöpa it says both, five hooks and five lamps. Using these five substances, blessing them and offering them to the deity, also helps to bring longevity. To prove this the tantra says: The five ordinary smells of the human body will be transformed into the five wisdoms and be blessed, and become the five nectars.

That’s why you have the five buddhas, the five consorts, five meats and five nectars. Above all this stands a white OM, a red AH, and a blue HUNG, arranged one above

197

Also see Tri Gyeltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret. Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 16.

96 Yamantaka teachings the other.198 Above the skullcup you have a blue HUNG which represents the mind of all enlightened beings199. Above the HUNG you have the red letter AH, representing the speech of all enlightened beings200 and above the AH is the OM, white, representing the body of all enlightened beings201. Lights emanate from the HUNG at my heart and strike the air. Air moves, fire flares; all the substances in the skullcup melt and boil. Light rays proceed from the three letters successively. They draw forth Vajra-body, Vajra-speech and Vajra-mind, which are absorbed into the three letters. These descend into the skullcup and melt. HUNG purifies all faults of color, smell and potential. AH transforms it into nectar. OM multiplies it and it becomes inexhaustible. OM AH HUNG OM AH HUNG OM AH HUNG Now it’s time to cook, so you send a signal from your heart in the form of light rays which touch the air mandala, which shake the air and make the banners move. That’s what you do when you make a fire, right? You supply air. The air gets the fire going, the fire blazes and heats up the skullcup and the substances in there start melting. It starts cooking and the steam goes up and catches the three letters HUNG AH OM. Like when you are boiling water and steam collects on any surface, the condensation is sitting on the three letters. The HUNG is completely covered, the AH is covered, the OM is covered. The condensation is not only of a liquid nature, but also of a light nature, shining, radiating light in all directions and collecting what they represent. The HUNG represents the mind of the enlightened ones, the AH represents their speech, and the OM represents the body. So, the body, mind, and speech essence of all the enlightened beings is being collected into the three letters. Mind you, this does not mean that you have to worry about someone who’d be taking the essence away and that now someone’s going to die, no. By this time the substances are well cooked and ready to melt, and the HUNG drops into it like a ladle. It goes down and stirs it up. When you visualize that, do it like Kyabje Ling Rinpoche says: half of the HUNG is inside the soup and the other half is standing up. It goes round three times touching the bottom of the pot, and at the third time it starts to melt in the soup like a piece of butter. By the time the HUNG melts, it becomes a sort of a broth. The whole thing is mixed up totally and the broth becomes pure. It doesn’t have any particular color, it’s a mix. What does it purify? The faults. That is why, when we do the food offering we say: ‘All faults of color, smell and potential are purified’. You purify the color, the smell and all the undesirable things you have, and that builds up the energy or potential – nu in Tibetan means power or potency – so it has become pure. When the HUNG has dissolved, the AH jumps down. It also goes round three times. The nature of AH is all of the enlightened ones’ speech. Speech corresponds with nectar, so it’s transformed and it becomes nectar. So, not only has it a built up potency now, but it has also become nectar. OM is the body of all the enlightened beings. Buddha’s body never finishes, it is inexhaustible, it constantly continues. That’s why OM makes the offering inexhaustible. This means, that no matter how much you take out, the quantity never decreases. It always remains the same. 198

For the order see Tri Gyeltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret. Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 17; Dagyab Kyabgön Rinpoche, Kommentar zur Praxisdes Alleinstehenden Helden Yamantaka, pg. 26. 199 Hung is the seed-syllable of buddha Akshobhya. Dagyab Kyabgön Rinpoche, Kommentar zur Praxisdes Alleinstehenden Helden Yamantaka, pg. 26: ‘Er symbolisier Unerschütterlichkeit (...) wird durch seine Fähigkeiten Sauberkeit gebracht. Diese Sauberkeit ist stabil.’ 200 AH is the seed syllable of Buddha Amithaba. ‘Mita’ means dying; A-mita means not-dying. Buddha Amithaba and the long-life buddha form Amitayus have the same background. Ref. Dagyab Kyabgön Rinpoche, Kommentar zur Praxisdes Alleinstehenden Helden Yamantaka, pg. 26. 201 OM is the seed-syllable of Buddha Vairochana; the purity of the form-aggregate. Ref. Dagyab Kyabgön Rinpoche, Kommentar zur Praxisdes Alleinstehenden Helden Yamantaka, pg. 26: ‘Das Körperskandha hat eine Natur, dass sie sich von einem Zustand zu anderen immer wieder fortsetzt und vermehrt. Durch dieses Symbol gilt Vairochana als Vermerhrungskracht.’

Preliminaries 97

You have to say OM AH HUNG three times aloud. If you remember the meaning of OM – the inseparability of body and mind, which is also inseparable of bliss and void – it’s great, then it becomes a jewel mantra; if you do not think of that, it’s just OM. Then you visualize that the inner offering in front of you is not only inner offering, but also a nectar which is very powerful. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche here says: It is so strong, that, if you pour that into the mouth of somebody who died seven days ago, even if the body is already decomposing, it has the power to revive the body.

You have to imagine your inner offering has such a strong power. Just now the inner offering may not have that much power, but if you keep thinking that way, one day your inner offering will have that much power. The earlier masters, when asked to heal someone, would give them a drop of their inner offering. And when clearing of obstacles was needed, they would just throw some inner offering. Some also used to hit on a person’s head with the skullcup of the inner offering in order to heal. That is the capability you develop. That’s why you have to think like that. Not only that – whatever you offer to the enlightened beings is also going to be that powerful. It’s called inner offering, because the materials used are connected with the living being.202 I had a teacher called Gen Nyima, who came to India and lived in Dharamsala for a long time in the later part of his life. H.H. the Dalai Lama took him over to Dharamsala and took lots of teachings from him, too. Gen was a very interesting and very learned teacher. (He’s the teacher of Locho Rinpoche too, by the way). There were two outstanding teachers who taught me the Buddhist philosophy, they are Gen Pema Gyaltsen and Gen Nyima. Gen Nyima was very funny. By the time I came to know him he was already quite well known. Before that, when he was young and learning, he had a number of students and while he was teaching them, their number gradually decreased. Even people who used to attend his teachings regularly would not come any more, and nobody could tell him why, but people tried to avoid going to his room. So, one day Gen Nyima asked one of his students, Losang Ondar – I know him, he is in Nyare Khamtse, too – what was happening. Losang Ondar said: ‘Gen, don’t worry; let’s go away from here, and I will serve you as long as you live’. Gen Nyima said: ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Did you ever look in a mirror at all?’ asked his student. And Gen Nyima said: ‘No, what is the matter?’ His student said: ‘I don’t know if it is true or not, but people think you’ve got leprosy. That’s why they won’t come near you’. So, he looked in the mirror. He had indeed picked up leprosy and started getting the signs. Then he said: ‘Okay, don’t worry about it’. His student again said: ‘Let’s go away from the monastery. I will serve you as long as you live’. But Gen said: ‘Don’t worry about it, I will do a retreat’. He did a retreat on Vajrapani, Hayagriva and Garuda together for a month or so, and he completely cured himself. Moreover he also became a great healer. In Tibet the medical facilities are not what you have here, so Gen did all sorts of funny things. A young monk had an abscess on the throat which had become very big. Even though it was very difficult to talk to Gen Nyima, because he could scold you, and you never knew what you were going to get, finally this monk went to see him and asked him for help. Gen had this cup in front of him, which he probably used for his inner offering. He picked up this empty cup and while saying: ‘Why don’t you let me, poor monk, be where I am?’ he hit this monk with the cup right on that lump and shouted: ‘Get out!’ And that cured him. Things like that happen. These are the mahasiddhas’ ways of healing. This is all possible because of the inner offering. If you can focus on it, this is how it works. S<. Create the skull bowl with the five meats and nectars. All the while be mindful that everything you have created lacks inherent existence. The first letter of the Sanskrit names marked on the substances is there to remind us that names per se are imputed phenomena and are not naturally existent. All is in the nature of emptiness. From the HUNG at your heart light emanates and strikes the triple flags of the air mandala. The fire flares and the substances inside melt like butter on a hot stove. Steam rises and HUNG, AH, OM fall one by one, revolving three times before dissolving into 202

For the purpose and meaning of the inner offering also see Dagyab Kyabgön Rinpoche, Kommentar zur Praxisdes Alleinstehenden Helden Yamantaka, pg. 27.

98 Yamantaka teachings the brew. HUNG is symbolic of Akshobhya, the nature of mind-wisdom, which is the best purifier. AH is symbolic of Amithaba, the nature of nectar of longevity. OM is symbolic of Vairochana, the nature of continuity and inexhaustible supply. When saying the mantra OM AH HUNG three times, imagine that you yourself are Dorje Jigje and that you are surrounded by your parents and friends and all sentient beings. The first recitation of the mantra collects all non-virtuous actions of the body and dissolves them into the offering. The second time, all non-virtues of speech of oneself and all beings dissolve into the inner offering. The third time, all non-virtues of mind dissolve into the offering and are mixed inseparably with the nectar. In Sangwa Dupa203, which is pure father tantra, there is no mind absorption collection at this point. symbolizes inseparable bliss-void wisdom, so powerful that it can cleanse and purify all non-virtues.

HUNG

Another system for visualizing this is to visualize oneself in ordinary form surrounded by all sentient beings standing on the moon mandala at Dorje Jigje’s heart. OM is the essence of the mantra. If you meditate on all mantras of the letter OM, they boil and blaze. Doing the inner offering makes the Lama and deity happy, keeps the samaya of eating, and the inner offering with dutzi ribul204 can be used to bless other things.

Consecration of the preliminary offering and torma Consecration or blessing or of the outer offerings OM HRIH SHTRIH VIKRITANANA HUNG PHAT. What does outer offering mean? Things that are not associated with the body? That is true to a certain extent but on the other hand the wrathful outer offerings are associated with the body. If you look into the wrathful offerings – the offerings to the Mahakalas and Kalidevis and all of them – you’ll find that the water for the mouth and the water for the feet is the blood; the flowers are the different senses; for the incense, burning the flesh of bodies is used; the fats of the bodies are made into butter lamps; as perfume, they have bone marrow; the food is the flesh and the bones; thigh bones etc. are the musical instruments. They are connected with human things, but still are outer offerings205. Normally for the outer offerings you have the ARGHAM PADYAM GHANDE PUSHPE DHUPE ALOKE NAIVIDYA SHABDA. How do you set up the outer offering? You offer to the object of offering, the being on the other side, on the altar or on whatever serves the purpose. If it concerns father tantra the offerings are always laid out from right to left, and if it concerns mother tantra it is always done from left to right. I mean right or left as seen from the point of view of the one to whom you are offering, the receiving party. You don’t count from where you are; you look at it from their side. When in the sadhana, you are making the offerings to yourself in the form of the yidam, it has to be from your right to left [because now, you are the receiving party]. That is nothing to be confused about. It’s like laying the table. You put the knife on the right hand side and the fork on the left hand side, according to where the fellow sits. It’s as simple and straightforward as that. Since this is father tantra, laying out the offerings starts from the right to the left of the person to whom you offer. The recommended number of offerings is 16 sets – 8, 16, 108, it goes like that. In normal daily practice we put down one set, but in retreat periods, or for self-initiation that is not enough. Recommended is 108 sets, even 108 water offerings for the mouth for the direction protectors alone, then 108 for the sadhana offering and 108 for this and that, so it will become thousands and thousands. That’s the

203

Guhyasamaja tantra. Nectar pill. 205 Also see Tri Gyeltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret. Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 19. 204

Preliminaries 99 way normally recommended. You can also do it from the front to the back instead of from the right to the left. Both ways are okay. It’s up to the individual how to do it. The moment you say: OM SHRI TRI WUTITA NANA HUNG PHAT from your heart and within that from the letter HUNG and particularly from the zero on top of the letter HUNG, a lot of wrathful deities are generated and the actual physical disturbances in the form of spirits are driven away and also the actual impurities in the material are purified as well as the obstacles of the inner mind, ignorance, etc. – all of them are driven away. So when you drive the obstacles away, it does not just mean the spirits are driven away, but all three kinds of obstacles. Audience: (…) Rinpoche: No, when doing the mantra-recitation, the mantra-mala does not have to go the same way, do not confuse the issue. Americans think everything always has to be consistent, but in the vajrayana it is always inconsistent. If everything becomes consistent, it becomes an obstacle, a problem. So the principles do not apply the same way everywhere, not at all. It is so funny, actually, in those spiritual practices. It does not depend on the material, it depends on how it is done; and also not even exactly on how it’s done, but on the individual person. Seen from that angle it is very unscientific. The scientific viewpoint is: if it works for A B C D it should also work for E F G H. Because you do the same thing, the outcome has to be the same. That does work for the principle of karma and conditions, but vajrayana is very unscientific. Although we normally say it does not depend on the individual person, but on the dharma, etc., these vajrayana points are so funny – it almost depends on the person, it does not depend on the dharma itself. There is a huge difference there. It depends on who does it, rather than on what he does. You may think: it’s the same buddhadharma, what difference does it make who does it? It makes a hell of a difference. So, it is very inconsistent, always. Audience: (about sprinkling) Rinpoche: You can do it. Here when you say: OM SHRIH TRI WUTITA NANA HUNG PHAT, you can pick up some inner offering. They are all gestures. You do not have to put your finger down in the inner offering and then throw a drop of tea or alcohol on somebody’s shoulder or spoil the book in front of you, just the gesture of reaching and the gesture of throwing206 is enough. S<. When saying the mantra for the inner offering, flick a bit of it into space and imagine that as many atoms there are in that drop, there is the same number of deities which emanate from your heart, scaring away all hindrances. Reabsorb the deities back into you and dissolve them into emptiness. >S.

OM SVABHAVA SHUDDHAH SARVADHARMA SVABHAVA SHUDDHO HAM – All is empty. This refers to the objects you are concentrating on. All the offerings totally dissolve into the nature of emptiness. For your visualization it may become a total void, the void we mentioned earlier, in that nature. Earlier, when you were concentrating on yourself, it was the opportunity to meditate on the selflessness or emptiness of the beings207, so that has been cleared. Here now we are dealing with the emptiness of phenomena other than beings. Normally emptiness is divided into two: selflessness of persons and selflessness of phenomena, kongsa ki dagme and chokyi dagme. Both are the same emptiness and if you develop the one you also develop the other. There is a quotation: Whoever sees the emptiness of one, sees the emptiness of all. 206

Sadhana Gelongla: ‘Sprinkle form the inner offering cup towards the offerings with the left ring finger and thumb, in order to eliminate the hindrances of the offering’. 207 See page 72.

100 Yamantaka teachings Still, here is the opportunity to meditate on emptiness other than that of the self, particularly of the objects of the offering. You don’t identify them individually, but think that they do not exist truly and dissolve them into the nature of emptiness. You have to be a little careful. As you know, nothingness is not emptiness. So, whatever understanding of emptiness you have, you can utilize it here and visualize this offering as empty and recognize that as emptiness. Within the sphere of emptiness appear eight letters of AH, and from these arise huge and vast skullcups. Inside of each is a HUNG. The HUNGs melt and become water for the mouth, water for the feet, perfume208 flowers209, incense, light, food and sound. All have the nature of bliss-void wisdom, the appearance of offerings and the function of being objects of the six senses which arouse extraordinary non-contaminated bliss. From that, suddenly the letter AH appears. You can have a letter AH for each of the offerings, one for the water for the mouth, and one for the water for the feet, etc., so there could be eight AHs multiplied by whatever the amount of offerings you may have. In that case each of the AHs becomes a skullcup. Or you can have one huge AH, which becomes one huge skullcup and you put all this in there. It doesn’t matter. So the letter(s) AH transform(s) and become(s) a skullcup. The skullcup The idea of the skullcup is not necessarily to be threatening or frightening. The source of bliss is probably situated more within the crown chakra than anywhere else, indicating – when you talk about it from the male angle – the sexual semen which you utilize in the sexual practice. It’s labeled a source of joy, because it brings different joyful feelings or sensations to the body, through the movement of the semen within the individual chakras. Most of the white male semen comes dripping from the head down to the lower parts of the body; this is probably the best movement. When the practitioner comes to that level210, the source of the joy remains at the crown, at the forehead inside the skullcup. So the skullcup is like a helmet, it gives protection to this particular area. That’s why it’s called dejong, protector of the source of joy. This is the reason why you use the skullcup. It looks like a bowl. Its inner surface is red, because it is connected with blood. Outside it is bone, therefore it is white. The outer white represents love and compassion and the inner red represents the wisdom. Both of them in one skullcup together represent the union of love-compassion and wisdom, the union of the male sexual semen – which is illusion body – with the female sexual essence of clear light. That’s another reason why the skullcup is used. If you don’t have a real skullcup, you can use a artificial skullcup made out of silver or any other material. That is done very often. Lately in the practice one just uses bowls for these general offerings, any bowls. The letter AH is the base for that. If you look into the Manjushri nama sangiti you find a tremendous amount of reasons why AH is used. AH is the essence of all communication through sound. AH is the essence of speech; if you are not able to say AH, you will never be able to speak a word. It is also the life-force of all letters, both consonants and vowels. AH is not pronounced from the throat, but from further down. It’s not born and it doesn’t die, it has no going or and no coming. AH also corresponds to emptiness and it represents emptiness. That’s why the wisdom letter AH appears again for the bliss-void union. There are so many reasons. The skullcup is also coming out of the letter AH. If you have skullcups within the skullcup you have AHs within the skullcup which then become skullcups. In the sadhana, now it says: ‘Inside each skullcup is a HUNG and then it says: ‘the HUMs melt’ etc. Even the commentary by Aku Sherab Gyaltsen says: There is the letter HUNG. When you say the first HUNG, it’s inside the skullcup and represents the bliss-void wisdom nature. The seed syllable of the bliss-void wisdom is 208

Or rather scented water. See page 114. The listing of flowers is not found in the handed out sadhana, but is in the Meditations on Vajrabhairava, pg. 34. 210 Probably Rinpoche refers here to the level of the completion stage. Literature: Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Clear light of bliss, chapter 3. 209

Preliminaries 101 HUNG. It is blue. That’s HUNG it is melting.

the first HUNG you are saying. The second time you are saying

So we have two visualizations. The first HUNG is the bliss-void wisdom nature seed syllable within the skullcup. The second time you’re saying HUNG, that very seed syllable HUNG is melting. Literally in Tibetan you say: ‘HUNG HUNG melting’ and that’s okay; but in practice I think it is not okay. Actually there are eight skullcups, so even if you think there’s only one HUNG inside each skullcup, there are eight HUMs altogether. In the sadhana they will not spend time saying HUNG eight times. (Except in the Mahakala pujas, where it is done eight times). The commentary says: The second time you say HUNG, in your visualization all these HUMs, which are the seed syllables of bliss-void wisdom, are melting and 1) while in reality they remain bliss-void wisdom nature, 2) they transform into the appearance of this and that particular offering and 3) they have the capacity to give you the experience of the uncontaminated bliss-void.

So there are three qualities. The Lama Chopa has the same thing: In essence they are pristine awareness, in aspect inner offerings and various objects of offering, their function is to generate the extraordinary pristine awareness of voidness and bliss to be enjoyed be the six senses.

Its nature is bliss-void. Appearance, as it is. That means the artistic expression. The Japanese know how to do that. They may give you just this little bit of food, but they have amazing ways of how to present it. It looks great. And actually, it is very inexpensive, but it looks fantastic. (E.g. radish cut into different shapes). That is the artistic part of it. You don’t want any mixed up mushy dog stew, like almost all the Hippie Health Food places around here give you. You cannot say: ‘Everything is the wisdom nature, it’s the mumbo jumbo soup, and you can throw everything in there’. People do that here, throw all seven types of grains into one soup and mix green, blue, red, yellow and make a big soup. It may be very good in nutritional values, but there is no artistic expression at all. You have to see that the green remains as green, the yellow as yellow and the white as white. Maybe that is eastern culture. We make everything different. The meat can be mixed with different vegetables, but otherwise it’s all presented separately and in an artistic way, so that it looks nice and tempting. In Tibet we give such food to the animals, the mix of all different grains and all the leftovers dumped in. I’m not criticizing the soups, but there is no artistic appeal to them. That is why with these offerings, in their appearance are all separate and each one of them has its own artistic expression. Most importantly, their purpose is to bring uncontaminated bliss to whoever enjoys it, and to fulfill whatever they are offered for. That should be the capacity of these offerings, the ability to bring uncontaminated bliss. OM ARGHAM AH HUNG; OM PADYAM AH HUNG; OM GANDHE AH HUNG; OM PUSHPE AH HUNG, OM DHUPE AH HUNG; OM ALOKE AH HUNG; OM NAIVIDY AH HUNG; OM SHABDA AH HUNG Because this is the preliminary part, you are going over your list and see if everything is there. You bless it and also count it to make sure everything is there, so that at the time of offering you do not discover that something is missing. S<. Hand mudras are an important part of the offering. At this point do the mudras but without the lotus round or offering goddesses. Each offering substance is enclosed within the mantra OM AH HUNG, e.g. OM ARGHAM AH HUNG, blessing it.

Consecration or blessing of the torma211 OM HRIH SHTRIH VIKRITANANA HUNG PHAT.

211

Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 15-19.

102 Yamantaka teachings This mantra is known as the mantra of activity and most activities are done through this mantra. It is also known as the ten-syllable mantra. The process is the same as before. You yourself are in the form of the Vajra terrifier with one face and two hands, and from the center of your heart chakra, from the letter HUNG – more specifically from the MA or zero212 – light radiates and purifies the material. While you do that, all three kinds of obstacles213 get purified and then you dissolve everything into emptiness with the mantra: OM SVABHAVA SHUDDHAH SARVADHARMA SVABHAVA SHUDDHO HAM. All is empty. Within the sphere of emptiness appears YAM, and from that, a blue bowshaped mandala of air marked by banners. Above that is RAM, which becomes a red, triangular fire mandala. Above that, three syllables of AH become a tripod of three human heads; above that, AH becomes a white skullcup. Inside the skullcup appears: in the east, from BHRUM, the flesh of a bull marked by GO; in the south, from AM, the flesh of a dog marked by KU; in the west, from JRIM, the flesh of an elephant marked by DA; in the north, from KHAM, the flesh of a horse marked by HA; in the center, from HUNG, the flesh of a human marked by NA; in the southeast, from LAM, excrement marked by BI; in the southwest, from MAM, blood marked by RA; in the northwest, from PAM, white bodhimind marked by SHU; in the northeast, from TAM, marrow marked by MA; in the center, from BAM, urine marked by MU. Above all this stands a white OM, a red AH, and a blue HUNG, arranged one above the other. This same blessing has first been used to bless the inner offering. The same words are used for the torma blessing and even for the food blessing. It’s actually a blessing mechanism, rather than an inner offering blessing. The fact that we label this as the ‘inner offering blessing’, is simply because the first thing that is blessed is the inner offering. Still, for whatever you bless through the Yamantaka, these are the words to say and the visualizations that you do. When you say the mantra: OM SVABHAVA.….., you have to do a little visualization of emptiness. Before that, all the wrathful deities who have driven away the disturbances, have to be reabsorbed. Whatever you have generated or manifested out from your heart, make sure that you dissolve it back to your heartlevel. I have repeated that a number of times, because it is something that has to be consistent. The reason is that the heart-level is the center of the activity. We can almost say: the creator of everything is the mind, and the source of the mind is at the heart-level. Whatever the creation is, it is the result of mental creation, and whatever the mind has created, it has to be dissolved back . Everything has to come back to the original source which is the heart center. All the activities will be finally dissolved at the center-level. At the completion stage level you try to dissolve all the different airs in there. In order to have a strong concentration and a strongly concentrated emptiness or selflessness, we do this at the center of the heart chakra. Therefore all the activities will finally be dissolved at the heart chakra. Dissolving things at the heart-level is almost like an artificial death. In such a dissolving process all your focus is concentrated at the center of the central channel – everything external is less important. For these reasons you have to dissolve back, everything you have generated. With respect to emptiness: whatever we do or create, everything starts with our mental activities. Everything, even if you want to build a house. You don’t just start building a house, first you plan it. Plans come out of people’s thoughts, the architect will make a design, the engineers will see if it’s possible. It is all created out of thoughts. 212

The circle in the seed syllable HUM (which is the letter M) is named by Rinpoche in various ways: MA, or circle, or zero, or sun, or drop, or in Tibetan tikle. These different names will gradually become clear in the process of study and practice, because every name-indication unfolds something of the rich symbolism of this sacred syllable. For a drawing see Chapter XII Appendices. 213 See page 99.

Preliminaries 103 That’s the reason why often is said that everything is mind and the result of mind. That does not mean that everything is done by the mind alone. It all starts with mental processes. Even when you want to eat, you first get the thought: ‘I want to eat, I need food’, and then that is followed by the action of eating. Or if you want to go to the toilet, you get the thought and then you need to go. Everything you do follows from thought. That’s why it is said: ‘All phenomena are the result of thoughts’. That doesn’t mean that only thoughts will do everything. It doesn’t mean that things materialize by thinking only. Sometimes they do, after a little while, when you reach a certain stage of development. Then probably your thoughts will begin to materialize, and it will help to shape all sorts of things. But, unless you become fully enlightened – because at that level it is different – even if you have reached a high bodhisattva level, you still need the contribution of efforts before things will materialize. Everything we call good and bad omens, plays on this level. At the mental planning stage level, when extraordinary things happen you say: ‘Ha, this is a good omen’ or ‘this is a bad omen’, because it adds up to the final finished product. So, the external science is not necessarily all that counts. Certain events take place, and have an effect on internal things. You can correct that too, because it’s on the mental planning stage. If you think no corrections can be done, you’re making a mistake. Then you’re being unreasonable. Look at these offering materials like that: they are all created, first by the collective mental activity of a number of people on their mental level, followed by their practical interpretation, followed by their projection and perception. Combined together, those collective conditions are able to produce this. That’s what’s really meant by: there is no inherent existence. If there were inherent existence, you wouldn’t need all those conditions; things would be there already, existing inherently. For example, look at this round bread. Someone must have thought about making a round bread, and whether to use wheat instead of rye, and what other material would be needed. For example, if we have milk, but we want yogurt, we need milk first to be able to make it into yogurt; but milk is not yogurt yet, and yogurt is not the same as milk. The point here is, that if you ignore the relative truth, then milk would become yogurt and yogurt would become milk. And cheese would become yogurt, and milk too, just because they’re also animal products. Relative truth tells you, that although something is made from milk, under certain conditions it can become butter, and under a different set conditions it can become buttermilk, or cheese, or cream. All of them come from the same thing, milk, but different conditions make them into separate things. You can’t say that buttermilk is milk, nor can you say that skimmed milk is cream. So, all of them are relative truth. If people begin to ignore the relative truth, they start to lose the fundamental basis of emptiness. So if some people say: ‘Everything is only the result of mind. In the end it is all zero, so it doesn’t matter, it’s all the same, it’s all bullshit’ – then that’s exactly what it is: it’s bullshit, because milk is not buttermilk and buttermilk is not cheese. Seeing this is what is meant by seeing emptiness through existence, or in other words seeing emptiness from the existence point of view, rather than from the ‘empty’ level. If you try to look from the ‘empty’ level, then everything is the same, then it doesn’t matter whether what you do makes sense or not, because in the end it’s going to be zero. That is the emptiness approach from the empty point of view and that gets you on the wrong track. That’s also why the inner offering has to be separate from the outer offering, and why that in turn has to be separate from the torma offering, although you are going to dissolve all of them into emptiness and then generate them again. Even then, the object is totally separate. That also explains how each and every different thing you do, particularly during rituals, is done for different purposes. You cannot simplify everything and just do one little thing. There are certain traditions who don’t have anything separate, and everything is just a simple, easy thing; but in vajrayana, they don’t do that. In vajrayana they have different rituals for different purposes, because each one means something different. It’s like with aspirin. You can treat any problem you have with aspirin. That will take care of your problem for a while. But you cannot keep giving aspirin for every illness all the time, right? Different medications work for different purposes, for different illnesses. That is relative truth. At the primitive

104 Yamantaka teachings stage, you can definitely use one little pill for everything, because you don’t have anything else available. If you want it too simple, it won’t work. Again, the consistent, unified solution for emptiness is: OM SVABHAVA SHUDDHA SARVA DHARMA SVABHAVA SHUDDHO HAM – every existent phenomenon, whatever it may be, is in the nature of emptiness, and that is inseparable from me; it is me. So you yourself are empty and so is everything external, including the material for the torma offering. It’s not that all these external torma offering materials have gone and disappeared, but the emptiness nature of self recognizes the emptiness of the materials. Actually, that is the best way of looking at emptiness: to recognize [yourself and everything else] as empty in nature214. You cannot separate the subject, i.e. the mind that recognizes emptiness, and the object, i.e. the things you are recognizing as empty – they have become inseparable. That’s how you acknowledge the emptiness of things. I am not going to talk about the five meats and five nectars again. That is exactly the same215. Lights emanate from the HUNG at my heart and strike the air. Air moves; fire flares; all the substances in the skullcup melt and boil. Light-rays proceed from the three letters successively. They draw forth Vajra-body, Vajra-speech and Vajra-mind, which are absorbed into the three letters. These descend into the skullcup and melt. HUNG purifies all faults of color, smell and potential. AH transforms it into nectar. OM multiplies it and it becomes inexhaustible. OM AH HUNG OM AH HUNG OM AH HUNG The shortest possible blessing mantra ever is OM AH HUNG. (Although OM is even shorter. That has already A U M and these three letters represent body, mind and speech). In the vajrayana system you have to say vajra body, vajra speech and vajra mind, which refers to the enlightened beings and their nature of indestructible body, speech and mind. You call it indestructible because they have gone beyond all obstacles and delusions. Remember, during the initiation it says: shin je che wa chö la me – there is no more death for you216. OM or A U M also represents the object to be purified, the method of purification and the nature we are going to produce. When you remember all these meanings when you say OM, then it makes a difference. Remember, when we talked about OM MANI PADME HUNG217 we said that OM alone is the jewelholding mantra. It also indicates the emptiness nature. So you visualize the whole process from generating the air-mandala onwards happening, you imagine the mandalas, stove, skullcup etc. coming up and you project the purification etc. happening just like having a dream. During the dream you see all sorts of things. It doesn’t matter whether it is there in reality or not; in the dream it does work for that individual. Whatever dream you have, somehow it serves certain purposes. If you keep on dreaming that you have to go to the toilet and you don’t wake up then you know what happens. You have to get up, so, it does serve the purpose. Correspondences of OM AH HUNG Earlier we talked about how the five meats and the five nectars correspond to the buddhas and the consorts218, but what the five meats really correspond to, is to the illusion body; and the five nectars corre-

214

Also called: empty of inherent existence. See page 87. 216 During the vajra master initiation it says: ‘By this vehicle of great bliss / From now on you have no death – / Because you will develop (the Buddha) life, / You have surpassed life’s suffering. R. Thurman, Yamantaka Ekavira, Materials for Punya House retreat, pg. 185. And furtheron on pg. 197: ‘In this vehicle of great bliss / From now on you have no death. 217 This refers to some other [non-transcribed] teachings. 218 See page 93. 215

Preliminaries 105 spond to the clear light. There are two stages of clear light, the example clear light and the actual clear light. Both are represented by the five nectars. The work of OM AH HUNG done on one object, represents the combination of the illusion body and the clear light stages, which means: the union, the ultimate buddha stage. As to the three letters OM AH HUNG above the skullcup: in the inner offering period I simply mentioned that in order to purify, they collect the blessings of the buddhas’ body, speech and mind which then dissolve to the OM AH HUNG. But what they really do during the result period – when you have become a fully enlightened buddha with the three kayas – is also represented by these three letters. Even to think that these three letters are the three kayas of the result level – your own three kayas manifesting in the form of OM AH HUNG – is one of the direct causes for the ripening of the collected good virtues to materialize the three kayas within you. It becomes a direct cause. It looks unrelated, but within a person’s practice everything is very much related. There is much more, but maybe this is enough. By thinking all this, the planning stage is done, the omens have been well established. Then light goes out from the three letters etc…. – everything just like at the blessing of the inner offering219. Earlier it was mentioned that even the non-virtues220 of body, speech and mind dissolve into the offering. That is clarified here. When at the end of the offering you say OM AH HUNG three times, the first OM AH HUNG refers to the body, the second one to the speech and the third one to the mind, and all the nonvirtues created by these three, and all the obstacles are collected. So all non-virtues of myself and of all sentient beings, appear as black light, disconnect from the individual and dissolve into the offerings. There it mixes in with the rest and gets purified. And by offering it, the continuation of its creation is cut. These are important points. So, you collect all the non-virtues in the form of black light. It doesn’t necessarily have to be black, imagine whatever you don’t like, whatever is dirty to you, and in reality it is light. This disconnects from ourselves and dissolves into the offering and is purified. Like when you are cleaning your dishes, here all of it gets cleaned, and finally you make the offering. I have given you the example of the dishes, but leave it at the cleaning, do not carry it over to the time of offering. Lots of Americans do that, they will follow the example, and for them it has to continue. Consistency is not necessary. If Yamantaka is your principal yidam, you should use this particular verse too, to bless your food, It does not matter whether you use the short or the long version. Anything you offer, you have to bless. Without purifying, you should not offer at all. If vajrayana practitioners make offerings without purifying, then instead of help, it brings disadvantages. If you offer water for the mouth without blessing it, you get obstacles in the form of not being able to sit down. In Tibet we have certain people who, although their hair is already completely gray, even then they still can’t sit down. They have to run ‘all over the world’. There was an older official in Dharamsala, who used to work for His Holiness’ Private Secretary’s office. And every morning by 9 o’clock, he had covered every place he needed to visit in Dharamsala. First His Holiness’ office, and then he went to the main office, from there to where the people have restaurants, and he even went to see poor Kyabje Rinpoche up in the Tushita Center, where the westerners were staying. From each place he had visited, he heard the news and in the morning delivered it everywhere, including to His Holiness. Everybody would know what was happening everywhere, because of the way this guy went round every morning. So they gave him the nick name ‘yogurt wheels’, that means his hair is white like yogurt and his legs are like wheels. So if you make unpurified water offerings you will become a ‘yogurt wheels’. S<. Jin means great, dignified position and lab means becoming of that nature. Thus, blessings change the ordinary nature of the offerings to be extraordinary and dignified. When one receives a 219 220

See page 87. See Sandy’s notes on page 98.

106 Yamantaka teachings blessing from a lama the same thing happens; there is some alteration from an ordinary state to an extraordinary one. The offering for the direction protectors is the triangular shaped torma at the right side of the central torma. Concentrate on this torma and clear away hindrances, dissolving them into the nature of emptiness. There are two types of hindrance: absolute truth hindrance, which is ignorance, and relative truth hindrance, which can be ghosts, evil spirits, etc. Dissolve ignorance, ego grasping and ordinary perceptions and conceptions into shunyata. From emptiness, create as in the inner offering except that, whereas the forehead of the skullcup was facing you before, east is reversed and the forehead faces away. The meats are most important and so are placed in the four cardinal directions more towards the center. The liquids are more towards the edge of the skullcup in the subdirections. The torma is edible, solid food and enormous. We bless the torma to offer it to the fifteen direction protectors. >S.

Offering the preliminary torma This is the part of the invocation of the direction protectors[skt. lokapala], as they are called in English. As we do not offer anything which has not been purified, the outer offerings and the torma offering have been blessed and the inner offering has been blessed at the beginning of the sadhana. So, you don’t have to repeat that. During the blessing all our obstacles have been disconnected from us and turned into an undesirable light which dissolves into the torma itself221. What these obstacles are, depends on wherever your practice lies. If you are at the guru-devotional practice level, your obstacles are: not having proper respect, misunderstanding, doubt, etc.. They will be disconnected from you and from all sentient beings and dissolve into the material of the purification. If your practice is on the embracing of the human life level, then anything that makes life difficult and/or boring (like maybe routine chores), and things you consider useless, helpless and hopeless are your obstacles. Disconnect all this and also illnesses and ignorance, etc. from yourself and dissolve it to the offering substance. If you are concentrating on the longevity practice, even if you are doing it with Tara (or another practice, that doesn’t matter), any obstacles you dissolve to this torma offering. Don’t just dissolve them, but transform and purify them and then offer it to these direction protectors who enjoy it, and make the requests in accordance to what your needs are. The requests can take four different forms: peace, prosperity, power or wrath222.

Invocation of the direction protectors and inner guests Light rays in the form of hooks radiate from the blue HUNG at my heart and draw forth the Fifteen Direction Protectors and their entourages, who settle in their appropriate directions. Then, having dissolved into clear light, each of them in one instant arises in the form of the glorious Vajra Bhairava, having one face and two arms, holding a curved knife and a skullcup. The tongue of each becomes a HUNG, which becomes a single-point white vajra with a hollow reed of light. There are a lot of ways of doing the invocation. The peaceful way has lights radiating, exactly as described in the sadhana. From the blue HUNG at your heart-level, which is the heart syllable of all the enlightened beings, blue light goes out in the shape of hooks which touch the beings who are invited, the direction protectors and the inner guests. The light reaches them wherever they are, in their natural abodes. Just by the touch of the light they are invited in front of the practitioner.

221 222

See page 98. This corresponds with the four activities. See Glossary.

Preliminaries 107 Then there is the wrathful way of inviting. Among the protectors223 there are some who are unruly and there are a lot of worldly ones, too. For them, the light hooks touch their heart-level and just pull them towards you, or sometimes the light goes like a sling or a lasso round their necks and reels them in. Sometimes even more than that; it can be done with a dagger which is rammed through their heads and dug through their bodies and then they are pulled towards you. So there are a lot of ways and means, I just simply mention that here. But for us, I do not think we are at that level. Here just a simple, sweet, nice blue light goes out as an invitation and that’s probably the best way to do it. In a brief visualization it will be difficult to recognize who is who and what is what, but generally you just think that the light goes out and invites all these direction protectors and guests. There are also mantras and mudras here. For the invocation you have the hook mudra; it’s like a double hook224. The light goes out from the heart – it’s a bit different from the initiation, where we also get lots of lights – and no matter how peaceful your invitation is, still the light goes slightly hookshaped. In the Thirteen-deity Yamantaka sadhana, it is more elaborate. [Brenda reads from Sandy’s notes]: S<. There are three different types of protectors: 1) those who are manifestations of Vajra Bhairava himself; 2) protectors of dharma activities; 3) protectors of evil activities. We make offerings to the protectors of dharma225, we collect the evil protectors and pound and spike their heads with hammer and dagger. We make offerings and ask them to help us. We particularly request them to drive away inner interferences and obstructive forces which may arise during our recitation of the sadhana. Think that they have accepted your request with peaceful means. If one receives a sign that the peaceful method is not working there is a wrathful method. During any wrathful activity, it is extremely important to create a mind of strong compassion. From the heart-level of the principal protectors a steel double discus or wheel emanates forth. The retinue of direction protectors collect all interferences and with slings and ropes put them inside this double, sharp-edged wheel in which the lower wheel turns counterclockwise and the upper wheel turns clockwise. All those evil protectors are caught inside and are slashed to pieces. Their flesh and blood is eaten by the direction protectors and their minds are removed from non-virtuous shadows and are transferred to the Pure Land of the Buddha. This method is not usually employed, only when deemed necessary . The torma offered to the fifteen direction protectors. The short version is as in the sadhana and the long version is as follows: In the East is Indra226, at his left is Vishnu, in the South is Yama, in the West Varuna227, in the North Kumbera228 and to his left is Ganesh. In the North-east is Maheshvara229, in the Southeast Agni, the fire-god, in the South-west Raksha, in the North-west Vayudeva, the air-god230. Then Chandra231, the god of the moon, Akaya, the god of the sun, and Brahma are all three above. Then Basuma232, the Earth goddess, and Bimachitrime233 are below234.

223

For the different kind of protectors see page 107. The index finger of the right hand and the little finger of the left hand both hook. 225 Dharma protectors are in Sanskrit called: dharmapalas. 226 Tib. Gyalchen. 227 Tib. Chülha 228 Tib. Nöyin. 229 Ishvara. Tib. Wangchug. 230 Tib. Lunglha. 231 Tib. Dawa 232 Tib. Terma. 233 Tib. Taksare. 234 For the Tibetan names of ten direction protectors, as appearing on the thangka of Ekavira Vajrabhairava, see G.W. Essen, Die Götter des Himalaya, vol. II pg. 144. 224

108 Yamantaka teachings The seven inner guests are Yamaraja in the center, to his right Palden Lhamo235, to his left the consort Chamundi236and in each of the four directions the Yamas of the four activities: in the East the white peaceful Yama, in the South the yellow enriching Yama, in the West the red powerful Yama and in the North the black wrathful Yama237. All the Yamarajas have one face and two hands. The inner guests are in the center, surrounded by the fifteen direction protectors. Palden Lhamo is the principal dakini of the three realms and the four activity-Yamas surround her. The fifteen direction protectors transform into Dorje Jigje, that is Vajra Bhairavaya Yamantaka, while the seven inner guests remain as they are, as they are manifestations of Manjushri. All of them have retinues, so the torma must be huge enough to feed thousands of guests. After blessing the preliminary offerings I invite the guests with hooks from the heart and nooses for their necks I round up the direction protectors. From the East comes the saffron colored Indra riding a white elephant, holding a vajra and making a threatening mudra. At his left is Vishnu, one face and four hands, riding an eagle, carrying an Indian type butter churner in one hand, a chakra ribbon, a conch shell and a precious jewel in the other hands. Above and to the right of Indra is [Chandra] the moon god, sitting on a flower of kumunda. Above, and to the East is [Akaya]238 the red sun god on a chariot, carried by seven horses, with two hands, holding a lotus flower. To his right is [yellow] Brahma, riding a goose, holding a special water pot, making the protection mudra. In his left hands he carries a stick and a mala. Brahma has four hands and four faces. To the South is [blue] Yamaraja surrounded by seven Yamas, including outer, inner and Dharmaraja. He has one buffalo-face, two hands, blazing blond hair and he is riding on a buffalo. He carries a club in his right hand and the threatening mudra in the other. To his right is Varuna, the water god, riding a snake239 and holding a snake noose. To his right is the earth goddess Basuma, that is the Mother Earth [tib. Terma], sitting on a lotus flower, holding a yellow vase and bearing the witnessing mudra. S>.

That is because she witnessed the enlightenment of the Buddha. When Buddha had the competition with Mara, Mara could not defeat Buddha and asked Buddha: ‘Why can’t I defeat you?’ and Buddha said: ‘Your little virtue, the little power that you have is limited. Mine is unlimited’. Hearing that Mara immediately turned the argument around and said: ‘Ah, you said that I have virtues, so you are my witness. You also said that you have unlimited virtue, so who is your witness?’ Buddha touched the ground and the earth goddess, whom the Native Americans call the Mother Earth, came out from the earth and said: ‘I am the witness’. S<. When the earth goddess enters the oracle, she refuses to stand up even for the Dalai Lama. >S.

The Mother Earth used to come into trance in Tibet for hundreds of years behind the Drepung monastery. She had a big throne and she sat on that throne and no matter who came by she wouldn’t get up. She just sat there. All the different protectors would come and have a competition on one particular day every twelve years, in the monkey year. Although not all of them are there, around Drepung monastery there are so many protectors, over a hundred and they will come together and go: ‘si tsi poo poo’. In every corner there will be somebody going ‘choo choo choo’240. They are recognized ones. The most important one happens to be Nechung, because they do the competition at Nechung [monastery]. Nechung is important, not because he is the highest, but because he is the Tibetan Government state oracle. They get overriding priority over others and over there they 235

Skt. Mahakali or Kali Deva. For the significance of Palden Lhamo see Dalai Lama, Union of bliss and emptiness, pg. 84-85. Picture: R. Thurman, Wisdom and compassion, the sacred art of Tibet, pg. 300-303. 236 Also called Yami. 237 For a description see G.W. Essen, Die Götter des Himalaya, vol. I, pg. 221. 238 Or Surya. 239 Or sea monster. References for the Fifteen World Gods in R. Thurman, Wisdom and compassion, the sacred art of Tibet, pg. 340. 240 These are the sounds of these wordly protectors or spirits. See Gelek Rinpoche, Lam Rim teachings, pg. 445.

Preliminaries 109 act like the big guys and all others have to surround them. Terma has to be put to the side in a separate room, because she sits on the throne and will not get up for anybody including His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The reason she does not get up is because she has witnessed the Buddha. She is unshakable. She sits solidly. When Terma goes off, another person goes into trance, a young government official dressed up, known as Terma’s boyfriend or something like that. S<. To her right in the West is Bimachitrime241, who is blue, riding an ox cart, holding a sword. In the North is Kumbera, the god of wealth242, who is known as the god with an ugly body and also known as the relaxing god. He holds a ‘city of seeds’ which is a special collection of seeds of all the various crafts. He also carries a mongoose reputed to vomit precious jewels. At Kumbera’s left is Ganesh, the elephant-faced god of wealth, riding a mouse243. Mice are very good at collecting things. Ganesh has four hands. In his two right hands he holds a mala and an ax. In his two left hands he holds a radish and a ladu, a special kind of Indian sweet boiled in milk and butter – a really good one, actually. The recipe can be found in the tantra of Ganesh.

A lot of people know Ganesh, because he is from the Hindu mythology. These gods are common to Hinduism and Buddhism. Some of those gods are like children – they run around, hide and play around a little bit. There is one god who has a snake body, he slid around and couldn’t hide, until he went up the elephant’s trunk and hid in there. S<. In the South-east is the fire god Agni who is red and has one face and two hands riding a gelded goat holding in his right hand a mala and a water pot in his left. In the South-west is the blue Raksha riding on a corpse244. He is wrathful, holding a kapala and a curved knife. In the North-west is the blue Vayudeva, the god of air, he is smoke-colored, riding a deer, with two hands holding a cloth band that makes the wind blow. He is surrounded by thousands of spirits and elementals245. >S.

Audience: Why are they all coming? Rinpoche: Because you are inviting them. I am glad you [Brenda] were able to read that, the information is there and it also reminds me because I forgot. When you talk about direction protectors, you are covering all these wrathful, powerful or peaceful samsaric and non-samsaric gods246, all the ‘small g’ gods. These are the rulers of the three realms of spirits. There is no spirit in existence who is not under the order of one of them. Even the ordinary ghosts. That’s why if you invite these direction protectors as guests and make offerings, you are dealing with the biggest bosses of them all. So every itty-bitty little spirit around, whatever harm they may try to do to you, when they learn you are dealing with their biggest boss, they are in trouble. That’s really true. These are the direction protectors. The seven inner guests are the dharma kings. When we say247: ‘Namo Shri Vajra Bhairavaya’ we address the most important dharma king248, who has an outer, an inner, and a secret manifestation. Then there are the peaceful Yamaraja, the prosperity-Yamaraja, the power-Yamaraja and the wrathful Yamaraja – so five Yamarajas. And then the consorts, Chamundi and Palden Lhamo. Palden Lhamo is considered to be the most important female protector of that level.

241

Skt. Vemachitra. Tib. Nöjin. He rides a horse. R. Thurman, Wisdom and Compassion, the sacred art of Tibet; pg. 340. Manifestation of Vaishravana, the god of wealth. Ibid. pg. 163. For Vaishravana see ibid. pg. 160-161, 305-306. 243 Or rat. R. Thurman, Wisdom and Compassion, the sacred art of Tibet; pg. 340. 244 Tib. rolang = ‘risen corpse’, a zombie. Red-black? . R. Thurman, Wisdom and Compassion, the sacred art of Tibet; pg. 340. 245 Missing is Maheshvara. See pg. 107. 246 For the different kind of protectors see page 107. 247 In the Prayer to Dharma King Chogyal Protector, in English Tsongkhapa’s Praise of the Inner Yama. 248 Named Yama Dharmaraja or Yamaraja or Dharma king Chogyal or Kalarupa. Literature: Thurman, Wisdom and compassion, the sacred art of Tibet, pg. 290-291; G.W. Essen, Die Götter des Himalaya, vol. I, pg. 221. Picture: J. Landaw and A. Weber, Images of enlightenment, plate 21. 242

110 Yamantaka teachings In reality the inner guests are all fully enlightened beings, in non-samsaric manifestations. This is the case with the Dharma King, with Palden Lhamo, and also with Mahakala249 and Kumbera. All other protectors are considered as samsaric gods. E.g. the five directional kings and all their ministers, including Nechung, who is also known as Dorje Drakden, Secretary of State of the Northern Kingdom. S<. The seven inner guests are situated in the center with the direction protectors above, below and encircling them. Dharmaraja is flanked by the most important dakini, Palden Lhamo, on his right, and on his left is Kalarupa’s consort, Chamundi. >S.

Here you have Lama Vajra Bhairavaya Manjushri: a) the Tsongkhapa manifestation of Manjushri is Lama Manjushri, b) the wrathful Manjushri, Yamantaka, is the Yidam Manjushri and c) the Dharma King is the Protector Manjushri So you have Lama, Yidam, and Protector inseparably together. This is not emphasized in the words, but in reality it is there. The direction protectors are very important. If you are dealing with protectors of that level, then no matter what your little troubles may be, they will gradually be subdued. It may take time to come to know who is dealing with whom. It’s like with us human beings. We also have beaurocratic procedures. It takes time to find out whom you’re dealing with. Some police officer may try to be very hard on you, but when he realizes you are the father of the police chief, it will be difficult for him to deal with you the way he intended to. But it takes time for him to find out. With these spirits it is likewise. Then maybe something else for you to consider: if you have bad dreams indicating something really bad may happen, then it’s important to utilize this practice – without telling anybody. If the moment you open your eyes you say:’ I dreamt this…’ or if you call somebody and tell them, then it does not work. If you include this in the torma offering for the direction protectors, without telling anyone, you thus disconnect the bad omens from you in the form of the torma. (If you are sure they are bad omens). Make an offering from it and visualize that the inner guests and the direction protectors have chewed it completely. Then these bad omens will decrease gradually. If you do that repeatedly, like three, seven, twenty-one or hundred times, then all these obstacles normally will get cleared. In the short sadhana you don’t have this offering here at this point, but at the end. In the long sadhana you have it at the beginning as well as at the end. By the way, in the short sadhana most of the eight preliminaries are skipped. S<. The mantra and explanation of the mantra can be found in Ngulchu’s commentary250. OM represents inseparable body, speech and mind. SHTRIH means fangs, ANANI represents the mouth, HUNG HUNG PHAT is requesting, SAPARIWARA means together with the retinue, SVAHA means laying the foundation. When you say this mantra, visualize wrathful yamas radiate from your heart. By touching the heads of these wrathful deities with a dagger and hammer, they are blessed and all are transformed into the shape of Dorje Jigje. The inner guests don’t change because they are manifestations of Manjushri himself. Recollect all the deities back again. The short version of the offering to the direction protectors can be found in Pabongka’s sadhana. Blue light radiates from the HUNG at your heart which brings the fifteen direction protectors with their retinue. Think that all the direction protectors lack inherent existence. They are the nature of shunyata. Dissolve them into emptiness and recreate them in the form of Jigje. >S.

The lights go out and you invite the direction protectors. You don’t make the offerings to samsaric gods in their physical form, so first you transform them into the Yamantaka form. How you do that? You remember emptiness inseparable from your own mind and meditate on it. By that, you will affect the protectors. Your mind and your emptiness-meditation combined together reflect on them. It’s like when you see somebody smoking, you feel like going into it also. This way you are meditating on emptiness, and your mind and the emptiness become of the same taste – that is the experience you get. 249

Picture: J. Landaw and A. Weber, Images of enlightenment, plate 15. Literature: R. Thurman, Wisdom and compassion, the sacred art of Tibet, pg. 293-297, G.W. Essen, Die Götter des Himalaya, vol. I, pg. 206-216. 250 The commentary of Ngulchu Dharmabhadra.

Preliminaries 111 When you’re eating food, your tongue experiences the taste. Similarly here you are experiencing the kick from the emptiness meditation. Here you have an even bigger kick because your mind has almost become inseparable from emptiness, and when someone else sees you are having that, they’ll feel like joining. That way their minds also become of the nature of being inseparable from emptiness, which grows and then becomes the Yamantaka form.

Asking permission for the protectors to enjoy the torma Now the first mantra is : OM YAMARAJA SADOMEYA YAMEDORU NAYODAYA YADAYONI RAYAKSHEYA YAKSHEYACCA NIRAMAYA HUNG HUNG PHAT PHAT SVAHA That is the root mantra, pronounced: OM YAMARANDZA SADOMAYA YAMENDORO NAYODAYA YANDAYONI RAYAKSHIYA YAKSHEYENDZA NIRAMAYA HUNG HUNG PE PE SOHA. There are many explanations on this mantra. The basic rule is: ‘tsangla gyalpo chomden chö – the king of the root mantras makes offerings to the Buddha’, but actually, here you are not making offerings to the buddha Yamantaka at all! Actually what you do is, you seek permission from buddha Yamantaka for those who have been restricted from eating blood and flesh to be able to enjoy the red torma, i.e. to eat meat. They have been made vegetarians. Buddha restricted lots of those unruly, wrathful, powerful samsaric spirits from eating meat, because they became wild and began to harm the people. If you look into their historical back ground, they have been absolutely crazy, and in order to control them and make them behave properly, Yamantaka had to manifest and conquer them. Since then, they have been told not to use any flesh or blood without permission. So this permission of the principal yidam is necessary. Normally they eat by means of their tongue. Their tongues become light-natured straws – like the straws you use to drink your milk-shakes – with which they are able to take out the essence of the offering. You seek permission before they put their straws in the torma. That is why you say the root mantra. The visualization of asking the permission can be done according to two systems, segyu and ensa nyinggyu. The first one makes offerings to Yamantaka. He too has a straw-type of tongue that comes out like an elephant’s trunk. He puts that in the offerings and then sort of sprays it all over the place. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche used to say that when you think of Yamantaka taking the offering you should think of the Mongolians eating tartash251. The Mongols are not considered to be well-mannered eaters. When they eat the tartash, they start to drip sauce everywhere with lot of sauce spilling all over. Since the tongue is in the form of a straw here, it is sort of stirring and then throwing the stuff all over the place. This is saying: ‘Okay, you can go ahead’, giving the permission. The second way to do it, is to visualize the letters of the mantra OM YAMARAJA SADOMEYA... on the edge of the skullcup, in a circle. And while you slowly recite the mantra you visualize that the letters, one after another, drop into the skullcup, the OM first, then the YA, then the MA, the RA, the JA etc. Each of these letters drops in and melts into the stew, which will become the torma offering, and that is the way the permission is granted. S<. There is a difference in opinion here between the segyu and the ensa ninggyu traditions. According t o the segyu system, first one offers the torma to Dorje Jigje himself. Lalita-vajra said to first make the offering to the god himself. The question is what is meant by lha or god. Tsongkhapa said that gods and elementals should be given the torma. Meditate on Vajra Bhairava with retinue and the complete mandala. One makes the first offering to Vajra Bhairava by saying the root mantra. From one’s heart create Ro Dorjema, the female vajra taste deity. She carries food and offers it to Vajra Bhairava. His tongue transforms and he slurps it up. The food dripping from his mouth is the indication that Vajra Bhairava is granting permission to the Direction Protectors to use blood and meat. Vajra Bhairava’s mandala should occupy the central position with all other guests circled around him. 251

A kind of goulash with minced meat.

112 Yamantaka teachings According to the ensa ninggyu system, ‘god’ does not refer to Jigje in this case, but refers to the worldly gods. Jigje is not invited in this system. We offer the torma to the direction protectors so that we will have no disturbances during the sadhana, and the ensa nyinggyu view is that there is no need to offer to Jigje at this time. Ngulchu and all Panchen lamas follow the ensa nyinggyu system. In this system, the letters of the root mantra stand around the edge of the skullcup. When they drop in and melt, that is the indication that permission is given to the direction protectors to use blood and meat. The Direction Protectors have taken an oath not to use flesh and blood without Jigje’s permission. Lama Yongdzin Rinpoche and Pabongka say that both the segyu and the ensa nyinggyu systems are acceptable. When in retreat, alternate systems every other day. >S.

When Sandy’s notes say that the seven inner guests are in the center and the direction protectors surround them, it is Purchok Jhampa Rinpoche’s252 style. There are a lot of different systems to do this; Kunchen Jamyang Shepa, Tangsapa and Purchok Jhampa Rinpoche all have different ways. The easiest way is to put the seven inner guests around the principal and all others around them.

The actual offering of the torma OM BHUCA RANAM YA PATALA CARAYA MANA KHE CHARAYA TA PURBANI GANAM KA DAKSHI NADIGAYA HUNG PASHCIMANAM PHAT UTTARA TIGAYA. OM I HRIH YA SHTRIH VA VI KSHI KRI KO TA E NA A NA DE HUNG BHYOH PHAT SARVA BHUTEBHYAH. [Pronounced:] om butsa ranam yapa tala tsaraya menken tsaraya taburwanam ganam kadagchi nade gaya hunbg pancimanam pe utara tengaya om e hre yatiwa witu te kota e na ayna anade hung bayo pe sarwa bu de bay. When you say the om bhucaranam mantra, either you have all the guests come and eat from one big utensil, or – the best way – you generate an offering goddess from your heart-level [and she serves the guests.] The offering goddess here is Ro Dorjema253, the vajra goddess of taste, in whom all the perfect taste experiences of the enlightened beings are manifested. The picture you should get is one of these little beautiful angel hostesses. You can have a host, a young male, too. But I think a kind of Sushi bar geisha girls becomes a little bit inappropriate here. Here you have the perfect host or hostess in the form of an angel, male or female depending on your interest. To indicate that you are generating them from your heart-level you make the appropriate mudra254. The noise of snapping your fingers is the indication of manifestation. The reason why you are manifesting them from the heart-level is: the heart is the basis of the mind and the mind which is inseparable from emptiness is, you can almost say, the creator of your world. As one scripture says: Chö nam tam che sem gyi gye sung ta All external phenomena are created from mind.

(In reality this is not right, but there are reasons for saying that.) To indicate that, you generate that fantastic hostess from your heart and she is taking the offering from the big soup container, the skullcup. With a smaller skullcup she scoops it out and takes it to all these guests. I think it is easier for you to have an equal number of guests and hostesses offering to them, rather than one little host running everywhere and serving on every table. Then the torma is offered and they take it three times. Then there is that mantra – listen carefully: OM BU CARANAM YA PATALA CARAYA MAN KETSARAYA TA PURBA NINGANAM KA DAKSHINA DINGAYA HUNG 252

1682-1762. The Southern lineage of the Lam Rim came through him. Skt. Rasavajra. 254 Manifesting offering deities: snipping the thumb and middle fingers of both hands, while holding the left hand close to the heart and the right one in front of it. Dissolving offering deities: again snipping the thumb and middle fingers of both hands, but now while making the hugging mudra, i.e. crossing the right arm over the left one at the heart level. 253

Preliminaries 113 PENDZE MANAM PE UTTARA TINGAYA. That is the first part of the mantra and within that you have the mantra OM YA MAN TAK KA HUNG PE woven in: Can you see it? The name mantra of Yamantaka is squeezed in between the names of those guests. Then in the second part of that mantra it goes: OM I SHRI YA TRI VA WU KSHI TI KO TA E NA A NA DE HUNG BAYOH PE SARVA BUTE BE . In there you find the mantra OM SHRI TRI WUTITA NANA HUNG PE built in. So, the names of the inner guests and the direction protectors have been put in between the mantras OM YAMANTAKA HUNG PHAT and OM SHRI SHTRI VIKRITA NANA HUNG PHAT.

First let’s look at the syllables of the inner guests. OM is the OM from the mantra OM YAMANTAKA then comes BU CHARANAM. BU comes from bumi, butra or in Tibetan sala chöba – ‘the one who owns the earth’. So BU CARANAM is the earth goer, which refers to Dharma King Chögyal with his retinue. YA is part of the YAMANTAKA HUNG PHAT mantra. Then PATALACARAYA means ’one who goes under the ground’ and that refers to Chamundi, the consort of Yamaraja. Then comes MAN from the YAMANTAKA mantra. Then KECARAYA, ‘sky goer’ refers to Palden Lhamo. ‘Sky-goers’ are the dakinis, and the most important dakini of the three realms is Palden Lhamo. [S<. Palden Lhamo controls space]255. Then TA is the next letter from the YAMANTAKA mantra; then PURBA NINGANAM is the peaceful Yamaraja in the East. Then KA is the next letter from the YAMANTAKA HUNG PHAT mantra and then DAKSHINA DIGAYA is the Yamaraja of prosperity in the South. Then comes HUNG of the YAMANTAKA mantra and then PASHCI MANAM, the Yamaraja of power in the West. Then comes PHAT, the last letter of the YAMANTAKA HUNG PHAT mantra. Normally PHAT is the ending of the mantra but here it is recited in combination with the next letters. UTTARA TIGAYA is the wrathful Yamaraja in the North. So, Yamaraja has five manifestations256. HUNG PHAT,

S<. When reciting the mantra, Pabongka and Lama Yongdzin Rinpoche say one should accent the syllables of Yamantaka’s name and mantra. >S.

The second part of the mantra has the syllables of the fifteen direction protectors: OM is the beginning of the OM HRIH mantra where ‘I’ stands for Indra, king of the thirty-second heaven [and includes Vishnu]. SHRI is the next letter from the OM HRIH mantra, YA is Yama, the lord of the death; TRI is the next letter from the OM SHRI mantra, VA stands for Varuna, the water god; VI is from the OM HRIH mantra, KSHI stands for [the last name of] Kumbera [Yaksha], and includes Ganesh]; next is SHTRIH from the OM HRIH mantra, then KO stands for Koshika, i.e. Brahma, and included in the same syllable are the sun god Akaya, the moon god Chandra and Indra257. You find Brahma mentioned in the sutras a lot. He was the one who came and asked Buddha to start teaching. Then comes TA from the OM HRIH mantra. Then E stands for Agni, it is the first name of the fire god; then NA is another letter from the OM HRIH mantra. Then A stands for Abiraksha, the ‘devil’ of the South-[west]. Then NA is from the OM HRIH mantra again, DE is the air god Vayudeva; HUNG again is from the OM HRIH mantra, followed by BHYOH, which is [Basuma] the earth goddess [and includes Bimachitrime]. It’s funny, sometimes you read the syllable BHYOH as JOH and sometimes as BAYOH. The earth goddess likes to be called JOH although the name is actually BAYOH. Whenever we have to say the Mother Earth Goddess’s prayer separately, we always say JOH. Her mantra even has seven JOHs in it. (It goes: JOH RAMUN JOH RAMUN JOH JOH RAMUN TÜN JOH KALA RAJA MARAMA AJA TAJA TÜN JOH ROLO ROLO HUNG JOH.) Kyabje Ling Rinpoche told me a couple of years before he died that when you combine the letters of these two mantras [OM HRIH STRIH and OM YAMANTAKA interwoven with the names of the guests], 255

Other name translations found: Bhucaranam – ‘the one who acts on the earth’; Patalacarya – ‘the one who acts under the earth’; Khecaraya – ‘the one who acts above the earth’. Reference: Transcription of Serkong Rinpoche Yamantaka teachings. 256 Dharma King Chögyal is the first one of these five. He is the inner Dharmaraja. Raja = king. Also see note 248. The other four are the four activity Yamarajas. 257 In this counting – in accordance to the commentary of Tri Geshe Senge, pg. 22 – Indra is mentioned twice while Maheshvara is missing.

114 Yamantaka teachings you can’t just say: ‘HUNG JOH PHAT’. You have to say: ‘HUNG BAYOH PE’. But whenever you use this separately you say ‘JOH’. PHAT is part of the OM HRIH mantra. Normally all PHATs come at the end of a mantra, but this particular PHAT is not the end of the mantra, so you can’t say PHAAAT! and then continue with the mantra. You say it short and continue immediately, don’t cut at the PHAT. A lot of people cut at the PHAT, westerners and Tibetans. Even the tantric monks, including the chanting masters do it, but it is a mistake. Then there is SARVA BUTE BHYAH. SARVA means all other things or persons, it’s like the word etceteras. In this case it refers to all other persons who need to be included. These are all the elementals, spirits and any other worldly gods you have not included so far. These are familiar in the west. The ancient Egyptians had them and the Native Americans do. All these spirits from the traditional Greek, Egyptian, Native American, etc. mythology – whether mythological or real – are included here. That’s why the scope of the direction protectors is so vast. The mudra used here is simply the lotus mudra258, with its eight petals opening and closing. You have to make your fingers straight and do it in a nice way, very elegantly. Do it at the heart-level, because the lotus represents the heart which is the basis of mind, the source of all creation. You keep doing it for as long as it takes to say the mantra. S<. The eight fingers used in the mudra represent the eight petals of the heart chakra. The heart is the base of the mind, the mind creates samsara and releases us from samsara. Chandrakirti said, ‘If anyone says there is a creator other than mind, I won’t believe them’. >S.

It is also important not to go wild. If you are doing a public performance, and you want to impress people you may go wild, but we are not doing that, so we do it at the heart-level. You should even try not to separate the hands and elbows too much. Keeping them together has a lot of meanings: one of them is keeping the coordination and the energy linked together, and another one is: it represents the inseparability of wisdom and method. I have a friend in Holland who does healing. He is very good in healing you by touching you. But he won’t do what is good. He puts you down somewhere and from a distance he does what he calls ‘distance aura healing’. He claims it’s great, but it doesn’t help. Like that, distance is not that great. In your visualization all the torma you had in that skullcup, is completely eaten. Nothing is left, but you’re also not short! They have enjoyed it. Of all the particular obstacles you have dumped in there, nothing is left. Each one of those direction protectors and inner guests has such a big mouth, they link up heaven and earth, and their teeth are as big as snow mountains put together. No matter what they chew between those teeth, there is no way out from between them.

The outer offering to the protectors OM DASHA DIKA LOKA PALA SAPARIWARA ARGHAM PRATICCHA HUNG SVAHA (etc for…) PADYAM, GANDHE, PUSHPE, DHUPE, ALOKE, NAIVIDYA, SHABDE. DASHA means ten. DIKA means directions. LOKA means world and PALA means protectors, so it means: ‘those who are the controllers, owners, preservers or protectors of the ten directions of the world259‘. LOKA and PALA go together and I think SAPARIWARA means retinues. 260 ARGHAM: if it’s a wrathful offering it is blood, otherwise it’s water for the mouth . Then PAD261 YAM, is water to wash the feet. The mudra shows that with the left hand you are holding the feet and with the right hand you pour the water over the top. GHANDE is not perfume, as the western translators often translate it. It is good-quality scented water, to be applied to the chest to keep someone cool. In 258

The dancing mudra. The four fingers of the right and the left hand symbolize the eight petals of the lotus. They continually move one by one, starting the opening and the closing, both, by the index finger. 259 See note 234. 260 For the wrathful offerings see page 98. 261 For a drawing see Chapter XII Appendices.

Preliminaries 115 Tibetan it says tri chab – tri is smell and chab is water. When you come in from walking in the afternoon heat of Southern India, the first thing you are looking for is something cooling. So you have water to drink, water to wash your feet and some cold water to sprinkle on or rub your chest with. That’s why, I think, the GHANDE comes at his place instead of further on.262 Next is PUSHPE flowers, offering to the eyes, DHUPE is incense, the fragrance offering to the nose, ALOKE is a light offering to the eyes, NAIVIDYA is food, the taste offering to the tongue and SHABDA is music, the offering to the ear. PRATICCHA HUNG SVAHA [tib. leg par shene] means both ‘properly offered’ and ‘lay the foundation’; both translations are possible. With each offering you can visualize that an offering goddess manifests out of your heart and dances around. The picture we get here is that of an Indian dance like the Katakala dance (or something in that style), where the dancers move their whole body and then ‘dem dem kyuk kyuk...’ That’s one of the reasons why they use hostesses, because the body makes a difference too. It should be able to move very flexibly, like a freshly grown willow branch which moves with a little wind. If you do the offerings separately the goddess makes the offering of the water to the mouth, and then with a snap of the fingers, she dissolves back to your heart, from where she was generated. Then for the PADYAM you generate another offering goddess with a snap of the fingers. You have her dancing around, washing feet… This is Indian culture. They do that because they wear sandals and get dusty feet. So, before you go in, you pour water over your feet. DHUPE actually is not the incense itself, it is the fragrance – the mudra indicates you are rubbing the incense. There is an Indian restaurant across the river over here, and the owner tells you: ‘All my spices are freshly ground every time you order’. Whether his spices are freshly ground or not, here the mudra indicates that the incense is freshly made. SHABDA is music – any kind of music can be offered, whatever you like. I don’t think there is a strong restriction on the use of musical instruments for this particular purpose. I am quite sure you can use almost any musical instrument – electrical guitar or saxophone will be fine.

The inner offering to the protectors OM DASHA DIKA LOKAPALA SAPARIWARA OM AH HUNG Finally you make the inner offering. And you think, that even though you may have offered all obstacles through the torma form, if still there are any left, you offer them in the form of an inner offering to those direction protectors. S<. If you ever have a bad omen or a bad dream, put it into the torma and offer it to Dorje Jig je and the Direction Protectors. The bad omen will be gone. Request the protectors to help you. They have promised Manjushri to protect the dharma and to tame demons. Ask the yamas of the four directions, plus Palden Lhamo and the others, to protect you from all disturbances and hindrances during the sadhana or during the retreat.

For us the purpose of the offering is to accumulate merit. The guests aren’t hungry, they don’t need it. However, the best way for us to accumulate merit is to give them joy, the joy of bliss-void. That joy comes out of your reminder to them to grow bliss by your offering. So, you don’t only visualize the direction protectors taking the offerings very well, but also that through the offerings a tremendous joy grows within them. You sort of have to think: ‘Well I gave this to this person, and the person took it all and got a good kick out of it’, or ‘it has made the bliss-void nature joy grow within him or her’. S<. During the inner offering, the forehead of the skullcup faces you and during the torma offering, this is reversed and the forehead faces away from you. When blessing the inner offering, only one wrathful opponent of Yama emanates from one’s heart or he can exit via one’s nose. In the case of the torma offering, many wrathful opponents of Yama go forth to scare away hindrances like a swarm of angry bees. Inner disturbance is ignorance and outer disturbance is spirits and tan-

262

In other practices GHANDE comes after ALOKE.

116 Yamantaka teachings gible interferences. Dissolve them into emptiness, and create them in the nature of the five buddhas and the five consorts. The skullcup is white outside which symbolizes method and red inside which symbolizes wisdom. Both present in one vessel symbolizes the ultimate union. The consecration of the inner offering or torma is a complete sadhana in itself. Contained in it by virtue of OM AH HUNG are the three-kaya practices. The complete generation and completion stages are contained within it. The air mandala represents tu sa ki lung, the downward wind which protects things from dropping out. The fire mandala represents tummo. The three heads represent nawa, chepa and topa – luminescence, radiance and near-attainment. The five meats signify the illusory body. The five nectars signify the clear light. Mixing them altogether signifies the ultimate union. This represents the ultimate spiritual development and the cleansing of ultimate negativities. AH signifies the completion of the ultimate spiritual attainment. OM signifies the attainment of maximum activity power. By merging the names of the protectors in the form of seed syllables with the Vajra Bhairava action mantra, the minds of the direction protectors become blessed. After the torma offering make the outer offering. To do this, radiate special offering goddesses from your heart equal in number to the number of guests. There are two ways to offer flowers - either offer them to the eyes or offer to the head in a garland like Indian women wear. Offering to the eyes is more generally accepted. The names of the offering substances are enclosed within the mantra OM AH HUNG, blessing them. Now make the inner offering. Feel as though the guests have been satisfied and have the resultant experience of bliss of body and mind. Maintain the awareness that all is in the nature of emptiness. >S.

Praise to the protectors OM Karmayama263, ogresses, dakinis, and zombies; all of whom are sworn as outer and inner protectors, who in the presence of the Subjector and Dharma Lord, Manjushri, pledged to tame all demons and to protect the Doctrine: with a wishful mind I bow and turn to you. Oh Direction Protectors with your entourages, help me to complete my virtuous actions and clear all interferences. This praise was written by an early Indian teacher called Shiwa Yeshe, the ‘peaceful wisdom’. The English translation is upside down here, I will go according to the Tibetan: chomden is subduer, chögyal is Dharma Lord, and Jamyang is Manjushri. So, ‘Subduer and Dharma Lord Manjushri’ – that refers to the wrathful Manjushri, Vajrabhairava, literally buddha Manjushri in wrathful form. Then comes chen lam du – in your presence. So it is saying: ‘In the presence of the Wrathful Manjushri you have committed to subdue the evil obstacle – dü dül ten pa sung bar shal she pa – you’ve pledged to tame the mara demons and to protect the teachings; dü are the mara demons, and dül is to tame, to control. These mara demons are divided into four categories: 1) nyong mong pai dü two – the mara of delusions, 2) she je drib pai dü – the mara of the imprint of delusions 3) lha ye pu ye dü – the mara of the children of the gods 4) shi ta gi dü – the mara of death. ‘Children of the gods’ refers to the ‘small g’ gods, the spirits. That category includes all the wild spirits used for black magic. They have certain particular powers, that’s why they are associated with the ‘small g’ gods. Then ‘protect the teachings’. The word ‘doctrine’, used in the English translation is wrong here. There are two categories: lunggi tenpa and tokpai tenpa. Lunggi tenpa are the teachings, etc., and tokpai tenpa is the actual tenpa, the spiritual development within the individual. Even in the Abidharmakosha, the metaphysical text, tenpa is divided into two: the outer worldly expression and the inner spiritual development. So, when you want to protect the tenpa, then it is not 263

Karmayama is the same one as the Dharma king Chögyal, i.e. Kalarupa, i.e. Inner Yama; Karmayama is the outer aspect, Kalarupa the inner aspect of the Dharma King. For an image of Karmayama see chapter XII, Appendices.

Preliminaries 117 only the doctrine you want to protect. Though tenpa is generally known as teaching, Buddhism, etc., it refers to many things. Here you are seeking the protection of your inner spiritual development, which is now only at the small-seed stage and it just has started to grow. Like when in spring-time these tiny little green sprouts start to shoot, they need most care, you also need most protection at this moment. So particularly for the inner spiritual development, you seek protection from the four demons. Then come the names of those who protect: lechi shinje – Karmayama, mamo – ogresses, kandroma – dakinis, etc. All of the outer and inner protectors are listed. Then dag ni re wai sem gyi dü ching chi – I myself pray with hope, I bow and turn with a wishful mind’. Then: ‘Bring my virtuous deeds to completion and act with virtuous conduct to pacify all interferers’. There’s also a longer prayer by Pabongka with four different activities, but I don’t think we’ll touch that. S<. Shantijnana is the author of these verses of praise. Bhagawan Shri Manjushri means Vajra Bhairava in wrathful form who has promised to protect the dharma and to remove evil obstacles. ‘Mamo’ is Chamundi, the consort of Karmayama, as Palden Lhamo is the chief dakini of the three spheres. ‘Chungbo’, according to Ngulchu Dharmabhadra, does not mean ordinary elementals, but Direction Protectors. ‘Zambi’ does not refer to zombies, but to retinues of hungry ghosts which follow the direction protectors. ‘Etc’. includes all those who promised to carry out orders as Vajra Bhairava’s outer protectors (the direction protectors) and inner protectors. >S.

Yamantaka hundred syllable mantra OM YAMANTAKA SAMAYA / MANU PALAYA / YAMANTAKA TENOPA / TISHTA DRIDHO ME BHAVA / SUTOKAYO ME BHAVA / SUPOKAYO ME BHAVA / ANURAKTO ME BHAVA / SARVA SIDDHI ME PRAYACCHA / SARVA KARMA SUCHA ME / CITTAM SHRIYAM KURU HUNG / HA HA HA HA HOH / BHAGAVAN / YAMANTAKA MA ME MUNCA / YAMANTAKA BHAVA MAHA SAMAYA / SATTVA AH HUNG PHAT. Anything which has here been incorrectly done, due to my not having the proper materials or because of my ignorance or lack of ability, with all of these, O Protectors, it is fit to be forbearing. You have made the offering, your request has been accepted. Whenever the protectors get contact with individuals like us humans, they also have little difficulties and obstacles. For that reason the long sadhana has the Yamantaka hundred syllable mantra. So, when you say that hundred syllable mantra here, it is done for the sake of the beings you’re offering to. It purifies obstacles for them. That is done through buddha Vairochana. Either all five dhyani buddhas or only buddha Vairochana sit above the heads of the invited guests and light and liquid streams forth from them. If you want to go into detail, at the heart-level of buddha Vairochana you have the hundred syllable mantra, and at its center, the letter HUNG. From that, white nectar comes and goes through the crown of the directional protectors. And the problems of the directional protectors and anything we have offered them, all our impurities and bad things, and anything they dislike or get upset about, gets purified by the clear light and by the liquid coming from all the five dhyani buddhas (or from buddha Vairochana alone). You can also use Akshobhya, but it is better to use Vairochana here.

Sending away the direction protectors OM AH VAJRA MUH The Direction Protectors and their entourages return to their natural abodes.

118 Yamantaka teachings When you ask the directional protectors to go to their natural abodes, either you visualize them going back there or you picture them moving away backwards, almost to where the protection wheels are or maybe even slightly outside them264, thus giving you space to build your mandala. At this point Kyabje Ling Rinpoche adds something: ‘These directional protectors then sit in the distance, looking towards you, the practitioner, helping and protecting you until you complete your activities. That’s another way of visualizing it. They sit at a distance and watch over you. like Big Brother watching over your shoulder [joke]. That goes for all the guests, the fifteen directional protectors and the seven inner guests. The purpose is to remove all obstacles of the sadhana practice and to provide all necessary needs. The first Panchen Lama, Panchen Losang Chogyen, also emphasizes that: ‘The purpose of the preliminary offering and the request is that there shouldn’t be any obstacles especially for the practice and all needs should be provided for’. Please note: ‘Needs’ here does not apply to material needs, but to atmosphere and time. S<. Nectar drips from the HUNG reaching the head of the direction protectors and purifies all their negativities. If we made any mistakes during this practice, they are also washed away at this time. The inner guests are in their own shape, that of a black vajra marked with HUNG. Snapping one’s fingers drives them far, far away beyond the mandala boundary outside the cemeteries, where they stand watching you and giving you protection. One can also visualize them returning to their own abodes. Lalitavajra said: ‘Pile up meats and nectars and offer tormas to the wrathful elemental protectors. First make apologies to gods and protectors, then they go away’. The purpose of this part of the practice is to avoid disturbances during the sadhana and to provide the causes and conditions for activities, said the Panchen Lama.

Why do we generate all these direction protectors in the Yamantaka form, rather than in their own personal form? There are four reasons for that, [S<. given by Lhundrup Pandita]. 1) Adopting the appearance of a deity helps the protectors. 2) It helps to purify the ordinary perception and conception of the direction protectors. 3) It satisfies the direction protectors [S< the elementals] themselves. 4) Generating them in the deity form, and making offerings to them, makes the deity happy.265 In Tibetan they use the term lha, ‘god’ here, so it literally says: ‘generating the direction protectors in the god form makes the god happy’. I am purposely using this word here; Yamantaka is referred to as god. Every deity is in that sense a god. Also, when we refer to kunchog, i.e. the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, we refer to them as gods. So this last sentence means: to generate the direction protectors in the buddha Yamantaka form makes buddha Yamantaka happy.

Consecration of the offerings of self generation OM HRIH SHTRIH VIKRITANANA HUNG PHAT. OM SVABHAVA SHUDDHAH SARVADHARMA SVABHAVA SHUDDHO HAM. All is empty. Within the sphere of emptiness appear eight letters of AH and from these arise huge and vast skullcups. Inside of each is HUNG. The HUNGs melt and become water for the mouth, water for the feet, perfume, incense, light, food and sound. All have the nature of the bliss-void wisdom, the appearance of offerings and the function of being objects of the six senses which arouse extraordinary non-contaminated bliss. OM ARGHAM AH HUNG; OM PADYAM AH HUNG; OM GANDHE AH HUNG; OM PUSHPE AH HUNG; OM DHUPE AH HUNG; OM ALOKE AH HUNG; OM NAIVIDYA AH HUNG; OM SHABDA AH HUNG.

264 265

Transcription teaching of Serkong Rinpoche, pg. 43, ‘to the cemeteries’. For the sake of a logical succession we changed the order of these four points. (The original order was: 2-1-4-3.) Still the points are unclear –they seem too much alike– and therefore may need further clarification by Rinpoche.

Preliminaries 119 This is the sadhana offering blessing. As you are offering to the self-generation, i.e. yourself in the form of a god, the offerings are laid out accordingly, starting from your right hand side to your left. I explained how that is done earlier266. If you can manage you should have these offerings laid out in the way we usually mention, but if you don’t have them, it doesn’t matter, you can also visualize them. S<. Now bless the offerings to the self generation deity. Our body is not yet pure, but we consecrate to make it pure, just as at the time of enlightenment all we utilize is automatically transformed into purity. There are peaceful and wrathful offerings. In this case wrathful offerings are more appropriate since Vajra Bhairava is a wrathful deity, however both can be offered. The Second Dalai Lama’s ritual puja for Palden Lhamo employs a combination of the two types of offerings. Saying the mantra, a dakini chases spirits who are dissolved into emptiness. From syllable letters AH come skullcups, the nature of bliss and void. From HUNG letters come the offering substances. These offering substances possess the three significances: 1) the nature of bliss emptiness; 2) in the appearance of offering substances; 3) having the function of bestowing great bliss upon oneself as deity. There are also six special significances: 1) significance of the substance itself; 2) mudra; 3) mantra; 4) concentration; 5) ritual; 6) nature of emptiness. These two systems are not incompatible. What has preceded is just the consecration of the offering. One may offer a mandala at this time. >S.

Mandala offering267 The teaching tradition puts something in here, which neither the short nor the long sadhana have at this point – the mandala offering. If you can do it, you do it. It is necessary, but if you don’t do it, you don’t have the problem of missing something. The mandala offering is very important, both for purification and for accumulation of merits. It is simple and very easy to do. In our Jewel Heart groups we have not started yet, but others, even in the west, are doing it. There is something called mandala, which can be used to make mandala offerings by yourself. It is recommended to use the best material you can afford for the mandala. In good old traditional Tibet, the mandala was made out of twenty-four karat gold. Quite a lot of people had that. Then there are silver mandala plates which are gilded. Some of them have silver bases but with gold decoration studded in. I have one of them, too, not here, in Tibet. When we escaped from Tibet, both Kyabje Trijang and Kyabje Ling Rinpoche brought their mandalas with them, made of gold with lots of jewel decorations, quite valuable and in the beginning managed to get quite a lot of money for it too. So sometimes it is useful that way. When you do not have gold or silver, you go for copper, bronze or even wood or slate. When Tsongkhapa offered his mandala practice in the Wolka mountains, he had neither gold nor anything else valuable – it was pure slate, just a flat piece of rock. Tsongkhapa went for that long purification retreat under the order of Manjushri, and Manjushri selected eight people as retinue. So the nine of them went there almost without a penny. When everybody collected all their belongings together, it was less than nine shos, which is less than one sang, which is one fifth of a British-Indian rupee of 1940, and which will in terms of modern dollars be less than a penny. That is the money value of their belongings at the time, so no plate at all. The outer mandala offering. There is Dronkün Chöje Pakpa’s system of the mandala of thirty-seven heaps. Je Tsongkhapa himself used the twenty-three heap system, the Kalachakra has a nine heap system and in sutra seven heaps are used: Mount Meru, the four directions, the sun and the moon.

266 267

See page 98. For an explanation of the mandala offering also see Gelek Rinpoche, Guru devotion, how to integrate the primordial mind, pg. 120-128.

120 Yamantaka teachings When you’re putting down the heaps, you may in fact be putting a little heap of grains on your mandala, but you visualize that the things you are reciting are actually there, and you offer them. Above each heap you have a lotus plant; each lotus has twenty-five branches; on each branch is a Samantabhadra buddha with folded hands and a wish-fulfilling jewel in between – like Avalokitesvara. Above each jewel again there is a lotus with twenty-five branches, each branch having a Samantabhadra on it. That’s how you multiply when you say you make Samantabhadra offerings. And when you multiply reciting mantras, you have one body with a hundred heads and each head has hundred tongues. A Samantabhadra practice You can do a concentrated meditation on the Samantabhadra offering, and it will at the same time be a preliminary practice for the completion stage too. This will be good for those of you who sometimes have nothing else to do. If you don’t know how to kill the time, you can pick up your mandala offering – or if you don’t have that, you can use your hands and represent Mount Meru with the fingers – and above that you visualize a lotus with one Samantabhadra. You start with one, then you increase to two and then three and so on, up to twenty-five and then each one of them will have one more lotus and so on – if you keep on practicing that, then some time you will actually be able to do it. Then you can also dissolve each of the Samantabhadras to the lotus – each time twenty-five of them dissolve to their lotuses, and then the next twenty-five dissolve into their respective lotuses, etc.. It doesn’t matter if you can’t dissolve them properly yet, but if during the completion stage your dissolving system is wrong, you are making a mistake. Here you can practice. You can make one lotus into two, two into four, four into eight and so on, and then dissolve them back the same way you have generated them. It will take quite a lot of time. If you have two hours to kill, you’ll be able to generate three lotuses and dissolve them back. And each one of the branches will carry a lotus again, and every lotus will have a Samantabhadra, and every Samantabhadra will have another lotus. So if for example, you have thirty-seven heaps, it becomes a big multiplication. Those among you who are good at mathematics, I’m sure you can do it. This is a very good exercise for concentrated meditation. These Japanese people who beat the drums all the time, reciting the White Lotus Sutra, practice that thoroughly. They generate all these lotuses, and each one of them has a buddha on top of it, and it goes on and on. They do that single solid practice thoroughly with that sutra, reciting: NAMO MO HO RAN GI YO KYO KYO TO and with the beating of the drums the lotuses grow, and they go faster and faster and grow more and more lotuses. At least that’s what they are supposed to do, but I don’t know what they are actually doing. We once had a discussion in Delhi between Kushok Bakula, myself and their 94 years old Guru called Fuji Guruji. Fuji Guruji shared something, he had in common with us, in Tibetan we call it Tamche padma karpo – Namo horan gi kyoto kyoto meaning: ‘I bow to the White Lotus Sutra’. If you think there is no opportunity to practice: there is an abundance of opportunities to practice! It is so simple, for instance you can do it when you’re waiting in the parking lot. Or you could do it waiting in line to get stamps at the post office, or when you are in the doctor’s waiting room and you don’t want to read the three years old magazines there. And it will help you. You can just say the Sazhi pökyi mandala recitation268 and visualize that way. And if you have to stop and can’t complete it because you get called, you just say: IDAM GURU RATNA MANDALA KAM NIRYATAYAMI and go. Then you have the inner mandala offering. You also have this in the Vajrayogini practice, in the long Lama Chöpa and even in the Chöd. Basically what you do is, you use your skin as ‘the ground’ – it’s very similar to the Kusali offering too – your skin fills up the whole ground and becomes the ground. In the old Indian culture, water was poured on the ground to put the dust down on the ground. When making arrangements for his teacher, the bodhisattva Chöpa, the bodhisattva ‘Always Crying’ couldn’t get any water. He then didn’t hesitate to take blood from his own body to put the dust down with that. That’s how he managed to cover the bhumis one to seven all in one go, which is otherwise not heard of in the sutra path; in tantra yes, but not in the sutra path. 268

The short verse: ‘By directing to the field of Buddhas this offering of a mandala…’.

Preliminaries 121 Likewise, you use all the liquids from your body, including the blood, to put the dust down. Then you have flowers on this freshly sprinkled ground, made by your heart and all your internal body parts – like intestines and so on – transformed into parts of the mandala. Making that offering is the inner mandala offering. Now the secret mandala offering: At your heart-level your bliss-void, simultaneously born with you, has taken the physical shape of the letter HUNG. This HUNG transforms and becomes a big universe with mountains and rivers and valleys and trees where everything is beautifully green and lush and there are beautiful things. In reality this is your simultaneously born bliss-void nature; in the form aspect they are those things. [That bliss is what you offer.] Then there is the suchness mandala offering. When your mind recognizes emptiness, it will become inseparable from your mind. You won’t be able to separate the mind that recognizes the emptiness from the emptiness itself. That is what is meant by: like pouring water into water. That mind, inseparable from emptiness, enjoys the bliss-void. Keeping that mind as a base, you again start looking for void, repeating the same process we’ve mentioned earlier. And you try to recognize the emptiness of the different things, either external or internal. So, you’re sort of doing something double. When you do that, you begin to recognize its true nature. You really cannot pinpoint it, but neither can you lose that true nature. When you see of any object that its nature is empty, the recognition of that emptiness as well as the recognizing mind being in the bliss form, both are regenerated into the form of offering material. And that will be the suchness offering. That is actually the offering of emptiness. So when making the mandala offering, you actually make four offerings: outer, inner, secret and suchness offerings.

Vajrasattva meditation recitation S<. Lhundrup Pandita says, Only the body of all buddhas which remains at the center of a white lotus and moon holding vajra and bell is Vajrasattva. If one recites the hundred syllable mantra more than twenty times according to the ritual, it blesses one and stops downfalls and transgressions from multiplying. All the siddhas agree. The Vajrasattva recitation should be done between sessions. If one says the mantra 100,000 times, one becomes the nature of purity.

The Vajrasattva recitation and meditation is not part of the actual sadhana, however, it helps to dissolve inner disturbances and reduces delusions and shadows. Early Tibetan lamas consider this practice to be the beginning of the sadhana and Yongdzin Rinpoche agrees. >S.

Renewing of the refuge and bodhisattva vows Before the last outline of the preliminaries we have the taking of refuge. Generating refuge gives you the mark of being a buddhist practitioner. Generating the bodhimind gives you inspiration plus motivation, plus it is the mark of the mahayana practice. So with almost every practice you do, within the practice you have the repetition of taking refuge and the repetition of generating the bodhimind. Although there is not so much new refuge to be taken, and not so much new bodhimind to be generated, every time you repeat these words it reminds you of the focus, of the purpose and the earmark of the practice; and the vows which have already grown have been strengthened and rejuvenated and commitments have been furthered. Motivation makes the difference, that’s why it is repeated everywhere. The texts may tell you to take refuge and to generate bodhimind as much as three or seven times, but if you have really done it very well right in the beginning, you can just read it once. Even if you don’t say it – though I do not say it is not needed – you do not have the fault of missing it. Likewise, in the sadhana you repeatedly find the offerings. The essence of the offering is not the flower or the light or the food, but the joy it brings to the objects of offering and the joy of the senses of

122 Yamantaka teachings the body and mind of the individual. There is no new bliss and void to be brought in, but it reminds you of it repeatedly. That’s why the offering is done repeatedly. Moreover it’s one of the best and most important ways to accumulate merit. To the Three jewels I go for refuge; All beings I shall liberate and place in the State of Awakedness; the Bodhicitta I shall fully generate. S<. First create the objects of refuge and bodhicitta. Directly in front of you create a huge throne supported by lions upon which is the complete mandala of Vajra Bhairava. Place one’s root guru in the place of Akshobhya at the crown of Vajra Bhairava’s head. At above one’s root guru visualize the entire lineage. Alternatively, one may visualize the lineage gurus surrounding the root guru. Dorje Jigje is inseparable from Buddha ratna, their spiritual development is the Dharma ratna in the form of texts, and the retinue is the Sangha ratna. These are the objects of refuge. Visualize oneself surrounded by one’s parents, relatives and all sentient beings in human form who all have the ability to speak and understand. Take refuge in the three Gems. ‘I go for refuge’ - the three Gems is the object. ‘All beings I shall liberate’ - the sentient beings around me are the object. Concentrate on the eleventh stage of development of a bodhisattva. ‘Place in the state of Awakedness’ - this is the special mind. which takes the responsibility to liberate all sentient beings. This is the crucial difference between hinayana and mahayana. ‘Bodhicitta I shall purely generate’ - the eleventh stage bodhisattva mind. Look up at the objects of refuge and look down and generate compassion. Light from the refuge objects washes away impurities. The two objects are the object of enlightenment and the object of sentient beings. If you do commit a non-virtuous act, through regret and the application of the four opponent powers, the negative action can be purified. In this way the non-virtue is stopped from multiplying. If you fall on the ground you have to get up again with the help of the ground itself. Likewise, if you commit a non-virtuous act on an enlightened or non enlightened one, it can be corrected in the following manner. Towards an enlightened being: take refuge in the three Gems. Towards an unenlightened being: meditate on compassion. This is the power of the object. Meditate on the four limitless thoughts: equanimity, love, compassion, seeing what the other person is lacking. Dissolve the refuge objects into you. >S.

The Vajrasattva meditation recitation The Vajrasattva recitation is commonly used by almost every practitioner, whatever tradition they may be following. It’s also commonly used for all the different yidams, Only in the meditation there are slight differences. Like the Vajrasattva recitation goes: OM VAJRASATTVA SAMAYA..., when part of the Yamantaka practice it becomes OM YAMANTAKA SAMAYA... When it’s part of the Heruka practice it becomes OM VAJRA HERUKA SAMAYA... When it is just done in general it becomes OM VAJRA TIKSHA SAMAYA... From PAM on my crown a lotus and from AH a moon disc, upon them from HUNG a five-pronged vajra, its hub marked with HUNG. Since in the beginning you have generated yourself instantaneously in the Yamantaka form with one face and two hands, here you have to visualize that you are still in the Yamantaka form. You are facing south, it doesn’t matter whether you are actually facing south, or whether you imagine you are facing south. Then on your crown, suddenly the letter PAM appears. So you can say: ‘From PAM on the crown of my head comes a lotus’. You can visualize PAM as one letter.269 That is better than looking at them as three different ones. In Tibetan the word PADMA is written with the P and the M together without using a full stop in between 269

For the Tibetan letters see Appendices.

Preliminaries 123 and therefore the DA from PADMA has to be shifted down. So P and M and DA goes underneath. This is done simply to try to make them fit into one. In the mantras you try to write it together, whereas if you write it as you would in normal Tibetan you write it separately. You can do the same in English. You don’t want to make something new which nobody can read, but it could be made so that one can read it, or at least figure out what it means. Even OM, which has actually three letters, in Tibetan is written as one, with A in the middle and O on the top and the M represented by the zero on top of that. In English we have to think in that way too. So there is the letter PAM and from that, suddenly the white lotus arises. Now you have a nice white lotus on your crown, if possible with a thousand petals. Otherwise whatever you can visualize nice and big. Don’t go for something small, there is no point of being a conservationist here, better do it in a big way. Also when you buy tsok, buy the large tsok. When I first saw how Westerners did the tsok in Dharamsala, I was shocked to see they just filled the plate with one layer of flat biscuits! You want to go for abundance. Miserliness brings poverty and generosity brings wealth. That’s why I like big cups. Whatever you generate, particularly offerings, imagine it to be ten times the size of the ocean. You have to have a big heart and do it in a big way. It’s not very realistic if you think in economic terms, but here the principle of economics is different. Therefore go for the big way. It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t cost you anything in terms of dollars. Just a little bit. In this commentary an eight-petalled lotus is used, but think that each petal has a lot of petals underneath it – so it becomes a big fat lotus cushion. So, not like a tulip having one single petal opening, but have many leaves under the main leaves – that feels more stable and comfortable than a single petalled delicate flower. S<. Shewa means peaceful or dissolve. The activity here refers to the dissolution of delusions and their imprints. white is the color of peaceful activity and dissolution. The color of the lotus may be visualized as mother of pearl. >S.

The center of the lotus has to be big, because you’re going to get a moon-disc equal in size to its center. The petals of the lotus will go around the outside, the moon disc will not be on the petals. On that lotus is an AH looking like an ice-sculpture. It has to be the long AH, like it has a little dash on top of it, if you picture it in the Sanskrit way. If you can’t picture that, create a bigger AH there, looking like an ice-sculpture. Then that AH becomes a moon mandala. If you think of the AH as an ice-sculpture, you make it easy for the moon disc, which will be of some kind of water nature. You should think the moon disc to be white and flat, like thick Mongolian bread. The moon disc should have three different kinds of white: mother of pearl, silver white and conch shell white. There’s a HUNG on that moon disc. We pronounce it HUNG, but in writing it should be HUNG, because you have the letter M in the form of the zero on top. From that white HUNG in the center of the moon disc comes a white five-spoked half vajra, the hub marked by HUNG. If you want the full vajra in your visualization, that’s fine; but if you have the half vajra, you still have the rounded hub underneath and then that has the HUNG. You have to make some difference in color between the basic vajra and the HUNG, or you could have a transparent HUNG in it; that’s also fine. The HUMs color is white. Whether you patch the HUNG on the vajra, or whether you have the HUNG within the vajra or whether you make it of a transparent nature, as long as you can see it, it’s okay. See whatever is easier for you. From that, vajra light radiates, then gathers together…. Then when they say: ‘From this light radiates’, they are not talking about the HUNG or about the vajra alone. Light radiates from them both. That light emanates and collects back together. So the light radiates out from that dorje, and reaches to all sentient beings.

124 Yamantaka teachings When the vipassana people, like Ram Dass and Joseph Goldstein in America, teach you meditation, they let light radiate out from the body or the mind, and that fills up the house, and the city, and the country, and the universe. Whether they picked it up from here or not, sure is that practice comes from here. When you say: light radiates, that is to put in a short form. It means that light goes out from there, and fills up every environment near you, and then it goes beyond all distances and fills up the ten directions of whatever exists. The purpose of filling up all directions is twofold: purifying the environment and purifying the inhabitants. With the text made simple, sometimes people tend to overlook that. You don’t just want to purify the environment and the inhabitants of this universe, but of universes anywhere, everywhere. How? Just by the touch of the light all environments become pure and all inhabitants become transformed. How do they get transformed? The people are touched and purified, particularly their negativity is, and they become pure and enlightened. The light rays really change them – their physical and mental capacities, it all gets changed. Whenever you read that light radiates and collects back, that’s what it means. No matter what toxic things we’ve created, it all gets purified by the powerful enlightened light rays you are sending from your crown, from the five spoked dorje with the letter HUNG. Everything is purified just by that touch. You don’t have to fight and overpower, but – in American terminology – use your good energy, use your good thoughts. And if you are able to practice this, you’ll be able to send a telephathic message, whether somebody is able to receive it or not. Sending light rays serves two purposes: 1) to purify the environment and the inhabitants; 2) to help yourself and to make offerings to all these enlightened beings. When you reach to all these places with your light rays, a distinction is made between persons who are and those who are not enlightened. Those who aren’t enlightened are purified and to the enlightened ones you make offerings: light offerings, flower offerings, water offerings and most important of all: the joy you bring in; the joy which recognizes the emptiness, which is the bliss-void. It works both ways: the joy brings the void, and the void brings the joy. They recognize each other and they work together. They are inseparable. There is nothing new to grow within the enlightened ones, but it’s sort of a reminder to them. When we first experience any physical sensation, no matter if it’s of a chemical or a sexual or of any nature, the first time it is always something new. The next time and every time thereafter however, it still brings the sensation, in spite of the fact that it’s nothing new anymore. Likewise, every time you use this, what matters is not so much what you offer, but what matters is the fact that this offering brings joy within the object to whom you’re offering. The mere fact of the offering is more important than what exactly it is you’re offering. The physical offering becomes a condition, sort of a cause to renew the experience. So this new light you have just generated, brings joy to those enlightened beings, and that joy recognizes emptiness and automatically it becomes bliss-void to those people, because they are in the category of the enlightened beings. So not only have you made an offering, you’ve also built the merit of them accepting your offering. And not only have they accepted it, but they also enjoyed it. And they don’t just enjoy it in a simple manner, but they enjoy bliss-void combined, and that brings a lot of wisdom and merit to the practitioner. You can also use that when you make the Samantabhadra offering.270 This is commonly adaptable to all the vajrayana practices, no matter what kind of offering you make. It could be hamburgers, hanging flowers, cut flowers or anything. The enlightened ones enjoy it that way. So they send their good wishes and thoughts and blessings in the form of light. The sadhana says: ‘Light emanates and collects back together’. The visualization here is that the light comes back. Remember in the vajrayana practice we always have that important point that, whatever you generate out from any part of your body, you have to collect back. You don’t let it go out and leave it hanging out there. That’s important. 270

See page 120.

Preliminaries 125 … and then the Vajra arises as a white Vajrasattva with one face, two arms holding a vajra and bell. His consort, white Vajrabhrukti has one face and two arms holding skull and chopper, embracing him. Both wear silks and are adorned with various jeweled ornaments. Then the light rays become white Vajrasattva, Dorje Sempa. The size of Vajrasattva is recommended to be nor very big, nor very small, about the size of a fist or about five inches tall. Of course he has a white body, one face and two hands, is holding a vajra in the right and a bell in the left hand, and has the right hand crossed over the left one. He wears multicolored silk clothes and various jeweled ornaments and is sitting cross-legged in the vajra position. He has a consort, Dorje Nyima Karmo. She is white with one face and two arms, holding a cleaver in the right and a skullcup in the left hand. A cleaver is a chopper with a slight hook on the side. The consort is on the lap of Vajrasattva, her arms around his neck, and her two legs over Vajrasattva’s thighs crossing behind his hips. That’s no secret for us, we can visualize that easily.271 If you close your eyes, then on your crown now is a lotus the size of your head and above that a white Vajrasattva with one face and two hands. You may think it’s like a nice little statue made out of pastry margarine. Pastry margarine is better than silver or conchshell. It’s not hard, it is soft, but better than rubber. The whole idea is to get a feeling of something living, with flesh; we don’t have bones, otherwise it might break, or unbreakable bones, maybe. Anyway, a nice little Vajrasattva for you to think about. You can really see the small little white face with three eyes, living. It’s important to think of them as living, nice, small, with big open eyes, not really round eyes. He’s sort of ready to speak. Then when you start looking you will even see the eyebrows and the third eye. If you go a little bit into the distance and watch, you cannot see it, but if you start looking closely it is very clear, distinct, even the eyebrows and the third eye are there and he’s living – a nice little white Vajrasattva, sitting cross-legged. Generally speaking, no matter what you generate, you make it big. But if you have a huge Vajrasattva on your head, what will happen is that when the meditation becomes actualized and materialized, it will become heavy and you may not be able to take it. You may break your neck. That is a joke – it won’t break! But it is difficult to carry. That is why it is the size of a fist. The trick is that you have to see it, even with your eyes closed. How? Either you get out of your body and look, or you create a third eye with which you can see it. No matter which one you choose, it’s a visualization, so you have to see it. You don’t have to look up there, you just see it. He sits in the vajra position – on his heart moon white HUNG radiates light, inviting the wisdom being similar to himself. The father sits in the vajra position and in his heart, on a moon, is a white syllable HUNG from which light rays emanate, bringing forth the wisdom beings, who are like himself and his consort. The wisdom beings are invited, along with their consorts. Perhaps you can also do it without the consort. I don’t think there is an objection to do it without the consort. The sadhana does not say so, but here you have to think that both Vajrasattva and consort have a white OM at their crown, a red AH at their throat and a blue HUNG at their heart-level. They become indivisible. The wisdom beings are invited and become non-dual. Millions of Vajrasattvas which you have invited, dissolve into the Vajrasattva you visualized, or alternatively all of them become one huge Vajrasattva which then comes and dissolves into the already visualized Vajrasattva. You dissolve them with DZAH HUNG BAM HOH; whether you say it aloud or not doesn’t matter. The wisdom beings enter into the commitment beings. 271

Plate: Jonathan Landaw and Andy Weber, Images of enlightenment, pg. 118.

126 Yamantaka teachings

The commitment beings are those you have visualized. The visualized, projected Vajrasattva is called ‘the commitment Vajrasattva’. The same goes for all deity meditations. Also when you generate yourself into the Yamantaka form, you’ve generated yourself into the commitment form. Even when you generate Tsongkhapa in front of you, in the Ganden Lha Gyema, that is the commitment being. The wisdom being comes and enters the commitment being, like something is put into a liquid – [DZA]. When you merge two separate things, they don’t become inseparable straight away; you can still see some difference between the two – [HUNG]. Then it becomes inseparable or non-dual – [BAM]. And it remains permanent – [HOH]. In sanskrit the word for commitment is samaya, which means base or ground. It’s the base which you create and it’s the base you work with. All these beings you create can also be labeled as ‘samaya beings’. Commitment is the base on which you obtain your siddhis. ‘Commitment’ does not only mean saying your sadhanas and not breaking your commitments. The commitment of your vow, the vajrayana vow, and its related activities, that’s really what the commitment is. That is the fundamental basis of obtaining siddhihood in vajrayana. If you have broken your vow, the hope to attain siddhihood is senseless; it is like chasing the rainbow, or in normal American it would be a ‘wild goose chase’. Again, light radiates from the heart HUNG, inviting consecration deities. Once again light rays emanate from the HUNG at his heart. Now they invite the empowering deities. In vajrayana you have this deity-initiation very often. The reason is that you have to be pure. It’s not that we’re dirty or something, but here to be pure refers to ordinary perception and conception. You forget that you’re in the deity form and that you’re in the Pure Land, you forget that the beings you encounter are all pure. These are the normal vajrayana obstacles. In sutrayana we always say that delusions, anger, hatred, etc. are our obstacles. Here it’s the dualistic attitude. The attitude of impure perception and acceptance, i.e. acknowledgment or conception, are the vajrayana obstacles. Therefore we need to be reminded of the pure land, of pure vision, and of pure seeing. If you talk to the Nyingma tradition lamas, they will tell you that you perceive all males as Avalokitesvara, all females as Tara; all trees are pure beings, all the ground is pure, the wind is making the sound of mantras and so do all the leaves provide the sound of mantras. This is what is meant by pure perception and conception. Impure perception and conception are considered as obstacles, dualistic, separate, and therefore impure. In order to avoid these contaminated obstacles in our work, we have these initiation deities. They are purifying deities. You invite the initiation deities – who look like angels – carrying the abisheka vases, pouring water and purifying. And you always make additional offerings and praises. This gives you an additional bonus. That’s why it’s always repeated that way. ‘May all Transcendant Lords please openly confer consecration’. When I pray thus, they hold up vessels filled with wisdom nectar and confer consecration upon him. OM SARVA TATHAGATHA ABHISHEKATA SAMAYA SHRIYE HUNG His body is filled with wisdom elixir which overflows to adorn his crown with Akshobhya. Now you make requests: ‘Oh, all Tathagatha Buddhas, please confer empowerment on him’. So all the buddhas make the request: ‘Please initiate this deity and then: ‘Having thus been requested, they hold up the vases filled with the nectar of pristine awareness and confer the empowerment, saying ‘OM SARVA TATHAGATHA ABHISHEKATA SAMAYA SHRIYE HUM’. That is the initiation mantra. Abisheka means among others initiation. Abisheka has a lot of meanings: it also means ‘empowering’, and ‘cleansing’. Here the particular initiation deities make Vajrasattva pure once again, so that Vajrasattva becomes active and powerful, without any problems and faults. S<: Kangsar Dorje Chang said that bodhisattvas have no non-virtues to wash away. A bodhisattva has no shadow, but we have the shadow of doubt that this is merely one’s mental creation and is

Preliminaries 127 not real. This shadow is now washed away. Nectar fills the body of Vajrasattva; Akshobhya adorns his crown. The consort does not have an Akshobhya crown. She is crowned by Vajrasattva himself as she is considered part of the retinue of Vajrasattva. On Vajrasattva’s heart is a moon mandala representing relative truth bodhicitta, upon which is the letter HUNG, which represents absolute truth bodhicitta. >S.

Audience: (about the left over water on the crown that transforms into Akshobhya) Rinpoche: The ‘left over water’ doesn’t mean water that has been used, but it refers to the overflow, the water that still remains on the top of your head. (Like when you have taken a shower, you still have water left on your head). This nectar water becomes a small Akshobhya. Buddha Akshobhya is the principal deity of the five dhyani buddhas. Each one may be the principal in his own caste, but Akshobhya is in the center. Akshobhya stands for transformed hatred. ‘Lord Vajrasattva, please cleanse and purify all the losses of vows and all sins and obscurations of myself and others’. By praying thus, light radiates from the heart HUNG purifying the sins and defilements of all beings, also offerings are given to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and all their virtues are concentrated into light, dissolving into the heart HUNG, making his luster and energy outstanding. The visualization here is as follows: At the heart-level of yourself in the Yamantaka form there is a moon disc. S<. …. on which is the letter HUNG. Upon the tigle of the HUNG is oneself in ordinary form surrounded by all sentient beings. One may visualize them standing on the moon disc at one’s heart as Vajra Bhairava instead of on the tigle. Generate great regret as if we had just eaten poison and confess all our non virtuous actions... >S.

At the center of that moon disc are you yourself in ordinary human form with whatever hair and haircut you have, with or without glasses, or whatever it is you look like. Surrounding you are all your nearest and dearest and then all ordinary sentient beings. They fill the ground. On your crown as big Yamantaka, you have Vajrasattva. That Vajrasattva radiates lights equal in number to the sentient beings you have at your [Yamantaka] heart-level. Each sentient being you have there will get one light ray. On the tip of each lightray is Vajrasattva with consort. So, on the crown of each sentient being there is a manifested Vajrasattva with consort. If you find this difficult, you can do it this way: On your Yamantaka crown you have a Vajrasattva [proportionally] corresponding to the size of that Yamantaka. Vajrasattva goes into sexual union. White light and liquid drops from the joining of the two organs, cuts through the lotus seat, through your crown and becomes multi lightand liquid rays and reaches your heart-level. All sentient beings get a Vajrasattva at the tip of their ray of light and liquid. A third way is this: Light goes out from the heart of Vajrasattva on your crown. It collects the blessings of all buddhas and bodhisattvas of the ten directions and brings them back. They dissolve to the Vajrasattva and that gives him a boost and he becomes powerful and capable of purifying all sentient beings. S<. Light again emanates from Vajrasattva’s heart sending forth offering goddesses to the buddhas and bodhisattvas. Their blessings of body, speech and mind are collected back, making Vajrasattva even more powerful and supremely dignified. This is cause to create the illusion body. >S.

128 Yamantaka teachings After that, you say the Vajrasattva recitation. OM VAJRASATTVA SAMAYA / MANU PALAYA / VAJRASATTVA TENOPA / TISHTA DRIDHO ME BHAVA / SUTOKAYO ME BHAVA / SUPOKAYO ME BHAVA / ANURAKTO ME BHAVA / SARVA SIDDHI ME PRAYACCHA / SARVA KARMA SUCHA ME / CITTAM SHRIYAM KURU HUNG / HA HA HA HA HOH / BHAGAVAN / SARVA TATHAGATA / VAJRA MA ME MUNCA / VAJRA BHAVA MAHA SAMAYA / SATTVA AH HUNG PHAT. Purification visualization There are three different meditations on this: yande, mande, punde – washing upwards, washing downwards and clearing together. I am sure you all know, I have been talking about that very often. 1. Downward. Light and liquid comes from the joining part of the male and female parts of Vajrasattva, goes through the crown, reaches the heart-level and washes away your and all sentient beings’ non-virtues that we have created and collected from limitless beginning. All are washed away completely, inside and outside, and all the obstacles are going down like ink-colored or dirty water, as if you were washing a dirty, filthy utensil. You also have to think that your body has become completely pure, clear and clean. 2. Upward. Light and liquid comes from Vajrasattva and goes to the lower part of the body and starts to fill it up. If you want to wash a bottle and the bottle has some dust in it, you pour the water in the bottle and when the water comes up the dust is lifted and goes out. Like that Dorje Sempa’s light and liquid comes and starts to fill us from our toes on up. Then all these non-virtues start coming out of our ears, nose, mouth, from all other holes of the body and from the crown. It’s not just dripping from our bodies, but it’s completely flushed out from our bodies. There’s no chance it’s even sticking to your body or your finger tips – it is washed out completely. 3. Collecting everything at your heart-level. All sentient beings’ non-virtues are like a big darkness, and when the light hits, like when the electricity is turned on in the darkness, the darkness goes, disappears completely. If one elaborates further, it looks like a black, dirty sort of egg at your heart-level. Then the light and the liquid come from Vajrasattva and just by the touch of it, it’s disposed of completely, washed out of your body. Use either one of these meditation I think the easy way to do it is when the light comes and moves away the darkness. And if you have a problem putting all sentient beings at your heart-level – which a lot of people may have – have them sitting around you, near you. The idea of having the ordinary form at your heart-level is, that if you have the Yamantaka form, there may not be anything to be purified. In ordinary form we have a lot to be purified. You can also switch during that period, forget that you are Yamantaka for a little while and think about your everyday appearance. You can also pick up this Vajrasattva practice separately from the sadhana practice and do it where and when you feel you should do it. That is also possible. Then the mantra: Vajrasattva – that is the name of the Buddha Vajrasattva. Samaya – that is commitment. Manupalaya – please protect me. (In other words: this Vajrasattva commitment protects me.) Vajrasattva teno pa Vajrasattva, make me close to you Tishta – let me remain there, close to you Drido – let me be stable there Me bhava – make that my nature Sutokayo me bhava – please be happy with me, or: making me into this nature makes you happy. Supokayo me bhava – make me into the nature of prosperity, make me in the nature of growing. (There are a lot of different translations on that.) Anurakto me bhava – please love me.

Preliminaries 129 Sarva siddhi me prayaccha – all the siddhis may be given to me. Sarva karma sutsa me – all the activities may be given to me Cittam shiriyam kuru – may you remain as witness for my mind or: may you become the glory of my mind HUNG – that is the heart syllable HA HA HA HA HO – these five represent the five wisdoms. Baghavan – that is Buddha, the Hindus translate that as God, if they do not translate it, it remains there as it is. When you say: Baghavan Shri Rajneesh, it actually means: God Sir Rajneesh. Untranslated, in the western conceptualization, it becomes some sort of title. Sarva Tathagatha – all the buddhas and their retinues. Tathagatha means ‘one who has conquered all the enemies’ or ‘one who has all the qualities’. That is the exact translation of Chomdende, one who has gone beyond. Vajra ma me munca – don’t give up on me. Vajra bhava – make me into the vajra nature. Maha Samaya sattva – the great commitment being . AH –AH is the seed syllable of all sound. It tells you that all phenomena are in the nature of emptiness. AH kyewa me ba - AH has no growing, nothing to grow. That represents emptiness. HUNG – that represents bliss, wisdom bliss. PHAT –This clarifies the wisdom bliss-void combination. It also means: destroy all obstacles to this purpose. That is basically the meaning of the hundred syllable mantra. In other words: Baghavan Tathagatha, make me remain close to you, be happy with me, make me into the nature that naturally makes you happy, bring it close to me, make me remain there, make it permanent, protect me, bless me and give me the five wisdoms, destroy all the obstacles to grow inseparable bliss-void. That’s what you should be thinking when you are saying the Vajrasattva mantra. Now you have a rough idea. There are a lot of translations of this mantra around. I remember Kyabje Song Rinpoche during the Heruka teaching, emphasizing the meaning I gave just now because it seems not all Sanskrit translations give you this meaning. At that time Kyabje Song Rinpoche had an interpreter who was very well versed in Sanskrit. But Rinpoche got a little upset and started shouting at the translator, saying: ‘This is not about the Sanskrit you know well, this is the ancient Indian Sanskrit.’ So we are probably better off, following exactly this translation. For any purification you need the application of the four powers. What are the four powers? Base, action, regret, repentance. Okay, give me an idea: in Vajrasattva recitation, where is the base? [Group discussion follows]. Taking refuge and bodhicitta cover the base. You take refuge to the enlightened beings and develop bodhicitta for the non-enlightened beings. The actual practice itself is the action of the antidote and the verse: ‘Out of ignorance and delusion I have transgressed my words of honor ...’ covers both regret and repentance. Therefore in this Vajrasattva recitation you also have the four powers complete. This tells you two things. One: in vajrayana you have to apply whatever conditions you have created during the lamrim time. There is nothing from the Lam Rim you can throw out saying: ‘We are in the vajrayana and to hell with this!’ This has provided the foundation, the ground and so it has to go in there too. Two: It also gives you the idea that whatever is given in vajrayana, you also have to look at with the criteria provided in the Lam Rim, see whether they’re there or not. E.g. if they give you a Vajrasattva recitation simply like that, you remember: the criterion of purification is application of the four powers, and you look to see if they’re there or not. Likewise when they give you the: OM SVABHAVA SHUDDHA SARVA DHARMA SVABHAVA SHUDDO HAM, the emptiness, then you bring in the wisdom part of the criteria of emptiness. See whether they are ap-

130 Yamantaka teachings plicable or not. We will discuss this subject later, but the fundamental basis here is: looking for emptiness, do you look from the angle of existence, or do you look from the angle of zero? If you’re looking at it from the zero angle, from the wisdom part of the Lam Rim you might know very clearly, that what you’re going to find is zero. Therefore it is the wrong criterion. You have to look at it from the angle of existence. That’s a very important point you cannot ignore. This gives you the message that whatever foundation you are building in the Lam Rim you have to carry over and apply here. You have to check any methods you find, to see whether they meet the criteria or not. If the criteria are complete, it is a good method. If the criteria aren’t there, then there is a problem, and you have to put a question mark. That will give you a guideline to select certain practices, or if a certain practice is thrown into your face, you can see if you can accept it or not. You can judge from that angle. You remember I used to say: you can throw a piece of meat to a dog; but even a dog first smells it. Unless it’s a very hungry dog who trusts me a hundred per cent and jumps up in the air and just swallows it, no dog will do that. Even dogs will smell whether something is edible or not. If you get a new piece of cloth, you will measure with your body, if you can wear it or not. If you get a new practice, you measure with the criteria which you have as background whether it’s useful or not. Even if the Vajrasattva recitation is thrown at you, and it is said that this is the best purification, you must look: where are the four powers? Then of course, different traditions will tell you different bases, and they have different ways of explaining, but that is a different issue. I can’t say that their way of explaining the base is wrong, and that my way is right, nor can they say mine is wrong and theirs is right. I am simply following whatever my teachers have told me, the tradition that goes through Tsongkhapa. One then prays: ‘O Guru my protector, please give refuge, deluded by my ignorance I have broken and lost my vows. Chief holder of the vajra, whose nature is great compassion, I take refuge in the leader of beings. And Vajrasattva then says: ‘Oh child, all your transgressions and broken vows are cleansed and purified’. He dissolves into me, and my body, speech and mind become indivisible from those of Vajrasattva. This is quite clear, isn’t it? You are saying: ‘All the broken commitments that I have, it is not me, it’s due to my ignorance. Ignorance may not be excused in a lot of places, but we always use it as an excuse. In other words you’re saying: I have a broken commitment because of my ignorance. But there hasn’t been anything I purposely ignored. I have not done anything wrong intentionally. I might have broken my commitment due to ignorance or due to this or that excuse: through not knowing or not being able to utilize it, or forgetting, or being powerless and not being able to do it; therefore I seek forgiveness. So you are giving these excuses. But indirectly you’re saying: ‘I didn’t do it purposely’. Most of us, we don’t do it purposely, anyway. We find that we have either forgotten or we were too sleepy or too drunk or overpowered by delusion or something. We didn’t intentionally think: I’m going to break my commitment now, I am going to do it. We don’t do it that way. Principal Vajrasattva, inseparable from my protector Guru, you are the most important of all, I take refuge to you; I seek your help. Dorje Sempa comes back and says: ‘Hey child, all your mistakes are gone, purified’. This is very important. Whatever events will take place, they will follow your thoughts. So in your thoughts you really have to think, you have to brainwash yourself; at least for a moment you have to think that you are pure. In normal Christian language: you have been totally forgiven, you’ve become totally pure, you’ve gone to the right side of God. I’m half joking here, but you get the message.

Preliminaries 131 Somehow you have to give yourself a little confidence of being pure and develop the pride of being a pure being. You even have to think: Vajrasattva calls me a family member, a child of the enlightened beings, so I am somebody now. You have to believe in yourself a little bit, boost your ego more, lift your pride up a little, raise your head up, and give a funny look at the emotion ‘I am useless, hopeless’. Give that one a funny look a little bit. That’s what you have to do and this is the period to do it. If you do this, it’s not ego-boosting. It’s raising your self-pride or self-esteem. That’s what you need. So Dorje Sempa says: ‘You are pure’ and then dissolves to you and you become inseparable from him. In other words you are pure and clean as much as Vajrasattva is. You are clean and clear like a little ice-stick. When the purification is over, then the work you have to do in the ordinary form is done, you become pure and sort of disappear as ordinary being and become oneness with Yamantaka and Vajrasattva. That small me is gone now, that slide has moved. You say the long Vajrasattva mantra twenty-one times, divided into three times seven for the three visualizations272. Even the short one: OM VAJRASATTVA AH273 twenty-one times maybe will do. I remember Kyabje Song Rinpoche clearly saying that will do. I don’t remember Kyabje Ling Rinpoche and Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche saying that, but Kyabje Song Rinpoche says it. That means it is definitely within the tradition. So you can say it twenty-one times, which may not purify everything, but all broken vows and broken commitments will not increase. It is cut there. It is recommended to do the Vajrasattva recitation twenty-one times before going to sleep. Though it is part of the sadhana, you can take it out of there and purify whatever you feel needs to be purified from the limitless beginning or particularly of this year, or of the past month, or last week and particularly from this morning to this evening. Then the increase of the last twenty-four hours has been cut out. Therefore it is a very important practice. S<. According to Kyabje Pabongka, saying the mantra twenty-eight times is good for removing the non-virtues of body, speech and mind. Saying the mantra the first seven times purifies nonvirtues of body, the second round of seven purifies non-virtues of speech, the third round of seven purifies non-virtues of mind and the last seven purifies non-virtues of all three. Have the firm belief that all non-virtues have been cleansed and that one is now pure. We are in the nature of emptiness. Kangsar Dorje Chang said that doing a puja to help sick people is effective because merely being near someone who is concentrating on shunyata makes others feel better. The application of the third opponent power is the recitation of the Vajrasattva mantra. The fourth opponent power is the intention not to repeat the non-virtuous action. When making this pledge, be realistic and set a time limit that one can honor. To say that one will never repeat the act is probably a lie which will inevitably be broken. Lama Yongdzin Rinpoche said that if you do this Vajrasattva meditation and recitation you will definitely clear up your negative deeds. Even those like Angulimala who cut 999 fingers, can purify their deeds and become arhats. Don’t doubt the effectiveness of this practice. Now, think that Vajrasattva is very fond of you. He melts into you and your body, speech and mind become inseparable from Vajrasattva’s body, speech and mind. >S.

Vajrayana practice is complex. It is not like a single action you just do and get it over with. There are many different activities collected together within it. A sadhana is really a collection of practices or actions. Even in sutra we have the seven limbs plus the whole Lam Rim which together become a solid practice. In a similar way, in Vajrayana, the sadhanas contain everything collected together. No matter whoever says what; it is absolutely true: there is no such thing as instant enlightenment. In whatever tradition you look, Tibetan, non-Tibetan, Hindu, there is no instant enlightenment, truly. The Gelugpa tradition will claim that bliss-void nature. The title of one of the Dalai Lama’s books even is: Union of Bliss and Emptiness. There we say: this is instant, you need nothing else. We say that. 272 273

See page 128. For the explanation of why OM VAJRASATTVA AH instead of OM VAJRASATTVA HUM see Gelek Rinpoche, Lam Rim Teachings, pg. 404.

132 Yamantaka teachings The Dzog chen tradition will say: dzog chen is the only thing, you don’t need anything else. Every tradition has something like this to say. Whatever it may say, yes it is true, that last practice needs nothing else, but in order to reach that, you have to do everything. So there is no such thing as instantaneous enlightenment at all. That’s why it is very, very important to have a solid practice, with a lot of different things put together, everything combined.

Questions and answers Audience: (...) Rinpoche: They remain until you have finished saying the Vajrasattva recitation. During the mantra recitation you do not concentrate on what ‘vajra’ means, what ‘sattva’ means, nor do you have to concentrate on the sound, instead you concentrate on the visualization you are doing. That’s why you have all the sentient beings there, and all the light and liquid is going their way and the purification is going on until you say: ‘Help me’ and Vajrasattva says: ‘Hey, you are pure’. By that time they all disappear. The slide will go. Audience: (...) Rinpoche: To repeat: after the lineage prayer you give yourself time and concentrate on embracing human life, its importance, the difficulty to find it, and how easily it is destroyed. Then concentrate on suffering in general and specifically suffering in the various realms; and then develop the idea of disgust. The whole idea behind this is to draw away the individual from attachment. Attachment is a kind of ‘mind of desire’. The opponent of this mind of desire is the mind of disgust. It might not necessary to withdraw from reality, but it is important not to have a feeling of lust, (not necessarily ‘lust’ in the normal sense, but ‘desire’). It’s okay, if you look at certain things and say how wonderful and beautiful they are. You can appreciate it and leave it there. It becomes a problem when you say: ‘It is wonderful and beautiful and I would like to have it’. I think that’s when you have gone a step too far. The idea of using the mind of disgust is to step out of this wanting to have it. That is the main purpose. I don’t think that beyond that there is much purpose for it. Then you concentrate on the bodhimind. And then straight away you link it to the emptiness and you dissolve and rise. That is a very good way of building it up. I don’t think the words of the sadhana tell you to do so, but you do have to give yourself some time here. Some sadhanas have taking refuge and generating bodhimind in between there somewhere, depending on the different sadhanas. But no matter if there are words in the sadhana to that effect or not, this is where the practitioner is expected to do what we just described to you. Audience: (...) Rinpoche: Sure, the short sadhanas are shorter versions of the long sadhanas, so you can bring across anything from the long sadhana and practice it within the short sadhana, but you have to put it in at the appropriate place. That’s why we have long, medium and short sadhanas and very long sadhana as well. It is a totally individualized practice, so whatever you want to do, you can take it from here and join it there, provided it fits in and doesn’t mix up the general outline. The next question is from me: what are the materials used for the inner offering and why is it called inner offering? The five meats and five nectars are the five wisdoms and they actually are the five buddhas and the five consorts, they do not just correspond to them. That’s why in the nectar pill] we don’t use actual dogs’ meat and urine and so on, but substitute them by different medicinal plants. And that is also the reason why we don’t use anybody’s nectar pill. The actual five buddha families melt into the nectar form; they are the five buddhas, they are the five consorts, they are the five wisdoms. That’s why it is such a powerful nectar. It will even be able to revive a seven day old corpse if you put it into its mouth. You would be unable to produce such a powerful nectar unless they are the actual five buddhas and the five dakinis and the five wisdoms.

Preliminaries 133

Audience: (...) Rinpoche: Purification is one of the most used practices of the Vajrayana. Purification is necessary because although in reality the inner offering is the five buddhas and the five consorts, you as individual practitioner might not be able or not in the position to use it as such, so you are depending on the ordinary materials, which you are visualizing at this moment. And because of this you need purification. Purification is necessary for a number of reasons. Firstly we are incapable. Secondly, we are using these different names, we are visualizing in this manner and that needs purification, not only purification of the material, but also inner mental purification, perceiving those substances as they are. These inner mental obstacles need to be cleared, to be purified through emptiness. That is not the only reason. OM AH HUNG is not only the body, speech and mind of the enlightened beings, it also takes away the body-, speech- and mind obstacles, not only of the individual practitioners, but of the individual practitioners surrounded by all sentient beings. You take away all their obstacles, particularly those of the practice of guru-devotion. So not only do you purify all the inner offering materials with the words OM AH HUNG, but also all these obstacles, such as not having proper faith, and misunderstanding and doubt. You pick up each one of them from the individual’s mind, disconnecting them from the individual and dissolving them into this particular offering. In this case it concerns the inner offering but in the case of blessing the torma offering, it’s the same thing, the same inner-offering blessing is used. The protectors’ mouths are huge, big and terrifying and the gap between upper and lower jaws is like the one between earth and heaven and their teeth are like snow mountains. You offer these obstacles in the form of a torma to their mouths and then they are closed and whatever the obstacles are, they are chewed to smithers in between those snow-mountain-like looking teeth. The blood dripping from their mouths is because they are totally crushed in between. As for the wrathful activities there is much more to tell and that also goes for the peaceful activities. For us, sort of asking: ‘Please enjoy those offerings and help us to do this and that’, is a more suitable way instead of executing in a powerful or wrathful way. Audience: About the inner offering: who are we offering it to? Rinpoche: When you are blessing the inner offering in front of you you have a little bottle of Chivas Regal, nice whiskey or nice cognac or whatever, but in your visualization that is the inner offering. When you’re going through the verses concerning the inner offering, you are blessing it and after that whenever you are saying OM AH HUNG you use it. A little further in the sadhana there are lots of places where you make inner offerings – sometimes to the Baghavan Shri Vajrabhairava. (Baghavan Shri is the traditional Indian style of addressing fully enlightened beings. That’s why you read/hear: Baghavan Shri Buddha Tathagatha or Baghavan Shri Yamantaka Vajrabhairava.) Audience: In the five nectars there are what we consider yucky substances and there is one that is called ‘white bodhimind’ and for me bodhimind is something very precious and I do not know why it is put here with the excrements and blood, etc., I guess I do not know what white bodhimind is. Rinpoche: It is semen. And that is dirty, right? Audience: Perhaps. Rinpoche: I am glad you said perhaps. Perhaps it is nectar. Audience: I don’t understand what the metaphorical meaning of the five meats and nectars is. Rinpoche: Let’s drop the metaphors of the five wisdoms and five buddha families. Let’s just pick it up as the most powerful meats and the most powerful liquids. Just ordinarily they are very powerful. When the Chinese came to Tibet and started to grow vegetables, they used all the human waste plus bones and horns as manure; whatever they saw anywhere they collected, chopped, smashed and actually boiled all that in huge pots and then put the liquid on each vegetable. Even on the radishes and they would grow big and tall – so there is a tremendous amount of nutrition in there, especially when it is still fresh. That’s why the inner offering is powerful.

134 Yamantaka teachings On top of that, not only do we put our virtuous energies in it, but our negative energies as well. We transform them and make them into something very special, a nectar with three special qualities. This nectar is: 1) the source of all medicines, medical nectar that overpowers all illnesses; 2) the nectar of life – also called the nectar of immortality – which overpowers death, and 3) the nectar of uncontaminated wisdom which overpowers all contaminated thoughts. This is the source from where you really prepare all nectars, whether medical healing nectars, longevity pills and maybe still other things. The ordinary but powerful, most filthy, most dirty possible substances get transformed into nectar and will be used as such. If you go beyond that, it also symbolizes our own thoughts, and characters, our behaviors and habits. We transform those and they become pure – that is what is represented in there. I don’t think I’ve touched that portion yet. That is also one of the reasons why it’s called ‘inner offerings’. At first we give the simple explanation that ‘inner offering’ is called this because the offering materials make up the inner physical body, which is closely linked with the mind. But you can go beyond that. Once people get the ability to transform negativity, they probably do not need a very strong meditation or don’t need to say mantras, maybe just saying the words OM AH HUNG would be enough. This too is indicated by the inner offering. When you just look at it, it is the most horrible imagery ever possible. If you dig deeper into the subject of the inner offering you can get much more from there. There is a story in Tibet. There was a family with a couple of brothers and sisters. One of the brothers was going to become a tantric monk. Before you can become a tantric monk you have to memorize lots of rituals. They consist of oral texts, which means you have repeat them until you have them memorized. He was busy trying to memorize the inner offering. At the top of his voice he was shouting that there was horse meat, elephant meat [naming the five meats] and [then calling out loud the names of the five nectars] urine, feces, blood and this and that! Then one of his sisters told another sister: ‘Has our brother gone crazy? Why is he shouting these things?’ He was shouting all the names of the inner offering at the top of his voice, trying to memorize them! That’s what they used to do in old Tibet, shout it out aloud, always repeating it. But his sister wondered: ‘Why is he shouting all these things? I don’t think this is Dharma at all’. You cannot blame them. If you have no idea it does sound strange. There are a lot of funny stories like that. Alex Berzin one time wrote that when doing the Dharmapala or the protector pujas or things like that, people shouldn’t do it loudly, because parents might be around and they might think it funny. And Alex Berzin also wrote one should do it in Tibetan because then others would have no idea what it is. So Alex went and saw His Holiness about it. And His Holiness said: ‘Oh, I see’. Then Alex said that he had told His Holiness and that His Holiness had agreed, so he made a big circular letter about this, about a year ago. Audience: (…) Rinpoche: In this practice of offering the torma we can use our obstacles, hindrances, and even our delusions, parting with them, dissolving them into the offering, then purifying and blessing them and offering them to the directional protectors and the inner guests with the mantra OM BHUCARANAM… In the short sadhana there is no preliminary offering. If you want to make offerings to the directional protectors, you have to bless the offerings and that has to be done as it says in the commentary: After saying the mantras and the outer offering is done and the short praise is done one offers the ritual cake in the same way as the inner offering was consecrated.

That means you have to bring down the text portion of the inner offering to this point and say it. And in the visualization you should focus on the torma offering instead of on the inner offering. The food offering is done the same way. When you say: ‘OM AH HUNG HA HO HRIH’, you do the same visualization: the letters OM AH HUNG falling into the offering substances, purifying the potential, making it into nectar and multiplying it. So, the same principle applies to every blessing.

Preliminaries 135 In the visualization you should really have this OM AH HUNG above your food, representing the body, speech and mind of all the enlightened beings combined together. Then they drop down, first the HUNG, then the AH, then the OM, each one of them circles three times and purifies. Even with the food offerings you should do that. Though you may not be saying these words, as vajrayana practitioners you always generate yourself into the deity’s form, you generate the deity’s pride and perception, and you use any food that you may be eating as an offering to yourself as a deity. Actually, the food offering is one of the in-between-sessions practices. In the case of Vajrayogini, there is a separate practice for that, even using the food as inner fire offering. In Yamantaka you can do that too, by simply generating yourself into the form of Yamantaka and making offerings to that Yamantaka with at your heart-level Lama Yamantaka inseparable from Guru Losang Tubwang Dorje Chang. You make the inner offering to them. Thus even eating food can become a very important practice274. That’s why we emphasize that people should make food offerings. But you don’t have to make it obvious, then it just becomes a show. You have to learn how to do it and how to adjust. If there are a lot of other people eating with you, you don’t want to stop and make a big deal of making a food offering. In America a lot of people do that, including Ram Dass, he even closes his eyes and folds his hands and all this, but I do not recommend that we do that. Normally when you eat, you say: OM AH HUNG, and the letters drop and purify [the food]. If, when saying your sadhana you want to do all points, you can do it. Here I am presenting all the possibilities. But do you have to do everything? No, not necessarily. When you come to the words of the inner offering, you can think about what the OM, the AH and the HUNG do. You can collect the body, speech and mind of all the enlightened ones into the three letters and when at the end it says: OM AH HUNG, OM AH HUNG, OM AH HUNG, then you visualize the letters actually falling down and purifying. You do that during the sadhana practice, not during the food offering. Audience: (...) Rinpoche: The short sadhana does not have all the practices of the long sadhana, so if you do the short one, you can just skip them. The short one is made to keep the commitment and give the individual some practice. The teachings have to be based on the long sadhana, because if you teach on the short sadhana, then when you see the long sadhana, you will be completely lost. When you have the teachings on the long sadhana and go to the short sadhana, you will see what is missing. If you say the short sadhana you don’t have to bring in the lost details from the long sadhana, it is just the essence of what is necessary, which the early Tibetan masters brought up. Audience: (...) Rinpoche: Up to now you keep the form of Yamantaka with one face and two hands, later on you will assume the other form of Yamantaka. If you look back in the sadhana, what we have covered so far: we had the lineage prayer, then the blessing of the inner offering, then we had the directional protectors and we offered the first inner offering to them. When you say: OM DASHA DIKA LOKAPALA SAPARIWARA ARGHAM etc., you make the outer offering, and when at the end of that you say OM AH HUNG, that is the inner offering. Later in the sadhana when you make offerings to yourself275 it will occur again. Later you offer to the Vajrabhairava mandala, to the protectors and the inner and outer guests etc. Offering is done throughout this sadhana practice.

274 275

Also see page 388. Called: offerings to the self-generation.

III GENERATING THE SUPREME FIELD OF MERIT OFFERING THE PRACTICE OF THE SEVEN PURITIES Kindly generate the motivation: For the benefit of all sentient beings I would like to obtain within this lifetime the stage of Buddha Vajradhara Yamantaka, for which I want to practice and listen to this teaching with the best recommended bodhimind motivation. Since this is a vajrayana teaching I also remind you that: You yourself are not an ordinary being, and the house where you are is not an ordinary place; it is the mandala of Lama Vajra Bhairavaya. The lama in the center of the mandala also is not an ordinary human being like me, but Lama Yamantaka with all hands and legs. You, the disciples, also are not ordinary beings under the control of the first two noble truths but you are on the path of the fourth noble truth as Yamantaka with one face, two hands, without implements and ornaments.

Review instant generation Why do you have the instant generation? In order to proceed through the sadhana, you need a lot of offerings and these offerings have to be blessed. In order to do that, there has to be somebody blessing them and that can not be the ordinary me, the ordinary gross human body or ordinary rational human mind that we identify with as Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so. So-and-so is not in the position to bless these uncommon, extraordinary offerings. Therefore it is necessary for you to rise in the form of the Vajra Bhairava, the Vajra Terrifier. In order to do that, you have to dissolve yourself into the nature of emptiness. Therefore the gurus dissolve to you, then your mind and the gurus’ mind become inseparable. When you have that inseparable mind it is not an ordinary I, full of anger, attachment and hatred, but an I who is the holder of the three kayas, the dharmakaya, the sambogakaya and the nirmanakaya. You should be able to concentrate on that I, that extraordinary, particular I, in the form of emptiness. Combining the sadhana with the Lam Rim in the lineage prayer In the lineage prayer it always says: ‘Bestow on me the two kinds of siddhi’. This refers to the ordinary and the extraordinary siddhis. There are eight ordinary siddhis276 and the uncommon extraordinary siddhi is the enlightenment stage. In the traditional Tibetan system there is a difference between the upper and the lower tantric college in how the lineage prayer is said. The lower tantric college will not even say this lineage prayer, but the upper tantric college does. They say it up to Tsongkhapa and skip the part below that. But the ensa 276

For the eight siddhis see note 147.

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nyinggyu tradition, through which the practitioners’ lineage comes, does not work exactly along the lines of either the upper or the lower tantric college system. In the ensa nyinggyu tradition you go through the whole lineage up to the root master, and then you dissolve the lineage into you. [Requesting] to obtain siddhihood is not enough. You have to give yourself a little time here and review your Lam Rim: embracing human life, its importance, the difficulty to find it and how easily it is destroyed. Focus on those. And focus on the sufferings of the lower realms. That will make you feel disgusted about samsaric life; and as you all know, there is the struggle between the attraction of the joys of this life and the attraction of the ultimate joy. There’s a lot of push and pull there and that is absolutely normal, because our usual habit will have a very strong attraction to samsaric pleasures, while our personal dharma interest for the long term goal will draw the attention the other way. That is absolutely normal, almost everybody goes through that. The trick here is to be able to balance – not to go cuckoo and become a crazy wisdom guy and not to become an absolutely conservative yuppie. Draw the line in between: have a little bit of both; that is the normal way of seeing it. If you want the attractive way of seeing it: the best of both has to be adopted. That is the way of balancing it. I have to say something about suffering. There are kinds of suffering: suffering of suffering, suffering of change and pervasive suffering. We consider all three as suffering, but one thing you have to remember is that both the suffering of change as well as the pervasive suffering are not actually suffering things; from the point of view of their nature some of them could be joy, it could be a good enjoyable time. However, the action277 is creating suffering and therefore Buddha categorized them as sufferings. You can’t say in an absolute way: my joy is my suffering. Lots of people do that, and that is perhaps not right. The orthodox teaching tradition tells you that all three kinds of suffering are suffering: suffering of change is suffering, because if you’d have too much of it, you’d feel pain, and pervasive suffering is suffering, because it is everywhere and it creates future suffering results. This is speaking of suffering theoretically. Some are sufferings and some are joys. Changes are not necessarily good and not necessarily bad. However, the samsaric changes are by and large – from the point of view of their nature – suffering, because it’s neither the best pleasure you can experience, nor is it the pleasure which has no problems. Therefore they have been categorized that way. This tells you how you can do the Lam Rim practice together with the sadhana practice. Even if you can’t do much of both of them together, this way of practicing avoids that the sadhana practice will generate a huge monster. Embedding your practice within the Lam Rim tradition builds very strongly on the first of the Three principles of the path. This is the development of renunciation, or the determination to free yourself from the samsaric tricks and traps and delusions. By this I don’t mean delusions in the sense of non-virtues, but in the sense of delusions of your feelings and your senses. Renouncing that, properly establishes this first principle within the sadhana. Doing this won’t block the perception of joy experienced in the samsaric world, but the attachment to it will be blocked. That means a person will learn to take the best of whatever is available and possible, accept and enjoy it without getting attached to it, without getting caught in it. You can have your Rolls Royce and drive it – there’s no objection if you can afford it – but you do not let the Rolls Royce drive you; that is what you learn here. We are not following the hinayana narrow, discipline-oriented, self-interested, heart-sacrificing path but we are following the open joyful vajrayana, taking the best of both worlds, yet without getting caught in it. That’s what you develop over here. So you have the perception, but you do not have the attached, clinging attitude. So, if you have something you enjoy it, but if you don’t have it you don’t cry over it. Very simple. Attachment to this life’s samsaric pleasures is not the only problem. A lot of people think: ‘The reason I do my practice is in order to have a better future life’. This is attachment. And that is samsaracreating. So the interest in a good future rebirth also has to be negated. Let me say this again, for the 277

Every action we do creates future suffering, however subtle it may be.

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benefit of those who are listening to the tapes [of this teaching] in the future: not only the interest in this life, but also interest in a future life has to be negated. That means give up, don’t be attached to it. It’s attachment and it’s clinging. Even clinging to your future life, is clinging. So don’t do it. By doing that you have firmly established two parts of the first principle: renouncing both the attachment to this and to future lives. In addition to that you have to meditate and build love and compassion: unlimited, unconditioned compassion and unlimited, unconditioned love. Unlimited love is going out of your way to help, to comfort and to benefit others. The best tool to help others is enlightenment, or the buddha state, with its capability and power. You have to adopt that state as your own tool to express your feelings of unlimited love to all beings. That is the actual bodhimind, whether you technically call it bodhimind or not. Your meditations here may be just short, but precise and to the point. If you say: ‘Oh pervading Lord Manjushri, Lama Je Tsongkhapa, Opponent of Yama ... please bestow on me the two kinds of siddhi you have the guru-devotional practice, the renunciation and the bodhimind, so that makes a perfect Lam Rim. A lot of people say: ’Yamantaka practice is Yamantaka. It has nothing to do with Lam Rim’. That is the biggest foolish statement you can ever hear. It shows that this person knows nothing about the essence of the practice. Vajrayana has the inseparability of sutraand tantra practice, you don't make a separation [between the two]. You also need the third principle, wisdom. The principle of wisdom should not be neglected. You have to get it. The best ever possible power and capability to help others lies at the buddha stage and you make use of the practice of developing the two stages of renunciation and bodhicitta to gain that stage. It does not only make this [Yamantaka] practice a solid mahayana and vajrayana practice, it really makes it a dharma practice, able to bring us the ultimate result. The wisdom of emptiness and the object of negation Now, switching to the third principle, wisdom, you go on to the instantaneous rise. In order to rise in a certain, particular form, you first have to dissolve the particular form you are in. So you dissolve yourself into the nature of emptiness. I don’t know what the exact English translation is, but in Tibetan it says: rang nyi – I dissolve. The first word they give you is not the ordinary nga but rang which is another word for I and not only rang but rang nyi, that means ‘I myself’. In English it should be: ‘I arise in the form of the Vajra-terrifier’. You emphasize the I first, because the object of the wisdom of emptiness or selflessness, the object which is negated or destroyed by the wisdom, is the self. Most translators are quite well qualified persons but they have problems with little details. They’ll say: ’In one instant I arise..’. but in doing so, they neglect the object of negation. We need to emphasize this. When the first thing you say is I, it is not necessarily referring to the I itself, but to the perception of the I. That is most important! What sort of projection do you get the moment you say ‘I arise in one instant as Vajra-terrifier..’? What sort of I do you project? What comes up in your head or heart ? (We are presuming that you go through the sadhana with thoughts; not doing your sadhana watching television, or while you’re yapping aside). Probably when you say I, you get the projection of the gross I, based on the gross body and the gross mind. Most people here will probably have enough understanding not to just point your finger at your body when saying I, but you’ll also include your consciousness. If you ask someone on the street: ’What is I?’ one may say: ’What do you mean, you stupid? This is me’ – pointing to the nose or the chest, to the body anyway. People here will have a slightly different perception, but that is still the gross I. Let’s look at this in detail a little. When somebody has died, and people say: ’I was there when the person took the last breath’, they refer to what we call the outer or external breathing. From the moment when there is no longer any functioning of the external air, the projection of mind and body which you normally have, will change. To those of us who are born from a mother’s womb this happens automatically. The focus will switch to the subtle body and the subtle mind. Traditional Tibetan teachings call this the indestructible drop; I don’t know what the western scientific explanation of this is.. This is the

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source of the red and the white parts of the body, normally considered [to be of] genetic origination. A certain portion of the essence collected from the parents has sort of become solid – indestructible until you die. It is referred to as indestructible, but when you die, it is destroyed, so it’s [actually] temporarily indestructible. While with the parents these parts are not indestructible (we know that), but when the new consciousness takes them as its base, that [combination of the white and the red part] becomes important and solid, so we label it as indestructible until death. It’s like an indestructible container. That’s why I keep on saying: our body is like a rented apartment. When it is no longer serviceable you have to leave. So, when the external body and the external air have been disconnected, your focus will immediately shift. That means you withdraw from the outside and get into the inside. So at that time the object I will be the subtle body and the subtle consciousness. The subtle body now is not the drops [themselves], but the air within them and the consciousness within that. [As said] we label them as subtle air and subtle consciousness. At that time the gross I is no longer there, so it has become the subtle I. Now this is where the complications and confusions come in. If you are confused, don’t worry about it; if you’re not, think about it a little bit. Although it is the same I, we label it as the ‘subtle I’. We label it as subtle because its object is subtle. Its object is the subtle body, i.e. the subtle air and the subtle consciousness. Since it is impermanent it changes from minute to minute. So the I has changed here and has become the subtle I. The gross I has been disconnected and there is now the subtle I. The gross I, the gross body, the gross channels and airs and the gross tikles are all disconnected. The focus is now on the subtle tikles, the subtle air and the subtle consciousness. [From this point on] it now is a philosophical issue whether this is the same [person] as the gross one. Philosophically or theoretically speaking, you have to say it is different. At the same time it is the continuation of the same thing. It has become the subtle I, and also the perception and the perceiver, i.e. the consciousness, all have become subtle. So, within one I there is the gross and the subtle I – two separate ones, but one person. So the air within the indestructible drop is the subtle body; and the intangible consciousness, which is clinging to that air is the subtle consciousness. The combination of those recognized as I is the subtle I. The subtle I is not the gross I, or vice versa, but [still] that gross I and that subtle I are not separate persons. The Tibetans theoretically call it: one nature and separate functions. That subtle I and that gross I, when either one of them functions, the other one does not function. Two separate things but not a separate person. When you say: ‘I instantaneously rise...’ that ‘I’ is the general I. It’s neither focused on the gross nor on the subtle basis, sort of commonly focused on the gross and the subtle I, without any specifications. Both, gross and subtle objects are mixed together like milk and water. The I which comes from the mixture – not separating subtle from gross, just coming out of it – is not really there! You can say that you’re projecting it, but when you come down to it, it’s not there. It’s only a label we are holding; there is no such thing [as an intrinsic I]. When you go and look for it and analyze it, you will get either the subtle or the gross one, but you won’t get that mixture ‘lump’ that we normally project. This clearly gives you the message that the mixture of the subtle and gross projection of I is not really there, but that it is only a label, or a name. It is baseless. Actually, the I existing on the base of the gross body and consciousness, as well as the I existing on the base of the combination of subtle body and subtle consciousness, is the relative I. And this I is not the object of refutation or negation. Our normal projection of the I as some kind of a ‘big boss’ which is neither based on the gross, nor on the subtle body or mind, that is the object of negation. It’s something naturally coming out from the inside, the one who says: ‘I did it, I said it, but she didn’t listen. I did whatever I could, but she wouldn’t move a bit’. This I, which we have projected, is not based on anything, but just sort of taken for granted. I’m not going to say that this is the object of negation. Let’s just leave it there. Then you will begin to see the gross I, the subtle I and the mixture I within yourself, and so you will begin to see three or four different kinds of ‘I’ within yourself. Then after that you’ll begin to see – that’s what we call ‘the slow move’ – which I is really the object of negation. You do have to analyze a little bit, and if something is called I, then think to which I it refers within the body-mind combination.

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First you observe the gross body and mind, and then you move on to the subtle body and mind. That’s how you do this [research on the object of negation]. Actually, just like there are differences between the various kinds of I, there’s also a difference between mind and consciousness. When you talk about the six sense-[consciousnesses], the sixth one is the principal mind which is normally referred to as the I. Let’s not get into it today, because it is getting everybody confused. Like we found an easy way of introducing the subtle I , I am sure one day, when the conditions are right, we’ll find an easy way to explain this topic, too. I rather have no questions on this right now. When you concentrate on and look at the sort of projection of that big I we normally have, (not based specifically on the gross or the subtle I), the I that sort of automatically just pops up from somewhere inside, the one that gets hurt, or would like to play tricks, or would like to do something mischievous, would like to be mean or to be difficult – if you look into that sort of thing that gets in automatically, [you’ll find that] it is totally baseless, that such a thing is really not there. Then you negate it. Why is it called ‘empty’? When you negate that big occupant, when you kick it out, there will be an empty space. Just like when you kick out an occupant in a house, that house will become empty. Like that, this big boss inside, who is giving all of us trouble all the time – if it is a little too cold, we can’t bear it, if it is a little too hot, we can’t bear it, if it is a little too harsh, we can’t bear it – this sensitive I has been negated a little, and when it has been kicked out, a little bit of void is created. The void is the emptiness. But the basic I – whether it is the gross or the subtle one – is not gone, is not destroyed. In other words, the reasonable guy is still here, [only] the unreasonable guy has been kicked out. I think here you can use the void created by the unreasonable guy’s exit as object of emptiness. Then who is perceiving that vacuum? The reasonable I is. The reasonable I, which is also inseparable from that vacuum itself, and which is welcoming and celebrating the exit of that unreasonable I, is welcoming and embracing that vacuum, that openness. When you get into this, you will get a better understanding of emptiness than when you’re just saying: I’m empty. You have to pick up certain portions of the differentiation between the subtle and the gross I. So, this is the first fundamental principle you work with in vajrayana, every time you say: OM SVABHAVA SHUDDHA SARVA DHARMA SHABHAVA SHUDDHO HAM. And it creates a certain foundation of wisdom if you are able to keep at least that much in mind. This goes for any kind of vajrayana practice, not just for the Yamantaka practice. Think about it two or three more times, discuss it among yourselves, argue and fight a little bit over it, and you’ll grasp it even better. And if you don’t get it, hit the other person. If he says: ’Ouch!’, you ask him: ’Who is the one saying: ’Ouch!?’ That way you will get it. You’ll recognize this as dharmakaya; then you’ll rise as blue light, recognizing that as sambogakaya; and then you’ll rise in the Yamantaka form and recognize it as nirmanakaya. Then you do the blessing of the inner offering: driving away the obstacles, creating the offerings, etc. Such a [Lam Rim meditation including emptiness] is actually much more important than rising as a deity and creating offerings etc.; it has much more effect on the individual. It makes a huge difference to your life in the long run, counting lives and lives together. It is more effective to that ‘long life’, more so than blessing the inner offerings.

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<2> THE ACTUAL SESSION Basically there are two outlines: 1. Meditation method enabling oneself, the yogi, in the future, to arise as the three kayas in place of birth, death, and bardo. 2. Making offerings and praises, corresponding with the activities after enlightenment. The first one also has three parts: 1. Taking death as dharmakaya and the related branches. 2. Taking bardo as sambogakaya as the path. 3. Taking yoga of rebirth nirmanakaya as the generation of the resultant Vajra Holder.

(1) TAKING DEATH AS DHARMAKAYA AND THE RELATED BRANCHES Now we begin to get to the important points of the sadhana. I’d like to emphasize that for the next couple of months you people should not miss the teachings! These are really going to be the important points. Once we come to the completion stage you may learn about it, but you may not be able to practice it yet. But here, now, we are really touching the main points [of our practice level]. This outline has three points: 1. Accumulation of various merits: corresponding to causes for optimal human rebirth (endowed with six elements from the womb of a Jambudvipa278 human being). 2. Meditation on the wisdom of the basis of Shunyata as dharmakaya: corresponding to realization of clear light of death. 3. Meditation on protection wheel to block obstacles.

(i) Accumulation of various merits: corresponding to causes for optimal human rebirth (endowed with six elements from the womb of a Jambudvipa human being) ’Jambudvipa human beings’ refers to us human beings. From the mandala offering you know there are four continents. Out of these Jambudvipa is the Southern Continent. We are all human beings, and most importantly, we are born from the womb of a mother rather than from a flower or from heat or moisture or whatever. The Tibetan tradition will tell you there are four different kinds of birth279. Being born from the womb of a mother has given us our channels, called nadis. This particular body of ours has a very special quality. Here we’re not talking about the precious human life in terms of Lam Rim: leisure and opportunity. ‘Precious human life’ is elaborated further here: how [in vajrayana] it’s even more important to have this particular body, because of its channels, which sometimes block and sometimes open, where sometimes the energy can’t go through and sometimes it can. Such a body makes a big difference to a practitioner. This is one of our qualities in addition to the qualities given in the Lam Rim280. If you have a body with no channels or [if you do have channels but there is] no energy traveling in them, a body which is just light inside, it’s as good as having a body filled up with hay. You know, Tibetans do that, fill up animal bodies with hay, and then hang them on the big protectors’ houses. If you go to Tibet you’ll see them. There is no point in having a body just filled with light or an embalmed body; (which is as good as being filled up with hay). The human body has feelings you can bring [into your practice]. You can feel the emotions you get within you, and feelings can effect the mental capacity. Physical feelings and sensations can effect mental processes. This is important. This is developed much further in us humans than in animals. Also, when you reach the completion stage [tib. dzok rim] the opportunity we humans have, is the use of par-

278

See glossary. Four ways of birth: Birth from moisture, from an egg, from a womb and spontaneous birth. 280 For the leisures and opportunities as discussed in the Lam Rim, see Gelek Rinpoche, pg. 146-153. 279

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ticular points [of the body]. That’s why the structure of the human body is so important! Here you begin to see more of its value. To obtain such a human body, you need the right causes. Remember, during the Lam Rim we talked about what you need in order to attain a perfect human rebirth: a perfect foundation of keeping your commitments and the help of the six paramitas in conjunction with pure prayer. Here in vajrayana, we also need specific causes. The accumulation of various merits is absolutely necessary. It is the focal point of making good karma. Good karma is divided into two: relative good karma and absolute good karma. This the vajrayana way of focusing. In the Lam Rim, you will normally hear about good and bad karma, and good karma is divided into lucky karma and unshakable karma, you remember?281 Here we talk about relative good karma and absolute good karma282. It’s just like with bodhicitta, which has relative and there is absolute bodhicitta. Relative and absolute bodhicitta. Absolute bodhicitta is [bodhicitta conjoined] with emptiness. Is absolute bodhicitta bodhicitta or not? Yes, it is. Is it a criterion for bodhicitta, to have the understanding of emptiness? [Audience: No.] So relative bodhicitta is perfect bodhicitta, why not? Relative bodhicitta is true, perfect bodhicitta and when it is influenced by emptiness it becomes absolute bodhicitta. So [when] ‘absolute bodhicitta’ [is mentioned it] does not mean that this is the bodhicitta, and that relative bodhicitta is not bodhicitta! The emptiness fever is going round just now, that’s why [you might think] without emptiness it can’t be perfect, because [now that] we move to the vajrayana we emphasize emptiness more. Again: absolute bodhicitta is bodhicitta. But in order for bodhicitta to be bodhicitta, it does not necessarily have to be absolute bodhicitta. The bodhicitta which has the dondam283 influence is referred to as dondam jangchub kyi sem284. If you use ‘dondam’ alone, the bodhicitta disappears. But if you use dondam in connection with or influenced by jangchub kyi sem, the bodhicitta does not disappear. That is the major point of the sixth chapter of Chandrakirti’s Guide to the Middle Way285. At the time of observing emptiness, what happens to the bodhimind, when a bodhisattva develops his understanding of emptiness? Will it disappear? Is he going to lose it? It’s true that at that time you see nothing but emptiness. You are completely absorbed in it. But his bodhimind is not lost, it remains with him. When he comes out of that [direct encounter with emptiness] he picks up the [relative] bodhimind, moreover he is a dondam jangchub sempa286. Although he may not be having the direct encounter with emptiness then, emptiness is inseparably with him. The two do go together. If he would lose the bodhimind, he would become a non-bodhisattva, and if he would lose the understanding of emptiness, he would fall back [from the path of seeing]. Neither case is possible, therefore you have to accept the dondam jangchub sempa. Let’s look at the path of seeing. It’s divided into three periods: the preliminary period, the actual period and the follow up period287. During the actual period that the arya bodhisattva is totally absorbed in emptiness, he only perceives or observes emptiness, nothing else exists. Everything else within him goes to sleep, but it does not disappear. In the same way here we have relative and absolute bodhicitta and relative and absolute merit. When you don’t have the bodhicitta, it can’t go to sleep. What we have is the potential, the buddhanature. This may be a seed, or a possibility. I don’t think we have the buddha within us. Some of the new-age groups will say: I am Buddha, I am God. I have a problem with that.

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Gelek Rinpoche, Lam Rim Teachings, pg. 374-375. Relative good karma is what we normally understand as good karma. Absolute good karma is the realization of emptiness and the activities that follow thereafter. 283 Dondam means absolute. 284 Jangchub kyi sem means bodhicitta. 285 skt. Madhyamakavatara, tib. Uma jugpa. 286 Arya bodhisattva. Jangchub sempa means bodhisattva. 287 Also called aftermath. 282

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This outline has two parts: 1. Accumulation of merits from the supreme field. 2. Accumulation of merits from the lower field.

1. Accumulation of merits from the supreme field This also has two parts: 1. Inviting the field of accumulation. 2. Accumulation of merit therefrom.

i. Inviting the field of accumulation [of merit]288 S<. The method of taking the death as dharmakaya - develop merit. There are two kinds of merit: ordinary merit and wisdom merit. Ordinary merit is the accumulation of merit from the supreme field and accumulation of merit from the lower field. To attain enlightenment within one’s life one must be born in this universe system. Even Buddha assumed human form and was born from the womb. Invite the supreme Field of Merit. There are many different merit fields, but the best is to invite the lama. Tilopa told Naropa, ‘In order to get quick development, the best push is the lama’. Due to the kindness of the lama, the bliss of the three kayas is attained in a second. Sakya Pandita was a student of Jetsun Drakpa Gyeltsen. When his lama was sick, Sakya Pandita cared for him and at that time saw Jetsun Dragpa Gyeltsen as a Buddha. In that way he gained his attainment. Lama Yongdzin Rinpoche tells a story of a Kadampa Geshe, a student of Lopa, the Southerner. This lama Tolungpa had many monk followers. Thus he received vast offerings which he saved to take to the East. He never made offerings in Tolung but would take the offerings to Lo to give away, as there would be greater merit for him to offer a piece of meat to a dog in Lo than for him to make offerings to all his monks. Making offerings to the lama is one of the best ways of accumulating merit. There is the story of Dromtonpa who was a translator and a prominent student of Atisha, another student of Atisha who was a meditator in retreat, and Atisha’s cook. The cook and the translator were always busy serving Atisha and thus the meditator was proud that he had the highest development. But in actuality, the one with the highest development was the cook. The deity is a manifestation of the lama. Buddha’s name would not exist without the lama. This is very important. Marpa once wanted to see Naropa who had already passed into nirvana but he had not received complete teachings. Marpa was in the forest and saw the light body of Naropa manifest at the same time as the Hevajra mandala appeared before him. Which one should he prostrate to? To the lama, because it was he who showed him the Hevajra mandala. >S.

As Bhairava with one face and two arms, I illuminate the boundless realms of the universe with lights from the HUNG which rests on the lotus and sun at my heart. This is the invitation of the supreme Field of Merit which is lama and yidam; the lama-yidam inseparable or lama and yidam make up the real supreme field of merit. In the Lam Rim you have the lamrim supreme tree289 and in the Ganden Lha Gyema you basically have Lama Tsongkhapa. Wherever you look, the field of merit is the object of refuge; in this case it is lama and yidam. 288 289

Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 26-27. See Gelek Rinpoche, Lam Rim Teachings, pg. 85-85, 96-100. Also see Pabongka, Liberation in our hands, vol. I, pg. 239-248.

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Unlike in other practices, in the Yamantaka practice we invite the lama and the yidam sort of half separate and half together. We invite the lama – in the form of the lama him- or herself or in the Yamantaka form290 – sitting on Yamantaka’s head. To be precise above Yamantaka’s principal face in between the two horns, a little behind the five skulls, in front of the red, wrathful face. So, you have the lama sitting there on the throne, in the form he looks like when you meet him. You invite him that way and you also invite Yamantaka [with his mandala]. How, by what method, do you invite the lama and the yidam? The sadhana says: ‘lights from the HUNG which rests on the lotus and sun at my heart’. Why ‘at my heart’? Because the heart chakra is the center of the consciousness of the human being. At the heart is a lotus. It’s not the kind of lotus you have outside, it’s the opening of the petals of the heart chakra. When you see the lotus at the heart, the hidden meaning behind it, is that you are reminded of the heart chakra. Visualization is very important here. Remember the kind of body you have during this period: you are absolutely not in ordinary form; you are in the form of Yamantaka with one face and two hands, you have the buffalo face and at the center of your heart you have a multicolored eight-petalled lotus, representing the heart chakra. At the center of that you have a sun mandala. What does that represent at the heart level? The indestructible white and red drop. It’s not two drops, but one combined together, like sometimes you find these beads which are half red with a black head on it. Here it is a white-and-red drop. It is called indestructible because it doesn’t open until you die. The moment you die, it opens up and the parts separate. There are two kinds of indestructible drop: one kind is indestructible till you become enlightened and the other one is indestructible till you die. This last one is normally supposed to have come from the father’s semen and from the mother’s blood, joined together. At the center of the sun mandala is your subtle consciousness and subtle energy combined in the form of letter HUNG, which has the color of Yamantaka’s body, dark blue. What does the HUNG represent? The five wisdoms291. The crescent moon represents the mirror-like wisdom. The head of the HA represents the wisdom of equanimity. The body of the HA is the discriminating wisdom. The little AH [tib. ah chung] together with the shabkyu at the bottom represent the wisdom of activity. The combination of the little tikle and the nada on the top represent the dharmadhatu wisdom, choyin yeshe. So you have the five complete. The HUNG radiates a rainbow type of five-colored light, that represents the five wisdoms. That light fills up your body completely and then gradually illuminates the boundless realms of the universe. You can’t think straightway that the light jumps out and illuminates the whole world. You think that it first fills up your body completely. Then you think that all that light goes out from your pores. The light rays have a type of hooks on their tips. You can go gradually or fast throughout all existence, and you go wherever possible. The light totally fills up countless and immeasurable universes and gives them bright light. You really have to think it fills up everything that exists completely. You concentrate strongly on that. Don’t think this here is the only universe in existence; there are definitely more of them. You can have a close encounter with them, they are definitely there. If you can’t think of countless, immeasurable existences, then think of whatever you can manage. There is one more activity here. In the vajrayana textbooks you always see: lights radiate and serve the two purposes. Serving two purposes means serving the purpose of others and the purpose of self. Serving the purpose of others. Just by the touch of the light the environment becomes pure and the inhabitants become pure beings. They are free of suffering and become pure beings. In the Vajrayogini practice the light goes out from your heart, reaches all sentient beings and they become fully enlightened Vajrayogini beings, and finally they fly off to the pure lands they belong to. They just fly off. Here you don’t have that, but still, very similar to it, the light goes everywhere, makes 290 291

Also see page 147. For a drawing see Chapter XII Appendices.

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all the environments and their inhabitants to become pure beings, fully enlightened beings. That fulfills the activity of serving the purpose of others. Serving one’s own purpose. On the tips of the lights you take millions of different offerings up to the fully enlightened beings. You offer everything to the enlightened beings and make them happy. The most important thing in vajrayana when you say ‘make them happy’ is not just the happiness of feeling happy, but it is also telling them to grow great joy and bliss within their bodies. The offerings you make cause them to grow great bliss. Now, because they are fully enlightened, they have nothing new to grow. They do already have ultimate joy and wisdom-bliss. However [receiving our offerings] draws more attention to it, so that they acknowledge the joy and the bliss a little more. For them it’s also not necessary to have their attention drawn to it, but in order for us to benefit of having brought joy and bliss to the body and mind of the enlightened beings, we mentally have to go through that process. That’s how we accumulate the merit of offering as well as the merit of the offering being accepted, the merit of bringing inseparable bliss and void within their mind-body combination. When you talk about [this sort of] meditative state, some people object to this sort of statement. If you are sutra-oriented, if you are at the sutra level and your major focus is on Lam Rim, we do object to the mind-body meditative state. In vajrayana we do not object. Even if it’s a teaching of one teacher to one disciple, at the sutrayana level we object, at the vajrayana level we do not. This meditative state is not a zombie-like state. This state is combined bliss-void, so the body-mind combination is a lucid meditative state. Both the mind and the body of a buddha are in that meditative state. Mind and body are on the same frequency, not functioning separately. You have heard that a number of times. You remember the First Panchen Lama, Panchen Losang Chogyen, who lived very long and then near the end of his life got blind. He was requested by Dorje Zinpa Könchog Gyeltsen, for teachings292 and oral transmission. The Panchen Lama agreed to give him the oral transmission. Nobody knew how he was going to do it, because he couldn’t see anything and the teaching was in a normal book. He just put his finger on the text and read the oral transmission. This indirectly tells you that the body function and the mind function are the same thing. That goes for all the five senses. Any single part of the body functions with all five senses together. They see it, they hear it, smell it, feel it and taste it. That is the union of body and mind. Union I might as well mention the following; it is not out of place to talk about it here. At our ordinary level we depend on the bodhimind and the four immeasurables etc. to accumulate the merit that will really produce the body of an enlightened being. The mind of an enlightened being will be produced by the accumulation of wisdom merit. So at our ordinary learning level, ‘union’ means the union of relative merit and wisdom merit. We call that ‘the union of method and wisdom’. The male-female sexual energy represents that. When we come to the result level, it changes. The wisdom which was the cause of the [enlightened] mind [itself] becomes the [enlightened] mind, and the merit, the method which was the cause of the [enlightened] body becomes the [enlightened] body [itself]. Therefore it [then] becomes body-andmind union. This is important. When you say: ‘All-pervasive Lord’293, this is what it refers to: mind and body are everywhere. There still has to be a separation between all phenomena and mind, otherwise [e.g.] any little tree would become an enlightened being. The mind has a relationship with the phenomena. It knows them. When at the learning level we collect merit, it remains in the merit form rather than taking any actual form. When you become fully enlightened, then your body becomes that [enlightened] body. [For that to happen] our ordinary body has to be totally gone. In order for that to happen we have to say – in 292 293

For the story see page 57. See page 30.

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ordinary American language – you almost have to die. When you separate this body and this mind you die, and then you are not really reborn but you take on a different body. That is what the dharmakaya will be. Getting to the dharmakaya is really going through a dying state. You actually die, and then everything becomes new: the accumulated merit becomes the enlightened body and the accumulated wisdom becomes the enlightened mind, which sort of connects to the continuation of your consciousness. Sometimes it’s even easier to use the Christian terminology: it is the soul which now becomes that big meditative state, which is the combination of mind and body. The union of body and mind means that every part of the body can function as mind, not only can function as mind, it is mind and every part of the mind can function as a body, it is body. The difference here is, that at the learning level they are all separate parts and at the enlightened level all those parts fall together and become something new. Vajra Bhairava together with the Lama, encircled by the hosts of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Wrathful Ones and Adepts, is invited to the space before me. Those light points, wherever they reach, invite all the buddhas and bodhisattvas and particularly Yamantaka along with the guru. The whole Yamantaka mandala comes, along with the lama as you have seen him during the time when [the two of] you met. If you feel uncomfortable putting an ordinary person’s face on the head of Yamantaka – some people do – you put another Yamantaka there which in reality is all lamas together. It is very, very important to invite the guru. There are three different ways of inviting the guru: 1) You can invite the guru him- or herself inseparable from the principal deity – that is the system of Guhyasamaja. 2) You can invite the lama independently as lama and build a throne at the eastern gate of the cemetery – that is the mother tantra system, in particular the Heruka or Samvara system. 3) In the Yamantaka practice you invite the guru as inseparable from the principal of the five dhyani buddhas. This is Akshobhya Buddha and he sits on his crown between the two horns as mark of the caste of Yamantaka. You know, Yamantaka has nine faces, two of which sit on top of the main face. In front of the wrathful red face, which is directly on top of Yamantaka’s main head, there is a little throne. On that throne is a little buddha lama in the form of the master of the buddha caste [tib. rig dag], i.e. in the Akshobhya form, or in the form of buddha Vajradhara, or with the face of the lama as when you see him. I am not sure if it is permitted or not, but I always use Kyabje Ling Rinpoche with the normal face that I saw when he was alive. I do not have much of a visualization of the body, but the face I see. It’s okay to visualize the body in the form of a buddha. It is very important to have the lama there. Here it is absolutely important to have the lama who has given you the initiation, who has given you the explanations or commentaries, who has given you the oral transmissions. In your heart of hearts you have to think: I may only see this lama as one physical form but in reality he is all the lineage masters from Buddha Yamantaka up to the root master, all 38 or 40294 of them, and he is also the other dharma teachers or masters I have taken dharma teachings from and have dharma connections with. In reality they are all the same. Why is this important? Because it goes back to the Lam Rim practice, the basic guru yoga. You apply all of these principles over here, so the Lam Rim is not separate from your sadhana practice. You can bring the guru-yoga practice over here, like you can meditate the three roots here, the three reasonings and all this295, if you want to. This is the foundation of all the good qualities we need, the foundation of all spiritual development. That’s why it is called ‘root of all development’. 294 295

See note 144. Refers to the nine round meditation on death. See Gelek Rinpoche: Lam Rim Teachings, pg. 171-84, 191-96.

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In vajrayana, guru yoga becomes much more important than in sutrayana. That’s the reason why they will tell you, if you look in the Vajrayogini commentaries, that on a hinayana level you look at the guru as being like as if he were a buddha, in mahayana as an actual buddha and in vajrayana not only as inseparable from, but even more important than all the buddhas. In vajrayana, guru yoga becomes very, very important, as a matter of fact of absolute importance. Without it you can probably achieve nothing. Not only that. The guru is also very important for the individual practitioner; your accumulation of merit totally depends on him. One of the best fields for the accumulation of merit is your guru. All the tantras, like gyün dü trawa, the Fifty verses of guru yoga [tib. lama ngö jugpa] and the dom jung tantra296, emphasize that very much. So, although the Guhyasamaja practice and the Heruka practice have their own way [of inviting the lama], in the Yamantaka practice the lama appears as the master of the buddha castes. But if you want him as inseparable from the yidam, it is permitted. There are three or four different explanations for the invitation. The easiest way is that the lights go out and make offerings to the ten directions, particularly to the Yamantaka pure land. You make requests to Yamantaka and the lineage gurus, and at the end you bring them in front of you. Then the light dissolves into you. The lama in the form of buddha Vajradhara or in whatever form297o, is not on your head, but on the head of Yamantaka in front of you. You don’t invite Yamantaka alone, but surrounding him are all the buddhas and bodhisattvas. You invite them all and they appear in front of you. Here they are not dissolving to you; you just have them in front of you. In the English translation there is mention of that you invite all the buddhas, bodhisattvas, wrathful deities and knowledge holders, but this is not written in the Tibetan sadhanas. There it only says: Yamantaka together with the gurus. The translators should only translate what is written in the original sadhanas. S<. Invite the lama in ordinary form on a lion throne. He is the nature of all lamas, buddhas, deities, dakinis, protectors and sangha. If sometimes there is a block in one’s understanding or an inability to meditate, the best cure is to pray to one’s kind lama. Whatever we do in practice, whether we truly develop or not, depends on our attitude towards the lama. Atisha had said that hundred percent of the benefits of the mahayana path depend on the lama. ‘You Tibetans treat them like ordinary beings, so how can you expect to learn anything?’ See the lama as embodiment of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha in ordinary form. It is also acceptable to visualize the lama in the form of Dorje Jigje. The lama is the person who has given you initiation, instruction in the oral tradition, who teaches methods and gives personal advice. Invite him as inseparable from Vajra Bhairava and place him on the head of Dorje Jigje in the form of Vajradhara. In front of the red head is a throne. Visualize oneself as Dorje Jigje with two arms and one head. At the heart is an eight-petalled lotus which represents the eight nadis of the heart chakra. At the center of the lotus is an indestructible point of this life represented by a sun mandala the size of a split pea. (the unbroken tigle – white from father, red from mother). Upon the sun mandala is the subtle mind and the subtle energy represented by a very tiny blue HUNG the size of a sesame seed standing upright. The HUNG radiates five-colored lights representing the five wisdoms. Light fills the body. All delusion, shadows and imprints are cleared and exit the body. Light radiates in every direction cleansing universe after universe in all directions. Vajra Bhairava and his retinue with the complete mandala are invited. All buddhas and bodhisattvas residing in those universes are invited in the form of Vajra Bhairava by the lama Dorje Chang on the top of the head of Vajra Bhairava (front generated). They sit in front of me. When visualizing, leave space between oneself and the Field of Merit about the length of one’s body. Remember to collect

296 297

Probably a tantra of Heruka Chakrasamvara. For the different ways of inviting the lama see page 147.

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back anything sent out from your heart. The entire field of merit sits in front of you, the level of one’s forehead. >S.

The lights re-absorb into my heart. Whatever you generated out of the fundamental source at the heart chakra, is dissolved back into that. I think I told you repeatedly: in vajrayana, anything you send out, you have to collect back, even wrathful deities. That is important. It’s not that they have a problem hanging out there and do not know how to get home. That is no problem at all. Vajrayana works with a lot of omens. The omen [or predisposition] here is to ultimately be able to collect all the energies right in the middle of the central channel298. That will be our goal. First you collect them and then you dissolve them in there. Then things will begin to work; until then nothing will work. So, to have that good predisposition, nothing should be left hanging out there. That’s why you really have to collect everything back to the heart. Ultimately you are supposed to have all your energy and consciousness functioning within the central channel rather than outside it. At our level we are functioning outside the central channel. The idea is that the central channel is tied with different knots, [especially] at the heart-chakra. The idea then is to release these outside knots so that the inside of the central channel can function. Just now things are functioning from the right and left nostril which represent the roma and the kyangma299, the two side channels that are sort of tied around the central channel. For us the central channel is a sleeping channel. And it is empty. It’s like a bicycle tube without air, with two other bicycle tubes full of air squeezing it. That way the central channel can’t function; it’s hanging there like an empty and dry intestine. The whole practice here will be that we try to open that central channel through the exercise of injecting energy through the right and left nostril. When massage people say: ‘I open your central channel, I open your heart chakra’ etc., they talk about it symbolically. I don’t know how they want to open it, really. There may be something else they are opening, one of these tiny little nadis that are related somewhere. Maybe they use the same name for different things. When we talk about the center [of the central channel], there are three main things: not only you open it and make the air and energy function, you also make the airs remain in it and you make them dissolve at the heart level. So the heart is really the [point of] creation of your whole future universe – your future enlightened universe and its activities will be created from the basic principal consciousness at your heart level. In order to get that, anything you have generated that has gone out you dissolve back, otherwise it will become difficult [to do so] later. So in order not to have difficulties, you bring back whatever you generate. Even if you are following Ram Dass or Joseph Goldstein [or any meditation guide] who guides you in generating that energy going out and doing activities, you yourself should not forget to dissolve the light back [to your heart]. You don’t have to go as slow as they are going, you just go ‘zooom’ and it comes back, like pushing a computer button. If you don’t do it, there’ll be problems later.

ii. Accumulation of merit therefrom300 After the invitation, what would you do? Lalitavajra has told us that you have to have the seven purities [tib. dun namdak]. In vajrayana technically they give it a different name, but it’s just like the seven limbs [tib. yenlak dunpa], adding: going for refuge; generating the bodhimind including offering your body; giving a firm commitment to the practice, i.e. holding the vows of the five buddhas; meditating the four immeasurables. So, this outlines has nine points, and [the first seven] seven out of these are the seven purities301. That is the path to follow here. The words are from the tantra of dum jung.

298

This is part of the completion stage practice. Roma is the right energy channel; hatred nerve. Kyangma is the left energy channel; desire nerve. 300 Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Sengge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 27-33. 301 The counting of the seven purities differs in different practices. 299

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Praise Praise to the Lama O Jewel-like Lama who possesses the Vajra, out of whose kindness the state of Great Bliss is attained in but a single moment: To the lotus beneath your feet I bow. You do the first prostration to the lama, not to the yidam. The lama is more important than the yidam itself. Remember the story of Naropa and Marpa302. The words are: ‘kang gi trin gyi dechen nyi – the state of bliss attained in a single moment’. The word kang in Tibetan means ‘who’, so: by whose kindness I will be able to obtain the dechen nyi – the great bliss. The ‘who’ is the lama who gave me the initiation and who allowed me to enter into the family of Yamantaka, who gives me guidance through the practice of Yamantaka, who gives me the backbone of the oral transmission, and so, by whose kindness I may attain the state of bliss-void in a single moment303. ‘In a single moment’ is a little exaggerated poetic gesture, or it is referring to our line of lives after lives. If you look at the picture of one’s lives, the short life we have is like a moment. In a way it’s a poetic exaggeration, but in a way it also has a meaning to it. In reality the life we have is actually [but] a moment. What does ‘lama’ mean, here in this verse? It means ‘heavy in quality’; not ‘big’ but heavy-weight in quality, so of supreme quality. Think that the lama is the one who enables you to achieve the ultimate bliss-void within this short life, which passes like a second. La ma is short for lana mepa – ‘the one without equivalent’, ‘the one who is unequaled’. It’s like saying the diamond is unequaled [among instruments], because it cuts everything. ‘I bow to the lowest part of the body of the precious master, i.e. the feet, with the highest part of my body, i.e. the forehead’. That is bowing to the lama, remembering the meaning of the words, the things behind that, and the background of your guru-devotional practice; bringing them together. That way your Lam Rim [practice] will become very strong. It will help you to develop faster and without problems. We all heard the Lam Rim, we know about it and we attempt to meditate on it, but we have not completed it, we are not experienced, so when we make the request: ‘My jewel-like guru, by whose kindness I attain a state of great bliss instantaneously.’ Don’t just remember the kindness of the guru who showed you the path, initiated you, who introduced you to the mandala and introduced you to the great supreme practice, you remember all this to the extent that tears come to your eyes and your hairs stand on end. Moreover: recognize the gurus as enlightened beings and as inseparable from all the enlightened beings. Now you bring the guru-devotional practice into action, recognizing the guru as fully enlightened being, giving various reasons like: ‘Buddha Vajradhara himself accepted this, saying: ‘In future I will appear as a teacher’, and among the persons connected with you, if there is a particular teacher who is guiding you and leading you to enlightenment. If that is not Vajradhara’s manifestation, who else could that be? Ultimately you decide to recognize the teachers as fully enlightened beings. This view 302 303

See Gelek Rinpoche, Lam Rim Teachings, pg. 128, H. Guenther, The life and teachings of Naropa, pg. 107. Rinpoche makes a remark here about the used Tibetan words: ‘I think it’s de chen ne, not de chen nyie – Lots of Tibetan books write: dechen nyie and I believe that is a wrong translation of the dum jung [tantra]. A lot of lama follow this [wrong translation] and a lot of books are printed like that. I believe it’s ga na sa, pronounced ne. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche emphasized that.’

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also differs in each of the three yanas, etc., I do not want to go back too much to the Lam Rim, but you can bring all the guru-devotional practices in here304. Then there is the supreme Field of Merit with all the wrathful beings in it. Although the guru is inseparable from Dorje Chang305, looking at him you see Yamantaka, as [someone] separate. But again, he is inseparable from Lama Yamantaka with all these wrathful qualities, the one who tames those difficult to tame. Yamantaka is the opponent of Yama. He is also known as Shinje she306. S<. Prostration: I bow to the lowest part of your body, your feet, and I desire your qualities. Praise Vajra Bhairava as great bliss dharmakaya, sambogakaya, multiple nirmanakaya for the multiple activities of the enlightened. We cannot see the sambogakaya form which can only be seen by arya bodhisattvas. The activities of the Buddha can only be done in the nirmanakaya form. Vajra terrifier refers to the ultimate vajra or ultimate method and ultimate wisdom conjoined - absolute truth. Jewel-like lama, as precious as a wish-granting jewel because of your kindness. Lama Vajradhara, who possesses the absolute vajra which is the attainment of the illusion body and the clear light, I bow to the lowest part of your body’. Mindfully recite this prayer while holding one’s hands in the prostration mudra. The two hands thus held together represent the joining of the illusion body and the clear light. The five fingertips represent the five skandhas and the five winds. This should be done with the motivation to benefit all beings and with a strong desire to be like the Lama.

Praise of Yamantaka Supreme form, Extremely great fury, Intrepid one, Enjoyer of supreme objects, Who acts in order to tame ‘the hard to tame’, To Vajra-Bhairava I bow down. Supreme form. Yamantaka’s physical form gives you the thirty-seven wings to enlightenment307, the thirty-seven practices of the path period. They have taken on a physical form: thirty-four hands, plus body, speech, and mind. The physical form shows you both the cause which will bring the [pure] form, as well as the result pure body which you have created – both cause and result together; this is vajrayana. The quickness of the vajrayana comes from bringing in the result during the cause level. Yamantaka is called ‘Supreme form’ because he shows cause and result together. Extremely great fury. That means he is so wrathful and powerful, that he can destroy the four evils308 and other obstacles. Remember, Kyabje Ling Rinpoche used to say: The moment they see the Yamantaka, all other wrathful deities get afraid. They drop their hand implements and act like dogs, their tails put between their legs.

That’s how wrathful he is. In Khedrub Je’s praise [of Dharmaraja] it says: riwo rel ching – it is as if the mountains are bouncing against each other, mountain to mountain, making a hell of a noise. That’s how fearful he is. So wrathful!– He is able to destroy the whole universe of evils with just one look – that is all he needs to do. As much fear you have within you, and as much anger/hatred you have within you, that’s how much wrathfulness of Yamantaka you need. That is what is meant by ‘Extremely great fury’.

304

Literature: Gelek Rinpoche, Lam Rim Teachings, pg. 121-140. Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in our hands, day eight and nine, vol. II pg. 25-67. 305 Dorje Chang is buddha Vajradhara. 306 See note 6 307 See page 359. 308 The four maras, see page 116.

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Intrepid one. That is because ‘You, hero [Yamantaka] have been able to overcome the four evils’. Enjoyer of supreme objects or ‘hero utilizing supreme objects’. The inconceivable secret and sacred qualities you have, can only be seen by the enlightened beings themselves; they can’t be shared by others’. People like us and even the arya bodhisattvas are unable to see and share them. They are only visible among the enlightened themselves. You act to tame those difficult to tame. There are three categories of those who are hard to tame: outer, inner and secret yamas. The outer Yama refers to Yama, the Lord of Death, the one who takes your life away, the one who calls you, who sends you the invitation by giving you ‘snow on your hair’. Snow on your hair and wrinkles in your face are the first invitations. By the inner Yama the three poisons are meant, hatred, attachment and ignorance. They destroy the life of your spiritual path. Those are difficult to tame. By the secret Yama the nangwa, sheba, topa, [translated:] the white appearance, the red increase and the black near-attainment during the dying stage are meant, the stages that will obstruct you from transforming death into dharmakaya. The opponent of all the yamas is Yamantaka, Dorje Jigje. Dorje is the indestructible method and Jigje refers to emptiness, so Dorje Jigje – Yamantaka’s name in Tibetan – is emptiness and method inseparable from each other. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche has a different explanation of this verse, that I can share with you next time. This verse is repeated a lot throughout the sadhana, even in the short sadhana. Remembering the meaning of the words is so important! Therefore you can’t just say it very fast. When you offer this praise to the supreme Field of Merit, you now have something to chew on in your mind, you know what’s behind it. S<. The praise: supreme form refers to the absolute truth. Vajra Bhairava who has neither delusions, negativities, nor imprints. Because of this, great bliss and wisdom arise in the wrathful form of nine-faced Vajra Bhairava. The absolute truth of Vajra Bhairava assuming a wrathful form is sug chog. The body is not obtained in an ordinary way, but via the great path which culminated in great form. Chogtu tragpo che: the body shows the path and the result. The wrathful form is extremely great fury. Pawo chogki chod yul chen: can only be seen among heroes themselves. You have gained victory over outer, inner and secret evils. This is like the iron city of Kapala which ordinary persons can not see – only enlightened beings. Dulka dulwe dun dze pa: control those forces which are difficult to tame, the outer and inner Yama, and enact activities to benefit sentient beings. Dorje Jigje la chag tsal: absolute truth of Vajra Bhairava, the union of great bliss and wisdom. The first line of the praise symbolizes the bliss dharmakaya and shows the development of wisdom. The second line symbolizes bliss sambogakaya which only the aryas can perceive. The third line is bliss nirmanakaya, and the fourth is the absolute vajra, the integration of ultimate wisdom and method. Bhairava means terrifier. Vajra Bhairava has taken a wrathful form to control wrathful evil forces. The enjoyer of supreme objects; only the enlightened can see Dorje Jigje, the terrifier who conquers all other terrifiers...la chag tsal, I bow to you, I desire your position. >S.

Praise - second explanation Supreme form [tib. zug jog]. These first words of the praise refer to the absolute wisdom, the ultimate result level of inseparable wisdom and bliss. That very inseparable wisdom-bliss has become a physical form and that is why he is called ‘Supreme form’. Extremely great fury. The supreme form taken on, is absolute wrath. Yamantaka appears so wrathful in order to subdue all three different yamas. The outer yama is death. It’s easy to understand why that is a problem: we don’t want to die. The delusions are the inner yama and we understand that problem, be-

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cause we don’t want to be deluded. The black stage of near-attainment is called the secret yama. Why is that state a problem? How does the black stage obstruct us from realizing the clear light of death? Audience: The black near-attainment stage is not the problem. It’s the stage immediately preceding that, because once you’re in the black near-attainment stage you can’t do anything, you just have to go through it. That’s why the last stage before that is most important. Rinpoche: What you are saying, is trying to put a sutra level explanation into tantra. In sutra it says that the mind immediately before death determines what happens afterwards. But here this might not be the case. Audience: The problem is: being attached to ordinary perception. Rinpoche: Why attached? I don’t think there is a problem of attachment at that level, because the state of mind is so subtle that there can be no attachment at all. Why are these three stages of white, red and black [tib. nang che tob sum] a problem? Just think, if you would not have these three, what would happen? You wouldn’t die. You would have immortality. [In the path] ordinary death is taken over by substitution of what would ordinarily happen. The ordinariness of your perception will make your death ordinary. I’m not talking about perceiving or not perceiving, that’s a different issue. But the ordinariness of your perception is what will make your death ordinary. We don’t want death, we want to substitute it by rising into the dharmakaya and then taking rebirth. You try to skip the ordinary death. Let the body die, it’s just a body. The drops may come together, but we change the ordinary way in which that would happen. The ordinary stages are called the secret yama, because if you lose [your chance while you go through] them in that sacred period, you’ll have lost the battle and it will just become ordinary death. Feeling and perception [in itself] are not the objection. Feeling and perception in the normal way, that will be the obstacle. The elements will still dissolve, the feelings and the perceptions will go [accordingly], that’s not the problem at all. But that it is happening as an automatism – that may be a problem. So, to take the black near-attainment stage as [if it were] ordinary death, that is the problem. Taking it as an automatic procedure, without having anything to substitute it with, that will be the secret yama, because that will kill the purpose of this practice, it kills [exactly] the period which you could make the best use of. So, when you say: ‘Extremely great furious one’ you have to think of those three obstacles: the outer, the inner and the secret yama. That is the wrathful reason for Yamantaka to overpower them. Fear is linked up with that. At this stage [the ordinariness] is the nightmare of the practitioners. That can be overcome by that wrathful field. That is why it is more supreme than a supreme field. Intrepid one. [tib. pawo]. That means ‘hero’. It is he who has already conquered everything, the two obstacles309 with their imprints, so he’s sort of ‘the giant one’. Enjoyer of supreme objects310. He is only accessible among the enlightened themselves, but sort of forbidden for others to see. You act to tame those difficult to subdue [tib. dukam duwe]. That refers especially to those three yamas. How does he act to tame them? I think everything we talk about here, every single thing from the beginning to the end, is about [subduing the three yamas].

309 310

Probably refers to the obstacles to liberation and the obstacles to omniscience. See also Tri Gyeltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts I, pg. 27: ‘As he enjoys the most excellent of all places, bodies, wealth and so on, het is ‘the enjoyer of supreme objects’.

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When you are saying prayers you have to think that there are also millions of other people saying them with you. When you make praises, you think that your body manifests many bodies and that each body has many heads and each of the heads has many tongues, so countless tongues are praising. That way it’s not only one person saying the praise, but the zillions and zillions that you manifested, all praise together.

Making Offerings As I mentioned before, all the praises and offerings are done in the manner of buddha Samantabhadra: manifesting multiple offerings311. Light rays from the syllable at my heart emanate white Chachika, blue Varahi, red Saraswati, and green Gauri. Holding in their hands various offering substances, they present them. First you make the outer offerings. The offering goddesses that you generate from your heart level are: white Chachika karpo, blue Pagmo ngonpo, red Yangjema marmo and green Kuri jangku. In vajrayana there is something very interesting. Remember, when you say the tsok it goes tingzin ngag dang chakgye, which means: concentration, mantra and mudra312. Having these three together is the condition for vajrayana to work. They are all important but sometimes you skip the mudra part a little bit. When you’re in a group with many people you do less mudras because if there are some people who know [and perform] them, the fact that they are doing them probably serves the purpose. You don’t want to make a big deal out of everybody having to do it. The ritual has to be looking smooth. Where do the different mudras come from? From three sources: – dorje kutsu, dorje tamo and dorje tamba – vajra fist, vajra folding and vajra net or tucked position313. By the way, the Sakyapas use the same mudras, but give them different names. When you do the vajra folding, the five fingers of the right hand represent the five root energies. The traditional Tibetan texts call them the five lungs, the root airs. The five fingers of the left hand represent the five ‘branch airs’ or energies. Then you fold your hands at the heart level. This represents that the five root airs and the five branch airs are collected at the central channel. The five right fingers also represent the senses and the five left represent the five sense-objects314, form, sound, smell, taste and touch. Combining them means you are bringing the external objects of perception and the internal perceiver together. The objects of perception, the senses, and the perceiving consciousness are one in the form of bliss-void. There is more symbolism. The five fingers of the right hand represent the illusion body and the left hand represents the clear light. Bringing them together at the heart level represents that that particular illusion body and that particular clear light combine and that represents the union. It also reminds you of bliss-void. If you keep thinking and doing this within the practice, it helps to materialize them later. They will become actual within you. Even Ghandiji knew how to do it: namaste315. We do more than just the gesture: thinking of the clear light and the illusion body together, thinking of the perceiving mind and the perceived objects coming together, bringing the root energies and branch energies together. There are a lot of meanings behind the simple namaste greeting. That is an important point.

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For a detailed description of a Samantabhadra practice see page 120. Tingdzin: concentration; ngag: mantra; dang: and; chakgye: mudra. 313 Vajra fist: hand in a fist, thumb in; vajra folding: hands folded like at taking refuge; vajra net: hands strangled into each other like in christian prayer. 314 This part was not complete. When asking Rinpoche to fill in the gap, he made the following remark on precisely naming all these correspondences: ‘They can change. In the west we must not clarify everything. If we do, it will be written down and inclined to be held to, which would limit the circumstances calling for and evidencing its changeability’. 315 The Hindi greeting with folded hands, meaning: ‘I bow to the light within you’. 312

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So you bring all these qualities together. With that mind of high quality – you almost think it is of bliss-void nature – you generate the four colored offering goddesses at the tip of the light. They carry all sorts of offerings, musical instruments, water offerings etc. These offering deities are actually the five consorts of the five buddhas316. One is missing, we have only four, maybe one of them decided to remain bachelor for a while [joke]. S<. From your heart come four offering goddesses without hand implements - Chachika, Varahi, Saraswati, Gauri or Parvati. Gyume, the lower tantric college, does mudras here, but Gyuto does not do mudras at this point and treats it as only mental creation. Make offerings in six special ways. >S.

So, here are the supreme Field of Merit, and the extraordinary mind with which you are making this interesting offering. Of course, if you do the long sadhana, you have already blessed the offerings. The mantra here is: OM HRIH SHTRIH HA (water for the mouth) OM HUNG HUNG PHAT (water for the feet) OM VIKRITANANA DUSHTAM SATVA DAMAKA GAH GAH (scented water) OM DUMARA RUPINE JAH JAH HUNG PHAT (flowers) OM HRIH HAI HAI PHAT (incense) OM DIPTA LOCANA VIKRITANANA MAHA ATTATTA HASANA DINI DIPTAYE SVAHA (butter-lamps) OM VAJRA NAIVIDYA AH HUNG SVAHA (divine food) OM VAJRA SHABDA AH HUNG (music) that is offering water for the mouth. You know317 the mudras. You make the offering deities to manifest and they dance around. [That is represented by] what is called the lotus mudra [Rinpoche demonstrates]. The detailed manner is going round three times and when you do the lotus mudra it is important to know that the right hand really does not fall under the left hand. Once is enough. The meaning of OM HRIH SHTRIH HA is: ‘Somebody with fearful fangs ready to snatch’. It indicates to whom we offer: to the wrathful face.318 We offer water to the mouth. OM HUNG HUNG PHAT – PHAT means ‘cut’. Ordinary perception and conception are cut and you are left with the extraordinary inseparable bliss-void nature. So this mantra tells you the nature of the offerings. What are you offering: the ordinary perception and conception are cut, which means [you offer] extraordinary wisdom-bliss. Actually it’s only offering water for the feet, but the mantra doesn’t tell you that. It tells you about the nature of the offering. PHAT means ‘cut’ and HUNG HUNG stands for perception and conception. This is not only the nature of this particular offering, it is the nature of all the offerings. OM VIKRITA NANA DUTAM SATTO DAMAKA GA GA. This means: ‘the heart blood of the impure ones after I have destroyed them’. That tells you the cause for the offering. The cause for the offering is the heart-blood of the hindrances and the enemies who have been destroyed. [This is offering perfume or scented water.] OM KUMARA RUPINI DZA DZA HUNG PHAT. That is offering the flower. The translation says: ‘the beautiful form or appearance’. So the mantra indicates what the offering looks like. It looks beautiful. OM HRIH HA HAI PHAT. This is the incense offering. This indicates the purpose of the offerings: ‘to make the wrathful ones happy’. This is the purpose of all the offerings – to make them happy. OM DIPTA LOCHANA VIKRITA NANA MAHA ATTATA HASA NA DINI DIPTA YE SVAHA. This is the offering of light. It says ‘to make your eye grow’. That doesn’t necessarily mean that your eyes grow, but that you can see better. Light is for the purpose of seeing. [S<. ..to bring happiness to the eyes of the wrathful ones]. This tells you the particular object of the offering: the water for the mouth goes to the OM HRIH SHTRIH HA -

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For the consorts of the five buddhas see: Gelek Rinpoche, Guru devotion: how to integrate the primordial enlightened mind, page 87. 317 See: Gelek Rinpoche, Guru devotion: how to integrate the primordial enlightened mind, page 115-118. 318 Dagyab Kyabgön Rinpoche, Kommentar zur Praxis des Alleinstehenden Helden Yamantaka, pg. 46 about the meaning of the first words OM HRIH STRIH HAH: ‘The robber with fangs’. You are a robber, because you rob me of my ego, my ignorance. That is the object I offer to.

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mouth, the water for the feet goes to the feet, the incense goes to the nose, the flower is used for decoration, etc., so it tells you to which object in particular you are offering. OM VAJRA NAIVIDYA AH HUNG – offering food. I don’t think that tells you anything special. It's food for the enlightened beings. OM SHABDA AH HUNG – the offering of music. That is the external offering to the supreme Field of Merit, with Yamantaka, the root guru and all the enlightened beings combined together. To whom you offer, what is the nature of the offering, what it’s made of, how it looks, what its purpose is and to what part of the body you’re offering – knowing those six different ways of offering, and offering the right thing to the right point, makes you accumulate tremendous amounts of merit. In addition, you visualize that the lama and the yidam accept the offering, enjoy it, and are fully satisfied with it. That is important here. S<. Lhundrup Pandita’s translation is indirect - only the meaning is indicated. Shantipa says that making these offerings accumulates a vast amount of merit. Goddesses make offerings to Vajra Bhairava, lineage gurus, retinue, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas bringing great bliss to the field of merit. Bliss-void fills their bodies (those of the field of merit) and minds and the offering goddesses reabsorb into the HUNG. Nagpopa319, the great Heruka neljorpa320, did not quite attain enlightenment in one life. He missed two chances to do so. Once Nagpopa was leading tsok and a beggar appeared who wanted to lead the tsok but Nagpopa would not let him. Another man present offered the beggar his seat, whereupon the beggar became Vajrayogini, the man who offered the seat turned into Heruka and in union the two flew into the heavens. He missed that opportunity. Another time an old lady leper wanted to cross the river. Nagpopa and his disciples were flying in the sky above. Nagpopa did not bother to come down and help her but one of his disciples was moved by great compassion and descended to help the woman. When he did, she turned into Vajrayogini and they both flew to Kacho shing321. He blew his second chance. But he was a very great siddha. When he passed by, damarus and bells used to fly around. He was the show-off type. Nagpopa said one should make offerings with four special significances. These four are: 1. No doubt. Eliminate the doubt that the offerings are not suitable to be offered to the Lama deity. The deities have different taste than we do. Be confident that the offerings are the best quality and will be enjoyed by the deity and retinue. Lama Yongdzin Rinpoche told a story that once the Buddha was asked to do a rainy season retreat at the place of a king. An outsider fed the Buddha oats which were meant for the king’s horses. Ananda complained, so the Buddha gave him a piece of the food from between his teeth. It tasted like nectar. So remember that the buddhas have the ability to transform all offerings. 2. Offer without expectation. Offer without hope for return and no expectation of some benefit in samsara. 3. Offer free from ordinary perception and conception. 4. Offer the substances in the nature of bliss and void, yet in the shape of each object. No ignorance should touch the offering. By making the offering, bliss and void grows within the merit field. The inner, secret and suchness offerings may be done here. The offering goddesses are also in the nature of bliss and void; after they have offered the offering substances, bring them back. >S.

Five qualities of the offerings

319

See page 87. Tibetan for yogi, practitioner. 321 Kachö is the name of Vajrayigini’s paradise or the Vajrayogini status; shing means buddhafield. 320

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In addition to what we have mentioned above, all the offerings have to have five qualities. Sandy’s notes have the four special significances322. Let’s today add the five different ways, which is a different set of qualities. I’m not only talking about external offerings, but also about internal offerings and tsok offerings. All offerings must have these five qualities. 1. The material. I.e. the substances you are offering, like water, flowers, incense, torma, tsok material, a piece of cloth, or pledges – whatever material it may be, whatever you have laid out. 2. Mantra. By saying the mantras, like ARGHAM, PADYAM or also OM HRIH SHTRIH HA etc., you cover the mantra part. 3. Mudra. Making [formal] mudras or giving a gift – any physical act, becomes mudra. We say ‘tingzin ngagdang chakgye…: this ocean of offering tsok blessed by samadhi, mantra and mudra’. If the offering is small, then make it big from your heart. Let’s say you give ten dollars for pledges, then you add four more zeros to that; just think that you multiply it and concentrate on it. That way you are making it more. 4. Concentration. Think you are eliminating everybody’s sufferings or making everybody a fully enlightened being. Even though you don’t have the power and capacity to do so yet, still you wish to do so: ‘I wish I could do it, I would like to do it’. Not just say that from your mouth, but wish it from the bottom of your heart. Vajrayana is a result-oriented practice. That makes a hell of a difference. Even if you just write a cheque of ten dollars, having the sincere desire to add a number of zeros serves quite a good purpose for the accumulation of merit. So, concentrate on the multiplication of the offering. Do it the Samantabhadra323 style, making it millions, billions or zillions, as much as you like. 5. Contemplation. To whom you are making the offering, who is making the offering, and the material you offer, all three are in nature empty. Understanding that and making it a part of the practice becomes the contemplation; not an ordinary contemplation, but a great one. Always remember that the five qualities of the offerings go for any offering, whether you make tsok offerings or water offerings, light offerings or incense offerings, or all of them combined, including your pledges and donations, particularly if they are connected with dharma purposes. If they’re connected with political purposes, then probably no. If they are connected with military purposes, then certainly not. I think that’s how it works. This style of offering has been recommended very strongly by a number of different teachers. Particularly the first, second, third and the fourth Panchen Lama have emphasized that very positively and so has the seventh Dalai Lama. The guests accept the offerings and what’s more they enjoy them; moreover they are satisfied. The satisfaction is the punch line here.

Confession To break from non-virtue and to eradicate those produced or arising, in your presence, I give my word no longer to do them. There is an argument on this: you’re in the Yamantaka form; but how can Yamantaka have non-virtues? What is there left to purify? There are two answers to that. One answer is: ‘Yes, Yamantaka is pure, there is nothing to purify. However! the purity part of it is only in your imagination, you are not Yamantaka yet. So: there needs to be purification’. The other answer is: ‘Yes, it’s true. Therefore in this part of the practice, you switch from the Yamantaka form to your ordinary being’s form and you purify’. Both are accepted answers for that; do whichever is easier for you. S<. Confess non-virtuous actions which one has committed in the past. Remember the result of the non-virtuous actions. This is necessary for the feeling of regret to arise. Meditate on the conse322 323

See page 156. See page 120.

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In: ‘I shall confess all my downfalls’324, you visualize yourself and all other sentient beings, your nearest and dearest, all other friends and everybody, around you and they purify their non-virtues just like you do. You need a lot of visualizations here. If you don’t visualize, nothing happens. If you just say the words you fulfill your commitments but you aren’t doing anything. Whenever you have time, think and visualize. Literally imagine here that all sentient beings – even if you just get nameless, faceless dots, its okay here – are all purifying themselves like your are: they purify all their beginningless non-virtues with you. Think: ‘All the non-virtues I’ve ever committed, have now become a bad obstacle for me, it’s really terrible’. So you regret it. Develop as much regret as if you’ve just been bitten by a cobra. The next lines say: ‘The non-virtues that have already grown within me and those growing within me, in your presence, I am promising not to commit them again’. If you just say that without meaning it, knowing that you’ll do it again, it may be a slightly incorrect statement, you may be cheating the supreme Field of Merit. The recommended solution here is to promise: ‘I won’t do it until I die, or if that’s not possible, not this year or this month, or not today or at least not this hour’. If you can’t even do that, you think: ‘I hope and I pray that I’ll be able to do that’. That will serve the purpose; it’s easier and more relevant for us. This way, we can handle it. Even if you just say: ‘I can’t do it completely, but I hope and I pray that I may be able to do it completely’, it will serve the purpose. For purification you need the four powers. You have the supreme Field of Merit in front of you. You rely on them totally, take refuge to them, and have a profound faith in them. You also generate the bodhimind, thinking: ‘By clearing these non-virtues I will obtain the buddha stage, enlightenment’. Combining those two together establishes the power of the base. Regret is there and the promise not to repeat it or the hope to be able not to repeat it, or praying for that, will probably serve the purpose of not repeating it. Then: whoever created the non-virtues, i.e. you, the non-virtues themselves and the objects of the non-virtues, all of them are in the nature of emptiness. That will actually be the most powerful antidote – emptiness.

Rejoice Likewise I rejoice in every goodness I rejoice in [the activities of] the buddhas and bodhisattvas, of all ordinary people including myself, in past, present and future. I rejoice in whatever good things we have done. I won’t talk about the benefits of rejoicing. You already know them from the Lam Rim325. S<. Lama Tsongkhapa said that without much effort, the best way to accumulate merit is through rejoicing. This combats our tendency to be jealous and proud and to gossip about people’s negativities. When someone does something good, we rarely say it is bad, but we always mention that ‘but’ to counteract the other person’s good deeds. Rejoicing in the activities of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is the most beneficial. When rejoicing in the merit of one higher than oneself, one receives double the merit. Take advantage of this easy way to accumulate merit. >S.

There is a question: how can you rejoice in others’ good deeds? What right do you have to rejoice in or to regret others’ deeds? It’s the question normally raised in America: ‘What right do you have to inter324

Here and in some other places Rinpoche translates directly from the Tibetan. Also sometimes people read from the sadhana in Pabongka Rinpoche, Meditation on Vajrabhairava. So the words differ, but they do refer to the sadhana-text above. 325 Gelek Rinpoche, Lam Rim Teachings, pg. 107.

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vene here and there?’ The usual answer of the Americans is: ‘We have a right to do so because it concerns us’. Whether right or wrong, it’s an answer which is too extreme. It will affect you, for sure, but that doesn’t give you a right to intervene. In the traditional Tibetan system, the lamas will give the answer in a different way. They give an example: ’There is a very close family living together. The parents are very poor. If the child of the family finds a treasure which has a tremendous value and he brings it home, everybody will rejoice in it and the benefit of that treasure will be shared by the parents and all other members of the family’. That is true. If a kid has something very nice, he’s not going to say that it belongs only to him and that others can’t benefit at all. He is going to share it. In the old Tibetan society it worked that way. A treasure is the treasure of the family; whatever you have belongs to all the family members. Every family member has equal right on everything. That is how it works, unless you want to pull out; when you pull out, you take your share and go. Whoever wants to go, let them go. We do like this; like family members we rejoice together.

Dedication and dedicate them fully to ascend to joy. S< Anger is like a thief who robs one of one’s merit. If one gets angry at a bodhisattva, hundred eons of virtue can be destroyed. To avoid this, dedicate one’s merit: 1) for all sentient beings to attain enlightenment; 2) for the longevity of the teachings; 3) never to be separated from dharma teachings and teachers. One can build an extremely ornate stupa, but all the gold and sweat that goes into it, can be lost if through anger, you cancel out all merits. But by building a cheap cement stupa and by dedicating the merit, one creates the cause to build a gold stupa and creates the cause for enlightenment. S>.

The verse of the dedication says: ‘I dedicate them fully to that which leads to bliss’. The original word in Tibetan is de dro. Dro has two divisions: de dro and ngen dro - a good life and a bad life. Here we dedicate it to a good life. The commentaries tell you that good life here doesn’t mean just an ordinary good life but an extraordinary good life, which is the life of enlightenment. Translators unnecessarily translate that as ‘bliss’. De dro just means ‘joyful life’. Dro means ‘going’ and refers to sentient beings; they’re divided into those who are going to bad lives and those who are going to good lives.

Refuge taking To the Three Gems I go for refuge, All of you know a lot about taking refuge now. But I would like to put a slightly different emphasis here. I’ll give you a little easy way of taking refuge. We have some kind of faith in the ultimate Buddha, dharma and sangha stage. We meditate: This is my goal. My purpose is to reach that level, to obtain that stage, to obtain dharma, to be a sangha. That will be my goal. I’m seeking help and I rely on those who are in front of me, the supreme Field of Merit. Making requests to them and relying on them is able to deliver the goods. In other words: I would like to achieve the stage of the Buddha, the dharma and the sangha combined. Who has the power? Where is the power? And how can I get it? The power lies with the enlightened beings in front of me. I seek their guidance and help; that will be able to deliver the goods. Furthermore, the mind is buddha, the spiritual development is dharma and the body is sangha. Taking refuge that way is also a possibility. There are tremendous benefits. You know them, I’m not going to repeat it326. 326

Gelek Rinpoche, Lam Rim Teachings, pg. 244-247.

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2. Accumulation of merit from the lower field Vajrayana has very special qualities. You don’t settle for the ordinary, only for the best. So here you have the best of the supreme field and the best of the mundane field. The best way to accumulate merit from the mundane field is generating bodhimind and [meditation on] the four immeasurables.

Generating bodhimind Wishing or prayer form all beings I shall liberate and place in the state of enlightenment: The bodhimind I shall purely generate. The first line: ‘I will liberate all sentient beings’ means, ‘I will liberate them from their sufferings’. Then: ‘I will deliver them to the stage of a buddha’, for which I would like to practice buddha Yamantaka’s two stages of development and to quickly obtain the stage of buddha Vajradhara in this life time. Here you have to say buddha Yamantaka stage. These are the normal practices. You have the background, so it’s not difficult. Action form To all you Oceans of Excellence I offer my body. In order to attain the three Kayas and five Wisdoms I shall practice with total clarity the methods of generosity and so forth, the path of the perfectly fulfilled Buddhas and evolving ones. In addition to the wish, here is the offering of your body327: ‘To you who are an ocean of excellent qualities, I offer my body’. Yonten gyatso means ‘ocean of qualities’. There are countless and a limitless number of things in the ocean, so the qualities are countless and limitless and that which has these ocean-like qualities, is my supreme Field of Merit. To them I offer my supreme possession, which is my body. I offer my body to them, for them to make use of it, to make them happy. And you think: ‘Protect me, hold me as your disciple’. Here the Asian style of humbleness comes in. S<. According to Lama Yongdzin Rinpoche the reason why we offer the body is to gain protection. The benefit is so great that after offering, evil disturbances cannot easily harm you. Suppose one man is a public nuisance. Everyone mocks him. But if he marries into a powerful family or is in some way under the protection of some powerful person, people will be reluctant to bother him. Milarepa’s years of building structures for Marpa is a good example of giving service to the Lama. One of the best ways is to practice the dharma and gain spiritual development. When all these teachings start to fit, this is the beginning of understanding. The Lam Rim shows that there is no contradiction in the Buddha’s teachings. Seeing a dichotomy between sutra and tantra is wrong. They both fit. >S.

Then: committing yourself to the path. ‘I will devote myself with extremely pure faith to the methods of generating, and so forth, which are the path of the enlightened buddhas and their offspring’. Buddhas and bodhisattvas have practiced the six paramitas and all their other practices as the path, in order to obtain the three kayas and the five wisdoms. Therefore I would like to use that as a result-oriented path. With a strong commitment, strong perseverance and strong practice and great hard work, I would like to do that.

Taking the vows S<. Repeating the tantric vows does not renew them if a vow has been broken, but it does strengthen them. To renew broken vows one must receive the full four initiations. Without vows there is no development >S. 327

Also called: offering one’s service or offering one’s practice.

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The bodhisattva vow O Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, please give me your attention. I, Akshobya, from now until possessing the essence of enlightenment, shall generate the sacred, peerless bodhimind just as all Buddhas of the three times have ensured their own enlightenment by first generating it. ‘I, who am called such and such.’ Here you do not use your personal name; you have to use your vajra family name, the one you are connected with. If you don’t remember your name properly, we normally use the name of Mikyö Dorje [as a substitute] 328, who is the principal of all five [dhyani] buddhas, in sanskrit Akshobhya. So you say: I who am called Mikyö Dorje. Or you mention your own caste and then you are either Nangdze Dorje or Pema Dorje or Rinchen Dorje or Dönyö Dorje. The next lines tell you that if there is no bodhimind, there is no buddha. All the buddhas, all the fully enlightened ones, are totally based on the bodhimind. Without bodhimind there is no buddha at all. That is from the buddhist point of view. I don’t know about other points of view whether there might be an enlightened being without bodhimind. Probably not. Jews, Christians or Muslims, if they were to obtain enlightenment they would have obtained the bodhimind. They may not call it bodhimind, but it must be an equivalent of bodhimind, which encompasses being totally committed to forwarding the benefit of others, and [therefore] having the desire to develop themselves. If that equivalent is there, fine, it is bodhimind. If that equivalent is not there, then there is no enlightenment [possible]. All the buddhas have confirmed their enlightenment by showing they have fully developed the bodhimind. If there is no bodhimind, there is no way their enlightenment can be confirmed. There is no way they are assured of full enlightenment. That’s why it’s called mahayana, the vehicle leading you to the enlightened level. This means the driver has no power as to where he can go. It is an automatic vehicle which is sure to lead you there. That shows you that bodhimind is inconceivable. All the enlightened beings of the three times have been led to that level and that’s why ‘I would like to generate it’. The vajrayana vows In this sadhana version we have the shorter version of the tantric vows. The longer version has everything. Look into your Vajrayogini self-initiation sadhana, it’s in there.329 It will be after entering the mandala, and before the initiations. There are five buddhas and everyone of them holds his own commitments. [In our last verse] you have read that one has to generate the bodhimind; but actually we already did generate the bodhimind earlier. So why do we have to generate the bodhimind again within the vajrayana vows? The point is that the vajrayana vows are based on the mahayana vows. That means, without generating the bodhimind, there is no vajrayana. That's why330. In the [Vajrayogini self-initiation text] it says: I will uphold firmly all three ethics, that of the vow of restraint, that of achieving virtue and that of helping beings.

These are the commitments of Vairochana, Nampar namdze. First you are protecting yourself from wrong doing, then you are committing yourself to accumulate merit as much as possible and then you commit yourself to helping all other beings. These are the three ethical codes331. On top of that it must have the taking of refuge. The text says:

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Akshobhya-vajra - Mikyö Dorje; Vairochana-vajra - Nangdze Dorje, Ratnasambhava-vajra – Rinchen Dorje; Amoghasiddhivajra - Dönyö Dorje. Pema Dorje refers to buddha Amithaba, Öpame. He is the head of the lotus – tib. padma- family. 329 R, Thurman (transl) Vajrayogini Great bliss festival, pg. 35. 330 To be sure that the vajrayana vows will be grounded in the bodhimind, you have to generate it again immediately before. 331 For the individual three ethical codes or three moralities, different names are used [see also Lam Rim]: a. protecting yourself from wrong doing: morality of giving up non-virtues - morality of protecting your vows; b. accumulating merit as much as possible: commitment of developing yourself, of holding your practice; c. helping others.

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Concerning refuge to Buddha – here you have to think you take refuge to buddha Vairochana and all other buddhas. ‘Taking refuge to the dharma’ here relies on the development of the development stage and the completion stage. ‘Refuge to the sangha’ here refers to the vajrayana sangha, the dorje ngonpo. Buddha yoga just means that any vajrayana practice is called yoga. Even taking refuge can be called refuge yoga. Yoga means ‘union’, ‘joining’, nanda [too] means ‘union’, yogananda means ‘union of two’332. At the ordinary level it’s the union of wisdom and method. At the extraordinary level it’s the union of bliss and void. At the uncommon inconceivable level it’s the union of body and mind. That is really what yoga nanda means. All activities in vajrayana have paths joined together, that’s why you can call them yoga. The three ethics and the three refuges make up the six commitments of Vairochana buddha. To repeat them six times a day serves to refresh your memory of the commitments. For that purpose, and to make it easier the six-session yoga has been made. If you don’t have some kind of framework where everything is put together, you won’t be able to remember them. That’s why the six-session yoga has become important. [By the way,] all the buddhas can be considered to be Nampar namdze, they all fall under Vairochana, Buddha Shakyamuni also. I will truly uphold the Gesture, Vajra, and Bell pledges of the supreme Vajra clan.

Akshobhya, Mikyöpa, the one who is in the center, holds four commitments: the vajra mind commitment, the bell speech commitment, the mudra body commitment and the vajra master commitment. What is the commitment of the vajra? The vajra is symbolic for and represents the wisdom mind of the enlightened beings. It’s not just the wisdom part of their mind; all their mind is wisdom mind, and by nature that mind is bliss-void. So whenever you hold or see the vajra, it reminds you to remember the mind of the enlightened beings. Whether you hold the physical vajra in hand, or look at any vajra image or not, you try to remember it at least six times a day. That actually means you do not forget it in the morning, not at noon, not in the evening, not in the early part of the night, not at midnight and again not early in the morning. That means you remember it always. Likewise the bell reminds you of the commitment of speech. Whenever you touch or see the bell, or hear the bell’s sound, it reminds you to remember the wisdom of understanding the true nature of reality which is the wisdom of emptiness. The bell represents that. To keep the emptiness in mind you hold the bell, you ring the bell and you listen to the sound of the bell. Whether it’s the bell from the church steeple or the tiny bell you ring here, the sound of the bell reminds you of emptiness and that is the commitment of Akshobhya, Mikyö Dorje. The commitment of the mudra does not mean the hand gesture here, it refers to your consort. You meditate yourself into the form of a god. You have a wisdom consort with you. [Then] you have union with your consort – hugging or kissing or sexual union –and having developed combined bliss-void within you, you won’t forget it or let it go, or give it up. That is the commitment of the mudra. If you listen carefully at the end of the initiation, this is said: ‘There is no non-virtue like cutting attachment333. Here they are not referring to the ordinary clinging attachment which we have, – whether person to person, or object attachment – but to this particular attachment of you yourself as god and in union. Whether your consort is an external or an internal consort, does not matter. But if you give up the great bliss-void brought to you by the union with the consort, well, there’s no non-virtue like it in the three realms of existence. So giving up [that desire] is considered the most heavy non-virtue. I will truly uphold the holy Master’s pledge.

332 333

Usually spelled yuganaddha. Are yuga and yoga the same? May need a check. At the end of the Vajra-master initiations, this is said: ‘There is no sin in the three realms, other than such as lack of passion; You should never forsake it and indulge in calm dispassion!’ R. Thurman, Yamantaka Ekavira, Materials for Punya house retreat, pg. 185.

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That is the vajra master commitment. Holding your vajra master in the nature of the yidam-god, making him a field for the accumulation of merit, by making him offerings and giving respect, by making him the object of purification and the source of siddhis and completion. All that is the vajra master commitment, the fourth Akshobhya commitment. I will always give the four kinds of gifts each day at six times in keeping the delightful vow of the great supreme Jewel Clan

The commitment of Ratnasambhava, Rinchen jungden, refers to the four kinds of generosity. Ratnasambhava is head of the Jewel clan, the clan of inexhaustible wealth, [all] the result of generosity. The four generosities are: 1) Material generosity, like giving food to the hungry, shelter to the homeless, medication to the sick, clothes to the poor, etc. 2) The generosity of protecting from fear, like e.g. fear of losing your life, or the fears that are called the nightmares of the spiritual practitioner (i.e. the eight fears mentioned in the Tara practice). This commentary mentions equanimity as an example of protection from fear. That means freeing all sentient beings from attachment and hatred. 3) The generosity of dharma. The gift of dharma doesn’t necessarily only mean teaching; dedicating your virtues for the benefit of others, will also be the gift of dharma. 4) The generosity of love. About fear Most of the fears we have are not fears of delusions in the sense of ‘afflictive emotions’, but fears of the delusion of wrong knowing, wrong perception. Most of the fears come from misunderstanding, from misinterpreting, wrongly knowing or imagining. I’m not talking about the usual sort of fear, of somebody coming to rob you or rape you. I don’t think you have to be protected from those fears. As a matter of fact these fears are a sign for you, to be alert and aware and to take precautions. Sometimes it’s useful to have fears. If you remain lukewarm, saying: ‘Oh, it’s all just my imagination, nothing is going to happen’, then if somebody suddenly takes you by the throat, it’s too late. So you don’t need to worry about that sort of fear. Most of the fear we have is groundless fear. Sometimes people are afraid, not knowing what they’re afraid of. Sometimes you may be afraid of going to sleep because you might have this bad nightmare coming up again, and so you stay up all night. It’s nothing physical, it’s sort of created mentally, or maybe you’re recollecting experiences of a previous life, or of childhood. These sort of fears are actually baseless. If what makes you afraid has happened to you in your previous life or earlier in this life, or even if it happened to you yesterday and you are still shaking today, there is no reason for you to be afraid, because it is past tense. To bring those fears into today is a misinterpretation. You’re experiencing the effect, sure. I’m not saying you are wrong; you are experiencing it, physically or mentally. But if you analyze that fear carefully, it’s baseless, groundless. It’s imaginative fear, wrongly focused fear. I’m not denying it still affects the individual. Yes true, the effect that fear has on you today is as big as if somebody would actually be walking behind you. It happens in the mind of the individual. But is it really true? No. Because if there really is somebody physically behind you, you can really get hurt or even killed. But this other fear can only torture you; it cannot kill or hurt you physically. What I’m going to say may go along the principles of psychology or against them. If you don’t give in to that fear, if you’re strong enough and think, and tell yourself: ‘That is past tense, I’m not going to be fooled, I’m not going to be trapped by that fear which is trying to torture me’, it will help. The true reality is that whatever the incident was, by now it’s past. In the physical and mental dimension you experience it, yes, but will it continue to [torture] you more? Yes, if you give it room. If you entertain it and give it room it will continue to do more. If you don’t entertain it and don’t give it room and put it in the past, as something of the past [it won’t]. It is hard. It’s easy to say and hard to do! The way to protect yourself from fear is knowing the true reality. The direct opponent of fear is wisdom. Of course the big wisdom is emptiness, but even a little bit of wisdom, knowing the reality,

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knowing what really is [happening], will also strongly build up [a fear opponing power] if you put it within your mind. Audience: What you have said is not at all anti-psychology, it is in fact the basis of a lot of the psychology. But the question is that if someone has fears of past experiences, the goal with any approach to achieving a sense of sanity is realizing that that isn’t actually still happening. I mean, you are not still beaten by your mother. But the question is: what is the method that you use to achieve that state of mind. Just thinking to yourself that it’s not real, I don’t think is totally enough. Rinpoche: I did not say that just suggesting to yourself that it’s not real is enough. You have to convince yourself. You do that through logical analyzing. This may not go easily with the western mind. I have no idea of psychology. I keep thinking what I say may go against the principles of psychology, but I see that everybody here is saying ‘no’. I am glad it’s not. For the great pure Lotus Clan arising from great enlightenment, I will uphold each Dharma of the outer, the secret and the three vehicles334.

That refers to Amithaba, the buddha of endless light, Öpame. The Tibetan text says: chi dang sangwa, tegpa sum – outer and secret yana and the [three] yanas. The outer yana refers to kriya and charya tantra, the secret yana refers to yoga- and maha annuttara yoga tantra. The three yanas have to be counted as shravaka buddha yana, pratyeka buddha yana and mahayana or transcendental yana. From the individual practitioner’s point of view you can count the three as hinayana, mahayana and vajrayana, but normally, when you count the three yanas, you do it as mentioned above – the vajrayana definitely being part of the mahayana. Audience: We don’t really study the first two. Rinpoche: They are both hinayana. Audience: And as such they are included in the mahayana? Rinpoche: That’s it. We pledge here to not give up any of the three vehicles. That means we honor them. Actually we do study them all; we study the principle of sravakayana and pratyekabuddhayana within the common with the lower level335. It is said that giving up dharma is unlimited non-virtue. That means, among others, looking down on hinayanins. Amithaba’s commitment is counted as two: the outer and secret yanas are the vajrayana part of it, not giving up the three yanas the sutra part. So the commitments of Amithaba encompass upholding the four tantras as well as upholding the three yanas. Countings can change. I’m following this particular text, so lets count them as two336. I will uphold truly each and every vow I have in the great supreme Karma Clan, and I will perform what I can of ritual offerings

Amoghasiddhi, Dönyo drupa, combines all the other commitments: the six commitments of Vairochana, the four of Akshobhya, the four of Ratnasambhava, and the two of Amithaba – that makes sixteen in all. Then you make the outer, inner, secret and suchness offerings – that makes it twenty337. Some tantric texts will say there are nineteen commitments, some others will tell you there are twenty,

334

There must be a translation mistake in the Jewel heart Vajra Yogini self-initiation sadhana pg. 35 as well as the Yamantaka Ekavira self-initiation] pg. 153. I have changed the text according to the text of Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Guide to dakiniland, pg. 368. 335 Common with the lower level here may be interpreted as the non-mahayana level in general. When strictly counted in terms of the lamrim one would say: common with the medium level. 336 In the six session yoga Amithaba’s commitments are counted as three: outer tantra, inner tantra, three yanas. 337 In the six session yoga Amoghasiddhi’s commitments are counted as two: the four offerings are counted as one and ‘all other commitments’ are counted as one.

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in some other places there is mention of twenty-four. There are a lot of different ways of counting; we stick with the twenty here. The outer offering is making the offerings of form, sound, smell, taste, and touch, etc. (like a.o. ARGHAM), so the external offerings to the five senses. We know the inner offering – we bless the material and we offer this, together with the mental exercise of increasing them manifold. The secret offering is when the male and female yidam are in sexual union and bring the ordinary or extraordinary sexual joy which fully satisfies the body and mind in the form of the yidam. The sexual satisfaction offering is the secret offering. Such a joy, brought about by the activities of sexual union, when that is not just an empty physical buzz, but when it has the mind so totally absorbed in it, that it can’t have anything else going on, when that [joyful mind] recognizes emptiness, and the intense concentration arising from that is almost absorbing the object of concentration into the mind, then offering that powerful void-natured bliss is called suchness offering. Just the ordinary sexual buzz, this physical buzz, is short-lived and meaningless and is even against the vajrayana commitment. Particularly losing the essence of the body energy is against the vajrayana commitment. But it may not be that bad on our level. I asked Song Rinpoche and he told me exactly what happens: ‘When you jack off – he really used these words in Tibetan – these things come from the kidneys, it is not brought down from the central source at the crown chakra. In order to bring that [essence of the body energy] down, you need the psychic tummo power; you have to melt that [bodhicitta] and bring it down and then if you lose that, you die. There is no question. That’s why you must not lose that, because you [in that case] will die!’ So, I think the objection to losing the essence is focused on the sexual energy which is not just drawn from around the kidneys, but right from the crown through the central channel right down to the tip of the sex organ. If you lose the sexual energy on that level, you lose everything. Then you are really in big trouble. Song Rinpoche in his teachings used to say: ‘Whatever you have to do at that level, put your fists together, put your mouth together, put everything together and hold back’. That’s what it is. I am quite sure, there are people who have a problem doing this. They may not die, but they become useless and powerless. If you look into the Taoist-Chinese tradition you will see it. There are even movies made about these ‘taoists’. Audience: But they would not draw the energy from the crown through the central channel the way you were talking about it? Rinpoche: I’m quite sure they do. There is very strong vajrayana in the taoist tradition. The Chinese may say Taoism is not Buddhism but there may be a lot of things in common with it. Audience: Can you say how this applies from a woman’s point of view? Rinpoche: According to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition the women have the same thing. It might not be white semen, it could be a mixture of white and a lot of red, but otherwise it’s the same thing. The women will also draw the energy from the crown through the central channel to the sex organ, there is no difference. Look into the Vajrayogini practice, even if you are male, you visualize yourself in female form and do the thing from the crown. It’s the same thing, there is no difference, except that that little extra won’t come out. In Gedün Chöpel’s Tibetan arts of love338, the author told how he experimented with lots of women, in order to be able to say whether something similar as with the males was coming or not. He told how he tried to talk to them and how they would not talk to him. Some pushed and punched and somebody scratched him and he tried to get the information in between. He said he had talked to Bengalian women, Gujurati women, Ceylonese women, Sikkimese women, he tried the Bhutanese and the Tibetan women. Jeffrey Hopkins edited the book, he added the sixty-four arts of love, and removed certain things considered to be childish. So I don’t know whether they have translated or omitted that 338

Introduced and translated by Jeffrey Hopkins.

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portion, but if you look at the original Tibetan, it is mentioned very detailedly how it works with the women. Audience: When you bring the airs into the central channel, do you stop the conventional breath? Rinpoche: When the air moves into the central channel, the conventional breath will be stopped. But we do not do this as an exercise. We just mention that finally we’ll do that.339 When the conventional breathing stops and the person doesn’t breathe through the nostrils anymore, you have to be careful, the doctors may declare you dead; not only during the dying stage but even during life. Audience: (…) Rinpoche: That extraordinary bliss, the long lasting sort of bliss that is traveling through the central channel, how does that come about? In the Vajrayogini practice you have this swirl coming from the top and the bottom. That happens in the central channel, which is [normally] not functioning. When that swirl is coming and touching and tickling everywhere, it is bound to bring joy. All our focus is on the central channel as is our bringing it up and down happening in the central channel340. As long as the knots are blocking the channels there is no chance of anything dripping from the crown. Audience: But the sexual technology is the same for either sex? Rinpoche: It is the same thing for both. Even if you as a male visualize yourself in the form of Vajrayogini, you do the same thing. And as a female in the form of Yamantaka or any other male yidam, you do the same thing. And physically, when [the essence] is traveling through the central channel, it literally functions the same. When it’s not traveling through the central channel, when it comes from the kidneys and from other different areas, then I have no idea. I could not even ask Song Rinpoche about it. I don’t know, he probably would have screamed at me or something. One question I used to ask everybody without consideration, even Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, was about the actual consummation of marriage in Tibet. Kyabje Rinpoche replied but at the end he said: ‘You’re asking the wrong question to the wrong man, an old monk who has no experience of getting married’. Since then I hold back a little bit, asking funny questions to the wrong persons. I think we have almost covered the commitments of the vajrayana. This is the essence of your Six session yoga and remembering that six times a day, is why you say that yoga six times. It’s the basic maha annuttara yoga tantra vajrayana commitment. Even if you don’t work hard, but still keep those commitments, then in this or in the next life, or if not, at least in sixteen lives you’re bound to get enlightened. It’s not really the sadhana that is the commitment. If you forget to say the sadhana one day I don’t worry that much, but if you forget the Six-session yoga, I do worry very much. Doing the sadhana, saying mantras and all this is also a commitment, your own commitment. When you’re late and fall asleep or you are sick or you can’t do it, you can switch to, say at least a few mantras, and try to manage with that, but with the Six session yoga you can’t do that! When you are too sick, put it on tape and play the tape, or have somebody else say it, or at least think about it. It will serve the purpose of just not breaking it. Because it’s the vajrayana quality that if you don’t break your commitment, even if you don’t work very hard, it is still okay. And if you do work hard, but you don’t keep the commitment, you won’t get there, because the result is based on the perfect morality. When we talk about morality it’s this: keeping the commitment. S<. This makes nineteen samayas which should be kept for the benefit of all sentient beings. I will hold them with my life. >S.

339 340

Referring to completion stage practice. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Guide to Dakiniland, pg. 145, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Clear light of bliss, Ch. 3.

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The four universal vows341 I will uphold the general and specific vows and samayas of the five Buddha Families. With this line you are promising to keep all vows, the general and the specific ones. This line refers to the fourteen root vows, the branch vows, the individual commitments [of the five buddha families], plus the commitment of giving up, the commitment of holding, the commitment of eating, etc. The ‘commitment of giving up’ is giving up the non-virtues, like giving up killing etc. The ‘commitment of holding’ is holding all your usual practices, like the guru-devotional practice, etc.; your sadhana commitment falls under this. The ‘commitment of eating’ implies you don’t eat anything raw, raw in the sense of unpurified: we don’t eat food that hasn’t been blessed with OM AH HUNG, which has not been multiplied and made into nectar. The commitments of each of the five buddhas separately have been mentioned earlier. If you can, you say: ‘I will definitely hold all these’. If you can’t, you say: ‘I would like to hold them all’. Or what we’ve said earlier, how limitating the timespan of a commitment will serve a purpose, like saying: ‘I will do it today’, or: ‘This moment, or this hour I will try to keep this or that commitment’. If you do that six times a day that will do. I shall deliver those not delivered; I shall liberate those not liberated; What this means is that once I have obtained enlightenment, I will liberate all those who haven’t been fully liberated yet; I will liberate those samsaric gods like e.g. Vishnu and Brahma and all those who aren’t free from delusions and obstacles, and from the imprints of the delusions. S<. Recite the four universal vows of the bodhisattva: ‘Those who have not been liberated, I will liberate – that refers to those attaining ordinary enlightenment. Here one accumulates merit before the supreme field. Those like Vishnu and Indra have not attained liberation from coarse delusion and subtle delusions, though they may have power. Those who have attained ordinary liberation – hinayanists. They are liberated from rough delusions but not from subtle delusions. Arhats are lower than this. (Dra chompa - enemy destroyers.) I shall liberate them all. >S.

I shall give breath to those unable to breathe; That refers to those in lower states, those who have so much physical suffering that they can’t even breathe. I will give them relief and let them breathe. and I shall place all beings in the State Beyond Sorrow. Ultimately I will lead all sentient beings to the level of the fully enlightened. When you do the reviewing meditation of what we’ve said and you say: ‘I will deliver those not yet delivered… etc.’ you shouldn’t just say the words, but also think accordingly. To recapitulate, we talked about collecting various merits which correspond to the cause which gives rise to the birth of the mantra practitioner, (a being endowed with the six elements from the womb of a Jambudvipa being). For that purpose we discussed the invocation of the supreme field of merit, praises, and making offerings. We also looked into: the aspects of offering, such as: to whom do you offer, what do you offer, why do you offer, etc. Each mantra indicates one of them342. Finally we discussed purification and taking the bodhisattva- and the vajrayana vows. For the vajrayana vows, we introduced the different commitments of the five dhyani buddhas, which are combined in the Six session yoga. We also, just by name, touched the root tantric vows and the commitment of giving up the non-virtues, the commitment of accumulation of merit and keeping your commitments, as well as keeping the commitment of eating food. We haven’t treated them in detail, we’ll do that at another opportunity . 341

Translation in R. Thurman: Yamantaka Ekavira, materials for Punya house retreat, pg. 153: I will conceive the holy unexcelled spirit of enlightenment for the sake of all beings, I will uphold all vows. I will save those not yet saved; I will deliver those not yet delivered. I will console those not consoled. I will establish all beings in Nirvana. 342 See page 155.

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These are the very basic commitments of the maha annuttara yoga tantra vajrayana. In the traditional Tibetan teachings, we first give the commitments and then explain them only much later. Years later. Which [is what] really happened [in Jewel Heart, too]. It should have been the other way round, [first the explanation, only then followed by taking the commitments] but that’s the way it went and that’s the way it is. The fundamental practice is keeping yourself pure. I don’t mean that you can’t have any dust or sweat on you, nor am I saying that you can’t smoke or drink or have sex, all those kind of things. Also I'm not saying you can’t be homosexual or whatever. I’m talking of ‘pure’ in the sense of ‘keeping the commitments of the five buddha families intact’ and that is the Six session yoga. It really, definitely, is the root of all development. A lot of the Sakyapas, – there are two kinds of styles in the Sakya tradition – have no other commitment or practice. They just do the long version of the Six session yoga very, very carefully and in detail. They spend a lot of time on that and don’t do anything else. That’s their custom, because they received this through the lineage, so that is okay. Actually it is right. If you don’t do anything else, just do the Six session yoga properly, you just wait and that is okay. Maybe then you don’t hope to get enlightenment within this life-time, or at the stage of death or bardo. But as it is said: when you keep that [commitment] pure, you will obtain enlightenment within sixteen life times. That is the vajrayana commitment and a lot of people take advantage of it that way. But if you do a lot of work and you don’t keep those commitments then it’s like when you squeeze sand: you’ll never get liquid butter out of it. Sorry, that was not the right example, that was [meant] for the initiation. But it’s similar. If you don’t keep the commitment pure, there is nothing to be squeezed out of you. [Then] no siddhihood can be obtained. And remember, we have promised to lead people to the enlightenment!

The four immeasurables S<. Now the focus is changed from the Lama and Vajra Bhairava to the surrounding sentient beings. >S.

The first [immeasurable thought] is wishing that all sentient beings may remain in joy or happiness. That’s what we call immeasurable or limitless love. The second one is about compassion, the third one about joy (to use the word bliss is a bit too much, I don’t think it’s a good idea) and the fourth immeasurable thought concerns equanimity. May all beings be endowed with happiness. Here you wish that all sentient beings may remain happy. When I’m talking about all sentient beings, I’m not talking about a few [persons] around me that I know, but [really] about all beings. May everybody remain in happiness. And if you want to, you can have light radiating from your heart touching these people and making them happy. You can use that same light radiating meditation that we used to invite the supreme field of merit. The new-age meditators do that way of meditation these days anyway. I don’t think there is any objection to it and it’s a very good way of doing it. It’s a matter of using some extra tools: you’re not only wishing but you’re doing something, too. Traditional teachings won’t give you this meditation. They will simply generate wishing thoughts. That can represent it, but if you have time and you can do it, then just by the touch of light you can do all this. Ram Dass does that; he picked up the four limitless thoughts. May all beings be separated from suffering. Here you’ve got to bring in all your understanding of compassion. What is compassion really? You know that, and you also know what great compassion is. It was totally taught in the Lam Rim and in the Three principles of the path and in the shorter version of the Lam Rim, the Foundation of all perfections. So it’s time for you to meditate on whatever knowledge you have, bring it over here and make use of it. Otherwise it will become like a museum piece, where you can go and see it, but you can’t use it.

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May all beings not be deprived of happiness. This one is about joy. In the first immeasurable thought you have that wish for love, wishing that all sentient beings may be happy. But here you wish that they do not just get some temporary relief, but that this happiness will be with them permanently You wish that whatever the [amount of] happiness they have may be, they won’t be separated from it. You wish them to be permanently happy and their delusions to be completely cut. So it is wishing them to be ultimately happy, which means that they will all become enlightened beings. You don’t say it that way, but you wish that the joy [tib. gawa tseme] they have, may remain with them forever. If you use [different] words like ‘happiness’ and ‘joy’, you should use ‘joy’ with the first immeasurable thought and here you don’t only [wish they] enjoy themselves] but you [wish they] are happy, too. There is a difference; you may have physical joy, but [at the same time] you may not be that happy. And you may not have a physical joy, but still be happy. May all beings abide in that equanimity which is unshaken by either worldly dharmas or by dualistic preconceptions of objects and consciousness. This is the complicated one: the equanimity. This is not talking about the lukewarm equanimity of being not so happy and not so sad, not so high and not so low. Here equanimity is used with respect to the eight worldly dharmas and dualistic preconceptions. Dualistic preconceptions of objects and consciousness – sung dzin gi nam tok I’m afraid you’ll have to learn a few Tibetan words here. First Sung dzin. Sung means ‘object’. When your eye perceives a beautiful form, the form is called sungwa. The eye-consciousness which is attracted to, or whose attention is drawn towards that object, is called dzimba. Actually it’s not the object itself, but its quality which attracts the consciousness. We have the eye with its consciousness and the objects it sees, the ear-consciousness and the sounds it hears, the nose-consciousness and the fragrances it smells, the tongue-consciousness and the things it tastes, and we have the touch-consciousness and the sensations it feels. These are the attractions that draw the attention of these consciousnesses. The attraction part of those things is the actual sungwa and the consciousness which encounters them is the dzimba. Namtok means: we click these two – drawing the attraction and giving the attention – together. We don’t know exactly what is what, we just click those two together and that moves us a lot. In English what does ‘dualistic preconception’ mean? I think ‘dualistic’ means ‘twofold’. The word namtok, the grasping consciousness, is only the dzimba; not the sungwa. It’s like grasping [something because of its] good taste even though you’re overly fat; you like the taste and because of that you keep eating. If you can’t eat the food, you put something like chili on it, because it makes this consciousness happy, so you eat more. That is grasping. Then the attachment for a beautiful figure. When attraction is getting less, we repaint and make it look better. People are always aware of their looks, thinking: ’I should look better’ because the attraction is based on looks. That is ‘grasping’, the mind goes there, perceiving something, seeking it again and again. But that is only the dzimba, the one part of it; you are not giving the sungwa, the object here. Sungdzin gi namtok. People translate nam tok as ‘doubt’, as ‘superstition’ – which is totally wrong – or as ‘dualistic preconception’. Preconception is a good word here. According to the dictionary namtok is ‘distorted conceptualization’. Your consciousness gets overpowered by those attractions. This is the very basis on which we build our addictions. It may be based on touch, on looks, sound, smell or taste. These are the five do pai yonten, the ‘qualities that satisfy the desires’. We make offerings of those, the external objects which give some kind of a nice and beautiful feeling and sensation. According to the dictionary do pa is ‘desire’. So, if directly translated, they are ‘the qualities for the desire’. Anyway, whatever the objects are, the attraction is drawn from there, and the attention is given from here. Then the attraction and the attention are mixed together. That moves the consciousness, and it becomes unstable. You don’t want that instability. You don’t want to cut the attraction, nor do you want to cut the attention, but you don’t want the attraction and the attention to get mixed up making your mind unstable. In our lives we don’t have stability. When there is attraction we go ‘zooom’, out.

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And when you have attention, you zoom in. This is the sung dzin gi nam tok. The principle consciousness343 is moved by those attractions and attentions. The attracting object and the attracted consciousness must link up, (otherwise there is no experience at all ) but not to the degree that the principle consciousness moves. Then what you experience is nice and you enjoy it. But you don’t want to go beyond that; you appreciate it and it’s fine and you leave it there. No mixing. By following and mixing it up you actually move the principal mind, and then you become ‘blind’. You don’t want to become blind. [Keeping all this in mind] ‘equanimity’ is when you have something and you enjoy it, but you don’t become blinded by it. Equanimity is almost like balancing, isn’t it? The eight worldly dharmas344 – jigten gi cho gye ‘The eight worldly dharmas’ is another collection we are moved by. What the teachings try to do is balance us, move us towards this side, because so far we are tilting towards the other side. The eight worldly dharmas will take us, the attractions will take us, we are already heavily caught on that side. Here we try to lift up this side a little bit. That’s what the equanimity is all about. That’s my understanding, particularly of this level. One [weight that tips the balance] is attraction and another one is desire. Then there is clinging and we are off balance!345 That’s what you don’t want. But you also don’t have to cut it; then it would become the theravadin style. They simply apply discipline and cut everything out. Here you don’t want to cut things out. You can have fun. You may sometimes have to use things that get you off balance. This is called ‘the method is objectionable, however you can use it for the benefit of others’. Attachment is one of them. You may even be able to use it for the benefit of others. You use attachment, you don’t give in to it. Those eight worldly dharmas are likewise bad, you don’t want them. But sometimes, if people fall to the other side too extremely, you have to use them. There is no objection for bodhisattvas and for vajrayana practitioners to make use of them. There is no objection, but you should know where the limit is! That is equanimity. It’s not only the equanimity of being equal to all, but [the wish] that all beings may have this sort of balanced equality. These are the four immeasurables. Why do you think they are called immeasurables? Because the object on which you meditate is immeasurable, limitless. Because of that the merit you accumulate is also limitless, and the result you get out of this is also limitless. So it is good that even these New Age gurus use it. It is wonderful and very helpful for all who participate. But if you’re a vajrayana practitioner don’t forget to collect your lights back, otherwise you will get into trouble. In the long prayer at the end of the long sadhana there is a verse: The great radiance of the heart of the Perfect Hero Invites the Field of Accumulation which pervades the sky; By delighting (this Field) with the purest offerings, praises and practice May I totally complete the great collections of merit.

If you go back to the point in the sadhana where we left of, there you are yourself in the form of the Solitary Hero Yamantaka, radiating light from your heart, inviting the field of merit – Yamantaka along with the guru and buddhas and bodhisattvas –, you’re making them sit in front of you, and you make offerings and praises to them and you take vows. All that is covered by this one verse.

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Also called primary mind. Literature: Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, An anthology of well-spoken advice, pg. 173ff. 345 Compare to the eighth, ninth and tenth link of the Twelve links. Denma Loco Rinpoche, The wheel of existence, pg. 12ff. 344

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‘Hero’ in this verse refers to yourself; you are the Solitary Hero Yamantaka with one face and two hands. Light is radiating from your heart and that light pervades and fills everything and sort of overpowers the impurities. Then the light brings the field of merit in front of you. They fill up the sky. When they are in front of you, you praise them, make them offerings and you practice. The practice here is the purification, the accumulation of merits, renewing the vows, meditation on the four immeasurables. That makes the field of merit happy, it makes them joyful. Doing this, may I complete my great collection of merit. When you give a Yamantaka teaching with the four repetitions346, the fourth repetition is short and precise and can therefore easily be based on this prayer, which has the complete practice in it. Audience: The visualization you gave with inviting the field of merit, etc., is there a point in the short sadhana where it is appropriate to fit it in? Rinpoche: If you put that in you should say the medium size sadhana. If you start putting that in then it becomes a medium size sadhana.

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Teachings with four repetitions: 1) elaborate explanation; 2) at the end of the day summary in which some addition information can be added; 3) a short summary; 4) next morning a concise repetition for which often a verse is chosen.

Mandala Yamantaka Solitary Hero

IV TAKING DEATH AS DHARMAKAYA In order to obstruct our physical body, there is Yama and in order to obstruct our mind, there is the ignorance. In order to destroy Yama there is Yamaraja or Yamantaka.(They are synonymous. Yamaraja is the King of Yama.) The antidote to ignorance is wisdom and the wisdom of all the enlightened beings appears in the physical form of Manjushri. The peaceful Manjushri is Manjushri and the wrathful Manjushri is Yamantaka. So in order to clear our obstacles the outstanding yidam is Manjushri, peaceful and wrathful. The interesting point is that the peaceful and wrathful work together here. If you do the peaceful [meditations] you achieve the wrathful [means] and if you do the wrathful [meditations] you achieve the peaceful [means]. This is one of the five extraordinary qualities of the Solitary Hero Yamantaka347, which we have mentioned already. I have to remind you: as most of you had the initiation, you have to visualize during the teaching that: You are not sitting in an ordinary house like this, but in the mandala of the Lama Yamantaka. At the center of the mandala, the teacher who is giving you the information is not an ordinary person like me – the teaching tradition even says ‘most stupid’ person – but Lama Yamantaka with all faces, hands and legs. You, the disciples who are listening to the teaching, are also not in your ordinary human form, but you are Yamantakas with one face and two hands without hand implements and without ornaments. Teaching rules. The reason why ornaments are not allowed during the teaching is that according to the tradition Buddha said that: one should not talk to someone who is wearing lots of ornaments, nor one should talk to a person sitting higher than the speaker or standing up, nor one should talk standing up to a person who is sitting down. It’s also said one should not talk to a person who is lying down, nor to those who are wearing shoes and to those wearing hats. This is the old Hindu-Buddhist cultural influence. That’s why in the Yamantaka teaching it is recommended to be without ornaments. Also one of the restrictions is that you don’t teach to people who are using their malas. If it is an oral transmission, where you just are listening to the sound, permission may be given. Otherwise you don’t. And, of course, it’s never allowed to teach dharma to those who are carrying weapons. That’s why the hand implements have been mentioned not to carry. That includes pocket knives as well, but if you have a pocket knife in your bag and you are not holding the bag it’s probably okay. I thought I casually should mention those rules to you.

(1) TAKING DEATH AS DHARMAKAYA AND THE RELATED BRANCHES That has three parts:

347

See page 25.

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1. Accumulation of various merits: corresponding to causes for optimal human rebirth (endowed with 6 elements from the womb of a Jambudvipa human being). That is over.348 2. Meditation on the wisdom of the basis of Shunyata as Dharmakaya: corresponding to realization of clear light of death. 3. Meditation on protection wheel to block obstacles.

(ii) Meditation on the wisdom of the basis of shunyata as dharmakaya: corresponding to realization of clear light of death349 Having with stainless reason Examined the meaning of the mantra And having with awareness which is assured of the profound emptiness Strongly established the pride of dharmakaya, May I become habituated to the peerless wisdom350.

You very carefully analyze the meaning of the mantra and then you recognize the emptiness. The meaning of the mantra is nothing but emptiness. You recognize the profound emptiness and then you concentrate on it. So you first have the analyzing meditation and then, by establishing the pride of the dharmakaya, you put concentrated meditation on top of it. This is the true dharmakaya practice. This short verse makes it very easy for us to see that. Through that mantra examination you become habituated to the peerless wisdom, the wisdom which is without equivalent. Which is that mantra? Let’s look into the sadhana. OM SVABHAVA SHUDDHAH SARVA DHARMA SVABHAVA SHUDDHO HAM. OM SHUNYATAJNANA VAJRA SVABHAVA ATMAKO HAM. Nature empty. Everything’s pure. Naterually pure. That’s what I am. OM consists of the three letters A U M. They represent: the meditator, what you meditate on and the nature of the meditation. That is the explanation normally given over here and Kyabje Ling Rinpoche did that, too. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche sometimes used a different explanation, which may be a little more complicated. He used the base, path and result levels. The base level is our ordinary person’s body, mind and speech; the path level – at the last part of the path – is the body, mind and speech of the illusionbody; the result level is the body, speech and mind of the buddha level, that is when you are fully enlightened. These three: base, path and result, are represented by OM. When you explain the OM MANI PADME HUNG mantra you say OM represents the body, mind and speech [of the meditator as well as of the enlightened being]. So there are a tremendous amount of explanations just on the OM, and we cannot say that one explanation is right and the other explanations are wrong. We follow what is most important for you to do at this or that practice. SVABHAVA means nature, SHUDDHAH means pure, SARVA DHARMA means all existence, SHUDDO means the pure nature and HAM means ‘that’s me’. SHUNYATA is emptiness, JNANA is wisdom, VAJRA is indestructible, SVABHAVA is nature, ATMAKO HAM is ‘the one who has’, which is me. So that second mantra means: ‘I am not separate from emptiness; emptiness is me, I am emptiness, there is no separation’. We say ATMAKO HAM but it really should be ATMAKO A HAM – I am that nature. What nature? The object you are focusing on, the person who is focusing, and the mind which is observing, are all empty.

348

Chapter III. Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 33-37. 350 Quote from the extended prayer, in the long sadhana. Also see page 380. 349

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What you are saying is: all is empty and that’s me. All means everything and refers to the body, mind and speech now, on the path and at the result level. The meditation, the meditator and the object on what you meditate, are all empty and that is me. That’s the mantra. The reason why we give you the meaning of the mantra is to give you a little more than just: everything is empty. S<. Svabhava – nature, Shuddha – pure, Sarva Dharma – all existence, Ham - that’s me, I am that, Jnana – wisdom, Vajra – indestructible, Atmako – nature. I am the one who understands bliss and emptiness are inseparably conjoined. All the inhabitants and the environment turn into Vajra Bhairava. All light dissolves into oneself as Vajra Bhairava. The supreme Field of Merit dissolves into me and all existence as well. Everything is a creation of our own mind. We create names for them, we impute them and they do have existence, but not permanent independent eternal existence. They consist of a collection of parts, and when the parts are separated, the composite thing disappears. There is existence, but not of its own nature – it is a dependent arising. Rid oneself of the four extreme views of existence, namely: 1) All things are self existent – too much existence-ness [absolutism]. 2) Nothing exists – nihilism. 3) Does not exist, does not not exist – neither nor. 4) Exists and not exists – and and. Meditate on emptiness. Take hold of whatever wisdom or understanding you have. Concentrate so hard, that your mind is inside shunyata. The common practice is important to do first, or else there will no realization of shunyata. >S.

The base of purification SARVA DHARMA What is SARVA DHARMA? I myself who is the meditator, the field of merit which I have invited by the light – that has not been dissolved yet so they are there – and the whole universe we see around us; everything, all that is there, that is the SARVA DHARMA. Dissolving of the supreme Field of Merit. Now what are we going to do with the field of merit we had invited here? 1) Normally we say: ‘The wisdom beings go to their heavenly abodes and the commitment beings which I mentally created dissolve to me’ or ‘They may leave, OM VAJRA MU’ and they just go away. 2) Sometimes we just say: ‘They are gone’ and forget about them. You don’t really forget about them, but you just let go [of thinking of them]. 3) Sometimes, in order to obtain blessings we bring them in and dissolve them to ourselves. In the Vajrayogini practice you dissolve all the gurus to each other and finally they dissolve to your own root master. You are very happy and he is very happy; you want to go up and mix with him and he wants to come down, so it’s pull and push. Then suddenly the lama melts into light, that becomes a red light the size of a sparrow’s egg and that light comes and dissolves into you. Sometimes during the initiation you have all of them dissolve to you and that’s how you close the supreme Field of Merit. 4) Here they dissolve into the nature of emptiness, because they are included into the SARVA DHARMA. To prove that this has to be done in this practice, we quote what Lalita Vajra has said in the root tantra which he brought from Uddiyana: ‘Hla dang chonam tamche go tongpa nyi la nam sam ne’. Hla here refers both to yourself as Yamantaka as well as to the objects of refuge, chonam tamche is all phenomena, and you think they are empty – tongpa nyi. That’s why this mantra [OM SHABHAVA…] came in. The twenty-five factors of existence. Next is the collection of the twenty-five gross events functioning with us. When you dissolve the SARVA DHARMA into emptiness, we have to include all these; we have to work with these. [In the meditation of the death process] we may be focusing more on the elements, but we have to include all of them, like the discriminating wisdom, the recognizing, contacting etc. Those twenty-five things grow with you and when you are fully doing them, you are called a fully ma-

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tured person. When you are a kid you cannot recognize and discriminate, kids are not fully matured yet. When they are fully grown and they are able to do all these kind of things, you call them matured persons and then finally when one goes down one starts losing these contacts and then you call that person senile. That is the process we have to go through. What are the twenty-five elements of existence? a) The five [sense-]objects we talked about earlier351, form, sound, smell, tastes and touch; b) the five consciousnesses352 which make connection with them, acknowledge them; c) the six senses – the five senses plus mind; d) the four elements: earth, water, fire and air; and e) the five wisdoms of the base level. The five wisdoms of the base-level refer to the wisdoms at our ordinary everyday level, not to the five wisdoms at the buddha level. At our ordinary level, what is the mirror-like wisdom? It is the capacity to see different things at the same time. Though we may not be able to concentrate much on many things together, we do have the mental capacity to see many things [simultaneously]. Not only does the eye-consciousness see them, but also the principal mind acknowledges them. When you have a room full of people and you focus on them with your eye-consciousness, you can see many of them, we have the capacity to do so That is labeled as mirror-like wisdom. When you become a fully enlightened being you see everything that exists together, at the same time, without depending on those consciousnesses. This base wisdom corresponds to that. All the experiences we have, like joy, happiness, sadness, etc., we can remember and bring up as flat memory for similar experiences, good or bad ones. We have synonymous names and we remember what associates with it, like Mike de Camillo allies with McMillan or something. Remembering this type of thing is called the [base] wisdom of equality. Then the ‘separation’ or differentiation. When you remember the name of an enemy or friend you ‘separate’: This is a friend, that is an enemy, this is a good one, that is a bad one. This is the [base] wisdom of discrimination. ‘I have to do this, I have to do that, I have a deadline here, I have to complete this,’ etc., is the [base] accomplishing wisdom. The natural consciousness, the buddha nature, the consciousness which will become a buddha later, is the [base] dharmadhatu wisdom. Base, path and result - dharmakaya This is actually the practice. It is training. What are you training? The words they use in Tibetan are jang gyi, jong gye, chang de. Jang means study, practice, learning; jong is the future tense and chang is the past tense, having become perfect. The base on which you practice is the jang gyi and that gives you the path, jong gye, that is capable to bring you to the no-more-learning level, the result, chang de. So there are three things. Let’s say you are learning a language. On what basis are you learning that language, are you talking to people or reading books? Then you practice; that means doing it repeatedly, following the method. Finally you achieve the ability to speak or read that language. So there are three different levels: base, path and result. Do you get the picture? That – base, path and result – goes for anything you do. It goes for all our practices, even for our beginning Lam Rim and Ganden Lha Gyema, but here it is much more emphasized. Here we use as the base for our practice our ordinary body, our ordinary death. We try to meditate or visualize how it’s going to happen. So the basis is: death when it actually comes. Not an accidental death happening suddenly, not like when somebody is shot and pop! goes off or when something explodes or when there is a car crash or when you fall from the tree or whatever, not that sort of accidental thing, but the normal death procedure is what we talk about. The meditation has to be done in accordance with that. It follows the normal procedure. You try to visualize the normal death; how it’s going 351 352

See page 154. Lati Rinpoche and Robert Thurman give instead of the 5 consciousnesses the five aggregates, see Death, Intermediate state and rebirth, pg. 32. Also see Robert Thurman, The Tibetan book of the dead, pg. 43. May need a check with Rinpoche.

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to occur for the individual, what he is feeling, what other people see, how they talk and what sort of signals you read within that. If you keep on meditating on that, you will recognize the events when they actually come, and you also get used to how to handle them. Now the second point is the path: what corrections do you have to do to the normal procedure? That is called jong gye, the method or application you use. That is what you do differently. By doing these alterations of the normal procedure, what you hope to achieve is the result. These are the three basic stages for everyone of the three successive following meditations: 1) death as dharmakaya, that is the dying stage, 2) bardo as sambogakaya, that is the bardo stage and 3) rebirth as nirmanakaya, that is manifestation or the rebirth stage. The normal process we go through, is that something happens, we die, go through the bardo and then take rebirth. Here we try to make alterations to that natural process. If you let the natural process take its own course, then the nyertob naklampa, the black period that you get, will be the secret yama353 – that’s why you need to alter that. You try to change the natural process. In order to do that, it is necessary to first recognize the natural process itself, acknowledge that it is coming and then you can make the change. In order to do that at such a stage as the death stage, you need a lot of inner training. Even in ordinary life, if you want to play basketball or football, to be successful at the end of the competition period you have to train almost every day for a whole year. And that is only a simple little alteration of your physical condition. What you try to alter here is the whole nature-of-phenomena procedure at the weakest spot of our own life-period, at the most subtle level, so you certainly need a tremendous amount of practice! That’s why you do the sadhana every day. So, you try to meditate what the death procedure is going to be; that is just to recognize it. Then at the second level you change the focus of concentration on the alterations you are going to do. Once you have done the alterations, then the result will come naturally and automatically. According to the Buddhist viewpoint, the period of life is divided into four parts, si pai shi, the four existences: death, bardo, birth and living from birth to death. The living period, is divided into two the increasing and the decreasing period. (It’s actually divided into four but let’s forget about too many divisions). The growing period is the period that your physical and mental strength builds up. That’s what we talked about earlier, these twenty-five things that grow. First you mature physically and later mentally; we all know that. The physical decay starts immediately after you have reached the peak level, around the age of twenty-five. From there it starts to turn down, gradually; we call it dissolve. What was great before is not that good anymore, things you used to see, you no longer see that well, etc. Whatever cause is told that a person died off – high blood pressure, heart problems, or whatever you may blame for it – it has already been physically decaying for a period of time. Stroke and heart-attacks are a different issue; that is something that suddenly happens. So out of the twenty-five gross events the five senses and their objects start losing contact and don’t function well anymore. Mind you, that’s different from equanimity, where we don’t want to lose the contact, but we don’t want to be put off balance by the contact! Beginning to lose the contact and not work that well anymore, is the start of the decay, the first sign. That will go for all the senses etc., until it finally reaches the level of the dissolving of the elements.

The eight stages of dissolution at death There are eight processes354 of dissolution at death. Actually the process of dissolving has already started. 1. The first element we normally experience beginning to give up within our body, is what we call the earth element. When that happens you lose weight; you become thinner. When you have lost weight 353 354

The stage of near-attainment. See page 92. Literature: Lati Rinpoche and Jeffrey Hopkins, Death, intermediate state and rebirth. Pg. 29-48.

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people here will tell you: ’Oh, you have lost weight, how wonderful!’ But on the other hand when you become thinner, it is the earth element that has been reduced. The flesh and fat are part of the earth element. When becoming thinner makes you move more easily, it is good. But the problem will be that you not only become thinner, but also it will be difficult to move. And it looks like you are sinking. You cannot move, you have to drag your body wherever you go. It’s a good thing you can put your body into a car and the car will carry it! That is the beginning of the earth element signing off, its external sign. When a sick person’s earth element is giving up, he cannot get up, he cannot turn around, the nurses will have to come and turn him around, because he has lost the capability. You may call it the muscle power having gone down, but the true explanation is that the earth element is giving up. Internally, you have the mirage-like feeling. S<. The mirage is like seeing water in the desert. Actually, the earth element becomes useless and non-functioning and because the next element is water, we feel that element most strongly. In this case, dissolution does not mean dissolution in the usual sense. The failure of the earth element causes the water element to be revealed more clearly. >S.

Whatever is coming externally, you feel internally, you are seeing the mirage-type of thing and you cannot move your physical body. And when the people look at you, you look bad. It’s not just that your physical weight has gone down, but it is a step beyond that, you really look bad. Dry, nothing left. We call that ‘the bones just covered by the skin’. That’s it, all skin and bone. 2. Next the water element will sign off. You’ll feel thirsty. Your mouth, nose and throat will be completely dry, like you have a terrible cold. There is also some kind of darkness coming on the teeth. In the west we go to the dentist and have them polished, but you really develop something on the teeth in that period. Internally, the mirage-type of feeling is changing into a more smoky thing, like you are looking at a tremendous pollution. You know, if you are on the mountain top somewhere and in the morning you look down into the valleys, you’ll see a lot of ‘smoke’ around there; it is not clear. In old Tibet pollution was not known because of it being in the mountains; absolutely clean air, very little population and dry. Yet we have a saying: Jang gi yul la tu sha den jang gyu ju mi shab tsa le re In a place where the smoky feeling is, there will definitely not be peace and harmony.

It’s telling you that if there is pollution it’s not going to be healthy and there will be a lot of misery. Even the kids tell you that. When in Tibet they were fighting with each other, some from this side of the village and some from the other side, they’d say things like ‘the smoke from over there is the sign of the end of your village’. S<. The external sign is that one’s bodily fluids dry up. One has parched lips and tongue, scum forms on the teeth and it is difficult to talk. The internal sign is smoke, a thin haze. The water element weakens and the fire element dominates. >S.

3. Next the fire element will give up. When that happens you start losing heat from the extremities, the finger tips and the toes. We call it a circulation problem and that is right. The heat, the warm blood does not circulate anymore. So circulation problems are already an indication of this element giving up. Internally you get a sparky feeling. S<. The external sign is that one’s body heat diminishes. The internal sign is fireflies at night. This is like sparks on a black background, roasting barley or tiny incense bits lit in a dark room. >S.

I am exaggerating a bit what we get during our life-time, but these are the early signals. They always tell you that if you are diabetic you have to keep your feet completely warm, otherwise you’ll lose your toes, and things like that. That means the circulation is not going well, the heat element is not good enough, it is not able to reach there, which is one of the early signs of the signing off of the heat element. That’s while you are living. At the dying stage you will lose the heat within your body [completely].

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4. Then, when the air element signs off, the only thing you are left with is the consciousness, so at that point externally you don’t breathe anymore. The internal sign you have is the burning lamp, not the burning lamp itself but rather the reflection of its light. You are hanging on to some kind of little light, maybe like a reflection of a burning candle in a dark room; that sort of reddish feeling. You are no longer breathing but you are definitely not dead. S<. Like a butter lamp burning steadily with no draft. The air carrying thoughts dissolves into luminosity355. There is no visualization here. The internal sign is a feeling. Think you are feeling it to experience the feeling. At this stage you are legally dead, but the death process continues. >S.

5. Now we go to the internal ‘airs’. The internal thoughts and ideas and things like that, have each some kind of energy connection which we call ‘air’. There may not be many gross things, but there are still a lot of internal, subtle mental activities going on, called kun tu gye chi tok pa [eighty indicative conceptions]356. Each of these mental capacities and activities is connected with a subtle air. These airs begin to dissolve into the main conceptions. During that time you begin to have a whitish feeling. It is like the reflection of clear moon light. Not just looking at the moon, but its reflection. That light is different from the sun light or the normal light, it’s more a kind of whitish feeling, known as nangwa karlampa [white appearance]. Then that whitishness begins to pick up red or rather orange signals. It begins to get a spark of orangeness. Even during your life sometimes you can experience all of a sudden some kind of sparky light; this is an indication or an early signal of this. Americans interpret that as something mystical, but I think it’s the early signal of this spark. S<. The air mount carrying thoughts now dissolves into luminosity. The air mount is the tiny subtle consciousness with the subtle wind which is not perceptible outside the gross body. The luminosity is like a clear autumn night with full moon light, though it is not the moon light itself, but a whitish luminescence. This point can be prolonged, if one has control. >S.

6. That whitish feeling begins to pick up orange sparks going up and down, longish sparks which go ‘zing zang’, and finally that whitishness will be completely taken over by a sunset type of orange which we normally refer to as reddish. This is the chepa [red increase] period. You better learn these Tibetan words: nangwa, chepa and toba. Nangwa karlampa is the whitish period357, chepa marlampa is the reddish period358, toba or nyertob naklampa is the black period359. I really don’t think we have easy English words for that, so you better use the words nang, che, tob. S<. The mind dissolves into radiance. All gross delusions and conceptions are gone when air dissolves into consciousness. When dissolved into subtle consciousness, all rough mind is gone. The feeling is like an autumn sunrise or sunset, a reddish glow. >S.

7. When the chepa goes off then you get the nyertob, that is the darkness. S<. This is the full, thick darkness at the dead of night, the near-attainment. There are two stages, with consciousness, where one is aware of being in the dark, and without consciousness. The longer one can remain in the unconscious stage, the longer one can remain in the clear light. This is a practice to use at the actual time of death. By doing this, one can best use one’s actual death, when the time comes, for the attainment of enlightenment. >S.

8. Next comes the ösel. That is a sort of clear light, but not the clear light the books refer to, like in Lama Ösel, that boy lama. Basically it is the ordinary clear light or base clear light. This is like what you normally see when you come out of the darkness of the night: the dawn, very early in the morning. 355

The stage of white appearance. Listed in: Lati Rinpoche and Jeffrey Hopkins, Death, intermediate state and rebirth, pg. 38-41. 357 Called: white appearance, or luminosity. 358 Called red appearance, red increase, or radiance. 359 Called black near-attainment. 356

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It is not fully light, but there is some light; it is the period when the roosters crow and the birds start singing. S<. Air is the mount. Air carries the mind. The nada, including the air mount, dissolves into clear light. Darkness has totally disappeared. It is like an early morning sky in autumn, a pure sky without sun or moon and without darkness. You are completely dissolved into emptiness, even the nada. Mind is in the nature of shunyata. Not only the rough delusions, but also all ordinary feelings and conceptions are gone and the understanding that all is in the nature of emptiness, must be present. Simultaneously one experiences great bliss. One can extrapolate the feeling of great bliss from our experience of ordinary worldly bliss. This emptiness, the nature of bliss is the ultimate dharmakaya and that is me.

This is the normal ordinary procedure. These are the external and internal signs. Even if you have gone to a certain extent through the external signs, you can still come back. Coming back is another issue. You really can come back, even if you are almost up to the light. It’s hard to come back from the darkness, but there are people who have gone through the darkness and finally saw the light ‘on the other side’. It’s not really on the other side of death, the light itself is the actual death. I don’t think that after you got into that light completely, you still can come back. Apart from that, at every step of the eight signs it is possible to revive, to come back to this life. If that happens, then whatever has dissolved will reverse to a certain extent, as far as within the capacity of the body. This is called lung gyu and lung du, reversing it. So, all these stories of people having gone through the tunnel and having seen the light on the other side make sense, because they have probably gone up to that point. They call it tunnel because they may see that darkness coming from somewhere. I think that is the near-death experience. I haven’t talked to anybody who had that experience except for an Indian woman, who was burnt completely by a stove. She went up to that tunnel level and then she heard OM MANI PADME HUNG and a voice saying: ’Go back’ and from there she began to recover. I think the tunnel must be representing the black period. When they see friends and family I think it are delusions, attractions. The best attractions are the karmically produced things like family, friends and familiar places, so you begin to look for those and try to get near and all this. These are my thoughts, I have no scientific or religious proof but that’s my guess. Audience: There are stories from when there has been a car accident and some passengers died and others did not and one person had a near-death experience and came to that point and met people there who had actually died in that car accident, but not the ones who did not die. There has been a lot of research on that and there is no way of knowing for those people who had survived the car accident and who had not, because they were themselves unconscious – so there must be something more than just delusions pulling people back. Rinpoche: That is the attraction of the other side. When you have to go over there you need certain attractions, some kind of desire to move over, so either you feel suffocated and you have to get out of here or you like it over there and you like to go there. The consciousness is drawn by attractions. You don’t go that easily, particularly in that period, maybe that explains knowing friends and people on the other side. Let’s go back to our meditations. When ordinary people go through this process, they normally remain in their body for something like a three-day period. If they are physically very weak before they die, they may not have that long. Those yogis who are able to do the sel wa, mixing the mother- and child clear light360, are able to mix the giant big actual clear light itself with the small ordinary [individual’s] death clear light. That is

360

Gelek Rinpoche, Guru devotion: how to integrate the primordial mind, pg. 60: ‘The mother clear light is the naturally happening process of the void coming and the meditatively built up clear light is the son-like or the child-like clear light’. Lati Rinbochay and Jeffrey Hopkins, Death, intermediate state and rebirth, pg. 47: ‘The clear light of death is the mother clear light, whereas

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the alteration try to make: to mix the mother- and the child clear lights. We try to not let it be ordinary [light of death], but to mix them together. When you are able to do that, it really does not matter whether you are staying [in your body] a long or a short period. S<. The base clear light is also called the base dharmakaya, related to the base, path and result of the three kayas. The relative or example clear light361 and absolute clear light is path dharmakaya. The actual attainment of dharmakaya is the result. This is important: the function of the generation stage is the transforming of birth, death and bardo into the three kayas. This part up to the dissolution of clear light is the base of your practice. At this time any feelings, even the most subtle, dissolve. All appearance, even the nada is gone. and there is only clear light emptiness. The feeling as though you are beginning to understand emptiness is also the base of the practice. The meditation that all is empty and not even the nada exists, is the basic practice. These have to be taken into the example and actual clear light. In order to gain the habit of this transformation, we practice the involuntary compression process, in order to harness all the rough energy into the subtle drop at the center of the avadhuti or central nadi located at the heart level. When the wind is collected in the central channel, these signs at death appear. It is important that these signs appear in the proper sequence. When the air enters the central channel one attains example clear light. Immediately preceding enlightenment one attains the absolute truth clear light. This is not the realization of shunyata which is done at the sutra level. After the clear light, one goes to the bardo. Until this happens, one is not officially dead. Yogis can control the time spent in this stage and some can stay in the clear light for days. By performing the meditation on the dissolution of the elements one gains a familiarity of the death process. One’s virtuous actions ripen into relative and ultimate truth and the ripening of the cause of the actual clear light of the path brings about the resultant dharmakaya itself. This is also called meditation of ground wisdom or shunyata of ground wisdom. When the universe is destroyed and becomes empty, it becomes the base for new creation. Similarly, emptiness will make the base to create the mandala, as well as a base in wisdom. This gains in the accumulation of wisdom merit. Without the understanding of emptiness, one can never challenge ordinary perceptions and conceptions. Lendrop Lama asked Guntang Jampelyang why emptiness is meditated upon. The answer is that it may be to accumulate wisdom merit. Nandro Lama said maybe so, but if no proper understanding of emptiness exists, ordinary perceptions and conceptions can never be challenged. Thus we have completed the section on the accumulation of merit and wisdom merit. >S.

The child-like clear light is the base clear light. Now the method you use to correct this. During the completion stage you will develop some kind of clear light stage by yourself on different levels. One level is called [fourth stage] example clear light [tib. rimpa shi pai pei ösel and the other is called [fourth stage] actual clear light [tib. rimpa shi pai dön-gyi ösel]. Those two, the example and the actual clear light are the method, the actual path. That is our alteration. The fourth stage actual clear light is the mother clear light. And the result of that particular clear light is at the buddha stage the dharmakaya, the actual dharmakaya, which is clear-light nature. I remember very clearly, when Kyabje Ling Rinpoche passed away, he remained fourteen days in that stage. After so many days and nothing happening, the manager got very anxious and started taking off Rinpoche’s clothes and by the time he started taking off his last undershirt there was still heat there. So what to do? Locho Rinpoche did a mo and said: ’Put it back on’ and so the clothes got put back on lightly. Gomo Rinpoche was there and I was talking to him and he looked and said: ’This now is the stage where the mother- and child clear light are mixed. One should not disturb, the body should not be that which dawns through the power of meditation during sleep and the waking state while on the spiritual path is called ‘son’ clear light. Meditation that mixes the two during the clear light of death is called mixing the mother and son clear lights’. 361 The clear light that one develops on the path is divided into two: 1) relative clear light, or example clear light or metaphoric clear light or proximate clear light; 2) absolute clear light or meaning clear light or actual clear light

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touched’. The way he was saying it was like: ’Look, they’re already mixed, don’t touch it’. I don’t think you should talk this outside. The period – whether a couple of seconds or a very long period – does not really matter; it goes according to the practitioner’s choice or wishes. Audience: In order to bring that about, would the practitioner have to be on the seeing path or above? Rinpoche: The seeing path etc. are talked about in the sutrayana. Here we talk about the development stage and the completion stage. The development stage has two – the developing stage and the stable stage362 – and the completion stage has four levels363. It are not the levels of stream enterer, once returner, non-returner and no-more learning364, nor the paths of accumulation, action, seeing, meditation, and no-more learning365. We don’t talk about those here. Actually you are expected to cover the seeing path even before you enter the vajrayana. The OM SVABHAVA SHUDDHA SARVA DHARMA SHABHAVA SHUDDHO HAM, is the actual seeing path level. Whether it is death as dharmakaya, bardo as sambogakaya or rebirth as nirmanakaya, for all these you have to know the base on which you practice, the path which you practice and the result which you hope to achieve. For all those you have to have a clear understanding before you practice it. What you are trying to do, is make the ordinary death to become the clear light. The alteration you want to make is to change the ordinary clear light of death into the real clear light. More specifically, the practitioner will try to develop the stages of example clear light and actual clear light. But one is not satisfied with that; one will try to get the ultimate dharmakaya, the big mum. So from the childlike to the example to the actual clear light and to the big mum. The meditation/visualization of the eight stages of dissolution at death Now the question is: how to meditate? To correspond to the eight internal signs or the eight levels you have to meditate certain things. You still have the supreme Field of Merit in front of you, and yourself are in the Yamantaka form – single face, two hands – with at your heart the letter HUNG sitting on an eight-petalled lotus and a sun disc. Then you str ongly radiate light, from your complete body. Not an ordinary light, something better than the new-age light, a sort of very powerful orange-reddish light366 which makes everything bright. It brightens up everything, once, and then it starts dissolving. Though in the Vajrayogini practice it is described much more clear than here, here it also brightens up the whole universe, the inhabitants, the environment, everything. 1. The whole universe melts into that light and all dissolves into you; that includes the supreme Field of Merit. It becomes a big void and within that void you are standing as Yamantaka. You literally have to stay with that, you really physically think that way and keep on seeing it. You see that all the universe has been made bright, you see that all universe is falling apart, is becoming light, and that the whole thing dissolves to your body.

362

Also called gross and subtle development stage. There are several divisions. See: Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Tantric grounds and paths, pg. 108, D. Cozort, Highest yoga tantra, pg. 62. 364 Levels of hinayana. 365 Levels of sutra mahayana. 366 Tri Gyaltsen Senge says ‘blue or red light’. The profound path of the great secret, pg. 35. Also see Gelek Rinpoche, Guru devotion: how to integrate the primordial mind, pg. 56 and 70. 363

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You see yourself as Yamantaka with the horns and the blue color; the tips of the horns are sharp and fire is burning on their tops. Then the tips of the horns are becoming of light nature and your head becomes light. Simultaneously from the toes to the knees to the lower organs, also everything becomes light. Then the big, fat stomach, the hands and everything become light. At that period the mirage-like feeling comes in. You see and acknowledge all this. 2. At the heart-level of you as Yamantaka is a letter HUNG, which is a big H with a U underneath, the crescent moon on top, the round sun above that and the squiggle [tib. nada] on top of the sun. (You have to close your eyes, you have to see it and you have to feel it, otherwise it will not work.) Your Yamantaka form, having become all light-natured, gradually dissolves from above and below and finally you yourself dissolve to the letter HUNG at the heart level. There is nothing but the radiating letter HUNG. [At that period you experience the smoky feeling.] 3. The U, that lower part of the HUNG called shabgyu, dissolves to the body of the HA. Then the sparks appear and you acknowledge: ’Hey, I am really at the spark stage; the dissolving is here, the HUNG is dissolving, the smoky period is gone, I am on the sparks now and the sparks will be followed by the fluctuating light…’. Like that each one of the signs you recognize, you meditate and acknowledge; you tell yourself that the previous sign is gone, the next one is coming and you let each one of them dissolve. You have to synchronize them together. 4. Then the HA dissolves to the head of the HA, that little left-over at its top. [And the inner sign is the butterlamp light] 5. Then that dissolves to the crescent moon. [The inner sign is the white appearance.] 6. Now you only have these three left: the crescent moon, the drop and the squiggle. The half moon dissolves to the drop. [And the inner sign is the red increase]. 7. The drop dissolves to the squiggle. [And the inner sign is the black near-attainment]. [8. The squiggle disappears]. You think: ‘At the end the ösel, the [base] clear light, is coming and ‘I will make sure that my ösel will be connected with the real understanding of emptiness’. That is the HUNG dissolving system and the eight signs of the death process. So in your visualization you have three sets of eight. At each level you acknowledge: Now I am on this actual level and the next one will be this and at the end the ösel is coming and I have to get it at that time. At every point you say that this is gone and that is coming and: ‘When the ösel is coming I have to make sure it’s right’. So you are getting closer and closer until the level of the darkness. Now we can imagine it, but when the actual death comes, at the black level you cannot alter anything. It’s the natural process. All the alterations you are able to take, go until that level.

Meditation on emptiness Here you are given room to do the analytical meditation. When you say the words, you allow yourself a little room to meditate on the meaning of the mantra. You can also go according to the corresponding verse in the long prayer at the end of the sadhana: Having with stainless reason, Examined the meaning of the mantra And having, with awareness which is sure of the profound emptiness,

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Examining the meaning of the mantra means to do an analytical and concentrated meditation on it. In Tibetan it says here: rig pai che, analytical meditation. This verse says: ‘The meaning of the mantra you found, you recognize that as emptiness and then you strongly establish the pride of dharmakaya’. So this verse contains in prayer form the whole portion of practicing the dharmakaya. In the extended prayer you find the whole sadhana summarized. Now you have to add the part of merit that is called accumulation of wisdom. (We have so much work on just one mantra.) You have to put some thoughts in here: I would like to encounter the ultimate buddha stage of dharmakaya. By encountering the dharmakaya I will rise as sambogakaya and nirmanakaya, and fulfill the compassionate idea of working for the benefit of all sentient beings. That motivation you have to put in. Finally when you are getting to the ultimate great empty level, where even the nada has disappeared, you don’t leave it like space. Then it would be only space-like empty, which will probably not give you the ultimate dharmakaya, but a formless-realm birth instead. Remember, Yeshe Tabkye talked to you people on that portion very clearly when we met in that hotel in Detroit. He told you that if you keep meditating empty like space, it is really not emptiness, it is only ‘like space’. But nowadays a lot of teachers will teach you empty like space. We cannot really say they are wrong, but according to Tsongkhapa’s teaching they are. So we better be a little bit careful for ourselves. Four necessary qualities for death as dharmakaya. What do you do? You don’t leave it empty like space. You think. As to all these thoughts and visualizations that have been produced, who is the person producing them? It is your mind. Your mind is the one experiencing the big void here and that void is not a miserable, lonely void, but it’s joyful; it is the joy of the great space you have. That very joy is the object, is what you feel, and the wisdom mind which is the perceiver, is not separated from it at this level. If at this level it’s separated, there is a problem of dualism. The great void, which is in the nature of joy, and the perceiver, the wisdom mind, become oneness; there is no dualism in it. There are not two, there is oneness. So the void and the mind of great bliss are inseparable. That becomes inseparable bliss-void. Right now we cannot have that. But we have to think that it has become that way. It is not: the squiggle has just disappeared and there is just open space, no. That open space is full of joy and the perceiving mind and the joy you are perceiving, are inseparable. That is the real shunyata. You sort of think that you have seen it, you have to believe it and you have to hold it for a little while. There is nothing tangible now, all your identity is gone, even that little squiggle is gone. It is void in there. Somehow you have to tell yourself that this is not only the experience of bliss-void but also ‘my ultimate dharmakaya’ and you believe it for a little while. When you have a lot of concentration power through a lot of sitting meditation practice before, then when finally everything is gone and dissolved, you recognize the emptiness of that. You hold on to that, you sit on top of that. You meditate and sit, without thinking anything else. Whatever comes up, let it fall off, peel it off. S<. The four qualities which must be present for the death as dharmakaya are: 1) empty feeling 2) recognition of the shunyata nature. 3) simultaneous feeling of bliss. This is the actual taking death as dharmakaya. Imagine your mind is deep inside shunyata and that the wisdom mind is inseparable from bliss. 4) Think this is the actual blissful dharmakaya which I will obtain in he future upon enlightenment. >S.

After a little while you say: That is wonderful and peaceful and great, but if I keep sitting on that for so long, I may not be able to help others, in order to do that, I need to rise again in a tangible form.

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So from this big, empty air wave type of thing – that’s what dharmadhatu, the nature of reality, means – comes the thought of rising. Then you are coming out in a physical form; which will come about through a gradual process of reversing of all these twenty-five factors of existence, the elements and so forth. If you don’t die, it will be reversed; if you die, it will not be reversed that way. The eight signs can reverse all the time, until you become the actual dharmakaya. When you really have obtained the actual dharmakaya, it does not reverse. In order to reverse you need certain contaminated things, therefore at the fully enlightened level, it does not. For ordinary persons, without getting into the emptiness, if you keep on meditating that, you really see those signs that we described. Song Rinpoche told me that one of Geshe Kelsang Gyatso’s students, some English man who had been meditating on that for a while, had experienced all the signs, but the signs were not in the right order. Song Rinpoche said: ’The problem is so simple. The air did not go into the central channel but through the right and left channel, so neither the signs nor the reverse signs were in order. He was very lucky not to go crazy’. So even in the side channels, you do see those signs. These signs you naturally see at the time of death, but before that, you see them when [as a result of your practice] the airs go through the central channel. And when you see them in the right order, they serve the actual purpose. At death, because you cut off all external connections, you have to put a tremendous concentration into that. To such a concentration, when it is focusing at emptiness, nothing else can appear. When at the path of seeing, the arya sees the emptiness, he sees nothing else. Even at the fully enlightened level, a buddha is really fully absorbed in that nature of emptiness. From that point of view, although a buddha can see everything together, still in that sphere itself one does not see any other things. That much concentration on emptiness we call ‘face to face with emptiness’ or you may call it ‘face to face with the nature of the mind’ or ‘seeing your own true mind’. So the point is that that emptiness should not just to be left empty – in the sense of not being or nothingness – but should be recognized as the true emptiness of the dharmakaya. You may raise the question: ’There is no recognizer who could recognize it’. That is a technicality, we don’t have to think on those lines. Acknowledge it as ‘this is dharmakaya’. Either you switch your mind back and say ‘this is the dharmakaya’ or you give it some kind of influence, recognizing that this is the dharmakaya within that stage. But do not bring in the relativity part too strong367. Just focus on it for a little while. Then switch back and forth. But don’t overdo that either. Don’t switch back from the focus for fear of protecting yourself from losing yourself, but do it in order to recognize that this is the dharmakaya. There is also bliss in that. That much it is empty, that much it is blissful; the bigger the empty, the more blissful it is, the stronger the emptiness recognition, the more intense is the bliss. Recognize. Then the recognition, the bliss, and the space-like emptiness will mix and on that mix you float as much as you can. Base, path and result – dharmakaya Now, on the other side, what are you doing with that? What are you trying to practice? The base on which you practice is the ordinary death. What you try to practice are the stages of the ordinary death. What you try to do with that on the path is to apply the extraordinary clear light level on it. So you are trying to change the result; you are trying to intervene in the process, with the hope of getting a different result. It’s like creating a nectarine, this mixture of peach and plum. You have either a peach tree on which you graft a plum or the other way round. The base is whatever the fruit tree is. The grafting part is the path and the nectarine is the result. You have intervened in the process of the naturally growing peach by grafting the plum on it. Likewise you try to intervene in the natural process of death in order to gain the wisdom dharmakaya out of it. The purpose of the practitioner, no matter how much we deny it, 367

Meaning: Don’t stay too much on the recognizing part, saying: ‘This is this… etc.’

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is trying to find an escape from the ordinary death and have something different instead. For that we use interesting words, saying that we transform it. The actual escape and the actual difference will be given in the completion stage. We will not be able to get to that difference through the practice of the development stage, doing our sadhana and all this. The development stage will not be able to bring that. The capability of developing that is in the completion stage. But in order to make the completion stage work – as the preliminary cause for that – we have the development stage. The whole purpose of the development stage of the three-kaya practice is trying to make the completion stage level work, so that the process can be intervened in. The power to intervene in that is only in the completion stage. But in order to be able to do it then, what we do here is the compulsory training. So, you keep on meditating and practicing daily and once we have the opportunity to do the completion stage, it will work better. And in case death comes in between, you know where you are going and what is happening. When you know what is happening you know what to think and what to do. Though normally we will request the masters and teachers to give guidance during the death, to 99.9% it’s not possible in the United States, for various reasons. And even if it is possible, it may or may not work, depending on whether you hear it or you don’t. Sometimes the person comes back to life; that is another funny thing happening. I have a personal experience with that. Once I went from here to Holland and then back to India, probably in 1986. One of the former Tibetan government officials – a very nice person, appointed as an acting prime minister when His Holiness left Tibet in 1959 – was in hospital in Delhi. Samdhong Rinpoche who came but could only stay one day, asked me and I said: ’Okay, I do whatever I can’. He was married to Daisy’s sister who was the wife of the former prime minister of Bhutan, so the Bhutan government paid all his hospital bills and he was in this nursing home, living in three rooms all by himself. When he was about to die, he said: ’Oh, I hear the tantric monks chanting, where are they?’ and he also said he heard them blow their trumpets. I told him that was a good sign for where he was going to. Then he was calling his wife: ’Where is Tessla? We’ve got to catch the plane and she is late. And then: ’I can hear the train whistle blowing’. So his consciousness switched back and forth. After some time it was quite clear that he was going and I started guiding, reciting the death process. I had asked him before if he had the Vajrayogini practice, but he said he only had the Yamantaka practice besides Lama Chöpa, so I started doing the Yamantaka practice. Then the death process started to go through. He could still hear me, because he was sort of nodding. I thought he was going, but after some time the whole procedure reversed and he woke up again. He lived for three more days, he even got up and went to the toilet and started eating soup. He said to me: ’I followed everything you said, I heard you when all these processes started coming and then it reversed back exactly in the order it first went’. So sometimes that happens. The power of Yamantaka is also such that it pushes back. The doctors were a little surprised and said: ’I heard you praying and we were held outside’. (You could ask the doctors not to come inside.) I said: ’Yes, but something happened and he has come back’. Then three days later, early in the morning, I got a telephone call that he was going. That time he finally went. So, it happens sometimes. Even in the teachings it says it can happen, because it is only at the level of enlightenment that it can not be reversed. Even from the stage of death you can come back; what you call near-death experience or out-of-body experience. What to do at the time of death. This meditation we gave you is to train yourself, so that when actual death comes you can think what you need to think. If you are good at thinking on emptiness, that is the best. If you concentrate on emptiness – even if it is space-like emptiness – if you are good at doing that, then the child-like clear light develops and hooks to the mother-like clear light, they mix and become oneness. I mentioned to you that when Kyabje Ling Rinpoche passed away and sat in meditation for fourteen days and Gomo Rinpoche came and said: ’Don’t touch it, mother and son clear light are hooked’.368 368

See page 180.

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That happens if you have the emptiness with the proper comprehension. It automatically cuts the ignorance and the process-reverse level369. If you are not on that level, then with unshakable faith you focus on the Lama inseparable from the yidam. Or have a strong bodhimind. Any kind of positive level you are comfortable with, is what you are supposed to focus on. So you recognize the signs and then at that time you will be able to focus your mind. That is the main point. That is your practice which gradually you make perfect; the actual path is the clear light and the result is the no-more-learning level, the dharmakaya. The no-more learning has the ‘with effort’ and the effortless level. That will come later during the completion stage.

Discussion on emptiness Let’s go back a little bit to the meaning of the mantra ‘OM SVABHAVA… – Nature empty. Everything’s pure. Naturally pure. That’s what I am’.370 Are there any questions? This is now serious life and death practice. Audience: As to the meaning of the mantra, what is empty? The first time it came, it was the inner offerings that were empty, now it seems to be me and everything. Rinpoche: The mantra itself does not do anything. It simply reminds you. It’s like saying: hey, all is empty. The mantra is just the words. I don’t mean the mantra doesn’t have power, but the emptiness here is not created by the mantra power. The mantra just reminds you that all is empty. The question rises: what do you mean by ‘all’? The object you are focusing on. Earlier we were only focusing on the inner offering, after that the only object was the outer offering, after that your focus was only on the torma offering. Here the focus is on the individual: the total existence of me and my surroundings. When I die, I will not take everybody with me, however, for my perception, for my mind, I will leave nothing out. So the practice here is oriented on me – pointing the finger to ourselves – and really becoming the question of life and death. Caroline raised the point that ‘all is empty’ means that it just exists as dependent origination. She raised a very important point. The real question here is: is dependent arising itself emptiness? We talk about emptiness through talking about dependent arising, but is the understanding of dependent arising the understanding of emptiness? No. The way to emptiness is through dependent arising, but understanding of dependent arising itself, might not be understanding of emptiness. There is a difference. By the dependent arising you don’t even get to the space-like emptiness. That should remind us to go back and examine our emptiness a little bit more. There are very tricky points. If you look at the statements, you will probably see yes and no type of things, but when you are getting nearer to it, you’ll understand it better. When you see the emptiness, [at that moment] to the mind observing the emptiness there is a total nothing. I don’t think at that moment you have to be afraid of losing yourself, nor of falling into the nihilistic viewpoint. The mind that recognizes emptiness at that time is perceiving the point of empty, of totally nothing. How does that come about? Because the object of negation371 has now gone. S<. There are four ways [or steps] of showing the non-inherent existence of self372: 1) Identify the object to be negated. 2) Ascertain pervasion, i.e. if inherently existent self did exist, it would have to be the same as or different from the five aggregates, there being no third possibility. 3) Ascertain there is no self which is one with the skandhas. 4) Ascertain that there is no self which is different from the five skandhas. Understand that the I does not exist naturally and experience I-lessness. >S.

The object on which the mind is focused, i.e. the object of negation, is gone; it’s totally destroyed. There is no trace of it left, there is nothing to hold on to, it’s totally gone. So, whether your emptiness is good 369

Of going to another samsaric life. See page 174. 371 For the object of negation or the object to be refuted, see pg 139. 372 Literature: Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, Tibetan tradition of mental development, pg. 164-174. Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in the palm of your hand, pg. 683-697. 370

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or bad, does not depend on how you think of ‘empty-ness’, it depends on how good your object of negation has been. If your object of negation was good, your emptiness will be perfect. If your object of negation was so so, your emptiness will also be so so. They are totally linked. That’s why the earlier Tibetan teachers, and particularly those of the Tsongkhapa tradition, bring out all different viewpoints of the object of negation and tell you ‘this is not good’ and ‘this is not good’, so you keep on building your understanding and then you see it is not good. By discarding object of negation of inferior quality, you try to find the object of negation of superior quality. So the quality of your emptiness depends on the quality of your object of negation, not on how focused you are, or on how much shamata you had before. It helps, but they can be switched around: ta to ne gom / gom du ne ta wa373 You can develop shamata on the point of the view and on the meditative state [shamatha] you can develop the perfect view.

Your efforts you put in on the object of negation. How hard can you look at how you exist? Who is there to be pointed at? There are certain basic foundations to be able to function; you are not to negate these. But there is something to be negated and how well you can find that makes the difference. When the object of negation is totally destroyed, totally gone out of your view, you feel great void. That means it is totally destroyed. Look at the Three principles of the path: Who sees the inexorable causality of all things, both of cyclic life and liberation, and destroys any sort of conviction of objectivity Thereby enters the path pleasing to Victors

The practitioner who perceives the ever-unfailing reality of The cause and effect nature of all in samsara and beyond And has utterly destroyed the habit of misapprehension, That being stands on the path pleasing to the Buddhas.

Transl. R. Thurman

Transl. G. Mullin

So, Your analytical meditation is on the point of negation, and when you destroy that, then you have ‘entered the path pleasing all Buddhas’. That does not depend on the meditative power, it does not depend on how clear you are, it only depends on how good your object of negation is. When you destroy the object of negation, then it goes beyond that, then it becomes completely empty. You don’t have to worry about ‘I get lost’. Nihilistic fear comes in when you rise from that absorption and start functioning in your normal life. When you cannot hold your functioning together, when you are losing that, it is nihilism. In Tibetan you say sig nor. That means: if when you observe the emptiness nothing exists at that moment and on that point, it doesn’t matter. Although at the buddha stage, one sees the relative and absolute truth simultaneously together, still you have to say that at the moment the mind is actually observing the emptiness, the part of the relative truth does not exist. At that focal point there is nothing; so it is empty like space. Audience: Do you not need the bliss to fulfill the relativity? Rinpoche: Not yet, just leave it there for a while. I don’t know whether at that moment you have a division of the mind and you, but nothing appears to you at all. Whether your mind is there or not, is not your concern at that moment. Actually, the meditator, the object you are meditating on and the method through which you meditate, are all empty. The moment you are trying to observe yourself, you are moving out of that ‘empty’ point. The observing mind does not exist in the viewpoint of the observing mind. The moment you are concerned about how your mind functions, you are moving out from there. Audience: I encounter two flipsides of a problem; this is how I try it with emptiness. It’s like when you are in the ocean and you are the ocean, seeing and perceiving without any particular reference to yourself, like you are part of a blackness, without having any particular locality of consciousness but having consciousness. So there is a space-like quality to it.

373

Quotation not yet found. gom is meditation, tawa is view.

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Now there are two tendencies, one sort of grasps at that sort of annihilation and the other is the fear, wanting to retreat from that experience of referencelessness which is so frightening. It is an enormously strong imprint, it brings like a physical memory of fears and grasping at identity. There is at once a lusting for it – one wants so badly to go into that annihilation – and at the same time there is such a fear from it and I don’t know, even with the tools I have, how to get more balanced towards it. Rinpoche: Tsongkhapa asked the same question to Manjushri. He asked: ’Is this the perfect view I am having? And Manjushri said: ’No, this is neither the view of Buddhapalita and his disciples nor that of Bhavaviveka’. Then Tsongkhapa said: ’I have these hesitations; there is the fear of losing and also a tremendous longing for it. What do I do? What am I lacking?’ Manjushri said: ’Go into retreat and have accumulation of merit and purification,; the two of them will back you up, and then this it will work. So Manjushri’s answer was: ‘You have to study a little more the great teachings, pray very strongly to the lama inseparable from the yidam and do purification. All three you have to combine together and if you do that, then with whatever we talked here as basis, you will find the actual emptiness’. All three together you need. And also you should not insist to get it. In the Kadampa tradition it says: If you practice, if you have the perfect behavior, it shows the view.

Emptiness is something which you can not force. Audience: Where in the sadhana does the object of negation come in? Rinpoche: The sadhana does not show you the object of negation. You have to bring this in from the sutra path, the Lam Rim. Vajrayana emptiness is not different from sutra mahayana emptiness, or even from theravada emptiness for that matter. Whether it will be a good or bad quality emptiness, depends on the object of negation. In the Tibetan tradition it’s said that there are two kinds of emptiness: ma yin ka and me ka. Ma yin ka is: not this, not that, etc., and me ka is: it does not exist. So which one is it? It is not the ma yin ka, it is the me ka. Just to give you some more kind of confusion. But now is almost the time to solve those confusions rather than adding up on them. Audience: You have said that at this point in the sadhana it is important not to remain with just the absence of relativistic construction, but that one should infuse that with the recognition of bliss, inseparable from that emptiness. Rinpoche: Yes, not remain too much in that. But truly speaking, have we reached to that level? Audience: No, but as an object of contemplation we have reached to it, you have brought it up, so it should be something we should analyze. Rinpoche: The system of analyzing –whether the King of reasoning374 or the system of the four points375– might not be a bad idea to mention now, though normally it’s not part of the sadhana. If you have found that object of negation, then find out how it really exists. You analyze: is it one with the body, or one with the mind, or separate from them? If it exists within you, it has to be one with the body or separate from the body. It cannot be in between. Or it has to be one with the mind or separate from the mind. If it is one with the body, then when the body dies, will that die with it, etc. Here the analyzing thoughts of the Madhyamika should be used. There are four focal points about whether you exist separately from or as oneness with body or mind. If ‘you’ are oneness with the body, then when the body dies, the ‘you’ also dies, so you would lose past, present and future lives, you would lose the foundation of the karma, you would really totally lose the actual true base. So you know you are going to an extreme.

374 375

Dependent origination. See note 372.

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When ‘you’ exist separately from the body, then when you take your body away you should be able to find it. There is a simple example. When you lost a goat and you have found three animals in a certain small area, then if you take the three animals out one by one – the horse, the cow and the sheep – and your goat is there, you can catch it, and when it is not there you will come to the conclusion that your goat is not here. Similarly, if you take everything else out, then if there is something to get hold of, it will be there, and if it is not there, it does not exist. So, analyzing, you will find it is not there. The complication will come with the mind, [with which you do the same analysis] because you cannot see it. You’ll find that your object of negation is not the thoughts – not the virtuous and not the non-virtuous thoughts – and not the emotions. If you analyze into detail, you’ll find that like the object of negation is not there with the body, it is not there with the mind. That is the point where you begin to see it376. Even in this particular book I’m using, it says that Manjushri could have shown Tsongkhapa this to by words, but he did not, because with words you cannot really explain what the individual needs; you yourself really have to get the idea that it is not there. And you will have fear, the fear of losing the relative reality. But you do not have to be afraid, because you will not lose it. This I know, we all know. One of Tsongkhapa’s students was meditating on this point during a prayer recitation and suddenly Tsongkhapa noticed that he was holding onto his collar all the time. That was because he was afraid of losing himself – he made sure he was still there by catching his collar. When you do that, you lose the focus. Let the search go as much as it goes and you don’t have to be afraid. And don’t sit too long. Now we are at the point where Aura’s question comes in. In the beginning you may not, but after a little while you may really enjoy observing that [the object of negation is not there]. So set the alarm for five or ten minutes, and let it wake you up. Don’t sit too long. That’s how you go on this. Then, as I repeatedly told you, Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche always said: ’If you don’t have a good understanding of emptiness, then you think: ‘All is empty and whatever the words mean, I agree, I go along with that’. That serves the purpose for the time being. But you cannot just leave it there. You have to pick up the understanding of emptiness a little more. Read Thurman’s Philosophy of Central Tibet377, in Tibetan the Legshe nyingpo. I hope the translation is okay – it cannot be a hundred per cent reliable, because it is a little difficult378. Probably you will not understand it. The Legshe nyingpo quotes from the sutra called: The request by Yugur sung, ‘Empty, peace, not born and by not knowing that people suffer and constantly take rebirth continuously379. I suggest you read from that portion on down, the later chapters with the viewpoints of Buddhapalita and Bhavaviveka; their viewpoints come out by refuting a lot of others. Put some efforts in and try to read that. When you get questions, highlight them, bring them over and we can discuss them. There are especially the eight qualities380 of Buddhapalita’s viewpoint. Out of these eight there are two most important, in Tibetan known as tan ye tse drup which means ‘just for the combination able to exist’ and the second one is: ‘the one which destroys is still impermanent’381. Audience: I am feeling a lot of resistance to work with emptiness, to study it and even during teachings on it I feel I am falling asleep.

376

For a guided meditation on these points, see: Kathleen McDonald, How to meditate, pg. 58-62. Former title The Speech of Gold, reason and enlightenment in the Tibetan Buddhism. 378 Rinpoche relates here the story of Ling Rinpoche and Thurman, see page 264. 379 R. Thurman, Philosophy of Central Tibet pg. 188: ‘(The Lord said), in the Questions of Rashtrapala Scripture: The way is empty, peaceful and uncreated. Not knowing that, the living beings wander. Moved by compassion, he introduces them With hundreds of reasons and technical procedures’. Bhavaviveka’s viewpoint starts at pg. 265. 380 The eight attributes to relativity: ‘free of (real) cessation and creation, beyond nihilism and absolutism, with no (real) coming and no (real) going, neither unity nor plurality. Philosophy of Central Tibet, pg. 177. 381 Not [yet] found. 377

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Rinpoche: You are not the only person. In fact a lot of people do. That is a problem too. If one has difficulties once or twice, then just when hearing the words one starts to worry and develops resistance and just does not want to think about it. That is a common problem. But on the other hand one also has to realize that the wisdom we are referring to is absolutely necessary to cut the root of samsara. Otherwise the choice for the individual would be to work against each and every delusion that you can think of. And that doesn’t make you to get completely rid of them. It is just cutting the branches down, so they will grow again. That is a big problem. One may have to think a little more in that direction. And probably the two other criteria we mentioned before play a very important role. That is what Manjushri told Tsongkhapa382. I think that is really necessary. Emptiness also needs the right type of presentation, without strange language. As to whatever we studied so far in Jewel Heart, most of the time I jumped on the wisdom part; I did not do much of it. It is the tradition as well as that I have to find the right type of language to communicate such a subject. That also has put me off a little bit. But I don’t think the language should be a handicap for us, so I have to go through with it. I even started on the Tuesday evenings and for a couple of weeks I am going to talk more about the emptiness. This may be a little more appealing for you, maybe, maybe not. Anyway, read the later chapters of Philosophy of Central Tibet, start highlighting the doubts and probably you will get some better understanding in that way. I don’t know what is the best available in English on the wisdom part. There are going to be translations – I think by the New Jersey Learning Center – on Tsongkhapa’s big Lam rim chen mo; there is a very big chapter on wisdom in that. Cutting through appearances that is Uma rinchen trengwa or something; that should be good383. It is not a new publication, they changed the title. So get a little background and then we’ll discuss it. In the meanwhile, use whatever you have understood through the bits of talk we had here and there. My feeling is that that will be your basic foundation. Geshe Yeshe Tabkye is also very good. I asked him to do the beginning part of the praise and he taught that384. So you can read that as well. We worked out the basic foundation and from there it will grow. In the meanwhile if you don’t have that, you think, ’Whatever the books say I agree with that and that is my emptiness and I go along with that’. Audience: Are we supposed to meditate on emptiness while reciting the two mantras? Rinpoche: Yes, you are supposed to. You say the mantras slowly. The Tibetans developed some system of saying the OM SVABHAVA mantra and then keep quiet for a while, giving themselves a little time to meditate. I don’t remember Kyabje Ling Rinpoche or Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche objecting to it, but Gomo Rinpoche did, saying: ’You cannot think of anything, so what is the use of pretending to meditate; please don’t stop there, just continue’. During the teaching as well as when the group said it together, they stopped at that point. Then one day, in Delhi, somebody asked to do some prayers instead of teachings and all the people there stopped at that point and Gomo Rinpoche got up and screamed at everybody. Since they all respected him, they quickly continued saying the sadhana. I remember that. For us it may be easier if we give ourselves a little time to think here. Gomo Rinpoche might have had his reasons. He thought that people who cannot think anything, still close their eyes and sit there, pretending. So he took some attitude against that. We went through the procedure of the yogi taking death as dharmakaya. What I would like you to do is the following. After taking the teachings, you should say your sadhanas on whatever level you are, and focus on whatever we talked about, and then the picture of the visualization should pop up in your head, 382

See page 189. What I have as Cutting through appearances is by Geshe Sopa and Jeffrey Hopkins. The first part is a commentary on Tsong Khapa’s Three Principles by the First Panchen Lama, second part is a text called grub mthaí rnam bzhag, by Gönchok Jigme Wangpo. Needs a check with Rinpoche. 384 A weekend teaching to be found in: Gelek Rinpoche, Lam Rim Teachings, Ch. XXIV. 383

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like toast out of the toaster. That way what the sadhana says becomes a complete meditation. That goes for the Ganden Lha Gyema and for the Foundation of all perfections too.

(iii) Meditation on protection wheel to block obstacles385 1. The common protection wheel S<. Taking the path of bardo as sambogakaya386. The common protection wheel is associated with lower tantra and the uncommon protection wheel is associated with high tantra. When visualizing anything, feel as though it is really happening and really there, not just a visualization. >S.

When you are capable you focus your major mind on that floating situation387 and have a little side mind start working. If you are not capable of that, you give yourself whatever time you want to and then you say: Hey, this is dharmakaya but nobody can see me here, except the enlightened beings; not even arhats can see me. I can make better use of that. I might as well rise from it. So, after you lose that squiggle, there is that little thought that you would like to rise from that emptiness. The commentary says: During the period you want to rise, you think where you want to be reborn; the four elements, the environment plus the impure karma of existing within the impure environment, all will be cleared here and [you think]: ‘I will rise in the pure environment and pure mandala’, which is actually the house.

Here it is not instantaneous rise; it is gradually coming up. If you are capable, the major part of the mind should focus on the dharmakaya and a little mind should create all this. The commentary says here: The majority of your mind is in the dharmakaya and a small part of your mind is in the state of bliss-void and assumes the shape of the syllable YAM which appears from emptiness instantly.

From within a state of emptiness appears YAM and transforms into a smoke-colored, bow-shaped wind mandala marked with victory banners. From the space-like flowing emptiness – you have the thought of yourself rising in a physical form. It is influenced by compassion, thinking: If I stay here in this way my capability is very limitedly made use of. In order to make maximum usage of it and to be able to help beings, I rise in the physical form. I will also purify the environment I am going to be reborn into, and the experience of using it. If there is left-over karma which makes me use the environment as impure, I’ll purify it altogether at this moment. The moment you have that thought, suddenly a smoke-colored letter YAM appears. There are reasons why it is smoke-colored but let’s forget about them. Whether the letter is lying flat or standing up doesn’t matter; you can do both. It is like the letter YAM in the inner offering, but this time it has to be much bigger. Here you need to have a huge air mandala on which everything has to be built, so when you say these words a gigantic YAM appears, really huge, maybe a couple of thousand miles! The letter YAM becomes an air mandala. It is bow-shaped, just like in the inner offering, but the cut is facing the other way. In the inner offering blessing you have the bow [in front of you with the cut] facing you, because you are looking at the inner offering, you are acknowledging it and seeing it right in front of you. But this time it is the other way round. Now you are looking from ‘within’ and the bow is 385

Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 38-42. According to the outlines used during this teaching it is still dharmakaya. For Rinpoche’s remarks on the outlines see pg. 302. 387 See page 185. 386

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facing the same direction as you are.388 That is the difference. And here the YAM is much bigger, otherwise your mandala will be too small. At the end of its two points there are two victory banners, not just air banners389. Not only the future environment gets purified but also the karma and its imprints of having to use an impure environment. It may be good these days to pay attention to this, because the people are very aware of the environment. Maybe it is a good idea not to forget about it. As commentary I have to mention here that Lalitavajra said in the root tantra: Yam ram bam gi yi ge le lung dang me dang chu dang ne ong gyi chil kor gom par chang From the letters YAM RAM BAM one should create the mandala of air, fire and water.

The commentary goes in detail: Wherever you are, in reality it is the wisdom of bliss and void, but in the shape of the letter YAM, whether standing or flat. That YAM transforms and becomes an air mandala. The mandala itself is smoke-colored, whereas the letter YAM can be light blue.

S<. The air mandala is smoky dark gray and red fiery color mixed, which represents the wrathful activities and the powerful energy. It is decorated with triple banners on both sides. >S.

Above that, RAM becomes a red triangular fire mandala forming a garland of flames and adorned by vajra ornaments. You have here the red letter RAM; whether it is standing or flat, does not matter. It transforms – you always have to do the double work – and becomes the triangular fire mandala. A point you have to remember here, is just like before, that you have the triangle on top of the bow and the ends of the triangle should not go beyond the bow, i.e. the corners of the fire mandala should not go beyond the air mandala.390 So you have to make the fire mandala proportionally much smaller. That is why it is necessary to start out with a huge shape. If you have some tiny little thing you cannot fit everything in it. I think it is like the inner offering, so there is not so much we need to say. The fire mandala is a big thick sandwich type of thing with a lot of burning fire and vajra decorations all over – a sort of fire sandwich. Above that, BAM becomes a white circular water mandala marked with a vase. Above the fire mandala is the water mandala. That comes from BAM. The letter BAM is the seed syllable of water, the same as Vajrayogini’s seed syllable. So you see, it is not that the seed syllable of one cannot be the seed syllable of another, it can be both. The BAM is white and becomes a round water mandala, a circle. It cannot go beyond the triangle, so it has to be proportionally reduced, again. It is like a thick flat tortilla, in the nature of water. It covers the whole United States. The water mandala is marked by a vase, which goes into the water up to its neck, the upper part coming out. S<. Within it is a vase filled with water to the mouth, submerged to the mouth. >S.

Above that, LAM becomes a yellow, square earth mandala marked with vajras. Above that rises from the letter LAM the earth mandala. The letter LAM is yellow, as is the earth mandala itself. The shape is a square. It has to onto the circle and so, again, has to be smaller. The earth mandala has to go on top of the vase of the water mandala, which is standing half out of the water. It is a huge earth; if you can you should think it is ten times the size of the world and if you cannot then think whatever you are capable of focusing of.

388

You are looking from ‘within’ – though you are nowhere – and from there you face the cut, again. [Reference: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 38.] 389 For the difference between these two see page 91. 390 Moreover, not the base but the point of the triangle touches the cut of the bow. For a drawing see Chapter XII Appendices.

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When you produce all that, you don’t think what you look like, because you are in the nature of void. Your mind is suddenly generating it. You are ‘somewhere in the air’ and you begin to produce all that. S<. Another method is to visualize the four element mandalas as actually fitting inside one another like Chinese toys instead of being stacked on top. >S.

On top of that, HUNG becomes a crossed vajra.. S<....a blue HUNG which transforms into a crossed double dorje (natsal dorje) with four sides to represent the four activities: peace, increase, power and wrath. >S.

Now you have produced that huge earth, you are looking at the middle of it and think: ’What am I going to do in that middle?’ and suddenly the letter HUNG appears. All that is part of your consciousness, it is part and parcel of yourself. In the pure lands the inhabitants and the environment are oneness. From that HUNG comes a crossed vajra. This looks like two vajras put together, so the hub becomes one. Its spokes are going in the four directions, one east, one south, one west and one north. The vajra has to be huge and the hub also has to be huge. It is like some mountain in Australia is part of something and some other mountain in South America is another point of that something. In that manner you have to think of the vajra. It must be huge, because you have to build the whole mandala [the celestial palace etc.] on that hub. In order to have a huge hub you have to have a huge vajra. Otherwise it would go proportionally wrong. That’s how it becomes smaller and smaller. S<. The double dorje is cubic. Since it is building foundation, it cannot be roundish. >S.

..marked at the hub with a HUNG from which lights emanate along the bottom, forming the vajra surface. The letter HUNG is in reality the bliss-void wisdom nature of your mind. Lights radiate from that HUNG on the big vajra-hub [S<. above the earth mandala] and even beyond that. By the lights going across, the whole ground becomes a vajra ground. Vajra ground means that it is indestructible ground. In your visualization you should have it consisting of big vajras and millions of small vajras inside of them and each of their hubs are, again, filled up by other small vajras. In the US nowadays you put either a wood floor or tiles down, but if you look at the old style buildings, they mixed different little pebbles, white, green etc., with cement and that made it very strong and solid. And you’d polish them and make them shiny. In that manner, the big and small and smaller vajras make a very smooth vajra-natured ground. You can see they are all vajras within each other, yet they form one piece, one huge monster slab, that could cover the whole country. This slab is so filled up by vajras that not a single air can go through. It is full, solid, huge and fat, in proportion to its size. It is called wang chen ser ghi sa zhi – unshakable, powerful ground391. Emanating sideways, they form the vajra-fence. Emanating along the top, they form the vajra-tent, and below the tent and upon the fence the vajra-ceiling. These are all in the nature of radiant vajras forming a solid unit without any intervening spaces. Now the light goes to the sides and produces the vajra fence. When you talk about a fence you may think of a little wooden fence or a green flower-garden fence or you may think of the military establishments and prisons, that have those wires. Don’t think of that type of fences. You think of a fence bigger than a mountain, yet solid and one piece; a huge vajra fence. Everything is built on the hub. Make it the hub huge, otherwise you’ll have problems. S<. The fence is equal in size to the vajra ground. It is round and it is as extensive as you can imagine it and there is no gate in the fence. All this is indestructible. >S.

391

These are the beginning words of the long mandala offering.

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Then the light goes up and builds the roof on top of the fence, like these in-door stadiums have huge roofs. You multiply such one by a 100,000 – a huge, solid vajra roof. In between the roof and the fence there is no space. Supa can tell you; I watched it, when they put up the dry wall. In the gaps they also put something, then they plaster all of it and make it into one piece. In that manner, the roof and the walls are joined. There is some layer in between roof and wall, so there will be no space left at all. The sadhana says ‘vajra ceiling’. That does not mean a ceiling like this. It is dorje lhare. It is like the thrones of the lamas, that have a canopy type of thing on the top and some silk fringes around the sides. If you look from inside, the whole structure becomes a single solid piece. Audience: What color does the common protection wheel have? Rinpoche: I don’t know. It may not have a specific color. S<. Light rays reaching upward to create the vajra roof or tent. It is like an old style Mongolian tent, not the ones these days which have skylights fitted with glass. Tibetan tents are made of simple cloth but Mongolian tents are very strong of heavy wool The roof is conical or peaked. In between the roof and the fence is the vajra ceiling. All these are made up of thousands of vajras with holes filled in with smaller vajras inside. The touch is smooth, like a plastic paper weight with flowers inside is smooth to the touch. >S.

Surrounding all of this is a five-colored conflagration, like the destroying fire that ends a great eon, blazing into the ten directions. You visualize that outside all this there is that big fire floating. Anything that comes nearby gets burned and destroyed. So you don’t let anybody come in. That is the best security. The fire gods and fire ghosts may get through, though – the fire does not protect from them, because they are part of fire – and that’s why you have bullets flying around. [S<. three-pronged vajra bullets]. That is not mentioned in the sadhana. These arrows or bullets are flying up, down and sideways within the fire and if the fire gods and fire ghosts come nearby, they get hit by the bullets; so you are well protected. Unless the bullets hit something they are not going to explode. They are of wisdom nature, so they are not going to hit each other. They are programmed in that way. S<. The five-colored vajra fire keeps out all hindrances and would-be dharma destroyers. They cannot even look at this, but to good beings it appears as a rainbow. This is the common protection wheel - common with the lower tantra. People with merit can enter the mandala but those without cannot penetrate it. >S.

Audience: Do we have to construct the whole visualization during the death process? Rinpoche: No, not in the actual death process. We are constructing it just now. But, do we have to work during the period we are dying? I don’t think so. By the karmic power it will be provided at that time. Audience: If the whole structure is built on top of the hub of the crossed vajra, is the fire around the hub or the crossed vajra? Rinpoche: The whole vajra protection wheel goes out completely beyond that crossed vajra. It has to go beyond the crossed vajra, because the mandala steps will be built in between the vajra spokes. How far do you go? You could as far as existence reaches, and that begins with the air mandala. But wait, that may be wrong. Why? Later on you’ll build the cemeteries with their trees and mountains outside the fence [so you have to leave space for that]. The hub will hold the entire mandala, there is no question, but the protection wheel has to go beyond the mandala. In my visualization I think of the vajra ground, the fence, the roof etc., I am not thinking of what is underneath that. The Yamantaka practice differs from the Heruka practice; there are certain rules. There are drawings, there are books. Actually, we do even have a video-tape on the mandala building, but unfortunately it is not very nice; it does not look good and it will not make it very clear. Actually the people who make the mandalas, they should really know, because they have been trained in the measurements.

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I have no answer. The air mandala marks existence; you don’t go beyond where there is air. The problem is, during visualization of the sadhana, I really don’t think anybody will get a clear picture. You sort of go: vajra ground, fence, etc. and you are satisfied with that and leave it there. [Next session]. The question was raised how far you can go with the protection wheel. The point is that during the teachings you are not supposed to look at the commentary, but it says: The size of the protection wheel is such that it reaches from the heaven to the earth, you can go as much as you want to go, there is no limited line there, as much as you can imagine, as much as you can project. Outside that you have that five-colored fire, also the bullets going within the fire. They are sort of triangular shaped bullets and they go from the top to the bottom and from the bottom to the top, from outside to inside and from inside to outside. For those who are appreciating virtuous work it will look like a rainbow, but those who are motivated by non-virtuous thoughts, cannot come near, cannot even stand watching it392.

So this commentary made it clear. Though Nagpopa gave certain limits, this says you can go as much as you can think. It does not say whether you can beyond the ground or under it or off it, it just says as much as you want. So probably as much as you can visualize or imagine.

2. The uncommon/special protection wheel This uncommon protection wheel, called ‘the ten wrathful deities protection wheel’ is commonly used by all the maha anuttara yoga tantras like Heruka, Yamantaka, Guhyasamaja. But it is not common with the lower tantras, that’s why it is called uncommon. It is important to make that clear. At the center of the fence is the syllable BHRUM which becomes a very brilliant yellow Command Wheel of Injunction. At the center of the common vajra ground, fence and roof and fringe – ceiling is definitely a wrong translation – suddenly the yellow letter BHRUM appears. That transforms and becomes a command center, a command wheel. We simply say that the letter appears and transforms. But what you really have to do is, you visualize a big letter BHRUM, made of bright light; that suddenly melts into light and in the mist of the melting of that, in that space, things are raised up again, like an unfocussed picture which becomes focused. Each transformation you have to do this way. We forget to mention it, because we do it automatically, but in the west, when it is not explicitly told, you may think that the letter just suddenly ‘zoom’ becomes something else, no! The command center is yellow. The reason why yellow has been used is because it is the earth color and the definition of earth in Tibetan Buddhism is sarchin tekpa, which means strong, solid, hard. So the command wheel is also strong and solid. The reason why it is called command wheel is because from the principal in there orders are issued to the ten wrathful deities. It has ten spokes and a hub, and is revolving clockwise. The command center looks like two ice-cream cones joined together; one up, one down. Where the cones join is the most open space and the lower and the upper portion go thinner and thinner. The upper and lower tip of the cones are a long horn type of things, holding the command center together. The space-ship in ‘Star trek’ looks very much like it, except they don’t have this upper and lower thinner ends because it is traveling. This one is not traveling; it is not on a voyage-explorer, but a space station. Therefore it has to be tied; the top is touching the highest heaven in space and the bottom is touching the lowest possible point, probably going solidly halfway through the earth mandala. It is unshakable, yet free to rotate. 392

For the fire rim also see Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 39.

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From the joining of the cones eight sharp double-edged knives come out in the eight directions. The long horn ends of the cones are also counted as spokes, but don’t have double-edged knives. That makes ten spokes altogether. This command wheel is a big thing and it is such that, although the wheel moves it does not touch the vajra fence. The wheel rotates clockwise. S<. The wheel is like two hollow ice-cream cones stuck together at the wide ends. One point is nearly touching the vajra roof and the other is touching the vajra ground. It is called a wheel because it can revolve, but it is not circular shaped. This is a huge structure. Everything has to fit inside At the point where the two cones meet there are eight spokes for the four directions and the four subdirections plus a spoke each for the top and bottom. So there are ten spokes in all for the ten directions. Inside it is empty. The spokes are double edged blades which protrude the walls of the cone. The spokes go up to the vajra fence, but do not touch. The wheel spins clockwise and spins so fast it is impossible to catch. >S.

At the center of the hub and at each of the ten spokes, yet not quite touching the spokes, appear threefold seats of a multi-colored lotus, a moon and a sun. Inside that structure you have three seats, one in the center, one above, a little bit in front, and one underneath, slightly towards the back. In other words, they are not in a straight line. The seats are not way out at the very top. Three of the protectors will be inside the cones, and eight outside. The eight seats outside are an inch above and not touching the knives. All seats consist of a multi-colored lotus, a moon disc and a sun disc393. Upon the central seat is a letter HUNG; S<. While part of your mind is creating this protection wheel, the major part of your mind should be continually aware that this is in the nature of emptiness. >S.

On the central seat inside, the commanding chair from where the orders are issued, like a bubble coming up in the water, the letter HUNG appears. Its color is dark blue. In reality it is your consciousness, in aspect the letter HUNG. and it entirely transforms into myself as Sumbharaja, ‘The King Who Magnificently Subdues’, deep royal blue in color, having a dark blue, a white and a red face, crowned by Akshobhya. The HUNG melts into light and suddenly you appear as Sumbharaja394. He is dark blue and has three faces. You may not be able to visualize everything in detail; just think that you have become that. When there are more faces, three or nine or whatever, they have one neck together. The color of the central face – as usual – corresponds with the body color; then you have a white and a red face. The last two come out from the ear side of the central face. The hair color is kamser, a little reddish blond, a little bit more bright red than Aura’s hair color may be, and standing up, like with the punk people. Each one of the three faces has three eyes. I have six arms, the first two of which embrace a consort who resembles me; the remaining two on the right hold a jewel and an iron hook; the remaining two on the left, a lotus and a noose. Sumbharaja has six arms: two are busy with the consort, two hold a jewel and a hook and the two left ones hold a lotus and a noose, that cowboy type of thing with which you catch people. This is Sumbharaja or Ngönje Gyelpo. He is the principal in the center.

393 394

Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 40: crossed vajra, sun and moon. For an image of Sumbharaja, see Chapter XII, Appendices.

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Actually there are eleven deities, but the person who sits below, [Vajrapatala], is the same as the person who sits at the center. So the same person takes two portfolios. When we take two portfolios we cannot divide our body into two, but they can. That’s why there are eight of them above the knives. I stand with my right leg drawn in and left extended. Light rays from the HUNG at my heart as the male-united-with-consort... These translations are a problem. Why do you have to say: Sumbharaja in union with the consort? In Tibetan it says: yab yum num par sho pai tuk ge HUNG le o ser gyi gu pai. In vajrayana you have a lot of these unions. The invitation is sent by Sumbharaja and the light is coming from the heart, which is the essence of the person. It is not just an ordinary light radiating from the heart of the person, but light emanated from the union with the consort, so there is a lot of sexual excitement. You know, if something happens next door and they make a lot of noise, either you get more excited or you turn off. Either one of them happen, right? In the vajrayana you get the excited point rather than the turning off point. So this gives you more meaning than simply light going out and simply them being in union. …summon forth the Ten Wrathful Ones, who, having entered through the mouth of the Male, melt. These take the form of ten drops, enter via the vajra of the Male into the lotus of the Consort, and then transform into ten letters of HUNG. The light goes out and invites all ten protectors, the buddies of Sumbharaja. They all come and one by one, jump through the mouth of Sumbharaja – who is you yourself – and reach at the heart level. The heat of the desire melts them completely and they become drops [tib. tikle] which is semen. The drops go as ten separate drops of semen through the male’s private part into the consort’s private part. From here there are two kinds of visualization: one takes the drops up to the heart level of the consort and one doesn’t. Let’s say the drops don’t stay there, but go up to the heart level of the female consort. At that level they become ten letters HUNG, and after that each one of them will transform into a wrathful deity. From these arise the Ten Wrathful Ones:395 (1) Blue Yamantaka, 'The Opponent of Yama’, with a blue, a white and a red face. He is crowned by Vairochana, and has six arms, of which the last on the right holds a vajra-hammer. First comes the blue Yamantaka, Shinje she ngonpo. The sadhana has the whole description. He is the one who goes to the east and east is always in front. That blue-colored Yamantaka has a blue, a white and a red face, six hands etc., as the descriptions reads. That’s all this sadhana has. Can someone read from the other translation396? There is blue Yamantaka with Vairochana crown, three faces, blue, white and red, six arms, first two embracing his alike consort, other two rights holding jewel and vajra hammer, lefts, lotus and sword; with HUNG! he emanates from the Mother’s lotus and stands, left foot extended, on the seat over the eastern spoke.

That’s it. Actually, in our sadhana the missing part comes at the end397. Some translator tried to do some clever work, but you don’t do that, giving half the description and go on to the second one. If you say the long sadhana you have to get them out one by one. If you say the short sadhana you can simply say one ‘HUNG!’ and get all of them out at that time. When it says ‘HUNG!’ he is emanated from the lotus of the mother, the female. In some translations you read the word ‘womb’ added up. The problem here is that the practice of the upper and lower tantric colleges differ. The lower tantric college will say: ’HUM yum gyi pad ma le tro – from the female’s lotus’. The upper tantric college says ‘HUNG pad ma le tro – from the lotus’. The upper tantric college 395

For images of nine of the ten wrathful ones, see Chapter xii, Appendices. I’ve taken the complete descriptions from Yamantaka Ekavira, materials for Punya House retreat 1988, pg. 43-45. There is also a complete description in Pabongka’s Meditation on Vajrabhairava, pg. 44. 397 This refers to the piece of sadhana text at page 200. 396

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and the particular tradition which both Kyabje Ling Rinpoche and Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche follow, hold that they don’t come out from the mother’s womb, but go backwards – through the mother’s lotus, through the male’s genital – up to the heart level of the male and then come out, because it is the Sumbharaja who is doing the activity here. So, when you keep the translation of ‘lotus’ [instead of ‘lotuswomb’], it works out [either way]; it can be the heart lotus [of Sumbharaja] or the lower lotus [of the mother]. There is a difference in systems and when you add up certain technical names like ‘womb’, then you cannot do it. That is the mistake on that. And it is also a mistake to point them all out and then use the technique of the shortest way to bring them out. That is also wrong. Blue Yamantaka stands on the cushion on the eastern spoke, facing towards you. (2) White Aparajita, ‘The Invincible One’, with a white, a dark blue and a red face. He is crowned by Akshobhya, and has six arms, of which the last on the right holds a truncheon. This is the same thing, but it goes to the south. He has a different name, different hand implements, same principle. The other sadhana goes: There is white Aparajita with Akshobhya crown, three faces white, blue, and red, six arms, first two embracing his alike consort, other two rights holding jewel and club, lefts, lotus and sword; with HUNG he emanates from the Mother’s lotus and stands, left foot extended, on the seat over the southern spoke.

A translation like ‘club with a wrathful vajra-like top398’, trying to give a little description of how it looks, is not right, just club is enough, because the Tibetan just says pe jon. Another translation says: truncheon. That is a British word and that has spikes, so we cannot use that word. Does anybody take notes, because we are trying to produce a better sadhana at the end of this. Aparajita stands above the southern spoke. All eight of them are looking inwards. (3) Red Hayagriva, ‘The Horse-necked One’, with a red, a dark blue and a white face. He is crowned by Amithaba, and has six arms, of which the last on the right holds a lotus and the middle on the left, a wheel. There is red Hayagriva with Amithaba crown, three faces red, dark blue, and white, six arms, first two embracing his alike consort, other two rights holding jewel and lotus, lefts, wheel and sword; with HUNG he emanates from the Mother’s lotus and stands, left foot extended, on the seat over the western spoke.

(4) Blue Amritakundalini, ‘The Coil of Nectar’, with a blue, a white and a red face. He is crowned by Akshobhya, and has six arms, of which the last on the right holds a vajra. There is blue Amritakundalini with Akshobhya crown, three faces blue, white and red, six arms, first two embracing his alike consort, other two rights holding jewel and vajra, lefts, lotus and sword; with HUNG he emanates from the Mother’s lotus and stands, left foot extended, on the seat over the northern spoke.

(5) Dark Blue Takkiraja, ‘The Desire King’, with a dark blue, a white and a red face. He is crowned by Akshobhya, and has six arms, of which the last on the right holds a hook. There is dark blue Takkiraja with Akshobhya crown, three faces dark blue, white and red, six arms, first two embracing his alike consort, other two rights holding jewel and goad- hook, lefts, lotus and sword; with HUNG he emanates from the Mother’s lotus and stands, left foot extended, on the seat over the fire-quarter spoke.

(6) Blue Nildanda, ‘The Holder of the Blue Club,’ with a blue, a white and a red face. He is crowned by Akshobhya, and has six arms, of which the last on the left holds a 398

Referring to the translation in Pabongka’s Meditation on Vajrabhairava, pg. 44.

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Yamantaka teachings club. There is blue Niladanda with Akshobhya crown, three faces blue, white and red, six arms, first two embracing his alike consort, other two rights holding jewel and rod, lefts, lotus and sword; with HUNG he emanates from the Mothers lotus and stands, left foot extended, on the seat over the truthless spoke.

(7) Blue Mahabala, ‘The Great Mighty One’, with a blue, a white and a red face. He is crowned by Akshobhya, and has six arms, of which the last on the right holds a trident. There is blue Mahabala with Akshobhya crown, three faces blue, white and red, six arms, first two embracing his alike consort, other two rights holding jewel and trident, lefts, lotus and sword; with HUNG he emanates from the Mother’s lotus and stands, left foot extended, on the seat over the wind-quarter spoke.

(8) Dark Blue Achala, ‘The Unwavering One’, with a dark blue, a red and a white face. He is crowned by Akshobhya, and has six arms, of which the last on the right holds a sword and the last on the left, a vajra. There is dark blue Achala with Akshobhya crown, three faces, dark blue, white and red, six arms, first two embracing his alike consort, other two rights holding jewel and sword, lefts, lotus and vajra; with HUNG he emanates from the Mother’s lotus and stands, left foot extended, on the seat over the powerful spoke.

(9) Yellowish-green Ushnisha Chakravartin, ‘The Ushnisha Lord of the Ring’, with a yellowish-green, a white and a red face. He is crowned by Akshobhya, and has six arms, of which the last on the right holds a wheel. There is yellow-green Ushnisha Chakravartin with Akshobhya crown, three faces yellow green, dark blue399, and white, six arms, first two embracing his alike consort, other two rights holding jewel and wheel, lefts, lotus and sword; with HUNG he emanates from the Mother’s lotus and stands, left foot extended, on the seat within the upper spoke, a bit in front of myself the Lord.

What is not mentioned here is that he is looking at the back, whether somebody is coming from the back and wants to stab one with a knife. That’s what he is doing up there400. S<. The ninth deity has a central greenish yellow face, a white face at the right and a red face at the left. At Gyuto they say green-yellow, purple and white. >S.

(10) Dark Blue Vajra-patala, ‘The Vajra-Subterranean’, with a dark blue, a white and a red face. He is crowned by Akshobhya, and has six arms, of which the last of the right holds a vajra. There is dark-blue Vajrapatala with Akshobhya crown, three faces dark blue, white and red, six arms, first two embracing his alike consort, other two rights holding jewel and vajra, lefts, lotus and sword; with HUNG he emanates from the Mother’s lotus and stands, left foot extended, on the seat within the lower spoke, a bit behind myself the Lord.

The lower one, is slightly sitting towards the back, facing the same direction as the principal. That is Dorje Sa o Ting ka, literally ‘the underground vajra’, so Vajra Subterranean is the exact translation. The first two hands of each of these ten Wrathful Ones embrace a consort resembling himself. The middle hand on the right of each holds a jewel. With the exception of the Horse-necked One, the middle hand on the left of each of them holds a lotus. With the exception of the Unwavering One, the last hand on the left of each of them holds a 399 400

Also Pabongka’s Meditation on Vajrabhairava says here: yellowish-green, white and red. With his seat being slightly to the front, he is facing the principal as well as watching interferences from the back.

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sword. HUNG!!! They are emanated forth from the lotus and take their respective places on the seats in the ten directions, which includes above and below. All eleven figures are completely adorned with the bearing and with all ornaments of extremely wrathful deities. By sending emanations into the ten directions, they completely annihilate all evil forces401. You can do the sadhana without the uncommon protection wheel, but you can also do it in the short way, where you don’t go through how each of them looks. Thurman has translated that thick Yamantaka sadhana of which you have a copy, right? In that there is a picture of these wrathful deities, but one of them is missing, they have only found nine pictures, out of Lokesh Chandra’s collection402. They are black and white pictures, so all look the same It is difficult to get a clear picture of the ten wrathful deities, unless you are so used to meditating them; then you may get it. You may think that ten protectors go out and they are looking at you and protect you. The short version goes: From these arise the Ten Wrathful Ones. HUNG!! From the lotus of the consort they are sent forth and each comes to settle on his own seat above one of the ten spokes in a manner which annihilates all evil beings. If you are doing the shorter version403, you yourself are in the Sumbharaja form, the light emanates and all this. All of the ten wrathful deities come, enter through your mouth, melt at your heart level one by one, change into semen. They through your private part into the consort’s lotus; each one of the group of ten drops of semen becomes a HUNG, goes up to the consort’s heart level – I normally don’t go up to the consort’s heart level, but that is the way it is taught – they become light and then become ten wrathful protection deities. It is like they have become some kind of dotted protection deities. Then they come down to the lotus – or if they haven’t gone up, they come back from the lotus of the consort to the male’s sexual organ – and come up to the heart level [of Sumbharaja] and then when you just say once ‘HUNG!’ all of them ‘zoom’ go out and sit on their respective cushions. That’s the shortest way to do it. Audience: Why are the protectors facing inwards? There aren’t any evil forces inside the protection wheel. They would be outside. Rinpoche: The practitioner will be in the middle. That’s the one you are protecting. You are not there to kill the evil forces; each one of them is capable of destroying any obstacles. That is basically the uncommon protection wheel. Now there is a lot of points which the sadhana does not mention. Probably you have to know a little bit of those. In this commentary they say: When there is the sexual union of the male and female, the light also goes out from the joining point of the union as well as from the heart. It not only invites the ten wrathful deities but also the buddhas and bodhisattvas, all of them go through your mouth and at the heart level they melt.

This here emphasizes that the drops of semen even have different colors according to each individual deity. Going even more in detail it says: They not only go through the lotus of the consort but also to her heart level and there become ten long HUNG letters. Then they melt into the light form and become ten wrathful deities.

If you are doing them separately, then whenever you say the name, that individual one comes out from the heart of the consort and goes down. Then, when they have taken their seats: Each of them is looking at the center and from their body they are throwing a lot of acid-type of powerful liquid which will burn whatever it touches. They are also emanating a lot of 401

This piece ‘The first two (…) evil forces’ is the wrong abbreviation in generating the deities one by one. R. Thurman, Yamantaka Ekavira, materials for Punya house retreat, pg. 1. 403 You skip ‘From these arise the Ten Wrathful ones (…) evil forces’. 402

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Yamantaka teachings wrathful deities carrying wrathful implements. Also they are generating fire. They are not limited to being inside alone. They also go even outside the common protection rim to do their work.

Now the wheel begins to move [clockwise], and the knives are going round and it goes so fast that with ordinary eyes you cannot see it moving. The seats are not touching the knives; the knives are going round but the persons are above them. Five points on the uncommon protection wheel There are actually five important points: 1) The direction the protectors are looking in – in or out. 2) The moving of the wheel. 3) Hiding people. 4) Activities; 5) Transfer of the principal deity. S<. All the direction protectors face the center. If one has big problems they can face out, which is one of the five special visualizations which you can do: how to transfer principal deity; changing of face; turning of the wheel; hiding point; activity point. The three wrathful activities are: 1) protection of the precious jewel; 2) dispelling with space iron, i.e. returning the iron wheel [nam cha] dropped from the sky; 3) kill by karma sword. >S

1. Changing the direction the protectors face If there is a sign of obstacles, what will you do? You yourself in the form of Sumbharaja issue orders to the ten wrathful ones. The way the orders are issued is not by words but just by looking. Sumbharaja gives a big look and when he looks they get the message: catch the obstacles and destroy them. So each one of these deities generates a lot of duplicate wrathful deities and they go and catch the obstacles, whatever it may be, ignorance, attachment, or even people doing harm. The obstacles will be caught, brought in in some human physical form, and handed over to those wrathful deities. Now the point comes: the moment these obstacles are handed over and they get hold of them, they turn their faces outward s instead of inwards. 2. Moving the wheel Each one of them will put the obstacles – in whatever physical form it is in – upside down. Under their feet stands a stupa type of thing, in size equal to four fingers of the wrathful deity, and the obstacles are held from there, like from a handle. Not only are they holding them, but they lower them down while that wheel with the sharp knives is moving; the wheel moves faster and chops the obstacles down. Not only they get chopped down, but the pieces which are falling off are burnt by the fire of the fire rim, so really nothing is left. At the end the duplicates are dissolved to the emanator himself. That is why the wheel is called command center, because from there the commands are given. That is the important point of moving the wheel, called korlo kor wai ne. Maybe you don’t need that; maybe it is too early just now. 3. Protecting through hiding When you have to protect someone, you hide the person. If someone is doing some funny thing to some persons, then you hide them. How do you hide them? You yourself are in the Sumbharaja form, at your heart level you have a sun disc and above that you have a letter HUNG, which has a circle representing the Ma. At the center of that you put those you want to hide and protect. So these other wrathful objects, who want to harm them, cannot find them. It is – in modern American movie language – a safe house. There are a lot of reasons for hiding them in that zero. The zero represents emptiness and emptiness is one of the best protections, actually the best protection, far better than the ten wrathful protectors: tong nyie sung wa la na me. There are a lot more details on the hiding business, but I am not going to do them now. S<. At the heart of the central deity, Sumbharaja, is a HUNG. The tikle of the HUNG is like an egg, in that you can hide yourself or your lama or anyone you want to protect there or place them on the sun seat. Special offering deities go out and make offerings to the ten protectors. Tremendous

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bliss is generated as a result and they are very pleased. Light strikes the nada and falls on all those in the egg shell. Everything about them becomes of vajra nature – indestructible, like vajra armor. It is good to say the long mantra for the dharma protectors404.

4. The four activities You yourself are in the Sumbharaja form and you give a look to those ten wrathful protectors. From their heart level they emanate whatever you need: to clear obstacles white deities, for prosperity yellow ones, for power red and for wrathful purposes dark-blue ones. They all come with a little vase and the persons you have been hiding in the M of the HUNG they initiate with the vase water. Then whatever needed to be done has fully developed with them. That is called activity – the peaceful, wrathful, prosperity or power activities you have to do. If it is purifying, they pour the water and clear all their obstacles, non-virtues and negative karma, everything gets washed away. But don’t raise the question: ’In the sutra you told us that the Buddha cannot wash away the non-virtues by water’. This is different. The obstacles have been washed away and their bodies are purified and they have become pure crystal light. If you have to do wrathful activities, then the deities you generate are huge black ladies who will go and carry out the activity. They transform the obstacles into flesh and blood and just swallow it; things like that. On top of that you can also say a lot of mantras. There is a mantra of the ten wrathful deities and whatever other mantras you want to say, you can say. There is one more thing you have to know. What are these ten wrathful deities, who are they and where do they come from? They are nothing but the ten parts of mind of the enlightened beings. What are these ten minds?405 1) The knowledge of the dharma at the buddha stage; 2) the wisdom of the buddhas; 3-6) the wisdom of knowing the four Noble Truths –suffering, cause of suffering, cessation of suffering and the path; 7) the relative knowledge; 8) the absolute knowledge; 9) the knowledge of complete exhaustion of no longer growing non-virtues; 10) knowing other people’s minds. These ten minds of the Buddha have become the ten wrathful deities. S<. The ten knowledges can be found in the Abidharmakosha. >S 406

5. How to transfer the principal deity If it is for protection, Sumbharaja is the center principal. If it is to return obstacles, he will switch seats with the person who sits at the top [Ushnisha chakravartin]. Sometimes Yamantaka will come and take the center seat and give orders in all the ten directions407. S<. There are thousands of different activities of the wrathful deities but they are secret and not to be discussed. The protection wheel does not revolve when first generated, but does revolve after the deities have been placed upon it. >S

Basically, that much will cover both the common and the uncommon protection wheels. After the protection wheels comes the mandala building. These protection wheels are sometimes very useful but not that important. Dharmakaya, sambogakaya and nirmanakaya are the most important points. In between that you can relax a little bit more. I like to say something else. Those of you attending this, though it may be a little bit difficult sometimes to be in time when we say the preliminary and other prayers408 and sometimes people may even think that it is not that important to be there when prayers are being said. They are absolutely wrong. Unless it 404

There are different long mantras for different dharma protectors. Literature on the ten forces of a buddha: Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Tantric grounds and paths, pg. 200-206. Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, An Anthology of well-spoken advice, pg. 258-259. Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 121. 406 This refers to Sumbharaja and another wrathful deity switching places. See pg. 203. 407 For the person below see page 198. 408 Prayers done before the teaching, were: the teaching lineage prayer, see page 68. 405

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is absolutely unavoidable, try not to miss it. Saying prayers builds up your practice, in particular picking up the wisdom. I just wanted to remind you how equally important these parts are. On the other hand we, even myself, tend to giving more time to talking than to saying prayers, but still we have to pay attention.

V REVIEW BY MEANS OF THE EXTENDED PRAYER The great radiance of the heart of the Perfect Hero Invites the Field of Accumulation, which pervades the sky. By delighting (this Field) with the purest offerings, praises and practice, May I totally complete the great collections of merit. This corresponds with the outline Accumulation of the various merits which correspond with the cause which gives rise to the birth of the mantra practitioner as a being endowed with the six elements from the womb of a Jambudvipa human being. The extended prayer and the outlines correspond, because the extended prayer and the sadhana correspond. When you say this verse, from your heart or head, you should be able to literally run a picture in front of you. Like a review of a movie, these visualized activities should be brought in here. In the sadhana it says that light radiates from the heart of yourself as the one-faced, two-handed Yamantaka to the ten directions. Remember, the lotus represents something, the sun represents something, and the HUM at the heart represents something. The light invites the buddhas and bodhisattvas, the wrathful deities and particularly Yamantaka with your root master sitting in between his two horns. They completely fill the space in front of you. This is the supreme Field of Merit through which you will accumulate merit. Then come the seven pure practices, the equivalent of the seven limbs in sutrayana. All of this you do for the accumulation of merit. There are two types of merit, absolute and relative merit. What is the difference between these two? One is wisdom merit and the other relative- or merit-merit. Wisdom merit is merit that is influenced by the understanding of emptiness. Accumulation of merit is absolutely important. Without merit you get nowhere. Both of them, relative and absolute are covered here. One of the reasons why the seven limbs [tib. yenlak dun] are called here the seven pure practices [tib. dun namdak] is that basically all vajrayana practices are supposed to be on the basis of emptiness. From that point of view every activity in vajrayana could be called absolute merit. However, within that absolute merit itself, you’d have to divide it again, like in A and A-plus. Rinpoche: What is rupakaya, form body? Audience: It encompasses the sambogakaya and the nirmanakaya and is the body aspect to go with the dharmakaya. Rinpoche: When they talk about dharmakaya, you can roughly think of a mental state; whenever they talk about rupakaya you think of a physical state. This question concerns your future buddha. When I become a buddha, where is my wonderful body, the purest of pure, going to come out of? Is it going to be produced by a father and a mother? No. It is not. It is going to be produced by my virtuous merit. Which merit will produce the form? The relative merit

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will later produce the body; the wisdom oriented merit will create the mind part. You are not going to get an extraordinary mind and body without a cause. Creating causes for that is the practice. Within the vajrayana practice itself you have accumulation of relative merit when you invite the supreme Field of Merit, and make the offering of the seven purities, including rejuvenating your vows and the four immeasurables. When you have time you can sit down and meditate the four immeasurables. If you don’t have time you may simply say: ‘All sentient beings may be free of suffering, they may have joy which has never known suffering, they may have compassion etc. If you just read it, it fulfills your commitment and if you sit and think and meditate, you can really benefit. As simple as that. It is your choice. If you want to work, there is an opportunity, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. Then you may raise the question: ‘If I don’t work, how do you expect me to develop?’ There is an answer. One of the vajrayana qualities is that if you keep your commitments, if you don’t break them, you can’t do much wrong. When I say commitment, immediately people think it means saying your sadhanas. That’s not it. When you took the initiation you promised: ‘I will do this six times a day, I will do that six times a day’, etc. The great Tibetan masters made it easy and put them all into the short Six session yoga, with which, if you are saying it six times a day, you are fulfilling them. Keeping these commitments and saying sadhanas and mantras brings the individual closer to the yidam, in Tibetan nyenba, which is the word for retreat. Bringing yourself closer to the yidam is what retreat really means. One of the reasons why people in retreat cut contact with others and stay solitary, is because they are trying to focus completely to bring themselves closer to the yidam. In our present circumstances, we can’t do that, so we try to have a normal life and to have some periods in which we try to come close by saying mantras, by meditating, by offering mandalas, prostrations etc. It should not only be done one day and the next day not. No. You do this sort of constantly, in the manner of saving the drops of water in the bucket: ‘Getting a drop every day, the bucket is going to be filled one day’. The idea is to have the perfect accumulation of merit, without which you’d probably become a buddha without body, a formless buddha, which won’t serve much purpose. One of the qualities of vajrayana is, that when you keep the commitments and don’t have downfalls, it somehow is a quick path: within the short period of this life or within three or eight or – in the worst of the worst [tib. yangda] and that is sort of guaranteed – within sixteen lifetimes, you are going to be totally enlightened, even if you do nothing, just fulfill your commitments. Mind you, sixteen lives or three countless eons, what a difference that is! When you hear about three or eight or sixteen life times, you may lose interest. Normally people are very shortsighted – you want it now or never. That is the American attitude, but that does not work. Look at it; in the theravadin orientation buddhahood is never introduced as an object, never. At the most you become an arhat, that’s all. The teachers are happy and the students will only know that much. When Buddha taught the theravadin teachings he put the full stop over there; he did not go beyond that. When he taught mahayana, he removed the full stop at the end of the arhat level and introduced the ten bhumis409 with buddhahood as goal, and so buddhahood became a possibility for the individual: first you generate the bodhimind, then accumulate merit for three countless eons and then at the end you will obtain enlightenment. Compare these three countless eons with sixteen lives! Vajrayana is needed today, for sure. We don’t want to work; we want to be very busy and do a variety of things. We have to pay our bills, which is absolutely necessary, our interests are also very various, so we can’t really do it in the old-fashioned manner. Therefore the vajrayana is really good and very suitable. Audience: When you have been reborn into the next life time and before being reconnected with a vajrayana master, is that counted as breaking the commitment? Rinpoche: I don’t think so, because you are not doing it knowingly.

409

The ten stages that a bothisattva goes through to gain buddhahood.

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The seven purities. You make offerings, do praises and particularly you offer your practice – cho, to, drup. Offerings. That are the outer offerings here. You remember: OM HRIH SHTRIH HA, OM HUM HUM 410 PHAT etc. with the meaning of the words and to whom you offer, what you offer, what the nature of the offering is etc. These are actually the outer offerings like argham, padyam, ghande etc., water for the mouth, water for the feet, then scented cooling water to be put like a lotion to the chest, flowers, incense, light, food and music. Praises. This is remembering the kindness of the lama through which you are able to obtain the ultimate enlightenment within a short period. Also you praise Yamantaka411: ‘Supreme form, Extremely great fury, Intrepid one, Enjoyer of supreme objects…’. Remember those words. What does ’Enjoyer of supreme objects’ [tib. chog ki cho yul chen] mean to you? Chog is pure, supreme, that which can only be seen by supreme persons. The physical form of Yamantaka – of which we make drawings – is only visible among the enlightened ones; their eyes, ears, nose and bodies can touch, see, feel and contact the supreme form, nobody else can. Then Dorje Jigje; remember Dorje has a meaning, Jigje has a meaning, all of that you remember and praise. Practice. That is reviewing the vows you have taken, either in detail or in the short form. The general vows of the five Dhyani Buddhas and their separate vows you review and then promise: ‘I will hold those vows….’ etc. In addition to that you have the offering of yourself. Practice is also of two kinds: the wisdom- and the relative practice. Both are accumulated, as Nagarjuna says: It is absolutely necessary to have two merits, the relative and the absolute. By obtaining these, one will obtain the two kayas, the mental and physical form.

If you don’t have the wisdom part, particularly shunyata, it would be an enlightened being without a mind and that would be like a statue, a perfect statue. Talking about that, a funny idea just came up in my head. We have a family protector in Tibet called Tsimulra, who is also part of the Tibetan government protectors. It is a big, very wrathful and interesting protector. We had a statue of it, an about five feet tall person sitting on a chair, just in front of my family’s house in Lhasa, the old monastery of Teng gyie ling. We had to go there often and I used to be very scared. It was actually a human being who used to go into trance, a medium. In the time of one of my father’s previous incarnations something happened. That medium died during the trance. When he died, my father’s previous incarnation consecrated the wisdom being in there, so ever since it is an actual human body sitting there. That’s why I thought: a buddha without mind would be a good statue. My father’s previous incarnation painted the whole face with blood and so it is completely red – very wrathful and very effective. We had a war with the Tibetan government for twelve years; the protector started to turn against the Tibetan government and things started cracking – the Potala cracked and so did the government offices. After we had lost the war, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama issued an order to paint gold on it, on top of the blood. It was painted gold three times and the upper part of the gold came off, but the lower part remained. So he looked very fearful. I always had to go there. There are certain practices that lamas do, particularly if somebody is doing bad charms to somebody. In order to destroy the charms, the lama had to do something. Everybody used to come and request to my father to put things near the Tsimulra. He himself would not go, but he sent me to bury things under Tsimulra’s feet. So I had to go there in the darkness and reach under his feet. And sometimes some mice would run in there and I got so scared…. There was a big cup, in which the best available alcohol was offered, and that cup had to be filled very often, sometimes even two or three times a day, because it completely dried up. The Tibetans said that the protector drank it. I don’t know what happened but it did dry out. It was a big cup; a whole bottle would go straight in it. Sometimes it would dry out two or three times a day and sometimes for weeks nothing happened. And when there was some trouble in Lhasa, it turned out that instead of hold410 411

See page 155. See page 151.

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ing the cup straight the statue had started to hold it the way that you could not put anything in it. So a lot of people in Lhasa and the Tibetan government issued orders to my father, saying that he had to make that cup straight, otherwise he would be punished. That is true; they did that in old Tibet, ‘If you do not do this and that, you will be punished’. I was there when he walked by and said to the statue: ’Oh, the protector cannot hold his cup straight, what a weak person, cannot even hold your cup straight’ and at that moment the cup shifted up. That’s true! When Kyabje Pabongka Rinpoche was giving teachings in Chutsang, the Lam Rim teaching you have in the Liberation in the palm…, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama issued an order that, as there was a drought in Lhasa and his flowers in the Norbu Lingka palace could die, Pabongka would be punished if he failed to make rain on that very day. He would be prosecuted. The messenger came and when that happens you are supposed to get up. So Pabongka got up from his teaching and made three prostrations to the messenger, who delivered the message. Pabongka took it and read it out and replied to the messenger that he would try his best in the service of His Holiness. Then he said to us: ’Well, we got orders from above – that were his exact words – and if we don’t have rain fall in the Norbu Lingka today and if His Holiness’ flowers die, I will be prosecuted’. Then Pabongka said: ’Before the lunch break we’ll generate a cloud from the heart of the supreme Field of Merit and rain may fall all over the place and particularly in the Norbu Lingka in the Lhasa area’. Then he said Migtsemas and his guru mantra for a little while and there actually was rain and no prosecution. I am not sure if it is written down somewhere, but that’s what happened. Anyway, these sort of things used to happen in good old Tibet. Now, this is a similar sort of method, the light going out and then follows making offerings, praises and practice. In order to accumulate absolute merit, you are dealing with emptiness and dharmakaya together. That comes in the next verse: Having, with stainless reason Examined the meaning of the mantra And having with awareness, which is sure of the profound emptiness, Strongly established the Pride of Dharmakaya, May I become habituated with the Peerless Wisdom. [This corresponds to the outline The method of meditation of wisdom of the basis of death as shunyata as dharmakaya, corresponding to realization of clear light of death] ‘By stainless thoughts’ means analytical meditation on the meaning of the mantra OM SVABHAVA SHUDDHA SARVA DHARMA SVABHAVA SHUDDO HAM, which means: all phenomena are empty. Try to understand, to penetrate the meaning of this particular mantra: all phenomena are empty – thinking, understanding and meditating. Here meditation has to be analytical meditation. Try to get the essence of: what does ‘all phenomena are empty’ mean? This means meditating on emptiness, trying to find out what emptiness is all about. If you look back at the teachings, we have given you that at the death stage. Though the death is not emptiness, it is however impermanence. Subtle impermanence is not emptiness, however it is closer to emptiness; through that we can understand emptiness better. That is one. Secondly we had the three-kaya practice, out of which the dharmakaya will use the ordinary death as base, it will use the clear light as path and it will use the result dharmakaya, which is the first mind of enlightenment within you . You combine them together and acknowledge that open state as ‘my dharmakaya’. Not only you perceive and acknowledge it, but you label it and put pride on it saying: ‘This is my dharmakaya’. Then sit on it. That is the accumulation of absolute merit. This very part of the practice produces the mind of the buddha and the earlier part, the offerings and prostrations, meditating love and compassion, etc., produces the body, so that the two kayas, the future body and the future mind of the buddha have been provided. Their causes are accumulated. You are

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adding up on your savings account, you are putting more funds in it, the relative fund and the absolute fund. Doing the sadhana you are adding up every day. So, observing the meaning of the two mantras – OM SVABHAVA… and OM SHUNYATA… conveys that every existence – what you perceive, the perceiver and the perception – is in the nature of reality empty. When I say ‘in the nature of reality it is empty’, some people get the idea that when it has gone into some kind of doorway called ‘absolute’, then it is empty, and when it comes out of some doorway called ‘relative’, then it exists. It is not that way. It is empty by nature, so in nature it does not exist. Yet, by not existing in true nature, it does not lose the relative existence. I used to say very often: If you exist relatively it is good enough to be existing – and vice versa – if you do not exist in absolute it is not good enough not to be existing.

It sounds funny in English, makes you confused a little more. What it means is that in absolute sense you do not exist. That is reality. You have to divide truth into two parts. Lots of people say that truth is only one, but that is not true. Truth is two, relative and absolute truth. The trick is that you have to handle them without losing either. Again, people may get the idea that they have to balance them, no. There is nothing to be balanced, just do not lose both truths. Hold both truths simultaneously. When you are in the absolute truth, particularly when you are perceiving that particular point, you cannot hold the relative truth at all, you cannot have the two truths together. That does not matter; it does not mean you are losing the relative existence. A number of people expressed that fear. That is very genuine and it is part of the process, it is natural. And when you are afraid, don’t run away, cut through! Don’t turn back, please, don’t get afraid, go through and you will make it. I guarantee you, you will make it. But don’t go cuckoo, either. Also don’t overstay. As I told you, when you really start observing that your existence is floor-less, it is like sitting on a cloud or a fish swimming in the water. If you let it go without interfering, you really go well on it. You will enjoy it. But put an alarm clock on and let it make the loudest noise, because sometimes you may not even hear it. It will be like space, and in that you will feel nothing, hear nothing and touch nothing. That’s why it says in the Heart sutra: ‘no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no smell…’. That is called space-like meditation, [experiencing] emptiness like space. And when you get up from that, everything that’s going on will be like a magician’s play. You may have a lot of problems to get it straight, you get disoriented a little bit; that does not matter. A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to go up to the Lake St. Claire, to do a little Yamantaka retreat, just two, three days. I was alone, it was cold, but I was enjoying it and then I had to get out quick, because the lake was about to freeze over. Matthew came and picked me up from the other side of the lake and we went out to the restaurant to eat. I was totally disoriented and Matthew said: ’That is normal when you stay over there for a while’. I was totally disoriented. That happens sometimes, but that does not matter, you don’t lose it. You may have a problem of putting both [existences] together, but that’s okay. So at the time when you rise you put them together, they are not contradicting each other. I recommend to read Thurman’s Central Philosophy of Tibet, the later chapters, the ones dealing with the Uma412. If you don’t understand, it is also all right, but you may get some idea what they are talking about and that will help. But whatever you read, don’t hold it as hundred per cent correct. If the book says so, it does not mean it is correct. Take the information for your consideration. I am afraid you will have to do that in English all the time. Even if it is a genuine authority book in Tibetan, the translators, though they are great, put a lot of their own ideas in it, so what you get also depends on whatever they understand. The American mentality is that if you see something in printed, published form, you take it as solid evidence. Don’t do that; take it as information and the final decision you have to make. By consulting with others and reading other information and talking to your teachers – like Buddha said: cut412

Madhyamika or Middle Way philosophy.

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ting and rubbing – you rub this information against your own experience, and when you really find: ’that’s what it is’, then it becomes authentic. And then it is unshakable. No matter who else will tell you that it is wrong, you can – not by stupid stubbornness, but truly – say it is right and you can give a hundred reasons, one after another. Audience: What is shunyata? Rinpoche: Normally they say: lack of inherent existence. What does that mean? It really means that our whole existence is collectively dependent. Take ‘me, Kimba’. For Kimba to exist, you need the body on which you point the finger and say: ‘This is Kimba’. That body also needs consciousness inside, the one who acknowledges: ‘Yes, I am Kimba’. If the acknowledger, the person inside, is not there, it will not be Kimba, but Kimba’s corpse. So you depend on two, right? Consciousness and body. Even if you have those, it is still not Kimba, somebody has to call you Kimba. When all of them are together, Kimba exists. If one of them is missing, Kimba will not exist. If you keep on saying: ‘I am not Kimba, I am Jody’ for a little while, people will say that you have gone crazy. But if you say: ‘Look, I changed my name and now I call myself Jody rather than Kimba’, then your friends will acknowledge that and then Kimba will change into Jody. This means that it is changeable. If there were an inherently existing Kimba, you could not change it. It would have to be Kimba, because it would have to be inherently there. Emptiness is not nothingness. Empti-ness, the ness in there is saying that there is something there, it is not nothing. The way and how you exist, is totally dependently originated or dependently existent. The word depend means ‘I cannot stand by myself, I depend on you’, right? People who walk using a walking stick or walker, cannot walk independently, depend on the walker. So the independence of walking is no longer there, you are dependent. Likewise, your existence is dependent, so there is no independent existence. Basically, very roughly, that is emptiness. Shunyata is Sanskrit terminology for emptiness. Who calls these glasses glasses? People label them as glasses, they introduce them to people and say: ‘This is a glass’. Nowadays, when new products come out, computers and so forth, they always have the orientation or presentation. They label them and people accept that, and thereafter these products go under that name. So I can come up here and say: ‘This is not glass, this is a jar’. What are you going to say? You will say: ‘No, this is not a jar, you are crazy; we call this glass’, right? Because it is normally accepted. You cannot go against that. If you go against that, you are losing the relative truth, so you are called crazy or mad. That is how we exist in our life. You have to flow with the society. If you go against it, you lose the relative truth. Chandrakirti said that in his Madhyamikavatara, a Madhyamika or Middle-Path text. In the movie Little Buddha, I liked when they talked about the Middle Path. They said: ‘Meditation for six years without eating, that is too extreme, therefore you need to relax and eat food and build strength and leave [this one-sided practice of asceticism]’. Though it might not be the technically correct way of presenting it, it gives you a good idea about it. Anyway, by practicing the meaning of the two mantras one will gain realization of emptiness, recognize that as result dharmakaya and practice that. Tsongkhapa’s praise to Buddha for his teaching of relativity413 I bow down to him whose insight and speech Make him unexcelled as Sage and Teacher; The Victor, who realized (ultimate truth), Then taught us it as relativity!

It says about Buddha: ‘You are an unequivalent teacher. Why? Because what you have felt and experienced, you share. You are the one who has seen the interdependent relationship with everything, and you have shared what you have seen. That’s why I call you a teacher without equivalent’. 413

To be found in: R. Thurman, The Central Philosophy of Tibet, pg. 177-184 and in: R. Thurman, Life and Teachings of Tsongkhapa, pg. 99-107.

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What we normally do is: we categorize our problems, and corner certain individual problems. Whatever it is, don’t corner them, look at them all, the physical, mental, emotional and monetary problems; put them together. The verse goes: Misknowledge itself is the very root Of all the troubles in this fleeting world; Who understood that and then reversed it, Taught universal relativity.

It says: ‘All our problems, when you trace them down, are rooted in ignorance. One who sees that and is able to reverse that, taught the meaning of dependent origination’. Dependent origination. All our problems come from the ignorance, which means that they all depend on the ignorance. They materialize and become huge problems, however, if you trace them down, you see that every surface problem is based on something, and that is based on something, and that on something else. So, if you keep on tracing them, you are going to reach to the ignorance and to no other place. Once you have seen that, you can reverse it from there. Again, it is dependent. You can either build your problems up or do the opposite. Anger, attachment. hatred, jealousy, etc. to save one you build another one; you build up. For example, in order to cover one lie, you put another lie and another one, and that is how it builds up. That’s absolutely true. I don’t know whether you do it or not, but that’s the way I do when I lie. To cover up we build them up one on top of another. Now, when you do the development stage, you shift the base from the ignorance to the emptiness. On emptiness you build up the other way. So it reverses. You tear your problems down to the foundation base, which is the ignorance. When everybody knows you are lying, you still can hold it for a little while with some sort of schemes, but if you tear the scheme up, then that’s it, the whole thing is gone. You could do exactly the same for the normal problems we have built up. One who really tears apart that scheme, and can no longer lie, reaches the zero level. From there you can build up again, make a new start. That is exactly how the spiritual practice works. And that’s what Buddha called dependent relationship or dependent rise. Thereupon, how could it be possible That the geniuses would not understand This very path of relativity As the vital essence of your teaching?

Therefore, Tsongkhapa says, intelligent people will see that the essence of Buddha’s teaching is dependent origination. The important tool, the point, is dependent relationship. Dependent relationship will tell you that nothing can stay by itself. You depend on. That means there is nothing inherently existent – I am sorry, I am borrowing that language again – there is no big thing by itself, something solid that you cannot alter or do anything about. Audience: The tension that I feel is between the energy we put into trying to solve the problems here and at work, have a life that works and all of these things that are relative, and whatever model we might choose, whatever positive thinking we might want to get into, just saying that ultimately, absolutely, it does not make any difference, because the source of all the problems is the ignorance, but we are still having to live here and cultivate lives..... Rinpoche: You have heard me wrong. I am not saying that it doesn’t make any difference. I am saying that it makes a total difference, I am exactly saying the opposite. The things you do relatively make a total difference and what you do absolutely will make a total difference, because it is all interconnected, interrelated. I am saying that the practice you do and the life you have outside, are very much connected. You cannot separate them. That’s what I am saying. That’s why I say, we cannot take it overserious, but we also cannot totally relax and compartmentalize and box everything and put it in the basement. By the absorption of the Ten Wrathful Ones,

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This verse corresponds to the outline Meditation on protection wheel to block obstacles. In Tibetan it says: rab bar trak pai korlo – ‘a burning wrathful wheel, fiercely blazing’. It sounds like the translation has lost a little bit of strength. In your visualization, you have the uncommon protection wheel, which we talked about as the command center. The uncommon protection wheel is born out of oneself as Sumbharaja and then you have those ten wrathful deities. And there are the important points: turning the wheel, changing the face, carrying out the activities and hiding those who need to be protected by yourself414. See how important this practice is and think how much we go to some psychics round here to get help; we are paying forty dollars an hour and we don’t hesitate. Now see how much we have here within ourselves. Just look at this. You see, even in the extended prayer you have the whole sadhana reviewed. That is the beauty of this prayer. In the center of this mighty wrathful wheel Is the Inconceivable mansion, having the nature of wisdom, Radiant with the light of jewels, All beauty condensed into one object; By meditating upon it, May the Supreme Buddhafield be produced. This verse is about generating the mandala.415 It corresponds to the outline Generation of environment of the mansion, wherein enlightenment takes place. The whole mandala meditation comes in here. At the center of the protection wheel, you have the inconceivable mandala. You may not be able to visualize the whole mandala in detail, however basically you acknowledge the structure of the building, the four doors and the walls and the steps and the courtyards, then the uncommon protection wheel, then the common protection wheel and outside of that the environment [the cemeteries], very conducive, nice and peaceful, yet wrathful and all these jackals making noise. There is both peaceful and wrathful; in our lives we deal with both of them. Why do we have to meditate on this? Is it necessary? Yes, because ‘may the supreme Buddha field be produced’. By meditating on it you are providing your environment as a supreme buddha later, otherwise you will be a buddha without a field. That’s why it is really important and really needed. You can see it. Audience: In the visualization here there is the uncommon protection wheel as the two ice-cream cones with the swords coming out and Sumbharaja and all that. At the center of that is the inconceivable mansion; the mandala is created inside? Rinpoche: The mandala is created where Sumbharaja is sitting, in the middle of the command center. Sumbharaja becomes Vajrasattva and he becomes the triangular with the lotus coming from the lower corner and at the center of the lotus there is the letter HUM which becomes the crossed vajra and at the hub of the crossed vajra Vairochana comes, who then becomes the mandala. So you are really at the center, very well protected. It goes inside, inside, inside. And there is a lot of other techniques. Yamantaka’s triangular cannot open, but Vajrayogini’s triangular, if necessary, sometimes can open. Mike: There is an awful lot of open space in there. 414 415

See page 202. The last two verses here are taught in detail in chapter VI

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Rinpoche: Of course, you don’t want a four by four bed room, do you? Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche’s biography tells that somebody wrote a letter to Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, saying that the supreme field of the Lama Chopa or Lam Rim was too big, it could not fit into his room, so what to do? Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche wrote back: ‘It is a little bit stupid you made your room so small’. Proportionally you have to go big. The center of the mandala you could have hundreds and hundreds of miles. You could make it smaller, but whatever you do, you have to go proportionately. You cannot have the room very big and outside that all squeezed. That won’t do. The beauty of the wisdom-created mansion is that as you visualize it, it will materialize. That is the vajrayana system. So if you want a crowded, little, shabby house in the middle of Detroit you can reduce your visualization in that way. If you want an open, extended big house up in the Colorado mountains, you can do it that way. You can also include all the Colorado mountains inside. Like Trungpa Rinpoche kept on insisting that big rocks should be put in the middle of the living room, somehow insisting that the universe is included in the living room. That also can be done. In the center of the palace is a mandala of air, On which firmly rests a moon; Seated there is Manjushri, having a luminous body; By constantly meditating upon him, may I become free from the impure Intermediate State And attain the Sambogakaya. This verse is about the actual generation of the sambogakaya. It corresponds to the outline Generation of occupant, the Causal Vajra Holder. At the center of the palace is the moving mandala. In Tibetan we say ‘movement’ here, which is the name for air, so it is the air mandala. How do you generate the air mandala? Anything you generate, you either generate out of the five wisdoms or out of a letter or something. It does not just pop up. Even toast out of a toaster pops up because there is bread and electricity. It is like that. What are you really doing? You are purifying the future death that will come to you, so that you will be able to escape the ordinary death and make it into the extraordinary dharmakaya. Likewise the sambogakaya – in the middle of the mandala house is a letter YAM. The YAM becomes Manjushri and he represents your bardo. Instead of the fearful, frightening bardo that is being talked about, there will be a nice, peaceful, youthful Manjushri at the center of the mandala. By meditating on Manjushri and acknowledging that as your sambogakaya, you are training to purify the ordinary bardo and change it into the pure Manjushri. If you get that, what else do you want? It is worth more than a multi-million dollars, I can guarantee you that. With that I would like to conclude here.

Discussion on the daily practice and its difficulties Audience: At some point in Tibetan Buddhism there are so many different practices you could focus on, how do you decide what is at any time the most effective to concentrate on? Rinpoche: That’s a very good question and brings together another question which people ask from time to time: what should be the priority in one’s practice? There is a million different initiations, billions of different deities and zillions of traditions and what comes as a priority for the individual is a very important question. What you need is a perfect path leading from the ordinary level to the state of a buddha. How do you take that? The answer is given by Gedun Tendzin Puntsok: This is not false invented dharma, because it is the pith of authentic oral teaching. This is not foolish talk, because it comes from classical texts by great forerunners. This is not a shimmering mirage, because saintly scholars and adepts have tested it. This is not a perilous cliff, because it is the highway to highest enlightenment416

416

Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in the palm of your hand, pg. 329.

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This is not false invented dharma. It is the essence of the pure, reliable teachings of the Buddha and his disciples, and therefore not just somebody’s great idea. ‘False invented dharma’ means: somebody has some good idea and starts making up stories with different labels, such as ‘great experience shared’ or ‘good ideas combined together’ or ‘newly composed rituals’, picked up from various sources, combined together and made into one nice run – that is not to be accepted. This is not foolish talk. It is not some people getting together and whispering a little here and there very secretively, telling you that if you meditate in the morning you will be delivered in the evening and no efforts have to be put in, it is automatic, bla bla bla. Only fools will be happy with that. Dharma is not like that, because it is based on the classical texts and the great forerunners, which is referring to Nagarjuna and Asanga. Buddha’s ideas are coming to us through them and they are outstanding and commonly accepted. So it is not a few things built up here and there. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche is a little soft, but when Kyabje Ling Rinpoche talked about this; he used to spend two days on it. This is not a shimmering mirage. That refers to when you don’t know what it is, like early in the morning, half asleep and half awake I saw this and I felt that, so and so said this – that type of thing. Some are great persons, you can’t say with hundred per cent these things are wrong, but most of them are the type of: ‘while I was sitting there, suddenly so and so came and said this and that’. I am sure there are a great number of teachers who had experiences like that, but basically the Kadam tradition, and in particular Tsongkhapa, very strongly objects to that, because it gives a lot of opportunities to the hooks and crooks like me to make jokes on that. It is not a shimmering mirage, because: ‘saintly scholars and adepts have tested it’; that is the real answer. All this does not answer your question directly, but it is the focal point for us to look at. It is the same thing I have been saying earlier: don’t buy information because it is in printed book form. Now the question comes: what is all that? It is the essence of the thought of Buddha, accepted by the forerunners, experienced by the adepts, the scholars, saints and siddhas, and it is the highway leading to the buddha stage. What else can you find besides the Lam Rim to achieve that? Both sutra and tantra lamrim are the essence of the practice you have to do. Now the answer to your question comes: it does not have to be in detail, you can rely on one short Lam Rim with simple outlines. You can base on either Tsongkhapa’s shortest lamrim, the Lines of Experience417, or even shorter than that, the Foundation of Perfection, or even shorter than that, the Three Principles of the Path. The last one might not be right [to be called a complete lamrim], maybe I am going a little bit too extreme on that, but that one is the shortest ever possible. You need a solid information on that, either from teachings or from reading. Then you build in yourself a little bit of essence points, so that for every word you say there is a strong back-up from behind. If you want to elaborate, you can go into each subject for a long time, but you don’t need to. If you have that short practice, even if you don’t focus on certain points – you may not gain the experience – you still have the complete sutra part of the Lam Rim. In addition, from the tantra part you need one mother-tantra practice and one father-tantra practice, because mother tantra and father tantra are specialized in two different things. The mother tantras specialize on the clear light and related developments and the father tantras are geared towards developing the illusion body and its related activities. Both you need. Say, you have Yamantaka and Vajrayogini, or Yamantaka and Heruka, or Guhyasamaja and Hevajra418, you need one from each and combine them together. That’s all you need. In addition to that, in order to clear obstacles, you need a protector practice and in order to have longevity and all this, you need one long life deity, like White Tara or Green Tara. And you need the guru yoga foundation. The sutra lamrim and the tantra lamrim, which the sadhanas will carry; make together a perfect Lam Rim: so from sutra you go to tantra and the tantra Lam Rim will make you reach to the enlightenment, and that’s what you need. 417 418

In Glen Mullin’s translation called Song of the stages. Vajrayogini and Heruka and Hevajra are mother tantras. Guhyasamaja and Yamantaka father tantras.

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In the Tibetan tradition you can take so many initiations; they are there but it is not going to do that much good to you, people. When we were young, we had to take many of them, because we had to continue the lineage. Somewhere sometime somebody may need to be connected with a certain yidam, so in order not to deprive that person of the opportunity, we try to carry the living tradition and continue it. That’s the job of incarnate lamas. We still have a number of young incarnate lamas, so that is what they will do. And that is also a very good reason to support young incarnate lamas through their study and difficult periods. That’s what you need. On top of that, you can take whatever you want to; fine, go ahead and take as much as you like, if you can practice it. As to what you have to study: first you have to have a brief, rough idea from the guru-devotional practice up to the practice of the development stage. Leave out the completion stage a little bit, particularly from the father tantra point; the mother tantra [completion stage] you may be able to do. The first priority will be to recognize all the paths, in brief their meaning and which follows which. Alfred and Hartmut did that. When they followed me in Malaysia and I went away for a couple of years, they sat in a cave in Malaysia, followed the steps, meditated and concentrated and went through the whole path to be able to see how the steps push each other and how all subjects are totally interlinked. And when I saw them the second time they told me: ’We meditated up to this level and I saw this, I saw that’. Both had different experiences, but they came up to the level of how it happens. That’s what you need to do. You need to spend time. But before you do that, you have to recognize all the steps, from the beginning to the end, from A to Z. Even if it is only by name, that’s okay. Thereafter you think about what the subject means, you get a little bit of the meaning behind, and whatever you need for that, you have to read. That’s why I say: different people have different needs. So the first priority will be guru devotional practice, then embracing the human life, the difficulty to find it, impermanence…. In the beginning you don’t go in detail, you go from beginning to end, straightway up, straightway down, up and down, backwards and forwards. Aura did that and Sandy did it too. When you have the path completely worked out, you know what follows what, you recognize the steps. Then get more familiarized with one step and finally you have to pinpoint it, get the essence, and convince yourself and then you move on to the next step. The steps will automatically push you. You will say: ’All right, I understand that very clearly, absolutely, I can see it, what is next?’ and you move on automatically. That way you can delimit it, pull the information and on the way your findings need to be checked with experience, not your own, but other, reliable people’s experience. Check with these. When it is tallying with that, the information you are picking up is helping you. When it is not tallying, but contradicting, it is not helping you. You know, to check you have to have wisdom, but on the other hand – I told you – some kind of intelligent faith is necessary. If you keep questioning every damn thing that exists, it is not wisdom, it is sherab cha – the opposite of wisdom. The direct opposite of wisdom is ignorance, but there is another one, ‘wisdom gone wild’; that means the way the wisdom is functioning has gone out of control. It’s more than skepticism; it is wisdom gone haywire. You have to question but after some time you have to stop questioning, otherwise the rest of your life you will be questioning and you get nothing done. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche used to call me ‘chap chop chap gyie – you know a little bit of eighteen different things and nothing perfect’. Later I noticed Kyabje Ling Rinpoche calling everybody chap chop chap gyie. Audience: There is a lot of frustration when one wants to do all that and read up on emptiness and do one’s commitments and yet one is limited by one’s daily activities. Maybe one should stop all other activities and just try to concentrate on that. Rinpoche: Perhaps not. The question is how to organize one’s life. The first thing is, you don’t have to read every day and you don’t have to read all. Look, you do have perfect information on the steps; you may not have them in vajrayana, but you do have them in sutrayana, so you don’t have to put efforts in

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that, you have that already. You not only have the steps, but also quite a good understanding of what each of them means, so you don’t have to read on those points. When you say your Foundation of perfection, the understanding of each point should come up in your mind. The details you may lose, but the essence you keep when you say it. Say it slowly, don’t break in between. When you say it slowly, you have time to think, e.g. on the guru devotional practice: it is the foundation of all, its root is looking at the spiritual master as inseparable from the lama yidam bodhisattva and the way I treat him is through action and through the stages, and may I be able to do that perfectly. That way you don’t lose anything. The words are there and the meaning you put behind. Then: you see you have found the perfect life and you think about its importance and its value, and the essence comes up like a fingersnap, really! And that’s all you need. You don’t have to remember that this fellow said this and that fellow said that; you don’t have to remember all these quotations all the time. This way you have a small practice. And wherever you want to put a focus on, you read more about, but don’t read the whole book, not unless you are editing, read on the particular focal point. Even the Liberation in the palm of your hand is not necessary for you people to read from the first to the last page. Read it on the focal points. Also the Joyful path of good fortune; if you want to read it, read it on that particular part you’re focusing on. And if you want to read the Bodhisattvacaryavatara, read it on the particular parts. Don’t try to read all things together, that is going to take time. If you read the works of the great teachers of the Kagyu tradition, like Gampopa’s Jewel ornament of liberation, read them on the focal points; don’t try to scatter your attention all over, then you will have a problem. The second thing is: if you are organized and if you don’t take any more commitments, your total practice will not take more than forty-five minutes to an hour. That much devotion, that much time you have to put in for practice, not for reading. Reading will be whatever you do here and there and even if you can’t read any more information, if you have these lines worked out perfectly and you just do that, that’s good enough. If you even cannot do that, just do the Three principles overview very nicely and do your sadhana; even that is good enough. Audience: But I feel the frustration and being pulled, there is the psychological aspect of it. Rinpoche: You can take care of that, I don’t have to address that. True, I am telling you straight forward, you can talk to the other people and you can definitely take care of that. I am glad we could talk this, the priorities and the needs and all this. I know, everybody has responsibilities and difficulties and all this, but still, I think you can do it. Audience: I think, if you want to do a solid practice of Lam Rim and do your sadhanas properly and the Ganden Lha Gyema, then one hour is not really realistic. It just takes about an hour only to read through them. Rinpoche: If one hour is not enough, get two hours. Audience: I am finding it already impossible to get any benefit out of my practice, because there are too many different ones and I don’t even know what I need them for. We have the Yamantaka practice, and that is the most wrathful of deities making all the other deities drop their implements and run, so what is the need for a protector practice? When I am short of time I cannot do any practice properly and that is dissatisfying and even when I used to have lots of time, then in retreat, having to keep other commitments besides the retreat practice was very distracting. Audience: I think you are demanding too much if you try to focus on each one in the same way. Rinpoche: It is true, you have a number of commitments, and I think if I may say so, Steve’s question is a little exaggerated. What he is saying is: when I had time I could not concentrate, and when I did not have time, I could not concentrate, which means you just can’t do it. Audience: My concentration in the retreat was just fine, I had no complaints but the more you get focused on one subject the more any other subject, that is not directly linked with it, becomes a distraction.

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Rinpoche: A lot of people have that problem. It is very easy to focus on a single little thing, much easier than having so many different things to do. That is absolutely true. But that does not mean that it is not right to do that number of different things. That is almost like saying: the concentrated meditation is great, but the analytical meditation is not right because it is distracting. Enlightenment is very complicated and perhaps these different things are necessary. The importance lies on the bottom line: what does this practice lead to. It is true, you may feel I am not being fair, but the point really is, that whatever we could leave out, we left out. Lam Rim you cannot skip, no way – as far as I know. Father tantra and mother tantra you may not need completely together just now, but you will definitely need it in future. These three are absolutely necessary and the Six-session guru-yoga comes as a general commitment. This problem is not only faced by you people alone, but also by a number of Tibetans and Chinese and lots of people earlier, I am not talking about today. It really boils down to: don’t try to take every single damn thing that comes up. Wherever the whistle blows, people go and get that and that adds to the commitments. What is absolutely necessary is Lam Rim and one father- and one mother tantra. Even if it is distracting now, it will become non-distracting and it will become part of you and if you don’t do it, you will miss it. It will come. Maybe not immediately, but allow it a little time and it will be there. Audience: When I used to do just the Lam Rim meditation, I could see the benefit and the connection to my daily life. It is far more difficult to integrate the vajrayana practices in that way, because they are focused so far into the future, either on death or our future lives, hopefully not in samsara. That is one level of frustration, that the vajrayana level doesn’t seem to inform my way of living my life and provide guidance for me in the same way that the sutra practice did. Now there is another level of frustration. When we learn all these vajrayana things, we cannot really practice them. They don’t appear as part of the short sadhana and I have no time to practice the long sadhana, unless perhaps in retreat some time later. So I have difficulty to relate this detailed vajrayana practice not only to my daily life, but even to my daily meditation practice. Is there any guidance you can give us here? We don’t have the time to do all this. I don’t go to a cave, I go to an office... Rinpoche: Very well spoken, very eloquently put. I don’t have the authority of breaking sadhana commitments or altering them. Some others do, for example Lati Rinpoche gave Yamantaka initiation and did not give the commitment for the sadhana and when I asked him he said: ’Isn’t there some practice that way...?’ and then he went from here to Wisconsin to give the Yamantaka initiation and told everybody: ’You have to have the sadhana, you cannot go without it’. Now Brenda is saying: ‘Even the teachings which I am getting I cannot practice’ – that is another question. The first point is that Lam Rim does relate to the everyday life and vajrayana does not, is wrong. You did not have enough time to go into the vajrayana just now. We have not done any serious vajrayana studies at all, except this Yamantaka, and that has just been a couple of week-ends, and we did not even get through a quarter of the sadhana. Out of that quarter the accumulation of merits, the purification and the immeasurables are definitely dealing with life, even with our ordinary mundane daily life. You cannot separate it from that. That’s one. Secondly, the vajrayana will be connecting much more with every day life, even more than Lam Rim, if you give it time and opportunity. You feel uncomfortable, because this is a higher path; that is normal. It can go two ways: either you feel proud and very excited and somehow link it up to or you feel disconnected. That is absolutely normal. Give it time and you will definitely get connected much more than during the Lam Rim level. An important point in American life is that taking fewer commitments is definitely much better, particularly mantra commitments. If you have a lot of those, there will be big, big difficulties. And it is very true: ‘no time’ is the biggest American excuse or reality. It is both, but at the same time we will find time to do everything but this, so I think it is not that bad. And it is very true, you have other important commitments in life, I am not denying that, but seeking enlightenment depends on how much impor-

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tance you put on that, and then you can allot your time accordingly. If you think it is not that important, but only medium, give it medium priority and if you think it is lesser important, give it lesser priority. I don’t think you have to make the choice right this moment, but if you do, that’s how it works. Pabongka wrote this shortest ever possible version of the Yamantaka sadhana for the purpose of substituting the real practice, i.e. for when you absolutely have no time to do it. Today we take that as the daily practice and almost leave the long sadhana out. I am not just talking about Yamantaka, but about any practice. And to leave everything on the shortest ever possible might not be that very good. I don’t mean that you have to do it, but if you have the time and opportunity, you might as well do the long sadhana at least once a month or, if possible, once a week. If you can’t do it, you can’t. But if you can then probably your feelings and connections will become much better and it will make much more sense. As far as I know Matthew is feeling difficulties when he has to do the short sadhana. I don’t know whether he will continue to do that, but he is feeling dissatisfied when he is doing the short sadhana. Things like that are there and should not be ignored. If you can’t do the long sadhana just do the extended version of the prayer. That’s why I try to focus more on that. It will give you the essence of the long sadhana and the information you have to store and there will be a time where you really need it. Audience: For monks it’s their full time job to do the practice, no problem to spend six hours a day on that, but in our society it is much more difficult and these practices are really designed for time investment. For most people who spend an hour or an hour and a half on their daily practice it still feels that they just read through things, whereas before they may have been only doing a simple practice, but properly and gained the benefit out of it and related it to their daily experiences... Rinpoche: If I was in that position and I had the choice I would do the variety of practices, a maximum of practices rather than putting the focus on one single thing, because one single thing will not give you enlightenment, nor is it going to liberate you from the samsara, nothing. If I had the choice, that is absolutely clear for me, I would not do that. And also it might not be out of place to mention today: we can meet and talk and do all this – but for example take Peng Kong and Francisca here. Peng Kong does practices similar to what everybody is doing with the exception of Heruka and he is a very busy executive guy plus a kung fu master and he has an equal number of questions. He calls me on the telephone sometimes at 4.30 in the morning for him or sometimes at night. He calls me and asks questions. He called me persistently with different questions about the Ganden Lha Gyema points of practice, all the way from Malaysia. He puts that sort of efforts in. Even today he is here. You may think he has come with some kind of business pleasure trip, no, he came flying 36 hours straight to Detroit and tomorrow he flies back 36 hours straight to his office. So that should give you a little idea how easy it is – I am sorry to say that, but that’s what it is. Audience: We should think about our motivation to do these practices. It is not just for us, but for all sentient beings across all realms. The man from Malaysia must have a good motivation which allows him to overcome all the difficulties and get the energy to do all this. When we check our motivation we will see how distractions just fall away. Audience: I cannot see how anybody can view some of the practices as a distraction and almost as superfluous. It is clear that if we cannot do our practices on the run, we cannot do them at all; that is the way our lives are structured here. I also work in an office... Audience: But these practices are not designed for a life on the run. Audience: I see them as different aspects of the same thing. Audience: I think first it is important to acknowledge that there is a problem, it is difficult, but that is the situation we are in. I experience it every day as a fight to find the time for my practice, but the struggle and fight to get it done every day must have some value, even if you end up saying it quickly, so you have to give some weight to that, push to do it. On the other hand there was a time where I was doing

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too much, I think, I was doing two and a half hours a day and felt satisfied and very engaged in each of the practices, but I think that was not very good for the long term strength. So somewhere in between there is a balance. It is not a straight forward thing; sometimes you have to fight to get that balance between not getting enough and just keeping the connection, and acknowledging the fact that we live in this age of busy life. And it seems to me that maybe there is some latitude in the teaching itself for dealing with changing situations. Audience: I don’t think the problem is with the teachings or with the practice – I think that firstly it is that we are simply living in samsara and then in the United States, not in a Dharma society, it is difficult. I don’t think the teachings should be changed because of our circumstances, maybe they do somewhat, but maybe we should investigate ourselves first in our personal situations. Audience: I don’t think that anybody here really wants to live in a cave. There is that assumption that if we could live in a cave everything would just be Jim, Pop and Dandy, I think it would always be really hard, we could blame it on our internal problems or on our external problems, but it just comes down to the fact that it is just hard. Audience: I want to tell people not to run off and get all these empowerments. If I wanted to do the practices that are in these two books here, it would take at least five hours a day. When I realized what I had committed myself to and what all this meant, I really wanted to die, I could see no way out. I was a crazy kundalini guy six years ago, and my life was full of black magic and weird stuff and I went to all this Nyingma and Kagyu things just to try and stay alive. The stuff that was going on in my life was bizarre, but somehow I pulled through and I found the best lama that I know on the planet and I am going to do whatever I can and every day my practice is insufficient...and I am single and self-employed and I should have the most leisure time of all and it is still hard for me and it has been a big deal for me in the last couple of years to just make myself do this most pitiful commitment I can. Audience: It seems like as if people don’t get paid enough to do this and the only way you get paid better is that you extract wisdom and insight into your life. I would not be here if I was not having fun, I think people who are here without having fun, are really stupid, you would be crazy to come here and do this work and not get paid. Audience: Enthusiasm for the practice is important and is practice in itself. Audience: Without enthusiasm it is really going to be very hard, because we have to face our delusions which keep us in problems whatever we are doing. It does not matter if you are in a cave or in a marriage or as a single mum or as a prostitute or whatever the situation is, it is going to be full of the challenges that we individually have within our minds. Very often we dream ourselves into this: ’If only the situation would be better..’. and I know from my experience that even when I had a lot of time and was doing the practice and I was into it and it went well, I had all kinds of other problems. Audience: It is not that doing retreat in a cave is so easy! Rinpoche: We have expressed our difficulties and we have to do the best whatever we can, the bottom line is benefiting ourselves and all sentient beings and also you cannot forget that this is the first generation in the west who is having the vajrayana practice, so we are bound to face a lot of problems, but it is really worthwhile.

The Causal Vajra-holder Manjushri

VI TAKING BARDO AS SAMBOGAKAYA

(2) TAKING BARDO AS SAMBOGAKAYA AS THE PATH This has two outlines: 1. Generation of the environment of the mansion, wherein enlightenment takes place. 2. Generation of the occupant, the causal Vajra holder.

(i) Generation of environment of the mansion, wherein enlightenment takes place419 In your visualization, you who are in the form of Sumbharaja, melt into light, the light of the desire of the union with the consort; you totally melt. I now transform into white Vajrasattva, with a white, a dark blue and a red face. I have six arms, the first two of which embrace a consort who resembles me. The remaining two right arms hold a vajra and a sword, the remaining two left arms, a jewel and a lotus. This completely transforms into a white reality-source. You become white Vajrasattva. There are a number of reasons why Vajrasattva, but that doesn’t matter now. He again melts and becomes a white triangular reality source. There are a number of ways of doing this and various explanations of what it looks like. Some of them say that it is like a square paper folded so it becomes a triangular shape. Some say it looks like the triangular torma we make, but empty inside, the thin tip pointing downward, the wide part facing upward. A number of others say it looks like the female sex organ; in that case the point should be at the bottom and the bigger opening part at the side. These are the different viewpoints. Just visualize a big white triangular with its sharp point down and the opening up. From within its lower corner appears a letter PAM, which becomes a multi-colored lotus. The main point is that from the lower part, not from the middle of this corner but from one of the sides, a little flower branches out, a multicolored lotus. At the center of this lotus you have the stamen. The lotus has to be huge, because the whole mandala is going to be built on top of it. S<. The origin of the reality source is located in the hollow cone which is the lowest spoke of the command wheel. From the bottom corner of the reality source arises a green PAM. From the PAM comes a multicolored lotus. The root of the stalk is in the lowest corner of the reality source.

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Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 42-58.

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Yamantaka teachings There are different systems for visualizing this. In the first, the complete mandala is built on top of the reality source. The flower can act as its cover. So the center of the lotus is equal in size to the top of the reality source with the petals protruding. In the second system, everything, including the mandala, is created inside the reality source. This method is considered to be better. The reality source represents great wisdom inseparable from bliss. By putting the mandala inside, it shows that the entire mandala itself is in the nature of wisdom and bliss. The center of the lotus is green with a rim of yellow stamens. The four cardinal petals are red, southeast petal is yellow, southwest petal is green, northeast is black and northwest is yellow. The diameter of the green circle is 80 chaten. A chaten is the measure equal to the span from elbow to hand of the deity’s body. A chachen is four times a chaten, or the equivalent of the span from hand to hand when the arms are outstretched. So the circle is 80 chaten in diameter and 3 chaten thick. The middle prong of the vajra is 8 chaten. All are equidistant from the center. The spokes of the vajra themselves are 2 chaten thick when they first emerge at the base. Then they widen to 3 chaten. The curve of the vajra should not extend more than the height of the block. The block itself, from which the double dorje protrudes is 48 chaten across and 48 chaten high. The length of the dorje which protrudes on each side is 16 and the width across from curved spoke to curved spoke is a maximum of 19½. The central spoke of the double dorje in the east is white. The central southern spoke is yellow, the central western spoke is red and the central northern spoke is green. All the upper spokes are blue and all the lower spokes are the color of the central spoke opposite from it. The lateral spokes are the color of the adjacent spoke. The block itself is blue. (there is another block lower only 4 chaten high). >S.

At the center of the lotus is a HUNG, which transforms into a crossed vajra. In the very center of the crossed vajra is a letter BHRUM, and from this a wheel which itself is marked by BHRUM. We are still not building the mandala. In the center of the lotus suddenly appears a letter HUNG. This melts into light and becomes the crossed vajra. It is almost like a square box with the vajra coming out in the different directions. The east is white, the south yellow, the west red, the north green and the hub blue. BHRUM is the seed syllable of Vairochana [tib. Nampar namdze], whose hand implement is the wheel. From this arises white Vairochana, having a white, a dark-blue and a red face. He has six arms, the first two of which embrace a consort who resembles him. The remaining two right arms hold a wheel which supports a vajra and a sword. The remaining two arms on the left hold a jewel and a lotus. The letter BHRUM, having become a wheel marked by BHRUM, now becomes white Vairochana. The sadhana gives you the hand implements. Vairochana represents all material things. When you become a fully enlightened being, all physical things are completely purified and become – out of the five buddhas – Buddha Vairochana. So every physical pure thing, like the mansion etc., will be produced out of Vairochana Buddha. During our working period here we accumulate merit and this merit contributes directly towards building the environment. When it becomes pure, it becomes buddha Vairochana. That’s why you have Vairochana here. He then transforms into the inconceivable Mansion, which has four corners and four doors, S<. Vairochana goes into union with his consort. Meditation melts the fire of desire at the heart. They then transform into the inconceivable mansion. >S.

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Four corners and four doors means it is square. Most of the mandalas you will find are square with four doors. I am not going to give any details420; if I’d try to talk about that we are going to have difficulties to convert the tradition hand- and fingerwidth measurements into millimeters and inches. You visualize and think that you have become Vairochana; then you melt and disappear and that at that place you have that mansion now. It is a huge square house with a door on each of the four sides. I don’t know whether there are any windows or not. When you look from the outside it is a white house. When you look from the inside the four walls are blue; it are not painted walls but huge blocks of jewels put together. If you look at a wall from the side, like in sandwiched cardboard, you see five layers conjoined: white, yellow, red, green and blue jeweled walls. In reality each one of them is a thick, solid jewel slab. Seen from the inside it‘s only blue, from the outside only white, seen from the side five-colored. You are not there, you are in the nature of emptiness, you just create this huge square house with the five walls conjoined. To make it simple the sadhana says: and is complete with the standard characteristics, such as the ornaments, archways and so forth. The blue wall you are looking at, is not an empty wall. It has a lot of different decorations. A lot of jewel ornaments and banners are hanging on the wall, even under the ceiling above the wall. The decoration of the forbidden city inside looks very much like the mandala decoration. Also in Chinese restaurants you have this wood carved drawings against the walls, but here they are actually made of jewels. The Wheel of Protection is encircled on the outside by the eight great cemeteries. This sadhana does not have a detailed mandala description. [The next description is read from Tsongkhapa’s sadhana]. The mansion has walls of five gradations in thickness, which in order from the outside are white, yellow, red, green and blue. On top of the walls is an encircling yellow jeweled molding, beautified with a assortment of gems. Halfway (to the center) of the mansion (on the floor and ceiling of the main story) are a circular ledge and beam marked with a garland of vajras, between which rest the eight pillars that support the four vajra cross-beams. It is very difficult to get these details, but in your visualization that house is a big house with all the ornaments and at the center of that is a vajra circle, that carries the eight pillars. Let’s forget about the pillars; that will be rather too detailed and too difficult to visualize. Now you get the major decorations: The steeple on top is beautified with a crowning precious gem and a vajra. Inside the main story, the floor and ceiling are white in the east, yellow in the south, red in the west and green in the north. The center of the floor is blue. On top of the molding (around the top of the walls) is a quadruple colonnade, on the outside face of which are the heads of sea monsters. Between their mouths are strung a strand of jewels and hanging from each mouth are three strings of gems with a golden bell at the end of the middle one and a red yak-tail fan at the ends of the outer two. In such ways it is beautified. On the outside face of the quadruple colonnade, above each sea monster's head is an eave from which hangs a jeweled pendent and on which rests an upright dentel of the parapet in the shape of a half lotus-petal. The parapet is beautified with banners pennants and so forth. Around the outside of the walls is a red ledge for the goddesses of desirable objects. What you really get here in your visualization, is a huge jewel-like mansion, which has a lot of ornaments and the best of all what is available. And in the center you have to visualize that vajra circle.

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For a drawing of Yamantaka’s mandala see page 173.

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Whether you can get the pillars and all these decorations or not, this vajra circle becomes very important. On this, encircling the walls of the mansion are arrayed crescent-moons with vajra and a jewel on top of each. Before each of the four entrance-ways and beyond the porches is an archway having eleven layers of segments and resting on four pillars On top of each of these archways is a Dharma-wheel flanked to the left and right by a stag and a doe. That gives you a brief idea. It is almost like a Chinese-Tibetan mixture monastery type of thing, very much influenced by the culture. In your visualization you have a huge decorated palace – that is in short the idea. It also has a dharma wheel with deer and all these sort of decorations. As a bottom line you picture the best mansion ever available, totally made of jewels, spacious and with maximum usage. I normally get the Dalai Lama’s summer palace, the Norbu Lingka, because since childhood I have been seeing that. That does have all these archways, doors and pillars. You don’t have furniture looking like ours but it is filled up with decorations. It has five jewel walls, yet when you look from inside you can see everything outside, but externally you cannot see anything inside. The doors are not just ordinary doors but outside the doors there are roof-covered platforms, a kind of verandahs with pillars. At the end of each verandah you have seven huge steps to reach the end of the ‘box’ where the crossed vajra has been fixed in the beginning, which is Vairochana transformed into the vajra hub421. That big it is! All is light natured, not depending on external light. It is a wisdom-nature mandala. That much visualization will probably do. S<. The mandala is a square with four doors. The walls are five layers thick: white, yellow, red, green and blue. Looking from the inside one sees blue and from the outside one sees white. The five layers are actually transparent. In a cross section we could still see all the layers. We are working from the ground up in describing the mansion. On top of the block is a mansion with four walls. The measurement from the center of the wall to the outer edge is 16 chaten, so 32 total for the length of the walls. The height is 13. Each colored layer is 1 thick422. The alcoves are 4 wide and 4 long. They branch into a vestibule which is 2 deep and 8 wide. The five layered wall is an unbroken strip which follow the contours. The archway is not completely enclosed. The archway beam is yellow with a white strip above. The beam is triangular shaped, a trapezoid cut at a 45 degree angle. From the front, the beam is yellow and from the side it appears white in color. There is a layer of jewel tiles with a height of 1 chaten and a width of ½. It protrudes ½ chaten. It is decorated with different shaped jewels: square, circular, triangular and semi-circular. Of the second layer after the wall, the back is flush against the wall and the front extends. From the inside you can see yellow and from the outside it comes out. This is continuously running above the wall in unbroken repetition. There is a belt of golden girdles ½ chaten high. There are 4, so the total is 2 chaten. Upon the jewel is a pillar, heart of stone. Each golden girdle is of 7 parts. So, upon the yellow jewel layer, is a heart of stone, upon which is a red pearl. Upon it, on the corners is a turquoise bow. The top bows are bent, so you can turn the corner. Four crystal pillars set upon the turquoise bow with lapis lazuli upon them and 4 silver bows on top. A golden strip rests on top of the silver bows. This whole structure is 13 chaten high. In the center on the bottom of the room is a circular ring with a radius of 7½ inside and 8½ outside. The height and width are 1 each. The circle is half the width of the room. Upon this circle stand 8 pillars, 2 facing each direction. There is a ring beam above and below. The circle on top is

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See page 222. As to the measurements of the mandala, there are slight differences between Sandy’s notes and the translation of Gyeltsen Senge’s commentary. Might need a check. See Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 44-51.

Taking bardo as sambogakaya the same as the one below. Each pillar rests on a beam which is 1 chaten thick. The height of each pillar is 12 and upon it is a double bow, 2 chaten high. So the total from the floor up is 15. Four beams, each passing from one wall to the other, are flat on top and cross-jointed. The beam does not touch the door way. Above each door way are 2 beams, 1 chaten thick, 1 chaten wide, and 6 chaten long. There are a total of eight beams All are the same height of 16. The roof will be put on these beams. Since the width of the arch is 4 and the beams are 6, you cut out 2 chaten from the golden girdle, one on each side, so it will fit. Another beam lies on top of the circle, protruding by 2½ at the outside corner and sticking in a bit on the inside ring. Its height is ½ and width 1. It rests on top on the ring beam and protrudes by ½ on the inside. Chusin faces (crocodiles) are carved in the part of the beam which protrudes out. Gargoyle, elephant. Then there is the draped net which hangs in front of the crocodile’s head all around the building, presumably one for each rafter which obscures the head of the crocodile. There are a total of 28 rafters running across. Ten rafters each protrude by 1 chaten, each with crocodile heads sticking outside the building, ½ x ½ length with ½ in between. These also have crocodile heads looking down at a 45 degree angle. Above all this, are perpendicular thin slats of wood and plaster with jewel cement, bringing the total height to 17. There are bird wings above the crocodile heads. From the edge of the wall out it is 2 chaten. One crocodile head sticks out 1½. Hanging in front of the crocodile’s head upside down is a vase with no spout upon the cement. The length of the upside down vase is 1 chaten. The last layer is lotus petals, which are 1x½ thick. At the bottom of the wall on the outside is as red plinth which is 2x2. On each right angle are 4 goddesses. The plinth fits into the wall as in the picture. The large beams have a triple joy twist on the end similar to a bliss swirl. This serves as a light source. The center part of the ceiling is empty with no plaster. The bliss swirls overlap by 1/3 each. The floor is colored according to the color of the side it is near. The height of the door way is 16, but one thick beam was put on top, so it is now 15. A lintel on each side is 12½ high x ½ x ½. The door step is ½ x ½ x4. There are 2 door flaps, the doors open outwards. They do not have handles since they open with mantra. In each of eight spaces above the door way is an auspicious symbol associated with the appropriate direction. So on the eastern side there is the dharmachakra, a double vajra on the north side, jewel on the south, and red lotus on the western side. The middle section of the original block has stairway and terraces. There are 4 terraces, each protrude 3 chaten and go down 4 chaten. There are 4 little steps on each terrace. Never cut through the vajra spoke. The color of the protruding vajra is the color of that side. The vajra is embedded with the terrace. At the bottom of the pillar [on the top step of the staircase], the vase is 1.2 high. Out of the vase is a pillar, 3½ high. Upon that is a block, 1x1 and 3 deep. Behind the pillar is a space 1 wide with another vase and pillar. The pillar is fat in the middle and slightly thinner at the top and bottom. [Description of the pillars outside]. (Refer to diagram)423: (A) gold in color, 2½ longx1x1. (B) 1 high, 3 long and 3 deep and protrudes 1 chaten. It is a jewel studded yellow layer. (C) 1 high 3 long as above with a blue base. It has the same bottle without a spout ( near crocodile) and is upside down and white in color. (D) five long, 1 thick green with a black stylized hoof. (E) small pillar 1½ high x 1 wide. Next to it a creature in space is holding up above the above section. (F) Verandah, multicolored, five long x 1 thick. (G) 1 ½ x 1 small pillar as in (E) with creature beside it. (H) 14 chaten long x 1 thick - same design as yellow jewel-studded tile. (I) Drinking bottle design, blue and white. (J) Black hooves on green, same dimensions (K) lotus petals ½ x ½, five each on each side. (Gyume or Gyuto have no lotus petals in front). (L) gold strip going around arch ½ x 3 deep. Silk brocade banners are hanging on the pillars, similar to the ones in Tibetan monasteries. There are vases upon (D), (F) and (J). Gyeltsen have animal symbols on them. Animals are in pairs, usu423

The diagram is not [yet] found.

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Yamantaka teachings ally in disharmony - 1. eagle and lion (lion body with beak, wings) 2. otter and fish (fish head) 3. conch and crocodile (shell with crocodile head)424 These are found on the front. The back banners, palden, are plain. These come from vases. In the center [of the balcony] on a moon disc and lotus is a dharmachakra with eight spokes. On one side is a doe and on the other is a stag. The dharmachakra is 2x2 and the animals are 1 ½. Inside the petals of the lotus is a monkey holding a parasol. There is a strange animal from whose mouth hang garlands and half garlands. On E) block and (G) on both sides are peacocks, goblins, goddesses, etc. Black space is filled with colorful creatures. Pillar - elephant, lion rampant with paws up holding the pillar. At the corners of the building are monkeys holding red and white umbrellas with streamers. The sticks are 2 chaten long. The monkeys face towards the center with their backs facing outside. (M) 1 palden and 1 gyeltsen on each side, with the gyeltsen closest to the door (also tree). Stairs lead up to the archway and pass through into the main part of the building. (The total building comes to 32. We have covered ½). The monkeys at the corners give shade to the protruding crocodile heads. Suspended from the mouths of the crocodiles are, garlands and half garlands, tawa tachet. They can have flower chains, vajra chains and jewel chains. From mouth to mouth all around the building they are draped. Coming from the center of the mouth or chin are half garlands of 3 or five strings. The central strip has a lotus and bell with a white yak’s tail hanging from the tongue of the gold bell. Cloth streamers hang from the tips of the others. These garlands have a length of either 2 or 4. Many bells are attached to colorful strips and are beautified and musical. Upon each face of the red plinths are four offering goddesses. They wear Indian goddess costumes and are in a perpetual dance pose, making offerings. They are blue, pink and red, facing the wall. All is transparent. The corners of the plinth have a design of a white crescent moon with a red jewel upon it and a gold vajra head. There are trees placed by the side of the block next to the vases with the banners, beside each doorway in yellow pots. The pots are 2 high and 4 wide at the mouth with golden trees emerging from them. From the trunk are 6 golden branches with foliage of a precious substance. They are 6 chaten high, making a total of 8. In these trees are found the 7 symbols of royalty: white wheel, yellow jewel, blue queen, white elephant, red minister, green horse and black general. The ceiling is cemented over with square holes with 4 hollows. Its height is 16. There is no plaster or rafter. In these slots put the roof support, length 5, thickness and width of 1. 8-2/3 double bow shape at the top, square in the center, 8-2/3 x 8-2/3 +beams = 10-2/3 x 10-2/3. The beams are 102/3 long x 1 x 1. On the north and south sides are 2 small pillars, 2 high. Running across the top is a beam which is 1x1x12-2/3. Upon that beam is another beam 3 wide x 2 high x 14-2/3 long. This is the basic structure of the roof. It fits over the hole - 4 beams, 2 posts, 1 beam, 2 posts, 1 beam with a bigger one on top. The frame is railing 3½ high x 4 long. It is set on rafters but not on cement. The outer rail has the same design as the golden girdle, 7 pieces, ½ x ½ but all of the same color, unlike the girdle. The cross bars are ½ thick, 1 wide and protrude 1½. There are 20 beams going East and West which are long and curved. North and South are short beams which stick out at the corners. On each beam, 18 per side, are crocodile heads which stick out by 1. Upon that put gold sheeting, following the contours of the rafters. Between the ears of the crocodile heads are bird wings. Below his head is lattice work. You can see through north and south, but not east and west. On a thick beam are a pair of Garuda or crocodile heads. Upon a beam 2 ht. x 3w x 3d is a little house with the root text of this tantra upon gold. Upon that 1 high is a lotus which is 1 high. Upon the lotus is a 9 faceted jewel, 1 high. Upon the jewel is a vajra, 1 high, making a total of 16. The total height of the house is 32.

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See page 91.

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Out of the mouths of the crocodiles is the same tawa ta chet on a smaller scale, and from the garuda’s mouth. The color is either blue or gold; the whole thing is most commonly gold. In the sky, gods and goddesses in clouds, musicians. Above each doorway is a siddha in the guise of the appropriate Buddha. The mandala meditation is a direct cause for the creation of the mandala at enlightenment. If you don’t meditate on the mandala, upon enlightenment, you will have no house. >S.

Then outside that what do you have? Outside that mansion you have big courtyards, outside of which you’ll see the uncommon protection wheel. Outside that you have the common protection wheel, outside that you have the eight cemeteries. The sadhana says: Outside the vajra-fence and mountain of fire are the eight cremation grounds such as the Ferocious One, with eight trees such as a Naga-kesara. At the base of these are the eight directional protectors, Indra and so forth, and at the crests are the eight realm protectors such as the Great Emanation with an Elephant's Face. There are the eight lakes of compassion, in which live the eight nagas, such as Grand Jewel, and above which in the sky are the eight clouds such as the proclaimer and so forth. There are also the eight fires of wisdom, and the eight stupas on the eight mountains. Furthermore there are skeletons and corpses impaled on sticks, hanging on trees, eating beings, being pierced with weapons and so forth. There are crows, vultures, dogs, jackals, lions, tigers and so on, and [the grounds] are scary with cackling zombies, cannibals, man-eating spirits and the like. There are Realised Beings, Adepts and Yogis acting in accordance with tantric commitments, focussed single-pointedly on the Bhagavan Lord, naked, their hair loose, adorned with the five mudra-ornaments, holding large damaru drums, skull-cups and khatvangas and with skulls adorning the crowns of their heads. By their cackling and presence, the cremation grounds are made extremely eerie. As the words mention them, you can just keep on thinking: ’They are there, and they are there’. That will do425. S<. Outside the protection wheel is the carnal ground, the place where dead bodies are dumped. Everything, the entire mandala is inside the chojung [reality source]. When visualizing the celestial mansion, remember it is the nature of bliss-void and that it is part of the body/mind of Vajra Bhairava. Outside the mansion on the other side of the vajra fence and protection wheel are eight cemeteries or carnal grounds. In the East is Tumorak, gruesome and terrible. In the south, Bones, having skeletons. In the West, is Dorje Barwa, Diamond Flame Vajra Vala. In the north is Tsetsing tepa, noise, the thicket. In the northeast is Laughing (Ha ha go pa). In the southwest Heavy Darkness. Northwest Kili kila, cries of joy. In the southeast: Tashi tsel, auspicious garden. In each carnal ground is a tree: in the east is nagakesara, south tsuta, mango; west water tree, north ashota tree, northeast nadruta (willow?), southeast karanja, southwest bataki, northwest arjuna. At the root of each tree are the eight direction protectors: East - Indra riding a white elephant. South - blue Yama riding a buffalo. West - white water god riding a crocodile. North - Yaksha, yellow, riding a human being. Northeast - Maheshvara, white, riding a bull. Southeast - Agni, the fire god, riding a gelded goat. Southwest - blue Raksha wearing a crown of human heads and riding a zombie. Northwest - air god, dark smoky color, riding a deer. All eight directions protectors have one face and four hands, two [first] hands in the prostration mudra, [each of them is respectively] holding vajra, club, snake-noose, [jewel-spewing] mongoose, trident, water-pot and mala, sword and yellow flag in [the remaining] right hand. In the [remaining] left hand, holding skull cup and consort. 425

Description in Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I: pg. 51-54.

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Yamantaka teachings The realm protectors in the trees each have the face of the mount of the direction protector below. In the East a white elephant-faced one. South - black buffalo face. West - white crocodile face. North - yellow man’s face. NE - white bull face. SE - red goat face. SW - black zombie face. NW green deer face. All stick out of the tree, have a wrathful expression and are powerful and strong. The right hand holds a torma and the left a skull cup in each case. Each carnal ground has water, rivers of compassion or a lake. Each water source has a naga: east white ‘Rich naga’; south - white Padma; west - blue Karko; north - red Jopo; north-west - yellow Dunjom; north-east - white Padma chenpo, big lotus; south-east - multicolored Tarje (?); southwest - white Rinchen. Each naga has the upper half of the body like a sixteen year old female human with the bottom half of the body like a snake. Each naga has their own cloud and each is holding a jewel with the hands in the prostration mudra, paying respect to the principal deity in the mandala. The eight clouds each have names: east - proclaimer; south - moving; north - strong proclaimer; west chag po; NE strong; SE kangwa, full; SW showering rain cloud; NW wrathful. All the clouds have lightening bolts and thunder. There are also eight mountains: in the east natural color; south yellow; west white; north green; northeast black; southeast yellow; southwest white; northwest blue. Each mountain has a white Buddha mahastupa and a fire, the fires of wisdom. (consult sadhana description here). Siddhas are naked with their hair loose, holding skull cups, khatangas, etc., and decorated with skulls. Wrathful birds, lions and tigers, and other wrathful creatures, snakes with buffalo face, headless corpses hanging on trees, impaled and burning and piles of human bones fill the carnal grounds. >S.

You need some kind of brief solid visualization. That will be: the jewel-made mansion, then the steps, the doors, the courtyards with big open space, then in the distance the uncommon protection wheel, outside that the common protection wheel, and outside that the cemeteries. Here you may not get that clear a picture, but they are a sort of beautiful green pastures, hilly, with lakes, trees and all the animals; very peaceful, yet wrathful and fearful also. All this you can visualize and you think they are there. Again, what you really need, is: the mandala, courtyards, uncommon and common protection wheels. This is important. You may not see the mandala house in detail, but it’s there, you are seeing it. And you cannot afford to lose it. What you are really supposed to do from the beginning is this: after the two mantras, ‘OM SVABHAVA..’. and ‘OM SHUNYATA..’ the letter YAM appears and from then on you are supposed to retain everything in your meditative mind, building one on top of the other. First you establish the air mandala, above that the fire- and the water mandala, then the earth mandala, at the center of that the crossed vajra and at its hub the common protection wheel. At the center of that you have the uncommon protection wheel. At the center of that you have the huge, spacious courtyard. At the center of that you’ll see the white triangular, in which you’ll see the lotus, at the middle of which you’ll see again a crossed vajra, above which you will see the square mandala. The cemeteries are completely outside the blazing fire.

Symbolic meaning of what has been built up426 S<. The meaning of all this is similar to the root tantra of Sangwa dupa [Guhyasamaja]; to make a division of the body, speech and mind, we have the chojung or reality source. The three corners of the triangle represent body, speech and mind (or signless, wishless and emptiness). The outside of the chojung is white, representing bliss; the inside is red, representing emptiness. The narrow point at the bottom is the tiny beginning development of knowledge, which widens to the broad top, representing increased development. The shape of the chojung is the same as the female organ representing great bliss. By having the mandala, [i.e.] the Deity, including the entire mansion inside the reality source, it signifies that all are in the nature of bliss-void. Everything is an inseparable part of the body/mind of Vajra Bhairava. In the system where the mandala is built upon the top of the

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Also see Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 56-58.

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reality source, this meaning does not apply. All the benefits one receives are only as a result of meditating on inseparable bliss/voidness. The complete mandala is built upon a lotus. The lotus has grown from a muddy swamp, and yet is unsoiled by the dirty water. [This symbolizes that] all the practice and activity have come from using the path of worldly means – attachment and desire – to create bliss; yet it has not diluted the effectiveness of the practice. The green base of white, yellow and blue is symbolic of the three activities. The number of petals is different for each chakra. [When the lotus has] sixty-four petals, it represents the sixty-four nadis of the navel chakra, when thirty-two petals it represents the thirtytwo nadis of the crown chakra, when sixteen petals the throat chakra, and when eight petals it represents the heart chakra. When visualizing the [crossed] vajra, if it has twelve spokes it signifies the twelve interdependent links; twenty spokes represent the twenty frightening wrong views regarding the skandhas. When the rough views have been purified, they become vajra spokes at the mandala. Upon the multicolored vajra is the mandala with four walls, symbolic of the four Noble Truths. The four walls form a square with walls of equal length; whether we are enlightened or not, through the view of emptiness all are equal. The eastern gate is created out of the four mindfulnesses: body, feeling, mind and dharma phenomena. The southern gate symbolizes the four pure abandonments: non-virtuous actions which have not grown within you won’t grow, those which have grown will be eliminated, those virtuous acts not grown will grow, and those virtuous acts grown will continue to grow. The Western gate represents the four legs of mysterious powers, the base of psychic growth: the legs of concentration, perseverance or hard work, mind and wish. The northern gate symbolizes the five governing faculties or controlling principles: faith, perseverance, memory, concentration and wisdom. The [inner vajra circle] signifies the turning of the vajra wheel, the continuity of the tantric teaching. The four archways represent the [purification of the] four samadhis of the four levels of concentration development, which are the four dhyanas purified. (After the four samadhis are the four formless - with wisdom we cut through this and take the short cut.) The four plinths represent the four samadhis or concentrations: concentration of hero going into war, odorless concentration, sporting of lions (before reaching the object, the mind can turn around and come back as when a lion can turn around mid leap) and the great treasury of the sky. The four offering goddesses symbolize the four ways of seeing: body or form, feeling, mind, phenomena427. The assorted jewel ornaments are the wish-fulfilling gems. The garland holder or go pang represents the purification of delusion and its root. There are five paths - the first two are ordinary paths, the third is the extraordinary path of the arya, the fourth is the gom lam or meditation path and the fifth path is enlightenment. The garland is the fourth path, the purified delusions, whereas the half garlands represent the development of certain benefits before meditation. Delusions are given up completely and there is a suppression of delusions. The corpses in the cemeteries show that when one understands emptiness of the person [tib. kang zak gi dak me] no one owns the corpse. The selflessness of beings. The corpse also shows impermanence and the sufferings of samsara. The water is the relative truth bodhicitta of the bodhisattva mind. The nagas represent the six paramita activities. The jewels held by the nagas represent means of confession428. The trunk of the tree is the avadhuti, the central nadi. The direction protectors represent the downward wind which controls the function of excretion, etc. The eight realm protectors represent the life sustaining wind. The fire represents tummo, the clouds symbolize white bodhicitta and the mountains represent the wisdom of selflessness as well as the great union or ultimate enlighten427

Note from Sandy: This needs a check with Rinpoche. Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 56 mentions here: 4 perfect understandings. 428 Or the four ways of gathering disciples. [Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 57.]

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Yamantaka teachings ment. The stupa represents the place of body, speech and mind; the siddhas represent Dorje Jigje practitioners. Each one [of the eight cemeteries] has eight, which signifies (2x4), that when you practice this path, you depend on the four happinesses of the descending and of the rising bliss: falling from the crown to the throat, throat to heart, heart to navel, and navel to tip of organ and then rising upwards. Develop divine pride and clarity as much as possible. The entire mandala is white in the east, yellow in the south, red in the west and green in the north with a blue center. White symbolizes the wheel, yellow is the precious jewel, red represents the lotus, green is the sword and blue is the vajra429. All are transparent and self-luminous. Each jewel decorating the mansion has the capacity to light up the whole world. From here we’ll transform into the sambogakaya. The major part of our mind should meditate on the dharmakaya, but we don’t have the capability to do this yet. Most of our attention must go towards creating the mandala. So, stop here and meditate on dharmakaya, feeling emptiness, the nature of shunyata and bliss, the nature of dharmakaya. The object is normally said to be ‘empty’. Gyume says it is empty and Gyuto says it is ‘emptiness’. Base dharmakaya is actually death, which ordinary persons experience. If it is shunyata, do ordinary persons experience and understand shunyata when they die? They do feel it but they do not recognize it nor do they fully understand it. Gyume says the base dharmakaya is only the empty feeling. If so, base and path clear light must be mixed in the clear light of mother and son at a high level. If there is no understanding of shunyata, it must be relative truth. Path is absolute truth. How can you mix absolute truth with relative truth? Ling Rinpoche’s answer is to quote Pabongka, who said the object of the dharmakaya is shunyata, which is the accepted theory of Gyuto. >S.

When you begin to meditate on the mandala, you move back and forth; you look and observe everything and think: ’Ah, I see my mandala house here with walls of jewels stuck together, and I see my steps here, and this is my courtyard and here is my...’. You travel back and forth. For that you need some meditative state. You might not be able to see details, but you need something to hold on to; therefore you walk back and forth. This is the exercise for the actual development-stage meditation that will come. So you sort of go over the house, overview it. If it helps you, you can make a drawing but what you really need is something to visualize. This is all happening in the dharmakaya; it is the side mind working. When we did Tara’s protection wheel, we had this little Tara going over there and sit on one shield and look to the others.430 She does all this, remember? Just like that, a little Yamantaka will come out of your nose, put up a little tent on your nose and then start flying and looking around. All this you have to do, true; it’ll come a little later431. You keep on reviewing back and forth, so that you don’t lose your visualization. To review these things you have to hold something. You may not be able to hold much detail but you can sort of watch. You review the inside of your body completely and the outside of your body and then your environment, outside. Gradually your clarity will build up more and more. That’s what we really call the development stage, the stable development stage. And then the confirming, and only then you move on to the completion stage. That’s why you have to have something to hold. So there is the big mansion and the steps and courtyards. If you go a little further you think: what are these walls made of? They are not dry walls, but made out of jewels, etc. The more you build up, the more details you’ll get.

429

That means all the upper and lower parts of the celestial mansion are composed of tiny wheel-, jewel- lotus, sowrd- and vajra parts respectively. [Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 57.] White wheel symbolizes the caste of Vairocana buddha; yellow jewels the caste of Ratnasambhava buddha; red lotuses the caste of Amithaba buddha; green swords the caste of Akshobhya buddha and blue vajras the caste of Akshobhya buddha. 430 Gelek Rinpoche, Healing and Selfhealing through White Tara, ch.V, meditation 5. 431 See page 355.

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The inside vajra circle, where the eight pillars are going up, is the center of the mansion and there you’ll have the letter YAM432. By that time, even though you are half in the dharmakaya, you have to wake up completely and say: ‘Look, I can not remain for so long in that nice peaceful floating manner, I have to take a solid physical form’. So suddenly you see the mandala completely and at the middle of the mandala you see the letter YAM. In the short sadhana you have a protection wheel, but only the common one; not the uncommon one. The short sadhana also skips the Vajrasattva meditation, the triangle, the lotus and even Vairochana as the cause of the mandala. The reason why you have Vairochana as the cause of the mandala, is that out of the five skandhas the physical form is, when it has become pure, the deity Vairochana. So he indicates that the whole mandala is your body. In the short sadhana you just have the vajra ground, fence, roof, ceiling and suddenly in the middle of that you have the inconceivable mansion and in the center of that is the causal Vajraholder in the form of Manjushri. That is a shorter way; it is complete, except that the uncommon wheel and some little things are taken out. It does not matter, the three-kaya practice is perfect in it. You have the dharmakaya, then building up the mandala, and pak! Manjushri in the middle. In the short sadhana the words don’t mention the air-, fire-, water- and earth mandalas, but if you can visualize them, great; if not, you just think they are there. That way you don’t have broken commitments but on the other hand you may not have a strong meditative development built up. That’s how it goes. Pride of the mandala. In short, the main practice is the three-kaya practice with first the dharmakaya and then the related activities. The related activities are the common and uncommon protection wheels or rims. Inside the uncommon protection wheel you have the generation of the triangular reality source, the vajra base and the whole mandala. This we have completed, though the measurements and shapes of the mandala we can hopefully do a little later. Basically, in our visualization, we just have to be able to remember that uncommon inconceivable mansion, which is not an ordinary building made of rocks, concrete and metal, but which in reality came out of inseparable bliss-void. Actually it is the fully enlightened person's palace. One almost has to pass a resolution for oneself that it is the actual palace of a fully enlightened being, and hold onto that decision. That is what we call ‘pride’. In vajrayana practice you do need pride and clarity. Sometimes you have the pride of being in the form of the deity and sometimes, like in this case here, the pride is that of the mandala. The clarity is the size, the decorations, the measurements, etc. If at the beginning level you do not have that very clearly, just think that this is the inconceivable mansion, which is not an ordinary building but one of bliss-void nature and the abode of an actual living buddha. All of that is of a clear, clean and faultless light nature. That you have to remember as much as you can. This is how you build up and if you forget, you go back and build it up again. As mentioned before, immediately after taking death as the dharmakaya, from the building of the air mandala onwards you have to keep them together as much as possible, the triangular reality source, the multicolored lotus, the crossed vajra, then the inconceivable mandala and even the cemeteries, all of them. Up to here out of the three kayas we have completed the first, taking death as dharmakaya433. On this point I recommend to everybody who had the full initiation – though the title of the book does not give you any restrictions – to, please, read the book Death, intermediate state and rebirth by Lati Rinpoche and Jeffrey Hopkins. It gives you much more elaborate detail on the death as dharmakaya as well as on the bardo If you don’t understand it clearly or if you have problems, you can highlight them and in the next meeting and we can go over them. I have the Tibetan version, so we can go over it and that will be helpful for everybody.

432 433

See sadhana text in bold type on page 232. See note 386 on page 192.

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Questions and answers Audience: Sumbharaja is the only thing from the uncommon protection wheel which transforms? Rinpoche: That’s right. At the place where the Sumbharaja is sitting, you’ll have Vajrasattva, then the white triangle, then the lotus and at its center Vairochana, which becomes the crossed vajra, on the hub of which you build the mandala. So the common and uncommon wheel totally remain, except for Sumbharaja in the middle. You still have the ten others left. Audience: Is the triangular reality source two-dimensional and flat or like a pyramid? Rinpoche: It is not a flat thing. The narrow part is down and the bigger, open part is up. There are a lot of reasons for that but giving the reasons and then the measurements, will be a problem. Just think it is all there. Audience: This vajra ground and so on reminds me of the atomic level chemistry. When we talk about building up solids and in particular building up crystal structures, there are ways how they mathematically describe the orbits of the electrons around the protons and neutrons and there are different orbits that look like vajras, there is a T-orbit that looks like the normal vajras, then the P-orbit that looks like a crossed vajra and the F-orbit that looks like a three-dimensional one. Rinpoche: The vajra surface is indeed built of standing and flat vajras. Somebody did come quite close. Audience: How does all this specificity and detail help us to transform ordinary death into dharmakaya? Rinpoche: This has nothing to do with the dharmakaya. Here you are building a base for taking rebirth as sambogakaya and nirmanakaya, both of them, you are preparing for that. I should not say it has nothing to do with it – it’s point A. Point B is that all that is part of your mind, it has come out of your bliss-void inseparable mind. From that you produce all that, the jewels and the whole house, the whole environment and the whole retinue, the whole protection deities and protection wheels. It is all part and parcel of your own – in normal language I’d say ‘flesh and blood’, but it is more than that – your own consciousness. Audience: When you are actually dying, do you do all that meditation? Rinpoche: This question was raised already before. You do this just now, so that by the time you actually die or take the sambogakaya stage, you’ll have the perfect karma that will produce it that way. Here it is complicated because you are producing the karma which will be able to produce that.

(ii) Generation of occupant, the Causal Vajra Holder434 Here the major part of your mind is still in the meditative state of dharmakaya. A side mind has provided the foundation: the environment in which you will be taking rebirth as an enlightened being. The important point here is: the dharmakaya is not only recognized as such and as empty, but as emptiness; that emptiness is inseparable bliss-void and that acknowledges the dharmakaya435. The activity of your principal mind observing the emptiness, is the actual activity which cuts the root of samsara. Here you make up your mind: I have been in that space-like dharmakaya, which is great, no doubt. However, if I remain in this, I will not be very useful for the others. Therefore it is necessary for me to have a physical form. So you focus and like to rise as a physical form. With that mind… In the center of the Mansion is the letter YAM and this transforms into an air mandala, slightly reddish-black in color, upon which is the letter short A. This becomes a moon mandala. At its center, like a bubble rising from water, comes a 434 435

Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 58-63. Rinpoche refers here to the four necessary qualities for dharmakaya. See page 184.

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yellow letter DHIH, and from this a sword that is marked at its center by DHIH emerges. Lights emanate from this and invite all the Sugatas, who are absorbed into the sword. It then entirely transforms and I appear as the Causal Vajra-holder, Youthful Manjushri, Inside the house, that YAM turns into an air mandala, which does not have to be so huge since it is inside the house. It is round in shape and has a reddish-black smoky color, fire and smoke together. Here it is a circle, not a bow. Above that air mandala is the letter A, i.e. the short A. The A here is the seed for the speech vajra and corresponds with the sambogakaya, so you use that A as the seed for Manjushri rather than the usual letter DHIH. That A becomes a round moon mandala, which can be the same size as the air mandala. At the center of the moon, like a bubble out of water, the yellow letter DHIH appears, standing upright. The DHIH transforms into the hand implement of Manjushri, a sword marked at the hilt by a DHIH. The sword is standing upright. It radiates tremendous light into the ten directions and all the buddhas and bodhisattvas – the wisdom beings – who are invited dissolve into that sword, which in turn becomes Manjushri. That is your causal Vajra-holder Manjushri. This is on the causal level, not on the result level. That is the sambogakaya, Manjushri as sambogakaya. He is youthful, holds the sword etc. It is the usual Manjushri that we all know. Then acknowledge that Manjushri as your own consciousness and your own sambogakaya. This is the first physical form you take after the dharmakaya. Acknowledge that and concentrate on it. That is, in short, the sambogakaya practice. S<. In the center of the mandala the letter YAM appears which transforms into an air mandala, reddish black in color. Upon that is an A which transforms into a moon mandala. At its center a yellow syllable DHIH appears like a bubble out of water. This transforms into a double-edged sword which is upright. The blade is flaming and the hilt is a half vajra. Between the hilt and the blade is a yellow letter DHIH. Light emanates from the sword calling forth all buddhas in the form of Manjushri. From the east and south east come blue Manjushris holding a vajra in the right hand. From the south and southwest come yellow Manjushris holding a sword in the right hand. From the west and north west come red Manjushris holding a lotus, and from the north and north-east come green Manjushris holding a crossed vajra. All carry a book in the left hand and each one wears silk robes and jewels of a typical Manjushri. If this cannot all be visualized, one can visualize the deities from all directions as the typical Manjushri in appearance. This is activity. >S.

Base, path and result - sambogakaya436 For every practice in vajrayana you have base, path and result. Here the base to be purified is the ordinary bardo; the path you try to practice, is the two different illusion bodies437; the result is the sambogakaya. You try to work with all three of them together, base, path and result. In the previous practice the base was the ordinary death, the path the clear light and the result the dharmakaya. So we combine base, path and result together. How does the practice correspond to the result? The way you create the causal Vajra holder Manjushri is very similar to the way you create the ordinary bardo. You have to create it the same way, you have to correspond to it. The ordinary bardo comes out of ordinary death – when you die, you enter the bardo. Like the bardoa rises from death, you rise as the causal Vajra holder Manjushri from the dharmakaya. So the sambogakaya comes out of the dharmakaya. During the path level, the two different illusion bodies will rise from the two different clear lights. The ultimate physical part of a buddha is coming from the highest level of the clear light. So here you probably see three different types of clear light438 and two different illusion bodies. This will come much later, during the completion stage. This level will be repeated again and again. 436

Also see page 176. Impure and pure illusion body. 438 The base clear light, i.e. ordinary death light, and the two path clear lights, i.e. relative and absolute clear light. 437

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When you meditate during the dharmakaya practice period, you melt or dissolve all things in existence into each other and ultimately you concentrate on the space-like emptiness. From that emptiness you begin to build up. Doing that will purify the ordinary bardo, and the karmas you have to develop an ordinary bardo, and likewise the death, too. It also makes the good karmas, or the investment of virtue, which will be able to produce the illusion body, to ripen. So, it will purify the ordinary bardo, and cause the extraordinary illusion body to develop. It also enhances the capability to develop the sambogakaya. During the initiation, the seed was laid to be able to develop the sambogakaya, and that is now enabled to function.

The bardo439 How does the ordinary bardo start to function for the individual? Remember, during the death process you observe the signs of decay of the four elements. After that you have four further signs: the whitish, the reddish, the black and the clear light. So there are eight steps we are going through and at the end of the eighth, the bardo begins. The cause of creating the bardo is the subtle ‘air’ or energy which moves the consciousness of the dying person. This subtle energy just moves, not in the central channel, nor anywhere else. We talk about the mind as rider and the ‘air’ as horse; wherever the horse goes, the rider goes, the consciousness is always accompanied by some kind of subtle energy. During the time of death that subtle moving energy or ‘air’ [tib. lung], is the cause, and the consciousness itself [tib. sems] is the condition. Cause and the condition always work together. By the moving of that air, the combination of air and consciousness [tib. lungsems] gets out of that white-and-red drop, the indestructible drop at the heart level [tib. mi shi pei tik-le]. There are two types of indestructible drop: one is indestructible till death, the other is indestructible till enlightenment. When in the Ganden Lha Gyema you recite ‘palden tsewai lama rinpoche – O glorious and precious root guru…’ the drop that is indestructible till death is referred to440. According to the Tibetan tradition, the joined white and red drop at the heart level is the seat of the basic consciousness. When all dissolving is completed, the air moves and due to the movement of the air and the mind, the red-and-white drop opens, the red and white parts separate, and the consciousness goes out. The sign of that for those who are sitting in meditation at death, is that the red substance goes up to the top and comes out of the nose and the white goes down and comes out of the sex organ, whether penis or vagina. Texts and commentaries sometimes say: ’the tip of the upper and lower vajra’ or ‘the nose tips’, which is referring to the upper and lower opening. This is the separation of the two basic drops that we got and accepted from the parents. The consciousness was locked in the indestructible drop, and when that opens up the dripping from the upper and lower opening is there. It is the sign that the consciousness is getting out of one’s body. This is the end of the death and beginning of the bardo; it is happening at the same time. The moment you begin the bardo, all the signs you had when you were dying, reverse; first the darkness, then the redness, then the whiteness, etc., and gradually the whole thing starts to function. When you die you don’t go directly to the next rebirth, except for the formless realms and the persons with so heavy non-virtues that their bardo period is almost non-existent, and who go almost straight to the hell realm. We are talking here about the basic, normal procedure. Once a person develops the bardo, all these eight stages are revised and the person begins to follow smell. Bardoas are called trisa – those who live on smell. They are also known as sipa barma, the intermediate state beings, or referred to as ‘one who is born out of consciousness’ etc. They cannot eat gross food, they only eat smell. In the Tibetan culture people throw barley flour on the fire and let it burn; that way they feed the bardoas. When somebody dies in a family, for a while they put barley flour on the fire and say some prayers to dedicate that barley flour. That is different. Whether you do the sur 439 440

Literature: Lati Rinpoche and Jeffrey Hopkins, Death, Intermediate state and rebirth, pg. 49-57. See Gelek Rinpoche, Ganden Lha Gyema, pg. 78b

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ritual or not, people put barley flour on the fire and leave it outside to feed the dead ones who are supposed to be in the bardo. You are supposed to feed them, because they come back for dinner. Sometimes they don’t even know they are dead. Somehow they follow the smell and ‘eat’ that. So bardoas run around and try to find food or a place to settle. In the Heart sutra also some trisa are mentioned. Those are different; they are in some deva realms, like Trisa Gyalpo Tango gyen, the horse-headed king of the ghandarvas, who was supposed to be the greatest musician. I think he was Buddha’s last disciple441. The bardoas can see each other in the bardo level; our ordinary eyes can’t see them. Most explanations of the bardo are from metaphysical texts, the Abidharmakosha [tib. Ngonpa dzö] and the Ngonpa kundu442, both. The first one is theravada sutra oriented and the other is mahayana sutra oriented. Bardoas have five qualities: 1). The person looks like his future life. If the person is going to be born as a human being, some say, it will look like at the beginning of the middle age, some say it will look like being five, six or seven, some say like a late teenager. Our basic life is divided into four phases of existence: 1) birth, 2) life from youth to old age, 3) death and 4) bardo. Whether the period from birth to death is one period is a controversial issue. I’d say that the period from conception to death is called life. So the bardoa could look like a kid and it always has a sort of physical appearance of the future life, not of the past life. 2). A bardoa is very powerful, having karmic power. The body is called mental body. It is not the same we have, a physical and mental body. Our mind will think something and in order to complete that thought we have to drag our physical body and do something. In the bardo it is different. The moment you think of something you are there, because physical and mental is the same. Because of that it becomes karmically powerful. You don’t depend on physical movement, you move by mental capacity. They don’t have the physical appearance we have, but they can identify each other among themselves. 3). It has all five senses. 4). It can go wherever it wants and cannot be stopped, not even by the power of a buddha. 5). It can go through walls, through anything, except when the person is to be reborn. Where you have to take rebirth, you get stuck. Until then you don’t get stuck anywhere, you go everywhere. What does a bardoa look like? How does it feel? If you are in the bardo of the lower realms, you have a feeling of darkness. It is almost like you are running in the night, with no moon light, like the 29th of the lunar month; wherever you go, there is only darkness. Dark-night feelings you have. If you are having a higher realm bardo, the feeling you have is like full-moon light at night, nice, clear, cool; or it is some whiteness, like if somebody is showing you a white blanket; that type of feeling you have. That is according to the sutra Sa yi mu shi. In another sutra, Gau min gyur gio, Buddha has mentioned that the hell [tib. nyarwa] bardoas don’t look like human beings, but like hot logs which have fully caught fire, not a burning fire, but all red. Hungry ghost bardoas look like water. In one of those ‘Star Trek’ episodes you saw some kind of muddy, black oil slicks with consciousness; they converse with Captain Kirk. When they say that the hungry ghost bardoas look like liquid, you can bring that sort of image in. Animal bardoas looks like smoke; it is not necessarily smoke, but like pollution. The air pollution we see around is a simple identification of what they look like. So the idea of somebody looking like a human being with arms and legs, looking like a five-year old kid, is not necessarily true. That probably refers to the human being bardoas; the other realms don’t look like that. Desire-realm god bardoas and demi-god bardoas look like gold-type of things. The form realm gods, are just white; so the white supremacy is very much there – that is a joke. The formless realm does not have a bardo at all; the moment they die they are there.

441 442

For the story see Gelek Rinpoche, Lam Rim Teachings, pg. 172. Asanga’s Abhidharmasamuccaya [reference found in Lati Rinpoche and Jeffrey Hopkins, Death, Intermediate state and rebirth, pg. 50,52, 81].

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Some sutras say that the hell-realm bardoas walk by putting their head down, walking upside down, that human bardoas go straight like us, with the heads up, and that the god realm bardoas are flying in the air. Who knows? These are different versions by different sutras. Are they contradicting each other? No, they are not. E.g. one text says that some bardoas look like oil slicks, but that does not say whether they go up or down. So it needs not be contradictory. How long do bardoas remain in the bardo? If they find a next life, they do so within seven days. If they cannot find rebirth within seven days, they have a small death; one small death, and they get reborn, another small death and they get reborn. According to the Buddhist sutras the maximum period of the bardo is forty-nine days. If they cannot find any rebirth within that time, they probably become ghosts, because somehow they are going to take rebirth. All ghosts are hungry ghosts, so whether they become spirits or whatever they become, they find something within forty-nine days, because at that time the bardo period is over. It sounds like the Christians talk about some kind of waiting room for the judgment – purgatory. Do they have a limit of days in there? No? At least that’s nice. How do you count the seventh day? Let’s say a person dies on Monday, then the seventh day is counted the Sunday. So when you are observing praying on the seventh day, or whatever additional things you want to do, do it the day before, not on that same day. This seventh day we are not looking at the dead person as a dead person, but at the dead person’s bardo; that’s why we emphasize every seventh day up to the forty-ninth day. Traditionally there are very elaborate ways of observing prayers etc. When the king of Bhutan died, they kept the body with western injections for over fifty days, and every day there were on one side Buddhist prayers and ceremonies going on by all the invited highest and biggest lamas, and on the other side Bhutanese food was served. It was served by everybody, including the lamas. They carried trays of food and put it in front of the body; that included lighting a cigarette and making one or two puffs and then putting it near the body. Everybody had to do that. All these lamas who attended, had to go and puff at the cigarette and put it over there. Also the queen came and served food. And the king had a mistress or second queen and she came in and served food. And then the princes and princesses and aunts and uncles, all of them; each one of them had a special service. A big stupa was made. Anyway, they had all the food there, cigarettes and incense burning, prayers going on, drinks were poured, champagne and whiskey and wine, because he used to drink a lot, I believe. That was the funniest thing. But at the same time it carries a cultural message: in case he remains in the bardo and comes back he might like to eat his food. They say that people in the bardo when they are not treated well, get upset and die. Bardoas have mental bodies, so they are very sensitive. It is not like human beings, who can take things. Bardoas are so sensitive and fragile; with any little thing that makes them upset or unhappy or doubtful, they die. Now the question will rise: when one is conceived at the time of rebirth, is that then a human being or not? That is a sensitive American subject, right? Tsongkhapa’s disciple Gyeltsab Je makes a difference between a human being [tib. mi] and a miri chakpa. From conception until you really become a human shape there are various phases. That takes about six weeks or so. During that period the being is not called a human being, according to Gyeltsab Je, but a miri chakpa. He made that distinction; this might be a very useful point to hold on to, particularly for pro-choice followers. As to the karmic consequence [of abortion], there is no question that it is non-virtuous, but to what extent? Is it the killing of a human being or not? There is a distinction I, think, you can make between a mi and a miri chakpa. It may be something to think about. You can’t make a decision here, but it is something to think about. Let’s say you are going to take rebirth as a human being. The moment you receive a human bardo, the eight signs reverse back and finally the gross things, the gross environment, etc. are picked up. That’s when you also pick up your attachments, fears, all these ordinary feelings of joy and sadness. The bardoa has all these emotional feelings, like anger, joy and fear, but sometimes these are so strong and powerful that they can’t take it, so the bardoa dies a number of times a small death.

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Wat happens when the bardo ends? Let’s say you’re going to be reborn as a human, then if you are going to be a male, you have strong attachment to females, and if you are going to be a female, you have strong attachment to males. Due to the attachment, you like to have sex with those persons and you just jump in the middle of their making love. By the time you are in there, you see nothing but sex organs or something big pushing over your head; you get upset and that makes you die. Then you go through the same procedure – now the death procedure of the bardoa – and you are caught in it. You go up to the clear light level of the bardo and the end of that clear light is the end of the bardo. Then you reverse: from the black to the red to the white appearance; that is the beginning of the birth period. So when you die, you get them, when you start the bardo they reverse; when you die as a bardoa you get them and when you get reborn you go again through the reverse of them. The human reverse is very slow. As a human being you take a lot of time, up to twenty or twentyfive years, to completely grow to the peak level. In the bardo growing goes very fast and happens several times, so if you are looking for a second chance, there may be a possibility, but it is very quick. What we’re trying to do here, is: let death, bardo and rebirth correspond with our practice.

The yoga of taking bardo as sambogakaya From the dharmakaya you build up the complete mandala; from the air mandala up to the complete inconceivable mansion. At the center of the mansion you have the letter A and that becomes a full-moon disc. You acknowledge that moon and say ’that is me’. You have to build a little pride and clarity on that moon. At the center of the moon, like a bubble out of water, suddenly appears inseparable from our own consciousness, Manjushri’s seed syllable, the letter DHIH, which radiates light. You also build pride on that, saying ’that is me’. Then that yellow DHIH melts into the light and becomes a double-edged blue sword; its hilt has a golden five-spoked vajra, indicating it is very strong, indestructible. That sword, marked by a yellow DHIH, is standing up in the middle of a moon disc. Again you think: ’that is me’. From the double-edged sword light goes out and invites the buddhas, bodhisattvas and all other enlightened beings, particularly the wrathful and peaceful Manjushris. Millions of them come like a snow storm and they dissolve into that sword, that individual being who looks like the sword. The sword transforms into the youthful Manjushri, rich golden in color. The example given is that of a golden mountain, on which shines the bright light of a million suns. That gives you an idea how rich and shining your Manjushri should be. He is youthful, sixteen years old, peaceful, yet slightly wrathful. You visualize him slightly wrathful here. Why is this called the yoga of taking bardo as sambogakaya? Because this particular practice gives you training in the ordinary bardo and also helps you develop the path bardo. The ordinary bardo is the base bardo. The path bardo is the illusion body, of which there are two: pure and impure. We practice on the ordinary bardo and after some time by the power of practice it will shift to the illusion body. Then it becomes path level. Right now we are at the base level. We try to apply the path as much as we can. After some time we will shift and instead of practicing the base level we will be practicing the path level. We are not shifted by ourselves. Even if we wanted to shift, we could not. If you force yourself to shift, you will not be shifting. You shift automatically. The promotion from base level to path level is done by itself, automatically. You can’t make up your mind and say: ‘I now decide to move to the path level.’ You can’t, it is not going to happen. I have to tell you now, because after a little while I will hear a number of you say: ‘I think I am ready to move to the path level’ or ‘I have now decided to move to the path level’ – bull shit! When you shift, it is not you, but the practice that shifts automatically and you will realize that it has shifted.

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The practice will shift you to the impure and pure illusion body and it also becomes the direct cause for establishing the sambogakaya, the exclusive buddha. That is called the yoga of taking bardo as sambogakaya. Development of the bardo within us How do you practice that in accordance with the development of the bardo? Before we talk about that, we have to know how the bardo develops with us. During the death stage we talked about the dissolving system, the eight different stages of how you die.443 Even if you do the that practice everyday for the next five to ten years, at that time you may not be able to recognize the mirage or the smoky color, but you should be able to catch the process by the sparks or by the air sign, or if not, at least by the whitish or the reddish feelings… From then onwards, if you have an understanding of emptiness, concentrate on emptiness. That emptiness has to be transformed into the dharmakaya. If you do not have that much understanding of emptiness, just concentrate on the lama and the yidam. Keep on concentrating and don’t think anything else than to be able to meet at the proper stage with Lama Vajra Bhairava or Lama Vajrayogini or whatever deity is your major practice. That itself will take you. Thereafter you have no control. They have to hold you by the hand. Have no attachment. If you are attached to your shirt or anything, you are going to be pulled. Please, really, for god’s sake or for your own sake, at that time, think of nothing! Your family members will be able to take care of themselves, and even if they cannot, by worry nothing can be helped, except that you can fall down, that’s all. If you have a very strong attachment for your property or something, you are most likely to be reborn as a scorpion or a snake on that property. So have no attachment; think of nothing down here, but concentrate up there, okay? That is why you take the eight mahayana precepts444. Isn’t there a word: ‘like a wise horse’?445 What does wise horse mean? I’ll tell you the story. It is one of the Jataka stories.446 The story of the wise horse. In earlier days there were a number of people, that was supposed to land by ship on a jewel island and collect jewels. The ship broke, but the captain and the others, about five hundred people, were somehow saved. They went ashore on an island, where they met with a group of demons. The demons had generated beautiful houses and everything necessary and they kept on entertaining these business people, who had come from the land of the aryas. They were given good food, good treatment and they got married among them and started having children. One day the captain goes somewhat further away and he sees something very suspicious. He notices these demons are not really genuine living beings. Something funny is going on. He goes around here and there and finds a lot of old people, locked in as prisoners. He is able to talk to them. They tell him: ‘Well, how did we get here? The same way you got here. Our ship broke and when we landed here, they treated us very well, until another ship came and broke up. Then they started eating us and those of us who were old and not very good for eating, they keep here, locked up’. What to do? The captain – who was one of Buddha’s previous incarnations – is very worried now and starts to go up the mountain. He meets a bird there, that tells him: ‘On the full moon day a great wise horse will come here to a big open place, where there is water to drink, and he will clean himself in the jewel sand. Then he will make three noises. Anybody who would like to go to the land of the aryas, the Southern Continent Jambuling, he will take with him. At that time, all people will have to ride on him and hold on to his manes. The horse will fly and take them there. But if you have attachment, let’s say to the children you have produced there, or to your compan443

See page 177. For the eight mahayana precepts, see: Kathleen McDonald, How to meditate pg. 187-195. 445 In Kathleen Mcdonald, How to meditate pg. 193: ‘All you buddhas and bodhisattvas residing in the ten directions, please pay attention to me! As the tathagata, the foe-destroyers and the completely perfected buddhas of the past, who, like the heavenly steed and the great elephant, accomplished their objective and did their task….’ 446 Stories about Sakyamuni’s previous incarnations. Translation: Stanley Fry, Sutra of the wise and the foolish. 444

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ion demons, if you have one single attachment, you will be dropped. Even if you are already on the horse and holding onto its mane, if you look back just once, you will be dropped. This is what the horse will try. And the moment you are taking the horse, all your companions will know it and they will run and call your name and say: ‘How can you leave us!’, and the children also will shout at you, but the moment you look down, you will be dropped and they will eat you’. So some people got dropped. At the stage of death, when you are going, you have the wise horse of the dharmakaya going off. And if you have attachment, if you look back, then you will really be dropped. Whether they are going to eat you or not, you are going to suffer in samsara and possibly even in the lower realms. If you are able to concentrate and you are ready to go, the wise horse of the dharmakaya will carry you. You don’t have to do anything, just hold it. That is the story of the wise horse. If you give the explanation of the wise horse, that is talking ‘over there’, but this is actually what happens. I think it is mythology – there is a lot of Hindu mythology, the Buddhists do not have a mythology of their own – that is why you have all these elephants and horses and all this. What actually happens is, if you are not concentrating properly and if you only are looking back, ever so slightly, you are finished. From the reddish feeling you now go into the dark… That is the nang che tob sum, the procedure of the white, red and black appearances. When the blackness comes, the next one will be the light, which is not really the clear light but some sort of light. You get frustrated in the darkness, you don’t want to stay, you want to move. Actually there is a question of which I am not really sure. During the ordinary death – I’m talking about a person who doesn’t have a vajrayana practice and who does not open the central channel – the functioning of the air opens the central channel, I think, at the last minute. At the time when you are in the total blackness and you feel you’re suffocating, you want to get out. At that moment, of the combination of consciousness and air, the first to move is the air. You remember, we talked about the horse and the horseman447, so the horse moves before the man moves. Due to the movement of the horse the drops separate. According to the Tibetan vajrayana teachings this indestructible drop consists of the white drop, or semen, which you get from the father and the red drop, or egg, which you get from the mother. These two normally do not separate until you die, so the drop is indestructible. There is mental and physical indestructibile. The physical indestructible drop is indestructible till you die. At the time of death the white drop and the red drop will separate. For the people who sit in meditation at that stage, the indestructible drop opens at the moment they relax their meditation and leave their body. The air moves, pushes the indestructible drop open and the consciousness goes out. The white drop comes down and gets out from the lower point of the sexual organ and the red part goes upward and drops some kind of red from the nostril. So from the dead body, when the person is in the meditation state, the red blood dripping from the nostril and the white semen dripping from the lower sexual organ is the actual sign of the separation of the consciousness and the body. At that time you are coming out of the black period, you’re joining ‘the light period’. This very process we use to practice the clear light, we practice to produce the illusion body, and that very process we use to generate the union. So the process is this; the process of purification is this, the process of cutting the negativities is this, the process of cutting the contaminated body is this, and the process of creating the uncontaminated body and mind is this. This very procedure is repeated a number of times. On the completion stage these processes are tremendously intensified. At this moment we only begin to introduce this process; the development stage is the introduction level, particularly at the dharmakaya level where we do this practice.

447

See page 234.

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This very process now is reversed. We call that lung ju lu dor – forward and backward, back and forth. As we experience the death stage, we experience the reverse period, i.e. the period of the development of the bardo. Sometimes you get very fearful incidents, sometimes it is terrible. It is almost like if you are taking a bhang448. If you take a bhang, the things that you hear are so clear, so exaggerated; the people talking next-door you probably hear talking inside your ear, the greens are so green and the whites are so white. All experience is so much intensified. I have experienced it and what I did notice, is that the hearing was so clear, the colors were so bright, and the room looked like newly painted. That morning when those Indians gave me those little sweets, I began to concentrate how the central channel looked like and suddenly I began to see the green bamboo type of thing and I also saw the chakras going round. When used positively you can definitely see smoothness and positiveness, but if something goes wrong, then the experience will be terrifying. The terrifying experience could go to the extreme of mountains bursting, of oceans bubbling and flooding. Those of you who took drugs probably know better than I do what I am talking about. I am quite sure you can intensify it in both ways. If you can see the nice things in that way, you also can see the bad things exaggerated; I am quite sure. At the death stage the sharpness remains, yet it becomes a very subtle level. The intensified gross interferences we had, have been tremendously reduced. It is so much focused, so much intensified that when it goes the negative way, it could be terrible. Although in reality it is only a little wind blowing, in our experience it could be the bursting of the mountains, the shaking of the whole ocean, the burning of the whole universe. You know what I mean? These intensified things are the experiences that people go through at the bardo level. That tiny little bardoa who has a very sharp, subtle mind, has no protection for whatsoever, is totally left alone in that plane of suffering, where all these intensified unbalanced elements are thrown. That is the negative experience during the death, which we can understand when we concentrate wrongly or are guided wrongly when we take a trip. If you take the right thing it is nice and wonderful. The positive part of the bardo will probably have very similar experiences. At the end of that reverse process the being is born. When you are practicing this, you are reversing these eight stages: the black red, white, and all of them. The black will be so intense that you can’t move, you can’t even breathe. The red will be so intense that the whole universe may be burning, you can’t get away anywhere, the whole sky is full of fire and the ground is totally burning. It’s like an acid trip. Acid will reduce the gross awareness. You still have the subtle mind, which is holding and perceiving whatever you have, an that is really showing you how the death stage could be. It is the same: here you do it by the acid power and when the acid goes down, you can come back; there you are going through the natural process, so you do not come back and you land somewhere else. When the eight stages have reversed, you have landed in the bardo level. You don’t come back. Will he bardoa go back to his old dead body? He can, so why not? I am quite sure they recognize the corpse as their old body. They are said to be talking to their relatives, but no matter how much they talk to them, they can’t be heard and so they get very upset. Sometimes it is said that the bardoas don’t like to go back to their old body, with the exception of a few who somehow died untimely and through some karmic powers are pushed back. Certain teachers say that the bardoas can’t see their old body. I am not sure about that. I think they won’t like to go back to it, because it is something they dislike; the body looks ugly, the experience of suffering or pain somehow remains within the consciousness and so they have the hesitation of going back. Also they are disconnected. It is very similar to people getting divorced; they recognize each other but they don’t want to go back, because they have been disconnected. You don’t want to go back, because you see the discomfort in that. Very similar to that, karmically you don’t want to go back to your old body. That is the true explanation. You do have attachment, but you might not have attachment to that particular body. People die and go to another existence, the main reason being that the body has become unserviceable.

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Marihuana.

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S<. To go from the dharmakaya to the bardo, we start reversing from the clear light to the near attainment; when the near-attainment is reached, the bardo begins. Most spirits are not bardo beings but ghosts. Samsaric dharma protectors are in the hungry ghost realms. Palden Lhamo and other dharma protectors are like bound spirits which the lams harness from the god realm. Nechung and others are hungry ghosts. Our ordinary bardo is the base. >S.

What to do at the time of death? Let’s say you got an illness from which you are not going to get better at all. The medications can prolong your life a little bit, but they can’t really help. One always hopes, but you intellectually you know very well, you are not going to get better. The prognosis, the doctors give you, is not good. The doctors may not tell you, but you know it by the way they act. So it is certain you are going to die, nothing can be done. If you were in that position, what would you do? If you are a good Buddhist practitioner, what do you rely on? You totally rely on Lama Kunchog – Lama, Buddha, dharma and sangha. You offer whatever you can – in front of the images or whatever – to the objects of offering. This is the opportunity for us to use our savings, and since you are not going to retire, all retirement things you have you can use at that period. The best usage is generosity. Offer it to Buddha, dharma and sangha. That is the number one category generosity. (This is the fault of Buddhism; they will tell you that, right?) In a way, it is also more profitable to the individual. The number two category will be generosity to the needy, like giving to hospitals, giving for education and that type of thing; give whatever you would like to spend. Within your power and capacity, you can make prostrations, etc. Then it is time for you to make a last attempt to purify yourself. All the negativities, the big ones you remember, you have to purify, and it should be done from the bottom of the heart. So you do it totally concentrated and dedicated. You can say 100 000 Vajrasattva mantras, or if you cannot say them yourself, get a number of other people, pay them and have them do the recitations for you. The best persons for you to say them are your own sangha members or monks and nuns. Not only that. Of course your own body and wealth and particularly the virtues you have accumulated since the limitless beginning, all of them you imaginatively, through visualization, use as an offering to Buddha, dharma and sangha, and you think that all of your virtues have become countless, inexhaustible. With that sort of mind, don’t let yourself down, keep your chin up. The way to do that is not by thinking: ‘I am going to die, I am going to be miserable, I am going to lose everything I have’. That is not right. You are going to go anyway, you cannot hold it. So let go. That is the most important point: let go! Particularly the things you cannot let go, whatever strong attachment you have, say you are very fond of your most favorite shirt… let it be disposed of. Your children, let them get married, let them live their lives. If you keep on worrying about them, it is not going to do any good at all; neither are you going to help them, nor are you helping yourself. Not only you are not helping, you are harming. And in addition to that, you are going to have a big problem. Therefore, what you have to do is: let go. Let go in the sense that you cut your feelings, but you do the best you can do to make sure they are going to be all right. If you leave small ones behind, you have to make sure that they are taken care of. It is important not to have attachment. The family is another question – they will have difficulties, but they’ll manage. Like Allen Ginsberg sings: ‘Sangha death, we’ll work it through’.449 The way you keep your chin up is to shift your focus to wherever you are going. So you put your focus on a pure land: the Dakini Land for Vajrayogini practitioners, or if you have been saying Migtsemas all your life, you focus on going to Tushita Pure Land, where you‘ll meet with lama Tsongkhapa, buddha Maitreya, Atisha, and all these great beings that are staying there. Not only you think you’re going 449

In ‘Father Death blues’. Allen Ginsberg, Collected poems 1947-1980, pg. 654. Allen used to sing this during the benefit performances he gave for Jewel Heart. Allen Ginsberg died April 5 1997. Also see note 587 on page 363.

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there, but you almost have to hypnotize yourself and make yourself believe that you are going to go there. So you’re looking forward to going over there, rather than holding on to the idea of living. That’s why the attachment has to be cut. As long as you have attachment, then instead of the idea of going, you’ll have the idea of holding: ‘Yes, I like to go, but I like to settle that first’. You know, people do that. There is no time to settle these things. When you know that it is your time, the point is to cut. Whether you have made a mess of your life, or you have done good, whatever it was, it is history, and there is no time for you to re-do and remanufacture it. There is no second chance. You have to get that absolutely clear. A lot of people will say that they are not ready to go yet: ‘I have not done this, I have not done that...’ There is no point for us to linger around. Excuses won’t work. You can’t tell to anybody: ‘I haven’t done that yet, so I can’t go’. Nothing can be done. You have to get that understanding clear, right from the beginning. You cannot go and say: ‘Rinpoche, I just really want to finish this, and then, only thereafter..’. What can Rinpoche say except: ‘Well, I’ll pray for you’. That’s all we can say. There is no extension of your life. So, to make it absolutely clear: if you have to go, you have to go. And the way you raise up your chin and look forward then is: you almost have to believe that you are going to the Pure Land. Don’t talk or think about the lower realms at this point. If you have time for purification, do the right thing right away. And be generous, without any attachment, without any miserliness. Miserly for what? Our habitual patterns are such that we may think: ‘Oh, I cannot spend that much, I should not...’, but what are you saving for? Nothing. Here is the opportunity to accumulate merit. So that’s what you have to do. What are you going to rely on? Not on the doctor, nor on the treatment, nor on anything, when you are definitely going. If there is no way out, if you are certain about that, then the less suffering you have, the better it is. Once I went to Tandu Rinpoche in Kalimpong. He told me: ‘To tell you the truth, I had some kind of stroke’. It did not look like he had one. The way he moved and talked was perfect. And at the time he had that stroke, he had a visitor. He was talking to the visitor and when he realized that he was getting a stroke, he said he did two things. He kept on having the conversation with the visitor and he kept on saying Migtsemas from his heart. And when the visitor left, he took one of those precious pills. He said to me: ‘Luckily I didn’t have problems with being unable to speak or anything. If I had, there would be no use for living and that’s not good. If you have developed that problem, the best thing is to go, no use of holding it’. That he said. Two years later, when Tomo Geshe Rinpoche came back, he told me: ‘Tandu Rinpoche passed away. I don’t know, something happened to him and he could not speak for two days and the doctors said he may have a problem of not speaking but everything else was okay, but on the third day he passed away’. Probably he set his mind very strongly on: ‘If I can’t speak there is no use for me to stay; I am going’. Maybe he was such a person, that he had that much control over his life, that he did it that way. But for ordinary persons like us, even if we set up our mind carefully, it does make a difference. So if you are definitely going, if you have made sure and there is no doubt about it, then there is no point in hanging around. When it is not reversible, and you hang on, you suffer like hell, you make everybody’s life miserable and then finally you die anyway, so there is no point. Then it is time to make up your mind and go. How do you go? If you are a phowa practitioner, you can do it with the phowa. If you are a Vajrayogini practitioner, you have the uncommon inconceivable practice, through which you can go. There are a number of ways and means. If you don’t have any of those, make up your mind very strongly. Your whole life time you have spent with the practice and now it is time to materialize your benefits. Be absolute to make up your mind that you are going to a pure land and that you go as soon as

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possible and say: ‘I have nothing to do here, it is my time, I should go, go, go’. Put your mind on going very strongly. Do not think about the lower realms. In the time before, you think a lot about not falling into the lower realms and you do the purification very carefully. Once you make up your mind that you are going to the pure land, at that time don’t think about coming back; you just go. The problem with wanting to come back is that, unless you are extremely capable, are able to come back and do a lot of service, and are willing to do that, you shouldn’t think that way. The majority of people, the moment they think in this way about the future life, are holding with attachment. Like: ‘Let me go to the toilet for a minute and then come back’. That sort of idea of not letting go, not wanting to die, hanging on to life, most likely will hold you back, rather than help you to have a perfect death. With such thoughts you put yourself in danger. You can have attachment to life in the disguise of saying: ‘I want a human life, because it is important, bla bla bla’. Out of all lives, the human life is better, no doubt. However, if you go to a pure land, like Tushita, where Tsongkhapa is, or the Dakini Land, where Vajrayogini is, even if you don’t complete the path within that life time, you are far better off than by coming back, in which there is no guarantee that you will meet with Buddhism, there is no guarantee you will meet with the unmistaken great pure teachings of Tsongkhapa. Remember, Panchen Rinpoche refused to give a guarantee for a Chinese leader. He gave a guarantee to be reborn as a human being, a guarantee to meet with the teachings of Buddha, but when it came to the teachings of Tsongkhapa, he said: ‘I refuse, I can’t guarantee that’. It is really a big thing. Even if you do a twelve year retreat, or even if you do a life-long retreat, unless you have control, there is a big danger of that [wrong focus].

Questions and answers On pure lands Audience: But wishing to go to a pure land, if it is motivated by the wish just to avoid suffering... Rinpoche: What is wrong with that? Audience: If it is not motivated by the wish to benefit others... Rinpoche: That is the larger picture. At that period, what you don’t want, is the suffering, naturally, so what is wrong with that? Dislike is not necessarily negative. If something is wrong with that body, if it is no longer functioning, it gives you pain, it is miserable, you can’t hold your shit and your vomit, what is wrong with disliking it? You cannot address it any longer, it is no longer functioning, so disliking that body is perfect in that situation, there is nothing wrong with it. You have that Madame Positive nature, saying: ‘You cannot dislike your body, you have to address that, you have to deal with it, you have to negotiate’. At this moment it is a question of life and death and you don’t have the leisure to work out things here and there. You will definitely be better off disliking life over here and liking and looking forward to the pure land. You are definitely better off with that, no question. Okay? Don’t look back. That is important. In our habitual patterns we always like to look back. We leave children to look back. We leave buildings with the hope of looking back. We build monasteries, temples, images, with the hope of looking back. It is great, but at the same time it is attachment. We don’t want that at that moment. And we don’t have time to deal with it any longer. The dead line is here, it is coming up, it is like twelve seconds left; there is no time left to work things out. Audience: I have a problem with the pure lands, with saying: ‘Life as a human sucks, I don’t like it’. If I get to the end of this life as a human and have my practice and have attained something, that in itself is proof that this individual can take life. So if I know that it is difficult but I am able to do it and I can benefit myself and others, why would I want to fly up to some Never Never Land and say to all my friends here: ‘See you’. Do you see what I am saying? Rinpoche: I heard you. If you have the choice of how to come back, yes. But – if you don’t have that choice – to prove to anybody: ’Hey, I did it right’ is not your job. Unless you are absolutely sure, you

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will be better off to look in that way, rather than to say: ‘I am going to come back, I like a human life, I like to be reborn’. You may have a problem. So make sure that you have no problem left. Attachment holds you back. Another thing. You would have to make sure to come back as a human being with all the facilities that you have, and if you are not absolutely sure about that, better not hang out for it, because there is the possibility that you come back in that same place as a cockroach or scorpion. Those dangers you have to recognize. You don’t have to come back. You can obtain enlightenment at that pure land level, and the chances for you to obtain enlightenment there are far better than coming back. That’s what I am trying to say. Audience: [In a teaching a teacher said] that the pure land of Heruka and Vajrayogini is the only pure land in which the highest yoga tantras are practiced. Rinpoche: When you talk about the qualities of each yidam, they will say that: ‘this is the only one’. That is the normal Tibetan Buddhist system. Audience: Do you get taught by Heruka directly in Vajrayogini’s pure land? Rinpoche: Sure, why not? Audience: That’s a good enough reason to go. If our whole reason is to get enlightened as fast as we can, it seems like that would be the only thing we wanted to. The vajrayana bodhisattva goes first, he goes first and fast. Rinpoche: Wait a minute, the whole vajrayana path is a fast path, but as far as the bodhisattvas are concerned, I am not sure whether there is a difference between vajrayana and mahayana bodhisattvas. However, the aim of the bodhisattva is two pronged: you want to attain enlightenment as soon as possible and do that for the benefit of others. That’s why they want it as fast as they can. Audience: But can you help sentient beings when you go to a pure land? You have been teaching us that the bodhisattva vows are about coming back and helping. Rinpoche: Yes, you come back when you have the power to help. You come back when you can. You come back when you are useful. You don’t come back as an useless one, as an additional problem. Audience: I was wondering what the down side is, I mean people teaching you dharma twenty-four hours a day, and no obstacles, and all this… Rinpoche: That’s why it is called pure land. Let’s talk about the nearest one, Tushita Pure Land [tib. Ganden]. That pure land is slightly separate from Tushita itself; it is slightly above it in space, like a floating island that stays in one place. It is said it looks like a monastery away from a village, extended high up. People who do not have good karma, can’t take rebirth in that area at all, so there is the quality of exclusiveness. That exclusiveness, which makes you encounter everybody over there, means you have to be a pure being, a being with great qualities. The opportunities over there are the teachers, the companions; 99.9 % of the persons over there all actually enlightened beings, not unenlightened beings like us. We are full of delusions, full of shit; in that manner, we are impure. These beings are not controlled by delusions or any other thing, that’s why they are pure. The teachers are great beings, like Buddha himself, buddha Maitreya, Tsongkhapa, Maitreya, Padmasambhava450 etc. Every enlightened being that ever appeared in this area, is living and is guiding there. The land itself is completely pure. There is no toxic waste dumping at all. The water is pure, almost like nectar. All the ground is pure, nice and green; the color of the grass is so rich that it is like lapis lazuli ground. Not only that, when you walk on it, it goes springy, because of the richness and thickness of the grass. The discussions over there are not CNN news-items, but discussions addressing our own problems and the problems we have to solve for the other beings. Everything is directly addressed that 450

In Tibetan: Padma Jungne, also called Guru Rinpoche.

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way. The food you get is not ordinary food, but of pure nectar nature, and so are the drinks. What else do you want? You yourself, male or female, are youthful; you never get older than sixteen. In other words the basic natural sufferings of birth, death, aging and illnesses are not there. The physical shape might not look like human beings. The winds and channels are another question. In Vajrayogini Pure Land they all work. In other pure lands that might not necessarily be the case; e.g. in the Western Paradise you are born from a lotus, not from a womb. Audience: And do you stay there until you are enlightened? Rinpoche: More or less and even if you don’t, you take [a human] rebirth back and complete enlightenment within a life or so. That’s really what the Pure Land is all about. It is not the pure land of Northern Michigan, nor the Himalayas. Audience: What about the people you are connected to here in this world? Do they benefit at all or do they have to wait for the thousands of years of happiness that you are having? Rinpoche: That is questionable. Those who are connected to you, if they pray and keep connected, they benefit and if they don’t, they don’t. You see; again there is attachment of holding, of being unable to let go: ‘Will I be able to do something or will they...’ You know, attachment sometimes goes the other way round. One way is: ‘Can I hold on to them’ and another way is: ‘Can I do something for them’. From both angles you are not letting go. This way or that way, you like to hold on to and manipulate your lives by using the excuse of love and compassion. True, you do. Not having attachment is so important! Attachment is the glue of samsara. Remember, I have been saying that for a number of times. Audience: If you are going to a pure land, would you have a bardo? Rinpoche: Interesting question. At the time of death the hope is that the protectors receive you and take you to a pure land. If that pure land is an extraordinary pure land, there might be no bardo. If you are going to go into a pure land like Tushita, as it forms part of the desire realm, there might either not be a bardo period or there might be a very short one, which you may or may not recognize. Audience: If a person could not manage to go to a pure land, is it still possible to influence that during the bardo? Rinpoche: That is also possible, everything is possible. Audience: Where is the pure land in relation to samsara? Rinpoche: Beyond samsara. Don’t think in physical terms. Audience: But one’s mind is still in samsara as long as one is not liberated, even if one goes there. Rinpoche: No, if you are born in there by the virtue of exclusiveness, you don’t get the gunmen coming into the important clubs. That exclusiveness works. On the bardo Audience: If in the bardo mind and body are not separate, is there anything like a dream state in the bardo? Rinpoche: Yes, very much like that. Very similar to it. I don’t think bardoas go to sleep. Audience: Do bardoas interrelate with each other? Rinpoche: Yes, they talk to each other probably. Audience: So while they are doing that, they are also creating more karma? Rinpoche: Of course, why not? Audience: So because it is more intense, it must be more powerful. Rinpoche: Maybe not. Audience: So where are the bardoas?

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Rinpoche: Under your arms. I give you this answer with reasons - it smells good [joke]451. Audience: Rinpoche, I was wondering how the form of the next life is already determined, when I was under the impression that in the bardo they go through these seven short deaths potentially and there is all this potential karmic link up. How can it be known, right when they enter the bardo, what their future life is going to be, if the karmic connection has not yet been made? Rinpoche: Good thought. Actually, bardoas can change within the bardo itself. According to the Abidharmakosha, [tib. Ngonpa dzö] it does not change, but according to the Abidharmasamuccaya, [tib. Ngonpa kundu] it can change. They give you the example that the bardo is as easy to turn around as a rubber or leather raft in the river. Audience: In cases where you are going to die as a one year old child or aborted fetus, is it already predetermined who and where you are going to be? I heard it is hard to find your future rebirth. Rinpoche: They say it is hard to find and they talk about seeking the future rebirth, but actually the karma is so strong that the future rebirth is not hard to find at all. Audience: So is it predetermined if you are going to be born into that particular family, etc.? Rinpoche: Not necessarily, the bardo can change. The moment your bardo is established, yes, it is determined what you are going to be, but still, it is changeable. Your appearance can change. I have a problem with saying that it is predetermined, because it can change. But the appearance is that of your future rebirth. Audience: If you are in a human bardo, is it very unlikely to change into an animal bardo? Rinpoche: Why? If you can change for the better, you can definitely change for the worse. If there is no change then there is no change, but if there is, then it can change for the worse as well. Audience: Can the changes take place at the little death during the bardo? Rinpoche: That’s probably the time. According to the Abidharmakosha [tib. Ngongpa dzö] it is not changeable. But according to a mahayana text similar to that but considered more authentic, the Ngonpa kundu, it is. Actually, the bardo is some sort of holiday. At the very time you complete your death, you establish your bardo. I don’t think there is a second in between; it happens at the same time. The bardoa itself looks a little bit like it is floating, so it is changeable. Lot of people say it is not, but it definitely is. You have to accept the Ngonpa kundu system. A question asked was, if bardoas develop a lower realm bardo, is it possible to change into a higher realm bardo? The Ngonpa dzö probably says no, but the Ngonpa kundu says yes. We normally follow the Ngonpa kundu. Although the Abidharma is based on Ngonpa dzö, still Ngonpa kundu is a mahayana text; therefore we try to follow that when the two of them say two different things. Though change is possible in the bardo, at the death time you know more or less what sort of future life you are going to have. It is somehow roughly decided. The conscious last mind links to certain karmic links and so by that time, more or less the connections are made. The moment you reverse your procedure in the bardo level, you already know what the bardo is going to be. E.g. the humans have picked up the human bardo of the future life because it is the future that controls, not the past. At the time of the reverse signs, somehow it already – I hate to say ‘has been decided’ because nobody decided – is taking shape and starting to move. Audience: Can we influence what happens to the bardo being, through pujas, etc.? Rinpoche: Yes, we can. We do influence very strongly. That’s why we do pujas and things like that for the person who died. We go to the different masters and teachers, lamas and spiritually developed per451

Bardoas are called ‘smell-eaters’ See page 234.

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sons and request them to do this and that ritual and they do influence. Although your karma is your basic guidance and change is difficult, it is not impossible. It is much easier to intervene in the bardo level than with someone who has already taken rebirth. Audience: Is there anything we can do when we are in the bardo? Rinpoche: I am not sure if you can do anything or not. It almost completely depends on the second or third person to do something. Whether we may be able to, depends. If you have a strong practice you can definitely do it. Audience: You were talking about praying as a way to help. How do enlightened beings help? Rinpoche: Enlightened beings will function according to your prayers. When you pray you are urging the enlightened beings to act and use their power to work things out in that way. Audience: Is there a difference in the potency of the power of prayer in the bardo or for example now in the life? Rinpoche: It is much easier to intervene in the bardo. The bardo is changeable because it is a very delicate state. It is very similar to human beings emotionally disturbed; these are easier to be influenced than emotionally stable persons. Audience: Can you explain a little more about the little death that happens after seven days in the bardo? Rinpoche: One goes through the same eight stages of the dying procedure – shorter than the actual death and very, very brief – and reverses them. And by that time maybe you have or maybe you don’t have a different body. The big deaths are much more intense and have bigger imprints; what is called small death is a much lesser process, just a sort of fainting, like when you get emotionally disturbed; may be it is more than a faint, but it is sort of a blank period you go through. The life of the bardoa is very delicate. Tiny little emotions can look huge to you and can even kill you. Audience: Can your future rebirth change with these little deaths or not? Rinpoche: Possibly, but not necessarily. Audience: Do bardo beings know they are looking for the future rebirth? Is it randomly that they see it and then know, or are they consciously knowing and looking? Rinpoche: That is a good question. I don’t know. They are probably running around and have no idea where they are going. They just go for the sake of going. Audience: Most of us are probably carried by the wind of karma and have no control of what is happening. Rinpoche: They do say that, but I am not so sure. A lot of bardoas may dislike whatever they are and want to change. Audience: Do the bardoas interact? Rinpoche: They do. The human bardoas see each other, the animal ones see each other. Also people who have developed up to the level of the divine eye – one of the five visions you find in the Thirtyseven wings of enlightenment – will see each other. But I don’t think the human bardoas will see the animal bardoas. Audience: You said the families burn barley for the deceased. Do they do that at the person’s home or where they were buried? Are they attached to the area where the body is kept? Rinpoche: They are not attached to their bodies. The families used to put the barley and incense outside their house, just outside the door, within the familiar area.

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Audience: What is the necessity for creating the sambogakaya? Rinpoche: Without sambogakaya, nirmanakaya is not possible because nirmanakaya is manifestation and that needs a basis of manifesting; which is the sambogakaya. Audience: As a Yamantaka practitioner with no attainments, can we say mantras for people in the bardo, maybe visualize them and say mantras, and help them out a little bit, just to block negative karma? Rinpoche: How can you block? Do you have the power? Audience: But you want us to say Migtsemas on behalf of people in the bardo, but what about any of the vajrayana practices? Rinpoche: Migtsema is definitely vajrayana, too. Don’t discount that, don’t look down on it. It is much more powerful than wrathful mantras. On death Audience: In the west, when a doctor declares a person dead, it may not be the same time when the drops are separated. In that case, would it be better not to disturb the body? Rinpoche: Yes. But you have to do whatever you have to do: Yu yar lung de na, lha yar la sham ba – If you remain in the place called Yarlung, then your deity has to be Yarla shamba.

Audience: All those people who have been revived on an operating table or something, they would not have gotten to the point where the two drops have separated then? Rinpoche: For most of them, no. Some of them could be, but for most of them, no. Audience: Does instant cremation or embalming have some influence? Rinpoche: No. Once the consciousness has parted from the body there is no connection any more. In a gross way, we can say that after that the body is just like mud or rocks, no longer anything. But as respect to the dead person you do whatever service you have to do. You cremate or bury the body or cut and feed it; whatever you do, you dispose of it in a respectable manner. Audience: Is the person’s brain dead when the drops have separated, even if they have them on mechanical devices to supply air ? Rinpoche: I am sure the air going there will make a difference. It will disturb the normal procedure of the air moving and the consciousness coming out. It will definitely interrupt a little bit. But I am not sure whether that external air can really penetrate through to the indestructible drop at that time. That is a big question. Normally, we should think it should not. But in some cases it may. At the time, when the indestructible drop from the air pressure from inside begins to open, then I am sure, the external air pressure will do something to it. Air is air, so wherever there is a hole, air goes through, whether it comes from inside or outside, so when the inside air will come out the outside air will go in. So, definitely, there will be some influence, but what will be the most powerful? Maybe the internal air is more powerful, because it is squeezed and blocked and coming out and so the external air may not have the capability of getting in. The internal air may have more pressure. Who knows? I am also talking blind here, but the movement of the internal air will be followed by the exit of the consciousness. Audience: What you are talking about, is that actual physical air? Rinpoche: Naturally. There is definitely some physical air, but I think there is hardly a chance to measure it, unless the doctors are very conscious and use a lot of very sophisticated machines. Even then there may not be much to notice, because how big is the drop? Very small; so the quantity of air in there will also be very small, although it may have a lot of pressure. I think you have physical air there, sure. Audience: Rilbur Rinpoche gave a talk and said it would be a very compassionate and good thing to donate your organs when you die. I wonder how that will affect the process?

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Rinpoche: If you are a bodhisattva, yes, go ahead and do it. It is a good thing to do. What better generosity is there than giving your own body? On the other hand if they take the organs out before you die, there are other difficulties, too. The choice has to made by the individual. I can’t say either this or that way. On the one hand I don’t want to be an obstacle to the great generosity, on the other hand I don’t want to create obstacles before the natural process of death has taken place, on the basis of my word. People are poking out your ears, your eyes, or taking out your heart, kidneys, balls or anything else, so….. Audience: Is fear of suffering a sign of attachment? Rinpoche: Fear of suffering might not be attachment, but fear itself is grown by attachment. Fear of losing, and fear in that case becomes reality. You know when you are high with drugs, you know it is not real, but you still get afraid. Don’t you get that? I mean, I have no experience. So think about that. And that is further intensified at that period, because the mind is reduced to the subtle levels. It looks so huge, because the gross mind is cut down and the subtle mind is taking over. Audience: What is the karmic consequence of suicide? Rinpoche: Terrible. Suicide is terrible, particularly for vajrayana practitioners. If you [as vajrayana practitioner] commit suicide, you have the non-virtue of killing a yidam, which is almost like killing a buddha. It is a very heavy negativity. Audience: During actual death, how long does the process take that we do in the three-kaya practice? Rinpoche: It can be very short, even a minute, or it can be quite slow, two, three, five hours up to twenty-four, forty-eight or fifty-two hours maybe. I use the word fifty-two because that is quite a settled reasonable period. If you are a practitioner, you do have enough time to practice. That is quite an elaborate, generous timing. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche stayed in the meditation period for fifty-two hours. There may be a message in it, that’s what I was thinking, an indication, telling normal people something. But normal people and extraordinary people are two different things. Still there may be some kind of message in there. My father stayed for over fourteen days; that’s too long. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche stayed a time very similar to that. Audience: What was he doing? Rinpoche: He was busy. Audience: Why is it too long? Rinpoche: A lot of inconvenience for everybody. It is the period of the connection between mother- and child clear light. The link between mother and child clear light. That is probably a very good time, so they stayed there. Audience: In the case of your father, was there any medical dispute over when the actual time of death occurred? Rinpoche: Actually, maybe to your surprise – it was during the cultural revolution in Tibet – somehow everybody just respected it and left it there and almost all people in Lhasa attended the funeral, carrying things, etc. Even the Chinese, for political reasons or whatever it may be, did not intervene and gave orders to their Religion Department, saying: ‘Whatever you have to do in accordance with the local rules, do that’. So under these orders he remained for something like fourteen, fifteen or sixteen days, which was probably the longest in Tibetan history. In the case of Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, three doctors came up from Delhi, just to observe. They were three senior Indian doctors, very respectful. They knew what dharma was, so they would not even touch. They just went into the room, looked around a little bit, but did not even feel the pulse or anything. Though they had all this medical equipment with them and there was a little difficulty of allowing or not, finally they looked in there and then went back.. May be they were sent for some medical research, because the process took so long. Audience: In the Lam Rim it is said that most people at the death stage are not even aware of the last stages they go through. If you are aware of it, what else do you have to do?

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Rinpoche: The question is, you may or may not have much control over it. We are talking here about people with control who can choose and think: ‘I like to stay here for a little time’. In the practice you do every day during the sadhana period, you can determine how long you want to stay with each one of the stages: two minutes or five or ten minutes. You can make the decision here and when you are trained in that manner, you can do it similarly at the actual death stage. At the actual death, I don’t think ordinary people go through the process necessarily that fast. You may or may not recognize the first one or two signs, but hopefully you recognize the ones thereafter. May be you goes through the process very fast, may be not. People who die in a car crash, accident, falling from high altitudes, sudden deaths, have the stages running very fast; in such a case you won’t recognize them. When Lama Yeshe died, his heart stopped. They used shock treatment for a number of times. The doctor who was doing it, somehow knew who he was and he kept on giving these shocks one after another, much more than usual. He kept on bumping and bumping, hoping that he would wake up. By that time the doctor was sweating like hell and he got another assistant to keep on bumping. But it was hopeless. He turned around to lama Zopa, who was there, and lama Zopa asked him how many times they normally do that. Normally they do it four or five times and they did it over hundred times, so he said: ‘Now stop, because there is no hope’. Not only there was no hope of returning, but probably his consciousness was also made to go very fast and he probably already left. But in one of their writings they said that lama Yeshe remained for a little while, for couple of hours, but I am not sure. I did not talk to lama Zopa, but I heard the two different versions. I heard the first one from almost everybody and what they wrote in the paper was different. So I don’t know what actually happened. But if you do that many heart bumpings, it may be very difficult to remain [in the body]. Audience: When my mother died in hospital, they were going to pack her off and put her in the freezer. I asked them not to do that, and the hospital went along with that. So in many cases, if you ask they will let the body undisturbed for some time. Audience: You can’t make a legal declaration while youre alive what is to happen when you’re dead. Rinpoche: There are two lawyers here, Marilyn and Matthew. Marilyn: I think in Michigan the hospital is bound to respect your wishes but I recommend you put it in writing anyway, because they may respect that. Rinpoche: They are not bound to but they may. So do you demand fifty-two hours? Audience: Last year when my father died, they let me be with him for half an hour. Audience: They gave me six hours. That was during the night, so it worked out that way. But they would not do it until you asked. Don’t be too quick to go along with whatever they say. Audience: When is the appropriate time for a lama to do the transference of consciousness, at what stage? Rinpoche: Fourteen days later [joke]. Immediately at the time of the death you can inform the lamas and make requests. Audience: When I meditate the eight death signs, the one which comes after the black near attainment, and is called clear light of death, what kind of clear light is that? Rinpoche: This we just call clear light, which I don’t think it is. It is the light of the death stage. We just get some kind of light. Only practitioners who know what it is and have also practiced it, get it, [the clear light]. The clear light is something which you obtain through practice; the death light is something that comes in an automatic process. Audience: So at the ordinary death, the clear light is not real ?

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Rinpoche: People, chose to call it that way, specially the English speaking vajrayana buddhists, At the path level it becomes the clear light: at the earlier stage you get the exemplary clear light and then eventually, more intensified and purified, it will become the actual clear light. Audience: So the result will be the mother clear light? Rinpoche: No, the result is the dharmakaya. Both clear lights are the path. The ordinary death is the base light. People just picked up this terminology. That creates confusion, unfortunately. Audience: From this description and from the account of those who had a near-death experience, is there any parallels regarding the clear light at all or not? Rinpoche: There is a parallel. The funny thing I noticed, is that all those who have come back from death in the west, talk about the light and the tunnel. All returners from death in the Tibetan tradition, don’t talk about light and tunnel, but talk about bardo and coming back. They describe that they were waiting in Yama’s judgmental line and witnessed that suddenly some kind of powerful persons picked out some others, who had overriding priority, and they went with some kind of sound ‘zzzzzzrrrrrrrr’, some up and some down. Both, up and down, can have priority. On experiences during death and bardo One thing I would like to make very clear. We have been thinking on the basis of the sadhana. When you talk on the basis of the sadhana, people get the idea that it is like ‘boom, boom, boom’ – there is death, there is bardo and there is rebirth. It does not go that way. When we go on the basis of the sadhana, we always look from the positive point of view. We completely overlook the negative points. There are a tremendous amount of negative points. Take for example the bardo tronang, the tremendous hallucinations that takes place. We talk about the dissolving stages, saying: ‘Well, the earth element signs off and the water element comes up and you get a mirage type of feeling’ but actually, what happens is that there are a lot of hallucinations, so much that there is a tremendous amount of fear. There are feelings as if you have been swept away completely by a tremendous powerful storm, as if you are caught in the middle of a hurricane. Sometimes you see these little leaves caught in a storm and these little leaves have no idea how they get pulled. You feel that way; it is like you are caught in the middle of a tremendous hurricane and carried away completely, you are thrown high up in the space somewhere and suddenly you drop down. There is a tremendous amount of those fearful feelings. We call it hallucination, but the individual does feel that way. It is like reality, although it is not. But the feelings and experience and sufferings, people go through as if it were reality. That is why it is called bardo tronang. So it is a very big deal; it is not a joke. The reason why we did not talk about that is because in the sadhana we only talk in positive terms. But you have those things as well; you have to remember that. There are a number of prayers, that the great lamas wrote, that ask that one may be protected from those hallucinated fears during the bardo period. Even in the Tara practice, remember, we do have that prayer: Oh you assembly of Lamas and Special Yidam Deities, hear me. Please, liberate me from the fearful, narrow passage of the bardo.

So in the bardo there is a lot of fear. The fears are described as messengers of the Lord of Yama that come and get you, tie you and cut you in pieces. Yes, all of that is there and you feel it. Even the dissolving of the elements is fearful. We simply tell you: ’You have this feeling and you have that feeling’, and yes, that’s true, but everything is tremendously intensified. The mirage really becomes a huge wave of water, like a bursting dam, and you are caught in the middle of it and carried away. The fire sparks become like you are caught in the middle of a forest fire and there is no way you can escape. It is like if a huge sweeping fire really catches you, throws you thirty feet up in the air and drops you down. And the sounds you hear! There is a tremendous burning going on, so there is the crackling sound. In reality there might hardly be anything, but in your experience it is intensified so much. Those of you, who took drugs, will know how much. Fear does that.

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I have one experience. During 1959, when there was fighting between the Tibetan and the Chinese, they used to have this automatic machine gun, going ‘tak tak tak tak’, so we used to hear that. After that, we went across the mountains to one of my family estates, called Para, just opposite the Karmapa’s Tsurphu monastery. I intended to get my mules there. We used to have two to three hundred mules there. But I could not get a single one. Most of them had been borrowed by the Karmapa – for a couple of days, they said. We used to loan each other things. When I got to India, I told the Karmapa’s general secretary: ‘You took my mules’ and he said: ‘Oh, yes, yes’ but he did not return a single penny. Anyway, when I was in that estate, somebody opened a leather bag. The leather made some noise, and that noise I heard like it were gun shots and I got so scared! That’s how you build connections. So it is not reality, but to the individual it can become that way. It is very important for the individual to recognize: ‘I am going through this period. These are the stages. This is the process of my dying. This is the process of me developing the bardo. So all these are hallucinations and not reality’. You have to acknowledge that. Also you do whatever you can in the sense of looking forward to go to a pure land, to joyful places, because if you keep on thinking of suffering, you are going to suffer, no doubt. Do not have attachment to the suffering. That is very important. What you focus during the period you are dying, depends on what level you are in your sutrayana or vajrayana development. If you are good and stable at the generation stage, you focus on: the yidam, the lama inseparable from this or that yidam, whether it is Yamantaka, Vajrayogini, Heruka, Manjushri, Tara, Avalokitesvara or whatever. If you don’t have that, if you are good at the refuge taking, take refuge to Buddha, dharma and sangha, use that. If you are good at love and compassion, use that. If you are good at the emptiness wisdom, use that, and if you are stable at the guru devotion at the beginning level, use that. These are the actual techniques you apply. It is important, that you bite what you can chew, rather than trying to be of a high level. Then neither you have that, nor you have this, and there is a danger of falling in between the cracks. So make sure you bite what you can chew. If you have time, you can settle whatever you have to. Otherwise rely on somebody you can trust, rather than getting involved yourself too much, because then people will argue. That is what you don’t want during that period, as we mentioned before. In short, you have to make it as pure as possible; make sure that there is no influence of attachment, no encounter with anger, no encounter with hatred. That is very important. Totally rely on Buddha, dharma and sangha and particularly on your own lama. If you are thinking of going to Tushita pure land, think the lama is inseparable from Lama Tsongkhapa, and if you are going to the Western Paradise, then think the lama is inseparable from Lama Amithaba. If you are going to the Dakini Land, the lama is inseparable from Lama Vajrayogini or Lama Heruka for that matter. Then it is time for you to say the verse at the end of the Heruka and Vajrayogini sadhana. Don’t say it fast, think slowly and do that a number of times. At death, may the Lords, Heroes, and Dakini hosts Offer me flowers, hold up umbrellas and banners, Play music of cymbals and sweet voices and so forth, And take me to the Heavenly Land of Dakinis!.

Audience: I am curious. Is this to keep our minds on a pure thought, rather than buying a ticket and thinking where one wants to go and whose mantra one wants to do, or is it literal? Rinpoche: It is literal. You know, our own Helen from Holland, when she was dying, she called me. I was in Chicago and I was saying the Vajrayogini mantra and she said: ‘Rinpoche, I changed my mind, I am going to Tushita’. She really wanted to go to Tushita, so at the last minute we switched everything to the Migtsema. That was the last talk we had, and when I called three hours later, she was already gone. The people there told me: ‘She has just passed away’. That’s what happens. So do whatever you feel comfortable with. You don’t have to make the choice right now, but it is really literal. The mother tantra practitioners will probably focus on the Dakini land, but at the same time a lot of people do the Migtsema, so therefore you can have Tushita. That is really nice. I remember I was talking with Tara Rinpoche, when he was here and we were having a picnic. He had the robes up

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above his knees and was hitting his thighs and telling me: ‘Don’t you think it is better to go to Tushita and meet with Tsongkhapa and try to be there as long as we can? ‘Don’t you think that would be better?’

Generation of the causal Vajra holder – continuation To repeat, before you go into the sambogakaya, you have to generate a motivation. This is here: Basically I would like to rise from the level of the dharmakaya. I would like to purify my ordinary bardo and I would like to create certain causes to be able to produce my illusion body during the path period. And I would like to attain the state of the ultimate enjoyment body. Sambogakaya has been translated as enjoyment body – there is no problem, it is always enjoying itself. To repeat the sadhana text 452: In the center of the Mansion is the letter YAM and this transforms into an air mandala, slightly reddish-black in color, upon which is the letter short A.

So from the letter YAM comes the air mandala. Again, it is absolutely part of yourself, nothing else. At the center of that, suddenly the letter short A appears. It is your own consciousness, which becomes that. Why A? There are very important reasons here. Human beings are capable of producing sixteen different levels or rhythms of sound, what we call yang cho dru in Tibetan. The essence of all or the first initial of all is the letter A. Even in the Manjushri nama sangiti, the Manjushri name tantra. it says: The A is the most important sound. It is born from deep inside, rather than produced by the tongue. Out of all the letters of the alphabet, including vowels, the most important of all is A. It is the essence of all expression.

Whether you are expressing through sound, writing or art, the essence of the expression has to be A. Without A you cannot express anything. Even in art [that is the principle]. You don’t have to write the letter A there; the life of art is A. It expresses the nature of emptiness.

You can’t catch it and it is also the cause of all sounds you make, every word you make, whether it is English, Tibetan, Sanskrit or whatever language. Even the dogs and cats and mice and every being, whatever noise they produce, the essence of it is A. Audience: What is the difference between the short A and the long A? Rinpoche: There is an A and an extended AH. In the Sanskrit alphabet the vowels go A AH I IH, etc.. Audience: So when in Vajrayogini they talk about the short A and when they talk about the short A here, is that different from the AH in OM AH HUNG? Rinpoche: In our basic visualization I don’t think it makes a difference, just think of A, that’s enough. Short or long, does not matter, that is too detailed. [The sadhana says]: This becomes a moon mandala.

That very A now melts into light and becomes a moon disc radiating light. Then you say: ‘This is me’. Again, the pride, this is me, me. You need the pride. [The sadhana continues]: At its center, like a bubble rising from water, comes a yellow letter DHIH,

At the center of that me, the moon disc, suddenly Manjushri pops. You yourself are going to be Manjushri, but that Manjushri is going to be born out of Manjushri’s seed syllable which is the DHIH; the same

452

Also see page 232.

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as in the end of the mantra OM A RA PA DZA NA DHIH. So the DHIH comes up. [The sadhana continues]:

DHIH

and from this a sword that is marked at its center by DHIH emerges.

That DHIH melts into light and a double-edged sword marked at the golden vajra-holder by a DHIH, appears. It is standing in the middle of that moon disc. Again, the DHIH is me, the sword is me; everything is me. [The sadhana continues]: Lights emanate from this and invite all the Sugatas, who are absorbed into the sword.

That particular sword generates a lot of light into the ten directions, and invites the buddhas and bodhisattvas. How, [in what form], are they invited? They are invited in the form of the five different castes of Manjushri. All of them hold the Prajnaparamita text in the left hand, but the right-hand implements are different. Some are holding a vajra, some a jewel, some a lotus, some a sword and some a crossed vajra453. The colors correspond with the five buddhas. So all the buddhas and bodhisattvas come in the form of the five different Manjushris, so the five different wisdoms. You don’t have that in the sadhana; you have to remember it from the commentary. Don’t make this sort of notes in the text of the sadhana, otherwise people will start reciting: ‘buddhas and bodhisattvas are invited in the form of the five different Manjushris’. If you do that it is a mistake: to add up, mix up or take something out, reduces the power and capability of the practice. [The sadhana continues]: It then entirely transforms and I appear as the Causal Vajra-holder, Youthful Manjushri,

All dissolve into to the sword, so all of them transform and you yourself appear in the form of the causal Vajra-holder. That, again, does not mean that he is holding a vajra. yellow in color and slightly wrathful, holding a sword in my right hand and scripture at my heart in my left. He is of a rich golden color, as rich as a mountain of gold, shining like 100 000 suns. That sort of richness you need. Remember, this practice is geared towards developing the illusion body. So always the majestic look is emphasized. Remember in the Vajrasattva recitation we had that lustre454, brilliant and majestic. Not a cheap shine, but brilliant, looking majestic. Manjushri is sixteen years of age. He never grows older at all. They call him the youthful bodhisattva who likes to remain at the age of sixteen. There is no old Manjushri. He is always the young prince or young bodhisattva. That Manjushri is peaceful, handsome, youthful, but slightly disturbed, alert, ready to go, ready to get angry any moment, slightly wrathful. That gives you a little more dignity. If you are a joker all the time, it is not great. You may be a joker at certain periods, yet you are sensitive. Otherwise everybody will bulldoze you over. It adds up to the dignity. Even in the human life, that happens. You may be kind and loving, but if you are like this all the time, people will bulldoze you over, so sometimes the eye brows go down like Steve’s do. Manjushri has one face, three eyes, and is holding the vajra-based double-edged sword which is blazing with fire. This particular Manjushri holds the book at the heart level455. He has the thirty-two major and eighty minor marks of a buddha. Seated in the vajra-posture I am adorned with the thirty-two major marks and the eighty minor signs. My hair is arranged in five knots and my body is embellished with all the ornaments. I think there are two different ways of counting the five knots. One is the knots one on top of the other. Another way is four knots around and another one in the center. With all of them, the end of the hair 453

For details on the direction they come from see Sandy’s notes [S<…>S.] on page 233. See page 283. 455 For the book at the heart level, also see page 328. For a picture of that, see G.W. Essen, Die Götter des Himalaya, vol. I, pg. 83. 454

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goes inside, and on the top where you would put the hair pin through, some jewel is put. Manjushri also has the head ornament, earrings, necklace, bracelets and anklets and a belt. He wears silks: a cloth on the top and a skirt on the lower body. Where does Manjushri come from? What is this Manjushri? What is he made of? This is important. He is nothing but our own subtle energy and subtle consciousness. If you don’t want to go in the old style of hairdo and necklaces, etc., if you want to have him dressed in the modern way, you might do that. It does not matter if you want to give him a bikini. No leather, I am sorry, that is too gross. Tuxedo? That is not juicy enough. Juicy and sexy, both you need. But you don’t go too far, like leather; that is juicy and sexy, no doubt, but too far, too wrathful. Five qualities of the sambogakaya. The wisdom being Manjushri is subtle consciousness and subtle energy, therefore we cannot perceive him through our ordinary eyes. The sambogakaya is not visible through our ordinary eye. It is exclusive, not open to everybody. Only the exclusive club members can see him and have access, no one else. Exclusiveness has become a quality of the sambogakaya. The sambogakaya has five qualities: 1) All retinues are pure. That means it is accessible only to aryas, the pure beings, those who have seen the emptiness and above. That club-membership card is coded with emptiness. 2) Cho nyiemba: the dharma shared by the sambogakaya, is only the mahayana-vajrayana dharma. Again, that is exclusive. 3) Du nie ba: Their time is definite. The sambogakaya remains until the samsara ends. It is not really permanent, but almost; it’ll remain until everybody is liberated, until not a single person remains in the suffering. Who knows when that time comes, maybe it takes millions of kalpas. Nirmanakayas don’t stay, but sambogakayas do. 4) The place is also definite. They are not roaming around, going to the market and the coffee shops, they always remain in the pure lands. Technically, they say the sambogakaya remains in Akanishta, [tib. Ogmin], which is supposed to be at the top of the form realm. 5) The physical form has all major and minor signs of a buddha. The sambogakaya has these five different qualities. The illusion body does not have all these. These five different points make the difference between them. Besides that, the illusion body does not look like an enlightened being at all; as illusion body you can look like anything you want to. There is more, but you don’t need it now. You may like it, but you don’t need it. Really, I mean it. Manjushri is the nature of all enlightened beings and that is me, my causal Vajra-holder Manjushri. You meditate and keep your pride and clarity and keep on meditating until that becomes clear. You have to keep on meditating on that and produce clarity and pride, both, until it becomes stable. You don’t have to wait during your sadhana session until it becomes clear; if you do you will wait for years for your sadhana to complete. Give it a little bit attention, focus on it, think about it and then move. And then become better and better, day by day.

Symbolic meanings or correspondences of the sambogakaya S<. The reddish-black air mandala is a mandala of fire and air mixed because of omens of wrathful activities; the black represents wrath and the red represents power. >S.

The sadhana says: In the center of the Mansion is the letter YAM and this transforms into an air mandala, slightly reddish-black in color, upon which is the letter short A. This becomes a moon mandala.

[The body]. There is the letter A appears and transforms into the moon disc. What does that do? You have to correspond to the base, path and result.

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The base period. The base is mostly about the ordinary things happening. So what does the letter A [becoming a moon disc] represent? The subtle consciousness and the subtle energy, that everybody will have at the time of death. The very subtle energy and the very subtle mind, the horse and rider who are taking rebirth in the bardo, correspond to the AH becoming a moon disc. So, at the everyday level, when you say that the A becomes the moon disc, it reminds you of that subtle mind and subtle energy. Then the path level, that is the practice. Like in the sutra there are five paths, tantra has also five paths. In the path, there is a thing called clear light, which has two: example clear light and actual clear light. People will go through both. The clear light corresponds to or is like the sleeping period or like the dharmakaya. It is a wisdom-oriented, lucid mental state. Clear light does not mean that you see star light, or go through a tunnel and see the light. That is total bullshit. A lot of people are saying that, particularly these days. That’s not the clear light. Let’s start again. The sadhana says ‘The letter A becomes the moon mandala’. At the base level, the A and the moon mandala correspond to the subtle energy and the subtle consciousness, that means the horse and horseman, i.e. the person who is dying, who is going and coming. Then, during the path period, it is the energy and consciousness of the illusion body person. During the result level, it is the energy and consciousness of the absolute clear light which comes to the union level. So you have base, path and result for that little portion. So, that letter AH becoming a moon disc represents at our ordinary or base level, the subtle energy and subtle mind. During the path – which is the contemplative level, the work you have to do – it represents the subtle energy which functions for the clear light. At the result-level, just before you become fully enlightened, the mind of the concentrated clear-light focusing, is represented here. So there is the base, path and the result. Basically the child-like clear light is the clear light which you will get. The mother-like clear light is the big clear light of all enlightened beings. That is different from the example clear light and absolute clear light. The example clear light is the clear light which you get earlier, before you get the actual clear light. This refers only to the completion stage. We are trying to correspond base, path and result, that’s why we are picking up those names from there. Audience: Some time ago you said, the base was the ordinary bardo, the path was the two types of illusion body, impure and pure, and the result was sambogakaya456, so now you are saying the path is the exemplary and actual clear light. Is that a contradiction? Rinpoche: No, it is the same thing. Audience: How can clear light and illusion body be the same thing? Rinpoche: Why not? Is there separation during that period? Audience: I thought the clear light had to do with mind, with dharmakaya, and the illusion body with form, with rupakaya. Rinpoche: Not yet. What will happen is this. You are in the clear light, and then you rise and you become one of the illusion bodies. There are two illusion bodies and two clear lights. Each one of the illusion bodies and the clear lights has to be transcended and that transition will have [clear light and illusion body] both. So we are talking about one, but the individual has both. At that time you should be able to have both functioning. You know, if you go into clear light and you lose the illusion body completely, then you have nothing left. So separation is there, and union is there, too. Illusion body is illusion body, clear light is clear light; they are separate things. But when you are functioning, you are functioning with both, no doubt. Both illusion bodies and both clear light will function this way. The development is one after another: one clear light, one illusion body, another clear light and another illusion body. 456

See page 233.

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It is like dharmakaya, sambogakaya and nirmanakaya; they are separate, but when you go through, you go through with them together. We feel comfortable, when we say: ‘Up to here it is dharmakaya, up to here it is sambogakaya’ and we think: ‘Ah, now it is clear’, but when you do the practice, it is all linked up. You cannot package them separately. They go together. Very similarly, the clear light and the illusion body have to function separately and simultaneously. Audience: But what about putting the emphasis on clear light with the mother tantra and illusion body with the father tantra; does each tantra have both together, too? Rinpoche: Yes. If you have only mother tantra, you have difficulty of getting the illusion body and it takes more time and effort. If you have only the father tantra, you have difficulty of getting the clear light and it takes more time and difficulties. You know the evam is the union, the union of body and mind, method and wisdom, male and female. Not neutral. Stupid people will say it becomes neutral – no way. It is union. Maybe it is easier to package them separately before. This book tell you: During the path, the persons’ base for the two illusion bodies are the two clear lights. Consciousness and energy correspond.

In other words, on the base level this practice corresponds to the bardoa’s body. Then you go up and at the path level, you have to have the illusion body, because that is what it corresponds to. But is that really the illusion body? No. It is the illusion body creating the transition between the clear light and the illusion body, so it is that subtle mind and that subtle energy. And at the result level, where you are going to create the buddha body and buddha mind, it is the mind immediately before that. That’s what is represented. Now the speech. The sadhana says: At its center, like a bubble rising from water, comes a yellow letter DHIH,

The yellow letter DHIH at the center of the moon-mandala you have, corresponds to the sound or speech of the individual. At the base level, it is the sound and speech of the bardoa, on the path level, it is the sound and speech of the illusion body person and on the result level, it is the sound and speech of the sambogakaya. That is simple, right? Why are we trying to combine base and path and result together? Normally you establish the base first, then the path and then the result. In vajrayana you try to do them together. That is one of the reasons for its quickness. So on the base level there is this, on the path level this and on the result level this and when the DHIH pops up, all three of them are happening together. Audience: Can you explain the difference between impure and pure illusion body? Rinpoche: We have the two clear lights, right? And from each clear light, when you rise from that, you get another illusion body. That is why there are two different illusion bodies. You don’t have to call them impure and pure, you could call them gross and subtle. Normally one does say pure and impure illusion body. There is the example clear light and from that you get the impure illusion body and from the actual clear light the pure illusion body rises. Now let’s do the mind. The sadhana says then: ..and from this a sword that is marked at its center by DHIH emerges.

The letter DHIH becoming a sword marked by DHIH, is the mind: the bardo mind at the base level, the illusion body’s mind at the path level, and the mind of the sambogakaya at the result level.

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Now we have completed the body, mind and speech of the bardoa, the body, mind and speech of the person in the illusion body, and the body, mind and speech of the sambogakaya, all of them functioning together at the time when you say the sadhana. You get it? Audience: What was the body? Audience: The AH becoming the moon disc. Audience: No; Rinpoche said that was the subtle consciousness and subtle energy. Rinpoche: So that is the body, because the bardoa doesn’t have a physical body. Audience: For the illusion body, would the mind be clear light? Rinpoche: Basically, yes. But then, the real focusing on the clear light will happen one time, and then you sort of rise. Remember, on the path of seeing you have: preliminary, actual encounter [with emptiness] and aftermath457. That is the basic principle, and I believe it works the same way throughout. At the period of the actual encounter, nothing exists. That is what we call the clear-light period. There is the clear light period one and two, and the illusion body period one and two. When you rise from it, it has made a difference. I believe the individual level goes up. One concentration458 and the level goes up, another concentration and the level goes up. I don’t think the individual dies there, but he goes through a process that is almost like the dying process: the concentration is so intense that any gross thing, whatever is happening, is completely shut out. That’s why the procedure is almost like that of the death stage. Now the activities. The sadhana says: Lights emanate from this and invite all the Sugatas, who are absorbed into the sword.

The activities of the light correspond on the base level to the bardoa’s different perception of things. Remember, we talked about that the bardoas perceive things differently: the good bardoas have great, peaceful and the bad bardoas have fearful perceptions. Like in our ordinary life when you take acid or pot, the feelings are very much intensified: you suffer more and you enjoy more than in normal reality. For the bardoas the feeling/perception is extremely intensified, somewhere it says that it is 100 000 times more than in actual reality. Lots of bardoas suffer tremendously because they somehow experience flies that go round as B-2 bombers coming and bombing over them. It’s extremely exaggerated. It’s like hallucinations, but for that bardoa it becomes reality, they are stuck in there. So, on the base level, in the ordinary bardo, you have these hallucinations, [tib. tronang] I told you about. Those are the activities represented here. Bardoas may not have many activities, most of their time is spent hallucinating. During the path period, those people who are in the illusion body, they have their own regular activities, you know, they have their chores to do, daily chores. And during the result level the sambogakaya also has a lot of work to do. Then the sadhana says: It then entirely transforms and I appear as the Causal Vajra-holder, Youthful Manjushri….

The sword transforms and becomes Manjushri. The center of the mandala has a special section, a vajra ring, which is specifically to be the seat of the principal. In that you have the seat. On that, you generate the sambogakaya Manjushri. S<. He is handsome, age sixteen, saffron colored like a mountain with 100 000 suns shining on it. He has one face and two hands, with the right hand brandishing a wisdom sword with a half vajra hilt and adorned with burning flames of wisdom fire. The left hand is holding a text, which can be the Prajnaparamita, root tantra or anything appropriate. He sits in the vajra posture and is adorned 457 458

On the paths, see Gelek Rinpoche Lam Rim Teachings: pg. 237-238. Absorption into emptiness, being face to face with emptiness.

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with the 32 major and 80 minor signs. His brow is wrinkled in a slightly wrathful expression. His hair has five knots, one on top of each other like a stupa; the top and bottom are held with a gold ring with gold bands separating the knots. At the top is a gold hook. Manjushri is adorned with a precious jewel headdress, ear ornaments, necklace, and silk garments draped like scarves. This is the Causal Vajra-holder Manjushri. >S.

The rising in the form of Manjushri corresponds to the body, mind and speech of the base bardoa produced at the same time. A bardoa has a mental body, mind and speech. Therefore you don’t have to nurture it and it does not have to mature, it becomes a grown up bardoa immediately. It is all created together, simultaneously; it ‘boom’ comes up. Likewise, during the path period, the two levels of illusion-body person will also ’boom’ come out of the clear light. It’s not like our ordinary body, which has to be born and nurtured and has to mature, but it ‘boom’ comes up. Likewise, at the result level, the sambogakaya, the absolute clear light pops up. As a sambogakaya person you have the absolute clear light within you. It is the union [of the absolute clear light and pure illusion body]. It is said: lo ba ta ye don-gyi wösel. Lo ba ta ye – all learning is completed at that level. This is the body in which you are going to rise from the ultimate clear light, the main clear light or real clear light, not the exemplary clear light. You may think the stages cut it down, but that mind goes up in continuation. If you’d call it the ‘ösel person’ or ‘the clear light one’, you would cut it. The union person, the sambogakaya, will have the clear light and the illusion body combined together. What Manjushri looks like is described in the sadhana. S<. The speech, mind, activity and body of the bardo correspond to the DHIH, sword, light summoning the buddhas and the Causal Vajra Holder Manjushri [respectively]. >S.

Towards nirmanakaya Then the next activity here is, that from here onwards we are going into the nirmanakaya. However in your practice you have to go here under the sambogakaya459. The sadhana says: At my heart is a letter A. It transforms into a sun mandala.

The next activity is that at Manjushri’s heart level, a sun disc comes. This has no correspondence at the base level, nothing to show at the ordinary bardo level, but it has something to show at the path level. At the path level it represents the clear light itself, both clear lights460. At the result level it is the mind of the sambogakaya itself, the mind of the buddha. A number of teachers will tell you that there is nothing corresponding at that level, and therefore it could not be used at that level, but to prove that it can, Lalitavajra says in his root text: nam tok tam che sek pa yi; tuk kar nyi me chil kor de; ösel wa ye yeshe gyo461 The sun disc has burnt all the different thoughts.

Namtok means different thoughts and ideas, many thoughts. Audience: Discursive thoughts Rinpoche: The word namtok is applicable to almost all our thoughts: ‘This may be better for me, that may be better for me, I should do this, I should do that, may be I should do it this way, or that way...’ and when that goes up too much, you lose stability. By burning all these sort of thoughts, the sun disc is formed. The sun-disc at Manjushri’s heart-level has actually burnt all these thoughts. The sun is light natured. Rays come from the sun, therefore ösel wa yeshe - it is illuminated and it is wisdom. So if you remember this quote, it is very good.

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Meaning: you are still in the sambhogakaya form. The exemplary and ultimate clear light. 461 Namtok - pre-conceptions, nyime - sun, chilkor - wheel or mandala, wösel - clear light, yeshe - wisdom. 460

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So namtok means these unstable thoughts, particularly doubts. Of wisdom and doubt, one is the real wisdom and the other we may call wise, but it is full of doubts and that is actually a big obstacle. I was tempted to call it ’corrupted wisdom’, but a lot of people say that is wrong language. What it means is, the actual wisdom has disappeared and the mind is totally stuck in doubts, one after another. What the sun disc really does is, it burns them all away. By that burning you get the illuminated sun disc which is the nature of wisdom. So at the base level we have nothing equivalent to that, even in the bardo we don’t. But at the path level we do – it is the clear light itself. At the result level it is the wisdom mind of the sambogakaya. Meditating on the sun disc at Manjushri’s heart level gives you the message that there are two levels of union: the union with learning and the union of no-more-learning, i.e. preliminary union and actual union. At both levels your body and mind function together, on the same frequency. Remember, we say that body and mind functioning together is an extraordinary quality of enlightened beings; wherever their mind is, their body is. You have heard that during the lamrim period a lot of times. It is because of this. From that level onwards, both body and mind work together. Therefore the reading does not have to be done only by the eyes; any part of the body can read. That’s why White Tara has seven eyes, the ‘White Umbrella’ has thousand eyes and thousand arms and so has the thousand-armed Avalokitesvara. All this is showing that the functioning of the body and mind is the same. Another message. What does the sun do? The sun clears the darkness, right? When the sun shines, the darkness goes. So, when you have the sun disc at Manjushri’s heart level, you are told that these two clear lights are capable of totally removing our ignorance. At the result level, the result clear light has nothing more to clear; all darkness has gone. S<. During the path period, the body of Manjushri and the sun mandala synchronize with the purity of the illusion body and mind which experiences bliss and clearly sees shunyata, that is the absolute clear light. When our body becomes purified, it becomes the illusion body. When the mind is purified, it becomes clear light. The continuity of form is the illusion body – the body of Manjushri. The sun mandala represents mind. It is located at the heart level of Manjushri. Meditating on this, the 32 major marks and 80 minor signs also represent absolute truth. The sun mandala at the heart of Manjushri himself represents the ultimate body mind union. At the result level, create sambogakaya mind which has been free of shadows and [is] the clear light of dharmakaya. Both body and mind become ultimate enlightenment. AH is the cause of creating the sun mandala and represents shunyata mind. The sun mandala represents the object of that wisdom, dawn cleared by the light of the sun parallels the clear light which clears the darkness of rough and subtle delusions. The bardo itself is the base bardo from the point of reversal post clear light462. During the path period, when returning, instead of entering the bardo from the clear light, you go to near attainment and create the illusion body. During the path these things actually happen to you, but you don’t die, otherwise how could one attain enlightenment during the life? If you continue with the result kaya you attain ultimate clear light after achieving the illusion body. Then when you go out again, you proceed to ultimate dharmakaya. When dharmakaya is attained, one is at the result stage – result dharmakaya. Here we practice our bardo and make virtuous karma ripen which causes the illusory body to arise. This imprint creates the ultimate sambogakaya. Therefore, this is called taking bardo as sambogakaya. >S.

Now we should say we have completed the sambogakaya practice, complete with the correspondences. There are much more explanations on that, but I think this much will do. Those of you, who really want to pick this up, may write a journal for yourselves, explaining the two kayas which we have covered. Why don’t you go through the outlines and for each outline you write a 462

The near-attainment of the reverse process.

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brief summary of what you understand. And make marks in the sadhana to show what is what. If you have that, you are going to have a lot of problems, because you will not know what to write. So you are going to have a lot of questions. When you have questions, you are going to benefit! Otherwise you are not going to get much. So write a journal for yourselves and bring it to the next vajrayana weekend.

Questions and answers Audience: Can we use these outlines for the Vajrayogini practice, too? Rinpoche: This outline will not work completely, there will be some little differences. Vajrayogini has its own little special things, that you need to work out. When you write a journal for yourselves, you’ll begin to see where you have problems. And also, why don’t you talk to each other? Call somebody. Don’t try to call Aura for that, she will be flooded with calls. Call Kathy and probably you can call Mike, if he does not blow you up, and you can call Tony and Matthew and Supa and maybe Colleen and Chris, too. And if they have difficulties, they can call me or Aura, whoever they like. Audience: Is the illusion body the same as the clear light? Rinpoche: No. When you come out of the clear light, that body then has nothing to do with our physical body. When that person takes that particular form, that form is named illusion body. That is before enlightenment. So the base is the ordinary body, at the path level you get an extraordinary body, called illusion body, and the result is a buddha body or in sanskrit rupakaya. The illusion body is not rupakaya yet, but similar. There are three procedures involved. First you dissolve yourself, your body and everything in it, into the clear light and another body comes up and that is called impure illusory body and that mind of clear light is the exemplary clear light. Then that person continuously meditates and develops another clear light, called actual clear light and then that body dissolves into that [actual clear light] and then there arises another body, called pure illusory body. That particular person meditates continuously and the leftover imprints of delusions will totally get purified and then you rise again in another body and that is called buddha body. Audience: For me as a not rock-solid meditator the question arises that in order to get to the development stage, if you can’t hold all those visualizations, because of the blessings of the sadhana, the guru and the lineage and so forth, is it better to try to do that within the context of doing your sadhana? Or if you’re not spending more time on your practice, as in my case, so if you try to focus on something easier like for example on a small Buddha before you and take that…..? Rinpoche: Within the context of the sadhana. No question. The way to develop the concentrated meditation, shamata, in vajrayana practice, is in the beginning more difficult, but it will bring the concentration much faster and better than imagining the buddha image. The way to do it with the buddha image is the non-vajrayana, pure sutrayana shamata. Vajrayana shamata works totally different and much faster. In the case of the Heruka sadhana, even if you can’t do it with the air-, fire-, water- and earth mandala, at least you get above the Mt. Meru the Heruka with four faces and twelve arms or – as in Pabongka’s short sadhana – with one face and two arms. That last one is the instantaneous rise deity used as principal. So you visualize Heruka with one face, two hands, with consort and with the four dakinis around: Lama, Kandarohima, Rupini and Dakini. If you can only just hold those five, the principal and the other four, probably that will be able to accomplish [shamatha] and if you even can’t do that, go back to re-establish the whole mandala; that will probably do. In order to develop the development stage, vajrayana teachings will normally tell you there have to be more than five deities, less than that will not be able to achieve the purpose. Then they raise the question: ‘What about the Solitary Hero Yamantaka?’ Then they will say: ‘This is an exception, because the Solitary Hero has the essence of the forty-nine deities’. Then somebody may raise the question: ‘What about Vajrayogini?’ There different teachers will give you different answers. I asked that question to

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Kusho Chodrak and he said: ‘In Vajrayogini of course you have the thirty-two deities’ [around the four dakinis plus the principal]. That is also true. The Heruka mandala is actually built on top of the Mt. Meru, which is supposed to be the borderline of the four continents, the center of the four continents and all are connected. The continents which are explained in the metaphysical texts such as the Abidharmakosha are almost irrelevant to the vajrayana metaphysics. Probably that [Heruka] space within the space is some kind of psychic environment, way beyond the size and what we perceive as and call ‘world’ today; way beyond in the sense that it is much bigger. Normally when we say ‘space within the space’ it means the outer is the big one and within that you create a small little one of yours. But here it is the other way round: this [our world] is the small, little world and the psychic world is probably the larger one. The Southern Continent is something questionable. That is the word used in the Abidharmakosha, the metaphysical text. It is not necessarily correct in the sense that the world has the division of the four continents. When you look at the southern continent of Jambudvipa, there is the big question whether it is referring to India alone or goes beyond that. Since we don’t know exactly what it is, we may use it here and there when it is mentioned as a reference point in the text book, but otherwise better not use it. Audience: So when you are thinking about world peace, you are not looking for a defined space anywhere in the mandala, where it is? Rinpoche: At the end of the sadhana, when everything is over, when you dedicate, you start from the point where you are, and go from that onwards, like when you put a drop of ink on a piece of paper. That’s how you dedicate for the world peace and so forth. From the place where you are, you expand to wherever the end is. That way is more practicable and beneficial, rather than trying to find out what is and what is not the Southern Continent. That’s my little suggestion. Audience: If Yamantaka is surrounded by flames and he is inside the mansion, aren’t there flames inside the mansion? Rinpoche: That does not matter. What’s wrong with that? I like to emphasize once again, occasionally doing the long sadhanas is important. Wait for a little while until we finished this teaching. At about that time we will be able to work out a better version of the Yamantaka long sadhana. Similarly, I like to do the same thing for Vajrayogini, too. You will have better versions of both, so sometimes do the long sadhanas. You don’t have to do the two long sadhanas together. Maybe one week-end or somewhere when you have some more time, on the beach or somewhere, you can do the long Yamantaka sadhana and somewhere else, in the middle of the city, you can do the Vajrayogini long sadhana.

VII REVIEW BY MEANS OF THE OUTLINES Importance of the outlines The teaching you are listening to is the essence of Buddha ’s teaching: the mahayana. That has sutraand tantrayana and this is tantrayana. That has four divisions and this is the fourth, maha anuttara yoga tantra. That is divided into two, father and mother tantra, and this is father tantra. That has taking hatred/anger as the path, and taking attachment as the path and this one is taking hatred as the path. This is the Yamantaka tantra, of which there are several different ones: the Forty-nine deities Yamantaka, the Thirteen deities Yamantaka and the Solitary Hero. This is the Solitary Hero Yamantaka, which has five extraordinary qualities. You are listening according to the outlines we have given to you. Keeping the outlines is very important, even though you are saying the short sadhana, only. Even the long sadhana [text] does not really cover all outlines, but the outlines cover the whole practice. There are two things, particularly for this type of sadhanas: either the outlines themselves or the extensive prayer at the end of the long sadhana cover the actual practice completely. When I was young, one of the teachers of Locho Rinpoche called Shodu Jangku, gave a teaching of Yamantaka in the Loseling faculty of Drepung University totally on the basis of just the prayer, nothing else. And, I remember, everybody was talking about this Shodu Jangku’s teaching of Yamantaka. So the outlines and the long prayer really give you the essence of the sadhana. These extended prayers are very strongly recommended to read and recite when somebody is dying, or during the funeral. You can either do the one from Yamantaka, or the one from Vajrayogini, Guhyasamaja or Chakrasamvara, or all of them; it depends on the time you have. It is recommended, because the essence of all the practice is involved. If an individual who is dying has somehow a connection with a particular yidam and a particular teacher – or if the person has a connection to you, then through your connection with your teacher – you can help such a person, even though they can do nothing themselves. That is because they may hear it. The person remains a certain time in the bardo period and bardoas do not have any block. The moment an idea comes to their head, they are sort of there. They do not require to travel around. So even if they just hear it, it helps them to get or remain connected. That is why it is recommended. I hesitate, but I might as well say it. Sometimes if you are completely busy with something, and provided you can think completely clearly without losing the focus, then going over either the outlines or the prayer, might even substitute the saying of the sadhana. It depends on the individual. If you are not sure, do not try, because you might just break your commitment. That’s why the outlines are important. We emphasize the outlines so much in the lamrim. You are aware of that. It is also the same in vajrayana. The earlier Tibetan masters have provided these outlines as steps that you can take and that lead you to the place where you want to be led. That also means that

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you follow in the footsteps of the teachers, footsteps which they have developed through their practice. That does not mean wearing the same color shirt; it refers to the framework of the practice you are doing. The framework of the practice is shared by the teacher during teachings like this. Pabongka has emphasized this so much! And Kyabje Ling Rinpoche repeated that all the time. During teachings like this you learn much more about the practice than by inviting the individual teacher into your own house or by living with that individual person. You learn much more in gatherings like this! That is what Pabongka has emphasized very much. They do however tell you during the guru-devotional practice how the guru is sitting, how he thinks, the attitude he takes, the way he talks etc. This is recommended to remember. In biographies of great masters you always read what guru-devotional practice they had. This is recommended for meditation, not for acting accordingly. Even though sometimes during emergency periods it is very helpful to think that way. I was in Singapore a couple of years ago and a friend of mine was buying a house there. The guy was interested in a small house and wanted me to check it. They had to make the decision there and the price was high, so it was a big risk for them. I did not have a method for checking. Anyway, I went there and I kept on thinking: If Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche were here, what would he do and what would he say? Going up the steps to the house I suddenly saw Kyabje Rinpoche’s attendant, whom Aura calls ‘egg head’. It was funny. I saw him appear on top of the steps, and he said: ‘Kyabje Rinpoche says: ‘How much money they are paying and what they are doing is not our concern, but this house is neither going to bring any bad luck to them, nor will it necessarily be great’. Things like that happen when you remember your gurus, the manner in which they sit, the sound of their voice and the way they think. Normally following the footsteps is following the practice: whatever you can copy of it, you copy. That’s why they share outlines like this. The Yamantaka Solitary Hero teaching has a lot of different outlines, but there is only one commentary available, written by Tri Gyaltsen Senge463. The outlines we use are provided by Kyabje Ling Rinpoche464. He gave them before one of his teachings in Tibet and the copy I have is from the time Kyabje Ling Rinpoche gave his last Yamantaka teaching in India in Mundgod, in Drepung Loseling. Fortunately I was there. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche had told me: ‘Make sure you will be there’. That was funny. I was not really sure whether I should go or not, but he told me to make sure to come and so I purposely went. Thurman wanted to go as well and I was a little worried because Ling Rinpoche sometimes had some hesitation about western scholars – not about practitioners, but about scholars. Somewhere around 1965 Thurman tried to translate Tsongkhapa’s Lekshe nyingpo, Speech of Gold465. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche was upset and furious about it. It is not that there is anything secret in that but Rinpoche said: ’He is not going to understand this, but he will think he understands and he will write that in his own language and that will make hundreds and thousands of people more confused’. It went like this. Once I went to see Kyabje Ling Rinpoche and also Thurman came and told Rinpoche that he was translating that text. Kyabje Rinpoche started asking Thurman: ’Oh, you are translating the Lekshe nyingpo?’ and Thurman said yes. Then Rinpoche said: ‘The first verse after ‘Namo guru Manjugoshaya’ goes: de jung tin la sha na sergyi me. What does this de jung mean to you?’ Thurman said, according to the normal way of translating: ‘It is the name of one of those mythological Hindu gods’. That is true, but Rinpoche insisted: ‘What does that de mean to you?’ Thurman just repeated that it was the name of this god, and then Kyabje Rinpoche got a little irritated. So I was a little scared when Thurman told me he wanted to attend the Yamantaka teaching. Before the teaching I went to see Kyabje Rinpoche. He was having lunch and Thurman was right behind me. I did not say a word, because I was not sure what Kyabje Rinpoche was going to tell him. But he said it was okay and he told me: ‘Rinpoche, what I am saying during the day, you have to repeat for those for463

See note 11 on page 8. The outlines are to be found in chapter XII Appendices. 465 This book has been republished as The Central Philosophy of Tibet 464

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eigners at night in Nyare Khamtsen’. At that time only Thurman came with me but then at night all the others started to get together at Nyare Khamtsen. Kyabje Rinpoche’s teaching started around 12 o’clock and finished at about 5 p.m. We would start at about 7 p.m. and then Thurman argued until about 12 p.m. And all the monks would come and watch because Thurman was so loud. That was Kyabje Ling Rinpoche’s last teaching and these outlines were distributed during that period. That’s what we’ll follow.

REVIEW BY MEANS OF THE OUTLINES During these monthly vajrayana weekends we try to do every time a bit of review of the teachings and then we go into detail. So this is more a learning opportunity466 rather than a concise teaching on the two stages. The commentary on the practice of the Solitary Hero Vajra Bhairava falls into two categories: 1. Brief explanation of the general development of this teaching [Buddhism]. 2. Elaborated explanation of this practice.

Elaborated explanation of this practice This has four outlines: 1) Quality of the teacher. [The origination of this teaching with an account of the originator and the lineage.] It talks about a) how Buddha taught tantra, b) how the great mahasiddhas such as Lalita developed this within themselves and revealed the teaching from the dakinis’ land and c) how finally the line of teaching came up to Tibet – the continuation of the unbroken lineage. 2) Quality of the dharma. [The explanation of the merits of the teaching in order to develop respect and faith therein]. 3) How to teach and listen. [How to listen and explain such a teaching as this]. It has a) the qualities of the vajra master, b) the qualities of the vajra disciples; c) the teaching system. 4) Actual practice. [How to guide the disciples by the actual teaching]. This one has: a) the attitude of who practices; b) the place where you practice; c) the requirements you need to practice; 4) what you do [The method of the actual practice]. The first three are not so different from what you get during the Lam Rim period, but there is one difference. In these teachings it is ordinary perception and conception that you have to avoid. Why? In vajrayana one of the important things is that you visualize yourself in the deity’s form, you visualize the environment as pure and you see every person you encounter, as a pure being. The reason why we do that, is – as I repeatedly told you – that when you visualize yourself in the physical form of a yidam or a pure being, it will actualize, it will become that way; that is the vajrayana special quality. That’s why it is an important point here. Basically there is a tendency that if you always think in terms of positiveness, it becomes positive to a certain extent. But in vajrayana the specialty is that it becomes actualized. The positiveness becomes very much intensified by the sadhana and in addition to that it gets very much intensified by meditation, and it is further intensified by mantra. There is a tremendous amount of reinforcement, one on top of the other. If you look carefully from that angle, you’ll find it is there. The vajrayana practice is a very serious business. Right from the beginning, from how to learn onwards, one step enforces the other totally. If you look, you’ll begin to notice it. I think we should not fail to look at is as very serious, because it is really serious, but it is not a disaster either [joke]. You can’t take it that serious, but you can also not totally relax and disconnect. When you think: ‘Yamantaka sadhana is Yamantaka sadhana and my daily life is my daily life and that has nothing to do with it’, then you are disconnecting from your practice.

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In this chapter reviews, questions and discussions of several vajrayana weekend are collected together. Also frequently Rinpoche himself throws questions to the audience. So, this is not a straightforward review, but more a learning together. To find the major explanations on a certain subject, please consult the contents and the index. A complete overview of the outlines is to be found in the appendices.

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You know, when people become paranoid, they see different and perceive different. That’s what happens in the vajrayana practitioner’s life, if you disconnect everything. It is an extreme example, but if we disconnect that is exactly what happens in the vajrayana path. If you take it overserious, you have to relax, as though its all different. Look at it, every part of our life, every single movement is connected with the spiritual practice. The period we go to sleep, the period we make jokes, gossip and spend time on entertainment, and the period we are sitting and reading, saying prayers and mantras and meditating, all of them are interconnected. Particularly our practices of Lam Rim, the Ganden Lha Gyema, the Foundation of all perfections, the Vajrayogini sadhana, the Yamantaka sadhana, the Six-session yoga, the Chittamani yoga, the mantras and even the tongue blessing, are very much interconnected. They are totally interlinked and one practice reinforces the other. If you disconnect them from yourself, they becomes like scientific subjects: you can do research and experiment, but the purpose of the vajrayana has been defeated. So interconnect your practices. Then your practice will work perfectly with yourself and with your life, and it will be very helpful. And each one of these points, right from the beginning, from how to listen to the teachings onwards, will reinforce the next one.

The origination of this teaching with an account of the originator and the lineage We talked about the mahasiddha Lalita who revealed this teaching from the land of Uddiyana. The mahasiddha Lalitavajra is the first one in the lineage of the earlier Indian mahapandits or siddhas in this particular lineage. The Yamantaka tantra is a maha anuttara yoga tantra. In the Tsongkhapa lineage the maha and anu and ati yogas are combined together into one stage, highest yoga tantra, in sanskrit maha annutara yoga tantra. That is divided into two: father tantra and mother tantra. What is the criterion of division? Audience: Father tantra is for developing the illusion body and mother tantra for developing the clear light. Rinpoche: Is that correct? Audience: Partially correct. They both do both, but each is principally oriented towards one of them. Audience: The father tantra puts special emphasis on the illusion body, however, as Mike has said both are complete within themselves; they develop both clear light and illusion body and can lead the practitioner to the state of union by themselves. However, the father tantra has a special emphasis on developing the illusion body and the mother tantra on developing the clear light. Rinpoche: Emphasize is a perfect way of saying it. You said something interesting. Each of them can lead the practitioner towards union. Union means? Audience: Union of clear light and illusion body. Rinpoche: Is that correct? Audience: Union of voidness and bliss. Rinpoche: You are using other words. But the way he explained that, is it correct or not? Do you agree or not? You have hesitation? Tell me why. If you can’t tell me why, don’t tell me you can’t remember it. If you forgot, you don’t know. That’s what it is. You know this is our nice, close sangha, so we can do everything informal and you can say whatever you want to say. That’s what you should do. Union. Union is called zung juk in Tibetan. Zung means two combined together. What are the two? You can count a lot of different ones: the clear light and illusion body, the mind and the body, the wisdom and the method etc. ku dag pa gyu me ku dang / tu tag pa ton gyi o sel / sung dur gyur ku to sung gyi yin.

Ku dag pa gyu me ku dang: the purity of the body is the illusion body. The body we have, is a contaminated body and it becomes an uncontaminated body. There are lots of processes to go through and ultimately certain processes make it pure and that pure body is called illusion body. Within that there are

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divisions, there are subtle and gross illusion bodies, but let’s not worry about that. Basically the illusion body is the pure part of the body. The mind also undergoes a lot of processes. We call it transformation, right? When you put a white cloth through a process of dying, and you take it out and you see it has become green you say: ‘Oh, it has been transformed’. Likewise the mind undergoes a lot of processes and ultimately it becomes pure and that pure part of the mind is called clear light. You have to understand the basics of clear light. A lot of people don’t. They say: ‘I have seen the clear light. It is like a star shining from the sky’ or ‘It is the tunnel light when I returned from death’. That’s not clear light. So the ultimate pure part of the body, the purest of pure or the essence of total purity, is the illusion body. Likewise the essence of the purity of the mind is the clear light, which also has divisions, like the exemplary clear light and the actual clear light467. When the clear light joins – the word jug means join as well as oneness – it means that the two purity parts will become oneness. Then it becomes the body-mind union, it becomes wisdom-method union, it becomes bliss-void combined together, all of them, because that is the real union. It is not the sexual union of male and female. It is not. It is the body-mind union, the clear-light and illusion-body union. The female represents the clear light and the male represents the illusion body. That’s why you come across these unions of the deities with their consorts. The real consort within you is the clear light within you or the illusion body within you. That is the actual consort, the actual partner. When you talk about zung juk, union, you are really referring to that. If you don’t have two hands, you can’t clap. In order to have a union you do need two. So the actual meaning of father or mother tantra is that the one emphasizes on or is in principal geared towards one of the two. Though each and every tantra has its own complete path – otherwise it could not be highest yoga tantra – principally it is geared towards one of the two. That makes the difference between father and mother tantra. That is the essence way of looking at it. There is another way of looking at it, too. In mother tantra you will normally find a letter or the alphabet in the bardo as sambogakaya, no physical deity. In the Vajrayogini sadhana you have the letter BAM as sambogakaya. The father tantra always has some kind of physical being to be identified as sambogakaya. In the Yamantaka [sadhana], you have Manjushri and in the Guhyasamaja [practice] you have the deity called Dangu Gonpo, the ‘First Lord’, which I think is synonymous to buddha Vajradhara or sometimes buddha Vajrasattva. In the second part of your Six-session yoga it says Vajrasattva rather than Vajradhara, remember? There are lots of synonyms there. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche used to emphasize one thing. If you look into the Vajrasattva meditation of the Yamantaka long sadhana it says: ‘dissolving into his heart HUNG, making his luster and energy outstanding’468. In the Vajrayogini sadhana at that particular part it just says ‘cleansing me of all obstacles’. Do you see the difference? The point is that the mother tantra emphasizes on the purification only and not on the rebuilding of the body, in the Yamantaka tantra it builds up [the body]. Audience: Depending on which tantra you do, will you get a purification of one before the other? Is there a sequence in clear light and illusion body? Rinpoche: Yes. It is not purification, it is purity of the [body or mind]. The process in Vajrayana is dissolving and rising, dissolving and rising. The first thing you get through the dissolving is the dharmakaya. When a person becomes a buddha, the first level will be the dharmakaya level. Therefore, the dharmakaya corresponds with the clear light. The process here is clear light – illusion body – clear light – illusion body, that’s how it works. From the exemplary clear light [tib. pei ösel] you arise as the impure illusion body [tib. ma dag par gyu lu]. From that you dissolve into the actual ultimate clear light [tib. dön-gyi ösel] and then rise as pure illusion body [tib. dag par gyu lu]. Audience: If you are doing a father tantra, you are not going to get the illusion body before you get the clear light? 467

Example clear light [tib. pei wösel] is also called metaphoric clear light; actual clear light [tib. dön gyi wösel] is also called meaning clear light or ultimate clear light. 468 See page 283.

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Rinpoche: Father or mother tantra doesn’t matter. You practice father and mother tantra and each one of them is capable of delivering [the ultimate result]. To benefit the individual practitioner, both practices will come together at the end. The mother tantra will give you the boost to develop the clear light and the father tantra will kick your butt into the direction of the illusion body. At that level you don’t have a separation, you don’t say the Vajrayogini sadhana here and the Yamantaka sadhana there, by that time you already combine them together. That’s how it works. The building of the process just now is working towards that, therefore we are doing all of those. Yamantaka is transformation of anger. Heruka and Vajrayogini, etc. are transforming attachment and the one which transforms ignorance is called rig ara li gyu. The question is if anger, attachment and ignorance are transformed or if we are using attachment or using anger to help transforming us. These are big questions, I don’t think we can answer them. I think it is like the Tibetan expression: ‘When you are halfway in the river you’ll halfway understand’. If you go halfway through you’ll begin to understand. Using anger as a method of transforming that very emotional energy into the path, in order to become pure, and using attachment as method to transform that very emotional energy into the path, are questions that we have to keep in our mind while we go through with the practice, while we see what happens. That’s what one has to do.

HOW TO GUIDE THE DISCIPLES BY THE ACTUAL TEACHING The attitude of the person who will practice Audience: One should have a strong faith, a proper devotion to the guru and not a strong attachment to non-virtues. Rinpoche: I don’t remember what I taught, but we definitely talk about faith here, how important it is to have intelligent faith. We normally give the example of burnt seed with which food can’t grow and the example of the mother: how great the father may be, without a mother there can’t be a child.

The place where the practice will be done The tantra basically recommends cemeteries, solitary areas and areas where the ghost are active. However, for us, lay practitioners – with which I mean beginners – we do not recommend that. The best place for us is a place that has been blessed by the earlier masters. Sometimes it is not only that you bless a place, but a place also blesses you back. That’s why it is important to find a place where some masters spent time meditating and use that as a daily practice area. That’s why in good old Tibet we go to the different caves where the earlier masters have meditated or if not that, a place which has been blessed by the deities.

THE METHOD OF THE ACTUAL PRACTICE This has two outlines: 1. Development stage 2. Completion stage.

The development stage This has two outlines: 1. How to practice the actual method of the development – the actual practice. 2. By firm development stage, the method of attaining – the collection of the siddhis thereafter. What does development stage mean here? Audience: It means visualization until it becomes real. Rinpoche: Development means building, right? The developers build houses and develop the town. Likewise we put all these parts and parcels together and try to build up a complete mandala: environment and inhabitants, both, with all their qualities. That is the development level, the stage of building it up. Naturally, you are not physically building the mandala house, you sort of imaginatively do it. We

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call that visualization. In the beginning a lot of people say: ‘I have a problem with visualization’. What we really do, is imagining. We don’t do that without rules and regulations, otherwise you could imagine anything. People do that; they teach you positiveness and it works to a certain extent; it is not going to work completely. They have limited tools, so a limited result will come. Imagining without any proper guidelines is also going to work to a certain extent. The sort of visualizations we have are very important, they are built up from the Buddha and the deities onwards and are absolutely connected to the enlightenment level, very carefully worked out from the beginning.

How to practice the actual method of the development This has two outlines: 1. The yoga of the session. 2. The yoga of in between sessions.

The yoga of the session This has three outlines: 1. Beginning of the session – these are what we usually call the preliminaries. 2. Actual session. 3. End of the session – the conclusion. In vajrayana, the imagination or the visualization builds up from the basis, almost from the zero level onwards. That’s why the development stage has a preliminary, an actual and a conclusion level. All these three points are focused upon. You may say: ‘O Yamantaka has preliminary, actual and conclusion’. Then immediately I get the picture of you looking outside: ‘This preliminary fits in that package, that actual practice fits in that box and the conclusion fits there’. You know what I mean? Some people may say: ‘If I do Yamantaka retreat, I will have to do this and this and that, otherwise it may not be applicable’. Again, a disconnected way of looking, trying to fit the practice into some kind of box and put it on the shelf. When you look at preliminary, actual and conclusion, you are talking about that little time you spend every day: that preliminary level, that period of actual practice level and the conclusion of the practice you do every day. If you look at a day of your life, you look from the morning to the night. If you look at a session you do, you look from the beginning to the end of the session and if you are looking at a commitment you do, a sadhana you say, you are looking from that beginning to that end. So when you say preliminary, actual and conclusion, again it is important that you look into your daily life. It is talking about your daily preliminary, your daily actual and your daily conclusion, about your daily sadhana saying’s preliminary, actual and conclusion, and your whole life’s beginning from now on, its actual and its conclusion. That’s what I believe it is, in the connected way of looking. Any problems with that? It is very important to remind ourselves, that it is not a package to be put into boxes here and there.

BEGINNING OF THE SESSION – THE PRELIMINARIES The eight preliminaries you have to recognize. Whether it is Heruka, Vajrayogini or Yamantaka, the basic structure is the same. The sadhana works the same way, the completion stage will also work the same way. Some emphasis may be a little bit different here and there, but basically it is the same structure. Remember them; it builds a tremendous amount of vajrayana background. Audience: I have heard that once you have received one or two vajrayana initiations, you can read the other sadhanas, but you could not function as the deity. Rinpoche: Not could not, but maybe you should not function as the deity. That is right. But you should know you can read it. There are two ways: a) you can do it, b) you can’t do it. If you are rather strict, you should not do it, until you have received that particular initiation. But you can read it, you can

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learn about it and in whatever practice you have, you can bring in the particular points and that helps you to build up a better understanding. In a little liberal way, if you have a maha annutara yoga tantra initiation, you can probably do a little bit here and there occasionally, may be it is permissible. I cannot say yes, but maybe it is permissible. Audience: What if you do the tongue blessing in the morning? Rinpoche: You can do that in a little easier way, e.g. with Manjushri or Tara. It does not have to be a wrathful deity the moment you wake up. Audience: We haven’t had a Manjushri initiation. Rinpoche: It does not matter, Manjushri and all of them are very, very okay. They are very relaxed peaceful deities. Besides that, the wrathful Yamantaka and the peaceful Manjushri is one person. That is why the Manjushri tantra is also treated as a Yamantaka tantra. Audience: So, if you have Heruka, is it also okay to arise as Avalokitesvara in the morning? Rinpoche: If you have a maha annutara yoga tantra initiation, it covers all the kriya, charya and yoga tantras.

The lineage prayer – first preliminary practice Are the lineage masters all separate persons or one person? What is the difference between this particular lineage prayer, the practice you do in the Ganden Lha Gyema, the lineage practice you do in the Vajrayogini sadhana and the Six session yoga? I mean regarding the object: is the major focus on one person or on different ones? Audience: They are different, but they are inseparable from the root guru. Rinpoche: Why do you say they are different? Audience: They have different qualities. Rinpoche: Are they different entities, different beings? Audience: Yes and no. Rinpoche: I think we are slightly confused on that. Audience: They are different manifestations of enlightened mind. Rinpoche: That is your intellectual thoughts answering. Audience: Is that not true then? Rinpoche: I didn’t say that. I am sort of looking for an answer from the heart, rather than from the head. Audience: I think it is from my heart. Rinpoche: In this case you can say that. I believe a very important point for the practitioners is raised now. Let us think about it. The question really is: in the guru-devotional practice: the Six session yoga practice, the Lama Chopa, the Kusali practice, the mandala-offering practice, all of them, what is the object on which you focus? The answer John Morraine gave was: enlightened mind in its different manifestations. That is absolutely true. Why I thought it was from the head and not from the heart, is because the answer was not practiceoriented. Practice-oriented is the other way round, normally. (This looks like a technicality, but it is a very important point). What you focus on is your root master and all your different practices are actually geared in that direction. That way, whatever your practice is – male or female deity forms, different buddhas – anything is virtually a different manifestation of, but not really separate from the root guru. The earlier masters used to give the example of a drama: one wears different masks, projecting this and that, but actually it is one person. Got it? That is what it is. I asked Kyabje Song Rinpoche about the focal point and he said: ‘Tsongkhapa looking like your own root master which looks like – we’re used to look at red and yellow robes – a red-yellow lump’. And you sometimes change. In my case, when dealing with any of the illusion body oriented practices, I

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tend to focus on Kyabje Ling Rinpoche’s face, and in the clear-light oriented practices I focus on Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and sometimes on Gomo Rinpoche. Whatever the face is, acknowledge that in reality it is one master in different forms. That is the focal point of these very practices and that way all practices will become oneness rather than scattered things. Whatever practice you do, Green Tara, Cittamani Tara, White Tara, Yellow Tara, Red Tara or Black Tara – yes, there is a black Tara – multicolored or smoke-colored Tara, wrathful or peaceful Tara – all of them will become oneness. One has to remember it and acknowledge it. There is not so much question or doubt on that. Audience: I get confused when I think of the reincarnation of an individual mind, such as yourself, and the difference between that and this idea. Is it just the nature of the mind that is the same, the connection with the guru? Rinpoche: You raise an important question, philosophically very important. Are all enlightened beings one person or different individuals? You put it in a practical way, but that is the main question. I don’t think we have an answer for that. Khedrub Je, Tsongkhapa’s disciple, gives an answer that differs from the answer of Tsongkhapa’s disciple Gyeltsab Je. Gyeltsab Je says that all the enlightened beings become one person. Khedrub Je is outraged at this and says: ‘How can you say this?’ He publicly denounced Gyeltsab Je’s viewpoint. He says that they are separate individuals, otherwise what happens to the individual? Died, disappeared, completely gone? And in that case how does it differ from the hinayana viewpoint of totally dismantling? So Khedrub Je outragedly objects. At the same time, Khedrub Je is a disciple of Gyeltsab Je, too. On the other hand, Khedrub Je’s analytic wisdom is so sharp – if he debates with Gyeltsab Je there is no question that Gyeltsab Je will lose. Therefore Khedrub Je did not debate that part, he just outragedly expressed his objections. Then he gave another explanation, saying: ‘Gyeltsab Je is my master, so I cannot go against that. Perhaps it becomes one person, yet with a separate entity, may be that is the answer’. He left it there. Gyeltsab Je did not say a word, because Khedrub Je made that outrageous comment and published a book, while Gyeltsab Je was holding the chair of Tsongkhapa. So Gyeltsab Je did not say yes, or no, not a single comment. Perhaps this gives us the freedom, to look at it whatever the way we want. That is my main point. It is a very important philosophical question. You don’t have to worry about that now. I don’t think we can solve it and when it happens, it happens. At the enlightened level there are certain things, which we can not figure out at this level. Maybe this is one of them. Maybe that is why even Tsongkhapa’s two top disciples, Gyeltsab and Khedrub, presented two different viewpoints. Later on, maybe about a hundred years later, Panchen Sonam Drakpa – Loseling and Ganden Shartse’s [text book author on] theoretical points – debated strongly on that and in the middle of the debate he suddenly stopped writing and said: ‘A person like me cannot debate the two most important regents however, I am making the greatest practice offering in presenting the main idea of Tsongkhapa’. And then he just concluded without a conclusion, just arguing the different angles, saying: ‘If you say that the different persons become oneness, these are the problems, and if you say that they are separate persons, these are the problems’. The Loseling and Ganden Shartse students have to accept this, because Panchen Sonam Drakpa is their outstanding teacher on the different theoretical views of these two groups. When we were learning, we had to carry those important points and for any other point that came in against it, somehow you had to find an analytical interpretation. It is like a lawyers’ play; you have to analytically interpret it in a different way, so it does not go against your viewpoints. That is the training we used to do. The main point they try to show, is that what is happening at the enlightened level, is beyond the comprehension of the unenlightened beings. Therefore you can present a lot of different viewpoints. Audience: I remember when we did the Lam Rim we had a long discussion if relative reality is included in absolute reality.

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Rinpoche: In this case, I don’t think there is a question of relative or absolute. This is a case of relativity. In the absolute, it is different. In the practical form, the lama and the yidam are both existing in relativity. One has to remember one important thing, which has been raised particularly by Tsongkhapa: If you exist in relativity, it is good enough to exist. And if you do not exist in the absolute, it is not good enough not to exist.

This sounds funny, but the main point is: if you don’t have separations in the absolute level, it does not mean you don’t have separateness, but if you don’t have separateness in the relative level, it does mean there is no separation. Get it? Audience: When the lineage masters dissolve, do they dissolve into the full Yamantaka or the one face form? Rinpoche: Into whatever you have visualized. If it does not fit into your body, you can do it like in the Vajrayogini practice: the lama melts it into red light the seize of a bird’s egg. Well, it does not say that in the Yamantaka, so I don’t think you can bring that idea in here. In principle we don’t do that, bring in a technique from elsewhere and try to stick it over here. We call that ‘to stick a donkey’s head on a sheep’s body’. It won’t work. I want to mention that, because in America, people are in the habit of taking out something here and taking it over there. Certain practices have certain different ways of doing with certain reasons; that keeps the tradition pure. That is a very important point to remember. That’s why it is better to follow one sadhana. It is a little conservative way, but I think we will be better off by doing that. You can make the lama, who is in the form of Yamantaka, a little smaller, because trying to fit a big Yamantaka into your six feet body is not right. So you can shrink it down [a little bit]. But as at our level the visualization is not clear – even if you have the full-faced Yamantaka, you probably only see a daddy long leg type of thing standing up, rather than really seeing the hand implements, etc. – that sort of problem might not rise. Once your visualization is very clear, then there is the problem of fitting and all this. Remember, when Locho Rinpoche gave the initiation in our first summer retreat, he said that one of the Amdo monks whose duty it was to serve the tea, went into the kitchen to get the tea pot and said: ‘Which hand of mine should hold it?’ He was meditating something like sixteen arms. The cook got a little stick and said: ‘Your own broken hand should take it’. If people have strong visualizations, that happens. It is said that when you walk with the protection wheels, the protection wheel moves with you like a curtain blown with air. This is applicable when your visualization is clear. When at this moment it is cloudy, like in the morning before you get your cup of coffee – and our visualizations are at that level at this moment – these little technicalities might not be a question just now. In principle I want you to put together the practices of the guru-lineage prayer and of the Six session yoga. Not the remembering of the commitments of the five dhyani buddhas but the actual offering practices, like the mandala offering etc. I can’t say it is oneness, but principally it is very much interlinked and part of one practice. That’s what you really have to establish; on that part you have to be clear. And keep it there. Audience: We have gone back and forth a number of times now, taking stuff from the long sadhana and putting it into the short sadhana. You said before it is good to take stuff from the long sadhana and put it into the short sadhana, and now you just let know that it is better to just stick to one. Rinpoche: Good thinking. I am contradicting myself. I have to withdraw one of them, I don’t know which one. Audience: If you are doing the all-in-one method,469 do you use the full Yamantaka form? 469

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Rinpoche: That’s a very good question. Whether the all-in-one version is applicable to the lineage prayer or not is a big question. Though in reality they are one, when you are saying the lineage teachers’ names, you probably have to point to some figure in your visualization, because they appeared in different times and had different names and different physical forms. Whether it is in order to satisfy our rational mind or whatever it is, historically you have to keep this living tradition alive. My guess will be that at the end of this prayer, you may be focusing on one person, but while you are going down the prayer and you have those names one after another, you might not be in the position to do the all-in-one practice. Not only that. Those separate forms you have to have as Yamantaka with one face and two hands, rather than in the full form. Don’t ask me why – my simple answer would be: that’s what the masters have taught and that is coming through the tradition and we should stick to it. I don’t have a rational reason. This sounds like ‘no young people coming and taking a short cut to power’ [joke], but it might not be like that. There must be a reason. The all-in-one visualization is almost in every practice, for the supreme fields of merit you can do it, but in the lineage prayer, in order to identify the lineage, you may not be able to do it. After all, this is relative truth, so the time factor, the period etc., are there. The lineage is the point of the living tradition. Trungpa Rinpoche repeatedly said: ‘The lineage is the back-bone of the practice’. It tries to show it makes a difference, it says that it is not a made-up story, it is not my father’s early in the morning half-drunk-half-high vision, nor is it my mother’s whispered message. It is reality, it is the truth. It has been passed on from Buddha. Audience: Is the supreme field of merit and the lineage the same? Audience: The supreme field of merit contains the lineage, but it is more than that. Rinpoche: What is the supreme field of merit in Yamantaka? It is where it says that you yourself arise as the one faced, two-handed Yamantaka and light goes out and invites the supreme field of merit, which is the Yamantaka mandala with the lama. Get it? The supreme field of merit in the Ganden Lha Gyema, in the Yamantaka practice and in the Vajrayogini practice, differ. In your direct words it differs, in your visualization it differs, but in reality – not in absolute reality but in the relative reality – it is oneness. In reality it is your own master inseparable from buddha Yamantaka, from buddha Vajrayogini, buddha Tara, buddha Tsongkhapa, buddha this and buddha that. In your visualization, you physically have in the Ganden Lha Gyema Tsongkhapa and his two disciples, in the Lama Chopa Lama Lobsang Tubwang Dorje Chang – that is Lama Buddha Vajradhara – if it is the Lama Chopa connected with Yamantaka, Lama Buddha Vajradhara Vajra Bhairava , or if it is the Lama Chopa connected with Heruka, Lama Buddha Vajradhara Heruka. For the different practices you have different visualizations, however they are one. What is not changing, what always remains, is Lama Buddha Vajradhara. It is the external mask, that can be switched around, whoever is inside, Lama Buddha Vajradhara, is not changing. This is important. The whole point, that I want to make, the reason why we spent all this time on it is, that there are separate appearances, separate rituals, separate names, but oneness in person. Whether you focus on the form of lama Tsongkhapa or of Yamantaka or of Vajrayogini, it is still one person, one being. The lineage prayer basically corresponds to the refuge. A particular practice has a particular lineage prayer, because it tries to give you a complete package of its own, but at the same time the lineage prayer corresponds to the refuge. You look at the lineage- and root masters, etc., in one way as separate. You see Vajra Bhairava, then the consort, then Lalitavajra, Amoghavajra, Dipamkara; each one of them has a name and you look at them separately – but on the other hand they are oneness; oneness of Buddha, dharma and sangha. In one of the works of the Seventh Dalai Lama you find one little verse, in which he gives you the image of total enlightenment within the oneness of Shakyamuni Buddha. Remember, during the lamrim refuge period we sometimes look at Buddha’s body as sangha and his speech as dharma.

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Speech is the result of the experience you have. What you teach is what you practice, what you have learnt. That’s why speech represents dharma. The actual dharma is the spiritual development which you share through the medium of communication. Speech is actually the best medium people have; the next one is writing, then there is expression through music, through art – they are all mediums. Out of all of them the talking is the easiest and the most effective one, because you can communicate the message that you have. Where did you get the message? That message is your own experience. That’s why speech represents dharma. You get the idea now? You probably see no connection between this and the lineage. You don’t see it and that is the problem. That is why I am trying to stress the oneness of the lineage. Even if you don’t get all of them together as being one, you may see all of them as oneness with the Buddha, oneness with the dharma, oneness with the sangha.

Instant generation– second preliminary practice Why do you need the instantaneous rise before you do anything else? You have to bless the offerings, including the inner offering. In ordinary form you cannot purify ordinary substances. Therefore it is necessary to rise instantaneously as a deity. How do you do that? You purify, dissolve and arise. What do you purify? The main obstacle in vajrayana: ordinary perception and conception. How do you purify that? By meditating on emptiness? That’s a correct, but not a complete answer. What is that emptiness? Dharmakaya, right. What do you need that for here? The three-kaya practice has to be complete. Even for the instantaneous rise here, you need the three kayas. So even such a short instantaneous rise could probably almost be a complete sadhana, because the essence of the sadhana is the three-kaya practice. That’s why it is important. What is the visualization of the sambogakaya here? The blue light. And the nirmanakaya you know. The quality of the three kayas, the mental picture, has to be remembered there. What do you think when you say: I myself arise as Yamantaka with one face and two hands? Audience: I see myself arising in the simple Yamantaka form. Rinpoche: Is that okay? Audience: There is a part missing. Rinpoche: What is missing? Audience: The blue light. Rinpoche: Good. Where does the blue light come from? Audience: From emptiness. Rinpoche: Where is the emptiness? It is the absolute reality. When you say: ‘I’, you have to think that the ordinary body has disappeared – ‘boom’. You remember, blankness is not emptiness, but for us it is the best we can get. Out of the blank you get the blue light – if you don’t get the lotus, it does not matter – and that starts having a face and hands. That will do. On top of that, you acknowledge: 1) empty – dharmakaya; 2) blue light – sambogakaya; 3) with face and hands – nirmanakaya. So when you say: ‘I am Yamantaka’, that’s what you need. Do you remember we talked about contaminated [tib. zak che] and uncontaminated470 [tib. zak me]? The Abidharmakosha says that if the things you do are contaminated, then by virtue it is samsaric, if it is uncontaminated, it is by virtue non-samsaric.]. The way you present it differs in hinayana, mahayana and vajrayana. In hinayana ‘uncontaminated or contaminated’ means whether or not you have entered the path. In mahayana they say it depends on whether or not you have recognized the emptiness. The vajrayana viewpoint adds up one more thing: the recognition of the emptiness is in the nature of joy. That’s the bliss-void inseparable, detong yerme: the person or the consciousness perceiving the emptiness, is in the nature of joy. So, inseparable blissvoid becomes a big issue. Whenever you have empty, then visually perceiving empty is fine; mentally the acknowledgment of the joy nature, the perceiving person being joy, is important. 470

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Recently I was up in the Catskill mountains. One of our friends, a Chinese guy, Paul Chen, was doing a retreat with Tomo Geshe Rinpoche, and in the afternoon we walked by with Geshe Rinpoche. He was sitting in one of those cabins on the lake. We knocked on the door, he invited us in and gave us Chinese tea. Geshe Rinpoche doesn’t give much teachings, he gives little words here and there. He told me to tell Paul to focus on the bodhimind. Then Paul immediately raised the question: ‘Should I do the bodhimind by the seven stages or the eleven stages or the exchange stages?’ Geshe Rinpoche said: ‘Oh, no, no’. I was a little surprised and asked: ‘Why?’ He said: ‘It becomes theoretical and they just get confused’. So I said: ‘What do you want me to tell him?’ and he said: ‘Just think: “I would like to obtain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, I pray that I may obtain enlightenment”. That’s enough, don’t think anything more. When you are established on that, then go back and think the seven stages or the eleven stages, whatever you want to. Just now, don’t think anything, just do that. Also think: “How fortunate I am to be able to practice that”. Spend a long time thinking on that’. Then he told me: ‘You need this, otherwise the people get very frustrated and a little upset. This is useful for them. They must acknowledge how fortunate they are’. That’s what Geshe Rinpoche said. And I think that it is really an important point. In vajrayana you have to acknowledge the joy and the bliss – the perceiving person and what is perceived are in joy nature. That joy nature is not going to develop with us unless we have that ‘How lucky I am, how fortunate I am’. And this has to go up and develop and become joy. Somehow I think we have missed that point a number of times. It is a point easy to overlook. We take it for granted, but maybe it is important to think about and spend time on it. For the immediate life it may help us to shed less crocodile tears or have less long faces, and in the long term it may set up the seed of a joyful nature within the individual. How do you visualize emptiness? Audience: I see blackness. Rinpoche: Oh, make that white. Not completely white, but slightly open and light. I don’t know if emptiness has color, but sky blue is a good idea, at least in the beginning. (Rinpoche translating Kusho Chodrak): He acknowledges that all the lineage masters dissolve into you and you become a body of light nature and then he said: ‘Well, I call that ‘me’ but there is no point that I can call me, there is no holding point, no color, no shape, no point’. A number of people will see emptiness as the blue sky type of thing, space-like emptiness. A number of people will visualize being up in space, where the satellites go, without projecting the stars. If you avoid the clouds, there is big open space, a space where you can’t hold or touch anything, and where nothing is blocking. That is the point of perception. But the important point is acknowledging it. Perception alone, I don’t think is right; you have to acknowledge that saying: ‘Ah, that is the emptiness, not only emptiness, it is my dharmakaya’. If you take a lot of pot and you go high, do you get that sort of empty? No? How about acid? It can? Can you clearly focus in one point? Maybe it functions differently for different people. I am trying to get some experience that people had, so I can refer back to something. The image that you build is actually two things: 1) You listen to somebody who is describing it and you draw some kind of image – this is called dra chi, imagination following on sound. 2) You had an experience and you recollect it – that is called don chi. So dra chi is an image you build up because you have heard about it and don chi is the image you build up because you have encountered something, you understand something. That is a big difference. I am trying to get an image where people are familiar and comfortable. May be acid has it or marihuana, who knows. Maybe clairvoyance has it or maybe some people had some glimpse of gone out of the body experience or something like that. Audience: There was a time when I, myself and my friends in the Navy were tripping in the beaches in San Diego and we kept talking the whole morning about spiritual things. After that we went to the beach and I was standing in the water and just surrendered to the waves and I thought: ‘Why am I fighting the waves? This is the Earth Mother’ and suddenly there was this white luminous knowing. I disap-

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peared, I felt like communication worked faster than two modems talking to each other. I was just totally enveloped in this knowing. I was nothing but compassionate and patient for about three weeks. It had an impact... When I do my visualization it’s like you look at a pearl, it has some sort of luminosity to it, but it is not really there, it is like clear light water, and it is white with a touch of blue and there is a knowing which is part of that luminosity. Rinpoche: Sky-like is used very much as an example, but when you make it like the sky itself and nothing else, there is a danger: instead of becoming emptiness, it may lay the cause to be reborn as a formless realm being471. In Tsongkhapa’s Song of the Stages [tib. lamrim dudon] it says: Meditate single pointedly upon space like emptiness; After meditation, see life as a magician’s creation:

He says: ‘If you are really concentrating on emptiness it is probably sky-like. When you rise out of that, every phenomenon that is functioning is like a magician’s show’. That is Tsongkhapa sharing his experience. You know, there are two very important mental activities, a) what you see, perception, and b) what you accept, acknowledgment. Recognition is not necessarily image-like; you may recognize something, but you may have nothing to visualize. You can see pictures on television, overlooking that fantastic space, right? Remove the clouds out of there, and there is just the big, open, endless sky. That is probably what is called spacelike. Whether you see it or not, you’ll probably feel that you are looking at such a thing. All is a huge void; not a dark, frightening vacuum, but light and luminous, beautiful, space-like. That sort of thing you can perceive. Then acknowledge that; that’s the ‘separate’ part. Don’t raise the question who is acknowledging. Don’t worry about it at this moment. Like Kusho Chodrak Rinpoche was telling: ‘Whatever I perceive, there is no color, no shape, nothing, so there is no I’, in that manner you may simply say: ‘The I that I have been perceiving, has been completely exhausted, it is no longer left. After the exhaustion, what I perceive is like this’. Traditionally the Tibetan teachers would look at the instantaneous rise as some ‘bang’ and it just appears, but Tsongkhapa made a special point, saying that the whole purpose of the development stage is training the mind, therefore even at this level we acknowledge the three kayas. That means that luminous space-like void we acknowledge as dharmakaya. Then, instead of having Manjushri in the actual three-kaya practice, you have the blue light as sambogakaya. That blue light starts pumping out hands and legs and all this and therefore is then acknowledged as nirmanakaya. So, you see, even the shortest instantaneous rise has the three-kaya practice and that is Tsongkhapa’s special gift472. Audience: What about other beings when you do the instantaneous rise? Rinpoche: For the purpose of this meditation they are just not there. Just stick to the ritual, to the words, which will only present you with the instantaneous rise of the Solitary Hero with one face and two hands. Then gradually you have your inner offering substances there, you acknowledge them and then with the OM HRIH SHTRIH mantra the deities come out of your heart and do their work of purifying etc. Just pay attention to where the words are leading you. That’s one of the reasons why you have the sadhana; it’s the framework that will provide you with the necessary things. All ordinary appearances except this one are just blocked, you acknowledge it and work with it.

Consecration of vajra and bell – third preliminary practice The consecration of vajra and bell is only applicable to the self-initiation sadhana. Bell and vajra are the representation of the implements that you use, therefore they are also blessed and they rise out of emptiness. That goes for any hand-implements you have. Say you have a drill as your hand implement – I am 471 472

Rinpoche gives the examples of namkar taye and namshe taye. See page 70.

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not joking, it is half a joke, half true. You raise the drill out of emptiness, acknowledge it as emptiness473 and acknowledge it as an instrument that gives you the joy of fulfilling your activity. It is applicable to everything, guitars, drums, choppers, frying pans, computers etc. That’s the message, whether you take it or not. That means everything you do, every cloth you wear during the day time, is of bliss-void nature and is giving you joy. If you wear nice clothes, you feel good and that good feeling of smoothness, softness or coolness, is of joy nature, born out of emptiness. That way you have to look at it. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche sometimes used to say during the Yamantaka teachings: ‘When you wear these monks’ robes, you have to think that it is the elephant skin’. The whole idea is to connect your daily life with the practice. In that manner you make the transition between your daily life and the sadhana. That even applies to the blessing of the bell and vajra. So when you are doing your carpenter work and you use your drills, think that is a vajra drilling. Audience: (...) Rinpoche: the Solitary Hero is alone, without companion, a bachelor boy, no family, but you do have something to carry.

Consecration of the inner offering474 - fourth preliminary practice Audience: It is called inner offering, because they are inner substances, there are five meats and those are five hard physical parts of the body, like bone, marrow, shit, blood and pus and then the liquids are also body substances. They have associations, in other words they are symbolic, they are placed in a skull cup and they are purified and multiplied and made into an offering. As I understand it, all things, even things that normally are associated with being impure and that are part of our body, can be transformed and so we also can be transformed. Rinpoche: So the point is that you use the connected beings’ bodily parts in there. Symbolically. You don’t actually pee or shit in there, but you use it symbolically. It is bodily associated, so the inner being is connected, therefore it is called inner offering. But do not ever use those bodily substances in reality. You are purifying the substances, making them into nectar and multiplying them with OM AH HUNG. How does AH make it into nectar? The nature of the speech of the enlightened beings is represented by the AH, therefore that is the most powerful mantra. In the Manjushri nama sangiti it says that this lightradiating, nectar-dripping AH drops down into the mixture – which is a sort of boiling stew of all these things – goes round three times, melts and dissolves. So an extraordinary substance is thrown into the ordinary substance and whatever bad is in there is overpowered. We can see that even ordinary materials are transformed by certain chemicals. E.g. when you put mercury on human tissue what will happen? Likewise our delusions and emotions can be transformed by the special wisdom idea that is dropped in and mixes. That’s how I believe we should look at it. I don’t think transforming is like pulling out a splinter from the foot. When you constantly put in this sort of special training of the mind, constantly drop it in our messy emotional state, it will start to overpower the difficulties and transform them. When day after day, month after month, year after year, you drop the wisdom ideas inside those messy things, you get transformed internally – that’s how I think it goes. Externally you see the material drops falling into the stew, going round and becoming part of it and the contents of the skull cup become pure; the shit is no longer shit and the flesh of the elephant or cow is no longer there. This gives you the example for how it works internally. Even at the inner offering level you can see these sort of things.

473 474

Being empty of inherent existence. See page 87.

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In this particular case the inner offering does not have to be huge, just a manageable thing in front of you. In the case of the Kusali practice475 you visualize it huge. The principle is almost the same, however, particular practices have particular ways of doing it, which is also sometimes important. One of the important things in Tibetan vajrayana Buddhism is that certain principles apply in certain particular practices and it is important that it is kept there. That is why the traditional way to keep in line is important. It is unlike new-age – wherever they see anything they pick it up and mix it wherever they think it fits. In vajrayana you are not supposed to do that. Not only you’re not supposed to do it, but if you do it may not even work. That is a very important point. They can be very similar, but one has that certain thing and something else has that certain thing and you have to leave it there. Like the mother tantra has its own way of doing and you don’t try to pick it up from there and put it on the father tantra practice or vice versa – better not mix them up. Audience: At some point you mentioned you can put your delusions, obstacles and problems into the offering, where can you do that? Rinpoche: You can do that right over here476. Of course you add them before the purification. During the torma offering or during the inner offering we can take our negative emotions, cut them from ourselves and dissolve them in there. I suggest these things however only for the people who have been doing the practice for a little longer period and who have an idea of what they are doing. I do not encourage everybody to do it, thinking that you just can easily throw whatever in there. The new-age fire puja idea is very similar, a sort of simplified version of this. They get a handful of whatever it is and throw it into the fire. That is the idea of letting it go. Ram Dass told me he picked it up from the Tibetan Buddhist teachings and he said it works very well with the people and their emotions. That’s a little bit picked up from here, throwing it into the fire instead of in the inner offering. Audience: What is the difference between purifying and transforming? They seem to be close. Rinpoche: The first one is to purify the smell, color and potential. Potential is the capability, the energy, the potency you can get out of the food. Why do you eat food? Because you want to get strength for your body so it can function. The HUNG purifies the smell, the color and the potency. And AH not only makes it pure but transforms it into nectar. By this time the inner offering is already so much cooked up that it has become stew. Through the light touching, the wind moving, the fire blazing, etc., it has become like a big bubbling Hungarian goulash. When it transforms into nectar, it almost becomes vegetarian.[joke!] Then OM multiplies. You have limitless guests, so you need unlimited offerings. Since you can’t provide them with everything, there is the multiplication, which you can definitely do by mantra power. No matter how much you take out, it doesn’t go down. You may take three thousand cups out of it, still the same little pot is filled up. It has become inexhaustible. The inner offering blessing and the outer offering blessing will tell you that whatever you eat, and whatever you offer should be of pure nature. Physically you try to make it as pure as possible, mentally you bless it. Physically you make it as healthy as possible. Though the Tibetans are, and I am, in the habit of eating white rice and red meat, if it is suitable for you and you like it better, you should eat brown rice and vegetables. It is healthier. (You know why I am talking that here? We are going to open a kitchen and that’s why I am making propaganda – that’s a joke). So it has to be pure both ways, materially and psychically. How do you make it psychically pure? You bless it. So don’t just eat as soon as you have got something on your plate. At least say OM AH HUNG; with these words you bless the food and make it psychically pure. If you want a good blessing, you have to say the inner offering blessing words and you bless every food like that. In the case of Yamantaka you follow the inner offering blessing text starting with ‘OM HRIH STHRIH VIKRITA NANA HUNG PHAT’ and in Vajrayogini you can use the ‘OM AH HUNG HA HO 475 476

An offering practice in the Vajrayogini sadhana. Also see page 280.

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HRIH. All faults of color, smell and potential be purified…’.. First you bless the food and then make the offering. Make offerings to the Buddha, dharma and sangha and also to your inner buddha, dharma and sangha, use the food for an inner fire puja. That is very good. There are some different longer versions, even in the Vajrayogini practice. If you people remind me, I can teach that some time. If you don’t ask, you don’t get those things! If you just leave it at the routine, every month one vajrayana weekend, you are probably not going to get it.

Every time you say: OM HRIH STRIH VIKRITA NANA HUNG PHAT, people automatically start sprinkling from the inner offering, because the inner offering is used to drive away any problems for the other offerings. But here, the inner offering itself is not ready, so at this point the sprinkling business is wrong.

Consecration of the preliminary [outer] offering and torma – fifth preliminary practice First the blessing of the outer offering. Since your inner offering is ready, you pick up something from the inner offering and sprinkle. But it is all just a gesture. You don’t have to put your finger down there and try to get it and then sprinkle. You don’t do that at all, it’s just a gesture. Normally you don’t even touch it with the fingers, it looks like touching, and then you throw it from the heart level, while saying OM HRIH STRIH VIKRITA NANA HUNG PHAT. Then the blessing of the preliminary torma offering. For all of those, the inner offering etc., it is important to think that though you may have a little bit of alcohol or tea there, in reality it is the five great meats and five great nectars which are purified, multiplied and transformed into nectar. The nectar has three qualities, which we mentioned earlier477. All the outer offerings are in appearance this and that offering, in reality of bliss-void nature and their activity has the ability to satisfy the object to whom you offer, in particular to grow and sustain the blissvoid nature in them. This is the manner of all outer offerings, including the torma offering.

Offering the preliminary torma – sixth preliminary practice What is a preliminary torma offering, how do you bless it, to whom are you offering it and on what do you focus? For the blessing, the words you say and the visualization you do are the same as those through which you bless the inner offering. The torma is offered to the directional protectors – dasha dika lokapala.These protectors are the protectors of all worldly things. Almost all the Hindu gods are there, Indra, Brahma, etc. The names of the fifteen directional protectors plus the seven inner guests are in this OM BU CHARANAM mantra, in which the mantras OM YAMANTAKA HUNG PHAT and OM HRIH STRIH VIKRITA NANA HUNG PHAT are enclosed, joined with those names. Either you generate from your heart offering deities, who take the essence of the offerings to the directional protectors and the inner guests, or you visualize that the guests just have this elephant trunktype of straw [and with that they take the essence of the offering]. I’ll tell you a little story, which I am reminded of at this place. There was a group of Sikkimese students in St. Stephen’s college in Delhi, a prestigious college, what Harvard is for England, this one is for India. They made a joke on the first of April, the fool’s day. They made a booking at one of the most expensive restaurants. They called the restaurant and told them that His Royal Highness Somebody Somebody was coming to their restaurant and they would like to book a table for twenty. When asked if they would rather have a long western-style table or a Chinese-style round table, they said they’d prefer a round table. As for the food, the person who made the booking said: ‘I don’t know, maybe we order on the spot’. So they kept the booking and on that day, twenty Sikkimese boys came in and they ordered two coca colas, one for each table. They had ten straws and so the coca colas were drunk by ten differ-

477

See page 134.

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ent people. Then they paid the bill and walked away, and by the time the restaurant people realized it, it was too late. What does the word torma mean? I don’t know. It is a Tibetan word, that has something to do with the siddhis. Making this offering helps to obtain siddhis. Why do we make torma offerings? To make those to whom you make the torma offering happy and bring bliss-void within them. By making those offerings, they will help us to get siddhihood. You have to know what you are doing when you do your sadhana. If you don’t know what you are doing, you get nowhere. The preliminary torma offering goes to the directional protectors and the lokapalas, those who are protecting the world. We call them jig ten sung wa. Torma is anything you can chew, not just sandwiches and salad. The torma here is the idea of a well cooked, well prepared, solid meal. If we don’t mention that, you probably get the idea of some red thing that Tibetans make. It is not. It’s really, a solid good meal, cooked from the best materials. It is not that you have to cook something and put it there, but when you are making a torma offering, it is like giving a full-size meal, for example salmon steak Norwegian; corn chips with guacamole and salsa both, might not be that bad either. Beans I am not very sure about, our ventilation is not that great. The inner offering is a drink that has been produced by the internally connected things. That is the difference between the inner and the torma offering. The first mantra here is the OM YAMA RAJA.... Who are you offering to at that moment? Audience: You just seek permission. Rinpoche: At this time you are not offering to anybody. The directional protectors have restrictions of eating meat. They can be wild. So when you make a substantial flesh and blood-oriented torma, they need permission to use that. You are seeking the permission from buddha Vajra Bhairava; that’s why Yamantaka’s root mantra is said. What do you visualize at that moment? Audience: There are two visualizations. One is visualizing the mantra itself around the top of that huge offering bowl, and after the Yama Raja gives permission, the mantra melts and dissolves into the offering. The second option is to see his face going in there and messing it all up and saying: ’You can eat now’. Rinpoche: That’s right. The fifteen directional protectors and the seven inner guests, are the same people you offer the sixtyfour offerings to. When you make the sixty-four offerings, you repeat the mantra four times, not three times. What I do is, the first time I visualize the messy type of thing, the second time I have the Yamaraja mantra sitting on the skull cup and dropping in the stew, the third one is the messy stuff and the fourth one the mantra once again. One is the ensa nying gyu system and the other is the segyu system, two different traditions. The way I do is using them both; that way you don’t have to think about what is the first, second or third and you don’t get confused or miss the fourth one. Audience: In the inner offerings the five meats are representative of the five buddha families and they represent each of the delusions like attachment, jealousy, greed and so forth, and the five nectars are the consorts. At one point you said that we could put our psychic visions that are negative or bad, into the mix. I just like to know what we should be thinking when we have this whole stew and we have all these delusions in here, how to think about purifying, making it into nectar and increasing? Rinpoche: I think you got slightly mixed up here. If you look into the long sadhana, you have the inner offering blessings, the blessing of the torma and then you have the torma-offering for the directional protectors. In one of the torma-offerings for the directional protectors you add up your obstacles. You could do it in the inner offering, but it is more practiced in the torma-offering. When you have bad

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dreams, bad signs and signals, delusions, etc., you separate them from the individual, cut them off, dump them in there and then go through the process of purifying with HUNG and transforming with AH. HUNG is the first one to drop; it circles round three times and melts, like the good old Tibetan butter drops in the stew, goes round and melts, so it becomes buttery, tasty. That’s how it gets purifies. First it is only watery food, then the butter drops in, purifies the thing and it becomes a good, nice, thick sauce with a buttery taste. In the short sadhana you don’t have the torma for the directional protectors twice. In the long sadhana you do, one is the preliminary [tib. ngondro] torma and the last one is the actual torma offering. At the blessing level of the ngondro torma you could do that478. You dump the delusions in there, and you think that they are totally separated from you and have gone in there. Finally, in the form of a torma, they are offered to the directional protectors plus the seven inner guests. At that time those substances and delusions, etc. are in liquid form. You have a huge kapala and you have all guests coming in with straw type tongues. Like sometimes children sit around a big bowl of drink and take it by straw, in that sort of manner the directional protectors plus the inner guests etc. take it. Or you have a dakini manifested from your heart, who picks up each one of the full kapalas and serves them to each one of the guests. In whatever manner you make the offering, they take it and nothing is left, the food gets completely exhausted, finished. In addition to that, you offer the outer offerings, water to the mouth etc. with OM DASHA DIKA LOKAThen OM DASHA DIKA LOKAPALA SA-

PALA SAPARIWARA ARGHAM...etc., PRATICCHA HUNG SVAHA. PARIWARA OM AH HUNG is making the inner offering to them.

Whatever is left over from the offering, is also taken by these fearful, wrathful directional protectors and inner guests. They have taken, chewed, bitten and smashed all the food. Sometimes you go to the extent of saying that their mouth is so big, that the upper jaw is as high as the sky and the lower jaw is as low as the ground and [the delusions] are smashed between them like the heaven and hell are smashing against each other and crush everything in between. You can do it in that manner. So either they smash them or swallow them in whole pieces, like the lizard swallows the scorpion. Have you ever seen a lizard swallow a scorpion? I did.. They fight and chase each other and both of them will stand up on their tails and they go at each other very fast. First the scorpion will use his tail, but that doesn’t affect the lizard at all. Then the scorpion will stand on the tail and use the body and finally the lizard will eat the scorpion, for sure. Then who dies, you are not sure. If there is lot of sunshine, the scorpion dies and if there is bad weather, the lizard dies. The lizard, especially those Rocky Mountain lizards, will swallow the scorpion and lie down on the rocks in the sunshine, because the heat of the sun helps the lizard to digest, so the lizard will digest the scorpion completely. If there is not enough sun, the scorpion will poke out of the stomach and the lizard will die. True, as a kid I have seen it. Audience: What is the difference between this and the various protector practices? Rinpoche: For specially connected protectors, you do separate practices. This is a general practice. Audience: When you offer to them, should you think what you believe is a wonderful offering or what they think is a wonderful offering? In other words, saying that something might be a great offering to someone, but repulsive to someone else, what is it supposed to be, what you imagine they want or what traditionally is deemed to be an offering? Rinpoche: Good question. I don’t know. The purpose of the offering is to make them happy and satisfy them. In order to satisfy them, it is better to give them what they need. Audience: It sounds to me as if we do the outer offerings twice. Rinpoche: Yes, there is the sadhana outer offering – when you yourself rise as a deity, you make offerings to yourself and that is called ‘self generation offering’ – and there is the directional-protectors of478

See page 106 and 133.

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fering. The outer offering for the directional protectors is the OM DASHA DIKA... ARGHAM, PADYAM, etc.... Then comes the request: ‘Oh, Karmayama…’ etc., then excuses and saying good bye, or just pushing them out a little bit to the side to make space. You also have two sets of offerings laid out. The sadhana-offerings are facing towards the individual, and the directional protectors’ offerings are facing towards the other side. Basically there are inner offerings and outer offerings. Inner offerings are always bodily connected offerings, outer offerings are not bodily connected. There can be some bodily connection, because some of the tormas have meat and all this, but the materials are not all selected in that way. Audience: Did you say that the directional protectors are samsaric gods? Rinpoche: Yes. There are fifteen particular ones with their retinues. Brenda: You said that most of them are Hindu gods. Why only Hindu gods? We are talking about a cultural mind set that says that the samsaric gods are the gods of the people that live in that area where this practice is generated, which means they are Hindu, but there are lots and lots of samsaric gods. Rinpoche: No ghost or god of that category will be left out, they are all included. They are called lokapala, protectors of the world. These spirit type of beings can’t function independently; they have to be aligned, directly or indirectly, with more powerful persons. Every single spirit existing in this world is following the orders of one of these fifteen. That’s why you say sapariwara – with all retinue and dependents. You don’t have to make separate offerings for anyone in particular, because they are all under the control of those.

Consecration of the offerings of self generation –seventh preliminary practice For this blessing the same words are used, but what you bless is different. It also looks the same, but it is meant for the sadhana, which means, it is making offerings to yourself in the form of Yamantaka. Audience: Here it is the blessing for the self generation offering, but when do you actually take them? Rinpoche: There are several occasions for that. You do it a number of times.

The Vajrasattva meditation – eighth preliminary practice That is Lama Vajrasattva. Again, remember, the lama is yidam and the yidam is lama; they are inseparable. Lama Vajrasattva, white, the size of a fist, is on your crown and you make requests. Then nectar comes through the joining point of the two sex organs, from there it drips down and cuts through the lotus seat, through your crown and dissolves into your own body. It washes away all your negativities, from top to bottom, from bottom to top and like switching the light on in the darkness, the three different ways of meditating. You see this practice almost everywhere, as a preliminary to any sadhana. We say that the Vajrasattva recitation is to purify the negativities, the non-virtuous actions which will become obstacles anyway, and the difficulties. Obstacles to the individual’s practice are the results of negative karma, and are either non-virtues [tib, digpa] or obstacles [tib dripa479]. Vajrasattva purifies both of them. So here it is Vajrasattva, not Vajradhara. There are a couple of deities, like Vajrasattva and Samaya vajra, [tib. Damtsig Dorje] that are sort of specialized for purification. Like among the doctors some are specialized for this and that, Vajrasattva and Samayavajra are specialized for purification. Here for purification the Vajrasattva recitation is used, but the key to the purification is the basic four powers that are taught in Lam Rim. Whether in or outside vajrayana, the key to purification is application of the four powers. These are taught at the beginning of the preliminary level of the Lam Rim480. That still stands and goes on here. 479 480

Digpa is bad deeds; dripa is stains, obstacles, obscurations. Gelek Rinpoche, Lam Rim Teachings, pg. 291-296.

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It says in the sadhana: By praying thus light radiates from the heart HUNG purifying the sins and defilements of all beings, also offerings are given to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and all their virtues are concentrated into light, dissolving into the heart HUNG, making his lustre and energy outstanding481.

You compare that to the equivalent passage in the Vajrayogini sadhana where it says: ...sending down a stream of white elixir, cleansing me of all sicknesses, demons, sins and evolutionary flaws.

So in the Vajrayogini sadhana it simply says cleansing and in the Yamantaka sadhana it is not only cleansing but also his energy is rising and made outstanding. Do you see the difference? That is your energy, not Vajrasattva’s. You are not in the Vajrasattva form, you are the Solitary Hero Yamantaka. In Tibetan the Yamantaka [sadhana] will say: zi ji dang tu top pun sum tsog pa gyur that means not only you are purified but you become very majestic. The Heruka and Vajrayogini sadhanas don’t have that and that is an important point one has to notice. It is the signal given that this tantra is geared towards the illusory-body development and the other one is geared towards developing the clear light. This is very subtle, the translators probably did not notice those points. There are a lot of subtle things like that. Even in the Vajrasattva purification you can see it: the emphasis is made on the majestic look, not on being purified. Actually in the sadhana it is not really clear whether the majestic look refers to the Vajrasattva or the practitioner, but that really does not matter, because later on you become inseparable from Vajrasattva. If you want to make the Vajrasattva recitation shorter, the Heruka or Vajrayogini sadhana has a shorter text. Even if you can’t say the long hundred-syllable mantra, at least you can say: OM VAJRASATTVA AH twenty-one times; that will do. Audience: You said that the Vajrasattva practice comes before the sadhana, but in our Yamantaka short sadhana, it comes at the end. Rinpoche: That is the hundred-syllable mantra, not the Vajrasattva recitation482. In the short sadhana the Vajrasattva recitation is not even there, it is one of the things deleted there. The eight preliminaries are there in order to make the practice perfect. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche gave me a particular example. He said: ‘I will give you an example of how important the preliminaries are’. He was attending a teaching retreat with Pabongka at Tashi Choeling, that is Pabongka’s own little retreat area. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche was there and also my father. About two thousand people were attending the teaching of the Heruka development- and completion stage. When Kyabje Pabongka Rinpoche had visitors, especially if it were ex- or present government officers he’d sit there and talk. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche told me that there was always a guy named Gajang Tenpa who had been demoted by the Tibetan government. Gajang Tenpa used to come without notice. He’d come at about 11 am. while the teaching would start at 12.30 or 1.00 p.m. So when this guy came, everybody would say: ‘Oh, my god, Gajang Tenpa has come’ and that meant the teaching that day would not start before 5 PM or sometimes as late as 7pm or 7.30 PM. Gajang Tenpa would keep sitting in Pabongka’s room and keep on chitchatting and gossiping and the labrang would keep on serving lunch and dinner and all this, while two thousand were waiting outside, on the rocks, no tea, nothing, just waiting and, he said, that happened very often. But no matter how late it might be, Pabongka would never rush the preliminaries, even if we started as late as 9 PM. The chanting master of the Ngakpa dratsang would keep chanting with all the instruments until 10 or 10.30 PM. and even then Pabongka would not rush. Ling Rinpoche repeatedly 481 482

See page 283. The hundred syllable mantra is used just to purify any faults of the practice. The Vajrasattva recitation is a more overall purification practice.

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told me the reason. It was not because he did not need sleep, nor to have the two thousand students walk five miles at night in the mountains and fall off the rocks, but to show the importance of the preliminaries. That is the reason why he kept on insisting. The preliminaries are important to make it on the actual level.

THE ACTUAL SESSION The manner of performing the actual session has two outlines: 1. Meditation method enabling oneself the yogi, in future to arise as the three kayas in place of birth, bardo and death. 2. The manner of making offerings and praises corresponding with the activities after enlightenment. You can put the outlines together like a family tree, in that manner it will become much easier. When you make a nice drawing on the computer then it becomes very attractive and when you look at it you can comprehend it.

The meditation method enabling oneself, the yogi, in future to arise as the three kayas in place of birth, death and bardo What are you, the practitioner, going to experience of death, bardo and rebirth? According to that, how the procedures follow, how you go, how you die, how you are in the bardo etc., taking that as an example and using it for the practice as the things corresponding to what is going to happen, that is what the title of the outline means. So you have to learn how you die, how the bardo works and how people are born. Then you take these events, which happen automatically, and try to correspond them with the practice. Ultimately, this is trying to change the ordinary death into dharmakaya etc. In other words, you’re going to cheat death and instead of that you are going to have the dharmakaya, you’re going to cheat ordinary bardo and instead of that you are going to have the sambogakaya, and you cheat ordinary rebirth and instead of that you are going to have nirmanakaya. That needs practice. It is not going to be easy. Before you practice, you need to know what the procedures are you have to follow, what events will take place, what will happen to you. You’ll have no control, it’ll take its own course. That is reality. When you are young, nice and beautiful, you don’t think about it, but when you become older, when you are in your forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, and if you are lucky, in your eighties, then the process is already taking place within the body. You’re going to go there and you can’t help it, no matter how much you want to look young. That is the process of aging going on by itself and likewise the process of death and dying will take place. Likewise the bardo; the process goes by itself, you won’t like it, but you can’t help it. Likewise the process of rebirth will take place by itself. It can’t happen ‘boom’ like that, it is a gradual process. What the maha annutara yoga tantra does – the lower tantras don’t have this quality – it studies the process of how it takes place, and it gives training to the individual. By visualizing or whatever you do, you learn the process and once you know it, you try to alter it. That is actually the best art of dying; nowhere else can you find anything better than this. The second category will be to make you comfortable, be there, hold your hand, lessen the pain. The best art is this. That is why the procedures are necessary. When you are young, it does not really make much sense to you, but when you are getting older – if you are lucky enough to get old – you are going to need that. I also feel that if you don’t focus now, then a little later you are going to regret it. I just mention that here. So, what is the essence of the sadhana? Its real essence is training the individual in the stages of dying, the stages of bardo and the stages of rebirth. The basic ordinary death, bardo and rebirth are called: base death, base bardo and base rebirth. Then you add up practice on that and it becomes the path: the practice of death, the practice of bardo and the practice of rebirth. Then as the third comes the result. So the base on which you’ll train, the path which you’ll use and the result you are going to get, that is the basic

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structure. When you just read your sadhana, you are keeping your commitment, and that is it. But what you really try to work with is death, bardo and rebirth. There are three outlines here: 1. Taking death as dharmakaya and the related branches. 2. Taking bardo as sambogakaya as the path 3. Taking yoga of rebirth nirmanakaya as the generation of the resultant Vajra holder.

Taking death as Dharmakaya and the related branches 1. Accumulation of various merits: corresponding to causes for optimal human rebirth (endowed with 6 elements from the womb of a Jambudvipa human being). 2. Meditation on the wisdom of the basis of Shunyata as Dharmakaya: corresponding to realization of clear light of death. 3. Meditation on protection wheel to block obstacles.

Accumulation of various merits: corresponding to causes for optimal human rebirth (endowed with 6 elements from the womb of a Jambudvipa human being) Why do we have to accumulate merit? Brenda: The merit is necessary as cause for the dharmakaya and the rupakaya. Otherwise you will become a buddha without a mind or body. Rinpoche: Also, if you don’t accumulate merit, you get into lots of trouble, lots of hardship. Things may get done, but it is very difficult to complete them. Even in our daily life it works that way. You lose things that you want to hold. If you don’t have the merit, you get what in normal American language is: ‘I can’t afford to have it’. Either you can’t pay for it or somehow you can’t get it. So also in our daily life, merit is necessary. If you want something better, it takes more, like for a better car, you pay more money. Just like that. Receiving such a life as we have, takes more than just having a life with problems, like e.g. handicapped people have. I am not saying the handicapped are bad, don’t misunderstand! It takes more merit to get an American life – actually an American life is very expensive – than to be born in Rwanda or India. Even more expensive than the American life, is the vajrayana life. A life you can use for vajrayana, is extremely expensive. When you can’t afford to have it, then the opportunity [to practice this practice] is lost. That’s why the merit is necessary. You have to add up all the time. That’s why the outline says ‘which corresponds to the cause which gives rise to the birth as mantra practitioner, a being endowed with the six elements from the womb of a Jambudvipa human being’. During the lamrim period we talked about how precious life is, how important it is, what sort of cause it takes to get it: its perfect basis is perfect ethical practice in conjunction with prayer and the help of the six paramitas. In order to have the nadis and the energies functioning properly, [we need merit] in addition to this. Also, if you have a lack of merit, you may be an intelligent person, you may be able to understand the things, but somehow you have a difficulty of practicing, a difficulty of putting your focus together, even though you understand you feel that you are disconnected. Some people don’t like it, if we say that, but that is the reality. Lack of merit makes it extremely difficult to accomplish something. Therefore merit is absolutely important. There are two types: wisdom-related merit and just merit merit, called relative merit. Everybody will say: ‘The wisdom is what I want. What do I want ordinary merit for?’ Normally, people will feel that way; they think that rupakaya and dharmakaya are a different issue. Dealing with our daily lives the wisdom will bring understanding and will edge over the ignorance. Nobody will say they don’t want that. People usually have less interest in the normal merit. They think: ‘I am a spiritual practitioner, so what I need is wisdom. I don’t really care, whether I have a proper life or not’. Somehow they sometimes go so much wrong that they feel guilty about having some kind of

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better life, like the normal American life. They feel they are taking it away from somebody. They’ll say: ‘I don ‘t like it, I don’t want to waste my time on it, because it has not much meaning. I want to do something more than that. I want to do something really serious. I need the wisdom only, nothing else will do’. People go on like that. Milarepa did not have anything; his life was extremely difficult, but he later had tremendous [wealth]. This is a very important point to notice. Not only you will not have a respectable life, not only you will not have plenty of material, but the things you want, you won’t get. Things you desire to have, you will lose. The life you want to have, the companion you want to have, the style you want to have it, you won’t get, it will go the other way. That is the lack of merit. If people can live like Milarepa, fine. He lived very simple. He received a tremendous amount of gifts and he threw them on the rocks. Plenty of people got rich from the things Milarepa threw away. That is generosity. It built tremendous merit for his future. Even Milarepa created that. In the 17th century there was a very famous teacher, Longdo Lama. He was extremely famous, but very simple. He built a 24 karat gold butter lamp to be put in front of the statue of Jowo Atisha in Central Tibet. It was a huge butter lamp. Later it was stolen by the second appointed Chinese governor of Tibet. He took it to China and at the border the Chinese came to know and confiscated it and it was brought back to Lhasa. Longdo lama lived a style similar to Milarepa, not that simple, but very simple. Everybody looked at him as some very simple, older monk. Then he sent a gift to Panchen Rinpoche. He was already old and could not move, so he sent somebody with the gift and a message. The message said: ‘Would you please check whether my wishes will be fulfilled or not and what I could do to fulfill my wishes’. So he asked for a mo. Panchen Rinpoche took his dice and threw them and was surprised and said: ‘I did not know that such a simple old monk has so much desire. Well he has done enough, his wish will definitely be fulfilled, but tell him that I am so surprised he has so much desire.’ The messenger went back and delivered the message and Longdo lama was a little embarrassed and said: ‘Oh, Panchen lama really knows’. He was working to become King of Shambala. So simplicity and strong humility not necessarily mean not having merit. Longdo lama, who kept very simple and very strong humility, was aiming to be King of Shambala. King of Shambala is another strong extreme. Trungpa Rinpoche in his life, virtually orchestrated that he himself was the Shambala King and called himself ‘Universal Monarch’. This type of idea, like almost making a sadhana of Shambala, sort of visualizing and actualizing the techniques of vajrayana for him and his retinues, he had in a rather extreme way. These are extreme examples, but merit is absolutely necessary. Audience: If you have your goal set on a worldly aim, like being King of Shambala and you are saying many mantras to that aim, you are saying prayers as a Buddhist, doing Buddhist practice with the desire for a worldly aim; the two seem completely opposed. Rinpoche: What makes you think it is a worldly aim? To be King of Shambala is not a worldly aim. Where do you draw the line between the worldly and the unworldly? If you can not pay the rent and you work for that, you can’t call that worldly. What is worldly? The materials alone are not necessarily worldly, nor is working for material needs necessarily dharma either. There are a lot of gray areas there. So how do you draw the line and say: ‘This is worldly, this is material and this is spiritual? ‘This is a very important issue. Audience: Spiritual materialism is defined as using the dharma or any spiritual path to get things, to get something. Rinpoche: I did not say to do the spiritual things to get something. I said: even if you dedicate prayers and mantras to get things, you won’t get them, because of lack of merit. I am not even saying ‘this is dharma and that is not dharma’, I am not saying ‘that’s not spiritual, that’s materialism’, yes or no, I am not saying that.

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Audience: But accumulating merit in order to get those things..... Rinpoche: I did not say that. Just draw the line there. Your logic is going one step ahead. You are writing a commentary. Okay, take becoming King of Shambala. Working with your total practice and being devoted to becoming King of Shambala, is this spiritual practice or material practice? It is spiritual. You don’t work to become ruler of China or President of the United States. That is a big difference. Audience: If your motivation is pure, then the things like money to pay your rent will come to you. Rinpoche: Is that right? Audience: From my experience, no. Audience: If you give your money away, it will come back to you. Audience: Maybe in your next life. Rinpoche: You are wrong, you are going to far. Audience: What about Milarepa? Rinpoche: That is an extreme example. The Milarepa model was suitable in that period, at that moment, at that place. If Milarepa appeared today, everybody would think he is a crazy hippie, not fitting into society. Look at Tilopa, Naropa, Ghantapa, they are all like that. But on the other hand look at Nagpopa483 who was extremely well-dressed, who did not want the dust to touch his feet and therefore walked about eight inches above the ground. These examples are all there. But Brenda started writing a commentary for me, that was one step too far. Coming back to Mike’s question. Working for Shambala is definitely not a non-virtue, it is extremely virtuous, it is working extremely hard. There are a number of reasons. One reason is that for Shambala Kings there is no fall back, so it is definitely a positive virtue. Another one is that an ordinary being can’t become a Shambala King anyway, so the person has to be an extraordinary person. On the other hand you don’t want every dharma practitioner not to be able to pay next month’s bills and rent. John said when with good motivation you do your practice the merit will come. I can’t say no, because the merit will come, I can’t say yes, because you still will not be able to pay next month’s rent anyway. Audience: The practice can be contaminated by doing it for the wrong reasons. For example doing a retreat with the hope for the reparation of a damaged relationship. Rinpoche: Does it work ? Audience: I would not think so. You would neither have the benefit of doing the retreat nor of getting what you want. Rinpoche: Does the wrong motivation push the result away? Audience: If the motivation is wrong, I don’t understand how the end result can not be tainted by that motivation. Rinpoche: Let’s say I do a retreat to gain some kind of companionship. Will that, because of that motivation, push that companionship away from me? You know that it does not materialize. The wrong or right motivation has nothing to do with achieving that sort of aim. I am not saying it is right or wrong. I am saying that for that specific purpose it will not materialize, because of lack of merit. If the merit is there, it can materialize, because the retreat can push it, but if there is a lack of merit, it will not materialize, no matter whatever you do. That’s why I say merit is important. Audience: So then there are some practices that are okay for dedicating for worldly merit? Rinpoche: You don’t have to dedicate your practice for worldly merit. You have been provided with the opportunity to gain merit and that is not necessarily worldly merit, just merit. Once you have merit, building the merit to gain the buddha stage will definitely bring other worldly matters to you. Everybody has something to begin with, but not enough. That’s why I said, when John said ‘it automatically comes’, I can’t say no, because you are not going to attain a buddha stage which is poor. 483

See page 87.

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Buddha is very wealthy. That is the misunderstanding. Buddha is extremely wealthy. He has no expenses either. So, doing your practice, the merit gradually builds up and all your bills will get paid. But you need to put efforts in, because if you don’t put efforts in, you don’t get paid. That’s how it works. Some people put lots of efforts in and do all sorts of things and don’t get what they want and even if you get it, something goes wrong and somebody takes everything away. That happens all the time. That is all because of this merit business. I think to attain the liberation you don’t necessarily have to give up everything, but Buddha chose to be in that style. To be a buddha is a very funny life. Everything provided, no expenses. It is like the visiting lamas. When they come to visit from India, they have no expenses and everything is paid, but at the same time…… Audience: Are you talking about obstacles in an abstract way or specific ones? It seems that all our practice is for removing obstacles and that this is just one of them . Rinpoche: That’s right. If you can’t pay your next rent or your next meal, you have definitely one of the biggest obstacles, too, particularly, if you can not pay your bills. They will probably catch you and lock you up. Well, when you have been locked up, it may be easier. I always keep on thinking that, if I get locked up, there would be a lot of time for practice. When you are in between it is the most difficult, right? When it does not get too extreme, they don’t lock you up, they don’t pay your bills either, but at the same time they squeeze you, so that is the biggest obstacle for practice. Anyway, the merit part is very important. Audience: You talked many times about how serious practitioners, especially vajrayana practitioners, have more problems than non-practitioners who seemingly have a good life, because it is the burning off of bad karma and obstacles. I remember a specific example of someone who had been a practitioner, who dropped off, burned a lot of bridges and after that time was in a very angry state. After some time, that person started having a lot of good fortune. I remember talking to you about it, saying that this was very odd, that the person created tremendous consequences for themselves, but the short term situation was that getting a good job, making all this money, really getting all this benefit. You said that this was because the positive virtues were quickly spent. Could you talk a little bit about that issue? Rinpoche: Interesting. I can’t remember the question you asked at that time, but what happens is, just to have such a practice as this, to have such an opportunity, to have the atmosphere and the facilities, that will take a lot of positive karma from the individual. It takes a lot. So what you really need is a constant reinforcement of merit making. A person like in the example Aura gave, who burned a lot of bridges and is angry, is like the Japanese. After the second world war, the Japanese had no military expenses, and whatever money they had, they could use to build up businesses. If you don’t have huge expenses on one side, then whatever you have left over looks great. That’s one thing. Another thing is, such a person will also in the long run have extremely difficult periods. So we do need to constantly reinforce our positive merit. If you don’t do that, you are not breaking your commitment, though you will have difficulties, no doubt. That’s why the building of merit is not in the short sadhana – it is not a breaking point – but in the long sadhana, it has been provided. In order to become a human being of this quality, you need a tremendous amount of good merit, we know that much. Likewise, when you try to create a buddha style of being, you definitely need much more. My main point here is that the wisdom related merit alone is not enough. The building of relative merit is absolutely necessary. So if you say: ‘Milarepa did not work for material benefits], so why should I work for it?’ it is mistaken. The material world is also very important. A lot of people say, Buddhism is the religion of suffering. They are not understanding Buddhism properly. I was shocked when senior Buddhist students told me the first noble truth is that life is suffering. When I told Helen Tworkov, the editor of Tricycle, that that’s not the first noble truth, she got a shock. So, if we concentrate just on the wisdom merit and not on the relative-merit part, then probably

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they’ll say: ‘Buddhism is a religion for paupers’. We don’t want that. If we do, we are probably creating another negativity. A lot of people also think: ‘I just manage and that’s fine, I don’t need it’. That may be true for some people, but it is not true for a lot of other people. Just manage is okay for those people who sit in the cave or in the forest and do nothing. They are not in the circulation of society. But, even those people don’t think it is okay, they come out and do all sorts of things, including sacred dance, music, performances and monkey dance, they do all this just to make more. Those of us who are in the lay community, living and functioning in the society, if we keep on thinking: ‘Just making enough is fine’, it is not going to work, although you will never be hungry. True, if you are a follower of Buddha, you will never be hungry. If you look at your own personal experience, sometimes it will go to the end of the thread, but then you will find a way out. It happens repeatedly to a number of people. That is because of the Buddha’s dedication of his merit. If we do not accumulate merit, then what are you going to dedicate for those who will follow you in future? That buddha will manage for himself, but the followers will have nothing. You don’t want that. Accumulation of merit is not only accumulating money to pay our bills, or make our living, but some extra to be able to dedicate for others. Where are we going to get that extra from, for millions of people to be able to benefit? You see, it is not as simple as it seems. We are spending a lot of time on this, but I think it is important, because a lot of people have a lot of misunderstanding on this subject. Some people even go to the extreme of thinking they can’t take it away from others. They say that all worldly resources are limited, so ‘I can’t take it away from others; if I take it, somebody else is losing it’. That is bullshit. For each one of the people, it is his or her karma, their merit, and if you don’t take it, the poor people who you hope will get it, are not going to get it; there will be another big medium person in between, who is going to take the whole thing. It is interesting. Allen Ginsberg has given me two very nice, old, antique Tibetan tangkas two or three years ago. I was very hesitant to take them, because he bought them a long time ago and they are very expensive and really nice antiques. So I was very hesitant and thinking I would return them back to Allen. Then Jaqueline Jeans said: ‘Rinpoche, do you want them to end up with Peter Orlowski, who is totally crazy, in and out of the hospital all the time?’ I asked: ‘Is that going to happen?’ and she said: ‘Sure, whatever Allen has no more, will go to Peter Orlowski who is in and out of institutions. Do you want him to have them?’ and I said: ‘No’ and so I kept them. That is exactly how it works. Whatever job you take, as long as it is not involved in negativity, such as killing… If you are a meat seller, that is fine; if you are a butcher, then it is not fine – the distinction is there. When you are a meat seller and you sell more meat, others have to create more meat; if you look from that angle, then every single thing is questionable. Buddha has advised not to look that way. One of his attendants, Ananda, went too extreme and looked at what we call today the total economic structure. Buddha said: ‘What is relevant to this individual, with his mind and his two hands, that is relevant. Do not go beyond that’. Buddha told Ananda: ‘People are suffering because of their karma, that is the first noble truth and you should not worry about that, because it is automatic’. Not to worry does not mean not to care about it, but it means that you can’t say: ‘Hey, I can’t… etc’. so not to go too extreme. So any job, you can get, if it is not directly involved, or indirectly like creating atomic bombs and things like that…. That is totally different, even though you don’t take the bomb and throw it on somebody, I think it is direct involvement. Whatever it is, if it is not a negativity by nature, then anything, whatever it maybe, you can do it. But then also don’t go too extreme. You know what lama Yeshe did in the 70s, when they were setting up this [FPMT]. Lama Yeshe did not have a big following in the US but it was huge in Europe and Australia. Lama Yeshe said if it is not negative by nature, everybody can do everything. So a lot of those people, the senior ones, we don’t want to name them, were very much involved in import-export of not necessarily legitimate goods – an

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easy, quick way of making money. Many of them ended up in jail. I think gradually now they have dropped that. Lama Yeshe was saying: ‘By virtue it is not negative’ and that is true, but legally it is not right. Legality is another point you have to keep in mind. The accumulation of relative merit has two outlines here: 1. Accumulation of merits from the supreme field 2. Accumulation of merits from the lower field

Accumulation of merits from the supreme field This has two outlines: 1. Inviting the supreme field of merit. 2. Accumulation of merit therefrom.

Inviting the supreme Field of Merit Here you are inviting the supreme Field of Merit. If you look into the sadhana, you yourself are the Solitary Hero. Light goes out from your heart and invites the lama and Yamantaka together and the lama sits in between the two horns of Yamantaka. In the Heruka and in the Vajrayogini practice, the lama sits on the throne in the cemeteries near the western gate, which, I think, is inside the protection wheel. Although in your visualization you bring it in front of you and do the work, the place where you actually put the throne is at the west side of the cemeteries. Somebody asked me, if we can put activities in the cemeteries – sure, why not. I am not sure, if to have activities outside the protection wheel is right or wrong in the case of Yamantaka.

Accumulation of merit therefrom [Here you offer the seven purities: praise etc.]. At the praise one verse says ‘Hero utilizing supreme objects’. Why is Yamantaka called ‘hero’? You say that verse every day, but what do you think? You are supposed to think what is behind the words ‘Supremely great furious one, Hero’ etc. So look back into your notes and get it straight and when you do your daily practice, think – that’s what the whole teaching is about.

Accumulation of merits from the lower field Audience: The accumulation of merit from the ordinary field, that is the four immeasurables; can you include that in the short sadhana? Rinpoche: You can include anything. Audience: But you said something about mixing and matching, because of losing the blessings. Rinpoche: You can pick up from the long sadhana and make your short sadhana longer and longer. The supreme field is the enlightened beings, including your own root masters, the lineage masters and the yidams. The seven purities are the accumulation of merit from the supreme field484. All others are counted as the ordinary, lower or common field. That last one sounds better. That is everybody, including ourselves. What you do here is the four immeasurables. In Buddhism all beings are divided into two: enlightened beings and non-enlightened beings. The non-enlightened beings are called ‘all sentient beings’, as though the enlightened beings do not have minds.

Meditation on the wisdom of the basis of shunyata as dharmakaya: corresponding to realization of clear light of death 484

See chapter III.

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The base death is when you or I along with the dog in the street get knocked over by a taxi in Chicago or something. That is ordinary death. That ordinary death which you and I will have, whether in a hospital bed or in our house or in a crash or whatever, we have as part of our life, as part of our process of evolution. That is the base. We practice that also. When we meditate the dissolution of the elements of the body, we are actually practicing dying. We are trying to meditate that dying stage – which later will come automatically – so it will not come as a surprise to us. When it actually comes you say: ‘Ha, I know you, you are followed by such and such and preceded by this and that, I know you, I have to know what I am going to do’. So what we do is base practice and when the actual death comes, we will recognize it; it will not come as a surprise, it will not go over our heads, but we will catch it. That’s why we do the sadhana every day, that’s why we meditate that every day. Actually we are training ourselves in the base procedure. On the base procedure you add up certain little methods, trying slightly to twist that ordinary death. That adding up business becomes the path part of it. You add up wisdom a little bit and compassion a little bit, you add up recognition a little bit and the clear light a little bit and that is the path procedure. Actually with sex it is the same thing. When the person is really experiencing the ultimate sex, it is almost similar to the dying procedure. The French may call it little death, vajrayana calls it big death. Here you are practicing the basic death and after a little while, on the path level, in the same way you collect all your energies, or airs, within your central channel and you make them remain. Jug ne tim – enter, remain and dissolve. I think the sex helps at that level. Here we are only talking about the base practice, but when you are doing it, [in the completion stage], you meditate the three channels. Normally, our right and left channels are functioning and the central channel is not functioning, because of the over-functioning of the right and left. That’s why sometimes the left and right channels are referred to as attachment and anger channel. They overpower the neutral central channel which has been unused for a long, long period. Air and mind function on the same frequency. Very often they are referred to as horse and horseman. The horse is the air and the mind is the person on the horse. You try to pass a little air into the central channel, so that there may be a little movement in the central channel. When you pick up that movement in the central channel, then gradually the movements in the left and right channels are reduced. It is like when you have three of these intestine-shaped balloons. If you squeeze the three of them in a certain area, then if the one has more air, the others will be reduced. When the right and left one take the air, the central one will be squeezed and when the central one blows up a little bit, the right and left ones will be squeezed, because there is only that much room left. So what you are doing is moving the air from the outside to the inside. The purpose of the practice is to try to use that unused central channel: we try to enter the air or energy, to have it remain in there, and finally to dissolve it. Dissolve is what we call it, but it is not necessarily to dissolve, rather to take its own rightful place. The procedure that we have at the death stage, we can also have at an extraordinary sexual level or at an extraordinary level where the energy remains in the central channel. The individual can observe similar signs – that’s why it becomes important. Whether it is at the development stage or at the completion stage, the process is almost the same, because the purpose is the same. The intensity is different. That’s where the division comes into development stage and completion stage. The essence of the sadhana practice is the practice of the three kayas, not saying mantras and not the preliminary purifications. Death as dharmakaya – meditating the death process. The major important thing in this is the process of dying, like the eight different signs which you observe: the mirage, the smoky feeling, the sparking light and the burning lamp and the then the more important inner signs, the whitish, the reddish, the black [and the death light]. You will say:

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Yamantaka teachings 1. I am here, I am receiving the sign of the mirage, which will be followed by the smoky color and at the end the real death comes, I have to be careful, I will do whatever I have to do to recognize that as dharmakaya and hold all my concentration on the dharmakaya. 2. Ha, here comes the smoky color. Now the mirage has passed, at the end the smoky will be followed by the light sparks and at the end the death will come, to be recognized as dharmakaya. And I’ll do whatever I can, put all my efforts in. I redouble my efforts and concentrate on the [dharmakaya]. 3. This is the fire sparks, next will be the burning lamp and at the end the actual death is coming and I will really focus on it. I redouble my efforts again to recognize that as the dharmakaya. 4. Ah, here comes the lamp light, the next will be the whitish and at the end the actual death will come. I will redouble my efforts to recognize it as dharmakaya and concentrate on the dharmakaya.

At every point you keep on telling yourself, pushing yourself, making sure. Don’t take it lightly during the daily practice. If you do that, then, when the actual death comes, you may also go lightly and you may miss it. It is training your mind – and that is an activity! – to actually substitute actual death with dharmakaya. This is how you are going to cheat the death. This is how you are going to get out of samsara during that period. So you really have to put all your efforts in wholeheartedly, rather than it becoming a daily chore. That would be a cheap production of your own future! Don’t take it lightly. The earlier Tibetan teachers used to say: ‘Whatever you have to do, put your fists together, hold your asshole together, bite your gums, do whatever you have to do and don’t miss it’. That’s it, because there is the possibility that you relax and just treat that precious period as any other thing. 5. Now the external signs are over, now I am in the internal signs. This is the whitish. That is coming because the indestructible drop is being destroyed… When you take rebirth you do so in the essence of the drops which we get from the father and the mother, the mother’s egg and the father’s sperms; these combine together and become indestructible till death. They will not separate until the individual dies. Now they are separating. The white sperm part is withdrawing from the joined shell of the mother’s egg, that’s why you have a whitish feeling. Next will be the reddish feeling and thereafter at the end the actual death is coming and I will be careful and again redouble my efforts. So it will increase, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 times redoubling. 6. Ah, here comes the reddish feeling, my external contact has been eliminated, my mind has been reduced to the subtle level, and what I am perceiving is the separation of the egg and sperm. The egg’s splashing is the reddish feeling that I am perceiving and this will be followed by darkness. [At the end the actual death is coming; I have to be careful, I’ll do whatever I have to do to recognize that as dharmakaya and hold all my concentration on it.] This is the actual time where you release the essence of both, the white semen and the red flesh, and that goes [respectively] down and up. The white essence of the semen from the crown comes through and now, – through karmic power, through the death stage – the knots from the different chakras are released, and the actual mind and energy will travel through the central channel485. By this time you don’t breathe anymore, the connection of the right and left air passing through the nostrils has already been cut and therefore all the airs are now traveling through the central channel. It is really the essence of the pure period.

485

See Lati Rinbochay and Jeffrey Hopkins, Death, intermeditate state and rebirth, pg. 38-44.

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There are only two ways the central channel will open. One is through meditative power. That meditation is called vajra recitation or bumpa chen: holding your air like in a vase and then do the vajra recitation. That’ll come at the completion stage and when we’ll teach tantra in general. At that time you’ll know it quite clearly. The other way the central channel opens is through the karmic power and that is the actual death stage. Without reaching the completion stage practice, at the death stage, you will have the same effect, the same opportunity, the same conditions. That’s when the consciousness has become very subtle. Subtle, yet lucid. Subtle because the gross things are cut out, lucid because the external distraction is totally cut. It is very, very quiet. It is more quiet than what we know from sutra as mental quiescence, much more. It is even quieter than the stages of body quietness and of mind quietness in the completion stage. It brings you deep down inside, solidly, without any external distraction whatsoever, plus all energy traveling through the central channel is focused in the center of the heart chakra. That is a very important stage where one can use the opportunity. In order to be able to use the opportunity at that time, we have to put in our efforts now. We have to give ourselves the training every day through the mantra ‘OM SVABHAVA SHUDDHA SARVA DHARMA SVABHAVA SHUDDOH HAM – All is empty’. That’s all you have to say, nothing else. But the visualizations, you have to do. You meditate and bring in all these stages, train your mind to recognize these stages and redouble your efforts at focusing. That is how the actual practice works. This is one of the essential practices and not something where you can relax and play around, thinking two different things. You have to put all your efforts together here. And then acknowledging that [emptiness as dharmakaya]. After that the darkness, naturally. You think: 7. This is the darkness or near-attainment, and at the end of this the actual death is coming and I will really focus on it. I redouble my efforts again to recognize that as the dharmakaya. After that you like to get out of the darkness, and go into the light. The darkness will suffocate you, so naturally you want to get out. That suffocated mind is what will throw you out of the body. That is the actual death, the internal death. That is the point where the connection between me and this life is totally and finally disconnected. Then the feeling of the individual is great openness, because you are getting out of the suffocating darkness, so you can breathe, it is big, space-like openness. And it is of light nature, it is not dark. People tell you about that white cloth type of light feeling, or the moonlight, or like early in the morning when in the darkness the first whitish light comes, and also sometimes they tell you it is like the very clear weather in autumn, when there is no dust and the air is clean. And it is like moon light, not looking at the moon, but the effect of the moon light. So everything is very clear. Don’t think that that clarity means that you see all the houses and trees very clearly, it is not that way. It is total, absolute openness, void, deep space-like. Then you have to acknowledge that as space-like emptiness, and whoever is acknowledging, is in joyful nature, blissful. That perception of great openness, emptiness, is in the nature of bliss, joy, void and you acknowledge this as your result dharmakaya. You think: 8. The dharmakaya is there, I will be very careful. This really enables the person to obtain enlightenment. The reason is not that you say the sadhana, but in the sadhana you do the purifications, you do the accumulations of merit, you generate the bodhimind and now you are doing the essence of the mantra, the real great void, the emptiness, the mahamudra. This is corresponding with your death stage and you are moving it towards dharmakaya. This is actually the best art of dying, far better than phowa, which you only rely on if you are incapable of doing this. This is superior. This is why we have the sadhana, the essence of the development

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stage, the three-kaya practice. There is nothing better than that and nobody has ever produced something better before, nor will anyone hereafter. Audience: By the time you recognize the death process is there, you may be already in the bardo. Rinpoche: Not necessarily, because you have these eight steps. You will probably miss the first and the second, and even the third, but by the fourth step you should be able to catch the process, and then you still have the fifth, sixth and seventh step. There are quite a number of steps here, and after the first ones you should be able to realize what is happening to you. That’s why if you do the sadhana every day. If you keep on visualizing that every day, telling your mind: ‘Oh, this is sign number one and then sign number two will come and that looks like this; ha, here comes sign number two, the next will be number three and that is going to look like that’ you’ll realize what is happening. That’s what you do every day, maybe two or three times, because you are doing at least two different sadhanas. That is how you train, that becomes habitual and then you are beginning to see what is really happening, so you will not miss it. Kyabje Song Rinpoche used to say that at the end you should say: ‘The dharmakaya is there, at that time I will be very careful’. Whether you can really remember it that way or not, pay attention, be aware. You are trying to transform ordinary death into dharmakaya. You try to cheat death here. You die, but it is not an ordinary death, it is a special thing. These stages are presented to you as in let’s say ‘normal death’. An accident would be unfortunate, because in accidents the stages still happen but can be very quick, probably within a couple of seconds or minutes. If you are practicing this every day, you can probably still catch it even in an accident, but it is very hard. Audience: When I try to practice that, I try to go through them successively, is that enough? Rinpoche: If you can hold one on top of the other, then that is the best, but if you can not, you have to have the awareness of each and the acknowledgment as well. You can’t just go: ‘white, red and black’. You say: ‘This is the white, I am on the white, the next is the red level’ sort of acknowledging them with awareness. You try to produce artificially here the actual signs of the physical decay of the body, which come out as some kind of signals which the consciousness will observe, and you train yourself in recognizing their order and acknowledging them accordingly. If you just say the mantra and if the thoughts can’t catch the words that your mouth said, you may keep a little quiet and visualize the autumn moon type of empty [of the eight stage], and then you may say: ‘All is empty’. So you catch up in that manner. You also can do the very slowly: OOOOOMM etc. Our friends in Malaysia, the Tony Wong’s group, chant the OM very slowly nine times. You don’t have to do that, you can say the mantra slowly, if you know the meaning. If you can, you should while saying the mantra, think about its meaning, but if you can’t, you do this and finally acknowledge that as the dharmakaya. The moment you acknowledge that empty as dharmakaya you don’t have to sit long. Instead of saying: ‘Now I am dead’, you say ‘This is my dharmakaya’ – that’s how you are changing it. Death as a negativity is transformed. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche always said during the initiations: ‘If you have no understanding of emptiness and you just think that all is empty, that will substitute it temporarily’. You can’t do that permanently, but for a while until we get a better understanding of emptiness, you can. But don’t sit too long on it. Audience: Thurman said that this is very dangerous and would be like meditating on a black hole, and that it is a pit fall. Rinpoche: Thurman is a very interesting guy and at every talk he gives he has certain sharp points and here he probably hints at those who always just meditate on some smooth love light and wonderfulness and floating in oneness. When he talks he goes according to the texts and his learning of the obstacles and he picks up what’s going on in the society today and then he will have strong pointers hitting this and that. That’s how he works. He may not have a particular individual in mind, but certain practices that are done nowadays. That is where he probably shoots his arrows at.

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The meditation on the death process is not a real meditation on the dharmakaya; it is meditating on the symptoms of the death stage, thinking of what happens when you die. It is a meditation where you try to bring awareness and acknowledgment of the death itself. Why are you visualizing that every day? It is almost like if you have to catch a thief or murderer; what the police does to identify is show different photos to the witness and when you see the actual person, you say: ‘Yes, that’s the one’. So you recognize. Very similar to this, trying to meditate this process every day you are training your mind, and when it comes, you will recognize it. It can go extremely quick or extremely slow, it depends on how one dies. In case of an accident, it all goes ‘zooom’, and even then you should be able to recognize the signs. At that time, the internal mental and external physical connection are almost cut. Therefore, the first couple of signs you might miss, but the third and fourth and fifth you should be able to catch. You may say the pain and the agony is so difficult and one may be unconscious. Externally, bodywise, yes, but internally not. Therefore, you will be able to see them. It is almost like a dream. When you sleep, externally the body is asleep, it looks like nothing is going on, but within the sleep, there is the dream. Nobody raises a question about that; everybody says: ‘Oh, yea, we have experienced that’. Very similar to that, the body may have great agony and all that, but the connection to the body has almost been cut off. Particularly, the hurts that you get on your bones, flesh, etc., if there are any, when the earth element signs off, the messages that something is hurting are no longer coming to the consciousness, so actually you are free of that particular pain at that moment. The external connection is almost cut off. So try to recognize and acknowledge the signs, in order not to miss the opportunity. That’s why I keep on advising to say: ‘This is the sign, and that is gone, this is coming and at the end of that the actual death is coming and I will do whatever I can’. (Actually, you should not say dharmakaya is coming, but actual death is coming). Why we are doing that? Again, because the release of the channels – the functioning of the consciousness and its companion, the subtle air, in the central channel – is physically there at that moment. I said that happens only two times, either through meditative power you relax, loosen or untie the knots and the air functions within the central channel, or – assuming that at the meditative stage we are unable to do it – during the death stage there is the opportunity. This is the reason why we say that death is beautiful. It is a natural process. Not necessarily every natural process is beautiful, but we say that death is beautiful in nature, because of the possible qualities within that. The opportunity will appear as a quality of the human being. I do not think animals have it that way, even apes I don’t think have it. It is a human special quality. The opportunity has been karmically provided for every human being. Though it is not one of the ten endowments and eight leisures, it is one of the most important qualities of the human life. There is a lot of danger of losing this opportunity by certain kinds of deaths, but not by the normal process. Particularly, giving a lot of electrical shocks, trying to revive the heart [cardiac arrest], will probably cut the period shorter. On the intervention sometimes I am raising a question myself. I told you the story of the Tibet official486, who had revived completely and lived two more days. That happens. So that question was never answered for me. Maybe it was not right, maybe I did it wrong. Or maybe the two extra days had any benefits, I don’t know. Phowa. If the possibility [of using the death stage] you think is not going to happen, i.e. if you are incapable of going through this, then the recommendation will be: don’t let yourself go to the extent of getting so much pain that you get confused. During the sadhana recitation period, you visualize, right? Maybe you don’t do everything, maybe you just simply say it. Just simply saying the words will not break your commitment, but it is not contributing to the training. It is okay for one or two days, but if you repeatedly do that and not ever focus on the practice, just fulfill the commitment – for which we have in Tibetan the term ‘paying tax’ –, you are not contributing towards your training. 486

See page 186.

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Before you get the agony and pain, it is time to go. The way of doing this is through the phowa practice. There are a number of different phowas but the best one is the Ganden Lha Gyema one, which is only given to people who have done 100 000 Migtsemas and the Yamantaka initiation and the Yamantaka retreat. The actual practice period is one night. You constantly practice this from dusk to dawn. Once you have done that, then you do it just occasionally once or twice, you don’t do it all the time, and at the time of the death, that’s what you use. I remember when I joined Loseling as a kid, there was an abbot from Tsangpa, Tsangpa Khenpo. I don’t know what he had, but people told me that, when he was younger, he was a very fair guy, almost like an Eastern European, very fair skin color. As I remember him, he was in his forties or fifties, completely dark and with a swollen face, so maybe he had one of these illnesses, which change your color. But he still continued for I think about six years and even after that. Then one day we were told that he died - as abbot - in the office. People heard him using the ‘hick’ and ‘phat’. You know, there is Loseling, next Nyare Khamtsen and next to that Loseling’s courtyard, where the monks debate. They heard that sound and thought it was probably the abbot. They ran there and he was gone. So people do that, too. He might have used all his strength by using the word ‘ hick’. That is when you can’t do it. What you miss is the opportunity of transforming the death into dharmakaya, what you gain is to put yourself into a pure land and you ensured the opportunity again in the next life. The Drikung phowa is very well known in Tibet. They have a special period, I think every ten years, they do this phowa. Almost everybody from Lhasa will go up to do that. It is not like taking a normal teaching, the Gyelwa Drikungpa will be sitting on the throne and people will come and go, a sort of two-day picnic type of thing they do. And when they do this phowa, some people fall; they can’t get up because the consciousness goes off, then others will come and throw vase water on the people and then they’ll wake up. Nobody dies, but that falling happens very often; that’s what Drikung is known for. The usual phowas work with ‘hick’ and ‘phat’. ‘Hick’ pushes your consciousness up and ‘phat’ will bring it down. The Lama Chopa has a phowa without hick and phat. It works with the five powers487. So, you build the art of living, the art of dying and the art of obtaining enlightenment in style. That’s what it really is. Bardo stage. The process of dying reverses; the black feeling is followed by the reddish etc.; it completely goes the opposite way. The period of the reverse process is very intense, extremely strong. It is extremely subtle and extremely sensitive and it is almost like you are locked in completely in an airtight room with all sorts of intensified noises and a tremendous amount of echo. (Sometimes in movies you see that when they catch those spies they give them funny tortures, like intensified noise constantly and things like that.) E.g. when you see the sparkling lights, you don’t just see a harmless spark, you probably see a burning bullet or something hitting you. The wind is also not a nice little cool breeze, but a powerful storm. The bardo is very intense, extremely intense. So bardo fear is there. Don’t think it is not there because we don’t talk about it. That is, because it is not part of the sadhana. It is there. Think about it, internal little things give you tremendous pain and effects. Look at it, when you have a little pain in the stomach and you get operated, what the doctors cut out is just a tiny little thing, but that tiny little point could give you tremendous pain. And when it is internal, it really intensifies. Like the noise inside your ear: actually there is nothing, just ‘puh’, but the noise in the ear is ‘pangggg!’, like the whole earth is covered by that. That is how it intensifies. That is the idea of what you perceive. The earlier teachers used to call it ‘not true, but it is there’. Not true in the sense that actually it is very little, but the effect the individual gets is very big. This is something we are bound to go through.

487

Gelek Rinpoche, Guru devotion, how to integrate the primordial mind, pg. 232-235.

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If you can train yourself not to have to do all this, then that is best. If you are able to take death as dharmakaya, then by all means. If not and you have the choice, then better not go through [the death stage]. Use the phowa, that is another alternative. That is what we call the art of dying. Audience: When doing the death as dharmakaya there are a few things to think through. I am trying to juggle a few things. One of them is, I am going through these stages of dissolving where it looks and feels like this. The other one is, I have got this letter HUNG at my heart dissolving that at the same time. So I am going back and forth. Now, is the idea that I am substituting that fearful state I am experiencing, for the HUNG dissolving? I am really confused now. Rinpoche: Good idea. It is an important practical point. You know, the teachings will tell you this will correspond with that and this will correspond with that, etc., but you may not like to go back and forth at all. During the dharmakaya practice, maybe focus more on the death signs, rather than try to juggle two things. When you get used to it, you may be able to combine them together. Also, the HUNG dissolving business might not be very... It is relevant, it tells you how the five wisdoms are going out, however, there are no signs to be observed. And during the death period, dissolving the things within ourselves is an automatic process and what we are trying to do is catching the signals, so that you can focus on it. So maybe we should put more efforts on that. Audience: Sometimes, when I go through this process, like when the earth element is dissolving, I ask myself who would then be the one observing this process.. Rinpoche: That, I think, is a philosophical question. It is getting a bit too far, I don’t think you should do it. But if the mind is raising that question, then you have to say: the observer, the things he is observing and the signs themselves are all in the nature of emptiness – that is the answer you have to give. Anyway, at the time of the dharmakaya you have to. Contaminated and uncontaminated. I mentioned to you very clearly what uncontaminated means, right?488 Karuna, Shri Heruka, compassion, all of those are synonymous. In the vajrayana, ‘contaminated’ means dripping and ‘uncontaminated’ means not dripping. When you trace the word karuna – the name for compassion – back to the Indo-European language it comes down to ‘stop joy’ or ‘not joy’ or ‘stopping pleasure’. The meaning: is stopping the pleasure of the dripping. As long as you are losing your semen, you do have the dripping pleasure. That does not mean that you have to block it through physical ways. If you put your finger on certain points of your nadis and press, it stops – these things you don’t have to do. They are not talking about that. That is not ‘not dripping’. It is [stopping] without doing the physical pinpointing. What happens is, the moment you stop the release, the joy you experience will become double. It does come down, but instead of coming out, it is reversed and goes back by the same sexual psychic heat power. That is what is called: by blocking the dripping ordinary pleasure, extraordinary pleasure, bliss, develops. That is uncontaminated bliss, because: 1) that joy recognizes the emptiness, b) the perceiver of the emptiness is in the nature of joy and c) that emptiness is acknowledged as joy. So three times it builds up. It is not that you try to stop the release by pressing somewhere. I think that is where the line between contaminated and uncontaminated is drawn. Earlier I mentioned that the hinayana line is different, the mahayana line is different and the vajrayana line is different. When you are at that [uncontaminated] level, every activity you do, good or bad, automatically becomes positive. Truly speaking, there the idea of crazy wisdom really comes in. Until then, it is acting, artificial. The true crazy wisdom comes at that level, like Ra Lotsawa, who was involved with women and yet was giving monks’ vows489. These are true crazy wisdom acts.

488 489

See page 31, 85 and 274. See page 30.

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Audience: There are a lot of schools of thought, for example the Taoist tradition, where this stopping of the sexual release – for the male in particular – and the re-circulation of it within the body is being taught and talked about and this quite separately from this whole framework. There are many, many people who are able to do that and extend their lives and increase their sexual pleasure and probably other levels from inside. How is the differentiation, you mentioned karuna and the stopping of pleasure and you linked it up specifically with that capability. Clearly, there is some differential between the level of insight and the intensity of understanding, though the same physiological phenomenon is happening. Rinpoche: I think the training of that level, when it focuses only on the physiological points, does not serve much purpose. What I described has come with the practice of wisdom-emptiness and particularly when it is combined with the tummo practice, the psychic heat practice, then I think it serves the purpose. That is my guess. The physical training of that alone will probably not be able to deliver [the uncontaminated stage]. They may be able to extend the sexual pleasure, and extend the reverse of the semen. But I am not sure how far that is going. Also, where is the dripping of the semen coming from? Through what channels? These are questions. If it is coming from the lower part of the body or from the back, it is nothing great. Even if it is coming from the crown, whether the brain or whatever, if it drips through the right and left channels, it is not great at all. The process we are talking about is through the central channel. That means that the release of the knots through the passage becomes important. These knots I don’t believe you can externally release. Now the question rises for me: Will that [practice of trying to stop the ordinary joy] be useful for the individual? I think it can be helpful, it can be applied, but not by using physic al pressing and things like that. In that case it will probably fall into the right and left channels, because you can’t press the central channel, no way. And if you are not able to do it, there are physical problems also, like people are unable to urinate, not because of prostrate problems. Audience: Do you know anything about the female counterpart regarding this issue? Rinpoche: I have very little knowledge of this. Audience: Again, from the point of view of the Taoist model, from the point of view of physiology and longevity and sexual amplification, within that model, the male release is what is supposed to be stopped and that is supposed to increase the power and potency for the man and for the woman the power and potency is supposed to come through release. So what I am asking is that because women don’t necessarily have the seminal emissions in the same way, sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t, there is a point in the climax where you release fluid, one can clearly define it, so how does the stopping of the pleasure relate, from that perspective? Rinpoche: I don’t exactly know, however my understanding is, that the process inwardly is the same thing. I don’t believe the women’s’ process comes through the head. I believe it comes from the navel. I believe they have a double circle there, it goes up to the head, comes down, and settles at the navel level. Part of that is what is called the ovaries. That is one thing. At a certain point you release it out, let it go out by itself and discard it totally, during the menstrual period, etc, and certain things they don’t discard and they circulate. Both are identified as egg, but there are certain ones that circulate and certain ones are discarded. And the circulation process, I believe, goes up and down again, all the way up and all the way down and that is why, basically, a woman experiences sexual pleasure longer and numberwise more, compared to the male. I don’t know, I believe so, because their base is at the navel level. So the longer period gives them better opportunity, actually. The male does not have that. When the male reverse goes up to the crown it does not go back. The women’s’ reverse is a double circle, almost, two inches short.

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In short, in your visualization you had yourself and the supreme Field of Merit, you invited Yamantaka with your gurus and the whole mandala and you generated the four immeasurables. So now, when it refers to everything becoming empty it is not only yourself and the supreme Field of Merit that become empty, but also all other things, as the sadhana says ...because I myself, the deities, the field of merit and all other phenomena are imputations on dependent arising, everything becomes emptiness, having the true nature of identitylessness and devoid of the four extremes such as eternalism, nihilism and so forth.

The reason why all of these are mentioned is that before in your visualization you had the supreme Field of Merit and the infinite love, equanimity etc. Now all is empty, which means: don’t think anything else, everything is gone. Whatever you have in your projection, let it go. All is empty. That emptiness you acknowledge as dharmakaya.

Meditation on protection wheel to block obstacles The common protection wheel If you can, keep the major part of your mind on the dharmakaya, let it observe it, stay there and have some kind of little, smaller mind do the work. If you can’t divide your mind into two categories, then observe the emptiness, acknowledge it as dharmakaya, at least imagine it is your dharmakaya, like some big open space, stop there and then with the words ‘From the sphere of emptiness rises from a YAM.....’. etc., you start the related activity. In the outlines it has: ‘Method of the yoga of taking death as dharmakaya and related branches’ or rather activities. The dharmakaya meditation is finished the moment you say: all is empty. It is not actually finished, but as long as we can’t think two different things, we think one thing [and that means starting the related activity]. If you can put your major mind on the dharmakaya and a side mind works [at the related activity, it is best], but if you can’t, let the dharmakaya go to sleep, pick up your mind and from the emptiness you generate the base, the land. When you create the other two kayas, sambogakaya and nirmanakaya, they need a base to function, and that’s what you are creating here. You do that from the letter YAM. Where are you at that moment? You are observing. It does not matter where you are. You are somewhere within the infinite space and in that you suddenly acknowledge a huge letter YAM and that becomes the air mandala. So in the evolution of the pure land, you see the pure land is based on air! It is supposed to correspond with the existence of this particular world where we are. According to Buddha it is said that underneath this base there is air. Nowadays we call it space. The seed syllable of the air is YAM. There are a lot of reasons why there has to be a letter, but let’s forget about it. That YAM becomes the [smoke-colored] air mandala, bow-shaped, just like in the inner offering. At the blessing of the inner offering you had the bow-shape with the cut facing to you. Now you are generating the mandala, so it has to face as you face, the other way around490. You are in the infinite, formless, nowhere, so you can see the YAM from above if you want, like in the Vajrayogini practice. In the Vajrayogini practice you are in space and you look down, you see the mantra, it looks like a mixture of blood and semen, you like that and you jump in. Here it is slightly different. You are nowhere, infinite, and suddenly within that, you see that huge letter YAM appear and you are looking what is going on with that YAM and suddenly it changes into the bow-shaped air mandala. It has in the corners two banners. It looks like a half moon or like a croissant, but don’t eat it, it is huge! It is simple, you just have to imagine it. You have to think that you have seen it: ‘Hey, it is there and it is moving’ Above that the RAM appears and from a RAM comes the red, triangular fire-mandala. It is bigger than the United States, because otherwise the parts to come are not going to fit. It is all going to go smaller proportionally. You may not get it very clear, but imagine there is in the big open space some kind of boundary, that looks like a bow and suddenly above that, you see a triangular boundary which 490

See note 388 on page 193.

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has heat and fire in it, red, burning fire. When you concentrate, you see it, when not, you don’t get it. The fire mandala has vajras standing in the corners. When the triangular is put on the bow, it is going to go beyond that, that’s why it has to become much smaller, you have to fit it in. The corners of the triangle are facing in the same direction as the cut of the bow. It can’t come out, because the air mandala is the base. Above that the letter BAM, the seed-syllable of water, becomes the white, round water mandala, big and fat, almost like an ice sculpture tortilla. It is in the nature of water, so you can put the vase inside the water. There are several types of vases in the Tibetan tradition. The activity vase has a spout, this one, the namgyal bumpa, does not. It is up to its neck in the water. Above that is the letter LAM from which comes the yellow, square earth mandala. Now you have bow shape, triangle, circle and square, one above the other. Each of the corners of the square has to go inside the circle, so proportionally you have reduced the sizes tremendously by now, that’s why in the beginning it has to be as big as you can. We, who are not capable, can increase and decrease [during the process], but those who are capable, can’t do that, they have to set it up [correctly] from the beginning. These are the four element mandalas. From now on, every visualization has to be built one on top of the other. Without losing the air mandala you put the fire mandala, without losing air-and fire mandalas you put the water mandala, without losing those three you put the earth mandala on top, and without losing any of those you’ll have to put the vajra on top. From now on you are building. That’s why it is called ‘development stage’. When you build a house you have to build the base first and without losing the base you have to build everything on top. Likewise here, without losing the previous, you have to build one on top of the other. When you keep on thinking that one is on top of the other, at some point you can’t hold the visualization. For that you can sometimes look back and then you’ll see it. So you focus back and forth. That’s the practical training. Audience: I understand all the words you are saying, but how do you connect the words to the pictures? I don’t get the pictures the moment I don’t connect them with words. Rinpoche: You can talk, if that helps you. You can go back and say: ‘Oh, I forgot the air mandala, oh, yes, it is there’ and ‘above there is the fire, and above that the water and the earth mandala, I can see it, it is there, and now I am on the vajra level’. So you keep on thinking and when you look back, it is there. That’s how I do it. Next comes the crossed vajra. That is two vajras together with a joined hub, on top of which we’ll build the mandala. At the center of the hub is a letter HUNG. One of the spokes will have to be in front because later on a stair-case will be there. Now the common protection wheel. From the letter HUNG at the hub of the crossed vajra, light emanates, filling up the ground which becomes the vajra ground. That means it consists of nothing but vajras, big ones and small ones: in the hubs of the bigger vajras there are smaller ones, in their hubs yet smaller ones and so on. Vajra represent the indestructibility. So the ground is really solid. Sometimes vajrayana is translated as diamond vehicle because the diamond is considered as the strongest material. Whether you see the vajras clearly or not, does not matter, the main purpose is the indestructible ground. So far we have out of space the air mandala and above that all the mandalas of the elements and above that you have built the indestructible ground. It is almost like when you build a house: you dig and put all these concrete foundations to get a stable house on stable ground. Here you are trying to create a stable ground for the mandala, stable meaning indestructible, solid, the hardest, that is why it is the vajra. So the ground is solid and indestructible. Then the light is going to the boundary of that. Where the light hits the boundary the vajra fence comes up. So, within the infinite space you are making a boundary. It is called vajra fence, but it is not necessarily a fence, rather a huge boundary like the Great Wall of China

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Next is the vajra-roof. In the infinite space where the wall is marking your territory, the roof covers your territory totally with vajras, big and small ones, so that not even air comes through. The color of the vajras must be yellow but you can change it, there is no definite answer. You can do it white, yellow, red, green or space-like dark blue. Colors change from time to time, due to the activities. The sadhana says ‘vajra tent’ but I am calling it roof. When they say tent, the idea is to have the roof and the walls and the gap in between filled up. Originally the idea was to have something like the Mongolian cotton wool tent. If you notice, above the thrones, the Tibetans put some little piece of cloth, that’s what they are talking about here. Originally it was a cotton ceiling to prevent dust from falling on the head, because in old Tibet they used to have mud houses without any insulation. Also with the tents there used to be a gap between the top of the tent and the walls and in order to close that gap they put the ceiling. Later it became a decoration part of the throne set. You can call it canopy. The whole idea is that nothing can come in. It is protected, not even air can come through, it is sealed completely491. Beyond that, outside the common protection wheel, we have fire burning, the five-colored fire mandala.

The uncommon/special protection wheel Within the common protection wheel you have the uncommon protection wheel, which is the central command wheel. In the center of that you appear in the form of Sumbharaja. The wheel has eight double-edged swords going out, almost touching the common protection wheel. Above each of the swords is a cushion and inside the center of the wheel, [there are two more cushions], one above and in front of you, and one below you. From the heart of yourself as Sumbharaja in union with your consort the sound of joy invites all other enlightened beings. They go through the mouth of the Sumbharaja male, melt at the heart level by the heat of the desire into ten drops of semen, pass into the womb of the female consort and become there ten different letters HUNG. Each HUNG becomes a wrathful deity and one by one the ten deities are born from your consort’s lotus and passing through your own private part they come up to your heart level. From your heart the ten deities are emanated; first the eastern one, then the southern-, the westernthe northern- ones, then the four corner direction deities and at the end the upper and the lower deity. They take place on their respective cushion. They are looking towards you and protect you, the one above and slightly in front of you is looking backwards and Vajra-patala [tib. Dorje Sa O] who is underneath and slightly at the back, is the same as the Sumbharaja in the center. When I say ‘the same as’ it is the same person duplicated. If you can’t see all these wrathful deities with all their hand implements, you imagine they are there, like in a little jigsaw puzzle some kind of little toy figures coming out. That will probably do at the beginning level. When you do your normal practice you just leave it there and don’t turn the wheel of swords round or do any other wrathful activity. Unless there is some kind of difficulty, you don’t have to do all this. Then you transform into Vajrasattva492 which becomes the white triangle, [the reality source], and at the corner of the triangle you have a [multicolored] lotus and at the center of that you have the [crossed vajra]. At the hub of the crossed vajra is Vairochana and he transforms and becomes the mandala. Now you see how small it becomes: the mandala is completely on the hub of that vajra. So in order to have a reasonably big mandala – e.g. as big as Ann Arbor – you probably need the air mandala to be as big as North America or even a little more than that. That’s where we are, at the center of the mandala. We have completed creating the base, in other words the environment in which you’ll take birth as sambogakaya Manjushri. At the center of the hub of the crossed vajra you have the square mandala. It has four doors and all these decorations - the details are in the long sadhana.

491 492

Clarification Aura: You may invite in, but nothing can come in by itself. Belongs to the next outline. See beneath.

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In short, within the base-path-result practice we now have the evolution of Yamantaka’s universe. Out of emptiness first the elements appeared: air, fire, water and earth. Earth has to be on the top. When you dig the ground you find water, if you dig more you get fire and if you go below that, you get air. Then you had the vajra ground, -fence etc., called common protection wheel. It is followed by the uncommon protection wheel with the captain’s bridge at the center of the command wheel, where the orders are issued. The ten wrathful deities in the ten directions are on the ice-cream-cone-joined type of command center. From the ten spokes the uppermost and the lowermost, are like pylons, and the other eight of them double-edged swords. Inside that, you have the total mandala which is inside a triangle shape. Up to the level of completion of the mandala, your basic fundamental mind is on the dharmakaya and a little side mind, a mental faculty called acknowledgment or remembrance [tib. drenpa493] has been used to build up the pure land and the mandala. It is included in the path of dharmakaya.

Taking bardo as sambogakaya as the path That has two outlines: 1. Generation of the environment of the mansion, wherein enlightenment takes place. 2. Generation of occupant, the causal Vajra holder. Defining the outline. The sambogakaya has to begin at the level where you generate the mandala, i.e. the celestial mansion, which means at the generation of Vajrasattva. There are two or three different outline systems, I like to follow this particular outline we are using, because Kyabje Ling Rinpoche wrote it. Aku Sherab Gyeltsen does it differently, and Lhundrup Pandita does it again differently. Some outlines will go up to the center of the mandala where you generate Manjushri [to start the sambogakaya]. Some other outlines go back as far as creating the common protection wheel and even start [the sambogakaya] from the generation of the air mandala onwards. In that case only the two mantras are the dharmakaya practice. The point here is that you basically keep your focus on dharmakaya and a little side mind creates the mandala. The sadhana of the Thirteen deity Yamantaka has a little more here than the Solitary Hero. This outline we use is perfectly okay and since it corresponds with the sadhana which we are doing it is the better way. That means: from the creation of the supreme field of merit up to the end of the uncommon protection wheel it is dharmakaya. Then again there is the question [how far the sambogakaya goes]. At ‘at Manjushri’s heart there is a sun mandala’ the nirmanakaya begins, the sun mandala is already nirmanakaya. Changya Rolpai Dorje, Jamyang Shepa and the Seventh Dalai lama agree with that; a number of others disagree. The generation of the mandala is the creation of the place where you are going go become enlightened. According to this outline we have that within the sambogakaya, but still in your practice you keep your major mind on dharmakaya and some kind of side mind will create the complete mandala. In other words, we are incapable of dividing our mind into two pieces. What you have to think is: ‘I am still in the concentration of the dharmakaya, and in the meantime let me create the base where I am going to be enlightened’ and so you create the whole mandala until it is complete. Then your mind says: ‘I would now like to rise as sambogakaya, because no one can see me now’. The moment you set up that mind, you become Manjushri. In the sadhana it is divided here and there, but in your visualization you have to link it.

Generation of environment of the mansion, wherein enlightenment takes place

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Drenpa: recollection, inspection, keeping on task.

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The process is now going in reverse. You are going to rise from the death. That’s why you build a base to rise. Therefore building the mandala we put as part of taking bardo as sambogakaya. Actually we should say that the bardo will be substituted by the sambogakaya practice, death will be substituted by the dharmakaya practice, rebirth will be substituted by the nirmanakaya practice, because that is really what you are doing. What does the word bardo mean to you? Bardo is in between. Traditionally we say that the day you are born till the day you die, is one bardo; the moment you got your last sickness till the actual end of the breathing, is another bardo; and the moment your consciousness has left the body until the next rebirth, is another bardo, they call it nature bardo. The one before is called kyi shi bardo and in between that is called chi kai bardo. Then the period in the mother’s womb until the body is completely formed is called si pai bardo. Then there is the samten bardo, the bardo of the meditative stage, which is when you meditate on the sadhanas and things like that. Basically, when you talk about bardo, you have all these different types of bardo also. Just for information purposes I am throwing that out. One more thing, the milam ki bardo, that is the time from the dreaming stage until you wake up, so the dream bardo. So basically, there are six different bardos494. Meditation of the mandala. Why do you do the meditation of the mandala? What has that got to do with the practice? It purifies our negativities and our negative karma through which we will be reborn in certain undesirable, difficult areas. All these negativities are purified by meditating a proper mandala. The long prayer should say something about that also: In the center of this mighty wrathful wheel Is the Inconceivable mansion, having the nature of wisdom, Radiant with the lights of jewels, All beauty condensed into one object; By meditating upon it, May the Supreme Buddha field be produced.

It says, ‘At the center of the protection wheel you are meditating that mandala. All the beauty and wonder of existence is combined into one thing. It is like nectar for the eye. (Nectar is considered the most wonderful thing you can eat or drink, so the most beautiful thing to satisfy your eye, is called eyenectar.) By meditating that may the supreme buddha field be produced’. Also there, look very carefully. What are you doing by meditating that? The base negative karma that causes us to be reborn in undesirable environments, will be purified [tib. jang] by that, so those things will go away. It also awakens the positive karma during the path period; at the period you come to the level of the two illusion bodies, you will be producing your own supreme buddha field. Our positive karmas are asleep just now and meditating this will awaken them. That is the path practice. At the result level – when you become a buddha – the meditation of the mandala etc. we do today, will become the pure mandala. Your own supreme buddha field will be produced that way. So doing the sadhana every day, thinking and meditating, purifies the karma to be reborn in an undesirable environment; it awakens the positive karmas you have, and it also lays the seed for the capability to produce a pure land of your own. That is the base, path, result purpose of meditating the mandala. What you have to understand clearly is, that by meditating the mandala we purify the negativities and we also meditate in such a way that we’ll be able to have the pure wisdom supreme field of a buddha. Such a supreme field is not made of wood, bricks, steel or glass, it is inseparable from a buddha’s mind, his inseparable bliss-void. So it is pure. The whole mandala, the walls, the pillars, the windows, the open 494

The names in Lama Lodö, Bardo Teachings, pg. 1-2, differ somewhat: bardo of the process of death - chikai bardo; the bardo in between death and rebirth - chonyi bardo; the bardo of search for rebirth - sipai bardo, the bardo of life - kye ne bardo; bardo of the dream stage milam bardo; the bardo of meditation - samten bardo.

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space, the courtyards, the boundary walls, even the protection wheels and the cemeteries, the valleys with the stupas, the air, the birds and the trees, the people in there, the corpses in there, all of them are not ordinary things but things inseparable from a buddha mind – that is your future buddha mind. It is inseparable from the bliss-void nature of mind and the experience of a buddha. Not only that; even now in your meditation you have to think that those boundaries, walls, pillars and decorations, are not built by architects using ordinary materials, but are simultaneously produced, all of a sudden popped up by the wisdom-and-bliss combination of a buddha. You also think that in reality it is part of your mind, part of your body, part of your buddha body, part of your buddha mind, part of your buddha bliss-void, part of your buddha breathing. That’s what we have to do, even when meditating the mandala. You know, in sutrayana there are seven bhumis on which we try to purify the environment we are in. By doing this meditation of the mandala, the path of those seven bhumis is almost covered. Not only that, when meditating on the mandala, you also need to have pride and clarity. Both you need. The pride is like ‘I am proud of being this and that’. Here in particular you have the pride of the mandala: there is something you can see and perceive, but you are aware that in nature it has no inherent existence. That sort of pride you take. You don’t say: ‘that mandala is me’. Not that way. You realize that although it is part of your body and mind, part of your bliss and void, although you can see and perceive it, it is empty of inherent existence. Then you add one more awareness. You also have to think that this particular mandala is the actual palace of a buddha which has come up out of the bliss-void combined mind. You constantly remember that. We forget it when we move through the sadhana, but try to remember it constantly. That will become the pride. So the pride here is remembering two things: a) it is in the nature of emptiness; b) it is the actual buddha’s palace. Then you need the clarity of the mandala. That is the measurements, the shape, the color, the decorations, the color combination. All of them you can see, touch and feel; it is clear as crystal and shining like light and that you also have to remember constantly. Pride and clarity are the two keys you play everywhere throughout the sadhana. That goes also for the mandala alone. Each has its own clarity and pride. When you forget it, there is a certain mental faculty called memory or watching the mind [tib. drenpa] which should recognize that we are forgetting it and bring it back and concentrate. This is basic meditation, for which you really need both, the power of concentrated meditation and analytical meditation. The analytical meditation here will analyze the mandala, the shape, etc. What we are talking here is giving you the material to analyze, how the protection wheels look like, the common and the uncommon. It would be very nice, if the vajrayana group could spend some time, either with Sonam or Kelzang, and find out all the measurements, not in the traditional tantric college way, but in a normal western calculation. That will be useful for the future generations. And we are hoping that at some time the whole mandala can be produced in one of our vajrayana weekends495. Audience: We have computer software, that, when you put in the measurements, it will build the structure. Rinpoche: Let’s do that one day. That will help to bring the clarity of the mandala. Otherwise it will not be clear. Audience: Can you talk about the psychological reason why the level of detail is so important here for the clear appearance? I don’t visualize very well, so I get frustrated with the level of detail. Rochelle

495

There was an explanation by Sonam, but it was not suitable for transcription.]

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was arguing that we can create a world that is very different from this world but very complete and we can see that worlds can be created and also go away. Rinpoche: I said, you purify taking rebirth in undesirable areas and conditions and it also creates the direct cause of producing your own pure supreme buddha field. Get it? That means Rochelle is right. Yes, it is frustrating for us. We are just now incapable of really meditating. Philip Glass is very good on this. He keeps on meditating and can almost see it. If you call him today and ask him he will tell you exactly how many feet from this corner to that corner, etc., he has that absolutely crystal clear, in the normal room measurements. That measurement is stuck with him. He has got it. But the point is, it is too small, but when he goes bigger than that, he loses the proportions, so he is stuck there at this moment. Clarity is a point here. Each one of the steps in the sadhana has a particular point. It is important to point them out and it is good that Brenda raised the question. Although we said it, you didn’t make the connection. This is the connection. That’s why we say: when you have the mandala later, it is the purity. The problem we have is to think that just now we do this, and somehow we build a virtue somewhere that goes into the storeroom, and somebody will come and take it, use it and build it, and then we’ll have it. It doesn’t work that way. Generating the mandala in the vajrayana practice actually creates the karma of seven bhumis. In sutrayana you have the ten bhumis, out of which the first seven are the impure bhumis, and the last three are the pure stages. Just generating the mandalas, the earth-, water-, fire- and air mandala, then the common and uncommon protection wheels, the reality source, the crossed-vajra base and then the whole mandala, substitutes the first seven bhumis, for which you spend millions of years in the sutra mahayana practice. This is done by meditating the pure, perfect mandala of any yidam. A million years of efforts are cut out here – a big short-cut!

Generation of occupant, the causal Vajra holder In order to be reborn as nirmanakaya, you generate the mandala where you are going to be reborn. Once you have the mandala, in the center of the mandala you have the sambogakaya, which in the case of Yamantaka is Manjushri. A deity form is more majestic than a syllable or a little sign, right? A deity looks bigger and better than a little mantra or a little syllable, more majestic, more full. That’s why to generate the karma to be able develop the illusion body – which is a very majestic, mystical body – even at the sambogakaya level you don’t visualize a squiggle or a letter, but a youthful, cute, sixteen-years old Manjushri, the most handsome of handsome. That is okay for male and female, both. It has that majestic look, the best body. I remember Thubten Chopel, our Gelongla, talking to Song Rinpoche, who must have been at that time about 77 years old. That was in Delhi and Gelongla told him how important it was to exercise. Song Rinpoche asked a few times what he meant by that and then told Gelongla: ‘Don’t talk, do it yourself right in front of me!’ So Gelongla was doing some kind of push-ups, like in the military they teach you: one-two-three-four, etc. Song Rinpoche was sitting cross-legged, completely relaxed, covered with blankets. Suddenly he jumped up, with one leap he was right there with him and did it all with him. He was 77 and could do it! Whatever Tubten Chopel did, Song Rinpoche would do too. Then he said to Tubten Chopel: ‘You see now, I don’t have to learn, I can do it, too. So don’t talk to me’. Like that he shut him up. Probably Song Rinpoche had the illusion body, too, because at 77 you don’t jump out like that. It was also not from a solid bed, it was from one of those Indian cots, the jute put together. It is not easy to get out of that and he did it with just one jump and did all sorts of things like push-ups, and he was 77 with a white beard and all this, so may be he had... who knows.

Discussion – questions and answers The three kayas

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A question in general: Give me your idea of dharmakaya, sambogakaya and nirmanakaya. It is applicable to the Vajrayogini sadhana as well as Yamantaka sadhana as well as any maha annutara yoga tantra sadhana you do. Each and everyone of you should answer within yourselves. Audience: Generation stage is nirmanakaya, sambogakaya is the practice of the illusion body and dharmakaya is the clear light-mahamudra. Rinpoche: Mind you, we are spending time on this here, trying to build up something. I don’t worry about the nirmanakaya much, because we haven’t talked about it. It’s the sambogakaya and the dharmakaya I want you to think about. One thing we learnt in the monastery is to say whatever we feel like. We may be saying all sorts of funny things, except if it is too wild. Audience: Dharmakaya and sambogakaya are to me the clear light and the illusion body. I have no experiential comprehension of what they are, they are just labels to me. And I can’t connect them to anything in my experience. When I talk to myself during my practice I go like this: ‘If I manage to attain the buddha mind, I’ll have the dharmakaya, I am at one with the buddha mind....’. Then I am relating that to what I am doing, my Yamantaka practices, visualizing that I am taking death as the dharmakaya stage. Then I get to the sambogakaya and say to myself: ‘If I get that far and have the essence of the buddha mind and be at one, I will manifest in a special form that only the enlightened beings or special beings can see’, and then I picture this blue ray of light with arms popping out and suddenly I am in the nirmanakaya, I have made it into a form that ordinary beings could relate to in some way. Since I have no comprehension of what it would be like, I am guessing and talking myself through these visualizations and I say to myself: ‘I pretend that I see what the vajra master says’ and then when it actually happens I will say: ‘Wow, Gelek Rinpoche was right!’ Rinpoche: I am glad you said that. That is a very good point. That is exactly what you think about it and what you are pointing out is not wrong. I am glad you said it, and it is very important. Dharmakaya, sambogakaya and nirmanakaya are labels. Absolutely true. You are not the only person who experiences that. You may say: ‘I don’t understand’, however, you are right, you are not wrong. You may not have these technicalities, but you are on the point. The statement given before, saying nirmanakaya is generation stage, is that right or wrong? Audience: I can’t say it is wrong, but I cannot say it is right either. Rinpoche: I thought he may be right, if generating means building up, the nirmanakaya does build up, but the sambogakaya also builds up. You can’t say it is not generation. Don’t worry about whether technically you are right or wrong; thinking is important. That’s what this study is for. Otherwise I could do this teaching even in one day. The point here is to try to grab something, so that at least something is there. It does not have to be technically right, nor does the language have to be right, but it matters that you are on the point. Once you are on the point, it is the cause and when the cause is right, the result is bound to be right. That is the main point we are trying to work on. Sometimes we have to get out of our own thing and look at it. So we do a lot of intellectual things; we do need that, too. At the same time we also have the non-intellectual solid, unmistaken points, like Yael was saying that: ‘That is a label, I get confused, I don’t exactly know, but my main point is this’. That is okay, that’s why we try to say: ‘In Buddhism we have room for everybody’ without compromising the result. If you have the intellectual understanding, it is great. Why? It are convincing reasons and it gives you a lot of analytical points. Analytical meditation provides the base and support of the concentrated meditation, and concentrated meditation delivers the goods. If you don’t have a strong analytical support, but you have a strong faith, intelligent or even blind faith, then you follow the instructions and the proper teachings which really are proved to be authentic. With blind faith this is very important. It has to be extremely authentic, so the people are not let down.

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There is room for both and both will deliver the same results. But if you are neither here nor there, half cooked, half raw, then you get into trouble. There are some traditional examples for this. A fruit ripe on the outside and raw from the inside – that is when you pick up certain practices too early. When a fruit is overripe and it becomes rotten, you can’t eat it – that relates to too much information: nothing can be held together, questions are raised to everything, it is not edible and has to be discarded. I was tempted to call it ‘corrupt wisdom’, this questioning of anything, the fully developed peak level doubt, everything being subject to criticism and questioning, though done with good motivation. Audience: What is the illusion body? Rinpoche: That is some kind of extraordinary body you develop later. When you generate the sambogakaya, whatever you have generated is actually separate from your own body. There is something called the nine rounds of mixing496. It is process that occurs three times on the base level, three times on the dream level and three times on the waking level. It is the process of dissolving the body and generating another body outside and dissolving that and generating clear light. The illusion body is the pure body with which you attain the fully enlightened body, which will ultimately develop at the end of all your work, just before you become a fully enlightened buddha. It may or may not be separate from the ordinary flesh and bone body we have. Even if it is not separate, you develop the illusion body separately and then it enters into the ordinary body and remains in that way. That is called illusion body. It will probably take a number of times to go through the dissolving system and that will produce something better; dissolving again will produce again something better, and so on. The actual process is the dissolving system. When it comes out you produce something better, and better, and ultimately the best of all will come out and that is the illusion body. When you are dissolving it, when you encounter with the emptiness, that emptiness is actually what is called clear light. That also has a base, path and result level. There is the ordinary clear light, the dream like clear light, the extraordinary clear light. All of them is again the same procedure repeated again and again; you get something better and better every time you do it. May be that is the way to explain it to get some idea at this moment. So the father tantras are geared towards developing the illusion bodies and the mother tantras are sort of more geared towards developing the clear light. Emptiness and protection Audience: With the protection wheels, what is the psychological reason for having these successive levels of protection? Rinpoche: If you have built up all these protection wheels properly, then the obstacles will not come in, neither psychological or physiological ones, almost. One thing I hope you remember. In vajrayana, whatever you visualize in a physical form, whether it is connected with the being, like the yidam, or unconnected to it, like the environment, i.e. the pure land or mandala, it will materialize in that manner. This is the vajrayana special quality. I do say this because a lot of people will think: ‘Whether I keep on thinking that I am Yamantaka with two horns and hair and all this or I keep on thinking that I am Napoleon with a retinue of generals around me, what is the difference? Is there any?’ The difference is: when you visualize yourself as Napoleon you will not become Napoleon, but if you visualize yourself as Yamantaka you will become Yamantaka. The special quality of the vajrayana is that what you visualize within the frame work of the practice, will literally materialize. That’s why the positive ‘religions’ will teach you that if you keep on thinking: ‘positive, positive, positive’ it will become positive. Vajrayana is an extremely positive religion. You are not only thinking: ‘positive, positive’ but: ‘I am a buddha, and my land is pure’. What more positive do you want? The positive people are catching the tail of vajrayana by using certain parts 496

Literature: Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Clear light of bliss, ch. 4.

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of its techniques, but by thinking ‘Napoleon, Napoleon, Napoleon’ you are not going to become Napoleon. There are a lot of reasons: a) Napoleon is dead, he is past tense. b) It does not have the vajrayana quality and therefore it will not materialize497. Every practice within vajrayana has psychological and physiological importance. Like the protection wheels. If you have a very strong protection wheel meditation, it will materialize and when less obstacles and disturbances come in, you don’t have to go ‘brrrrrrrrr’ because the situation is uncalled for. The obstacles will not materialize, they will not reach to that level. That is the psychological and physiological implication of the protection wheel. Audience: I was thinking in terms of being protected when meditating on emptiness so that you are not overcome with fear. Rinpoche: How do you meditate on emptiness? There are two: analytical meditation and concentrated meditation. Concentrated meditation on emptiness can only materialize if you have good analytical mediation on emptiness. If you don’t have that, the concentrated meditation can’t materialize, because you don’t have the object to meditate on. Remember, when we teach the concentrated meditation on the object of the buddha image you take a hell of a time to produce that image, so we sort of go on that ‘yellow lump’ and even to get that yellow lump will take time. That is called: the beginning of the finding of the object of meditation. That is for a physical object. Similarly, if you meditate on emptiness, you have to find the object on which you really meditate – the object of emptiness. The object of emptiness you can only find through analytical meditation. You can substitute it by space, openness, etc., for a while, but if you do that for too long, it can flop and there’ll be tremendous problems with that. So until you have a better understanding of emptiness, you can meditate on openness, like open your eyes wide and look into space. Temporarily you can do it in that manner, but that is not going to lead you to enlightenment, it is not going to lead you to cutting the ignorance. Not at all. It may substitute the requirement of emptiness for a little while, but I don’t think we can call that a meditation on emptiness. Tsongkhapa has a real big emphasis on what really emptiness is and how you focus on it. Basically, in vajrayana the point they are trying to bring, is the emptiness, if I understand correctly. For the individual to understand emptiness, I don’t think you can do it without analytical meditation at all. So the question rises, when we say we are meditating on emptiness, what are we really meditating? Are we sitting there, peeling all thoughts away, just staring into the blankness? What are we doing? That is a big question. You have to ask it yourself all the time, nobody else will ask you the question. You have to remember, blankness is not emptiness. If you remove from a table the legs, the top and anything that’s holding it in between and then you say: ‘Oh, there is no table’, it is not the emptiness of the table that you have found. Remember, we always give that example. It shows you that the existence of the table depends on the combination. Table-legs and table-top and them being hold together in a certain shape, is what we can label as table. Do you get it? This is very easy and very tricky. You can easily be misguided. Somebody could say: ‘Take the table’s legs out one by one, take the table top off, now there is no table, so this is the emptiness of the table’. Bullshit! Really true. What you really have to look into is: what is emptiness? Buddha recommended certain different logical ways to look. There is of course the ‘king of logic’, using the relativity or dependent origination . Dependent existence is the point which brings a better understanding of what emptiness really is. Remember, the Three principles of the path says: … while appearance eliminates absolutism, emptiness eliminates nihilism.

This is a very, very important point. In a certain period of the Tibetan history a problem came out of this. Instead of emptiness eliminating nihilism, it was said that emptiness eliminates ‘existentialism’, 497

Clarification by Aura: Napoleon is a specific person, you could imitate but not become him. Yamantaka is enlightened mind manifesting a certain set of enlightened qualities that one could become.

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[i.e. absolutism or eternalism] and appearance eliminates nihilism. As a result of that, you would have to say that it neither exists nor not exists; you would have to say that it does not exist because Buddha has not seen it, and it is not non-existent because it is the fundamental basis of samsara and nirvana. All of those are a problem. Why Tsongkhapa and others are bringing this in, is because that made it difficult to a large number of Tibetans. That’s why they emphasize here: ‘Appearance will destroy absolutism and emptiness will destroy nihilism’, which really gives you a lot of internal qualities. That very point is actually the fundamental basis of the dharmakaya. That concentrated meditation on emptiness is actually going to be the dharmakaya. Anyway, out of Steve’s question we are getting all these complicated issues. What else? Audience: It is strange – maybe the protection wheels can keep away some ghosts but the mosquitoes still land on your nose and there is nothing you can do about it. Rinpoche: You bite them. You know, in Tibet there is a prayer book called White Umbrella deity, in which it says: ‘You are protected from fire, water and poison….’.. A nomad got one of these books and kept it in his tent. A yak went in there and chewed the book. So the nomad said: ‘Oh, this can protect from fire, water, poison and everything but it cannot protect from a yak’. You have this big protection wheel which may protect from all obstacles but the mosquitoes come and land on your nose, so it does not protect from mosquitoes at all. So what you have to do is you have to bite the mosquito.[joke] Audience: Is the idea of the protection not that you would have these obstacles but that they would not bother you? Rinpoche: No, the point is that you meditate it just now. It is not going to materialize immediately. You meditate till you beat the shit out of it and then after a little while it’ll begin to materialize. It does not just come like that, otherwise everybody would become buddha immediately. We know all the mantras and we know what to meditate, so we could become a buddha now. But that is not going to be the case. We really have to beat the shit out of it and work and work and sweat and sweat and then it will materialize. Until then, no matter whatever you do, it is not going to happen. Do not expect to have the protection done, just because you meditated it once; you will be fooling yourself. It will protect you, it will work with you, but you really have to work for it, you really have to actualize it. I told you earlier, the vajrayana quality is that if you visualize a certain quality, it will actualize. When it actualizes, you’ll know it. When you have the protection wheel actualized, nobody can come near you, you will be cutting them into pieces. When it actualizes, you can walk outside and open your hands and rain-fall will happen. You can walk into the river and open your hands and the river will be cut, so you can walk across. These are normal things, no more unusual than when Moses walked through and in front of him the river stopped. That is absolutely usual. But you have to beat the shit out of you, you have to work, you have to sweat and then it will materialize. Just sitting here a couple of hours and then say: ‘I meditated, but the mosquitoes come on my head’ – bite, what else can you do? Audience: You said that when you build the protection wheels, practically the obstacles would not come, is that related to the purifying and awakening and the result? Rinpoche: Sure! Audience: So it is back again in some way similar to the sutra, purifying, etc....? Rinpoche: Sure! Do you think in vajrayana we don’t need purification? Just have lunch together all the time? That’s not right. You are so positive; that could be, but it is not. Daily practice Audience: If we have to work and sweat and practice and do all this in order to get to this place, how do we live in the world and do our thing in the world? Rinpoche: Get out of the world! That’s all.

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Audience: Go to a cave, go to a mountain? Rinpoche: Is that getting out of the world? Simplifying your life is not getting out of the world. Audience: To simplify your life a great deal, gives you the opportunity to do your practice, because your energy from working your sweat to pay your bills goes into your practice all the time and that is all you do. But we don’t have that and you told us we should not do that. It seems to me that it is just an incredible monumental claim over eons of life times. Rinpoche: I don’t think it takes eons of life times. It says: La me trin gye pen pai lung tong na tro wa min gyur nya me tro wa gyur You may think it is not going to work out, it is going to take eons, but it may not. By the kindness of the Guru (getting blessing and connection) things that you don’t think could materialize, will materialize. You will be surprised on that.

That is true. You have to really go back to the guru-devotional practice. You’ll see all of them from there. That links all practices up. If you put the practice somewhere separate, unconnected, like ‘that is vajrayana, that is Yamantaka, that is Vajrayogini, that is sutra, that is lamrim’, cutting them all apart, you’re going to get nothing. What did Louise say the other day in New York? ‘If you practice it in totality, I see the benefits’, she said. In totality, that’s what it is. Don’t cut them into pieces and put them into separate compartments the way the scientists do, but put your practice in totality, together. It works. Audience: In terms of doing your practice and doing your work and keeping in mind wisdom and compassion and buddha nature and the bodhisattva vows and all that, at this point for me maybe I can’t do it, but I can conceive of doing it. But in the vajrayana practices there is so much going on, I can sometimes only see a part of it when I am looking at a tantra, I can’t see the whole thing and when you go and work at visualizing this in order to purify your negativities, that, you know, could take a while. I can’t do it while I am driving or shopping or while I am at work. Rinpoche: So what? Let it take a while and then it will materialize, but remember, the totality of the practice is the key. Louise said so. Audience: Can’t we work out an article expressing this? Most of the time we just get these concepts stated. We don’t have what I call the ground work building up to the complete statement. That is too undetailed for me. Rinpoche: What we need here, is workshops, study groups for these vajrayana people. You should meet together, discuss this, raise questions. We do need that badly now. I keep on saying that all the time, but we can’t do it unless you people do it by yourselves. What we really need here is a study group, you people going into these points here, stating your own [understanding, or difficulties]. The Dutch people are doing that, and if they can do it, why can’t we do it here? You can meet once or twice a month in separate groups of ten or fifteen people. If you make more than that, not everybody can talk, some people will get frustrated, some people can’t express what they want to express, some people can’t understand what they want to understand. In small discussion groups things will take their own shape. If you have questions, there is Sandy available, Aura is available, Kusho Chodrak Rinpoche is available, and people like Brenda, Rochelle, Mike, Tony, Supa. We have some real talent here, so why don’t you utilize that? Audience: I want application. Rinpoche: Yes, that’s why you need a study group, where you can talk, where you can share you thoughts, where you can bring in the difficulties of your normal American life, discuss them and find solutions. Really please, that’s what we need. If you don’t take the opportunity now, after some time you will lose the resources you have. You can’t have them guaranteed, they are not there all the time. That does not mean you have to do it tomorrow, but you must do it, you should really do it. The Chi-

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cago people should meet in Chicago, the people here should meet here. You do have tremendous amounts of resources just now and you are not using it. I can only talk whatever I can in very limited time, but you really have resources, better use them, because after some time you won’t have them. And, you are not going to get telephone calls saying: ‘We are having a meeting here, please come!’ No. You have to do it, if you don’t do it, that’s it. Neither I am going to call, nor is Kathy, okay? That’s really what it is. That’s how groups function, that’s how dharma and sangha function. If you don’t do it, nothing will happen. Nobody is going to push you or pinch you. I pinched enough, now I am not going to pinch anymore. That’s it. Really true. Very few people benefit singly, in a group everybody can benefit. Singly, very few can make it. Then you only have a Mr. Yamantaka and a Ms. Vajrayogini. Pride as a method Pride. In vajrayana you need pride. Sometimes it is easier for us to cut down attachment or anger, and more difficult to cut down jealousy and pride. Pride is necessary; not the pride of ‘Me, the Great’, but the pride of recognizing the total mandala in the nature of emptiness, inseparable from my future buddha mind. And then the clarity. Pride and clarity are the two keys in any vajrayana practice. If you don’t think: ‘I am Yamantaka’, when you do the Yamantaka sadhana, you lose the pride. And then, even if you have clarity, that clarity is pointing to what? Pride is building the connection between me and my Yamantaka, building the connection to me, the buddha. It is important. Actually, you are using pride as method here. It is the method you are using throughout the sadhana for the positive, beneficial thing; that is the process which you are going through and that is what we call transformation. I don’t think there is something else called process or transformation, for which you go into another chamber which has different colors and you lock it and different lamas will come and have different tormas made and different music, the gongs are beaten… There isn’t. This is how you go through, isn’t it? Audience: Does that mean that the concentrated meditation is for developing the pride? Rinpoche: No, the meditation has to do both, analysis and concentration. Yes, the concentration can do: ‘I am the Yamantaka’, but you can go on to Manjushri, so you analyze Manjushri : he is orange in color, he has one face and two hands, his right hand holds the sword, which is not an ordinary sword, but a sword representing the wisdom, his left hand holds the flower, on which is the text book which really explains emptiness. If you say Manjushri holds the Prajnaparamita, people may not understand the words and as Jane was pointing out, they are only the words and that brings extremely great difficulties. If you only see the symbol and you don’t have the essence in there, it is difficult. What is the real prajnaparamita? That is the emptiness. Why is Manjushri carrying that text book as a ‘hand implement’? He is showing: ‘I am in the nature of emptiness. I am a manifestation of emptiness, I am the wisdom’. It is the signal. The full signature. Matthew will tell you: ‘Initial here, initial there’, all lawyers tell you that. So you are giving a signal, you are signing. Why do you sign it? You are taking responsibility: ‘Hey, good or bad, I am taking responsibility, that’s why I am signing.’ So Manjushri is carrying the Prajnaparamita text, saying: ‘I am in essence emptiness, I am the wisdom’. Thinking and visualizing that, putting them together, and then understanding it, that’s called analytical meditation on Manjushri. You see how he or she sits, sometimes he is white, sometimes maroon, or orange or black, sometimes peaceful, sometimes wrathful, sometimes a mixture. This one is basically peaceful but slightly wrathful, which you can see from the eyebrows. So you say: ‘That is the real Manjushri’. Remember, the first line of the long praise of Yamantaka: ‘O Manjushri, whose being is nondual, exclusive and all-pervading’. That will give you the real essence. Think about that, I gave you the explanation498.

498

See page 30.

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When you understand it, you concentrate on it, not only on Manjushri’s color and looks and physical hand implements, but also on the message beyond that, which is more than just an ordinary orangecolored being over there. Look inside: what is the total message? And that you hold. Then when then you see Manjushri, you’ll say: ‘Ah, yes, that is Manjushri, in essence emptiness, the wisdom being in physical form’. The understanding comes together when you see him, rather than step by step. We don’t have to go: ‘This is Manjushri, which is wisdom, which is the embodiment of bla, bla, bla..’. We don’t have to do that. Just get it straight and then you can concentrate. And that straightness and togetherness of the understanding, hold that as long as you can. That is concentrated meditation. And when you are losing the concentration, then analyze the parts individually, think about them and then put them together. Analyzing individually becomes analytical meditation and that provides the base for the concentrated meditation. Does that answer your question or did I say something else? There is a quote by the first Dalai Lama: de shar bo shor sho le ba lo lu nor bu to ra cho ro chong The ghost may be at the eastern gate, but I probably sent all my tormas to the western gate.

That is useless; that does not do any good. I like to emphasize once again, that occasionally doing the long sadhanas is important. Wait for a little while until we finished this teaching and at about that time we will be able to work out a better version of the Yamantaka long sadhana. Similarly, I like to do the same thing for Vajrayogini, too. You will have better versions of both, so sometimes do the long sadhanas. You don’t have to do the two long sadhanas together. Maybe one week-end or somewhere when you have some more time, on the beach or somewhere, you can do the long Yamantaka sadhana and somewhere else, in the middle of the city, you can do the Vajrayogini long sadhana.

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The Resultant Vajra-holder Vajra Bhairava [Yamantaka]

VIII TAKING REBIRTH AS NIRMANAKAYA Please, generate a pure motivation like normally prescribed in the great teaching tradition of the Lam Rim: For the sake of all sentient beings I want to obtain quickly quickly the stage of buddha Vajra Bhairava. If possible I want to obtain that stage within this lifetime. For this purpose I would like to learn the practice. As usual visualize that you yourself are not in your ordinary form, but in the form of Yamantaka with one face and two hands, without hand implements and ornaments, standing with folded hands outside the eastern gate of the mandala. The house is not an ordinary building like this, but Yamantaka’s mandala with four doors. The lama at the center is also not an ordinary human being like me, but Lama Yamantaka with all faces, hands and legs. May the vajrayana tradition teaching practice kindly be generated.

Review The teaching you are listening to is the commentary of the Baghavan Shri Vajra Bhairava, which has: beginning of the session, actual practice and conclusion. The beginning of the session has eight different preliminaries, which we have already covered. The actual practice has also three categories: the beginning activities, the development of the mandala and the deity, and the activities [as the yidam]. The beginning activities are generating yourself in the form of the Solitary Hero with one face and two hands, inviting the supreme Field of Merit along with Lama Yamantaka, sitting on the head of Vajra Bhairava in front of you, making the offering of the seven pure practices, and taking the vows. The actual activity is the three-kaya practice. First the dharmakaya practice; within that you are generating the four basic elemental mandalas, above that the common protection wheel, which is the vajra ground, vajra fence and vajra roof; outside that the fire mandala; inside of that, you generate the uncommon protection wheel with the command center, and you yourself in the form of Sumbharaja generate the ten wrathful deities. Within the uncommon protection wheel you have the generation of the triangle, within that the lotus and Vairochana transforming into the mandala. This is all part of the dharmakaya practice. Within the mandala you have the generation of the sambogakaya and then, after the sambogakaya, you have the nirmanakaya. At that level we are.

(3) TAKING YOGA OF REBIRTH NIRMANAKAYA AS THE GENERATION OF THE RESULTANT VAJRA HOLDER This outline is split into three: 1. The actual method of meditating birth as nirmanakaya. 2. The purification of the sense bases and body, speech and mind.

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3. The method of entering the wisdom beings, empowerment and sealing.

(i) The actual method of meditating birth as nirmanakaya499 You yourself are at the level of the sambogakaya, in the center of the mandala. The sambogakaya here is Manjushri. Why is it Manjushri and not the letter DHIH? Why does it have to be a deity, a form? Audience: Being a father tantra, it is geared towards the illusion body, therefore it takes a physical form. Rinpoche: Thank you. What does Manjushri mean? In Tibetan it is called Jampelyang. Jam is soft, pel is glorious, yang is sound and voidness. This sambogakaya Manjushri is soft [tib. jam], because it500 has overpowered the two obstacles: the delusions and the imprints of the delusions. It is glorious [tib. pel], because it is youthful and it is the first physical form that comes about when you obtain enlightenment. It is yang because sound and the letter AH represent emptiness. So, the word ‘Manjushri’ introduces you to the obstacles and the imprints of those obstacles and to going beyond that level and obtain enlightenment; all that is based on the understanding of emptiness, the wisdom part. That is basically what Manjushri stands for. That’s why he is called ‘embodiment of all the buddhas and their wisdom’. You yourself are in the form of Manjushri in the center of the mandala and that is your sambogakaya. About this time you generate the thought: Yes, I have obtained enlightenment and I am in the sambogakaya. But if I remain in the sambogakaya, then I will be accessible only to the aryas and those above, so my outreach will be limited, I won’t be able to do much. Therefore I would like to rise from the sambogakaya into the nirmanakaya, which is basically accessible to all, is everywhere and can be contacted by everybody. Due to making up your mind in that way: At my heart is a letter AH. It transforms into a sun mandala. At the heart of Manjushri you have the red letter AH, which become the sun mandala. So before you reach the letter AH, you generate that thought. From the beginning OM SVABHAVA mantra, from the raising of the dharmakaya onwards, you don’t lose the previous visualizations. They keep adding up. For learning you can go through [with the sadhana, because] in our practice we are on the lay-people level just now and so we may have a difficulty doing all this. But when you are practicing actually, you are not supposed to let go of the earlier visualizations; you build them up one on top of the other. So, every time you practice, you do not lose the air mandala, the fire mandala, the water mandala and the earth mandala; then you add the common protection wheel; then you add the uncommon protection wheel; then you add the triangle, on top of that the mandala and on top of that the sambogakaya. Within that sambogakaya you make up this mind and then the letter AH suddenly transforms and becomes a sun disc. Lights proceed from this and invite all the Buddhas, such as Vairochana, all the Bodhisattvas, just as The Vajra Sharp One, all the Wrathful Ones, such as VajraHook, and all the Adepts, such as Lady Vajra-mind, that dwell within the ten directions. Light radiates from that sun disc. What kind of light? In nature it is blissful light. The joyful, blissful light reaches out to all buddhas and bodhisattvas, wrathful deities and female knowledge-holders in the 499 500

Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I,. pg. 64-75. Rinpoche addresses Manjushri sometimes by ‘it’, sometimes by ‘he’, sometimes by ‘she’. The reason might be what is explained about commitment being, wisdom being and concentration being on page 328.

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ten directions. All are actually Yamantaka forms. To count them: there are the four buddhas501 of which Vairochana is one, then the thirty-two bodhisattvas of which Vajra-sharp is one, then the eight wrathful deities, then the four female [knowledge-ladies] and then Manjushri himself. That should come to fortynine deities502. In the Yamantaka practice, one of the important points raised is the forty-nine deities. There is a separate mandala of the forty-nine deities Yamantaka, [which this one is not]. Yamantaka has the fortynine-deities mandala, the thirteen-deities mandala and the Solitary Hero mandala. Wherever [in the sadhana-practice] you have to count the deities, you count forty-nine, thirteen, or less. In this case you are counting forty-nine deities. This is just an introduction, so you don’t have to visualize them one by one, but still in your basic visualization the buddhas and bodhisattvas are in the form of the forty-nine [causal] deities. Together with Manjushri they enter into the sun, whereby this sun mandala becomes radiant with light that extends for 100,000 yojanas. They all dissolve into the sun mandala. Manjushri herself is also gradually dissolving – from the upper part of the body down and from the lower part of the body up she finally dissolves into that sun mandala. You have to think that that very sun-mandala has become so powerful, that just by its rays all obstacles can be destroyed; these rays are able to burn everything! You have to acknowledge that. S<. The light can reach 600 000 miles. >S.

Upon the sun there appears a dark blue letter HUNG that shines with five beams of light. These radiate forth and invite all the hosts of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Wrathful Ones and Knowledge Beings. They enter into the HUNG, which becomes a black, wrathful nine-point vajra. Its horns are curved backwards, it shines with five beams of light and its center is marked by the letter HUNG. On the sun you have the letter HUNG, which has five different colors. Again, that letter HUNG radiating five-colored light is you. And that HUNG is not just the written letter HUNG, but it has sound, it has life. S<. It has he wrathful sound of HUNG, like thunder. >S.

The HUNG invites all the buddhas and bodhisattvas503. They dissolve into the letter HUNG and it becomes a wrathful vajra, [tib. trowo dorje]. This is the same as the usual vajra, but the spokes don’t join together504; whether it is five-spoked or nine-spoked doesn’t matter. When you refer to the nine-spoked vajra, you are referring to the vajra you normally are holding in your hand505. Don’t think of this vajra as being a small vajra; think it is huge: the upper tip is almost reaching the end of samsaric existence and the lower tip goes way below the earth mandala. At the hub of this vajra, you have a letter HUNG, which is dark-blue, like Yamantaka’s body. That HUNG has a sound; you automatically hear it going ’hhuunng’. From this radiate forth small fine vajras and from these the entire mass of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Wrathful Ones and Knowledge Beings proceed. They fill all the realms of space just as a pod is filled with sesame seeds. The vajra that stands on the sun ripens all beings and causes them to attain the Vajra Bhairava. They then gather together and dissolve into the vajra.

501

Probably the five Dhyani buddhas without Akshobhya, who is one with the central figure. Those are also called the 49 causal deities. [Ref. Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I,. pg. 64]. 503 Again those 49 deities, now called the 49 resultant deities. They come in the form of Vajrabhairava. [Reference: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I,. pg. 64] 504 Image: G.W. Essen, Die Götter des Himalaya, Vol. I, pg. 262. 505 For the explanation of the different types of vajras, see page 82. 502

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From that particular vajra you generate lots of small duplicate vajras [tib. dorje], which fill up the whole universe. We look at them as dorjes, we may be thinking of them as just some implement or article, but in reality each vajra is a yidam, a deity. All of these manifestations, the hand implements etc., are deities themselves. That is the reason why there is an objection to leave any implements on the ground without having anything to put them on. Also you don’t jump over them. Also you cannot put hand implements, images, etc., on dharmabooks, because the dharma-books are considered even more important. Even images are not to be above the books. If you just simply observe the older practitioners and look in their homes, on their altars, you may find books on a shelf above the images, but you will never find images with a book underneath. If you pay attention, you’ll see that. Each one of these things has reasons. So, the vajras you are generating here, are no less than deities. But to satisfy our rational mind, each of these vajras will manifest [as] a deity, e.g. as the Solitary Hero Yamantaka with one face and two hands. They manifest according to whatever the needs of the individual are, according to whatever close connection you have with a physical form of a certain yidam, whether it is the Thirteen deities Yamantaka, the Solitary Hero Yamantaka, the Forty-nine deities Yamantaka, a male or a female deity. Whatever is manifested in a deity form is equal in number to all living beings and is manifested in order to help them, guide them and protect them. Light emanates and purifies all environments; it reaches to all sentient beings and they become fully enlightened. Each of them finally dissolves to the basic vajra. Now the moon, together with the sun, vajra and HUNG which rest upon it, transforms into a multi-colored lotus with a sun and a moon seat, upon which I stand as the Resultant Vajra-holder, the glorious and mighty Vajra Bhairava. Then the moon disc506, the sun disc and the vajra, all transform. We simply say ’transform’, but the process is that they first dissolve into the nature of emptiness. That means you do not see them, everything has disappeared. Then at that point suddenly appears a multicolored lotus, etc. So, you have the lotus seat, above that the moon seat, above that the sun seat and above that you yourself as Yamantaka, complete with all faces, hands and legs. Get it? That very Yamantaka is so powerful, that he can take the whole existence in his mouth. He is so wrathful that if he wants to eat, he just chews all existence in a matter of seconds. That’s why he is called Vajra Terrifier. He has nine faces, thirty-four hands and sixteen legs; the right legs are slightly in and the left stretched out. That is you, and not only yourself, but also your future nirmanakaya Yamantaka. You have to think that way. Base, path and result – nirmanakaya By meditating that, what is the effect? It gives you the following understanding: At the base level, a dead person can not remain in the bardo form indefinitely. That means, the individual has to take another gross body. [The karmic power of the accumulated merit causing an optimal human rebirth: endowed with six]507 elements, the elements maturing in the womb of the mother and then coming out, that is the message at the ordinary level. At the path level, the impure-illusion-body person has to get back to his own body in the process. From the example clear light to the impure illusion body you have to go back to the old body again. You have to go back and forth two times, the process has to repeat like eight, nine times. That’s the message they give you here.508 You won’t have the clear picture now. It is just giving you the message. The visualizations give you these messages. They tell you that the bardoa cannot remain in the bardo forever, and that the impure person has to go back to the impure body repeatedly. At the result level, when you have become fully enlightened, if you would remain in the sambogakaya forever, you would have limitations. In order to avoid that, you arise into the nirmanakaya. The practice builds up the seed within the individual to arise as the nirmanakaya. 506

For the moon see the sadhana text in bold type on page 232. The piece that got lost because of turning of the tape, was filled in in accordance with the information given by Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I,. on pg. 66. 508 Also see page 307. And see: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 65-66. 507

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These are probably the necessary visualizations. Even if you have the shortest sadhana, these are the ‘must’ visualizations. For what comes hereafter, the detailed business, if you just say the words it will avoid breaking your commitment, but if you can visualize it, it’s very good. That much basically for the nirmanakaya.

Correspondences of the nirmanakaya When you look very carefully, you’ll see the correspondences with taking rebirth. You had that white moon disc509 – that represents the white drop you got from the father. At Manjushri’s heart level you have the sun disc – that represents the blood drop you got from the mother. Manjushri, etc. all dissolving into the sun disc is the entering of the consciousness into the mixture of the mother’s egg and the father’s drop. Then light radiating for hundreds of miles is the mixture of the white drop, the red drop and the consciousness. Generating the HUNG at that level corresponds to the baby taking a physical form within the mother’s womb; the different levels of [growth are] the HUNG becoming bigger510. When you learn it very carefully, you’ll see that the sadhana actually deals with every day of our functioning. From birth to death, everything that is happening within us corresponds and is represented here. Not only that; also every mood within us – 84000 different moods, always changing – has its correspondence here. This is very complicated and it will take time to learn and recognize all that, but apart from that it is very much dealing with every movement of us. Becoming the complete Yamantaka corresponds to the body being matured and coming out when your nine months are completed – taking birth. The five wisdoms Whenever you generate a yidam or any buddha-form, you have to know that it is generated through the five wisdoms. Whenever we generate a yidam, we simply say ‘from emptiness arises…’ and ‘boom, boom’ we go. But it is not like that. It is actually the five wisdoms that are involved. Buddha Yamantaka – or any buddha – is perfect. Perfection has to come out of the five wisdoms. So when you are generating a deity, you have to have a five-wisdoms oriented generation. How does that work with Yamantaka? Remember, you meditated at the heart level of Manjushri the sun mandala. That is the perfection of the sun disc and the wisdom of equanimity. Then you meditated the vajra marked by HUNG. That brings the perfection of the hand implement and also the wisdom of discrimination. Then, the light radiating from the vajra, doing its activities and dissolving back, as well as the moon disc, the sun disc and the vajra becoming one – that is the perfection of simultaneous action and the wisdom of activity. Then, the sun disc, the moon disc and the vajra transforming and becoming the complete Yamantaka, is the perfection of the body and the dharmadhatu wisdom. Meditating the moon disc is the perfection of the moon disc as well as the mirror-like wisdom. That basically is the nirmanakaya.

Yamantaka’s body511 My body is dark blue in color, and I have nine faces, thirty-four arms and sixteen legs, of which the right are drawn in and the left extended. Now, let’s look a little bit at Yamantaka’s body. What is the color of Yamantaka’s body? Dark blue. What kind of dark blue? It depends on what you can get. It can be as dark as the clouds when a storm comes in; either that or dark blue, whatever is convenient for the individual.

509

See page 232. For the symbolism of the vajra here, see Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 67. 511 For a drawing see Ch XII Appendices. 510

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The Tibetan language is very vague. It says ting nak – ting is blue and nak is black, so it is blueblack. In English you say dark blue and with that you are pointing at a specific color. Blue-black leaves it more vague; it can more blackness, yet with a blue touch. This is just an example, but I am finding it in a number of different places. The English will put you in a ‘square box’, in which you are stuck; the Tibetan leave things very vague in a lot of places, so you have a lot of freedom. Take the nine heads or faces of Yamantaka. Ra Lotsawa puts them on top of the horns, we have them going round. You can meditate it whatever way you want to, all these different things are right. However, you cannot just think what we think is right and go accordingly. You have to know there is a lot of freedom to move, however you cannot project your own thing. We simply follow what Tsongkhapa has given us, but on the other hand we cannot say that the other systems are wrong. The face we look at in the center, the buffalo face, is the main face, called the root face,. It is not only a buffalo face, it’s an angry-buffalo face, like you have driven the buffalo to the corner and now he is really angry and ready to charge. On that face, you have the two horns. The tips of the horns are very, very sharp and thin, like a needle point, but they won’t break. The horns go high up and wisdom fire is burning on them, so you cannot measure how far they go. They go beyond the thirty-third heaven512. During Buddha’s life time, one of the arhats tried to take the measurement of Buddha’s body, so he flew by magical power into the air to see how tall Buddha’s body was. He kept on flying and flying and did not get it. (There is a poem on this). It is said that after a while you have to return because your power is exhausted, not because you have seen where it ended. Likewise Yamantaka’s horns go that far. You cannot measure them. However, the measurement is dependent on the body size and that depends on your meditation. You can visualize Yamantaka six, seven, twelve feet or three hundred feet high, whatever you want to, but it has to be proportionately worked out right. With the ability to devour the three world-spheres, I utter ‘HA HA’ , my tongue curling upwards, fangs bared and face wrinkled with wrath. My eyes and eyebrows, which are near the wrinkles of anger, blaze like the fire of the Era of Destruction. The mouth is open. The upper jaws are touching the sky and the lower jaws are touching the ground; that sort of big mouth he has. All existence can be chewed any minute, because it is so huge. The biggest we can imagine is a dinosaur eating somebody, which I saw in the Jurassic Park movie. Here you have to multiply that a hundred times. The four fangs look like snow mountains. The tongue in there is like lightning. The sound Yamantaka produces is HA HA HE HE HI HI HO HO. HA HA is the threatening laugh – you don’t like it and ‘what are you talking about’. HE HE is you are happy. HI HI indicates joy. HO HO is it is under control. These are called the eight Hero’s laughs. S<. The eight laughs come forth from the central face. Pabongka said that Vajra Bhairava has no upper teeth, just fangs and lower teeth. >S

Yamantaka’s three eyes are red and round. There are some kind of wrinkles above the nose, which indicate the wrathfulness. When you are angry or upset, you get them too. Like that. The holes of the nostrils are not small, like ours, but like a blazing red-hot copper Tibetan trumpet – red and round and big. His breath going in and out is like the storm that destroys the whole world at the end of the eon. S<. He has wrathful fangs, a wrinkled brow which is sharp like a blade, wrinkles of anger. His eyes are red and burning like the fire at the end of time, his hair is golden red and stands up. >S.

My burnt-yellow hair bristles upwards, and I threaten the mundane and the supramundane deities with a mudra.

512

This refers to the second of the six samsaric gods realms, ‘Realm of the Thirty-three’.

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The color of his hair is burnt yellow. It is almost the color of Supa’s hair, may be a little bit more reddish, may be more like Eric’s, but it is standing up like John Madison’s. It’s like the punks. Yamantaka has both hands in the threatening mudra513, one down and one up. The threatening mudra is: the middle and ring fingers are held down and pressed by the thumb, the index finger and little finger are up. S<. His hand in the threatening mudra points up telling non-samsaric deities to give practitioners siddhihood. The downward pointing mudra is a threat to samsaric deities and spirits that they will be destroyed if they interfere or obstruct the practitioners. >S.

I terrify even the most terrifying of beings. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche used to say: Dorje Jigje tong tsar na trowo Shinje lak sha sho The moment they see the Yamantaka, the other wrathful deities get so afraid that they drop their hand implements.

Like a dragon I thunder the sound of the syllable ‘PHAIM’. From the red head comes the sound of PHAIM KARA, of which the translators dropped out the word KARA. The commentaries will tell you, you can also just say PHAIM only, but actually it is PHAIM KARA. PHAIM is the invocation to the dakinis and KARA is activity, making the dakinis work. That is not a male chauvinist order to make the women work. No, it is calling for the activities of the dakas and dakinis, the workers. It is also having power over or powerfully subduing. S<. The mantra PHAIM is composed of three letters: PE, AH, MA. The combination of the sound along with the associated mudra514 and sitting posture forces the Dakinis to come. That mantra is uttered by the red face. >S.

I devour human blood, fat, marrow and lymph. That makes it even more fearful. My head is crowned with five frightful dried skulls.. The five dry skulls on the root face actually represent the five wisdoms. S<. Five wrathful, dried skulls serve as a head ornament with garlands and half garlands hanging from the mouth to the center of the eyes. >S.]

..and I am adorned with a necklace of fifty moist human heads. Freshly cut, therefore moist. I wear two black snakes as Brahmin threads… There are two snakes and they are supposed to go on the shoulder, one right and one left. They are hooked. Both heads and tails of both snakes are in the front; they criss cross at the back and go under the arms.515 ..and am adorned with bone ornaments such as earrings and wheels of human bone. Yamantaka’s six ornaments516

513

Dagyab Rinpoche, Ikonographie und symbolik des Tibetischen Buddhismus pg. 159 [translated]: ‘(all right hands): threaten the non-samsaric deities (threatening finger up); (all left hands): threaten the samsaric deities (threatening finger down)’. For a drawing of the threatening mudra see Chapter XII Appendices. 514 For the mudra of PHAIM see Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Guide to Dakiniland, pg. 515. 515 A Brahmin’s cord is a meditation rope, to help the yogi to keep the right body position.

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The head ornament is on the top of the principal head, right under the neck of the red head, and is like an Egyptian head dress, a flat chakra with decorations of jewels. Its center has a jewel and on top of that a half, five-spoked vajra. The chakra has eight spokes and the eight empty spaces in between have eight pendent bone malas. In the front there are five dried human skulls, kept together by two threads of bone vajras, one linking the top part of the skulls and the other one the lower parts. Sometimes you find on a torma a butter decoration in the form of two tiny threads going round, one on top and one below. That represents this. The five skulls are the five Dhyani buddhas: in the center Akshobhya, on its right Vairochana, on its left Amithaba, at the outer right side Ratnasambhava and on the outer left side Amoghasiddhi. Yamantaka has earrings too, nice earrings. Each earring is a bone chakra with a three-spoked vajra in the center, three loops [tib. tawas] and two half loops. It is the model fashion of today, and that is what he wears. If I remember correctly, the earrings are put on the top of the ear and slightly backwards. It is a buffalo head, so it has buffalo ears, so naturally no earlobes. His necklace has three three-spoked bone vajras – one in the center and one right and left – linked up by eight [horizontal and eight pendant] bone malas. Both hands and legs have vajra bracelets and anklets. These are thick bangles of bone vajras, linked up by five bone malas. The anklets also have some bells. On the chest is a heart-ornament made of bone vajra chakras. Ashes. Except for the bone ornaments he does not wear a dress, but the whole body has ashes on it, thalchen chuba. Thalchen means ‘great dust’ and is the ashes of burnt human bones. Chuba means that it is smeared on all the parts of the body. In some cases, like Mahakala and Mahakali, it is thalchen tsumpo and that is just applied on [some] spots of the body. Of course he also has the bone skirt, and on the shoulders and the eye-brows are some crossed vajras. Then there are fifty blood-dripping human heads strung up on a mala. The above mentioned ones are dried human heads and these fifty now are freshly cut, blood-dripping human heads. The malathread is not ordinary thread, but thread made of human intestines. Then from and around the body, instead of an aura, you have the wisdom fire burning. If you look from the distance, you will see nothing but a huge fire. My belly is large, I am naked… You as Yamantaka have a big belly and are naked. Why naked? You do have clothes, the clothes of self-discipline and hesitations. We have been talking in the Lam Rim that you won’t want to do certain things because you would feel embarrassed, for two possible reasons: a) ‘When I recognize it, I am embarrassed’ and b) ‘If others came to know, I would be embarrassed’517. So, the nakedness here is having self-discipline, there is nothing to hide. …and my organ stands erect. What does that mean? The standing organ indicates ‘I am happy with joy’. This particular Yamantaka is solitary, but during the completion stage you do use a consort. During the completion stage, the activity of lust or attachment is used as the path. This here is the indication. What kind of consort does he use? Basically, there are two kinds of consorts: le gye is the actual living consort518; yi gye is the meditative one, it is only mentally visualized. Both serve the purpose, both are talked about here. So, the Solitary Hero’s organ rising is indicating taking lust as the path, as well as that the path is not without bliss. My eyebrows, eyelashes, beard and body-hair all blaze like the fire at the end of time. My main head is that of a black buffalo, is extremely furious and has two sharp horns.

516

For the ornaments also see page 79. The description differs somewhat. Needs to be checked. Also see Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, I, pg. 13-14 and Dr. Cornelia Weiushaar-Günter, Symbole zur Praxis von Yamantaka, pg. 19-22. 517 Gelek Rinpoche, Lam Rim Teachings, pg. 412: a) self-respect, b) consideration for others. 518 Also called action seal or action mudra.

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The eye brows and eye lashes have fire coming out. I think when you meditate very carefully on that, it actually happens. I have seen it. When I was young there was a person called Geshe Samdrup Rinpoche. There were two Geshe Samdrup Rinpoche. The people in Lhasa would refer to them as Senior and Junior Samdrup Rinpoche and both were Yamantaka experts, though the senior one was not even a geshe. He was a kyerimpa, a person who did not study the analytical studies, the five great buddhist treatises of the geshes studies, but straightway joined a tantric college and memorized texts and meditated. He belonged to the Lower tantric college. This was in the 1920s and 1930s. What happened is this. It was early morning and dark and the whole group was saying the Yamantaka sadhana, when sparks came out of Geshe Samdrup Rinpoche’s eyebrows. The disciplinarian noticed it, went to him and raised his hand: ‘Out!’ This means you can’t come back; not at all. So Geshe Samdrup Rinpoche was kicked out of the monastery, because of this reason: you are supposed to behave normally and not differently. Geshe Samdrup Rinpoche was very powerful. Though he had been kicked out of the tantric college, he remained in Lhasa and was very well-known. People used to invite him for doing pujas and things like that. In 1945, when the two regents519 had a fight and the ex-regent had to be arrested, the ones doing the arrest went to the Reting lama. Geshe Samdrup Rinpoche was there to do pujas for him and he had to do wrathful exorcisms. The people who were going to make the arrest, came in and said: ‘Geshe Rinpoche, you have to stop. Make your offerings up in the roof top or wherever; you cannot do it here, because your host is under arrest’. It was funny, but that’s what happened. As a kid, I tried to watch it and I even asked him a couple of times: ‘Geshe Rinpoche, would you show me, I have not seen it and people talk about it..’ About the buffalo face I talked earlier. S<. The buffalo face is wearing earrings. Khedrub Je says he has no earrings at all. Pabongka agrees, but says to keep the original words. It is okay to offer earrings or not, but if you do, stick them onto the ear, so they won’t fall down. >S.

Above it, between the two horns, is an extremely fearsome red face with blood dripping from its mouth. Above that is the yellow face of Manjushri, slightly wrathful in manner, adorned with the ornaments of youth and having hair arranged in five knots. This face is called sin she, the red-colored face. It has a neck, which comes out of the central principal head. Above that is Manjushri’s face and that is not completely peaceful either. It is semi-peaceful slightly wrathful. Both of these faces, the red one and the Manjushri face, have separate necks. The other faces don’t have separate necks, there is one shared, big, thick neck for the seven heads. The blood gives you the message of having obtained full enlightenment. Dripping the blood tells you: ‘I teach the dharma; I show the dharma to the other beings’. Get it? The blood and the blood dripping are two different things. The central face on the right at the foot of the horn is blue; to its right is a red face and to its left a yellow face. The central face on the left at the root of the horn is white; to its right is a smoke-colored face and to its left a black face. These six faces are extremely wrathful. Each of the nine faces has three eyes. On the main head’s right side are three faces, counted: central, right and left. The central face on the right is blue, etc. What we have just now, is three faces to the right, three to the left and three vertically. That is how Tsongkhapa’s has explained it. Basically Yamantaka is Yamaraja, so all the different traditions, the Kagyu, the Nyingma, the Sakya, have a lot of different Yamantakas; with four faces, three faces, two faces; some have nine faces, but in a different way. Ra Lotsawa‘s way is: the buffalo face, 519

The Thirteenth Dalai Lama had passed away in 1937.

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then three faces on each of its two horns, and two faces on top of the main face520. All these different ways are there and every one of them is perfectly okay. S<. Tsongkhapa introduced the system of seven heads going round. Kagyu have a similar deity they call Shinje. All the faces are eating fat, lymph etc. >S

With my first left and right hands I hold up the fresh skin of an elephant, stretched open by its left fore and hind legs. Its head hangs to the right and its hairy back faces outwards. In the first of the remaining right hands I hold a curved knife, in the second a dart, in the third a pestle, in the fourth a fish knife, in the fifth a harpoon, in the sixth an axe, in the seventh a spear, in the eighth an arrow, in the ninth a hook, in the tenth a skullheaded club, in the eleventh a khatvanga, in the twelfth a rimless wheel, in the thirteenth a five-point vajra, in the fourteenth a vajra-hammer, in the fifteenth a sword, and in the sixteenth a hand-drum. Then the thirty-four hands: on each side eight in front and eight at the back; and two are in the center. All come from one shoulder. The first two hands are holding the elephant skin. S. If you ever need empty hands, tie the skin around the shoulders. >S.

The first remaining right hand [which is in front] holds a curved knife – you understand that, that is no problem. S<. A curved knife, tiku, or hook. One gets very quick results with it and Buddha warned against doing activities with this since it is too sharp and quick. >S.

The second remaining right hand [counting downwards] holds a dart. It is a little spear with peacock feathers. The third hand holds a pestle and the fourth a fish knife, in Tibetan called ‘water knife’; its tip is very sharp, coming down it becomes much more a flat knife and at the end it becomes very thick. The fifth hand holds a harpoon, a spear with a rope on it. The sixth hand holds an ax. It is not the usual ax; it has a vajra at the back. It’s like what you use to break the wood. The seventh hand holds a spear, the eighth an arrow, the ninth a hook, the tenth a skull-headed club, the eleventh a khatanga. The khatanga521 has three human skulls, one dry, one wet and one sort of getting dry, above that a fivespoked blue vajra, below that a crossed vajra, below that a vase, and below that a holder. Some khatangas have only one skull, some have three; Yamantaka’s has three. Khatangas are very important not only in the father tantra, but also in the mother tantra. That’s why its recognition is important. Then in the twelfth hand is a rimless wheel [S<…like the weapon Krishna carries.] If there were a rim, the sharpness would be cut off by the rim. The thirteenth hand holds a five-spoked vajra, the usual vajra, and the fourteenth a vajra hammer. It has a vajra at the top and below that it becomes a hammer. The holder also has a vajra, so you hold it with the vajra and hit with the vajra hammer. The fifteenth hand holds a sword, that is your usual sword, and the sixteenth is a hand drum, the changteu, which is a damaru, but a little longer. I do have one. In the first of the remaining left hands I hold a skull-cup filled with blood, in the second the head of Brahma, in the third a shield, in the fourth a leg, in the fifth a lasso, in the sixth a bow, in the seventh entrails, in the eighth a bell; in the ninth a hand, in the tenth a cotton shroud, in the eleventh a man impaled on a stick, in the twelfth a brazier, in the thirteenth a scalp, in the fourteenth a hand in the threatening mudra, in the fifteenth a trident with flags on each point, and in the sixteenth a fan. Now the left hands. The first remaining left hand [which is in front] holds a skull-cup filled with blood. The second remaining left hand [counting downwards] holds the head of Brahma, a yellow four-faced 520 521

For Ra Lotsawa’s way see R. Thurman, Wisdom and Compassion, pg. 282. For a drawing see Chapter XII Appendices.

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head, used by Yamantaka as well as by Heruka. It is one hair-knot, copped from the neck and having four faces. The third hand holds a shield, the usual shield you see in the movies. Romans have square ones, whereas in the Asian culture it used to be round, so this is a round one. The fourth hand holds a cut human leg. You remember, in the Jurassic Park movie a woman goes to turn on the electricity and suddenly a hand comes out? Here it is a cut leg. In the fifth hand is a lasso. Unlike the western lassos, these normally have a hook and a noose both, because sometimes if you throw it and it does not tighten, the hook can hook in and pull. Also a hook and a noose makes it easier to tighten the lasso. The sixth hand holds a bow, the seventh entrails or intestines, the eighth a bell, the ninth a hand – that is the Jurassic Park one – the tenth a cotton shroud, that’s like a lungi or sarong. In the eleventh hand is a man impaled on a stick – a three-spoked stick cut through a human body from the lower and upper doors, all the way through. In the twelfth hand is a brazier, a triangular stove with an opening for the fire. [S<. You can use it to throw offerings into. >S.]. The main point is to have the door open. The thirteenth hand holds a scalp. S< ..complete with skull and hair.] Some commentaries say it is a complete skull, but in Tibetan it says topai tsal bu, which is scalp. That indicates that you are not going to worry about whether you are going to break a skull or not; even broken pieces don’t matter. In the fourteenth hand is a hand with the threatening mudra. S<. The threatening mudra is not his own, but another hand in the mudra which he holds.>S.

The fifteenth hand holds a trident with three banners. It is like prayer flags, where the upper part is one piece, and the lower part is cut into three different divisions. When you hold it, it is like a banner. The sixteenth hand holds a fan, [tib. lung re], a piece of cloth to generate air with. It is normally green, because that is the color of air, but Yamantaka has a multicolored one, just like the prayer flags.522 The first of the right feet tramples upon a human, the second upon a buffalo, the third a bullock, the fourth a donkey, the fifth a camel, the sixth a dog, the seventh a sheep, and the eighth a fox. The first of the left feet tramples upon a vulture, the second upon an owl, the third a crow, the fourth a parrot, the fifth a hawk, the sixth a kite, the seventh a mynah bird and the eighth a swan. Also being trampled upon are Brahma, Indra, Vishnu and Rudra, as well as Sixheaded Kumara, Ganesh, and the Gods of the Moon and Sun who are all faced downwards. Treading these underfoot, The sixteen legs have eight legs on each side, coming from the same joints and going slightly out to the side. [Under each of the feet a being is trampled]. I don’t think there is a big difficulty, is there? You can read it from the sadhana. The palms of the hands and the soles of the feet are red as if fresh blood just has swept over. The nails are like hooks, very sharp. Both, hands and legs, are very thick and solid. Having Indra and Brahma and all those well-known samsaric gods under his feet, indicates that Yamantaka is more powerful than they and has gone beyond the level of worldly power. S<. The right legs stand upon animals who are on their stomach, with his foot upon their backs and their heads looking up. A kite is a hawk or falcon a hunting bird. A mynah bird can talk. Rudra is Shiva and Ganesh is an elephant-faced god. Vajra Bhairava’s body exists strongly, but it is not opaque. It is brightly shining and translucent and in the nature of light. >S.

I stand in the midst of a roaring mass of flames. Actually the fire has grown out of your own [Yamantaka] body. That indicates the power that even if you chew up all existence, you have the power to digest it. 522

For the symbolism of the hand implements see Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle text, vol. I., pg. 99, or the drawing of Yamantaka in Chapter XII Appendices.

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Such is Yamantaka, and you really have to be able to visualize it carefully. As a lay person, at this level just now, we will not be able to get everything clear, but get as much as possible. Pride and clarity of the deity There are two most important points here: pride and clarity. Pride means that you conceive it as you perceive it, that you give yourself the acknowledgment: ‘I am this Yamantaka’. Just an open, empty ‘I am Yamantaka’ will not do, that will just boost the ego. Instead of that, you have to go through the process of dissolving into emptiness, which means that the ordinary ego has dissolved completely. When you take rebirth, you are taking a pure beings’ rebirth. When you rise from the emptiness, you arise with lotus, moon disc and sun disc. You think: Light radiated and the vajra was formed and then the buddhas and bodhisattvas dissolved into the vajra and that became Yamantaka. The process has taken place, and within that process, the pure part of the nature of reality in the physical form of the deity, that’s me. That way you have pride and you are not ego boosting. These are the most important points in breaking the ignorance: clarity and pride. Clarity means you see the things as clearly as possible Clarity is very important, you have to be clear. In order to be clear, you have to visualize each part of the process clearly. When you visualize yourself in the Yamantaka form, you see yourself with all these hands and legs. Each one of them you are supposed to see in detail, but you will not. Do see whatever you can see: a sort of huge, wrathful, stormcloud colored deity. Maybe you are able to see the principal face clearly. If that is not possible, maybe as a start you focus on the central eye, and when that is quite clear and stable, you add up another eye, and one more. Then you may see the whole face and then gradually the additional faces, the neck, the chest and so on. Not only that. That very Yamantaka you perceive, does in the nature of reality not exist in that way. It is just like a rainbow: you can see the rainbow, but there is nothing to catch. In that manner, of light nature, Yamantaka is, and that is me. So, generate pride. Clarity and pride are the two main points to cut down the ordinary perception and conception, the major obstacles in vajrayana practice. During the Lam Rim period we have been dealing with anger, attachment and hatred – the types of things we call delusions and obstacles. Here, the obstacles are: ordinary perception and conception: tamel gyi nang she –‘you accept it as it appears’.523 The direct opponent to that are the pride of the deity and the clarity of the meditation of yourself in the deity form. You are looking at the body of a pure being. Building the picture is the analytical meditation. Once you get the picture and you focus on it, it is the concentrated meditation. The combination of those is recommended and needed. The actual development stage is based on that concentrated meditation.

(ii) Purification of sense bases and body, speech, and mind524 On my two eyes are the syllables KSHIM (in nature Ksitigarbha); on my two ears are the syllables JRIM (in nature the Vajrapani); at my nose is KHAM (in nature Akashagarbha); on my tongue is RAM (in nature Avalokiteshvara). At my forehead is KAM (in nature Sarva-nivarana-viskambhini), at my navel is SAM (in nature Samantabhadra); at my crown is OM (in nature vajra-body); at my throat is AH (in nature vajra-speech); and at my heart is HUNG (in nature vajra-mind). 523 524

Tamel gyi nangwa - ordinary appearances; tamel-gyi shenpa – ordinary belief. Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle text, vol. I., pg. 75-81.

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In the Solitary Hero Yamantaka practice, you just generate seed syllables on the body. In reality it are deities, but seed syllables or mantras are used as physical form. In the two eyes you have Ksitigharba as the letter [pronounced] KIM, in the two ears Vajrapani as DZIM, at the nose Akashagarbha as KHAM, at the tongue Avalokiteshvara as RAM, at the navel Samantabhadra as SAM [and at the forehead Sarva nirvarana viskambini as KAM]. This is easy. In the Thirteen deities Yamantaka you have to generate them into deities themselves. Mind you, this is not a body mandala. The seed syllables – in reality deities – are just put onto the body; it is something additional. In the Vajrayogini practice it is different. There you generate at the heart level thirty-two deities and at its center four dakinis [around the principal deity Vajrayogini] and those are actually parts of your body; it are the channels as well as the energy. So that is really a body mandala. Here, the same as in the Guhyasamaja practice, additional deities are generated on particular parts of the physical body. Though it may be referred to as body mandala, it is not. This part is the purifying and additionally blessing of the senses as well as the body, mind and speech. S<. There is both a long and a short consecration. The long one is found in the Dorje Jigje lha chu sum525 practice. This is the short one, a letter just marks it. Only two eyes on the root face are marked. There are three ways of doing this [consecration]: 1) nature of deity; 2) female or male deity separate; 3) yab yum. As Vajrabhairava doesn’t have a system of body mandala, the first way probably does mean merely marked with the letter. In order to complete death, bardo and birth as the path, one must at least have five deities. Pawo chigpa does not have five deities, but has many retinue members which are not in the body. Each of the deities, Ganesh, Indra, etc., can be meditated as in the nature of a deity or lha. Since Pawo chigpa has no consort, he has no path of experiencing the four blisses conjoined with emptiness. The erect organ is dissolved inside the bhaga526.When giving secret initiation and secret offerings, meditate with the consort. Although it is not articulated in this sadhana, we can insert the secret offering at the seven pure offerings section, along with the suchness offering and the mandala offering. According to Khedrub Je, although it is not mentioned in the root tantra or commentaries that Dorje Jigje Pawo chigpa does not have a consort, one must have the four initiations. In the secret initiation, the yabyum lama depends on secret substances, vajra students must depend on a consort. Khedrub Je says that some say that Vajra Bhairava has no consort because the erect organ is visible, but though not openly in union, still it takes attachment as the path. The meditation on high bliss is present. Vajra Bhairava yogis must have the meditation on bliss developed through the consort, so the meditation of Vajra Bhairava with consort is understood. The fact of the consort is written between the lines. During the tsok for Vajra Bhairava you have the secret and suchness offerings. Without a consort you cannot have E-VAMs, exemplary or actual E-VAMs527. In the highest yoga tantra you must have attachment as the path. With the three kaya practice now completed, the important part of the sadhana, the generation stage, is covered. If you can do the sadhana mentally, you don’t need to say the words. >S.

The three beings or triple being Upon a moon seat at the heart of myself as the Commitment Being is the Wisdom Being, the Youthful Manjushri, yellow in color, slightly angry, holding a sword in his right hand and a scripture at his heart in the left. He is seated in the vajra posture, and 525

Thirteen Deity Yamantaka. Female organ, also referred to as lotus. 527 For EVAM see Gelek Rinpoche, Guru devotion: how to integrate the primordial mind, pg. 75-77. 526

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The outer physical body is the commitment being. There is a lot of reasons why. The wisdom being will be generated at the heart level of the commitment being. In this case it is Manjushri, just like the one of the sambogakaya. He looks the same as the sambogakaya and at the heart level of this Manjushri you also have a sun mandala. You may say the sadhana all the way through and think ‘this this this’, but when you are actually practicing, you don’t add up the wisdom being until you have at least quite a rough idea of what the commitment being looks like. Once you gained some kind of stability on the commitment being, then you add up the wisdom being Manjushri. And only after that you add up the concentration being HUNG. That’s the recommended way. The commitment being [tib. damstik sempa] is Vajra Bhairava. Actually a base is provided. Yamantaka’s body is the base on which you can function. That’s why he is called commitment being. For manifestation, generating light, generating activities, and for collecting them back and dissolving, for whatever you have to do, a base is provided. The base body is called commitment. Commitment is in Sanskrit samaya, and that word comes down to ‘providing a basis for generating and dissolving’. The commitment being is the base that enables the wisdom beings to function. There is a little translation problem here. In Tibetan we say for commitment being damtsik sempa. Sempa means ‘one with mind’; that’s how it becomes ‘being’ in English. The word for bodhisattva is jangchub sempa. So this very word sempa can be taken in two different ways: in one way it is taken as a being, in another way it is taken as a bodhisattva type of mind528. The damstik sempa is totally committed to benefit all sentient beings; that’s why it is called sempa. I don’t think calling it a ‘being’, does make sense in English, but it does in Sanskrit and Tibetan. Sempa is technically another name for bodhisattva; you don’t call them jangchub sempa, but just sempa, meaning ‘one who has the bodhimind’, one who is totally committed to helping other beings. So when they did the translation as ‘commitment being’, whoever has chosen that word the first time, will have had an idea of sempa being somebody with mind. So, damstik sempa, yeshe sempa, tingdzin sempa are three bodhisattva natures – one on top of the other – rather than three beings. The wisdom being [tib. yeshe sempa] is Manjushri. Why is it called wisdom being? That Manjushri is in reality the bliss-void nature and it is not gross, but very subtle. Though you see a physical body, in reality it is the bliss-void nature. Whether it is a mantra form, a syllable form, a physical form or a mind, on this level there is no separation; it is one. The mind of Manjushri is of bliss-void nature, not gross, very subtle; that’s why it is called wisdom. In sutrayana we say wisdom is the understanding of emptiness. No doubt, that is wisdom. But in vajrayana the wisdom must have the bliss and void combination or the clarity and pride combination on top of it; that makes it wisdom. [tib. yeshe]. And then bodhisattva [tib. sempa], the committed nature, that’s why it is called wisdom ‘being’. The bliss-void nature is wisdom, the combination of clarity and pride is wisdom. S<. On a moon seat is the wisdom being, Manjushri, the same as in the sambogakaya form. His hand is in the dinzup, the threatening mudra, because this is the slightly wrathful Manjushri. Manjushri holds a book at the heart.

528

Also translated as heroic mind.

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The fact of the depiction of the book on a lotus529 is possibly taken from Tsongkhapa who had to hold the book that way because his hand is in the teaching mudra. It is permissible to change the figure sometimes, it helps to bring on siddhis. Inside Vajra Bhairava is Manjushri like a clear paper weight with a HUNG at his heart. >S.

At the heart of Manjushri on a sun mandala you have the concentration being [tib. tingdzin sempa], the letter HUNG. Why concentration? Out of the concentration the clear light develops. You don’t concentrate on that HUNG alone; that itself is not the object of concentration. If you want to point out physically the place where the clear light develops the first time – the center of the being, the heart of hearts, the essence of essence – you have to point at the heart level. That point in which you are going to develop the clear light, is called concentration being, tingdzin sempa. [Tingdzin is concentration] and sempa is as before [the committed bodhisattva nature]. The sun mandala looks like an offering mandala base of beautiful reddish colored stone, put upside down. Those are the three beings. The people who have just picked up the vajrayana, maybe did not get it all. That’s no surprise, you will get it gradually. But those who have been involved for a while, should get it. Review taking rebirth as nirmanakaya Let me repeat this yoga once again. At the center of the mandala is Manjushri, the sambogakaya, which is you yourself. You don’t want to stay there for very long, because as sambogakaya you are limited in your activities, and you want to function properly. As sambogakaya, you will not be able to function as a contact for many people, because you are only accessible for pure beings. Therefore you like to rise as nirmanakaya. Then from the letter AH on the mandala at your heart level, the blessings of the buddhas and bodhisattvas are collected. Light goes out, reaches to all environments, which become pure, and reaches to all inhabitants, who become enlightened beings. Their blessings are absorbed, dissolved to you [in the vajra form] and the sun disc and vajra and all of them are dissolved and you become Yamantaka with nine faces, thirty-four hands and sixteen legs, the actual wrathful Yamantaka, black-blue in color, big, with a fat stomach, strong arms and legs and solidly standing. It might not be easy, but sometimes you may feel like meditating Yamantaka so big that even one leg has the size of Mt. Everest – it may not be very convenient, but you could do it – and in that way, the whole universe is covered by one single Solitary Hero Yamantaka. If you can visualize him that big, you can make him very small, too. Normally you visualize Yamantaka slightly bigger than you are – that is most comfortable – a sort of a big, fat, six feet tall person. You also visualize the syllables of the senses, which in reality are the eight close bodhisattvas of Buddha, plus the syllables of body, mind and speech put on your physical body. The eight bodhisattvas are: Manjushri [tib. Jampelyang], Avalokitesvara, [tib. Chenrezig], Vajrapani, [tib. Chagna dorje,] Ksitigarbha, the ‘Essence of Earth’ [tib. Sahi nyingpo], Akashagarbha, the ‘Essence of Sky’ [tib. Namka nyingpo] – both very popular bodhisattvas in the Chinese tradition – Sarvanivarana viskambini, [tib. Tibsil], Maitreya [tib. Jampa] and Samantabhadra, the ‘Always Good’ [tib. Kuntu zangpo]530. They are said to be the inner circle of Buddha’s bodhisattva disciple; that’s why you have them here. Audience: Are that the sense organs of just the main face or also the other eight faces? Rinpoche: Good question. That means you are thinking. Only the main face. Basically that Yamantaka is called commitment being. You have to visualize yourself in the physical form of Yamantaka; you can see it, it appears, but in nature of reality it is void in nature, just like a rainbow. Such a Yamantaka is me. Have pride. Make sure the pride does not go into the uncontrolled, undisciplined pride of me, me, me – the ego boosting. That should not be; that has to be dissolved completely. 529 530

In the usual Manjushri form. Also see Gelek Rinpoche, Guru devotion, how to integrate the primordial mind, pg. 290.

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The ordinary ego should be completely gone for vajrayana practitioners, because vajrayana is based on emptiness. Emptiness totally destroys the ignorance, and what we normally refer to as ego is actually ignorance. It is the ignorance of ‘knowing exactly’ and so building a tremendous pride of me, and of ‘I am getting hurt’. Everything is me, me, me, nothing but me me me – that is the ego and that is supposed to be completely gone because of the wisdom prevailing. That’s the reason for the process of dissolving completely into the nature of emptiness and arising out of it. When you dissolve into the nature of emptiness, you destroy the ego, the one you don’t want, and in that place you are now rebuilding the commitment being with the pride of the deity. It should not boost the ego, it should go against ego, yet there is pride. That is only possible by projecting the idea and telling yourself that it appears in that way, but in nature it is emptiness. You think: In nature it does not exist, but it is appearing in that way; that is me. If you keep on doing that repeatedly, the solidness of ‘I am getting hurt, I am being subjected’ etc. will be shaken. It is something that you can not hold. Naturally there is nothing, it is in the nature of emptiness, yet it is appearing that way. I can perceive in that way, I can function in that way, but I am not there; that is me. It is very much a contradicting message you get. That itself will shake very much, the ‘I am going to be hurt, I am going to be looked down on, I lose my face’ etc. If you use this carefully, it will not go as ego-boosting, it will shake the ordinary ego. But if you are not careful, it can go into the opposite direction. Then it will be: ‘Nobody is right, except me, whatever I do is right and the others are wrong. My understanding is the best, I am brilliant, the others are stupid’. If all of those things come up, it is because you use it the wrong way. One has to be really careful there. With this thinking you get the understanding that this is the commitment being, the base on which the wisdom beings are able to function. It is like an office. The wisdom beings can come in and sit in there and function, do the work from there. Inside that is the wisdom being Manjushri. That Manjushri is called wisdom being, because it is bliss-void in nature and it is the subtle mind, not the gross mind. At his heart level, you have the concentration being. That is the essence point where you really pick up the clear light. It is also translated as absorption being: all you will absorb in there. You could also call it observation being: you observe the clear light in there. But, whatever you call it, one should not have misunderstanding about what it means. The relevancy of the three beings in our life and on the path. The commitment being is our ordinary basic body, which is part of the first noble truth, and the result of the second noble truth. You practice on that basis; you train that particular body. How you train it? By teaching the body to go through a process: the process of death, the process of bardo and the process of rebirth. Also the five senses you train: picking up the beautiful things we see, the sounds we hear, the smell we get and the taste we enjoy. It almost sounds like Allen’s poetry: ‘Taste what you want to taste, touch what you want to touch..’. All of this is training. [In the sadhana process] the perceiver of the beauty and the ugly is blessed. The way you perceive [as yidam], is different: you perceive and you function in a certain way, however in the nature of reality it is empty. Everything is empty of inherent existence and therefore it is changeable. Whatever good you perceive, is changeable; whatever bad you perceive, is also changeable. If possible, you [should] perceive with the understanding of emptiness, and if that is not possible, at least with the understanding of impermanence, everything being subject to change. People change, feelings change, relationships change. They change by themselves. That’s what happens, that’s reality. What you are training is the gross body and the gross senses, how the senses perceive things. In everyday life that is about going out, meeting friends, meeting enemies, contacting, feeling good, feeling bad, hearing music, touching, feeling great, having the ‘not comfortable’ feeling, the ‘yuck’ feeling; all of them you [try to] perceive in such a way: in the nature of reality they are empty, they are changeable. That’s the relevance for the gross body in daily life.

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What is the relevance of the wisdom being and the concentration being? For the commitment being, we talked about the body part; the wisdom being and the concentration being are the mind part. In the traditional teachings, the mind part is referred to as the subtle body. The gross body is the physical body outside, the inside one is called subtle body and that is divided into two: the mind part [tib. sem] and the energy part, which in the traditional teachings is called ‘air’ [tib. lung]. The wisdom being represents the energy and the concentration being represents the mind part. You have heard about the air as the horse and the mind as the one who rides the horse. That means that one is based on the other. The mental body is based on the energy part and the energy is based on the gross physical body. Again, the energy and the mental part are called subtle body and the external appearance is called gross body. Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching and feeling are activities of the gross body, not of the subtle body. The gross body feels those, sends the messages, and you [i.e. the person, the ‘I’], observe them and feel them. That is the relevance in our life. That is how it works. Why are we doing this practice? What is the purpose of it? If you keep on meditating and practicing, that very absorption being is going to become the clear light and the wisdom being is going to be the illusion body531; the commitment being is going to be the gross body of the buddha, the basis on which you can hold the union [of those two]. That’s how you generate the three beings, the reasons, the practice, the relevance in our lives, the relevance to the path, what is going to happen at the result level, all completed now532.

(iii) Method of entering the wisdom beings, empowerment, and sealing533 This is the invocation. It sounds a little more romantic than invitation You invite them either through the invocation verse or through the mantra OM HRIH HA BHO...

Invocation verse534 In the Thirteen-deity Yamantaka sadhana there is an invocation verse, which we don’t have in the Solitary Hero. This verse gives you very good information. Actually this is where Manjushri becomes important. Jam pel rang zhin chö nam kun gyi ngo Manjushri’s nature is the nature of all phenomena. The word jampel rangzhin means: Manjushri nature. The real nature of Manjushri is wisdom. That is emptiness. Emptiness itself is the nature of all phenomena. Therefore Manjushri’s reality is the reality of all phenomena. Therefore there is nothing new coming or going; it is there. Ne me dro wo da wa nam kar chen Space has neither come nor gone. The word ne me means ‘no base’. That means, there is not a base on which you can say ‘this is it’. You cannot catch it. Now mark my words, pay attention: when you meditate on emptiness and you say you are ‘empty of self’ and you are going to search for that self, you are not going to find it. If you would find it, you would have that nature. But you don’t. Therefore, when you are searching the self and you cannot find it, you have to be satisfied with that. This is the main point! 531

For twelve analogies of the illusory body see Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle text, vol. I., pg. 125-127. 532 Also see Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I pg. 74-75. 533 Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. pg. 81-82. 534 O Manjushri, your nature the reality of all things, Abodeless, free of coming and going like space, Your compassion neither comes nor goes, like time, Your emanations progress free like mirror images, Though unaffected by any sign of coming and going, You are seen wherever one looks, like moon in water. Now invited here, O God, I pray for you to come, As Manjughosha, intuitive wisdom of all Buddhas, As Bhairava Yamantaka, to tame all devils, With your Yama retinue, emanated agents, Come hither, attend to me, pray take your place. (JH Self-initiation sadhana of Yamantaka, pg.130).

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For example, you say: ‘I had a sheep and a goat and a horse. I lost my goat, I lost my sheep, I lost my horse. Are my horse and goat and sheep in this room?’ You come in and look around, you send each person out and you search around and then, when there is neither horse, nor goat, nor sheep, you have to be satisfied and admit they are not here. So, when you search: ‘Where am I, who is that me, is it in my body, is it in my mind, is it in my mood, is it in my emotions, or inside the ears?’ and you keep on digging, then after some time, when you can’t find it, you have to be satisfied and tell yourself: ‘He, it is not there. It is in the nature of emptiness’. That’s how you begin to pick up the emptiness. Do not search for the wisdom. A lot of people say: ‘Well, I like to see the wisdom, where is it?’ That is not the way, no! You are not going to find it anywhere. From Buddha onwards the nature of reality has been told to us repeatedly. That we didn’t get it is simply because our minds could not be satisfied. So we have to go and dig ourselves, until we get satisfied. That satisfaction is the beginning of wisdom. Drowo dawa – there is no going and no coming. When you look in the mirror, you see the person in the mirror and neither you have gone inside the mirror, nor has the mirror person come out. Get it? That means you don’t have to function alternately. Neither you have to jump into nor to come out of the mirror. It is there; no coming, no going. Let me give you a different explanation of this line. There is nothing in existence which does not have the reality of Manjushri. In other words, all phenomena are in the nature of emptiness. You cannot find anything which is not empty in nature and therefore there is neither going nor coming. It is like the sky or space; it is the open air where you can make movements. The reality of empty space means that nothing will block you. So Manjushri’s reality or nature is like space – it is open, it is empty. Another way of saying is: the space is there, it has not come from anywhere, it has not gone anywhere. Somebody may have come and occupied space, but the space is there. That’s why there is no coming and going. I am talking about the space in general, the duma shegi namkar, the unproduced space. Air which is blocked by the four walls, is produced space. The space in this room is produced space, because it is blocked by four walls, but the space within the produced space, is unproduced space. Unproduced space is permanent and produced space is impermanent. Likewise time appears, the seasons – spring, summer, autumn and winter – appear. Neither has the summer come from anywhere, nor does it go anywhere. In Tibetan we say: the summer appeared and disappeared. In English we says it has gone. But gone where? Nowhere. It has come from nowhere other than this place. That’s how the nature of reality functions: nothing has come from outside or has been created, nor has anything gone from here to somewhere else. Therefore Manjushri’s kindness and compassionate nature also does not have going and coming. Manjushri’s nature is the nature of emptiness, the nature of emptiness is wisdom. That’s how you pick up the wisdom rather than saying things like: ‘Emptiness? Oh I have seen it’. You are not going to see it, because there is nothing to be seen. When something is not there, you make a mark called zero. People are trained in such a way that when you see that zero circle, you are satisfied; you have not found that there is nothing, but you are satisfied by the mark called zero, which indicates there is nothing more. In the same way you approach the emptiness: you search for the self and when you don’t find it, you make a mark: zero. That’s how you’ll find the emptiness, rather than by searching how the zero works. Basically, I believe, that’s how you work on the wisdom. If you keep on searching for the wisdom, you are doing what called a ‘wild goose chase’. So search up to a certain level and when you are satisfied it is not there, make your own mark and read it as zero. That’s how you get it. Du chi kam shi tu chi dro wa du. When the time comes the activities of the enlightened beings will definitely function.

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That depends on the mood in which the individual is, whether he has opened up. We call it: the time is right or it is wrong. How much the enlightened beings are able to come, depends on the individual’s perceiving level and his openness. Dru dang dro dang tra wa sung nyien shen For the manifestations, there is no going, no coming. When the moon shines, its reflections reach everywhere, but you can only see them, if your utensil has water in it. If your utensil is empty, the reflection of the moon cannot be seen in it. If there is a lake, when the moon comes you will see it reflected. If there is a lake here, a pond there, and some pots filled with water here and there, you’ll see a moon reflection in each one of them. It is one moon and a number of reflections are there. The moon does not need to put any efforts in to get a reflection into each pot, does it? It gets there. But on the other hand, if there is no water or any other reflector, though the moon is there, you are not going to see it. E.g. you won‘t see the moon reflection on a table of rough wood, for example. The moon does not have any selection, nor does it put any efforts in; whether reflection is possible or not possible depends on the container. Did you get it? I said before: when you look at the mirror, you see your reflection. The moment you look at it, the reflection is there. You don’t need to go inside the mirror and take the position of the reflection and then come out and take the position of the watcher. You don’t have to rotate the watcher and the watched. Just the moment you look, the reflection is there. That is how the nature of reality is within the individual. Are you getting the idea a little bit? Then another thing. When you watch in the mirror, you are not in the mirror, but you see what is there. You know you are not there, but you see your reflection, you perceive it, you can function with it, e.g. you can put on your make-up or remove it, comb your hair or whatever, you can make total use of that, but you know that you are not there. So you can see and perceive yourself, but in nature you are not there. This is the example. Now, when you look at yourself as Yamantaka, you’ll say: ‘This is me, I am Yamantaka’, but its true existence is not there. It’s just like in the mirror: you can see it, acknowledge it, it can perform and it can function, but you are not there. That way you can get the pride of the deity very strongly, while the ego, the me that gets hurt, will be very much shaken, because you realize that in true reality it is not there. However, that’s also why people can go too extreme, saying ‘it is dualistic, in reality there is nothing there’. When saying that, you have gone too extreme. But the way and how it is functioning is like a mirror-reflection. Remember, during the vajra-master initiation part of the initiation, you hold a mirror in hand and we tell you that all phenomena are like a reflection in the mirror. We tell you to understand this and enjoy every existence535. As long as you recognize that it is in the nature of emptiness, you are authorized to use anything; any material, any joy, whatever it may be, you can use completely, because you know, there is no real strong and solid ground there. That is how the understanding of emptiness, wisdom, destroys the ego rather than boost it. If you don’t have any understanding of emptiness, and you keep on thinking: ‘I am Yamantaka’, then you either go crazy – that’s why a lot of those new-age people tell you on television ‘I am God’ – or you become a very proud person, as we say in Tibetan ’wearing the sky on your head, tied to the clouds’. Dro dang rong wai tse nyi mi mang yang chun de shen du kang mi deng nga wei ting de jen de chir sok so gar la The manifestations of Manjushri also don’t have going and coming. That is how I invite the wisdom beings here today. This is the invocation. It says ‘You are everywhere’. You remember, the enlightened ones have the extraordinary quality of body and mind functioning on the same level: wherever the mind is, the body is.

535

Yamantaka Ekavira, materials for Punya house retreat, pg. 181-182.

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This refers to it. We talked about no coming or going, so why are we issuing the invitation or invocation? The commentary says: ‘True, there is no real going or coming, however, Manjushri’s manifestations are like the reflection of the moon; they automatically appear, if there is anything that reflects the moon’. From the nature’s point of view, it is all there, however the subject may be incapable of reflecting it. We told you very often, that an extraordinary quality of enlightened beings is to be everywhere; however, some people they can affect, and some not. That is because we are not open. When the pot is not filled up with water, there will be no reflection of the moon in it. If there is water in the pot, without any efforts the reflection of the moon will come. Likewise, if we are open, if we provide a basis for the enlightened beings to function, they are there. Nobody has to go and nobody has to come, they are there; there is nothing to talk about going or coming, it is like the moon’s reflection in the water. That’s how you invite the wisdom beings. In other words, the wisdom beings are everywhere and we try to provide the bowl with water. So wherever efforts are put in… – the wisdom beings are there. What efforts? Accumulation of merit, purification, guru-devotional practice, and a profound faith in Buddha, dharma and sangha and in karma. That gives you the idea of emptiness, that gives you the idea of Manjushri, that gives you the idea of dharmakaya. The moon and its reflections in the water is an example commonly used in Buddhism, e.g. in Zen. Audience: Could you also say that we have some kind of lid on the pot and so there is a barrier, say, of ego, or incorrect perception and when we remove that, we get to see emptiness? Rinpoche: The power and the blessings of the buddhas, in particular of Manjushri or Yamantaka, radiate to all beings without any closeness or distance. However, it depends on the disciples, how much intelligent faith and how much reliance they have, how much close they are able to bring them. That is where the water in the pot business comes in for the individual. I don’t think it is accumulation so much. I think it is more the guru-devotional practice. Basically, how much openness you have, how much faith you have and how much efforts you put in determines how much closer you can bring them. That is meant by the water. If you have the water – the faith and the devotion, etc. – however, due to certain priorities you choose, you can’t do it, then it looks like you cover up the pot. That’s how it works, I believe. Audience: Where does the accumulation of merit come in? Rinpoche: Everything will count. But basically the invocation of wisdom is more relying on gurudevotional practice, I think. Audience: When the enlightened beings are not actually coming from somewhere else, what does it mean then when you send them to their abodes? Rinpoche: They pack up their bags and go. What happens is, that you in your rational mind just open and close. I shared with you that the enlightened beings are everywhere. So, when you invite the wisdom beings, there is nothing to invite, although you say, ’May they come from their natural abodes’. We are satisfying our rational minds, when we say that there is something like a natural abode somewhere else and that we bring them in and that they come flying in like angels. That is how our rational mind works. The actual invocation is the openness from this side, which is doing your sadhana and practicing.

Invocation of the wisdom beings by mantra OM HRIH HA BHO MAHAKRODA AGACCHA AGACCHA ASMADA PUJA PRATI GRIHI HINTU PRASADA MEDHI MANKURU SVAHA.

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We pronounce it: om hre ha bho maha troda anginza anginza aminda pundza pratingrihantu prasa mendi men kuru soha. Om has a hundred different meanings. Here it means auspicious wishes, like tashi in Tashi Delek. hrih is ‘who will snatch away something’. ha bho is ‘hey, you’, maha means great, krodha means wrathful, aginza is ‘come here’, aminda is ‘me’ or ‘I’, pundza means offering. prati means ‘separately’, grihantu means holding. So puja prati grihi hintu means: holding offerings separately. Prasa means kindness, being very thankful for the kindness towards me. Di min is a person of intelligence, or rather a wisdom-oriented being, It is not intellectual intelligence that is meant here. kuru means ‘just do’ and svaha means ‘laying the foundation’. So when saying this mantra you are saying: Oh, you great wrathful one, come here, come here, take all the different offerings from me and lay the foundation of wisdom within me’ (Or ..make me into wisdom nature like you). That’s how you invite. Mantra, mudra and meditation, i.e. basic visualization, have to go together. If you do so, it works. You don’t have to physically do the mudra, you can do it in your visualization, too. But if you like to do it physically, the invocation mudra is the hook mudra536, which you can do with or without lotus movement. When you throw the hook, it catches the fish, right? [Likewise this mudra ‘hooks’ the enlightened beings]. S<. Lalitavajra said that intelligent ones can invite Vajra Bhairava, make offerings and can make him happy. >S.

Light-rays shine forth from the HUNG at my heart, inviting the circle of the Supporting and Supported mandalas537 of the Solitary Hero, the glorious Vajra Bhairava, similar to the one visualized, from its natural abode to the space before me. You think: Just like I have meditated here, from the nature of wherever you are – but remember they are there like the moon – come here now. What did you meditate or visualize? The supporting and supported mandala, which are the pure environment that supports the pure inhabitants, and the pure beings within that mandala. Why do you have to invite the wisdom beings? a) You may perceive yourself and the wisdom beings separate. You may think: ‘Though I pretend to be Yamantaka, I am me, and the real wisdom beings are over there’. To stop that idea you invite them. b) The pride of ‘I am a pure being’ is inseparable from the wisdom beings. So [by inviting the wisdom beings here] this pride will become pure. c) To obtain blessings. Audience: Do the two mandalas you are meditating, have the same size? And does the wisdom beings’ mandala also have the protection wheels and the air-, water-, fire- and earth mandalas? Rinpoche: You do not meditate anything the Yamantaka mandala does not have. Tony: But does it have everything that the first mandala has, the same size? Rinpoche: May be more. Good question. S<. Just in case we have doubt, we invite the wisdom beings. OM HRIH HA BHO….SVAHA. Lalitavajra said that intelligent ones can invite Vajra Bhairava, make offerings and make him happy. Do the hooking mudra. Light radiates from the HUNG at my heart and invites the entire mandala of Vajra Bhairava. Send forth a wrathful deity from the heart scaring away any ghosts and spirits

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For a drawing see Chapter XII Appendices. Supported and supporting mandalas means: the environment and the beings in the mandala.

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Yamantaka teachings which may be hiding. The supporting and supported mandala means the identical mandala and inhabitants. >S.

Making the eight outer offerings to the wisdom beings OM HRIH SHTRIH VIKRITANANA HUNG PHAT. At this point you generate from the letter HUNG at your heart level a wrathful deity. The reason why you say the mantra of activity here, is that any obstacles or spirits, anything that is obstructing our practice, needs to be driven away. That’s what the action mantra is for. The wrathful deity generated from your heart level drives away any uninvited guests, any unwanted ones, kicks them out. OM HRIH SHTRIH HA (water for the mouth) OM HUNG HUNG PHAT (water for the feet) OM VIKRITANANA DUSHTAM SATVA DAMAKA GAHGAH (scented water) OM DUMARA RUPINE JAH JAH HUNG PHAT (flowers) OM HRIH HAH HAI PHAT (incense) OM DIPTA LOCANA VIKRITANANA MAHA ATTATTA HASANA DINI DIPTAYE SVAHA (butter-lamps) OM VAJRA NAIVIDYA AH HUNG SVAHA (divine food) OM VAJRA SHABDA AH HUNG (music).538 Now [the supporting and supported mandala of Vajra Bhairava being invited and remaining in the space in front of you], you make these offerings. OM HRIH SHRTIH HAH is the normal offering of water for the mouth – like argham. OM HUNG HUNG PHAT is the water for the feet – like padyam. OM WUTITA NANA MAHA DURAM SATTA DAMAK GAH 539 GAH is the offering of flower-scented water – ghande. In the Yamantaka practice the ghande comes before the offering of the flowers. Why? Usually we tell you that because in India it is very hot, the cooling effect of sprinkling water is the first thing you give. That is an excuse explanation. In reality the reason is that at the heart level you have Manjushri, the wisdom. The essence of the wrathful Manjushri, i.e. Yamantaka, is the peaceful Manjushri and the essence of the peaceful Manjushri is the wisdom of emptiness, which is the heart level, where the clear light begins.540 That’s the actual reason why ghande in the Yamantaka practice comes even before the flower offerings, but you don’t talk about until the later part. om kumara rupini dza dza hung phat. That is the flower offering – like pushpe. om hrih ha hai phat is the incense offering – like dhupe. om dita lotsana wutita nana maha attatta hasana dini ditaye soha is the light offering – like aloke. om benza nyunde ah hung is the offering of food. om vajra shabda ah hung is the music offering. The mudras are going slowly and nicely. S<. At this point, when making offerings, don’t use the dorje and bell, but do the mudras. >S.

Actual dissolving of the wisdom beings OM MUDGARA JAH [The wisdom beings come.] The mudra is the usual one541. At this moment, the invited supporting and supported mandala – the wisdom beings – has just landed above what you have meditated. You have meditated the cemeteries, the common protection wheel, the uncommon protection wheel, the mandala, the commitment being, the wisdom being and the absorption being, all of them. And as you have meditated all that – the same size, the same look, the same everything, a sort of a replica – it has appeared above your own visualization. OM DANDA HUNG [They enter.]

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Also see page 155. The mantras here in the text are written down as pronounced by Rinpoche. 540 Gandhe is offered at the heart level. Also see page 336. 541 The four door mudra or merging mudra. For a drawing see Chapter XII Appendices. 539

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During these words the mandala dissolves to the mandala, the protection wheel dissolves to the protection wheel, the commitment being dissolves to the commitment being, the wisdom being dissolves to the wisdom being, the absorption being dissolves to the absorption being, but you still see them slightly different. It’s like when you are taking a photograph, you still see two noses and so forth; the focus is not yet right. OM PADMA BAM [They become inseparable.] Now the focus gets right. Not only everything has been dissolved now, but there is no separation at all. They are oneness. OM KHADGA HOH [They happily remain.] Not only they are dissolved in oneness, but they are very happy to be dissolved. S<. While we do the merging mudra, Vajra Bhairava waves implements as these mantras are said. OM MUNGARA JA – Vajra Bhairava waves a hammer which represents Tawa Shinje she. OM DANDA HUNG – he waves a hammer representing Yu ba. OM PADMA BAM - he waves the ninth hand iron hook representing the lotus. OM KANGA HOH – he waves a sword representing Red Shinje she.>S.

Invocation of the initiation deities OM HRIH HA BHO MAHAKRODHA AGACCHA AGACCHA ASMADA PUJA PRATIGRIHINTU PRASADA MEDHIMANKURU SVAHA. Again from the HUNG at my heart light-rays radiate. All the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas that exist within the ten directions are invited to the space before me. This is the invocation of the initiation deities and the mantra is the same as the mantra of the invocation of the wisdom beings.

Making the eight outer offerings to the initiation deities Next will be the offerings to the initiation deities. Here you don’t have the activity mantra OM HRIH Why not? The buddhas and bodhisattvas are invited from the pure lands, where there are no evil spirits or obstacles. In the previous part you needed the action mantra because the wisdom beings are everywhere542. Remember, the moon and the pots, and ‘nothing going and nothing coming’. It may be the same thing for the buddhas, but we invite them from the pure lands, while we invite the wisdom beings from wherever they are. Apart from that it is the same.

SHTRIH VIKRITA NANA HUNG PHAT.

OM HRIH SHTRIH HA (water for the mouth) OM HUNG HUNG PHAT (water for the feet) OM VIKRITANANA DUSHTAM SATVA DAMAKA GAHGAH (scented water) OM DUMARA RUPINE JAH JAH HUNG PHAT (flowers) OM HRIH HAH HAI PHAT (incense) OM DIPTA LOCANA VIKRITANANA MAHA ATTATTA HASANA DINI DIPTAYE SVAHA (butter-lamps) OM VAJRA NAIVIDYA AH HUNG SVAHA (divine food) OM VAJRA SHABDA AH HUNG (music) You make all the offerings up to OM SHABDA AH HUNG.

Actual initiation ‘O Tathagatas, please fully empower me’. Having been thus requested, they send forth 542

Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. pg. 80: ’... and therefore there is a supposition that the hindrances may accompany them.’

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Yamantaka teachings the goddesses Chachika and so forth, each of whom is holding a white, moon-like vase filled with the five nectars.

In this case the Tathagathas means the five Dhyani buddhas. They generate the initiation deities from their hearts. These pick up the vases and initiate you. S<. The initiation is given by the initiation deities, not by the invited guests. The invited mandala want to give the initiation, but they don’t do it themselves. The four initiation goddesses emerge but multiplied, so there are thousands of them. >S.

As a preliminary they voice these words of greeting, ‘Just as all the Buddhas at birth have received empowerment, so I shall grant empowerment to you with this purifying water of the gods’. When an official buddha is born, the moment the baby is born, these angels appear in the sky and purify and wash the body of the buddha and then you have the seven steps and all of that543. Purifying is a word with meaning. The purifying water of the gods is pure water. That does not mean environmental pure water, like ‘Mountain valley’. It refers to the ultimate water of the gods, the ultimate pure blissvoid wisdom nature, which is in reality a deity, a buddha. It is Yamantaka’s bliss-void nature which melts and becomes pure water. That’s why it is called pure gods’ water. S<: This is bliss-void deity, wisdom in the form of a deity. Similarly here, you as a deity in nirmanakaya form will be given the initiation too. >S.

Having sung this, they grant me empowerment through the crown of my head. My body becomes filled with the initiating fluids and all stains are purified. The surplus liquid that overflows through the crown of my head transforms into Buddha Akshobhya, who adorns the main head of myself as the Lord. All Empowering Deities dissolve into me. That water544 fills up the body and purifies all the negativities. Your body gets filled up and the leftover water comes on you head right in front of the red face. It becomes buddha Akshobhya. In reality it is your own lama, but he is in the form of buddha Akshobhya. So, there is you in the form of Yamantaka and your own lama in the form of Akshobhya buddha, blue with one face and two hands and with his consort Mamaki.

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The story of Buddha’s birth, including the seven steps is to be found in: Shakyamuni Buddha, The Voice of the Buddha, Lalitavistara sutra, 2 vol. Dharma Publ. 1983. 544 The pure bliss-void water or nectar is in the nature of the five wisdoms. [Ref. Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. pg. 82.

IX ACTIONS REPRESENTING THE ACTIVITIES OF BUDDHAHOOD Kindly generate a pure thought: For the benefit of all mother sentient beings I want to obtain buddhahood in as short a time as possible. For this purpose, I would like to listen to this teaching, practice it and then help other beings. The teaching you are listening to is about the stages of development through the path of the buddha Yamantaka. As usual in vajrayana teachings you have to properly visualize the following: You are not sitting in an ordinary building like this, but in the center of the mandala of Yamantaka. The lama is not an ordinary person like me, but buddha Yamantaka with all nine faces and thirty-four arms and sixteen legs, standing at the center of the mandala.

Review The teaching you are listening to has two outlines: 1) the general development of Buddhism and of vajrayana and 2) in particular the development of this very tantra. The first one is completely over and the second, the unfolding of this very tantra has a preliminary, an actual and a conclusion stage. The preliminary stage has eight parts, the lineage prayer etc. PRELIMINARIES Lineage prayer. By making the request, all the lineage masters dissolve to each other and the last one happens to be your own root master in the form of Yamantaka. Just by them dissolving to you, a very joyful state develops within you. Within this joy you melt yourself completely into the nature of reality, emptiness. Instantaneous rise. You acknowledge that emptiness and remain in that joyful state a little bit – not too long. You acknowledge that as your dharmakaya, if you know what that means. At least you say: ‘There is nothing there’. Sometimes these mattress advertisers tell you that you’ll be sleeping on clouds, right? Very similar to that, this is a very soft, light, empty, relaxed state, complete openness; you sort of see nothing and hear nothing; it is very quiet, almost a cocoon in which you can hide. This state is equivalent to the death stage. You acknowledge that as true reality and as dharmakaya. Then suddenly you like to rise from that. You get a physical appearance, blue light, and you acknowledge it as your sambogakaya. That is equivalent to the bardo period. You say: ‘This is the great bardo period with the blue light’. Suddenly you like to make more movements and so that bardoa picks up a little head and legs and arms and you instantaneously rise as Yamantaka, [and you acknowledge that as your nirmanakaya. That is equivalent to rebirth].

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This is a very quick way of going through the three-kaya process: the process of dissolving into emptiness [dharmakaya], rising as sambogakaya and taking rebirth as nirmanakaya. That is called instantaneous rise. Blessing of the inner offering. For the inner offering keep yourself a bottle. Its contents are called inner offering, because although in that bottle we only have alcohol and a little bit of a continuation of a nectar pill, in your visualization you collect all the best materials available, which includes shit, urine, blood, elephant meat, horse meat and everything. The whole idea is that no matter how strange they might be, the individual is capable enough to purify, transform and multiply them. THE ACTUAL PRACTICE The essence of the sadhana is the three kayas, death as dharmakaya, bardo as sambogakaya, rebirth as nirmanakaya. Death as dharmakaya. Right at the beginning you say: ‘OM SHUNYATA JNANA VAJRA SVABHAVA AT545 MAKO HAM - all is empty’. At that point, in order to get the clear picture of void as well as to practice the death stage, you went through the visualization of the eight stages of the death process: the dissolving or signing off of the four outer elements and experiencing the inner signs, i.e. the white, red and black [tib. nang che top] and then finally the actual death. Doing that serves a number of purposes. 1. It introduces you to the actual void. The strongest hold of our ignorance is the ego, which somehow is based on the conception of me and my body. When the body has gone through the process of training in the death process, you actually lose the body completely, so it destroys the basis on which you solidly hold the I. That’s why the emptiness – or void – you get, is easier and better than simply saying: ‘I am empty, all is gone, all is empty’. 2. The actual death process follows that way, and at that moment the sharpness and clarity of the mind is such that there is an opportunity [to use the death to gain buddhahood]. Because the gross activities are cut out, the subtle concentrated period will come [up] and to make best use of that, is why you have this [practice] every day. 3. It is the process in vajrayana. This very process is repeated ten, fifteen times during this vajrayana path. The actual practice of the process, either at the development stage or at the completion stage, is in this manner. The intensification and depth differ. At the beginning level it is very superficial, but when it goes into the completion stage level, it becomes deeper and so much deeper, that it will be actualized within the individual without literally going through the death stage. When it becomes actualized within the individual, the process is in order. Sometimes the process can go wrong. That will not cause you that much trouble, but when you get those signs in THE wrong order, it means something is wrong. If they are in order you have the opportunity to develop the clear light within this lifetime. That very practice has been superficially introduced at this level and that superficial understanding is just to hold on to and to practice it, and then it goes deeper and deeper by itself. This way of meditating emptiness provided you with the basis of developing what we call the dharmakaya, the first stage of the buddha mind, of emptiness nature. When you become fully enlightened, the first thing you get is the mind level, without any form or appearance or shape or color. You are absorbed in it and observing it, both. That is the dharmakaya basis. At every stage of the death process meditation you think: I am going and at the end of my death, I’m going to change my death into dharmakaya. Keep on thinking that and when finally you come out of the darkness, it is like a moonlight reflection, a nice, comfortable and soft, totally empty, great openness, with a little joy – don’t forget the joy! a comfort zone, where you can sit and relax, like before you fall asleep. You think that the emptiness you see – you see nothing – is the nature of reality. Think:

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See page 174.

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Every little thing I used to see is over, this is the total end of all magician’s tricks and it is the actual reality. You acknowledge that as nature of reality, yet it is a joyful and comfortable state. And you may like to say: ‘Ha, this is my result dharmakaya’. That is taking death as dharmakaya. If you keep on practicing that, you will improve yourself day by day, and when the actual death time comes, you’ll really go well with the comfort zone. Bardo as sambogakaya. Then for the sambogakaya, you have the Manjushri meditation. That will correspond to what happened at the death stage; it is the reverse of it. The whole procedure of getting more and more subtle, will be reversed. When all the eight signs are totally reversed, everything is reestablished, you’ll have a physical form which we label as sambogakaya, Manjushri in this case. At the ordinary level, again, this is what we can hold on to, meditate on and proceed with. And when it becomes deeper and it actualizes, you will become the sambogakaya. Before that you’ll have the impure and the pure illusion body, and with the same process again you’ll finally become dharmakaya and sambogakaya. Moving from the dharmakaya to the sambogakaya, you have the vajra ground, vajra fence and vajra roof, the uncommon protection wheel and in the midst of that you build up the mandala; at the center of the mandala your consciousness arises as Manjushri, which is your bardo as sambogakaya. So, from that beautiful empty, you suddenly generate all these things and at the center of that you rise as Manjushri and acknowledge that as your sambogakaya. Rebirth as nirmanakaya. After the sambogakaya, there is again another process of dissolving and arising, in which case we do not go through the death signs. That is because the ’physical’ body at that moment differs from the ordinary human body. At that stage the process is simply the light546 dissolving into the mandala and rising from that. The procedure has become simpler, but the basic process of dissolving into and arising out of voidness, is again there. You don’t like to remain in the exclusive state of sambogakaya for a long time. So you come out as the nirmanakaya, and at that rebirth you are in the total Yamantaka form. At Yamantaka’s heart there is Manjushri – sixteen years young, orange colored, holding the sword and the book – and at his heart is the HUNG. You think of yourself as a hollow light body, like these paperweights that have something inside. That way the nirmanakaya procedure is practiced. The external body of Yamantaka is called commitment being, Manjushri inside is called wisdom being and the blue letter HUNG at his heart is called concentration being or absorption being. These are the three beings, also called the triple being. (joking to Allen who just returned: Hey, you missed a sixteen years young guy, anyway you can continuously have him at the heart!) You have the letter OM, representing the body of all enlightened beings, at your crown; AH, representing the sound or speech of all the enlightened beings, at your throat; and HUNG, representing the mind of all the enlightened beings, at your heart. Now you have got two HUMs in there, but if you can’t think of two HUMs, then one will do. If you can, think one inside the other547, small yet complete. Well, forget it, just one HUNG will do; they become oneness in there anyway. That way you have the three kayas: the mind that will obtain the buddha level, is the dharmakaya; the first pure exclusive physical being with all the qualities is the sambogakaya; and then the ordinary body without restrictions is the nirmanakaya, the manifestation body, which manifests because the pure body of a buddha is not accessible to all beings, due to their karmic system. After obtaining the nirmanakaya level, one makes offerings, does praises, tastes nectar, says mantras and meditates the subtle development stage. All these are the activity category. These activities correspond to those you do when you are fully enlightened. Those sort of things will be your mission. Those are the things expected from the enlightened beings. You think: 546

I.e. in the intant generation: blue light; in the actual sadhana practice: Manjushri. For the whole process of Manjushri dissolving see page 317. 547 One inside the other: you create one HUM and in its drop [tikle], you generate another HUM.

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Yamantaka teachings Enlightened beings do this and when I become enlightened I would like to do that. At this moment I am not yet enlightened, but I pretend to be enlightened. I pretend to work like enlightened beings, at least I sort of copy and function that way.

You have to remember that a lot of vajrayana practices are copy-cat business. The reason is that in vajrayana, whatever you visualize and do, will be actualized. Actualizing is possible, but not just because you are imagining. You could imagine that you become the king of the universe, but even if you keep on imagining that, you are not going to become the king of the universe. Nor can you imagine and become Napoleon. But if you keep imagining that you are going to be Yamantaka, you are going to become Yamantaka. Why? Because the Yamantaka tantra has been introduced by Buddha and there is such a thing called Yamantaka that functions in the tantra form: in concentration form, in mantra form and in physical form. In Tibetan that is called tingdzin, ngagdang, chakgya – in concentration, in mantra as well as in mudra. Mudra means in activity, in functioning. There is an unbroken lineage and the actual functioning is there; that’s why what you meditate in that way, will materialize. There happened to be a lady in Germany, who had studied this for 15, 20 years with Dagyab Rinpoche, and after a little while she started saying: ‘I keep on saying that I am Vajrayogini, but I am totally lying, I am not Vajrayogini at all’; she developed resistance. That is an obstacle people can go through. But she was not lying. The missing point was that one of the vajrayana qualities is that when you meditate in that way, it actualizes. That angle had been missed. When you don’t realize that it will actualize, you’ll think it is lying and then all these problems will arise. I thought I just should mention that. In short, in the actual practice there are: the beginning actions [tib. dangpo jorwa]; then generating the mandala and the deities [tib. chilkor gyatso]; and then the activities [tib. le gyatso]. We have completed the chilkor gyatsho, the mandala, and we are at the point of the activities. Your commitment may be the shortest sadhana, but sometimes, when you have the time, you should say the long sadhana. If you don’t have time, you can’t help it. But those who have time, should say the long sadhana sometimes. When you read the long sadhana, you begin to know what is going on here. Even though you heard it today and did not get it, after some time you’ll get: ’Oh, yea, that is what it is all about’. That is what happens. [Rinpoche organizes people’s way of sitting during the session, says there should be some discipline: who is sitting where, straight lines, senior people in front and newly joined ones in the back, etc.]. You know, even in the mandala, where there are lots of deities, each one has their own seats and they sit properly, rather than just neither here nor there.

MAKING OFFERINGS ENLIGHTENMENT

AND PRAISES, CORRESPONDING WITH THE ACTIVITIES AFTER

This has four: 1. Making offerings and praise 2. Meditation of the precise and coarse 3. Recollection of the purities 4. Manner of doing recitation

(1) Making offerings and praise When you are saying the sadhana, where are you sitting? Where are you just now? You are in the center of the mandala, in the center of the inconceivable mansion, the zhal ye kang This is the sadhana offering, so you make offerings to yourself as Yamantaka. The self-initiation and the sadhana are two different things. In the sadhana you just visualize the basic mandala and you visualize yourself as the principal deity in the center of the mandala.

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When you take the self-initiation, you generate the complete mandala in front of you, however that mandala is inseparable from you and your mandala. Doesn’t that confuse you? In the case of the self-initiation, you have two mandalas; they become one, you see them as one, but actually they are two. It’s a little complicated. When you have created, invited and dissolved the wisdom mandala, you create another mandala. So there is mandala A and mandala B and each one of them has also a wisdom mandala. So, mandala AA dissolves to mandala A; then you create mandala B and you invite its wisdom mandala548, that is BA; that BA dissolves to B, and finally B dissolves to A, and it remains inseparable within A. You really have four mandalas combined together here, A and AA and B and BA. All come together. Each one of them has the supporting and supported mandala549. Remember, it is like the moon reflection: available wherever there is water. The number is not a problem. The only thing you have to learn is to open your mind. In the self-initiation you have to make offerings to the mandala, therefore you have to go out of the mandala. How you get out of the mandala? You produce a replica or duplicate of yourself and go out of the eastern gate, outside the protection wheel and near the cemetery. From there you look towards the mandala, generate offerings deities from your heart and make offerings to the mandala. I said all this because people who have done or will do the retreat, will be able to do the self-initiation.

Outer offerings550 You generate offering deities – dakinis or dakas – from your heart and make offerings to yourself as Yamantaka. If you like boys better than girls, you can generate boys. If you like girls better than boys, you generate girls. You make the offerings and you accept offerings and you think that you have developed joy. That much we normally do. Again, in the practice of the Thirteen deity Yamantaka you have more here. OM YAMANTAKA ARGHAM PRATICCHA HUNG SVAHA. OM YAMANTAKA PADYAM PRATICCHA HUNG SVAHA. OM YAMANTAKA GANDHE PRATICCHA HUNG SVAHA. OM YAMANTAKA PUSHPE PRATICCHA HUNG SVAHA. OM YAMANTAKA DHUPE PRATICCHA HUNG SVAHA. OM YAMANTAKA ALOKE PRATICCHA HUNG SVAHA. OM YAMANTAKA NAIVIDYA PRATICCHA HUNG SVAHA. OM YAMANTAKA SHABDA PRATICCHA HUNG SVAHA. OM can mean body, mind and speech or it could just mean beginning, or auspiciousness. PRATICCHA means ‘Please accept them separately’. They are separately presented, not mixed like a big soup; that is not considered great. HUNG represents the joyfulness or bliss, the dewa chenpo nature. In reality all these offerings are in the nature of emptiness, blissful, in different shapes, for different purposes and the offerings are made to the different senses, and that will develop joy again. That’s why it is said that: There is nothing impure and there is no newly created joy within the body or mind, but for the accumulation of merit, as my service, I offer this. HUNG represents the nature of reality and SVAHA is laying the foundation. So the mantra means:

By making the offering of blissful nature to you, buddha Yamantaka, may the foundation of the bliss nature be laid within me. S<. The offerings are really one’s own development in the guise of offerings. While making offerings, don’t have ordinary feelings. Remember all is in the nature of emptiness. Give without expectation of return and without doubt. >S. 548

Wisdom mandala: the real supporting and supported mandala you invite, i.e. the wisdom beings and their mandala. For supported and supporting mandala see note 537 on page 335. 550 Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, pg. 83-85. 549

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The OM HRIH SHTRIH HA equals to OM YAMANTAKA ARGHAM PRATICCHA HUNG SVAHA. These are two different words, but they are the same thing. What you are offering, is water for the mouth. Think: All the buddhas are totally pure, therefore there is nothing impure, there is nothing to wash. However, in order to pay respect, in order to complete the devoted action, as a mark of my service, I offer this as washing water. You generate an offering dakini from your heart. Snapping the fingers outwards is the indication of generating the dakini. Snapping them inwards indicates, it is an offering to yourself; if there is only a front generation, you snap your fingers outwards. You also make the lotus mudra, because the dakinis are dancing around. They don’t just go, pick up the water and throw it over. They go in a smooth way, with show and dignity, the good old British upper class way of functioning. They sort of pick up the offering and linger around, not dragging their feet, but with a little bit of show. OM HUNG HUNG PHAT is the same as OM YAMANTAKA PADYAM. You remember this traditional Indian system. The mudra shows holding the feet and pouring the water over them. You think: All buddhas are pure, no doubt, there is nothing impure, but as a mark of respect and service I offer this water to wash your feet. om vikrita nana dustham sattva damaka gah gah is the same as om yamantaka ghande. You offer it with the thought: All the buddhas are totally pure, have perfect morality, therefore you have great smell. You are pure in nature, there is nothing impure, there is no dirt or dust to be cleared, but as a mark of service I like to offer this. S<. When offering ghande, realize that all enlightened beings have a tremendous amount of knowledge, therefore we do not depend on external smell, but we offer the smell of the purity of morality motivated by bodhicitta. The body is completely filled up. As result of this pure morality, you have a beautiful smell. The outside smell is in the nature of illusion. All phenomena are in the nature of illusion. In order to control and have pure morality, you must be free of the dust of attachment. But you offer this to do a service, to accumulate merit. Imagine the goddesses are saying this as they make offerings to oneself as Vajra Bhairava. >S.

Om kumara rupini jah jah hung phat is the same as om yamantaka pushpe. You offer: All the buddhas are pure and rich as the great flower of the thirty-seven wings of the buddhas’ pure activities, so as a mark of respect I offer these flowers. You can make a little bit more detail: I like to offer the flower, which is the activity of the enlightened, the cause of joy, the white flower – referring to the white bodhicitta, that drips from the crown – that sits at the upper part of the central channel, at the crown level. It is the source of joy or bliss, which brings satisfaction to the body of the buddha, and the joy which develops through that, makes its beauty. By melting that flower at the top of the central channel, by its dripping through the central channel, the joy nature develops and that joy itself satisfies the individual and therefore it is beauty. I offer that. S<. The flower offered is a beautiful flower, red blood, rata, picked from the bhaga of the consort by the vajra of the male. >S.

OM HRIH HAH HAI PHAT is the same as OM YAMANTAKA DHUPE. That is not ordinary incense, but the inner fire, at the mandala at the navel level. This fire – the great fire, the tummo fire – helps to melt the bodhicitta from the crown and therefore it is beautiful. The purpose of incense is not only to generate smell; it also generates heat and smoke which correspond to the navel level and to the tummo. S<. Tsongkhapa said that the incense you offer here is the fragrance of kumunda, a night flower. This means the kumunda flower, which blossoms because of the moon, represents white bodhi-

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citta, moon liquid ( kunda), When the white bodhicitta descends, it is burned by tummo fire. We offer the burning smell. >S

Om dipta locana vikritanana maha attatta hasana dim diptaye svaha is the same as om yamantaka aloke. That is the pure light that overpowers the darkness of the ignorance. S<. The light offered is great light. At the center of my heart chakra is the letter HUNG, the place where you actually build the clear light. This light you offer in the center of the HUNG. >S.

Then NAIVIDYA – the food. The food is rich by seven extraordinary qualities: 1) faith; 2) generosity; 3) learning; 4) purity; 5) discipline by using embarrassment, either using oneself or 6) using others as reason; 7) wisdom. Like when you eat food, it satisfies your stomach and you can say: ‘ha’, when you have the seven qualities of the practice, it is satisfying. It brings the uncontaminated joy within the body. Food builds up your body and likewise this practice will build uncontaminated strength within you. That’s what satisfies you and that is how it corresponds with food. S<. The food offered is not ordinary food, but the food of faith, generosity, study, morality, shame, fear of blame, wisdom – the seven wealths or treasures of the aryas. >S.

The external examples of the flowers, the incense and the food are internally respectively the white bodhicitta at the upper part of the central channel, the navel heat and the seven qualities of the practice. Then SHABDA – The music. The ultimate vajrayana, the maha annutara yoga tantra, has as ultimate meaning the wisdom inseparable from bliss and joy. That is its essence message. Such a wisdom appears in the form of beautiful sound, which is the speech of the buddhas. That brings individuals together. People like music; they get together and follow the music. Such a sound brings the message to the people, and leads the people to the essence of the vajrayana. Music gives the message of emptiness. The obstacles, the bad part of attachment, anger, etc., are called du gyi korlo – wheels thrown by the evils. What can overpower them and turn them into the essence of the dharma, is wisdom. The real music is wisdom, its message is wisdom. You can go much deeper into what music really does, but this is briefly it. Think: By offering the music to the buddhas, may we be able to overpower all the evil distractions, in this case the ignorance-distractions. By overpowering those obstacles, may we be able to receive the actual dharmadhatu, the bliss-void nature. And may that be brought to all beings. Outer offerings in the self-initiation practice In the self-initiation sadhana you have something more here: a) you should also offer the five qualities of the five senses551 – the pure body [rupa], sound [shabda], smell [gandhe], taste [rasa] and touch [sparsha] – and the seven precious things. The seven precious things.552 OM YAMANTAKA CHAKRARATNA PRATICCHA HUNG SVAHA – offering of the precious wheel. One of the qualities of the wheel is that it is made of the strongest gold; it is almost like a second sun. Another quality of the wheel is that it can go fast; it can cover like 100 000 miles within a matter of seconds. It can also fly in the air. Because of that power the universal king can take the air roads – like the birds do – and go to the uppermost part of the samsaric level and overpower all non-dharma. I make offerings of such a wheel to you, so that all the sentient beings may be able to enjoy the kingdom and the power of the dharma.553

551

Also see Gelek Rinpoche, Guru devotion, how to integrate the primordial mind, pg. 119. See: Yamantaka Ekavira, materials for Punya House Retreat, pg. 135-136. Literature: Dagyab Rinpoche, Buddhist symbols in Tibetan literature. Ch. 3. 553 These offerings also have their own mudras; Rinpoche showed some of them. 552

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OM VAJRA MANIRATNA PRATICCHA HUNG SVAHA – offering the precious jewel. The jewel should be great, it should be a very shiny. By making the offering of the jewel to you, may I be able to fulfill the wishes of all the sentient beings. OM YAMANTAKA STRIRATNA PRATICCHA HUNG SVAHA – offering the precious queen. The quality of the queen is beauty. It is beauty of mind, thoughts and body. Beauty in smell. The smell comes from the body and from the mouth – good, nice, sweet smell. Wherever you touch, it gives you the best feelings and it also relieves the sufferings of tiredness, thirst and hunger. So she is free of the five faults of a woman and has the eight qualities554. By making the offerings of the queen to you, may all the sentient beings have the great joy of bliss. Next are the minister and then the elephant. The precious elephant has seven limbs: four legs, tail, trunk and scrotum. He is beautiful like a white snow mountain. He has the strength of a thousand elephants. His power enables him to go round the world three times a day. He is more intelligent than a horse. He walks calmly without shaking the body, so the rider won’t fall off. He also has the power to overpower the obstacles. Such an elephant I offer to you. This is an example of mahayana Buddhism. The mahayana teachings are able to deliver beings in such a smooth, yet powerful and stable way. Then there are the precious horse and the precious general. The recommended color for the general is black. S<. It is important to do the mudras and if you have vajra and bell, make music. It is customary to say Sangwa dupa (Guhyasamaja) verses here which cover in detail . >S.

Inner offering S<. Though we have made the blessing before, we bless the inner offering again, because it has been used. One can say the mantras and do a short skull cup visualization, but this is not necessary. The method of offering with the ring finger and thumb is symbolic. The ring finger is the mountain; the thumb is the ocean. The mountain picks up water from the ocean. This is not an ordinary mountain, but the mountain of great method and the ocean is the ocean of wisdom. The ring finger represents the male vajra, the thumb represents the female bhaga. The interaction between them represents the essence of the interaction of the vajra and bhaga and that is offered. >S.

You have blessed the offerings earlier, now you offer to the root- and lineage masters; in the sadhana you have their names. OM, I make the inner offering: To he who is ‘the essence collected into one’ of the body, speech, mind, qualities and activity of all the Tathagathas of the three times and ten directions who is the source of all the eighty-four thousand categories of the teachings and who is the sovereign of the entire, exalted Spiritual Community: To my most kind and precious Root Guru, OM AH HUNG. The first offering goes to the root guru, inseparable from buddha Yamantaka. That is the most important one. In reality you offer the bliss-and-void nature of the five nectars and the five meats that are purified, transformed and multiplied. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche always said: The inner offering is so powerful that, if you pour it into the mouth of a corpse of a person who died seven days ago, even then it has the power to revive him. 554

To be found in: Dagyab Rinpoche, Buddhist symbols in Tibetan literature. Ch. 3.

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That sort of nectar you offer first to the root guru. You have the inner offering in front of you, you pick up the skull-cup and carry it up to the crown level. The mudra of the inner offering is: [you join the tips of the thumb and the ring finger of the left hand and stir the inner offering counter-clockwise three times]555. There are two ways of interpreting it: a) If you think of the inner offering as of the ocean and of the ringfinger as a mountain, the mountain bows down, picks up the essence from the ocean and throws it up. b) The ringfinger represents the vajra and the thumb represents the lotus – get the message? It is the vajra joining in the lotus and making offerings of the essence of it. By sprinkling with the left hand you make offerings to the root guru. So you offer to the guru from the highest level of your body. You don’t really have to touch the inner offering over here and throw it all over and make a mess. You cannot reach into the ocean and throw, nor can you reach into the lotus and throw – it is visualization. S<. The root guru sits at the heart of Vajra Bhairava’s Mikyopa, which is in front of the red face, surrounded [clockwise] by the lineage masters. Pick up the skull cup with your right hand and flick it for each one. First flick once to the side to test it like a cook would. The root tantra says to take an ocean drop by the mountain. The absolute nature of bliss-void is in the form of the different offerings. Three times round inner offering: male vajra enters the female bhaga three times and takes the essence, but we don’t do this. >S.

The lineage masters are lesser than the root master, therefore you bring the inner offering down to the forehead level and offer to all the lineage masters: To the mighty and glorious Bhagavan Vajra Bhairava, OM AH HUNG. To the Wisdom Dakini, OM AH HUNG. To the Lalitavajra, OM AH HUNG. To Amoghavajra, OM AH HUNG. To Jananakaragupta, OM AH HUNG. To Padmavajra, OM AH HUNG. To Dipamkararakshita, OM AH HUNG. To Ra Lotzawa Dorjedrak, OM AH HUNG. To Ra Choerab, OM AH HUNG. To Ra Yeshe Senge, OM AH HUNG. to Ra Bum Senge, OM AH HUNG. To Jetsun Galo, OM AH HUNG. To Ronpa Sherab Senge, OM AH HUNG. To Lama Yeshe Pelwa, OM AH HUNG. To Dondrub Rinchen, OM AH HUNG. To Je Tsongkhapa, OM AH HUNG. To Kedrup Gelek Pelzangpo, OM AH HUNG. To Jetsun Sherab Senge, OM AH HUNG. To Pelden Zangpo, OM AH HUNG. To Jamyang Gendun Pelwa, OM AH HUNG. To Tashi Pakpa, OM AH HUNG. To Samdrub Gyatso, OM AH HUNG. To Tsomdrub Pakpa, OM AH HUNG. To Dorje Zangpo, OM AH HUNG. To Sangye Gyatso, OM AH HUNG. To Panchen Losang Chokyi Gyeltsen, OM AH HUNG. To Konchok Gyeltsen, OM AH HUNG. To Panchen Losang Yeshe, OM AH HUNG. To Lozang Kelszang Gyatso, OM AH HUNG. To Rolpai Dorje, OM AH HUNG. To Ngawang Tsultrim, OM AH HUNG. To Jangchub Chopel, OM AH HUNG. To Drakri Losang Chojor Gyatso, OM AH HUNG. To Lingtrul Losang Lungtok Tenzin Trinlay, OM AH HUNG. To Kyenrab Tenpa Chopel, OM AH HUNG. To Dechen Nyingpo, OM AH HUNG. To Dorjechang Tubten Longtok Namgyel Trinlay Pelzangpo, OM AH HUNG. To my all-kind Root Guru Ngawang Gelek Rinpoche, OM AH HUNG. Then you offer to all the other gurus who are not in your lineage, but who have given you initiations and teachings. To them you offer from the throat level556: Also the Lamas who have given me empowerments, tantric discourses and pith instructions, as well as to all of the Lamas in their lineages, OM AH HUNG 555 556

Ref. Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret. In: Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 84 Mouth or throat.

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Then from the heart level you offer to Yamantaka and all other deities of the four tantras: OM YAMANTAKA HUNG PHAT, OM AH HUNG And to the assembly of Yidams of the Four Great Classes of Tantra, OM AH HUNG Now the dharma protectors. That are those who have seen Buddha and have heard the dharma from the Buddha. These are their qualities. So, from the navel level you offer to the Dharma king Chogyal, to all other dharma protectors, to all the dakas and dakinis and to all other protectors: To Dharmaraja and his entourage, OM AH HUNG. To all the sworn guardians who protect the Dharma, OM AH HUNG. To all the Dakas, Yoginis, Direction Protectors, Realm Protectors, Nagas and so forth, who reside in the Twenty-four Regions, the Thirty-two Places and the Eight Great Cemeteries, OM AH HUNG. To all the land lords and all other sentient beings you offer from your knee level: To the local deities of natural sites and to all beings as deities, OM AH HUNG. The teaching traditions differ [in the way of making the inner offering]. In Tsongkhapa’s tradition you don’t make a big show out of it. Whether it is doing the mudras or holding the inner offering, you keep your hands together while you make the offering. Tsongkhapa always emphasized that mudras are in order to generate development and not for show bizz. Other traditions make the hands go far apart from each other, but Tsongkhapa criticizes that: it is making show bizz and also it is getting wisdom and method separated. The right hand represents method and the left wisdom. Combining them together makes them inseparable, the union. So, Tsongkhapa says not to separate the two hands too much. But, nothing is wrong with the other traditions; whatever they do is what they do, and you follow whatever you follow. S<. Offer to all sentient beings who are in the form of Vajra Bhairava at the knee level. >S.

All Buddhas of the ten directions are invited. They enter into my body. OM HRIH SHTRIH VIKRITANANA HUNG PHAT. OM AH HUNG. OM AMRITA SVADANA VAJRA SVABHAVA ATMAKO HAM Here you think that all the buddhas are invited and they dissolve into you. Then you take a drop of nectar .

Secret offering The secret offering is not mentioned in the sadhana. In the case of the Solitary Hero Yamantaka, it is the offering of the dakini, the consort. The consort is not an ordinary consort. In the case of the Solitary Hero Yamantaka, Aksobhya’s consort, Mamaki, is borrowed. The Thirteen-deity Yamantaka has a consort, called Vajra Zombini. Such a consort has all the qualities of beauty. She has the sixteen-y ear look and also knows the sixty-four arts of love. Such a consort is in reality in the nature of emptiness, and in physical appearance youthful, beautiful, kind, rich in bodily and mental qualities both. There are levels of consorts or dakinis: field-born, mantra-born and simultaneously-born. A simultaneously born dakini is a fully enlightened being, a mantra-born dakini is at the level of the completion stage, a field-born dakini is at least at the level of the development stage. Whether male or female, they are fit to be consorts. So you are making the offering of the consort here. The Solitary Hero practice does not mention the union directly, but in the practice of the Thirteen deity Yamantaka, Heruka, Vajrayogini and all these others, you have the union here. It is union meditated with a qualified consort, male or female and yourself in the form of the deity. In this case it is a male deity, so the consort is female.

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The union happens at the levels of the chakras: the head chakra is in union with the head chakra, the throat chakra is in union with the throat chakra, the heart chakra is in union with the heart chakra, the navel chakra in union with the navel chakra and the secret chakra is in union with the secret chakra The head chakra is called the bliss-holding chakra, because the bliss comes from there. The throat chakra is called enjoyment chakra, the heart chakra is called dharma chakra, the navel chakra is called manifestation chakra and the secret-organ chakra is called secret chakra557. The union is: the chakras are in union, the mantras are in union and the bodies are in union. (That much is enough, because the

subtle development meditation, I’ll hope to do this afternoon, will have a little more detail on this.558 I just introduce this here at this level.) The actual secret offering is the joy, the bliss that develops because of the consort. The union with the consort develops bliss, and that bliss you offer. That is the secret offering.

Suchness offering Not only you make the offering of bliss. The bliss-natured mind focuses on the nature of emptiness – perceiving, observing, digesting the emptiness. Offering that bliss [conjoined with emptiness] is called suchness offering. By making these offerings, you are accumulating tremendous amounts of merit. This is one of the best ways to accumulate merit during our ordinary level, the base level, as well as during the path level, because the supreme field to whom you are offering is an extraordinary field, the offerings you are making are extraordinary offerings, and its purpose is to bring extraordinary joy to the body and mind of the individual. What the offerings should be free of There are a couple of things here one should be free of. 1) You should not have doubt about whether you can or can not offer this and whether this will or will not be pure enough. When you have made those offerings, you have to accept that the person has accepted your offering. Not only accepted it, but that it has brought great joy. Not only has it brought great joy, but that joy has fully satisfied the object to whom you offered. 2) One should not have ordinary perception and conception of whatever the offerings are. 3) One should not be making offerings for selfish reasons like ‘It may help me to clear my obstacles, it may help me to improve my business, it may help me to get better’– all this sort of personalized agenda; you don’t want that. 4) Looking at the offerings as in nature empty, makes all previous three perfect.

Praise559 O, Manjushri! Your being is non-dual, exclusive and all-pervading. By acting equally toward all, you are the Father of all Conquerors. As the Dharmadhatu, you are the Mother of all Conquerors. As a Wisdom Being, you are the Child of all Conquerors. I prostrate myself to you, O Manjushri, who is complete in glory. Although in Dharmakaya neither love nor hate is found, through the enactment of your compassion the presence of a King of Furies is revealed to subdue all evils in the triple world. I prostrate myself to Bhairava Yamantaka, 557

Head: bliss-holding chakra, dechen-gyi korlo; throat: chakra of enjoyment, longchö-kyi korlo; heart: dharma chakra, chö-kyi korlo; navel: manifestation chakra, tul-pey korlo and the secret-organ chakra is called secret chakra 558 No more details on this taught. 559 Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, pg. 85-91.

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Yamantaka teachings the Terrifying Opponent of the Lord of Death. (One should pause here and perform examination meditation….560.)

The words at three different levels, the inseparability of Manjushri father, mother and son, all this I explained in the beginning of the teachings561. What does making praises do? As I told you earlier, on the base level as well as on the path level, we accumulate merit by it. On the result level, when you manifest your mandala for the benefit of others, at that time you will be providing the basis for your disciples to accumulate merit by giving praise. In the mandala the retinue praises the principal and sometimes the principal praises the retinue. When you have become fully enlightened, you are providing the basis for your disciples to accumulate merit by providing them a base for praise. Also you praise some disciples, give pep talks to them, which will help them to create the karmic cause to be able to do that later themselves. These things you do by praising.

(2) Meditation of the precise and coarse This is the actual meditation of the development stage. It is divided into: the gross and the subtle development stage meditation.

The gross development stage meditation562 Why are we meditating this? It is a practice. On what do we practice? On our life, death, bardo and rebirth. You want to give yourself a training, for what to do at death, a training for the bardo and a training for taking rebirth. Not only do you want to train for these major parts of life, you also want to substitute death, bardo and rebirth by developing the example and the actual clear light, the impure and the pure illusion body and the union; not the ultimate union, but the lobey zung juk – the union you still have to develop further, the union that still needs learning more, a sort of secondary union. Then still one is not satisfied and still does the same practice. Ultimately you want to achieve the mind of a fully enlightened being, which is the dharmakaya, and the extraordinary bodies of a fully enlightened being, which are the sambogakaya and the nirmanakaya. So, first you want to train; second by training you want to substitute [death, bardo and rebirth] and third you want to make that perfect. After training well, when you know the ins and outs, you don’t want to go really through the death, you don’t want to go really through the bardo and the rebirth; you want to cheat them and substitute them. The way you do that is with the two clear lights and the two illusion bodies. Thus you are able to gain control over death, bardo and rebirth. That is still not sufficient, you want perfection. What perfection? The fully enlightened mind which is called dharmakaya, the fully enlightened extraordinary body with the five qualities, the enjoyment body or sambogakaya, and still not satisfied with that, the nirmanakaya, the manifestation body, so that you can manifest for whatever you want to do. Can you do that? Yes, you can, but you need a completion stage practice for that. However, you cannot practice the completion stage without this [gross and subtle development stage practice]. It is not that somebody made a rule, which says you cannot practice it, but it does not work that way. This development stage practice is the basis without which you cannot work. Purpose of the development stage When we talk about vajrayana, you understand half; half is not understood. If I talk about Lam Rim to this group, you get a good understanding; if I talk about vajrayana to you, you have a half understand560

See the sadhana. See page 30. 562 Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, pg. 92-95. 561

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ing. And if I talk about Lam Rim to the Tuesday group, they will understand half of it, and if I would talk about vajrayana to them, they wouldn’t understand anything, they couldn’t make head or tail out of it. Just like that, if you don’t have the development stage worked out, it will not make any sense at all to talk to you about the completion stage. That’s why the development stage is needed. It provides the foundation for the completion stage practice. Not only that, it helps to ripen the karma to pick up the completion stage. Without having this one done, the karma to get the completion stage will not open. No matter whatever you do, it will not go into your head. Because of this development stage practice, it works through when you meditate dzok rim, the completion stage. That is the major purpose. Then another purpose. What does this meditation do? It works against ordinary perceptions and conceptions. It is called ta mel gyi nang she563. Nangwa means appearance and shepa means conception564. This means ordinary perception and conception; whatever appears to you, you take it that way. How does this work? By meditating the mandala and meditating yourself in the deity’s form – your body as vajra body, your mind as vajra mind and your speech as vajra speech – the ordinary appearance gets overpowered, and by building the pride of the deity the ordinary conception gets shaken. The pride as deity will not let you perceive and conceive yourself as an ordinary being. Right? At the same time, it will shake the very ground of the ego. I repeatedly told you, ego provides us with the fundamental basis on which we build all our emotions. That gets shaken very well. After some time you may really feel how groundless it is. You may even feel that there is nothing that can really hurt you, that even if somebody shoots you, the bullet will go through. Up to that level you go. It really shakes you a lot! The solidity of the ‘I’ really goes. So the worries like: ‘I don’t know how they are perceiving me, what they are saying about me. Are they going to hurt me, are they going to accept me, reject me…’ won’t have a base any longer; the red carpet will be removed from under their feet completely. Chemically it sometimes comes to that level, too. I shared that story which Ram Dass told several times. He saw arrows coming out of the mouth of his brother opposite him at the dinner table and instead of the arrows touching him he picked them up on the way and put them on his plate565. That was due to chemicals, but meditatively you can bring it up to the level that nothing can hurt you. Basically what happens in love and compassion? We repeatedly said that you meditate love and compassion until attacks do not hurt you – that is the lowest level. The medium level is when people cannot harm you. As the best level, an example of Buddha is given: all weapons became flowers. On that level, love/compassion has become the method; there won’t be any harming at all. Milarepa said: If you keep on worrying, if you keep entertaining your ego, then even while sitting and meditating in an empty house, you still have many thieves coming and harming you.

Actually you have nothing to lose, but you create problems by worrying so much. And if you keep on worrying, there are always more problems. For example, if at night you keep on thinking that there is something coming out of the closet, then if somebody is walking through the house and the floor makes a noise, you will get more scared. And then there will be more threatening noises. If you keep on thinking: ‘There is nothing, it is in the nature of reality and that is totally empty, so what is this?’ then nothing will come, you know. Audience: If you meditate on nothing harming you.... Rinpoche: You don’t meditate on nothing harming you, no. Audience: It is the result of the meditation on love and compassion. Rinpoche: That’s right. If you keep on thinking that nothing can harm you, then that’s neither a meditation on love/compassion, nor a meditation on emptiness; it is nothing. 563

Commentary Rinpoche: ‘I use this word here, because even Trungpa Rinpoche’s people, with that sort of very good English they have, are using it. Either they chose not to translate them, or there is no proper correspondence in English. Whatever the reason might be, they are using those Tibetan words. In the mahamudra the tamel gi shepa is different. 564 Rinpoche says appearance and perceiving. For the reasons of changing this, see the Acknowledgments. Shepa is also found to be translated as (ordinary) belief, and as attitude. 565 The story is to be found in: Gelek Rinpoche, Love and Compassion, at the paramita of wisdom.

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Audience: When you are doing this love and compassion, part of the result is.... it just seems that it would have a lot to do with our ego. Rinpoche: That’s what we are saying. When you meditate on the shaky ground of the being, it will cut the ego. Audience: It is not that easy. Rinpoche: Who said it is easy? Nobody said it is easy. The gross or coarse development meditation is what you have done up to here: from the beginning of the OM SVABHAVA SHUDDHA SARVA DHARMA up to the blessing of the senses, that is the gross development practice. It is not different from the sadhana. Ordinary perception and conception [tib. tamel gyi nangwa and tamel-gyi shepa]566 The commentary says: ‘What is ordinary perception [tib. tamel gyi nangwa]?’ They give you an example. When you sit down by yourself and you think about me, you will appear just as an ordinary being – young, fat, thin, old, whatever – and then you acknowledge that as me. This is what is called ordinary appearance. By thinking continuously: ‘I am a full-fledged Yamantaka’ the ordinary thinking of ’Who am I’, the normal perception, will be shaken. You’ll begin to wonder: ‘Who am I? Am I Yamantaka or what?’ That already is shaking the ordinary appearance. So by meditating yourself as a pure being, you cut down the ordinary appearance a lot. We know that. Just the very short period of one or two years that you people are saying that sadhana, has made a difference. If you think: ‘Who am I?’, the perception will be different from a few years ago – even now, at this very minute. Even those of you who have been saying the sadhana with half, with ten or even with only one percent understanding, will find that if they think about this, their ordinary appearance has been shaken. It is a big difference to somebody in the street. So, when you meditate the sadhana, when you see yourself as a deity and keep on doing it, you block this idea of thinking yourself to be an ordinary being, completely. That is the clarity part. What is conception [tib. tamel-gyi shepa]? That is: as you appear you think. ‘I am this ordinary person who is full of delusions and who made this whole big mess, who has gone wrong here, made a mistake there…’; that whole wrong thing, is what you conceive. So much so, that sometimes you really don’t want yourself, because you are in such a mess. To that extent pushing through is the actual conception. Audience: Like a low self-esteem? Rinpoche: Beyond that level, beyond that. In order to block that, you develop the pride of the deity. The ordinary idea you block completely; you meditate yourself as and build the pride that you are totally faultless, fully enlightened actual Yamantaka, totally full of qualities. That is how the sadhana works against the ordinary perception and conception. Another question may come up: Am I cheating myself? Am I bluffing? I told you before, if you say, ’I am not Yamantaka yet’, it is true, you are not Yamantaka yet. But by meditating yourself in this form, it is going to become actualized one day. It is going to take time, no doubt. Nobody said it is going to happen tomorrow or next week or next month or next year. No doubt it is hard, and no doubt it will take time, but you will become it, so it is not cheating or bluffing. The most important thing is how you generate yourself. You are putting yourself in the process of emptiness. It is not taking emptiness as an external phenomenon, but taking the emptiness within yourself, using the stage of the death. At the death stage it is very easy for us to see ‘I am gone, I am not 566

Tamel gyi nangwa is translated as ordinary perception, ordinary appearances; tamel-gyi shepa is translated as conception, ordinary belief or ordinary attitude.

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there’. Because we went through the process, our rational mind can easily take that. That is why we are using that particular process to introduce ourselves more to the emptiness. Through the procedure of the emptiness you shook yourself completely, you melted and made ‘yourself’ into something different. It is almost like milk being shaken and becoming butter; the whole procedure has to be gone through, otherwise the milk will not become butter. By the procedure of shaking, the milk will change, the liquid milk will change into semi-solid butter etc. We can see that. Similar with ourselves: your solid ego has been completely shaken, has been put through this procedure, and you came out as a pure being. That makes the whole difference. You perceive yourself as Yamantaka and that also as yang la rang shin me ba – in nature it does not exist. You are not losing the idea of emptiness, the wisdom: appearing, yet in nature it does not exist. Those of you who are new in vajrayana, may not get it just now. But don’t worry about it; try to get at least one or two percent. Even that much will help you. The yoga of the vast and the profound You are perceiving yourself as Yamantaka. You are appearing as Yamantaka, yet in the nature of reality it is emptiness. Then what is the appearance of Yamantaka? It is bliss-void inseparable nature. That is may be one step beyond our level just now, but that’s how it works. It is, again, meditating and giving training to your mind, let your mind get used to it, let your mind pick it up and get comfortable with that. Once we have become used to it, the gross level we have now, will be shaken and will lose more and more. Then try to make it as clear as possible. In the beginning there is no clarity. If you just now try to see yourself as Yamantaka, what do you get? Some kind of little blue figure, or even only a blue line, nothing more. That much is good enough. And you may not even get that. Others may have some funny face or something. That depends on the level of the people. Wherever you are, try to make it as clear as possible, try to get the clarity, because pride and clarity are the two keys to build up that Yamantaka. That is called vast practice. The moment you bring the wisdom in, it becomes deep or profound practice. So it is vast and deep combined, inseparable; sabsel nyiese meba neljor – the yoga of the vast and the profound. What is this meditation focused on? It focuses on the deity’s image and tries to bring clarity and pride. What aspect do you have? The aspect of emptiness. Bringing these together is sabsel nyime, the profound and clear yoga. That’s what you meditate. How does one bring more clarity? By getting used to it. Get your mind and what you meditate closer and closer and let them touch as much as possible. It is almost like study. When you get used to it, you learn it. Ultimately, your mind which is meditating and yourself in the form of the yidam, sort of mix together, so that you may not be able to separate them much. When that is the case, you are achieving something. To bring the pride goes the same way. Instead of focusing, you keep on reminding yourself all the time: ‘This is me, the Yamantaka, this is me, the Yamantaka’, and then sometimes, if somebody asks you what your name is, you may say: ‘I am Yamantaka’ – that is a joke. Then you think of the emptiness within that and that is the ultimate analytical meditation. The purpose of that is to find the nature of reality; that you add up on top of this clarity and pride. When you have got them together: perceiving yourself as Yamantaka – the clarity – , acknowledging that as ‘me’ – the pride – and the nature of the emptiness, then hold that. That is the concentrated meditation. Analyzing that, like: ‘Yamantaka is blue, but that blue is a little darker or lighter’, also trying to build the appearance and the acknowledgment – all that is analytical meditation. You don’t have to dismantle it and see what is in there, you don’t have to go that far; this already is analytical meditation. Then you hold that together; that will be the concentrated meditation. The combination of that will deliver the goods. This is the tool for the individual; when you are doing your sadhana, – not only your sadhana! – when you are doing the development and completion stage, this is your tool. From the be-

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ginning of the sadhana, where you say: ‘I, the Solitary Hero Yamantaka; light rays from my heart invite the supreme field’ onwards from there, doing these things together is the tool. Clarity and stability When you focus on that, and you can hold that, it is called ne cha, stability. As long as your mind is not thinking something else, you do have stability on that. The moment your mind is thinking something else, you have lost the stability. So what do you do? You bring it back. Even in Lam Rim you are told the same thing: bring it back. Say you have that blue-black Yamantaka and you think about it, but it is not clear; it’s some kind of unclear, blue-black thing, almost like laundry water. That means: while having a little bit of stability, you don’t have any clarity, so you have to work for the clarity. So you build stability and clarity together. In Lam Rim, during the zhine, they tell you the same thing: you hold the buddha image – that may be a yellow lump – and when that becomes some funny thing, you are losing the clarity on it. It is all very similar, there is no new technique here, you have to bring the things you learned back in here. Also, the problems you face are the same: the wandering and the sinking mind. When you do have the clarity and stability – you see the face, the eyes, the horns etc. – but you don’t have the tightness, the closeness or sharpness, then it is dull. When that is happening, then it is not meditation, it is shi wa, the sinking mind. That is not an achievement; it is a problem. So you have to build up the sharpness. And when you build it up high, the problem of wandering mind will come. It is a problem of high and low, and that is a problem even in our normal life. Either you are high and you fly or you go deep down and get depressed. Even in our everyday life we know that. In the meditation level, it is the same thing. Sinking mind is deep depression, and wandering mind is being too high. That high and low, that bumpy thing, is not good. You have to bring it from the lower level up and from the high level down to the medium level. Basically you learn that in Lam Rim and everybody who teaches meditation, will tell you the same thing. So here the purpose is: to develop clarity and stability as long as you can, without losing the sharpness of mind. That is the whole work you do. In the beginning your meditation/visualization will not be nice and stable. It will be like putting a nail in a wet mud pile: it will go everywhere. But it is okay; that is the beginning. That is how you meditate

How to do the meditation of the gross development stage How to meditate on the mandala – building up Meditation on the gross development level, that is from the beginning of the sadhana – from the air mandala onwards – building everything up. If you really do that, you build the air mandala first, and until that is absolutely stable, you don’t want to add up the fire mandala. And you don’t want to add up the water mandala until you are quite clear on the air and the fire mandala. It is really building one on top of the other. Likewise you build up the earth mandala without losing the air-, fire- and water mandala. And before you have properly built up the element mandalas, you don’t want to build up the vajra ground, fence and all this – the common protection wheel. When you have made the vajra fence and roof, make sure you are not losing the ground. Likewise the uncommon protection wheel, likewise the mandala, likewise the seed of Yamantaka, i.e. Manjushri, and likewise then Yamantaka. All this you gradually build up without losing the earlier parts. Every single point on top of the previous ones, that is how the gross development stage is built. To help you, you say the sadhana. How to meditate on the mandala – looking round If you have time, you go out from the basic principal yidam, and you look around. (I do not know whether I can say that yet here or not.) How do you do it? From the concentration being HUNG at your heart you yourself step out as a little tiny vajra. When you look back you will see that big HUNG standing there and when you look around, you see you are at the center of the heart chakra. When you look

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up you will see your throat chakra with its three main channels and the knots and the linkage of all this. (I am not sure whether everybody could do that yet or not, but still, we may just go through this.) Light radiates from this little vajra and fills up all the channels and you look through them. If you watch the ‘Star trek’, you see they sometimes go to these upper layers, where when something has gone wrong with the machine to try to repair it. They crawl through the tubes with a the torch light and you see them coming through. Likewise you are here at the center of the heart chakra and the light goes out from the little vajra, i.e. you, and sees through the whole thing and you just observe everything. When you look up, you see the throat chakra, you jump up to the center of the throat chakra and you look through all these different nadis. The whole nadi system will be given at the completion stage, not now. But you can look through them. Then you as tiny little vajra go up to the head chakra, come out through a nostril and sit on the big nose of the Yamantaka. You may set up a little camp on there. Then you look up and you’ll see that huge Yamantaka face with the big eyes looking over. (You know, If you [a particular person in the audience] are hugging Jim, you’ll see that. That’s what reminds me of this all the time – joke). So you see the whole Yamantaka face. You jump to the left and see the other faces, go to the right and see the other faces, you jump up and see the red face and you jump up more and see the Manjushri face. Like that you can see the whole Yamantaka. You remember what we did in the Tara meditation with the six realms?567 Very similar to that you now go through the mandala. Even if you don’t go through the mandala in detail, you still see the big room, you see the blue walls inside; you go through the door, step out and see the courtyard; you go out and see the triangular reality source, go out of that and see the uncommon protection wheel, go out of that and see the common protection wheel, go out the vajra fence and see the fire, go out further and see the cemeteries and all the outside environment. Then via the fire and the vajra fence you come back towards the inside. This exercise will help to build up concentration on the complete mandala. Until you get used to it, it is going to be a hell of a difficulty,. Once you get used to it, it will become very easy; you can do it in a matter of seconds. You may not be able to build up the clarity within the mandala itself, but somehow you get used to the whole picture. If you are saying the long sadhana very slowly, you can build that up. That level of the individual is called the layman’s practice568. We may break this practice into a million different pieces, we may do one piece this day and another that day and still we may not be able to link them together; all these sort of things are a common problem. Practicing with individual pieces is not particularly bad. If you still have a difficulty to develop this, you may like not to do the Yamantaka with nine faces and so many hands, but just the Yamantaka with one face and two hands, like in the instantaneous rise Yamantaka. That is okay. And once you have built that up, you may like to build up the red head and then the Manjushri head, and that way you gradually go further. If you still have great difficulties getting it clear you may follow the advice of the earlier teachers. They gave an example: if no matter how much you try to meditate – even only on one face or just the central eye – you still have no clarity, then it is like having a huge Yamantaka image in a room without light; you may see nothing, but you know it is there. If that case of no clarity at all, the traditional masters recommend to meditate in a room with the window facing let’s say to the east, and an image or tangka put just opposite the window. Early in the morning when the sun rises, you meditate on that. Then you put a big bowl of water in front of you and a mirror at your back, and that way firstly you will be able to see the image clearly here in front of you, and secondly it will be reflected through the mirror and thirdly the mirror’s reflection is reflected in the water bowl in front of you. So, rather than looking at the image itself, you can watch the reflection in the water bowl and concentrate on that, because it is moving, so it has some life. See it and concentrate and then close your eyes for a little while and project 567 568

See Gelek Rinpoche, Healing and Self-healing through White Tara, Ch. V, med. 5. Or first-level activity or beginner’s practice. Literature on the four levels of this: D. Cozort, Highest yoga tantra, pg. 52-54; Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Tantric grounds and paths, pg. 102-103.

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a little more. It helps you to build up concentration as well as wisdom: you can see it and it’s not there, both of them. The Amdo lamas even recommend to hang a knife over your meditation seat. (Amdo people play with swords a lot). Then you watch that reflection and as you will be afraid of the knife falling on you, you won’t go to sleep. So whatever it takes you, do it and meditate. When you meditate like this a little bit, then at the beginning you’ll have a big problem to bring to your mind’s eye even just a single little part. At the end you may be able to bring all pieces together a little bit. At that time you have to make up your mind very strongly and tell yourself that the whole mandala is a pure environment and you yourself are Yamantaka in the mandala. Very strongly you meditate that. Out of clarity and pride, which one is more important? The pride, the acknowledgment. With regard to the mandala you have to make up your mind to see that: it is the pure mansion of an enlightened being, all the deities are faultless, each having their qualities, and it is the ultimate development. Your body is the ultimate body and your speech is the ultimate speech and your mind is the actual mind of the yidam itself. You make that decision; you don’t give any room to doubt and you concentrate. If you can concentrate without any break for four hours, then you are transferred from the lay person level to the second step, the step called obtaining little blessings. We are not thinking about the sense deities and all that, just the three big eyes, just that level. If you add the sense deities it is even more difficult. I think we have to leave it here. There is no point of going beyond that. This is all gross development stage.

The subtle development stage569 Now the purpose of the subtle development stage. The subtle development stage meditation has the extraordinary power to overpower the wandering and the sinking mind. It is the same as you have heard in the Lam Rim. By cutting down the wandering and the sinking mind, what do you gain? Stabilization. Extending this meditative stabilization on whatever object, will bring you the shamata level [tib. zhine]. You got the message of this meditation in the Lam Rim, but if you bring the practice over here, doing it the vajrayana way, then because of the vajrayana influence it works faster and better and it cuts through the ego as well. That’s why it is recommended to bring the concentration meditation in over here, rather than doing it at the Lam Rim level. Not only that. In the completion stage, there are what is called the three quietnesses570, quietness of the body, of the mind and of the speech, or sound actually. Doing this meditation here will connect you to the karma that will be able to open the quietness of the body. It is the key to that.

How to do the meditation of the subtle development stage The method of cutting the wandering and the gross sinking is very simple, actually. If you have a lot of sinking mind, you meditate the subtle development stage at the upper nostril point. You have to remember that the three channels – central, left and right – are the basic root of all functioning. In the phowa practice you end the central channel at the crown, but basically the central channel comes down over [the crown] a little bit and ends at the third eye. The central channel as thick as a straw, a pencil or an arrow, greenish-bluish from the outside, more reddish from the inside and straight. We call it a psychic channel. When doctors operate, they won’t see it, so they’ll draw the conclusion that it is not there, but it is there. It’s not just a mysterious psychic channel, it is supposed to be actually there, slightly at the back of the body and hooking down over the head. Meditating many duplicate vajras 569 570

Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, pg. 95-96. Also called isolated body, speech, mind. Literature: Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Clear light of bliss.

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At the end of the central channel, inside the nasal cavity – called upper nostrils – you generate a very clear, nice, shiny, very small vajra, [the size of a mustard seed, blue]. It has come out from [the concentration being HUNG at the heart, and gone to the upper tip of the channel of the root face] and there you concentrate571. You try to make that vajra as clear as possible. When it is clear, you replicate one more, two, then three, then four….. See to how far you can go. Generating them is easy. The difficulty comes in when you absorb them again, because you have to do it in the same order as you generated them. You can also do it from one to two, two to four, four to eight etc. But if you do so, the eight must without any mistake go back to the same four they were generated from, the four must go back to the two without any mistake, the two back to the one without any mistake, and that one must go back to the original vajra without any mistake. Keep on doing this. First you may go as far as to cover the nostril level, then you may be able to cover the whole face, then maybe you cover the whole body, then maybe the whole room. Without making any mistake you generate these vajras and collect them back at the higher part of the central channel. Doing this will keep you away from the sinking mind. You’ll not fall asleep or get into depression; it will keep you away from that. When you have overcome the depression, you go back to the major mandala building572. That is gross and subtle [development stage meditation], combined together. The subtle meditation of playing with these little vajras, helps you to get away from the sinking mind and once you are clear, you focus again on the gross development stage. Then the danger is the wandering mind. If you have too much of a wandering mind, you have to take the tiny vajra down to the lower point of the central channel. In the Solitary Hero Yamantaka practice that is easy, because the sex organ is outside. You focus at the tip of the sex organ’s hole; not exactly at the outside of the phallus, but a little deeper in there. It is a problem, when you have union with a consort. This particular book, written in the sixteenth century, says that during the union the male’s lower channel point is inside the female’s organ. It says that the actual joining part at the end of the female central channel is not what is normally known as cha le, the sensitive area or clitoris; it can either be deeper than or a little outside of that. So this sixteenthcentury Tibetan book is telling there is another sensitive spot – which we probably nowadays call g-spot – beyond the clitoris point, which can be internal or external, and which is the actual end of the central channel; both males and females have it. So, the joining point of the two central depends on the sensitive angles of male and female both, which means there may be a g-spot for males too. Whatever it is, that joining point is the point where you generate a tiny little vajra. That goes into two, two into four etc. and they are collected back again in the same way. Though this is the Yamantaka Solitary Hero and drawings and statues do not have a consort, the raised organ gives you the hint that there is union, that there is a consort. It not necessarily has to be a physical consort, it can be a mental consort. The reason for the consort is that attachment or desire is taken as a path [during the completion stage]. In short, the subtle development stage basically is the duplication of the vajra, either at the upper end or at the lower end of the central channel and you acknowledging the vajra as deity. The vajra you generated at the end of the central channel is called the original vajra. That original vajra stays and the duplicates – one, two, three, four, five, etc. – go outside and then come back. When you do it, after four or five you get completely confused about which one has to go back where. Therefore, you first emanate two and dissolve them back to the original vajra, then you emanate three and get them back and then four and if you have not made a mistake on four, you can go on to six or seven. That’s, I believe, how it will gradually work. 571

Turn of tape. The missing information has been filled in according to Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret. Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 95. 572 See page 354.

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The same goes for the lower opening of the central channel; even if you are in union, the duplicate vajras have to find their way out. You have to remember, they are in the nature of light. After you have generated them, they come back and dissolve back to the heart. In the vajrayana system everything you generate from the heart level, you collect back, you don’t let it stay out there. Another problem is that you as the principal have to think that the original vajra is you and the manifestations are your manifestations and collecting them back is your own collection. You don’t want to make any mistakes, because then you’ll become disorganized, which is a terrible thing. It is the same goes for the lower part. Whether you have small vajras or a complete mandala down there573, it is again you – you are down there, you are inside there. You don’t want to make a mistake for yourself there. It is not an article there going out of your body, it is you. That makes a lot of difference! If you do the meditation with those small vajras, you meditate up to the level where you can see them and physically touch them. Up to that level you are recommended to go, because to that point they will become actual. That is a little long way off. This is just meant as a brief introduction of the subtle development stage. Our major focus is on the gross development stage. Audience: When you multiply the vajras at the upper opening, do you see them as covering your Yamantaka main face? Rinpoche: Yes, that and some can also drop down, or go in front of the small face. The recommendation is to fill up the whole universe. So it becomes difficult! They become like a solid pattern. You still can pick them up individually, but if you pick up one, there is a hole there, and then dissolving them is even more difficult. When you really go as far as recommended, they fill up the whole room, the whole mandala, the whole universe, completely. Audience: What happens if you don‘t do it correctly? Rinpoche: It doesn’t work, that’s all. What else? That’s why you do first two or four, and when you got used to that, you go to nine, ten, etc. Meditating the mandala in a drop At the lower part you can also use a tikle or drop instead of the vajra. The white drop comes from the body of the male, the red drop comes from the body of the female They meet at the tips [of the male and female central channels]. At that joining level they can join like the indestructible drop – you don’t merge them together – and inside that indestructible drop it is recommended to meditate the complete mandala. Everyone of you is now saying: ‘Forget about it!’, but that is what it is. Here you don’t multiply the drops, it is just one drop. This meditation you do where you stop when you are doing your sadhana. If you want to develop shamata or concentration power, and do the meditations on the gross and subtle development stage, this is the level where you do it. It not a compulsory part of the sadhana, so if you just say the sadhana, you don‘t stop here but continue with the recollection of the pure characteristics.

Review of the supported and supporting mandala If you are really training your mind, it is recommended not to add up the vajra ground and fence and the protection wheels without getting some good idea about the elemental mandalas. When you do have quite a good idea about these, then, without forgetting the elemental mandalas, you add up the common protection wheel and without forgetting that, you add up the uncommon protection wheel; without forgetting both protection wheels and the elemental mandalas, you add up the triangle and without forgetting all of those, you add up the lotus. Without forgetting all of them, you add up the crossed vajra; without forgetting all that, you add up the mandala, the deity inside, all of them.

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See next exercise.

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The whole idea is to be able to accommodate in one mind not only just the learning and the going from top to bottom through one part, holding everything together. That is actually one of the stages of development. Once we you have that, you can review back: you see the absorption being HUNG, outside that Manjushri, outside that the full Yamantaka, outside that the mansion, outside that the steps, outside that the courtyard, away from that the uncommon and then the common protection wheel, and when you look down, the vajra ground and the elemental mandalas. That way you can go back and forth. Or you can go from the principal yidam first all the way out up to the cemeteries and then back to the vajra fence, back to the uncommon protection wheel, back to the courtyards, to the steps, to the door, to the mansion inside, to the internal vajra circle, then inside that to Yamantaka with all hands, legs and nostrils, etc., to Manjushri at his heart level and to the letter HUNG at Manjushri’s heart. So you go back and forth. The purpose of all this is learning the focusing meditation [tib. zhine] as well as learning to bring all parts of the mandala together and training and developing the pride of ‘I, the Yamantaka’. The normal ordinary ‘I’, like in ‘I said this and I did that’ you replace by ‘I, the Yamantaka’. The clarity and the pride of being the deity are the practices which cut down the ordinary perception and conception. See how long it takes you to get the total picture. The point here is that until you get the total picture, you have to go through the sadhanas as we normally say them. When you get some kind of picture of everything together, you will still not be able to see the finer details, like the deity’s eyes, the letters for the eye consciousness and all these. That’s what you have to train yourself in; that is the practice. First you point out and focus ‘this is this and this is here and this is here, etc.’ and later, when you get the picture, you can focus on it all together. When you have that without disturbance, you got the beginning of learning the concentration. On top of that, whatever you are visualizing and meditating, is not only your imagination, it is what will be the result later, when you become the buddha Yamantaka. This will be your resulting environment, your palace, these are going to be the deities in there, your retinue, this is how you are going to look, this is you and this is the ultimate complete yidam and mandala. Acknowledge the pride. And also acknowledge the purity: not only are you the deity, but whatever the visualization you are developing, it is pure. Then no matter how long you want to sit on that, whether five minutes or five hours or five days, try to sit on that without having any ordinary perception and conception. When you have that, you get the stable level of the development stage. I believe that is a long way for us to go.

(3) Recollection of the purities574 The nine faces are the nine scriptural categories, the two horns are the two truths. Buddha’s teachings are categorized in different ways: sometimes into 84000 teachings, sometimes into twelve categories of teaching, sometimes into nine575. The two truths are the relative and the absolute truth. The thirty-four arms576 together with the body, speech and mind are the thirty-seven elements directed at enlightenment. That’s what we called earlier the thirty-seven wings of the Buddhadharma, and that is the four mindfulnesses etc. Remember, we did a course on the thirty-seven wings of the Buddhadharma577. The thirty574

Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret. Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 96-100. For more details see Dr. Cornelia Weiushaar-Günter, Symbole zur Praxis von Yamantaka. 575 Ethics, meditation and wisdom (the three baskets, Tripitaka) each divided into three. 576 Symbolism of the 34 hand implements: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 99. 577 Not (yet) transcribed. For the thirty-seven wings of enlightenment see glossary.

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seven wings or thirty-seven practices are about negativities that have been transformed and become the cause of Yamantaka’s body. They have become actualized as thirty-seven different qualities of his body. The sixteen legs are the sixteen emptinesses, Bodhimind is sometimes divided into twenty-two. Emptiness is divided into sixteen578. One of them is the emptiness of emptiness. Some people think that emptiness of emptiness is more important than emptiness, but no. All emptinesses are the same, if you see one emptiness, you see all others. There are not sixteen different levels. the erect organ the expansion of great bliss. There is a big argument on the erect organ: it is up and nothing is happening and why? Lots of discussions on that were carried from the seventh century up to Tsongkhapa. Tsongkhapa answered that you see it as erect, but in reality there is a consort. There are two types of consort, the physical and the mental. The Solitary Hero does not have a physical but a mental consort. The erection indicates that attachment or lust is transformed, taken into the path. The man and so forth being trampled upon are the eight siddhis and the vulture and so forth are the eight mights. These are the pure characteristics of the mandala. There are eight siddhis. When you have obtained siddhihood, you will be able to see [with clairvoyance], you’ll be able to read others’ minds, etc. These eight different siddhis are represented here .579 My nakedness shows that my mind is not covered by obscurations; my hair standing on end indicates the State Beyond Sorrow. I told you earlier, Yamantaka is naked because there is nothing to hide, there is discipline. Why is there discipline? Because you don’t do the wrong thing. Why don’t you do that? Because it brings embarrassment. Embarrassment using yourself and using others as reason will discipline you. So there is nothing to hide. The hair standing on end gives the message that Yamantaka has obtained the ultimate enlightenment. But your hair standing up in curls does not mean that you are very close to enlightenment nor does your long hair hanging down mean that you are very far from it. (Now I am in the mood of joking, so better stop.) To state the meaning of this in brief: the ground to be apprehended is the subject matter of the nine scriptural categories: the illusion-like conventional reality and the space-like ultimate reality; the path that leads to the comprehending of these realities is the thirty-seven elements directed at enlightenment, the principal feature of which is the actual realization of the ultimate reality, insight into the sixteen emptinesses inseparably conjoined with the great bliss as method; and the effect to which this leads, i.e., the common and exclusive siddhis, their main feature being the transcendence of sorrow, the extinction of all obscurations. The form that arises as Vajra Bhairava should be understood to have these implications. In short, Buddha’s teachings are categorized in either twelve or nine ways, and the essence of the message is the relative and the absolute truth. How you come to understand that, is by practicing the thirtyseven wings of the Buddhadharma; changing our habitual patterns and our negative influences into the thirty-seven wings of a buddha. Those thirty-seven will become the fully enlightened beings’ body, speech and mind parts; out of which the wisdom part has sixteen different ways of understanding, which cut the root of the ego completely. By cutting the root of ego, you get the ordinary and the ex578 579

Literature: Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Ocean of nectar, pg. 351-386. For the eight siddhis and the eight powers or mights see Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret. In: Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 97-98.

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traordinary achievements. That is what Dorje Jigje stands for. The body of Yamantaka on which you are concentrating, shows this. So, when you see Yamantaka with the two horns, it is not really two horns, but it is the perfection of the relative and the absolute truth, physically appearing as horns. That Yamantaka is very fearful and wrathful, doesn’t mean he is after you; he is after your ego, so you don’t have to worry about it. To practice this is a great opportunity; its is one of the qualities of the human life and it is a vajrayana quality.

(4) Manner of doing recitation Blessing the mantra-mala580 OM HRIH SHTRIH VIKRITANANA HUNG PHAT. OM SVABHAVA SHUDDAH SARVADHARMA SVABHAVA SHUDDHO HAM. All is empty. From the sphere of emptiness, in the place of every bead of the rosary, there appears a lotus and a sun upon which is a letter HUNG. Each of these transforms into a glorious Vajra Bhairava, having one face and two arms which hold a curved knife and a skull-cup. They stand with left leg extended, marked by OM at the forehead, by AH at the throat, and by HUNG at the chest. From the HUNG at the heart of each deity lights go forth, inviting the Wisdom Beings and Empowering Deities, who resemble those visualized. The Wisdom Beings – JAH HUNG BAM HOH – merge with the Commitment Beings. The Empowering Deities grant empowerment. Akshobhya then adorns the crown of each. OM YAMANTAKA ARGHAM PRATICCHA HUNG SVAHA. OM YAMANTAKA PADYAM etc…) GANDHE / PUSHPE / DHUPE / ALOKE / NAIVIDYE / SHABDE PRATICCHA HUNG SVAHA. OM YAMANTAKA HUNG PHAT. OM AH HUNG. Supreme form, extremely great fury, Intrepid One, enjoyer of supreme objects, Who acts in order to tame the hard to tame To Vajra Bhairava I bow down. OM YAMANTAKA HUNG PHAT. The ‘Opponents of Yama’ dissolve into lights which transform into a rosary of human heads dripping with blood. How do we bless the mala? The same as usual in vajrayana. The impurities are driven away with OM HRIH SHTRIH…, then everything dissolves into emptiness with OM SVABHAVA…, then from the emptiness you generate a mala and each of the mala beads is a Yamantaka. They are one-faced Yamantakas with two hands, holding a chopper and a skull cup and each one of them is marked by an OM at the crown, AH at the throat, HUNG at the heart. The recommended number of beads is 111, if not then 108, if not then 101 or whatever. Why? For each hundred mantras you say ten extra and for each ten you say one extra; therefore the recommended number to say for vajrayana is 111. That does not include the guru bead581. So you have 111 Yamantakas there. Don’t rub the mala, because you would be rubbing the Yamantakas. Lights radiate from their hearts, invite the wisdom beings and dissolve them to each one of them. Then you make outer offerings and inner offerings, you praise and then you say the OM YAMAN580 581

Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret. In: Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 101. The bead at the end of the mala.

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TAKA HUNG PHAT repeatedly, connecting the wisdom beings to the generated Yamantakas. After that, the Yamantakas melt into light and the mala becomes a skull mala.

Mantra recitation – combination of peace and wrath Manjushri’s mantra OM ARA PA TZA NA DHIH. In the Yamantaka sadhana, at the level of mantra recitation, you can find the mantra of the peaceful Manjushri, A RA PA TZA NA DHIH. Although the sadhana recitation in Yamantaka is mainly done through wrathful mantras, you say the peaceful mantra together with them. There are five special qualities of Yamantaka and one of them is, that, when you practice the peaceful aspect, you also achieve the realizations of the wrathful aspects, and when you practice the wrathful aspects, you also achieve the realizations of the peaceful aspect. It works both ways. Other tantras don’t have that quality - at least not explicitly. For example, in Heruka, no matter how many times you say OM SHRI VAJRA HE HE RU RU KAM HUM HUM PHAT DAKINI JALA SAMVARAM SOHA, that does not affect the peaceful Avalokitesvara mantra OM MANI PADME HUM. And if you RECITE OM MANI PADME HUM a lot, that does not affect the Heruka aspect much. But peaceful Manjushri and wrathful Yamantaka do work that way; by saying one, you achieve the other. It is like that saying, ‘You get two for the price of one’. This mantra has a lot of important extraordinary meditations. The meaning of the mantra. I do not know what each word of the mantra means, but the essence of it will come to: ‘I bow to you, who make all beings perfect’. Manjushri brings all beings to the level of perfection, When fruit remains on the fruit tree for a long time, it ripens. Likewise Manjushri ripens all beings. So, not the literal translation, but the meaning of the mantra is: ‘I bow to you, who ripens all beings’. Remember, we talked about ‘Jampel rangzhin chonam kungyi ngo – Manjushri’s nature is the nature of all phenomena.582 That means Manjushri’s nature is the nature of all beings and that’s is the fourth kaya583. So with this mantra you say: You are Manjushri. In reality you are wisdom, in reality you are emptiness. You are the nature of all phenomena. You are the wisdom of all beings. What do you do? You ripen everybody; you make everybody qualified to obtain enlightenment. I bow to you. Visualizations with the Manjushri mantra

Now the great activities. This is called the combination of wrathful and peaceful584. This practice can be done with the A RA PA TZA NA or with the MIGTSEMA. Basically you yourself are in the Yamantaka form with at your heart level Manjushri and at his heart level a yellow sun disc – a gold CD is a good example – with the seed-syllable HUNG. Now the HUNG at the middle of the sun disc transforms and becomes Manjushri’s [orange-yellow] seed syllable DHIH585. [It sits at the hub of a sixspoked wheel on which are the letters OM A RA PA TZA NA]. The DHIH must have two dots [representing two colons]586. The letter DHIH is called concentration being, because you concentrate over here. ROM

1. Collecting wisdom 582

See page 331. For the fourth kaya see Glossary: Buddha’s bodies. 584 Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret. In: Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 101. It is not quite clear whether the ’combination of peaceful and wrathful’ belong to the Manjusri mantra, to the first two mantras or to the four Yamantaka mantras. Needs a check with Rinpoche. 585 Tri Gyeltsen Senge, in The profound path of the great secret. Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 103, says also the sun disc transforms into a moon disc. 586 For the sacred letter DHIH see Chapter XII Appendices. 583

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While saying the mantras, in your visualization the light goes out from the letter DHIH at your heart level. Beautiful orange light radiates out, reaches everywhere, touches all enlightened beings, in particular their wisdom. The light collects their blessings in the form of the letter DHIH, or the mantra, or Manjushri’s hand implements, such as the sword, the Prajnaparamita book, or any other. Millions of these forms you collect to yourself, like a snow storm. In reality all are the wisdom of all enlightened beings. They all dissolve to your body. By their dissolving into yourself, the wisdom of learning, the wisdom of thinking or pondering, the wisdom of meditating or contemplating, the wisdom of teaching, the wisdom of composing and the wisdom of debating develop. All these wisdoms and also their greatness, clarity, quickness and depth develop. 2. Cutting of ignorance The first activity is cutting off ignorance, that’s why, if you listen to Ann Waldman’s poetry587, she will say: ‘Cut, Cut, Cut, DHIH DHIH DHIH’, you remember? That is cutting the ignorance. How do you cut it? On the sun disc, around the letter DHIH you have got a wheel of swords, six double-edged swords, flat down. The roots of the swords have a joined vajra holder. Above each sword you have a letter of the mantra: OM in front, then clockwise A RA PA TZA NA and the DHIH in the middle. The empty space in between the swords you fill up with DHIHs588. At the center of the 589 DHIH, in one of these two round colons , you visualize yourself [and if you want others, too] in the ordinary form. [Orange/yellow light emanates from the wheel, the DHIH and the mantra garland]. Then you start to circle this wheel. The sword turns clockwise and the letters of the mantra – not touching the blades – turn anti-clockwise. The wheel circles goes so fast, that you don’t really see it turning. The center DHIH starts dripping out all your ignorance in the form of masses of loose hair or dripping black [strands] and the sharp swords going round cut them, chop them into pieces. The ignorance of not knowing is cut. All ignorance disappears from your and all sentient beings’ ordinary bodies. If you like to have some special person in the colon of the DHIH, that’s fine, if you want to take everybody into it, that’s fine and if you want to go by yourself, it is also fine. When you meditate turning the swords at your heart level very slowly, sometimes people get problems. Some people may go crazy; not completely crazy, but they lose a couple of screws. In order to avoid that, it goes so fast that you don’t see it turning, sort of at light speed. 3. Washing away impurities To be washed you have to be in ordinary form. You yourself as Yamantaka have Manjushri at your heart level and you as an ordinary being are within the seed-syllable DHIH at Manjushri’s heart level. There these activities happen. 587

The poem not [yet] found. Ann Waldman is a poet who represents the ‘60-‘70 generation. She founded together with Allen Ginsberg the Jack Karouac School of Disembodied Poetics, the literature department the Naropa Institute Boulder, Calorado, which was founded in 1974 by Trungpa Rinpoche. In 1992 she and Allen Ginsberg gave benefit performances for Jewel Heart in The Netherlands, where a/o she sung this song. 588 Description of the visualization not completely clear. There must be at least two kinds of mantra wheels, because Rinpoche comments to a picture from England that is shown: ‘To tell you the truth, the people who have drawn this, are slightly confused. There is a wrathful wheel, similar to this, and they have somehow mixed them together. This is the peaceful one. So if you see other pictures, be aware of this’. 589 On the drawing these two colons are the two little circles behind the DHIH.

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Yamantaka teachings Out of your [Yamantaka] mind you generate nice little yellow dakinis. They come out with vases full of water. It is the pure water of the enlightened beings’ wisdom, pure wisdom-natured water. They pour the water into the DHIH and wash you completely while you say the mantra. From crown to toe your impurities are washed away completely, like dirt is washed out of dirty clothes. 590

4. Collection of the seven wisdoms

You [as Yamantaka with Manjushri at your heart level] generate [orange/yellow] light out of your body. a. The light goes out, reaches to all enlightened beings and the great wisdom, the gigantic wisdom of all enlightened beings, is brought to yourself in the form of Manjushri’s body. To be able to overcome all types of ignorance millions of replicas of Manjushri’s body come and dissolve to you. What does great wisdom mean? The power to grab, to pick up, to understand, to unlock the hidden meanings, to understand deeply by just reading once, just getting the message at once. All this is really in the Manjushri mantra. b. Again light goes out from your heart and collects the clarity wisdom in the form of the mantra letters A RA PA TZA NA and millions of DHIH. You bring them back to your body and dissolve them. The power of clarity means: not only you get the message, but you get it clearly. c. Again the light goes out and invites the quick wisdom, the power of quick decisive action in the form of Manjushri’s seed syllable DHIH. This is a usual problem. People talk a lot, but they are not quick enough to act and afterwards they say: ‘I could have done that, everybody can do that’. To act at the time, you need the wisdom of quickness or swiftness. d. Then profound wisdom comes through the hand implements; the sword and the book. Manjushri’s hand implements are the sword, the Prajnaparamita book, the flower and even bow and arrow. There are different Manjushris with different hand implements, but over here we just stick to the first two. However, if you want to can go with bow and arrow etc.; that’s fine. e. Then the wisdom of teaching is collected by the book alone. f. The wisdom of debating is collected by the [wheel of ] swords. g. The wisdom of composition is collected by the combination of the book and [wheel of] swords. If you do the peaceful mantra, the wrathful [means] come with it, so it is very important. This meditation is very much interlinked with the Migtsema; there is a total interlinking of the visualization. 5. Purifying sentient beings At the initiation, remember, all the mantras came from the heart of the Lama Yamantaka to your heart. Here it is: Light radiates, makes offerings to the buddhas in the ten directions, and collects their blessings. Light goes out, reaches all the sentient beings and just by your light reaching them, they become pure and they become Yamantakas. 6. Meditation on de DHIH 590

For these seven wisdoms also see Gelek Rinpoche, Ganden Lha Gyema, pg. 69-72.

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At the end of Manjushri’s mantra you say one hundred DHIH’s you can do a particular visualization with the letter DHIH. During this recitation, you have to say one hundred DHIHs in one breath without swallowing any saliva. You count that on the mala. It is very simple. You go to the 25th bead on the mala and count backwards to the guru bead, counting one bead for every four DHIHs you pronounce. That way you get one hundred. Think that you have one DHIH lying on your tongue and its upper tip with the letter I is almost reaching down to your throat. Every time you repeat DHIH DHIH DHIH, one more drop of nectar is dripping from the tip of the DHIH on your tongue and falls down to your heart level onto the seed syllable DHIH there. Like oil or butter dripping into a fire makes it burn more, just like that, each of the nectar drops – it is almost like a steady stream of nectar – intensifies the energy of the seed syllable at the heart. You have to think that this strengthens your power of memory. This practice is very helpful to retain your memory. Memory here does not mean that you will remember where you left your car keys, but that you don’t forget the really important thoughts and ideas. 7. Another meditation on the DHIH Very similar to the previous one. At the root of the tongue [of you as Yamantaka] is Manjushri’s sword pointed down. When you say DHIH DHIH DHIH one hundred times, each DHIH drops down from the sword and drips down to your heart level. It builds unforgetfulness, it improves your memory. Mind you, you don’t do all the meditations [in one session], just choose one. Also don’t mix them together, they are separate sets [of visualizations].

The root mantra OM YAMARAJA SADOMEYA / YAMEDORU NAYODAYA / YADAYONI RAYAKSHEYA / YAKSHE YACCHA NIRAMAYA / HUNG HUNG PHAT PHAT SVAHA. This mantra is called the root mantra. [It is pronounced]: OM YAMA RAZA SADO MEYA / YAMAN DORU NAYO DAYA / YA DA YONI RAYACHIYA / YAKCHI YANTZA NERA MAYA / HUNG HUNG PHE PHE SOHA. The essence of this is the Shinje Gyalpo, which means ‘The One who conquers’ or the ‘King of the Shinjes’ or the ‘Lord of Yama’. Actually it is saying: Oh, Lord of Yama, by your kindness, give me and others who are threatened by the yamas, protection from fear and ultimate development. ‘Yamas threatening and obstructing the individual’ has two meanings: a) the external yama who threatens life; b) the internal yama who threatens understanding. Ignorance is the internal yama and death is the external yama. Fear is the fear of destruction by the external and internal yama, both. Seeking protection from the King of Yama and seeking ultimate development from the King of Yama – that’s what the root mantra means. From the historical point of view, there is a long explanation on where the YA comes from and where the MA comes from etc. I don’t think that is relevant for us. Visualizations with the root mantra The visualizations of the wrathful mantras can be used for all of the wrathful mantras interchangeable. Now [the wheel dissolves to the DHIH] and the DHIH transforms and becomes a blue HUNG. The mantra

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malas are around it: the OM YAMA RAJA mantra at the outside; the OM HRIH STRIH mantra within that and the OM YAMANTAKA mantra again within that.591 1. Purifying all sentient beings Light goes out from the mantra mala at your heart level, passes through your right nostril, reaches all sentient beings and purifies them. Then breathing in [through your left nostril], the light comes back. 2. Making offerings to the buddhas Light goes out [from the mantra mala at the heart level of yourself as Yamantaka], reaches to the buddhas and bodhisattvas, makes offerings to them and collects their blessings. Light also goes out and reaches all sentient beings and by the touch of your light they become Yamantakas. 3. Purifying sentient beings and placing them in the state of Yamantaka with wrathful deities From the tip of the HUM at your heart, a lot of wrathful duplicate Yamantakas come out and exit your body through the right nostril of your principal face. They reach all sentient beings and all environments, purify all of them just by the touch of their light and all sentient beings become fully enlightened Yamantakas. Finally, all of them come back to you through the left nostril of your principal face and dissolve back to the letter HUM at your heart level. If you have a lot of time, you can do the whole process with one mantra each. When you do a three-year retreat, where you do the mantras very slowly, you could do that. Otherwise, you may say twenty mantras for one full process of this visualization. 4. Purifying obstacles Light comes out from HUM and mantra mala and fills up our whole body. All our illnesses and obstacles, bad karma, any particular difficulties we may have in order to practice Dharma and achieve our desires, are all burned up by the power of that fiery light. 5. Meditation using the skull mala In your visualization your mala-beads are skull beads and on the forehead of each skull you have a complete mandala of Yamantaka. It is the complete supported and supporting mandala; that means. not only the outer mandala, but also the principal and everything – the actual wisdom being is there. Your tongue is like a hook. Every time you say one mantra, a complete duplicate mandala comes out from the skull mala and dissolves into you. That way you say whatever number of mantras you want to say. 6. Burning obstacles A thing you can do occasionally is this. A very powerful, hot radiating light generates from your mantra mala, fills up your body completely and burns every single obstacle. Your negativities, your negative karma, any illnesses etc. are burnt by that powerful laser light, like small bird feathers are caught by a powerful light and just get burnt After that, the light comes out from your right nostril and any obstacles outside your body that are harming yourself and others, are also totally burnt.

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Pabongka Rinpoche in Meditation on Vajrabhairava, pg. 65: ‘The color of the letters is blue and they stand upright, appearing like scintillating orange flames.’

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7. Simple meditation Light radiates from the mantra mala and the HUNG at your heart. You just focus on that and say the mantras. 8. Your consciousness into the hum You project your consciousness into the tiny, one-inch-size letter HUM at your heart level. (It depends how big you visualize everything). You identify with that letter HUM and look outside and you will first see Manjushri which is perhaps like your shirt and then the external Yamantaka, which is like your coat. The main idea is that you are able to project yourself into that tiny letter HUM. You are the HUM and the HUM is you. When you get used to that and when you develop further you can get the same experience as Milarepa. One time he was taking a walk with his disciple Rechungpa, who had just come back from India where he had taken many teachings and thought that he now knew much, much more than his guru Milarepa. Suddenly a snow storm broke loose and Rechungpa got soaking wet. A strong wind was blowing and took away the wood from the fire they had started and when Rechungpa tried to hold on to the wood, the wind took his clothes away. Rechungpa gave up and then he heard the voice of his guru, who was singing, ‘If you, the son, are equal to the father, why don’t you come into this yak horn. It is beautiful and spacious in here.’ Rechungpa at first did not know where the voice came from and he looked around for some time, until he saw a small yak horn and saw Milarepa in there. It is said that Milarepa did not shrink and the yak horn did not expand, and yet he fit in there comfortably. This completely contradicts the laws of physics, but it happens that way. So when you do these visualizations, and switch from being in the small HUM back to being the big Yamantaka, if you go back and forth very often, you train yourself in that ability. When you say the mantras you think that the principal mouth is the leading ‘chanting master’ and the other eight mouths are saying the mantras together, very loudly. This makes a huge sound. Ra Lotsawa has said that it is like a thousand thunderstorms coming at the same time. There is also a division into samsaric and non-samsaric recitation. When the recitation is started from the principal mouth and then all the others are following, it is called non-samsaric mantra recitation. The samsaric mantra-recitation starts from the red face, after which the others follow. Practitioners who have a good understanding of which of their own parts are samsaric and which are non-samsaric, can do that. It is not easy to separate our samsaric and non-samsaric aspects. This sounds ambiguous, and I purposely want to leave it at that for tonight. If I explain it, it will take a long time. Some questions I should not answer at this point in time. We will get to that later. You are supposed to say the mantras not too slowly and not too fast. You don’t have to race, just say them as fast as you can. One good thing in a group retreat is, that if one person gets through, it counts for the rest of the group too. So not everybody has to count and there is no need for pressure. There is enough pressure trying to destroy the ego. We don’t need any additional pressure. At the end of saying the root mantra the OM YAMA RAJA mantra mala dissolves to the one within that, the OM HRIH STRIH mantra garland. Audience: The visualization where the millions of Yamantakas come out of your nostrils, is that for a specific mantra? Rinpoche: Any of the wrathful mantras will do. You don’t even have to do it through your nose, they can also be just coming through your body – whatever is easier. In the beginning start the way I described it. And if it is difficult to get the Yamantakas through your nostrils, they can become light or air. You do whatever is convenient as well as what it should be.

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The activity mantra592 OM HRIH SHTRIH VIKRITANANA HUNG PHAT. If you translate the words of this mantra, it is saying something like: ‘The wrathful one with fangs and colored’. ‘Wrathful’ refers here to the emptiness of the mind, or to the mind inseparable from emptiness while acknowledging the emptiness. In other words, the acknowledging mind and the object which it acknowledges become inseparable and the ultimate of that inseparable wisdom has become wrathful. That wisdom has become the opponent of the three destroyers: the outer, inner and secret obstacles. The word ‘Colored one’ refers to the wrathful color. So what you are saying is: In order to conquer all the obstacles you have taken a wrathful shape. Such a wrathful physical appearance should destroy the first two noble truths within me. Why is this wisdom wrathful? Because you need to destroy the suffering and the cause of suffering – the first two noble truths. That is the gist of it. The visualizations are the same as of the previous mantra. Then the OM HRIH STRIH mantra-mala dissolves into the OM YAMANTAKA HUNG PHAT mantra-mala.

The essence mantra OM YAMANTAKA HUNG PHAT. That refers to the outer, inner and secret Yamantaka who completely destroys the outer, inner and secret yamas together with their causes. So what you are saying is: O Yamantaka, who are the outer, inner and secret Yamantaka, please destroy the outer, inner and secret yamas together with their causes completely. You repeat that mantra a number of times and the visualization is the same as before: light goes out etc. Then the Yamantaka mantra-mala dissolves into the DHIH.

The wisdom-showering mantra OM HRIH SHTRIH VIKRITA NANA HUNG PHAT HUNG HAH AH JHAI. This is [pronounced]: OM HRIH TRIH WUTITA NANA HUNG PHAT HUNG A ANDZE. The HUNG A ANDZE is the shortest form of the wisdom mantra593. In all the maha anuttarayoga tantras you have to add up the wisdom mantra [in the retreat].

The hundred-syllable mantra OM YAMANTAKA SAMAYA / MANU PALAYA / YAMANTAKA TVENOPA / TISHTA DRIDHO ME BHAVA / SUPOKAYO ME BHAVA / SUTOKAYO ME BHAVA / ANURAKTO ME BHAVA / SARVA SIDDHI ME PRAYACCHA / SARVA KARMA SUCHA ME / CITTAM SHRIYAM KURU HUNG / HA HA HA HA HOH / BHAGAWAN / YAMANTAKA MA ME MUNCA / YAMANTAKA BHAVA / MAHA SAMAYA SATTVA AH HUNG PHAT. At the end of each session’s recitation of course you have to have the Yamantakasattva recitation to purify any one of those mantras not properly said, wrongly pronounced or missed altogether. You know, people get bad habits of saying certain words wrong or missing certain words. All of them get purified by this recitation.

592 593

Also called ten-syllable mantra. The long wisdom showering mantra: OM HRIH SHTRIH VIKRITA NANA HUM HUM PHAT PHAT ABHISHAYA STVAM BHAYA RA RA RA RA CALAYA CALAYA HUM JAH AH JHAI E HUM PHAT.

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Here you visualize that light radiates from the mantra mala and purifies all the mistakes of your recitation. When you normally say your sadhanas, you don’t have to make a long thing on the mantras. You don’t have to have different tunes etc., you just go through. Likewise the mudras; if you can do them, that’s fine, but you don’t have to pause at those places in order to do them. Actually saying the sadhana real slowly is very nice; it is much better. But then, when you have time limits and all this, you can do it faster too. When you are saying many mantras – like in retreats – it is recommended to meditate the first one, two or three rounds as mentioned. For the rest of the time you say the mantra from your mouth and you count them, but you meditate on the Lam Rim points. That way you get all the developments simultaneously, together. Then after the mantra recitation, you make offerings, torma offerings, including the sixty-four offerings to the Dharma King and then you have the conclusion.

Making Offerings OM YAMANTAKA ARGHAM PRATICCHA …..594 OM YAMANTAKA HUNG PHAT. OM AH HUNG.

Praise Supreme form, extremely great fury…. Some remarks on the Yamantaka retreat595 Let me congratulate you on behalf of the lineage masters to have completed the retreat for Yamantaka as well as Tara. What we are doing here in the Yamantaka retreat is making ourselves acquainted with the practice. Over the years I have given quite a few teachings and the material is available. We are doing the mantra practice by averaging how many mantras various people are saying. Some are way ahead and we are cutting down on their number in order to reach an average. On the other hand we cannot wait for everybody that is saying their mantras very slowly. But in a group practice the majority carries the others through. So averaging out the number of mantras in a group is a good way to do this retreat. People should not have any doubts that this works. In vajrayana it is important not have any doubts about the practice. As Milarepa has said, ‘If you have doubts, even an empty house invites thieves.’ In vajrayana you can have doubts in the sense that you may want to raise questions, but do not doubt the practice itself. It is perfectly okay to look for reasons, so that you can be convinced. For certain things we can give you very clear answers, others we prefer to leave ambiguous. Different teachings have different ways of explaining, and often there is not just one correct answer. Even in sutra, Buddha has emphasized the two truths. In tantra that is definitely the case, no question. As far as the ritual is concerned, the details of that, the traditional way of doing it, like when the bell is rung, what prayers are said, what body gestures have been used, which hand mudras, when you start using the damaru, when you stop using it, what kind of vase is used and how, that is what we call in Tibetan tong wa gyupe chang le, that means to copy the ritual exactly in the manner you have received it. That is the unwritten part of the teachings and we try to follow that as strictly and closely as possible, so that it remains completely authentic. The rituals themselves [the texts] are easy to follow, it is just a matter of reading through. But what tunes you use, how you start and where you stop, that is also important.

594 595

From this point onwards sadhana texts that are not explained are just indicated by their first line. Winterretreat 1997/98.

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When we look back at what we have achieved since the inception of Jewel Heart, we can be very proud. We did extremely well. Many people put in a lot of efforts and the lives of so many people have been touched. In the beginning there were only two women in Ann Arbor. Then it extended and now there are a lot of people in the Detroit and Ann Arbor area, and Chicago and Nebraska, New York, Cleveland, San Francisco, and of course the Holland group started even before the US and we have practitioners in Malaysia and Singapore and India, where it all started. Now we have vajrayana practitioners and people in the Lam Rim and Three Principles groups in every center and chapter. In some towns we have our own place. So we should rejoice in everybody’s efforts to make this possible. We should also remember the people that have been with us and have since died and also the family members of people in our groups who have died and we should dedicate the positive karma that we accumulate by doing retreat, disciplining ourselves, generating kind thoughts, etc, without hesitation and strings attached to their well-being, wherever they may be, so that they may be well and their negativities be purified, that they may meet with the teachings of Buddha Shakyamuni and especially with those of Lama Tsong Khapa. Through these teachings may they obtain total enlightenment in that very life. We are used to celebrating the New Year and it is nice to do that, but in another way it also means some more gray hairs, a couple of extra wrinkles, and maybe a tooth falling out. So we celebrate the successes that we have had - the many people that we have been able to reach and welcome the New Year, that it may bring success in your spiritual practice. If you really look in your life, apart from material benefits, it is the spiritual path that really makes a difference. Material benefits are definitely temporary. The moment some changes take place, these things will be gone. No matter now many life insurances you may have, when you go, you have to go without them. However, the spiritual path stays with us, it continues. It does not stay, because we call it spiritual, but because, as Tsong Khapa says, ‘positive and negatives karmas follow us like shadows’. So the way we should think should be slightly different from the way the Wall Str people think. Our values should be different. As I always say, ‘The perspective of the people who look at the period from birth to death and the perspective of people who look at lives after lives, is very different.’ The life does not end when you die. Perhaps it is just beginning. One of our problems is that, although we may see that spiritual practice is useful, we want the results right now, or in the next minute or hour. The human mechanism and the workings of karma are not that fast, however, but still we begin to see how effective it is pretty soon. Actually, these days, changes are taking place very fast everywhere and Buddha has in fact said in a number of places that in the degenerate age the effect of karma will ripen much faster than in other period. So, whatever we do, makes a big difference to our lives very soon. You may not even have to wait for the next life. Particularly, the training of your mind is already effecting each and everyone of you and makes a big difference to you. That is really the service rendered by Jewel Heart. Even the reason why we are all here now, is because we recognize that we gain some benefit. We should dedicate our efforts to the attainment of enlightenment in this very life time. At least we should have a comfortable transition and if possible, total enlightenment. With that, we say good bye to 1997 and hello to 1998. During the retreat it is extremely important to be relaxed. You should drop everything that normally occupies your mind and give your mind a good rest. Then you will be able to pick up your visualizations to whatever level you are capable of. Your mind should be fresh and relaxed and your body should be in a comfortable posture as well. Traditionally it is not allowed to get up during the session and go to the toilet, or to drink water, but I will make exceptions here and I hope the enlightened beings will understand it is 1998. But, even if you get up, keep on saying the mantra, let there not be any interruptions. This morning, when we came out of the first session of the Tara retreat, there was an interesting cloud in the sky. It was the only cloud in the whole sky, a huge, long cloud. I did not see what happened later, but a lot of people said that this cloud then changed into a rainbow. There was no rain and no other clouds. So if that is a good sign, it means that whatever you are doing here, is probably not that wrong. It must be okay. We are not just copying, but the practice is really functioning.

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From the beginning to the end this teaching has been given on the basis of doing a retreat. If the retreat is properly done and the fire offering is done596, the person is basically authorized to carry out the activities through Yamantaka 597. Questions and answers Audience: There does seem to be a temptation though to use the Yamantaka – fury against external obstacles. Can it be used for those? Rinpoche: When we visualize during the mantra recitation that wrathful deities come out of Yamantaka’s nostrils and all those other wrathful visualizations, it is important not to use any of them for one’s personal purposes. You have to remember that the best protection is provided by love and compassion. When you talk from the wrathful point of view, you can go on without limit. There are activities for separating, for destroying and all sorts of activities are there. But generally, for people like us, love and compassion is always the best protection. If you want to use wrathful actions, you have to fulfil a lot of special criteria. I am quite sure that Mao Tse Tung did not qualify to be destroyed by wrathful methods. It is difficult to find people that qualify as objects of destructive practices. Further, the people carrying out those activities should be able to guarantee, not just pray, that the people who are the objects of the wrathful actions will be taken to the pure land straight away, in case they die. These are the criteria for doing these kinds of practices. In the history of these practices there are examples. Through certain kinds of development, there has been a person who was able to cause all the fruit to drop from the trees just by giving some kind of strange look. Then his guru said to him, ‘All right, now put them all back!’ But he couldn’t. Then his guru said that in this case he was not permitted to use this destructive skills. There was one lama in my father’s incarnation lineage. He was a hunter of wild animals. Somebody said to him, ’You call yourself a lama and yet you are going out and you are killing all these animals. How can you do that?’ So this lama took that person with him to the forest, where shot a deer and told everybody to be careful and keep the animal’s skin intact. After having a nice meal from the flesh of the deer, the lama put all its bones together into the skin, then put his mala inside, and then the deer got up and ran away. The lama then said to his critic, ‘I hunt, because I can do this!’ This looks like a crazy wisdom story, but I am telling it to make clear what the criteria for wrathful actions are. So if you cannot put the fruit up on the tree, better behave yourself. Audience: How often do you have to say the purification mantra? Rinpoche: If you are in retreat, three or seven or twenty-one times. In everyday practice [in case of the long sadhana] three is reasonable. Audience: What is the significance of the action mantra of Yamantaka? Rinpoche: We use this mantra for all activities, like generating deities, driving away spirits, collecting, etc. The action mantra is like a managing director, in that it manages all the work you do, it is the one who hires and fires. The essence mantra brings you close to the deity, the action mantra makes the essence mantra work properley. The root mantra is calling the yidam and asking it to provide you with what you need. The wisdom shower mantra, the HUM HA ANDZE mantra is only recited during the retreat, not in the daily practice. Audience: What is the significance of the different protector prayers we say at the end of the last session every day? 596

For retreat instructions and necessities see Pabongka Rinpoche, Meditation on Vajrabhairava; R. Thurman, Yamantaka Ekavira, materials for Punya house retreat; Sharpa Tulku and Michael Perrott, A manual of ritual fire offerings. 597 For the numbers to be recited in a retreat see pg. 37 and Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I, pg. 108ff.

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Rinpoche: To me all protectors are all the same thing. Mahakala is practiced by every Tibetan tradition, whether Kagyu, Sakya, Nyingma or Geluk. The Dharma King Chogyal is a special Gelukpa protector. Palden Lhamo is the manifestation of Tara, she is a wrathful female protector, plus she is Tibet’s special protector-yidam. In her retinue you have the twelve sisters and also the five sisters who are supposed to exist on the five snow mountain peaks of Tibet. These are special deities of Tibet and are part of Palden Lhamo’s retinue. Palden Lhamo is the chief of the summit meeting of protectors and her retinue will follow her orders. Setrabpa is a special personal protector of mine and of my region in Tibet, Nyare. Therefore I included a reference to that in the Setrabpa protector prayer. You don’t need to know all the stories of the Dharma protectors, they are all from India. Audience: Are there certain occasions, on which you would pray to certain Dharma protectors? Rinpoche: There are the three stages of lam rim development. Mahakala is the protector of the Mahayana level, because the essence of Mahakala is compassion. He is a manifestation of Heruka, who is a wrathful aspect of Avalokitesvara. Then there is Vaisravana, who is the protector of morality and is therefore the protector of the common with the medium level of the lam rim stages. Finally, for the common with the lower level, the Dharma King is responsible. He is one of the manifestations of Yamantaka, who is Manjushri, who is in nature wisdom. Therefore he destroys ignorance. These three protectors are therefore the protectors of the three levels of the lam rim path. You can find translations of the Tibetan prayers to them in Thurman’s book ‘Essential Tibetan Buddhism’. I actually blackmailed him in this regard. He was translating the Palden Lhamo prayer and was stuck for some words in there. He called me and I said that I did not know the answer. He asked me, whether I could find out, and I said, maybe I could, provided that he would put a translation of the Setrabpa prayer in this book. He complained that it would be difficult to explain to people the reason for including Setrabpa. The others were commonly known. But I did not leave him any choice, he had to do it. Then I gave him the answer to his question in a few words. Audience: As you said earlier, we can visualize ourselves in the center of the heart chakra, in the letter HUNG in the center of the mantra malas, observing them, like as if we were sitting in the middle of a revolving restaurant. If I do that, am I myself? I am confused, because I am also supposed to be Yamantaka at the same time Rinpoche: You are still there yourself, all the same. If you cannot find yourself, you will also not find Yamantaka. You can be both, yourself inside the letter HUNG and the big Yamantaka and you have the guru with you, in between the horns. I myself visualize the guru in his own form, in full sitting meditation posture. At the enlightened level, there are no limitations of doing one thing, and not the other. Audience: Is not the whole point of visualizing ourselves as the deity that we forget about the ordinary appearance and conception? Therefore, it is at that point irrelevant, where my ordinary person is. Rinpoche: That is also fine. It is just, that at our ordinary level, we like to know who is perceiving whom, in which case you would have to say that John or Alfred or whoever, is perceiving Yamantaka. John and Alfred are developing the pride of Yamantaka. Still the question remains: Who is John? Audience: But the whole notion of ego-identity should be gone! Rinpoche: It should be gone, but it does not go that easily. When you develop the pride of the yidam, can’t you think, ‘Now I am Yamantaka John?! Whats wrong with that? You don’t have to separate John and Yamantaka and put a horse in between. Not every ‘me’ is necessarily an ego - me. Audience: When you use the term ‘ego’, on what Tibetan term is that based? Rinpoche: I am trying to convey the meaning of the terms marigpa and jigta with that. Jigta is more or less translatable as ‘view of fear’. It may the real, true ignorance, but it depends which school of thoughts makes the statement. The views of Buddhapalita, Bhavaviveka and that of the Mind Only School are different on that.

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Audience: Where does the term dag dzin come in? Rinpoche: Dag means self, and dzin means holding. So it is self - grasping. Self-cherishing is slightly different. In Tibetan this is called rang zhin dzin. Jigta and dag dzin could be synonymous, but as I said, Buddhapalita and others have different views on that. Audience: We have been given a text book which includes the Yamantaka fire puja and a Kalarupa puja. Should we look at that or leave it alone? Rinpoche: It is there for when you need to use it.

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X CONCLUSION & IN BETWEEN SESSIONS <3> END OF THE SESSION This outline has five parts: 1. Offering torma 2. Manner of bidding farewell 3. Prayer 4. Reabsorption 5. Verses of auspiciousness

Offering torma Blessing the torma offering At this place the torma offering is absolutely necessary. The preliminary torma offering you sometimes skip; in your shortest sadhana you don’t even have it. Here you have to have it. Why a torma offering? Offering the torma is the hook which brings the siddhihood or accomplishments to you quickly. It is said: ‘The torma makes the yidams happy’. Whom are you offering to? The samsaric and the non-samsaric protectors, including the Dharma King. Before you offer the torma, you have to bless it. In this Yamantaka practice, every torma and everything that is edible – except the food in the outer offerings – is blessed by the same ritual as the inner offering: you put the five meats and the five nectars in the skull cup, the ingredients will boil, get purified, transformed and are made inexhaustible598. OM HRIH SHTRIH … OM SVABHAVA… All is empty. Within the sphere of emptiness….. Invocation of the guests This is the invocation of the non-samsaric guests of honor, in this case the complete mandala of the Solitary Hero Yamantaka. In the long sadhana it says: Before me in a single moment appears the complete Supporting and Supported Mandala of the Solitary Hero, the glorious Vajra Bhairava. They come right in front of you. Where are you? Inside the mandala. In front of you, you have a duplicate Yamantaka mandala and you are facing each other. So you have two complete sets of mandalas. It is like two Chinese palanquins facing each other, but then bigger. Then comes the invitation: 598

See page 87.

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Yamantaka teachings Lights proceed from the HUNG at my heart. They invite the Supporting and Supported mandalas of the glorious Vajra Bhairava, together with the Direction Protectors.

The light goes from your heart, invites the complete wisdom mandala of Yamantaka, along with the direction protectors. DZAH HUNG BAM HOH. The Wisdom Beings merge with the Commitment Beings. This is as usual: 1) they come near, 2) you dissolve them, 3) they become oneness and 4) they are happily there. The tongue of each guest becomes a HUNG, which transforms into a single-point vajra, having a hollow reed of light, by which the essence of the torma is extracted and enjoyed. All the guests’ tongues become like white straws. If you give somebody a coca cola with a straw, you don’t see the tongue, you just see the straw. Here the tongue itself becomes a straw. We make the tormas in the traditional shape, but actually it is supposed to be good strong food. Europeans always give you soup, right? That sort of heavy duty soup is the kind of food. They don’t really eat the soup, but they take the essence out of the food. The essence of the food is the reality: it is in the nature of emptiness, it is in the physical appearance of the torma and its purpose is to bring tremendous joy and bliss to the objects to whom you offer. You offer it and they take it. That serves the purpose for your offering. Offering [torma, outer and inner offerings] to the principal OM HRIH SHTRIH VIKRITANANA HUNG PHAT. VAJRA BHAIRAVA ATIPADHI IDAM BALIMTA KHA KA KHAHI KHAHI.599 First you offer to the principal deity. The way you offer is the same as in all other offerings. You emanate offering deities from your heart, they pick up something from that huge skull cup in which you have the offering cooking, and offer it to the principal deity who takes it. You say the offering words: OM HRIH SHTRIH HA…. ETC. OM YAMANTAKA HUNG PHAT. OM AH HUNG600 The praise O Manjushri, whose being is non-dual….. etc. I explained this praise at the beginning601. Offering the torma to the Direction Protectors This here is not an offering to the non-samsaric deities, but an offering to the samsaric deities: the direction protectors and the seven guests which we introduced at the beginning of the sadhana602.You already have all the information. The same set is repeated here: the same guests, the same way of making offering, the same meaning. OM YAMARAJA SADOMEYA…. etc.

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Sometimes sadhanas add ‘HUM PHAT SVAHA’. That is the Gyume or Lower tantric college system. We follow the Guyto or Upper tantric college system. 600 See page 155. 601 See page 30. 602 See page 106.

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Saying the root mantra here is getting permission from Yamantaka for the direction protectors to eat meat, flesh and blood. There are two ways of how the permission is given. I explained all that at the preliminary torma offering603. OM BHUCARANAM… etc. The actual offering for the samsaric guests I also already explained earlier. The initials of their names and the syllables of the Yamantaka mantra have been combined together. During your daily sadhana practice, you only have to do that offering once. When you do the sixty-four offerings, you have to repeat it three or four times. The outer offering and inner offering to the direction protectors OM DASHA DIKA LOKA PALA SAPARIWARA ARGHAM PRATICCHA HUNG SVAHA (etc., for...) PADYAM, GANDHE, PUSHPE, DHUPE, ALOKE, NAIVIDYA, SHABDA. OM DASHA DIKA LOKA PALA SAPARIWARA OM AH HUNG. OM Karmayama, ogresses, dakinis, and zombies: all of whom are sworn as outer and inner protectors, who in the presence of Manjushri, pledged to tame all demons and to protect the Doctrine: with a wishful mind I bow and turn to you. Direction Protectors and your Entourage, By your activity pacify all interferences, To the practice of the sacred Dharma. You make offerings to the jigten jongwa, the worldly protectors. You make outer offerings to them, water for the mouth, the feet, and sprinkling water for the chest etc. Then comes the verse Om Karmayama, etc.: ‘You protectors have committed in the presence of Manjushri to conquer the evil and protect the teachings’. Yamas, yakshas, rakshas, zombies, are all direction protectors. When you make the offering to the direction protectors, no ghost in the world is excluded. Whether in the east or the west, every single spirit existing in this world is following the orders of one of these fifteen, wherever they may be. They have their own little rules and disciplines; their bureaucracy is very tight, much tighter than that of the human beings, so when you make a deal with the big boss, the small ones can do nothing. Even if they try to do something, they will be overpowered. We ask them to clear all the obstacles from our dharma work.

Torma offering to Karmayama604 Here you have a very brief offering to the Dharma King Chogyal. He is another Manjushri in the form of a protector. First you have the generation of the Dharma King and then of the consort and the entourage. Generation of Karmayama Before me appears a lotus, a sun and a buffalo. Upon these from YA appears a skullclub marked by YA. From this letter lights shine forth and annihilate all evil beings, such as enemies and interferers, and then recollect into the skull-club. This transforms into black Karmayama who has one face and two arms, the head of a buffalo, and three eyes which are red and round. In his right arm is a skull club, and in his left a noose. His orange hair streams upward and his organ stands erect. To his left from a 603 604

See page 111. See note 263 on page 116.

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Yamantaka teachings trident and CAM appears black Camundi, having one face and two arms; she holds a trident in her right hand and a skullcup in her left. They are surrounded by an entourage of male and female yamas, such as Yamati. The Lord and his entourage are each marked by a white OM at crown, a red AH at throat, and a blue HUNG at heart. From the HUNG at my heart lights emanate, inviting Karmayama together with his consort and entourage from seven stages below the earth of the Southern direction. OM KALARUPA SAPARIWARA E HYE HI DZAH HUNG BAM HOH. The Commitment beings and Wisdom beings become non-dual.

Initiation of Karmayama Light rays again shine forth from the blue HUNG at my heart; they summon the five kinds of the Opponent of Yama. I request them: ‘All of you, please fully empower him!’ Whereupon they hold vases filled with nectar of wisdom and grant empowerment through the crown: OM VAJRI BHAVA ABHISHINNCA HUNG. Thus all stains are purified. By the overflowing of surplus water his head becomes adorned with a black five point vajra. OM KALARUPA SAPARIWARA SAMAYA STVAM. Each of them have OM AH HUNG at their respective crown, throat and heart levels. From the letter HUNG at your heart level light radiates and invites the dharma protector Kalarupa with consort and retinue. Actually it says they are invited from seven layers below the earth. (That is not literally below the earth, but that is how it is described.) Then he is initiated. Actual offering of the torma to Karmayama The tongues of the Dharma King, his consort and his entourage all become letters of HUNG, each of which transform into a white single-point vajra, having a hollow reed of light by which the entire essence of the ritual cake is taken in and enjoyed. OM KALARUPA – SAVRA VIGHNANA SHATRUM MARAYA IDAM BALIMTA KHA KHA KHAHI KHAHI. OM CAMUNDI – SAVRA VIGHNANA SHATRUM MARAYA IDAM BALIMTA KHA KHA KHAHI KHAHI. OM to the hosts of male and female Yamas, such as Yavati, together with your entourage – SAVRA VIGHNANA SHATRUM MARAYA IDAM BALITA KHA KHA KHAHI KHAHI So first you make the torma offering to Kalarupa, then to his consort Chamundi and then to the retinue. Sometimes Chamundi and retinue are mentioned together. Here they are mentioned separately, so it is Yavati and so forth. Maybe Yavati is the most important one. External offerings to Karmayama OM KALARUPA SAPARIWARA ARGHAM PRATICCHA HUNG SVAHA (etc,. for.. ) / PUSHPE / DHUPE / ALOKE / GANDHE / NAIVIDYA / SHABDA. Then follow the outer and the inner offering to all of them. As to the outer offerings for Kalarupa, there is only argham, pushpe, dhupe etc.; there is no padyam. Inner Offering to Karmayama OM KALARUPA HUNG PHAT, OM AH HUNG. OM CAMUNDI HUNG PHAT, OM AH HUNG.

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OM Hosts of male and female Yamas, such as Yavati, together with your entourages, OM AH HUNG. Exhorting to Karmayama to activities Then of course you pray to the Dharma king and his retinue: HUNG!! In the southern direction seven stages below the earth is the black Lord of Death, the Yama who thirsts for life. On a black buffalo as seat appeared YA, from which arose a club marked by a skull605. This became the Dharma King having the face of a furious buffalo, ravenous mouth stretched open, fangs bared, eyes fearsome and bloodshot, And orange hair streaming upwards. He holds a noose in his left hand with which to bind enemies and interferers, and a club in his right to pound them to dust. O Dharma King, O Hosts of Yamas, and O Chamundi, the mighty nymph who holds a trident and skullcup of blood: for all of you and all your servants the time for action has now come. Accept as offering this ocean-like torma of human flesh, blood and grease. Because of the commitments prescribed by the Victor, and out of your great compassion, quickly liberate all enemies and interferers. Enemies who hate and interferers who harm, evil beings who hinder: seize, bind and tie them tight; summon, drag and enslave them; slay, expel and petrify them; dismember, trample and bite them; subdue, destroy and demolish them; leave not even an atom. OM KALARUPA HUNG PHAT. BYOH CHAMUNDI HUNG PHAT Abbreviated Karmayama praise O doctrine Protector who heeds the word of Manjushri, Sworn one, King of Yamas, fearsome lord having one head and two arms: To you I bow and sing praises. Purification OM YAMANTAKA SAMAYA…. etc. Anything which here has been done incorrectly because of my not having the proper materials or due to ignorance or lack of ability: with all these things, O protectors, to be forbearing would be just. Audience: Should we have some sort of food offering on our altar to represent to torma offering and if so what would be a good choice? Rinpoche: Everybody has it, why don’t you have it? You can keep biscuit tins and tins of luncheon meat and change them every six months or once a year. Everybody does that. Audience: I brought my food offering from my altar for the tsok offering once. Rinpoche: You don’t do that. You cannot offer something that has already been offered. You keep it on your altar and when you do your practice, you mentally divide it into portions. That way you can offer something every day. But when you have already offered it, there is nothing to be re-offered. So you have destroyed all our tsok.

Manner of bidding farewell OM AH HUNG MUH: The transcended Wisdom Being departs to his natural place. 605

See the drawing of Karmayama’s skull club in chapter XII Appendices.

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Yamantaka teachings The Commitment Being dissolves into me. The other guests return to their own abodes.

Prayer The concluding prayer By the meritorious energy of this practice… etc.

The extended prayer606 Virtue equaling the flow of the Gangha Has arisen from my practicing absorption, recitation and so forth Upon the circle of the mandala of ‘The Opponent of Yama’, a Lord of Fury, A mandala as clear as a rainbow reflected in the surface Of a stainless mirror, the Sphere of Bliss and Void. Yamantaka’s mandala, is described as being ‘like a rainbow’. That has a lot of meanings. The rainbow is very interesting. You see the rainbow and you know it’s there. You see it, so you cannot say there is no rainbow, but if you try to catch it, you can’t, there is nothing to catch. This is the main point. Whatever you practice in vajrayana, the mandala and everything, is like a rainbow: it appears, it serves the purpose, but it is not there. I should say it is not absolutely there. It is a little better than a rainbow, you can catch and feel and touch it, but it is not something you can really hold on. Therefore we say it is a mind-training, a mental exercise, a mental development. The difference with just an imagination is that this will become actualized. Imaginations cannot become actualized. Until they have actualized or actually developed, they are like a rainbow; it appears, it serves the purpose, but you cannot hold it. How do you deal with a rainbow? You appreciate it, you look at it, you enjoy it. Likewise here you look at the mandala, you meditate, you practice and you say the sadhana. You train yourself to be able to transform your individual death, bardo and rebirth into the extraordinary death, bardo and rebirth. For that purpose you meditate, you visualize and recite mantras. Through my uniting this accumulation of merit With the many streams of meritorious activities of all beings And by my having trained in the Path of Liberation, conjoined With the vows and deeds of the Sons of the Conquerors, May my continuum become filled with the treasure of nectar Of the culmination of the Common Paths. At the same time you are accumulating a tremendous amount of positive karma that will enable you to complete the common paths. You will be able to fulfill your needs. By the divine water of the Vase Empowerment, May ordinary appearance and belief in it be purified; And by the supreme empowerments which follow this May the Speech of the Conquerors, the sphere of Clear Light And the Great Union actually come to be. First you do the common practice, i.e. from the guru-devotional practice up to the six paramitas. After that, out of the four initiations the first one is the vase initiation, also referred to as water initiation, because each of the eleven sub-initiations is concluded with water. This water is sometimes called ‘water of the gods’ or divine water, which is very similar to the Christian terminology of holy water. The purpose of the water initiation is to purify and it purifies ordinary perception and conception. In sutrayana we say anger/hatred, attachment and ignorance are our biggest obstacles; in vajrayana ordi-

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Also see chapter V. Literature: Tri Gyaltsen Senge, The profound path of the great secret, pg. 114-129.

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nary perception and conception are our biggest obstacles. The first initiation purifies that. After that you have the higher initiations, that introduce you to the level of enlightenment. Having at that time in the presence of the Lama and Deities Taken upon myself the pure vows and commitments Which are the supreme root of all siddhis, May I constantly protect them all Even at the cost of life or limb. How does one get development in vajrayana? Of course you have to work and do all this, but the fundamental basis on which the vajrayana development comes is keeping your own commitments. This is the most important. With that I don’t mean saying your sadhanas or mantras. I am talking about the vajrayana commitments which are the fourteen vows and nineteen commitments. The vajrayana commitments are given during the initiation and are not just a simple commitment. You give your commitment in the presence of Lama Yamantaka and his mandala. The root of achieving the accomplishments is keeping these commitments. That is a must. If you have that, you don’t need much apart from that. It is that important. It is your personal duty as a vajrayana practitioner to find out what the commitments are and then use them as a reflection on yourself: ‘Am I keeping this one and that one?’ That’s why you have to say the Six-session yoga every day. If you don’t meditate, at least say the words. Do not have a too short version. Ganchen Rinpoche used a one-verse Six session yoga, written by Ngulchu Dharmabhadra. Our tradition lineage says that one is too short. Pabongka made the shortest acceptable Six session yoga; you all have that. Just saying the words six times a day will serve the purpose of not breaking the commitment. That is good enough to provide the foundation of achieving completion. Even if you do nothing, just keep the commitment, there is a ninety percent chance that you make it in this life time. But if you don’t keep your commitments, then no matter whatever you do, even if you say millions of mantras, it will get you nowhere. I guarantee you. Keeping the commitments is the foundation, the root. That’s what you have to keep them like life or limb. By practicing in four daily sessions As diligent as a river flows The Yogas of the Coarse and Subtle Development Stage, The Path fully ripening one for the Completion Stage, May ordinary appearance and belief in it be annihilated. Remember, we had the building of the mandala with the [causal and after that the result-] Vajra Bhairava, then the eyes, nose, etc, with the letters representing the different deities, then the three beings – the commitment being, the wisdom being and the absorption being – and then the coarse and the subtle development stage. The purpose of all this is to cut the ordinary perception and conception, i.e. the appearance itself and accepting that. At the words ‘four daily sessions’, you’ll probably raise the question: ‘Do I have to say the sadhana four times a day?’ No. The four daily sessions refer to the retreat situation. If you are in retreat it is recommended to have four sessions daily, or three or two, or at least one session within twenty-four hours. Traditionally, when you are in retreat, you are locked in, you don’t even see people. When in Tibet there were shared bathrooms, the person in retreat would put their robes over their heads, because they did not want to see anybody else. That was a very restricted way. Nowadays we cannot do that, and it has been permitted by the masters to do retreat and function as you normally do, together. However, you have to be back on your cushion at least once in twenty-four hours. Those of us who have daily commitments, have to do the practice at least once a day anyway, but in that case it does not matter wherever you do it. When you are in retreat, however, you must come back within the same twenty-four hours and practice on the same cushion you have started on. The great radiance of the heart of the Perfect Hero Invites the Field of Accumulation, which pervades the sky;

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Yamantaka teachings By delighting this field with the purest offerings, praises and practice, May I totally complete the great collections of merit.

This is the invocation of the field of merit. After the preliminaries are over, there is you yourself in the form of the Solitary Hero Yamantaka with one face and two hands. You are referring to yourself here as Hero. At your heart you have that lotus and sun cushion. Light goes out from there and invites Yamantaka with the vajra master. You invite the supreme Field of Merit in front of you. In that case Yamantaka is the complete Yamantaka and the Lama Vajra Bhairava is sitting on the head of Yamantaka in between his two horns. Then dissolve the light back to yourself. Then you praise. The words of praising the lama are not ordinary words, but tantric words: ‘Through the kindness of the root master, I will be able to obtain enlightenment within a second. Therefore you are very precious. I bow to your lotus feet’. Then, of course, you say the Yamantaka praise: ‘Supreme form etc.,’ you make offerings, purify yourself and generate the four immeasurables; all of those. Any practices of accumulation of merit of that part of the sadhana are completely covered in this verse. Having with stainless reason, Examined the meaning of the mantra And having, with awareness which is sure of the profound emptiness, Strongly established the Pride of Dharmakaya May I become habituated with the Peerless Wisdom. The meaning of the mantra OM SVABHAVA SHUDDHA SARVA DHARMA SVABHAVA SHUDDOH HAM you try to understand by putting all your wisdom, all your intelligence, on it. Whatever your understanding of it is, you apply. At least you think that every single damn thing is empty. At least that. Try to get understanding of emptiness. Emptiness is very important, but it is very hard for us to get it. If emptiness becomes totally empty, then you have gone too extreme; if emptiness becomes totally existing, then you have gone too extreme, too. So the right extreme and the left extreme, both are unacceptable. That’s why Nagarjuna’s path is called the Middle Path or Central Path. The two extremes are not acceptable, in the sense of confirming the reality with it. The question is not whether you are willing or unwilling to accept it; the point is the reality. Our true existence is the balancing point. If something has gone too extreme, it is not balanced. If your elements are not balanced, you get sick. If it goes beyond balance, you die. So we really live on the balancing point. Every single thing – emotionally, physically, mentally – is on the balancing point. The true emptiness is the balancing point. So, in the meaning of this particular mantra one should see the true emptiness. That’s why you do have this dharmakaya practice, the dying and death stage practice. This is because it concerns the subtle level of one’s consciousness. Subtle consciousness is not emptiness, however it helps to see emptiness better. You make use of the opportunity of cutting the mind down on the gross attractions and the gross wandering. And when the mind has come down to a very subtle level, you may be able to use it as a positive vehicle. That’s why using death as dharmakaya has been introduced – that is the level where we can really settle down. Another point in which you can get the subtle focus is the sexual experience. That is if you have great sex, not just ordinary sex. At that time the external attraction is much less. People talk about sex as spiritual practice. I don’t know if sex really becomes a practice, but the mental state in that period can be used positively. That’s what they are talking about. Also fearful anger tremendously reduces the awareness. Anger can go to the extent that the person doesn’t even know what he or she has done. Anger itself, if you let it go in that manner, is basically a negativity. You may have more a danger of losing the battle than the possibility of making it. Attachment is a little gentler.

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If you shut down all external things you are focused on one single point. Maybe that is one of the reasons why they say that vajrayana is dangerous, like a snake in a bamboo tube. It can either go up or down.. In order to set your mind properly, you have to recognize what is happening with you. That’s why you have the training. You try to practice the taking death as dharmakaya at least every day. That is doing your daily sadhanas. It is a minimum effort with maximum training and maximum advantage. By the absorption of the Ten Wrathful Ones, The great glaring Ones who abide In the Fiercely-blazing Wheel, The trunk and limbs of darkness Are torn out from their very roots; May I too come to possess this power. This verse talks about the uncommon protection wheel. It is the burning wrathful command wheel [tib. rabkar trakpo korlo]. We gave the example of the enterprise ship of ‘Star trek’. It is called ‘command wheel’, because it is the bridge from where the orders are issued, where the central deity commands the ten wrathful deities The central figure depends on the activities you do. In this particular sadhana you have Sumbharaja in the center. The wrathful deity who sits at the central command, can change. It is not a democracy, where everybody gets the opportunity and you rotate, no The change is done in accordance with your needs. In the center of this mighty wrathful wheel Is the Inconceivable Mansion, having the nature of wisdom, Radiant with the lights of jewels, All beauty condensed into one object; By meditating upon it, May the Supreme Buddha field be produced. At the center of that wheel you have the triangle. In the middle of that you have the lotus. At the center of the lotus petals you have the double crossed vajra. At the hub of the double crossed vajra you yourself generate as one of the five buddhas, the white buddha [Vairochana] and then that becomes the total mandala. The mandala is in the nature of wisdom. It is neither built from concrete, nor is it a glass house. It is wisdom nature that has become like a jeweled celestial mansion. Like in the fairy-tale children think that something has come down from the sky – which indicates it is extraordinary rather than man made – the mandala is not made from sand or drawn on paper, but it is the wisdom of the individual. It is the same idea. What is a mandala? It is nothing but the environment in which you’ll become fully enlightened, in which you’ll live; it’s your country, your town, your own set up, your house, your home, your environment, the people you want to be in there, the retinue, the necessities, all of them combined together, extraordinarily pure, wonderful, of wisdom nature, not built by a carpenter company. It has almost dropped from the sky. Not only is it jewel [like], but also radiating and totally serving the purpose of duality. All the best of everything in existence has been collected. All the beautiful qualities, which can satisfy the eye consciousness, collected into one piece – such a wonderful thing is the mandala. It is not some crazy mis-matched bright colors put together, nor is it like a little cardboard box rolling around. (The Snow Lion Publications video of the Yamantaka mandala shows a blue little card board box flying in the air. That is totally giving you an wrong image!) Don’t think of a little sand mandala, do not picture a poster or a tangka. When you are talking about the mandala, it is everything best, everything wonderful. Each and every individual will have a different view on what beauty is. Whatever you appreciate as beauty, whatever you like, that is all collected together in one little place and it is of wisdom nature, not man-made. That is the quality of the mandala you meditate.

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When you meditate, you have to meditate the mandala, because if you don’t, you will become a homeless buddha later. The better the quality you can meditate, the better your pure land will be. Even if you don’t have the dimensions of the mandala, at least you can think and imagine you have the most beautiful mansion in the most beautiful environment with the most beautiful mountains and rivers and trees. This most beautiful mansion has five-colored walls and from the inside you are looking at the white wall. It is in jewel-natured and absolutely wonderful, of peaceful wisdom nature, limitless, never too small, never too big. Not too big means that even if there is only one person, it is not too big and not too small means that even if there are millions of people coming in, there is always room and people don’t have to stand. It is not that it expands or becomes smaller, but it has that quality. You, remember what happened between Milarepa and his student Rechungpa? When Rechungpa came back to him he thought: ‘Well, I come from India and I know more than my master who has never been to India’. Suddenly a storm came up and Milarepa hid in the horn of a yak and neither did the yak horn expand nor did Milarepa reduce it607. That how it works. In the center of the palace is a mandala of air on which firmly rests a moon. Seated there is Manjushri having a luminous body; By constantly meditating upon him, May I become free from the impure Intermediate State And attain the Sambogakaya. In the center of the palace is the moving mandala, i.e. the air mandala. The air mandala is dark colored and a little bit reddish. Suddenly, in the middle of that, you have the letter AH which becomes a moon mandala. At the center of that is letter DHIH which becomes Manjushri. So Manjushri is generated from an air mandala. The translation should not say ‘air mandala’, but ‘moving mandala’. (We have to correct that. There are a couple of people who have promised to look into that and by about this time we should have a perfect translation of the sadhana coming out, but nobody did it. So there goes the commitment.) The first physical form in the center of the palace is the sambogakaya Manjushri. Generating the sambogakaya Manjushri has two reasons: 1) Yamantaka is the wrathful Manjushri and the peaceful Manjushri is Manjushri himself. 2) Generating a figure, the physical appearance of a yidam, indicates that this is a father tantra. By perfecting the Yogas of Coarse and Subtle Development Stage, Wherein the form of ‘The Vajra Bhairava’ is actualized. From the wrathful vajra that arises out of the seed syllable Which rests on the sun which consumes the myriads of preconceptions May I experience the dance of the Nirmanakaya That has abandoned all impure rebirth. Manjushri melts and becomes the sun mandala. Then the sun mandala becomes the wrathful vajra. Light radiates from it and invites the wisdom beings and the buddhas and bodhisattvas, who dissolve into the wrathful vajra. The wrathful vajra dissolves and becomes Baghavan Vajra Bhairava, the nirmanakaya. So Yamantaka’s body has been generated from a vajra. In the long sadhana it is there, you have to remember it. Within the nirmanakaya you have the gross and subtle development stage. May the highest realizations of the Completion Stage, Relating with the Thirty-seven Elements Directed at Awakedness, The principal features of the Nine Scriptural Categories Into which collect all the Teachings of the Able Ones, arise.

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See Gelek Rinpoche, Lam Rim Teachings, pg. 235.

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Up to here we very briefly reviewed what we have done so far. If you get used to it, then probably just by saying that extended prayer, you get the whole sadhana sort of in front of you. When you get that, your comprehension of the sadhana is okay, the situation is under control. Until then it is not. From the meeting of the white and red Bodhicittas…etc. …. Place all beings in the state of the ‘Vajra Holder’.

Abbreviated Prayer By the virtue which has arisen from the effort Made with pure thought in the practice, May the limitless beings in life after life Not become separated from but be cared for by The Peaceful and Wrathful aspects of Manjughosa. May I, having actualized the state of the Seven Kisses Which has the nature of the Five Bodies eternal as space, Easily lead all beings to that very state in a single moment.

Reabsorption The Cemeteries, together with the Wheel of Protection, are absorbed into the Inconceivable Mansion. The Inconceivable Mansion is absorbed into me. I, the Commitment Being, am absorbed into the Wisdom Being. The Wisdom being is absorbed into the Absorption Being. The U-vowel of the Absorption Being into the HA. HA into the head of the HA that into the crescent moon, that into the dot and that into the zigzag. This in turn becomes unapprehendable emptiness. The dissolving is also very easy. From the sphere of voidness arises the ‘Glorious Vajra Bhairava’, having one face and two arms, marked at the crown with OM, at the throat with AH and at the heart with HUNG. You rise in the physical form of the deity Yamantaka with one face and two hands, the deity of activity, with letter OM representing the body of the enlightened beings, AH representing the speech, HUNG representing the mind.

Verses of good fortune The vast space and this mother earth Are entirely filled, with neither let nor hindrance, By the hosts of deities related to ‘The Opponent of Yama’, The mere recollection of whom subdues all demons and interferors and effortlessly fulfills all wishes of the mind. By this practice which releases a rain of flowers that conceals the sky With the sound of a song endowed with the fidelity of Brahma, You are maintained in everlasting glory; As ecstatic joy arises in you through knowing this We shall proclaim this melodious song of good fortune. Out of his great compassion, in order to tame the vulgar mind, Glorious Manjughosa, the synthesis of the wisdom

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Yamantaka teachings Of all Conquerors of the three times, Cavorts in a furious dance as ‘The Vajra Bhairava’, I prostrate myself to you, 0 King of Fury.

In the traditional teachings they don’t give any commentary on this part, but in the west, whenever they read something, they have to go through with something, so we better do it. Most of the words that are there, you can understand. What you need to know is that the terrifying Yamantaka or Vajra Bhairava is the same as Manjushri, or Manjugosha. He or she or it appears in that way, but in reality it is all the buddhas of the past, present and future, their qualities, their kindness, having out of compassion become one physical form, Manjushri. In order to conquer the wrathful demons, he takes a wrathful form. This means, that anger is replaced by compassion. Compassion instead of anger is the cause of the wrath in this particular form. Compassion compels the individual to do something. If someone cannot be helped in a peaceful, gentle way, you do it in a wrathful, destructive way. Yamantaka’s wrath has been developed because of compassion. By the auspiciousness of whatever signs of virtue there may be in the Master, in the Dakini producing all joys within him, In Lalita, who has found the highest siddhi, As well as in the supreme present and lineage Gurus May there in all places be the good fortune Of the promulgation of Vajrayana, the highest doctrine, Through the enlightened activity of ‘The Vajra Holder’ And those Gurus entering into your heart. The dakini referred to here is the consort of Yamantaka. First you bow to the terrifying Yamantaka whose joy has been brought about by the consort Dakini. Then the first in the lineage, Lalita and the direct and lineage masters. By the auspiciousness of whatever mass of goodness There may be in the Form that terrifies the boundless horrors, And in the deities and Consorts who reign over the infinite mandalas, And who remain absorbed until the end of existence, In the meditation upon the innately-born Great Bliss of the Supreme Mudra May not even the word ‘interference’ exist for you; May there be the good fortune of enjoying the Vastness of Space With the glory of the dharma of Non-contaminated Bliss. This refers to the mandala itself. By the auspiciousness of whatever goodness there may be In this singular jewel of the universe, The King of all Tantras, ‘Vajra Bhairava’, The essence of the ocean of Tantras of Vajradhara, May you enjoy the undegenerating glory Of the supreme ambrosia of the profound meaning Of the Two Stages which fills the vase at your heart, And may there be the good fortune for it To be spread throughout the universe. The essence of the tantra is the two stages of development, the development stage and the completion stage. By the auspiciousness of whatever goodness there may be In all those gathered in the realms of the ten directions Who hold even one part of this Tantra, As well as in all the masses of Heroes and Yoginis

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Who have found the supreme siddhi, May there be the good fortune in igniting The festivities of bliss through the aid of the consorts, The messengers of Body, Speech and Mind, Born innately, born from mantra or born from field, The indispensable condition for your actualizing the Supreme Path. The ‘messengers’ are either dakas or dakinis. Qualified dakas and dakinis are of three kinds: the simultaneous born, the mantra born and the field born. By the auspiciousness of whatever goodness there may be In the perfect palace that is as vast as the sky And in the light equaling that of moon and sun that shines from it As well as in the countless jewels and ornaments May there never occur any signs of ill-omen In any place you reside; May the endowments of that realm be bountiful And may there be the good fortune of everlasting goodness.

Verses of auspiciousness May the verses of aupiciousness… etc.

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[ii] YOGA BETWEEN SESSIONS During the in-between-the-session phase, i.e. in your daily life, what are you expected to do? Yoga of external activities At the end of the sadhana from light you have risen in the form of Yamantaka. Every figure that you see around, you acknowledge as Yamantaka, every sound you acknowledge as mantra and every movement you do is like the yidam dancing or a mahamudra type of activity. Every single thing you see, hear, feel etc. is in the nature of emptiness and full of bliss. Whatever activity you do, you try to think about it in that way. That is called ‘the yoga of external activities’. It is easy to say and also easy to understand, but it is very difficult to do. Yoga of eating Inner fire offering. After blessing the food and drink608you think that your mouth is a fire-offering stove, like in the fire puja. Think that both hands are the ladles used to put the offerings on the stove. The food you take is the material to be burned by the fire inside. You offer to the absorption being at your heart level, i.e. the letter HUNG. The letter HUNG you should write as a symbol, with the U and the M within the H. In vajrayana you symbolize. The M [pronounced ‘MA’] is equal to zero, is equal to emptiness and is represented by a circle on top. Within the circle of the HUNG you have a moon cushion and on top of that is your root master inseparable from Yamantaka, and from all the different deities of the four different tantras and from all other buddhas and bodhisattvas and enlightened beings. Every time you eat food, you offer to them. That way you are using your meal as an inner fire offering. Doing that protects you from illnesses, as well as from untimely death. Also it helps you with things which actually should not be used by you, like food that comes from the wrong source and from wrong livelihood. You know, a lot of masters receive gifts from a lot of different people and you have no idea where these gifts are coming from. A lot of offerings are given by people because they did something wrong. Also many people collect their wealth by cheating other people, by killing other sentient beings, by butchering, etc.; that becomes wrong livelihood, and whoever uses that, has problems. Using the food in the manner we just explained, probably is the way to protect the user from having those downfalls, while the person who is giving still gets benefited and you get benefited too. Joined vase breathing. Another little technique you have to learn is this. At the time when the food is about to be digested, it is a good idea to have a little vase meditation, called the upper and lower vase joined. Without making noise you very slowly breathe in through the nostrils. When the air goes through the throat you swallow a little saliva without making much noise and you push that air all the way down to the navel level. Then you suck air in from the anus and bring it up to the navel level. The air you have pushed down and the air you sucked up, you join together – that is called joined vase – and then you concentrate a little bit. You can do that two or three times and when you can’t hold the breath any more, let it slowly go through the nostrils. Don’t let it out suddenly and do not let it out from the mouth. On the beginning level you may not be able to bring air in through the anus. To really do that, you need a lot of strength in the lower level. You need to tighten your legs, and tighten your thighs, pull the air in and push it up. At this level you don’t have to do that, yet. The yoga of sleeping The Vajrayogini practice starts from the yoga of sleeping; the Yamantaka practice is completed with it. This is the dissolving system. When you go to sleep every single thing you dissolve to the cemeteries and the protection wheels. In case you have certain fears, like fear of leaving the house, fear of getting

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See page 134.

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up and going to the bathroom at night, or any of that type of fear, you don’t dissolve the protection wheels. So, the whole universe – which you see with absolute clarity – melts into light and dissolves to the cemeteries. You leave the protection wheels there. The cemeteries dissolve to the mandala, which dissolves to yourself, and you yourself dissolve from the lower and the upper part of your body – like if you put your breath on a mirror and it lifts from outside to inside. You dissolve into the letter HUNG, which is the absorption being as well as the representation of your consciousness. The lower part of the HUNG dissolves into the H-body, the H-body dissolves into the upper top line, that dissolves into the crescent moon, that dissolves into the circle, which finally dissolves into the squiggle and the squiggle finally disappears into the nature of emptiness. You remember that everything is in the nature of emptiness, and within that you fall asleep. If you could do that, it is the best way to sleep. Yoga of rising You can’t sleep all the time, you have to get up and for that we have the yoga of rising. It is strongly recommended to get up before dawn; if not, to get up when the light comes out. The yogi is urged not to sleep after the sun comes out. In the monasteries we used to get beaten up, if we did. There is no question they would hit you as hard as they could. There is a saying: The sun is shining on your buttocks, but the light has not reached your face.

Once I was in Moscow with His Holiness on a visit. In Moscow the sun could come out at 4.00 a.m. at that period.. So His Holiness was up, and so everybody had to get up, whether you had anything to do or not. Then everybody would run around to get hot water, and there was none available. The kitchen was not going to open till 10.00 am. Finally, one Ladhak lama, who was up on the 87th floor in that hotel, saw one of those big Russian old brass water-kettles. He got two other people, they broke the door of the kitchen open and made hot water. And by the time the water boiled, the kitchen had already opened! So, although it is nice and we have that bad habit of a late night and a late morning, it is better to go to sleep on time and get up on time. By the time you wake up you have to think that the sound of your alarm clock is the dakinis singing and asking you to get up. You are in the nature of clear light emptiness – you dissolved into that and you were sleeping in that manner – and from that you will appear again as the gross body of an enlightened being.. The yoga of washing When you take a shower or when you are washing your mouth or face, you think the dakinis are giving you an initiation, or you think that the shower head becomes buddha Akshobhya and from there the initiation water is coming. Finally buddha Akshobhya dissolves to your body. To conclude, the major or extraordinary purpose of doing the development stage is ripening yourself to be able to use the completion stage, the dzok rim. The minor or ordinary purpose is that in case you have to end your life before reaching to the dzok rim level, you will be able to recognize the stages you are going to experience. At that point a very subtle and quiet mind state is naturally provided, i.e. the mind of dying, and we try to utilize this opportunity to be able to focus on whatever we can chew. You bite what you can chew.

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XI COMPLETION STAGE You can practice the completion stage [tib. dzok rim] with the sadhana or separately. Basically, for the practice, you have two outlines: 1. Preliminaries 2. Actual practice609 The preliminaries are divided into two: 1. General preliminaries 2. Special preliminaries

[i] General preliminaries The first and common preliminary is Lam Rim: from the guru yoga to the six paramitas. That includes for every part: learning, thinking, meditating and it becoming part of your life. The second preliminary is obtaining the initiation from a qualified master. The seed of the four kayas should be planted within the individual. That is the real essence of the initiation. What is expected after the initiation is keeping whatever you have committed. Thirdly you need the three-kaya practice on the gross and subtle levels of learning, which is what is in the sadhana, what we have taught. That needs to be comprehended and meditated. Those are the preconditions to be fit for the completion stage. We have turned round the Lam Rim a number of times and you have some kind of comprehension of it by now. Likewise you need to have the whole vajrayana sadhana practice within you. That way it becomes not only a comprehension of the words, also not only a comprehension of the meaning of the words, but it becomes relevant to your daily life. Even the Lam Rim, at the beginning level, does not make sense to the individual’s life. We have to struggle a very long time before it does. To understand it and become part of our life takes a long time and needs lots of efforts by everybody. Once it has becomes part of our life, it is very useful and helpful. Just like Lam Rim the vajrayana practice, the sadhana, should become totally relevant to our daily life,. Once you have that, and in addition you comprehend the gross and subtle development stage, you are fulfilling the third requirement to enter the completion stage. Up to that level you are on the preliminary [tib. ngondro] level of it.

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For the outlines of the actual practice, see the appendix: Outlines.

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[ii] Special preliminaries In the actual dzok rim preliminaries, you have the Vajrasattva recitation for purification and the guruyoga to obtain blessings. Vajrasattva recitation The Vajrasattva recitation is the same as in the development stage. There is nothing extra. The uncommon guru yoga practice Guru yoga is needed to obtain blessings quickly. It has common and uncommon parts. The common guru yoga we have in the Ganden Lha Gyema, in the sadhanas, in the Lama Chopa, etc. There is no need to talk about that here. The uncommon guru yoga practice is what you have here. Though you are not practicing the completion stage, you can go up to this level. Try to gain this, it will be useful. It is almost like in the Lama Chopa: Right in front of you in open space, you generate a huge jewel throne, lifted by eight lions, high, open, and above that you have a lotus, a moon disc and a sun disc. You generate a complete Lama Yamantaka on that. Like the Yamantaka in the sadhana, he has a dark color, nine faces, thirty-four hands, etc. Like in the sadhana you go through all faces and hands and hand implements. And he is within a burning fire. So, up to this level you can follow the sadhana. At the heart level of Yamantaka are all the buddhas of past, present and future, and all the buddhas of the ten directions. They are inseparable from our own root master Manjushri, the root master, is orange colored, holding a sword and a Prajnaparamita text. At the crown of Manjushri all the bodies of the enlightened beings are represented by a letter OM. The speech of all enlightened beings is represented by a letter AH at the throat level. The minds of the enlightened beings are represented by a letter HUNG at the heart level. At the navel level is the yellow letter SO, and at the secret level a green HA. Light goes from the heart of the letter HUNG and invites all the lamas, yidams, buddhas and bodhisattvas, dakas, dakinis and dharma protectors. All of them dissolve to the guru. That guru is the collection of all gurus, of all buddhas, of all dharmas, of all sanghas, of all yidams, and of all dharma protectors. By seeing, hearing and remembering them they are able to fulfill the wishes of all beings. Each of the guru’s hair pores, you are able to see as a totally enlightened pure land. That very master is manifesting everywhere, benefiting different people, acting according to the needs of the different beings. Some manifestations are completing their activities, some are coming back, some are going out, and so forth. They are continuously teaching, knowing everything, having a strong compassion to all sentient beings. That’s what you have to meditate. You meditate strongly, in such a way and until you develop very profound faith and respect. Next, you think: Well, to make offerings to all the enlightened buddhas and bodhisattvas is a great opportunity, but I am not sure whether they’ll accept my offerings or not. But if I make offerings to my vajra master, while he is alive, I not only have the benefit of making offerings, but also the benefit of him accepting the offerings. Therefore I like to make offerings to him.

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The offerings you make are outer, inner, secret and suchness offerings, and the mandala offerings. How do you do that? From your heart you generate one or two or a number of offerings deities and each one of them generates more and more offering deities. Since you now have a little training on the subtle development stage with the small vajras coming out of Yamantaka’s nostrils and doubling them into two, two into four, four into eight etc.610, and bringing them back in the same order without mistake, it is a little easier to do the same here. Ultimately the whole space is filled with the offering deities you have generated. They are carrying their particular offerings, like water for the mouth, water for the feet, etc. The space is filled up with them and they are pushing each other, trying to reach to this great master. Then you offer. First make the outer offerings. Then you offer the inner offering in the form of nectar. This nectar has three qualities611. That is the essence of the inner offering you offer. The mantra here is OM GURU BUDDHA BODHISATTVA SAPARIWARA OM AH HUNG. The secret offering here is like in the Lama Chopa and in the Vajrayogini practice. It is the field born, mantra born and simultaneously born dakinis which you generate and each of them dissolve to the consort of lama Yamantaka which is Vajra Zombini and she and Lama Yamantaka go into union. By that sexual union, each part of lama Yamantaka’s and consort Vajra Zombini’s bodies experiences the joy. Each part of their bone and flesh bodies has the five buddhas together with their consorts, and each and every one of them has developed joy and bliss. Such a bliss/joy recognizes the emptiness and by that recognition of emptiness, the bliss and void become inseparable. Such an inseparable joy and bliss-void fully satisfying the enlightened beings is offered. That is actually the secret offering and the suchness offering together. If you want to do the seven limbs or the seven purities together with the offering, you can. Finally you make your request to the Guru who is the collection of all the protectors, saying: You are my only hope, Lama Rinpoche. Please bless me that my mind may become dharma. Please bless me that my dharma may not have obstacles and become a perfect path. Please bless me that my path may not have any mistakes. Please bless me that any mistakes or wrong understanding or wrong thoughts may transform and become wisdom. May any undesirable thoughts completely stop. May any perfect thoughts develop. May the two profound stages of development grow within me, especially the clarity of the nadis, the smooth energy, developing heat and joy and understanding and developing all the paths. That is your ultimate request. Such a request you make with a very strong concentration. This is basically the uncommon guru yoga of this practice. It is still the preliminary level, not the actual level of the completion stage. Next is taking the four initiations from the Guru. You make requests for the four initiations. You can pick up the words for that from anywhere. Even in the Lama Chopa you have it, after the verse: ‘You are our guru, you are our yidam…’ It is the same idea, the same principle. By the force of having thus requested three times Nectars and rays -white, red, and dark blue610 611

See page 318. See page 134.

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Yamantaka teachings Stream forth from the centres of our guru's body, speech and mind, And one by one and altogether, The four obstacles are purged, The four pure empowerments implanted And seeds of the four kayas received. A smiling emanation of the guru dissolves into us And we are blessed with inspiration. Light comes from the white OM from the Lama’s crown, fills up your body completely with white light and nectar, purifies all negativities in general, particularly any negativities committed through the body. The vase initiation is received, the blessings of the body of the lama are obtained, the seed is laid for our body to become the vajra body. That’s the first initiation. The second initiation occurs when from the throat of the Lama, from the red letter AH red light and nectar comes to our throat level. It fills up the body and purifies all negativities committed through speech. The speech blessings of the Guru are obtained and the seed of the vajra speech is laid. The third initiation takes place when from the Lama’s heart level. From the blue letter HUNG blue nectar and blue light comes, dissolves to our heart level, fills up our body completely. By that all our negativities committed through the mind are purified. With that the wisdom initiation is obtained. The blessings of the mind of the lama are obtained and into the foundation of our mind the seed of the vajra mind is laid. The fourth initiation takes place when from the five points of the lama’s body, that is crown, throat, heart, navel and secret level five-colored light and nectar comes, dissolves to our body, fills up our body completely, purifies the negativities committed through body, speech and mind together. The fourth initiation is thereby obtained. Also the blessing of the body, speech and mind of the Guru, and the seeds of the vajra body, vajra speech and vajra mind are laid to be obtained together. In other words the ultimate seed to become a fully enlightened Vajradhara has been laid.

Then you can say the verse ‘Oh glorious and precious root guru…’etc. from the Ganden Lha Gyema, praises and Guru mantras, whatever you want to do. Ultimately at the center of our body our heart opens in eight petals. By virtue of practice, by meditating, the opening – which normally is downwards – turns upwards and opens. You have the same thing in the Ganden Lha Gyema and in the Lama Chopa. The lion throne, lotus seat and everything comes through your central channel to your heart, which is opened up now. There the throne becomes a four- or eight-petalled red lotus. At the center of that, you have the indestructible drop from the parents. That is the red and white drops which don’t separate. These become the sun and moon cushions and Guru Yamantaka. He thus becomes inseparable from your subtle consciousness and energy. In other words, it is the Lama, it is the Yidam and it is your subtle consciousness. Those three together become the lama-deity inseparable, in the form of a little moonlight-white Yamantaka, nicely sitting there. Then you can say verses like in the Ganden Lha Gyema: ‘In life after life….may I never be separated…’ or any other words you have to pray. Finally the lotus closes.

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You can practice this very often. While doing that, when you actually or in a dream see that your master is happy with you and gives you teachings or gifts, if you dream anything of that sort, it is a good sign. If you are meditating on that, it is recommended in between sessions to read the benefits of the guru-devotional practice and the disadvantages of not doing it, the wrong treatment of it and what disadvantages that will bring to the individual. All of them are quite clearly mentioned in the Lam Rim. It is recommended to read that. Also gain some inspiration from Milarepa’s activities and also from the bodhisattva Tadungu, the bodhisattva ‘Always Crying612’. In short, all feelings, perceptions, thoughts, anything you encounter, are manifestations of the Guru. Outer, inner and secret activities are the manifestations of the Guru. That is the most important preliminary or ngondro of the completion stage. I am sure you can utilize and practice this and benefit from it. And beyond that level, I don’t think I will go into the completion stage.

As to the Yamantaka teachings, you can listen to the tapes a couple of times and gain a better understanding. May be you can bring up individual questions within yourselves, listen to the tapes again and I am sure the notes will come and you can read them.

612

See Gelek Rinpoche, Lam Rim Teachings, pg. 444, 642.

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XII APPENDICES Yamantaka Outlines: The oral instruction explaining the divisions of the two stages of Bhagawan Sri Ekavira Vajra Bhairava

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Seed syllables

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Mudras

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Illustrations

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Yamantaka teachings THE ORAL INSTRUCTION EXPLAINING THE DIVISIONS OF THE TWO STAGES OF BHAGAWAN SRI EKAVIRA VAJRA BHAIRAVA CHOM DEN DE PEL DOR JE JIK CHE PA WO CHI PEI RIM NYI KYI TI KYI SA CHE JIK DZE DOR JE ZHEL LUNG SHE CHA WA ZHUK SO.

I bow down to the feet of Yamantaka inseparable from the Guru. (This outline is re-organized from Pawo Chikpa) {I} Brief explanation of the general development of this teaching [Buddhism] {ll} Elaborated explanation of this practice {1} The origination of this teaching with an account of the originator and the lineage {i} How Buddha taught Tantra {ii} How Mahasiddha Lalita revealed this teaching by obtaining it from the Secret Treasury of the Dakinis of Ogyen and brought it to the Land of the Arya (India) {iii} How that line of teaching came unbroken to the Land of Snow up to the great root Guru {2} The explanation of the merits of the teaching in order to develop respect and faith therein {3} How to listen and explain such a teaching as this {i} Qualities of such a teacher {ii} Qualities of the disciples receiving the teaching {iii} Actual manner of giving and receiving the teaching {4} How to guide the disciples by the actual teaching {i} Attitude of the person who will practice {ii} Place where the practice will be done {iii} Manner of collecting at that place the necessities of the yogi {iv} Method of the actual practice [I] DEVELOPMENT STAGE [1] How to practice the actual method of the Development [i] Yoga of the Sessions <1> Beginning of the session (Preliminaries) {Sadhana begins here} Entreaty to the Lineage Instant generation Consecration of Vajra and Bell Consecration of the inner offering Consecration of the preliminary offering and torma Offering the preliminary torma Consecration of the offerings of self generation Vajrasattva meditation recitation <2> Actual session Meditation method enabling oneself, the yogi, in the future, to arise as the three kayas in place of birth, death, and bardo (1) Taking death as Dharmakaya and the related branches (i) Accumulation of various merits: corresponding to causes for optimal human rebirth (endowed with six elements from the womb of a Jambudvipa human being) 1. Accumulation of merits from the supreme field i Inviting the supreme field of merit ii. Accumulation of merit therefrom 2. Accumulation of merits from the lower field (ii) Meditation on the wisdom of the basis of Shunyata as Dharmakaya: corresponding to realization of clear light of death (iii) Meditation on protection wheel to block obstacles 1. The common protection wheel 2. The uncommon/special protection wheel (2) Taking Bardo as Sambogakaya as the path

Appendices (i)

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Generation of environment of the mansion, wherein Enlightenment takes place (ii) Generation of occupant, the Causal Vajra Holder (3) Taking yoga of rebirth Nirmanakaya as the generation of the Resultant Vajra Holder (i) Actual method of meditating birth Nirmanakaya (ii) Purification of sense bases and body, speech, and mind (iii) Method of entering the wisdom beings, empowerment, and sealing Making offerings and praises, corresponding with the activities after Enlightenment (1) Making offerings and praise (2) Meditation of the precise and coarse (3) Recollection of the purities (4) Manner of doing recitation <3> End of the session Offering torma Manner of bidding farewell Prayer Reabsorption Verses of auspiciousness [ii] Yoga Between Sessions [2] By firm Development Stage, the method of attaining [II] COMPLETION STAGE [1] Preliminaries [i] General preliminaries [ii] Special preliminaries [2] Actual practice [i] Concerning the actual basis <1> Distinctive features of body and mind <2> Common features of body and mind <3> Detailed explanation about the body [ii] Stages of taking the path <1> Stages of absorbing airs into Avadhuti The mantra yoga (1) Actual isolation of the body, the basis of mantra yoga, by the compression process of involution at the navel (2) Actual speech isolation by method of mantra yoga (i) Vase breathing (ii) Vajra recitation The actual mind isolation as the yoga of dam tzig <2> Meditation in reliance upon that absorption Yoga of shape Pure wisdom yoga From these, method of obtaining integration [iii] Method of realizing the fruit

{I} {1}{i}

[I]

[1]

[i]

<1>



(1)

(i)

1,

i.

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SYLLABLES short A KHAM

TAM

AH TZA BAM

KSHIM YA KU YAM

BHRUM LAM BI MA CAM MAM DA MU

DHIH

NA

OM HUNG

GO PAM HA RA

HUNG

JRIM

RAM

SAM

SHU KAM

HUNG Dissolving

MUDRAS

Hugguing mudra

Threatening mudra

Hooking mudra

Offering mudras

Argham

Dhupa

Padyam

Aloke

Gandhe

Pushpe

Naividia

Shabda

Bam

Hoh

Merging mudra

Dza

Hung

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ILLUSTRATIONS

Altar: during the retreat

Altar: additional offerings at the beginning of the retreat

Appendices

Bell

Vajra

Skullcup

Vajra wrathful

Banner

How to place vajra and bell

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Yamantaka one face two hands

Curved knife

Skullcup with five meats

Appendices

The element mandalas and the crossed vajra on which hub the whole mandala is to be built!

Sumbharaja

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Nine of the Ten Wrathful Protectors

First right hand: skin of an elephant – victory over narrow-mindedness

YAMANTAKA symbolism of the hands and of the beings under the feet

First left hand: skin of an elephant – victory over narrow-rnindedness

Remaining right hands: I . curved knife (in front!) - cutting through ignorance 2. dart - piercing conception of subject and object 3. pestle - destroying degenerated mindfulness 4. fish knife - cutting off cyclic existence 5. harpoon - destroying the faults of body, speech, mind 6. axe - cutting imprints of obscurations of sentient beings 7 spear - piercing wrong views 8. arrow - transfixing pain of preconception 9. hook - keeps spirits and demons away 10. skull-headed club - destroying the obstacles of karma 11. khatanga - transforming into nature of great practice too - tummo) 12. rimless wheel - turning the wheel of Dharma 13. five-point vajra - being in the nature of the five wisdoms 14. vajra-hammer - destroying avarice 15. sword - bestowing the eight siddhis 16. hand-drum - invoking the buddhas

Remaining left hands 1 . skull-cup filled with blood (in front!) restoring degenerated commitments 2. head of Brahma - working with great compassion 3. shield - victory over the 4 maras 4. leg - practitioner proceeding to enlightenment 5. lasso - enveloping the mental continuum with pure wisdom 6. bow - victory over the 3 worlds entrails -possibility of developing illusion body (YT holds method of father tantra) 8. bell - sound of Prajnaparamita 9. hand - performing the four activities 10. cotton shroud - eliminating the veil of obstacles to wisdom 11. man impaled on a stick - directly realizing emptiness by penetrating all things through voidness (YT practice not easy, but forcefully you get through.) 12. brazier (stove) - possibility of developing clear light (YT practitioners quicker chance to develop wisdom) 13. scalp - mental continuum being filled with compassion 14 threatening mudra - threatening the demons: 'You should give priority of bestowing siddhihood on my practitioners'. 15. trident with flags - understanding the emptiness of the three doors as being one entity 16. fan – indicates that all things are like illusions

Under the right feet: eight siddhis 1. human - pill 2. buffalo -eye lotion 3. bullock - underground movement 4. donkey - sword 5. camel - flying in space 6. dog - becoming invisible 7. sheep - immortality 8. fox - destruction of sickness

Under the left feet: eight powers 1. vulture – power of body 2. owl – power of speech 3. crow - power of mind 4. parrot - power of miracles 5. hawk - power of going anywhere 6. kite - power of abode 7. mynah bird - power of wish-fulfillment 8. swan - qualities (be of use for others)

Karmayama

Kalarupa’s skull-club

Khatanga

XIII GLOSSARY Abidharma (Skt.) The systematized philosophical and psychological analysis of existence that is the basis for the buddhist systems of tenets and of mind-training. As one of the branches of the buddhist canon, the Tripitaka, the Abhidharma corresponds to the discipline of wisdom, whereas the sutras correspond to the discipline of meditation and the vinaya to the discipline of morality. Abidharmakosha (Skt; Tib. Ngonpa dzö). Treasury of Metaphysics. An important hinayana work written by Vasubandhu, probably in the fourth century C.E., as a critical compendium of the Abhidharmic science. A similar text in mahayana is Asanga’s Abidharmasamuccaya [Tib. Ngonpa kundu]. Air (Skt. prana; Tib. lung) Also called wind or energy. In vajrayana the energy serves as the mount for the various gross and subtle states of consciousness.. Akanishta (Tib. Ogmin) The highest heaven of the form-world, where a buddha always receives the anointment of the ultimate wisdom, i.e. achieves enlightenment, reaching there mentally from his seat of enlightenment under the bodhi-tree. Akshobya (Tib. Mikyöpa) The manifestation of the aggregate of consciousness of all buddhas. He is one of the five Tathagatas or Dhyani buddhas. He has a blue-colored body. He holds the commitments of vajra, bell, mudra and reliance upon the guru. Amithaba (Tib. Öpame) The manifestation of the aggregate of discrimination of all buddhas. He has a red-colored body. He is one of the five Tathagatas or Dhyani buddhas. The buddha of infinite light who presides over the Western Paradise, Sukhavati. He is associated with infinite compassion and is the teacher of Arya Avalokiteshvara. He holds the commitments of relying upon the teachings of the sutra and of the lower and higher tantras. Amoghasiddhi (Tib. Dönyo drupa) The manifestation of the aggregate of compositional factors of all Buddhas. He has a green-colored body. He is one of the five Tathagatas or Dhyani buddhas. He holds the commitment of making offerings to the guru and to maintain purely all vows. Arhat (Skt; Tib. drachompa) ‘Enemy destroyer’ or ‘foe destroyer’. One who has overcome the forces of karma and delusion and attained liberation from cyclic existence and thus has obtained arhatship, the spiritual ideal of hinayana buddhism. It is the culmination of the four stages of perfection: in succession one becomes streamenterer, once-returner, non-returner, arhat. The arhat has achieved nirvana, but not buddhahood, because he does not return out of compassion to teach others as the mahayana bodhisattva does. Arya (Skt; Tib. pakpa) Title meaning ‘noble one’. It indicates one who has attained the third of the five paths, the path of insight/seeing (Tib. tong lam) and so through an understanding of emptiness, has gone above the world. Atisha Dipamkara Sri Jnana. Also called Jowo Palden Atisha [982-1055] (Tib. Marme dze) A great Indian pandit, perhaps the last of the universally acclaimed masters of Indian Buddhism. He spent the last seventeen years of his life in Tibet, bringing many important teachings. Well-known is his short treatise Light on the Path to Enlightenment (Skt. Bodhipathapradipa; Tib. Lam drön) which points out in a concise manner the path to enlightenment. This work became the foundation for what was to become the Lamrim literature. The followers of Atisha became known as the Kadampa school. Avadhuti See channels. Avalokiteshvara (Tib. Chenrezig) The great bodhisattva of compassion, chief disciple of Amithaba. The Dalai Lama is considered to be a incarnation of Avalokiteshvara. In China he is (in combination with his female counterpart Tara) known in female form as Kwan Yin.

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Banga (Tib.) female organ, also called lotus. Banners: There are two types of banners: victory banners (Tib. gyeltsen), that have three mythological animals drawn on them; plain banners (Tib. palden). Bardo (Tib; Skt. anubhava) Intermediate state. The state of consciousness between death and rebirth. It begins the moment the consciousness leaves the body and ceases the moment the consciousness enters the body of the next life. One remains in that state anywhere from a moment to forty-nine days. Bardoa A being in the bardo. Bikshu (Skt; Tib. gelong) Buddhist mendicant monk. Bikshuni is the female counterpart. Blessing (Tib. jin lab) The transformation of our mind from a negative state to a positive state, from an unhappy state to a happy state, or from a state of weakness to a state of strength through the inspiration of holy beings such as our spiritual guide, buddhas, and bodhisattvas. Bliss (Tib. dewa) An extremely pleasurable feeling; in maha annutara yoga tantra the very subtle clear light mind experiencing great bliss is focused on emptiness. Bodhimind (Skt. bodhicitta; Tib. jangchub-kyi sem) ‘The awakened mind’, ‘the awakening mind’ or ‘mind of enlightenment’. Bodhimind or bodhicitta is the altruistic motivation of a bodhisattva: a mind that is directed towards the attainment of buddhahood, for the sake of all living beings; the fully open and dedicated heart. Once one has generated the bodhi-mind, one enters the first of the bodhisattva paths, the accumulation path. The bodhimind is of two main types: relative or conventional and absolute or ultimate. The former is also of two types: that which aspires to highest enlightenment as a means of benefiting the world, and that which engages in the practice leading to enlightenment. Ultimate bodhimind is the latter of these placed within an understanding of emptiness. In maha anuttara yoga tantra bodhimind is of two types: the red bodhicitta, which symbolizes female energy; and the white bodhicitta which symbolizes male energy. These are represented by ovum and sperm respectively. In this context buddhahood is the unification of these two forces placed within realization of mahamudra. Bodhisattva (Skt; Tib. jangchub sempa) Also referred to as ‘child of the Buddha’, ‘spiritual hero’, or ‘fortunate one’. A bodhisattva is a living being who has produced the spirit of enlightenment in himself and whose constant dedication, lifetime after lifetime, is to attain the unexcelled, perfect enlightenment of buddhahood for the sake of all living beings. The term bodhisattva refers to those at many levels: from those who have generated aspiration to enlightenment for the first time to those who have actually entered the bodhisattva path, which is developed through the ten stages (Skt. bhumis) and culminates in enlightenment, the attainment of buddhahood. Those who have embarked on the path but have not yet gained direct perception of the meaning of emptiness are called ordinary bodhisattvas; those who have attained the path of seeing and can in meditation directly perceive emptiness are called extra-ordinary or superior bodhisattvas or arya bodhisattvas. Brahma Creator-lord of a universe, there being as many as there are universes, whose number is incalculable. Hence, in buddhist belief, a title of a deity who has attained supremacy in a particular universe, rather than a personal name. A king of the gods who dwells in the form realm. At the time of Buddha Sakyamuni, Indra and Brahma requested Buddha to turn the wheel of dharma for the sake of all sentient beings. Buddha nature Our potential to attain full enlightenment. Specifically, it is the ultimate nature of the mind. Every living being has buddha nature. Buddha nature and buddha seed are synonyms. Buddha Sakyamuni ‘Sage of the Sakyas’, name of the buddha of our era, who lived in India 563-483 BC. He was a prince from the Sakya clan. He taught the sutra and tantra path to liberation; founder of what came to be known as Buddhism. His mundane name was Siddharta Gautama. Buddha Sakyamuni is the fourth of one thousand buddhas that are to appear in this world age. Also see: Buddha. Buddha (Tib. sang-gye) Lit. ‘awakened one’. Title of one who has attained the highest attainment for a living being. It refers to one who has completely purified (sang) all the defilements, the two obscurations, and completely expanded (gye) or perfected his mind to encompass all excellences and knowledges. A fully enlightened being is perfect in omniscience and compassion. Every being has the potential to become a completely enlightened buddha. There are countless buddhas. Buddha’s bodies (Skt. kaya; Tib. ku) There are several divisions. If three kayas: (1) dharmakaya or truth-body or ultimate body, (2) sambogakaya or enjoyment-body or beatific body, (3) nirmanakaya or emanation-body or incarnational body. The last two ones together are called form-body or rupa-kaya. If two kayas: (1) truth-body or dharmakaya and (2) form-body or rupakaya. If four kayas: truth-body divided into (1) svabhavikakaya or nature-body and (2) jnanakaya or wisdom-body; the form-body divided into (3) sambogakaya or enjoyment-body and (4) nirmanakaya or emanation-body.

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Buddhadharma Buddha’s teachings and the inner realizations attained by practicing them. Buddhapalita [circa. 470-550 C.E.] A great Madhyamika master. His great achievement was the elucidation of a main work of Nagarjuna. Because of this work he was later regarded as the founder of the Prasangika subschool. Bumpa (Tib.) vase. In initiations two kinds are used: the activity vase with spout and the initiation vase without spout. Candrakirti (ca. sixth-seventh century C.E.) The most important madhyamika philosopher after Nagarjuna and Aryadeva. He is regarded the ‘ultimate’ disciple of Nagarjuna as he is the elucidator of the essence of Nagarjuna’s message. He wrote famous commentaries on Nagarjuna’s work, such as Guide to the Middhe Way (Skt. Madhyamikavatara). So he is considered one of the highest authorities on the subject of the profound nature of reality. Chakra (Skt; Tib. tsa kor) Energy-wheel; a focal point of energy along the central channel upon which one’s concentration is directed, especially during the completion stage of annutara yoga tantra. Meditating on these points can cause the inner winds to enter the central channel. Channels (Skt. nadi Tib. tse) A constituent of the vajra body through which energy-winds and drops flow. In the body there are three main channels: the central channel (Skt. avadhuti, shushumma; Tib. uma), the major energy channel of the vajra body; the right channel (Tib. roma) and the left channel (Tib. kyangma). From the tip of the sex organ up to the top of the head it is very straight, but from there it bends down in an arch and terminates between the two eyebrows. It is located exactly midway between the right and left halves of the body but it is closer to the back than to the front. It is visualized greenish-bluish from the outside, more reddish from the inside. Immediately to either side of the central channel are the right and left channels. The right channel is visualized red and the left one white. Chanteu (Tib.) a hand drum similar to a damaru. Chod Meditative practice in which the practitioner confronts fearful situations causing ego-grasping and selfcherishing to arise, enabling them to be recognized and overcome. Clarity Generally, any clear appearance of an object of meditation to the concentration focused on it. More specifically, a vajrayana practice whereby the practitioner, having generated himself or herself as a deity and the environment as the deity’s mandala, tries to attain clear appearance of the whole object to his or her concentration. It is the antidote to ordinary appearance. Clear light (Tib. ösel) The subtlest state of mind, which becomes manifest only when all the gross minds have ceased their active functions. This state is experienced by ordinary beings naturally at the time of death, though it may not be and cannot be recognized by those not trained to do so. With the mind of clear light -and the pure illusory body- the full awakening of buddhahood can be achieved. The clear light is potentially with everyone; its full development in order to sustain the spiritual path is aimed at in highest tantra yoga practice. Commitment being (Skt. samaya sattva Tib. damtsik sempa) A visualized buddha or ourselves visualized as a buddha. Also called symbolic being. Commitments (Skt. samaya, Tib. dam tsik) Promises and pledges taken when engaging in certain spiritual practices. Completion stage (Tib. dzok rim) Highest yoga tantra realizations that are attained through completing a special method that causes the winds to enter, abide, and dissolve within the central channel. Concentration being (Skt. samadhisattva; Tib. tingdzin sempa) A symbol of Buddha’s Truth Body, usually visualized as a seedletter at the heart of a commitment being or a wisdom being. It is so called because it is generated through concentration. Concentration (Skt. samadhi; Tib. ting dzin) The ability to focus the mind single-pointedly on any chosen object of meditation and keep it there. Concentration meditation is one of the two main forms of meditation, the other one being analytical meditation. Also see Samadi. Contaminated phenomenon. Any phenomenon that gives rise to delusions or that causes them to increase. Dakas and dakinis (Skt.; Tib. kandro and kandroma) Literally ‘sky-goers’; Male and female beings who help arouse blissful energy in a qualified tantric practitioner. Dakini Land Usually refers to the Pure Land of Vajrayogini. (Skt. Kechara; Tib. Dakpa Khachö). Uddiayana, the ‘place’ where the tantras come from, is also called a dakini land. Deity See yidam Delusion (Skt. klesha, Tib. nyong mongs) A thought, emotion or impulse that is pervaded by ignorance, disturbs the mind and initiates actions (karma) which keep one bound within cyclic existence. That which makes the

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mind impure. Delusions are mental factors. The three root delusions or the three poisons: ignorance, attachment and hatred; from these many others arise. Demon See Maras Dependent existence or interdependent origination or dependent arising or inderdependent relationship. (pratityasamutpada) Any phenomenon that exists in dependence upon other phenomena is a dependent-related phenomenon. All phenomena are dependent-related because all phenomena depend upon their parts. Sometimes dependent-related is distinguished from dependent-arising with the latter meaning arising in dependence upon causes and conditions. However, the two terms are often used interchangeably. Desire realm The environment of humans, animals, hungry ghosts, hell beings, and the gods who enjoy the five objects of desire. Desire Can be either negative, like in the meaning of attachment to wordly pleasures, or positive, in the meaning of striving for enlightenment. Development stage (Tib. kye rim) Also called generation stage. The first of the two main stages of mahaannutara-yoga-tantra during which one cultivates the clear appearance and divine pride of one’s chosen meditational deity. The second stage is called the completion stage. Dharma Protectors (Skt. dharmapalas; Tib. chö kyong) Manifestations of buddhas or bodhisattvas whose main function is to eliminate obstacles and to gather all necessary conditions for pure dharma practitioners. Dharma (Skt., Tib. chö) Buddha’s teachings and the realizations that are attained in dependence on them. One’s spiritual development. ‘That which holds one back from suffering’. Also, any object of knowledge. Dharmadhatu (Skt.; Tib. chöying) Realm of true reality. The ultimate reality underlying phenomena; that is, their non-existence as intrinsic natures, or emptiness. The wisdom of dharmadhatu is one of the five wisdoms. Dharmakaya (Skt.; Tib. chö ku) Truth Body. The mind of a fully enlightened being, free of all coverings, remaining meditatively absorbed in the direct perception of emptiness while simultaneously cognizing all phenomena. Dhyani Buddhas See Five buddhas. Dinzup (Tib.) Threatening mudra Divine pride (Tib. hla-yi-nga-gyel) A non-deluded pride that regards oneself as a deity and one’s environments and enjoyments as those of the Deity. It is the antidote to ordinary conceptions. Dorje Chang (Tib.) See Vajradhara Dorje Jigje (Tib.) See Yamantaka Dorje Rolangma (Tib.) See Vajra Zombini Dorje (Tib.) See Vajra Dratsang (Tib.) Monastic college Drilbu (Tib.) Bell Drops (Skt. bindu; Tib. tikle) A constituent of the vajra body used in the generation of great bliss; of two types, the red drops are received from one’s mother and the white drops from one’s father at conception. Also see Indestructible drop Dualistic appearance The appearance to mind of an object together with the inherent existence of that object. Dutsi ribul nectar pill Dzok rim See Completion stage Emptiness (Skt. shunyata, Tib. tongpa nyi) The absence of all false ideas about how things exist; specifically the lack of apparent independent self-existence of phenomena. Enlightenment (Tib. jangchub) Full awakening, buddhahood. The ultimate goal of buddhist practice, attained when all limitations have been removed from the mind and all one’s positive potential has been realized; a state characterized by unlimited compassion, skill and wisdom. Ensa nyinggu Literally the ‘Ensa whispered lineage’. One of the two great transmission lineages in the Gelugpa tradition. This lineage is coming through Ensapa. The other one is the Segyu lineage. Eon (Skt. kalpa) A large period of time, described as the time it takes a dove to exhaust a mountain of grain the size of the Mount Everest by removing one grain every thousand years. Existentialism or eternalism (Tib. tak-ta) Belief in an unchanging ego or self-nature in either persons or phenomena. One of the two extremes to be avoided; the opposite of nihilism. Field of Merit (Tib. tsok ching) In general a field of merit is any basis on which one can collect merit, like a field of earth is the basis on which you can grow crops, the crops depending on the field. A supreme field for accumulating merit are the holy beings, to which we can offer the seven limbs of our practice, the holy beings acting as a field in which we plant and nourish our seeds of virtue.

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Five buddhas There are five main buddha families or castes, the families of Vairocana, Ratnasambhava, Amithaba, Amoghasiddhi and Akshobya. They are also called the five Dhyani buddhas or the five Tathagatas. They represent the five purified aggregates or skandhas, the aggregate of form, feeling, discrimination, formative elements or volition and consciousness respectively. And the five exalted wisdoms: the mirror-like wisdom, wisdom of equality, wisdom of individuality or discrimination, wisdom of accomplishing activities, wisdom of dharmadhatu (Skt.) or true nature. respectively. Five paths According to dharma a path is necessarily an internal path. There are mundane and supramundane paths. A supramundane path is any path leading to liberation or enlightenment, for example, the realizations of renunciation, bodhicitta and the correct view of emptiness. Strictly speaking only superior beings, aryas, posses supramundane paths. The five paths are: 1. path of merit or path of accumulation (Tib. tsok lam); 2. path of preparation (Tib. .jor lam); 3. path of seeing or path of insight (Tib. tong lam); 4. path of meditation (Tib. gom lam); 5. path of no-more-learning. The first two paths are the paths of ordinary bodhisattvas, the following two paths are the paths of arya bodhisattvas or superior bodhisattvas, on the fifth path the bodhisattva has become a buddha. The paths in hinayana carry the same name but differ in the practice. Five skandhas. (Skr; Tib. pungpo) Aggregates. Literally meaning ‘pile’ or ‘heap’ which has the connotation of an utter lack of internal structure. The body-mind organism is made up of innumerable elementary constituents, called ‘dharmas’, which are grouped into five. The five compulsive aggregates are the five basic constituents of psycho-physical existence, of great importance as a scheme for introspective meditation in the abhidharma. They are: (1) matter or form (Skt. rupa), (2) feeling or sensation (Skt. vedana), (3) perception or discernment or discrimination or intellect -the sense of verbal, conceptual intelligence (Skt. samnja), (4) volition, motivation, habits, compositional factors, formative elements or conditioned activities (Skt. samskara) and (5) consciousness or primary mind or pure awareness (Skt. vijnana). Associated together they make up most living beings. Five wisdoms The five wisdoms of a Buddha: the mirror-like wisdom, the wisdom of equality, the wisdom of individual analysis, the wisdom of accomplishing activities, and the wisdom of dharmadhatu, i.e. the wisdom of the dharma sphere. Form realm The environment of the gods who possess form. Formless realm The environment of the gods who do not possess form. Four activities. Common attainments are of four principal types: pacifying attainments (the ability to purify negativity, overcome obstacles, and cure sickness), increasing attainments (the ability to increase dharma realizations, merit, life span, and wealth), controlling attainments (the ability to control one’s own and others’ minds and actions), and wrathful attainments (the ability to use wrathful actions where appropriate to benefit others). Supreme attainments are the special realizations of a Buddha. Four anti-dote powers Four practices of purification used to counteract the karmic imprint of negative actions. 1. Power of the base: if enlightened being then take refuge; if non-enlightened being then meditate lovecompassion. 2. Power of action: generally any virtuous [anti-dote] action. 3. Power of regret. 4. Power of repentance or promise. Four levels of tantra Successively Kriya tantra (Skt.; Tib. dya gyu) which uses many external rituals such as washing etc.; charya tantra (Skt,; Tib. chö gyu) which balances outer methods with inner ones; yoga tantra (Skt; Tib. neljor gyu) which emphasizes internal methods; maha anuttara yoga tantra (Skt.; Tib. lama me gyu), which exclusively relies upon internal methods. Four Mindfulnesses 1. Mindfulness of the body, 2. Mindfulness of feelings [sensations], 3. Mindfulness of the mind or awareness, 4. Mindfulness of phenomena [contents of thoughts]. Four Noble Truths (skr. catuh-arya-satya, Tib. pakpei denpa zhi) 1. The truth of suffering; 2. The truth of the causes of suffering. 3. The truth of the cessation of suffering. 4. The truth of the path to the cessation of suffering. They are called ‘noble’ truths because they are supreme objects of meditation. Through meditation on these four objects we can realize ultimate truth directly and thus become a noble, or superior being. Four ways of birth Spontaneous birth, birth from moisture, birth from an egg, birth from a womb Ganden Lha Gyema ‘The hundreds of deities of the Land of Joy’ A short guru-yoga practice. Ganden ‘Land of Joy’. See: Tushita. Gelugpa The tradition of Tibetan Buddhism established by Je Tsong Khapa as a fusion of older sects, sometimes named Ganden Kagyu, also known as the New Kadam, The name Gelug means: wholesome way or: virtuous tradition. The three great Gelug monasteries are Ganden, Drepung and Sera. The other main traditions of Tibetan Buddhism are the Nyingma who go back to Guru Padmasambhava, Sakya going back to Sakya Pandita, and the Kagyu going back to Marpa-Milarepa-Gampopa.

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Generation Stage See Development stage God (Tib. lha) A being of the god realm, the highest of the six realms of samsara. There are many different types of god. Some belong to the desire realm and others to the form and formless realms. Guhyasamaja (Tib. Sangwa dupa) One of the three major Gelugpa yidams, the other two being Heruka and Yamantaka. Guru (Skt; Tib. lama) See Spiritual master Guru Yoga (Skt.) The fundamental tantric practice whereby one’s guru is seen as (a) identical with the buddhas, (b) one’s personal meditational deity and (c) the essential nature of one’s own mind. Gyeltsen See banners Heart Sutra The essence of wisdom sutra. Of the several perfection of wisdom (Skt. Prajnaparamita) sutras a very condensed and famous one. Highest yoga tantra (skr. maha-annutara-yoga tantra) The fourth and supreme division of tantric practice, consisting of generation and completion stages, capable of leading the practitioner to full enlightenment within one lifetime. Hinayana. Sanskrit term for ‘Lesser Vehicle’. The Hinayana goal is to attain merely one’s own liberation from suffering by completely abandoning delusions. Hungry ghosts (skr. preta) Literally ‘departed’. There are 500 kinds of hungry ghosts, including demonic ones that cause certain types of accidents, spirits of the departed, spirits that enter and take possessions of human bodies, and overpowering ghosts kings that cause certain forms of madness. Hungry ghosts, normally invisible to human beings, are one of the six classes of samsaric beings. I or self or ego (skr. atman, Tib. nga) Buddhism does not accept the existence of an independent, self-existent, unchanging ego or self, because if such were to exist, a person would be unchanging and would be unable to purify himself of fettering passions and attain buddhahood. Rinpoche often refers to this one as ‘I rinpoche’, ‘the Big Boss inside’, the ‘Queen Bee’ or ‘Dictator I’. There is acceptance of a relative, impermanent, changeable, conscious entity, which is the continuation of life, linking one’s former life to this life, and this life to future lives. Ignorance (skr. avidya Tib. marikpa) The root cause of cyclic existence; not knowing the way things actually are and misconstruing them to be permanent, satisfactory and inherently existent. The delusions that gives rise to all other delusions and the karma they motivate. Ignorance can be eradicated by the wisdom of emptiness. Illusion body or illusory body (skr. maya-kaya Tib. gyu lu) A subtle bodily form generated through the practice of the completion stage of highest yoga tantra. When a practitioner of highest yoga tantra rises from the meditation of the isolated mind of ultimate example clear light he or she attains a body that is not the same as his or her ordinary physical body. This new body is the illusory body. It has the same appearance as the body of the personal yidam of generation stage, except that it is white in color. It can be perceived only by those who have already attained an illusory body. Indestructible drop The most subtle drop, formed from the very subtle red and white drops received from the parents at conception and located at the heart chakra. At death the red and white drops separate and the very subtle mind and its mounting wind or most subtle energy are freed to travel to the next life. Indra A desire-realm god who abides in the Land of the Thirty-three heavens. At the time of Buddha Sakyamuni, Indra and Brahma requested Buddha to turn the wheel of dharma for the sake of all sentient beings. Inherent Existence The illusion that people and things exist by virtue of their own essential characteristics alone, independently of any conditioning factors. Ignorantly assenting to this illusion is the basis for cyclic existence; wisely dispelling it, the basis for enlightenment and liberation. Inherently existent, truly existent, existence from its own side or existent from its own true nature are interchangeable terms. Also see: Self-existence. Also see: Emptiness Initiation (Skt. abisheka; Tib. wang). Intermediate State See: Bardo Ishvara A god who abides in the highest level of the desire realm. He has limited, contaminated miracle powers which make him more powerful than other beings in the desire realm. He bestows limited benefit, such as increased wealth, upon those who follow him, but he is an enemy of those seeking liberation. For this reason he is said to be a devaputra demon. Jambudvipa (Skt. Tib. Jambuling) Also called ‘Southern world’. Our own human world, as seen in the oldest buddhist cosmology, found in the Abidharmakosha. For the cosmology see Gelek Rinpoche, Lam Rim Teachings: glossary ‘Buddhist cosmology’.

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Kagyu One of the main Tibetan buddhist traditions, the other ones being Gelugpa, Nyingma and Sakya. In the lineage of the kagyu are well-known Marpa, Milarepa, Gampopa and Trungpa Rinpoche. Kanjur (Skt.) Literally ‘translation of (Buddha’s) words’. The Tibetan collection of the Tripitaka: the sutras, the vinaya, and the abhidharma, in one hundred and eight volumes. The collection of commentaries is called Tanjur. Karma (Skt.; Tib. le) Deeds. Term referring to actions and their effects. Through the force of intention we perform actions with our body, speech, and mind, and all of these actions produce effects. The effect of virtuous actions is happiness and the effect of negative actions is suffering Karuna (Skt.) Compassion Khatanga (Tib.) Ritual object. Kumunda (Skt. Tib. ku mud) A type of white lotus or water lily said to open only in moonlight. Kye rim See Development stage Labrang (Tib.) Institute of a reincarnated lama Lam Rim (Tib.) Stages on the spiritual path to enlightenment in sutrayana. In tantrayana the stages of the path are called Nag Rim. Lama Chöpa (Tib.) A tantric guru-yoga practice. Liberation (Skt. moksha, Tib. tharpa) Release from the bondage of samsara, cyclic existence. Freedom from compulsive karmic patterns and the mental and para-mental obscurations. Lung (Tib.) Air, energy, wind; oral transmission. Madhyamika (Skt.; Tib. Umapa) One of the two main schools of Mahayana tenets. A system of analysis founded by Nagarjuna, based on the Perfection of Wisdom sutras of Shakyamuni buddha, considered to be the supreme presentation of the wisdom of emptiness. There are two divisions of this school, Madhyamika-Svatantrika and Madhyamika-Prasangika, of which the latter is Buddha’s final view. Maha anuttara yoga tantra (Skt) See Highest yoga tantra Mahasiddha Sanskrit term for ‘greatly accomplished one’. Used to refer to Yogis with high attainments. Maitreya (Tib. Jampa) The embodiment of the loving-kindness of all the Buddhas. At the time of Buddha Shakyamuni he manifested as a Bodhisattva disciple. In the future he will manifest as the fifth universal Buddha. Mala (Tib.) Rosary. Mandala (Skt.) A circular diagram symbolic of the entire universe. The abode of a meditational deity, understood as the emanation of the wisdom of that deity. Figuratively, one’s personal surroundings seen as a reflection of one’s state of mind. Manjushri (Tib. Jampelyang) Male meditational deity. The eternally youthful crown prince, the embodiment of the wisdom of all enlightened beings. From Manjushri the lineage of the profound view of emptiness was handed down to Nagarjuna. Manjushri incarnated in human form is called Manjunatha (‘Jam mgon), an epithet for Tsong Khapa. Mantra (Skt.; Tib. ngak) Literally, ‘mind protection’. Sanskrit syllables recited in conjunction with the practice of a particular meditational deity and embodying the qualities of that deity. Mantra protects the mind from ordinary appearances and conceptions. Mantrayana (Skt.) The vehicle of mantras; a synonym for vajrayana. Maras (Skt) Demons. Anything that obstructs the attainment of liberation or enlightenment is called a demon. There are four principal types of demon: the demon of the delusions (kleshamara), the demon of the contaminated aggregates (skandhamara), the demon of death (mrtyumara) and the heavenly demons (devaputramara). Of these, only the last are actual sentient beings. The principal devaputra demon is wrathful Ishvara, who inhabits the highest of the desire-realms. Buddha is called a ‘conqueror’ because he has conquered all four types of demon. Marpa Lotsawa [1012-1092] A great Tibetan yogi of the eleventh and twelfth century, disciple of Naropa and teacher of Milarepa. Founder of the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan buddhism. Meditation (skr. bhavana, Tib. gom) Literally ‘getting used to’. The process of controlling, training and transforming the mind that leads one to liberation and enlightenment. The process of becoming thoroughly familiar with beneficial states of mind through both analytical investigation and single-pointed concentration. Merit The wholesome tendencies implanted in the mind as a result of committing skillful actions. That positive wholesome tendencies or energy has the power to create happiness and good qualities. Method Any spiritual path that functions to ripen our buddha seed, i.e. our growing buddha nature. Training in renunciation, compassion, and bodhicitta are examples of method practices. Middle way See Madhyamika.

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Migtsema (Tib.) Originally a hymn on Rendawa made by Tsong Khapa. Rendawa (1349-1412), one of the most important teachers of Tsong Khapa, who belonged to the Sakya school. Rendawa reversed the praise into a hymn on Tsong Khapa. Milarepa, Jetsun (1040-1123) A Tibetan yogi who achieved buddhahood in one lifetime. He was the foremost disciple of Marpa, famous for his intense practice, devotion to his guru attainment of enlightenment and his many songs of spiritual realization. His biography is a favorite example of hardship undertaken in order to attain enlightenment. Mind (Tib. shepa) That which is clarity and cognizes. Mo (Tib.) Tibetan devination system Mudra (Skt.; Tib. chakgya) Generally, the Sanskrit word for ‘seal’, as in Mahamudra, the ‘Great seal’. More specifically, ‘mudra’ is used to refer to a consort, as in ‘action mudra’ or ‘wisdom mudra’, and to hand gestures used in Tantric rituals. Nada Squiggle; last part of a seed-syllable that dissolves. Nadis See: Channels Naga A non-human being not normally visible to humans. Nagas usually live in the oceans of the world but they sometimes inhabit land in the region of rocks and trees. They are very powerful, some being benevolent and some malevolent. Nagarjuna Saint, scholar and mystic of Buddhist India, born about four hundred years after the Buddha, who revived the mahayana in the first century AD by bringing to light the teachings on the Perfection of Wisdom, the lineage of wisdom, according to the myth handed over to him by the nagas. He is author of the fundamental Madhyamika work and founder of the Madhyamika or Middle Way school of tenets. He is said to have lived five hundred sixty years due to his alchemical ability. Naropa Eleventh century Indian mahasiddha who transmitted many profound tantric lineages, including those of Heruka Chakrasamvara and Vajrayogini. Disciple of Tilopa and guru of Marpa. Nectar (Skt. amrita; Tib. dütsi) Transcendental substance emanated by enlightened deities, which confers such benefits as purification, realizations, long life etc. according to the type. Ngondro See: Preliminary practices Nihilism (Tib. che-ta) Belief that phenomena are completely non-existent. One of the extremes to be avoided; the opposite is eternalism. Nirmanakaya (Skt.; Tib. tul ku) Emanation body. Form in which the enlightened mind appears in order to benefit ordinary beings. Non-virtue Action that results in suffering Nyingma The ‘old sects’ of Tibetan buddhism, the orders that adhere to the scriptural translations made prior to the eleventh century. They go back to Guru Padmasambhava Ogyen See Uddiyana Oral Transmission (Tib. lung) The passing of a pure, unbroken oral lineage. All the root texts and their commentaries have been passed in a pure, unbroken lineage from teachers to disciples from the time of Buddha down to the present day. It is customary at the end of a teaching for the teacher to recite all the words of the text, just as he heard them from his own teacher. A disciple is not considered to have received a teaching until he or she has heard all the words from the mouth of a qualified spiritual guide. A teaching that has been received in this way is completely pure and it carries the blessings of all the lineage gurus who transmitted the same teaching in the past. Pabongka Rinpoche Je Pabongkhapa Vajradhara Dechen Pael Zangpa or Pabongka Rinpoche Jampa Tenzin Trinley Gyatso [1878-1941] He was an emanation of the great scholar Jankya Rolpai Dorje [1717-1786]. He is regarded the most influential Gelugpa teacher of this century. He was the root-guru of both the Senior and Junior Tutors [Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and Kyabje Ling Rinpoche] of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and holder of many sutra and secret mantra lineages. Padmasambhava (Tib. Padma Jungne) Also called Guru Rinpoche. Great Indian acarya who brought tantric teachings to Tibet in the eight century. He founded the tantric lineage of the Nyingma sect. Palden See Banners Pandit Scholar. Maha-pandit means great scholar. The word is here normally used for the earlier buddhist scholars in India, like Nagarjuna, Asanga and so and forth. Paramitas See: Six paramitas. Paths See: Five paths. Pawo chigpa See Yamantaka

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Phowa See Transference of consciousness Prajnaparamita Sutra (Skt.; Tib. par chin) Perfection of Wisdom sutra. The scripture with those teachings of Sakyamuni buddha in which the transcendental wisdom, the wisdom of emptiness and the path of the bodhisattva are set forth. There are nineteen versions of different lengths, ranging from the Heart Scripture of a few pages to the large one of Hundred-Thousand stanzas Prajnaparamita (Skt.) Perfection of wisdom. Transcendental wisdom, being the profound non-dual understanding of the ultimate reality, or the voidness, or relativity, of all things. Personified as a goddess, she is worshipped as the ‘Mother of all buddhas’ (Sarvajinamata) Preliminaries. Preliminary practices (Tib. ngondro); the meditations designed to remove hindrances and accumulate a store of meritorious energy so that a disciple will have success in the practice. Several Tibetan traditions practice four ngondros for the vajrayana practice: 100,000 prostrations, 100,000 Vajrasattva purifications, 100,000 mandala offerings, 100,000 guru-yoga practices. In the tradition of Tsong Khapa the foremost ngondro for the practice of vajrayana is the study and practice of the Lam Rim. As special ngondro one does the 100,000 guru-yoga practices, i.e. the 100,000 Migtsemas within the context of the Ganden Lha Gyema. Pride See Divine pride. Protectors There are Dharma protectors (Skt. dharmapalas Tib. chö kyong) and worldly protectors, also called guardians of the world (Skt. lokapalas; Tib. jikten kyongwa). Psychic heat (Tib. tummo) Inner fire. An inner heat located at the center of the navel channel wheel. Puja A ceremony in which offerings and other acts of devotion are performed in front of holy beings. Purba dagger Pure Land An environment free from true sufferings which appears to a pure mind. A state of existence outside samsara in which all conditions are favorable for becoming fully enlightened. Examples include: Tushita or Joyful land, the pure land of Maitreya; Sukhavati, the pure land of Amithaba; Dakiniland, the pure land of Heruka and Vajrayogini. Ratnasambhava (Tib. Rinchen jungne) The manifestation of the feeling aggregate of all Buddhas. He is one of the five Tathagatas or Dhyani buddhas. He has a yellow-colored body. He holds the commitments of the four generosities. Reality source (Tib. chojung) Also called phenomena source. Emptiness, the source of all phenomena, symbolized as a single or double tetrahedron. Rebirth The entrance of consciousness into a new state of existence after death and the intermediate state. Renunciation (Tib. ngejung) The realization of detachment from all of samsara, having understood its faults. Also called: determination to be free. Rupakaya (Skt.) See Buddha’s bodies. Sadhana (Skt.) Method of accomplishment. The step by step instructions in vajrayana for practicing the meditations related to a particular meditational deity. A method for attainment associated with a Tantric Deity Samadhi (Skt. ) A state of deep meditative absorption; single-pointed concentration on the actual nature of things, free from discursive thought and dualistic conceptions. Samantabhadra (Tib. Kuntu zangpo) A bodhisattva known for his heroic aspiration and extensive offerings. Sambogakaya (Skt.; Tib. long ku) Enjoyment body. One of the form-bodies of a buddha. The body of Buddha as it exists in the Buddha fields or paradises and upper realms; form in which the enlightened mind teaches the highly realized bodhisattvas who are at that stage. This body is fully adorned with the unique physical characteristics of a buddha. It can only be seen by those who have attained the highly realized stage of an arya. Samsara Cyclic existence; the recurring cycle of death and rebirth under the control of ignorance and fraught with suffering. Samsaric gods Samsaric gods are samsaric beings dwelling for the moment in a heavenly state. Sangha (Skt.) As object of refuge it is the community of arya beings or saints, those who have achieved spiritual aims -have attained a direct realization of emptiness- and are able to help. According to the vinaya any community of four or more fully ordained monks is also a sangha. Any being, lay or ordained, who has taken bodhisattva vows is also a sangha. In daily life we regard the community of those on the spiritual path as a sangha. Sangwa dupa See Guhyasamaja Seed-syllable In tantric visualizations, a Sanskrit syllable arising out of emptiness and out of which the meditational deity in turn arises. Also called sacred syllable. Segyu One of the two great transmission lineages in the Gelugpa tradition. This lineage is coming through Segyu Könchok Gyeltsen. The other one is the Ensa nyinggyu lineage.

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Self See: I Self-cherishing The self-centered attitude of considering one’s own happiness to be more important than everyone else’s. The main obstacle to be overcome in the development of bodhicitta. Self-existence The mistaken conception that things exist independently from their own side rather than being dependent upon causes, conditions, parts and the process of conceptual imputation; the wisdom of emptiness is the understanding that all things lack, or are empty of, even an atom of such self-existence. Selflesnesses (Tib. dak mepa) Two selflessnesses: personal selflessness and phenomenal selflessness, both being descriptions of the ultimate reality, which is the absence of the two ‘selves’, the realization of what is called ‘transcendental wisdom’ or prajnaparamita Sentient Being (skr. sattva, Tib. semchen) Any being who possesses a mind that is contaminated by delusions or their imprints. Both ‘sentient being’ and ‘living being’ are terms used to distinguish beings whose minds are contaminated by any of the two obstructions from Buddhas, whose minds are completely free from these obstructions. Shantideva (687-763) A great Indian Buddhist teacher, meditator and scholar, most famous for his masterpiece, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. Shinje See Yamantaka Shamatha (Skt.; Tib. zhiné) Mental quiescence or meditative equipoise. The tranquil, single-pointed settling of the mind on an object of meditation for a sustained period of time. A degree of concentration characterized by mental and physical ecstasy. The nine stages leading to shamatha are degrees of concentration Shunyata See: Emptiness Siddha Accomplished practitioner. Siddhi Achievement, attainment. These are of two types: common attainments and supreme attainments. Sindhu or sindhura - vermilion powder, that dakinis wear on their forehead. Six paramitas Six perfections of the bodhisattva. The perfections of giving, moral discipline, patience, effort, mental stabilization, and wisdom. They are called perfections because they are motivated by bodhicitta. Six root delusions (kleshas) Attachment, anger, pride, ignorance, doubt, wrong view. Slokas Verses Spiritual master (skr. guru, Tib. lama) A spiritual guide or teacher. One who shows a disciple the path to liberation and enlightenment. A direct guru is any spiritual guide from whom we have received teachings in this life, a lineage guru is any spiritual guide who has passed on the lineage of teaching received by our own direct gurus. One’s principal spiritual guide is also known as one’s root guru (Tib. tsewei lama). In tantra, one’s teacher is seen as inseparable from the meditational deity and the essential nature of one’s mind. Stupa (Skt.; Tib. chorten) Indian buddhist stupas were dome-shaped monuments containing relics of the Buddha or his disciples. Their Tibetan successors are usually purely symbolic; of any seize and material, they are of carefully-defined shape and proportions and represent the Buddha’s mind. Sutra (Skt.; Tib. do) The teachings of Buddha that are open to everyone to practice. This pre-tantric division of buddhist teachings stresses the cultivation of bodhicitta and the practices of the six perfections. Sutrayana The pre-tantric vehicle or path of Buddhism, leading to the attainment of full enlightenment over three countess eons through the practice of the six perfections; hence also called the perfection vehicle (paramitayana) Tantra (skr., Tib. gyu) Literally ‘thread’ or ‘steam’ or ‘continuity’, the ‘stream’ or ‘tread’ of innate wisdom embracing all experience. Another name is: secret mantra. The texts of the secret-mantra teachings of buddhism. The esoteric teaching of Buddha. The essential practice of tantra that distinguishes it from sutra is bringing the result into the path. The practice involves identification of oneself with a fully enlightened deity. The tantric stages of the path are called nag rim. Also see Four classes of tantra Tantrayana The post-sutra vehicle of Buddhism, capable of leading to the attainment of full enlightenment within one lifetime. Also called ‘the diamond vehicle’, i.e. ajrayana, or mantrayana. Tathagata An epithet of Buddha ‘One who has thus gone’. Ten directions The four cardinal directions, the four intermediate directions, and the directions above and below. As a conventional formula it means ‘all directions’. Terma Mother Earth Thangka A traditional painting of a Buddha. Theravada ‘Vehicle of the Elders’. Tradition of buddhism following its earlier style of practice and understanding of scripture. Sometimes called hinayana. Its final goal is arhatship.

Glossary

419

Thirty-seven practices The thirty-seven buddha dharmas, or the thirty-seven realizations conducive to enlightenment. There are seven groups: four close placements of mindfulness (four mindfulnesses); four perfect abandonments; four limbs of miracles; five powers; five forces, seven limbs of enlightenment; eight noble paths. These are explained in the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajnaparamita) sutras. Three Principles of the path 1. Determination to be free, 2. bodhicitta, 3. emptiness. Three realms The three levels within samsara: the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm. Three times Past, present, and future. Tikle See drops. Torma offering A special food offering made according to either sutric or tantric rituals. Transference of consciousness A practice for transferring the consciousness to a pure land at the time of death. Trijang Rinpoche Yongdzin Trijang Dorje Chang [1901-1981], Losang Yeshe. Was the junior tutor to His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and holder of the many lineages in sutra and secret mantra. Disciple of Pabongka Rinpoche. The senior tutor to the Dalai Lama was Yongdzin Ling Dorje-Chang (1903-c.1984), Thubten Lungtog, ninety-seventh holder of the throne of Ganden. Both Trijang Rinpoche and Ling Rinpoche were teachers of Gelek Rinpoche. Tripitaka (Skt). Lit. the three baskets. It are the collections of the Buddha’s teachings, the three scriptural collections corresponding to the three higher trainings: vinaya, the collection of teachings on the discipline of morality; sutra, the collection of scriptures on transcendental method and transcendental wisdom both, corresponding to the higher training of meditation, and abidharma, the collection of teachings on metaphysics, corresponding to the training of wisdom. Tsongkhapa (1357-1419) Lit. ‘The man from the union land (Tsong)’. Je Tsong Khapa was a great fourteenthcentury scholar and teacher who reforming the Kadampa tradition restored the purity of buddhadharma in Tibet, thus founding the Gelug tradition. His many treatises finalized the work begun by Atisha of clarification and synthesis of the vast body of Indian scriptures and schools of practice into a unified exposition of sutrayana and tantrayana paths. He wrote several lamrims, the most well-known one is Great exposition on the Stages of the Path, Lam rim chen mo. On the stages in tantra he wrote the Great exposition of secret mantra, sNgags rim chen mo. He is regarded a full enlightened being and along with Longchen Rabjampa (1308-1363) and the Sakya Pandita (1182-1251 an emanation of Manjushri. That is why he is called Jamgon, ’gentle lord’, indicating that he and the deity Manjughosa -form of Manjushri- are of one essence. He is regarded as the synthesis of Manjushri, Avalokiteshvara and Vajrapani and therefore regarded as the embodiment of the wisdom, compassion and power of all the buddhas. Tulku, See Nirmanakaya. Tummo (Tib.) See psychic heat. Tushita (Skt.; Tib. Ganden) The Heaven of Joy. The pure land of Tushita is resided over by Maitreya, the future buddha. It is the place where bodhisattvas wait to become a buddha. Famous teachers such as Tsong Khapa and Atisha are residing there. Tushita pure land is situated in a ‘corner’ of the six abodes of the desire-realm gods. Two Accumulations Also called the two collections. The accumulation or store of merit and of wisdom; all deeds of bodhisattvas contribute to their accumulation of these two stores, which ultimately culminate in the two bodies of a buddha, the body of form or rupakaya and the ultimate body or dharmakaya Two stages of vajrayana In the three lower classes of tantra this term refers to the ‘yoga with images’ and the ‘yoga without images’. In highest tantra it refers to the generation and completion phases. The former is largely concerned with the generation of the vision of the world as mandala, sound as mantra and thoughts as innate wisdom of bliss and voidness. The latter stage mostly deals with completion of this process by the practice of channeling all the vital energies to the heart, producing the illusory body, realizing the two types of clear light, and attaining the state of great union. Two truths All objects of cognition have two modes of existence, called ‘truths’. The truth of appearance or relative truth or conventional truth (skr. samvrtisattya) is the aspect of existence according to worldly convention and expression. And the absolute truth or ultimate truth (skr. paramarthasatya) is the voidness of all phenomena, the mere absence of inherent existence, the reality of existence. So, the absolute or ultimate truth is emptiness; all other levels belong to the relative or conventional truth Uddiyana (Tib. Ogyen) The Land of the Dakinis; the home of vajrayana, where almost all revealed vajrayana teachings are from. It is said to be the land where Padmasambhava comes from. Union, state of ultimate (Skt. yuganaddha. Tib. zung juk). Tantric term for buddhahood.

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Vairochana (Tib. Nampar namdze) The manifestation of the form aggregate of all Buddhas. He is one of the five Tathagatas or Dhyani buddhas. He has a white-colored body. He holds the commitments of refuge to Buddha, to Dharma, to Sangha, refrain from non-virtue, practice virtue, help others. Vajra Bhairava See Yamantaka Vajra Vetali See Vajra Zombini Vajra (Skt.; Tib. dorje) Diamond scepter. Generally the Sanskrit word ‘vajra’ means indestructible like a diamond and powerful like a thunderbolt. In the context of tantra it means the indivisibility of method and wisdom. Vajra body (Tib. dorje ku). The system of channels, energy-winds or airs, ands drops existing within a human being’s ordinary physical body and activated through the practice of highest yoga tantra, thereby leading to the arousal of an extremely subtle and blissful state of mind (cf. clear light) capable of generating a penetrative wisdom that can eradicate delusions from the mind. Vajra Zombini (Skt. Vajra Vetali; Tib. Dorje Rolangma) Consort of Yamantaka. Vajradhara (Skt; Tib. Dorje Chang) ‘Holder of the diamond scepter’. Conqueror Vajradhara is the source of all secret mantra. He is the same nature as buddha Sakyamuni but displays a different aspect. Buddha Sakyamuni appears in the aspect of an emanation body, nirmanakaya, and Conqueror Vajradhara appears in the aspect of an enjoyment body, sambogakaya. He symbolizes the attainment of enlightenment through the union of simultaneous great bliss and emptiness. Vajra-master Teacher who is qualified to perform the task of a tantric guru. Vajrapani (Tib. Sangwedag) An important bodhisattva whose compassion is to manifest in a terrific form to protect the practitioners of the dharma from harmful influences. Vajrasattva (Tib. Dorje Sempa) Diamond Being. Male meditational deity; a major tantric purification practice for removing obstacles created by negative karma and the breaking of one’s vows. Vajrayana (Skt.) Secret mantra vehicle. The advanced means to quickly achieve buddhahood -within one lifetime- for the sake of all sentient beings. Its method is bringing the result into the path. It is also called: tantrayana. It is part of the mahayana, which is divided into sutrayana and tantrayana Vajrayogini (Tib. Dorje Neljorma ) Female meditational deity of the maha-annutara yoga tantra, who is the embodiment of indivisible bliss and emptiness. She is the same nature as Heruka Chakrasamvara. It is a mother tantra. Vasubandhu (4th or 5th century) Younger brother of Asanga. He wrote the Treasury of abhidharma (skr. Abhidharmakosha) and commentaries on work of Maitreya and Asanga. Abbot of Nalanda university. Vasubhandu A great Buddhist scholar who was converted to the Mahayana by his brother, Asanga. Vinaya (Skt.) The first of the three major collections of scriptures or ‘baskets’ of the buddhist canon, the Tripitaka. It contains the narratives of how the Buddha established the monastic life and rules. It also refers to the code of behavior contained in this vinaya basket, followed by those who have taken the vows of the buddhist order. Vinaya Sutras are sutras in which Buddha principally explained the practice of moral discipline, and in particular the Pratimoksha moral discipline. Visualization The use of creative imagination in meditation. Despite the term used it is not limited to vision, but involves the full creative sphere of one’s imaging abilities Void or Voidness See: Emptiness Vows Promises to refrain from certain actions. The three sets of vows are the Pratimoksha vows of individual liberation, the Bodhisattva vows, and the Secret Mantra vows. Winds See Air. Wisdom being (skr. jnana-sattva; Tib. yeshe sempa) An actual Buddha, especially one who is invited to unite with a visualized commitment being. Wisdom (skr. prajna, Tib. sherab) The sixth of the six transcendences or paramitas. The unmistaken understanding of things; specifically the insight into emptiness: the actual way in which things exist; Wisdom is the antidote to ignorance. It is symbolized by Manjushri Yab yum yab is father (male buddha); yum is mother (female buddha) Yama (Tib. Shinje) The Lord of Death. Personification of uncontrolled death. Although he is not actually a sentient being he is depicted as a being and known as a lord because death has dominion over our lives. In the diagram of the wheel of life he is depicted clutching the six realms of cyclic existence. Yamantaka A yidam; in maha-annutara-yoga tantra a wrathful manifestation of Manjushri, to overcome hindrances; it is a father-tantra. Many names refer to him: First of all ‘Terminator of Death’ in sanskrit Yamantaka (Yama-antaka) in Tibetan Shinje She; Then ‘Vajra Terrifier’, in sanskrit Vajra Bhairava, in Tibetan Dorje Jigje.

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He is also referred to as ‘King of the Yamas’, in sanskrit Yama Raja, in Tibetan Shinje Gyalpo. There are many forms of Yamantaka. The Yamantaka referred to in this teaching is the ‘Solitary Hero Yamantaka’, in sanskrit Yamantaka Ekavira, in Tibetan referred to as Dorje Jigje Pawo chikpa Yidam (Tib sometimes lha) Also called meditational deity. A male or female figure embodying a particular aspect of the fully enlightened experience and used as the focus of concentration and identification in tantra. Yoga (Skt.; Tib. neljor) A term used for various spiritual practices that entail maintaining a special view, such as Guru yoga and the yogas of eating, sleeping, dreaming, and waking. ‘Yoga’ also refers to union, such as the union of tranquil abiding and superior seeing. Yogi, Yogini (Skt.; Tib. neljorpa) Male resp. female practitioner. Zhine (Tib.) See Shamatha.

For the glossary we made use of: Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Essence of vajrayana Lama Yeshe, Introduction to tantra Robert A.F. Thurman, The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti.

XIV LITERATURE Aryadeva, Catuhsataka [Four Hundred Verses],on the bodhisattva’s cultivation of merit and knowledge. transl. Karen Lang. Indiske Studier VII, Copenhagen, Akademisk Forlag 1966. Cabézon, J. A dose of emptiness, SUNY Press, 1992 Chöpel, Gedün; transl. J. Hopkins. Tibetan arts of love. Ithaca, Snow Lion Publ. 1992. Cozort, D. Highest yoga tantra. Ithaca, Snow Lion Publ. 1986. Cozort, D. The sand mandala of Vairabhairava. Snow Lion Publications,Ithaca, New York 1995. Dagyab Rinpoche, Buddhistische Glücksymbole im Tibetischen Kulturraum. In English: Buddhist symbols in Tibetan culture. Dagyab Kyabgön Rinpoche, Kommentar zur Praxis des Alleinstehenden Helden Yamantaka, Chödzong 1999. Dagyab, Loden Sherab. Ikonographie und Symbolkik des Tibetischen Buddhismus. Wiesbaden, Otto Harrassowitz, 1991.

Dalai Lama, First. (transl. G. Mullin) Training the mind in the great way. Ithaca, Snow Lion Publ. 1992. Dalai Lama, First, transl. Glenn H Mullin, Bridging the sutras and tantras. Ithaca, Snow Lion Publ. 1982. Dalai Lama Seventh, Songs of spiritual change, Dalai Lama Thirteenth, (Transl. G. Mullin) Path of the bodhisattva warrior. Ithaca, Snow Lion Publications 1988 Dhargyey, Geshe Ngawang. An anthology of well-spoken advice. Dharamsala, LTWA, 1983. Dhargyey, Geshe Ngawang. Tibetan tradition of mental development. Dharamsala, LTWA 1978. Dhondup, K. Songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama.Dharamsala, LTWA 1981 Essen, G. W. Die Götter des Himalaya, München, Prestel-Verlag 1989 Frye, Stanley. Sutra of the wise and the foolish. Dharamsala, LTWA 1987 Gelek Rinpoche, Ganden Lha Gyema. Nijmegen, Jewel Heart transcripts 1991. Gelek Rinpoche, Guru devotion: How to integrate the primordial mind Nijmegen, Jewel Heart 1996. Gelek Rinpoche, Healing and self-healing through White Tara. Nijmegen, Jewel Heart 1996. Gelek Rinpoche, Lam Rim Teachings. Nijmegen, Jewel Heart transcripts 1993. Gelek Rinpoche, Love and Compassion, Nijmegen, Jewel Heart transcripts 1992. Gelek Rinpoche, Transforming negativities, Nijmegen, Jewel Heart transcripts 1994 Ginsberg Allen, Collected poems 1947-1980. New York, Harper and Row, 1984. Guenther, H. The life and teaching of Naropa. Boston-London, Shambhala, 1986. Guenther, H. Treasures on the Tibetan Middle Way. Leiden, Brill 1969. Gyatso, Geshe Kelsang. Clear light of bliss. London, Wisdom Publ. 1982. Gyatso, Geshe Kelsang. Guide to dakini land. London, Tharpa Publ.1990.

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Gyatso, Geshe Kelsang. Joyful Path of Good Fortune. London, Tharpa Publ. 1990. Gyatso, Geshe Kelsang. Tantric grounds and paths. London, Tharpa Publ. 1994. Huntington, The emptiness of emptiness. Delhi, Motilal Banasidass, 1989. Kalupahana, David J. Nagarjuna, the Phlilosophy of the Middle Way. New York, Suny 1986. Kelsang Gyatso, Geshe. Meaningful to behold,London, Tharpa Publications 1980 Kelsang Gyatso, Geshe. Ocean of nectar. London, Tharpa Publications 1997. Kelsang Gyatso, Geshe. Tantric grounds and paths, London, Tharpa Publications 1994. Lama Lodö, Bardo Teachings, Ithaca, Sbow Lion Publications 1982. Landaw, J. and Weber, A. Images of enlightenment. Ithaca, Snow Lion, 1993. Lati Rinpoche and Jeffrey Hopkins, Death, intermediate state and rebirth. Ithaca, Snow Lion Publ. 1980. Mc.Donald, Kathleen, How to meditate, London, Wisdom Publications 1984. Mullin, Glenn H. Selected works of the Dalai Lama III. Ithaca, Snow Lion Publications 1983. Mullin, Glenn H. Songs of spiritual change, Ithaca, Snow Lion Publications, 1982. Mullin, Glenn H. Tsongkhapa’s Six yogas of Naropa. Ithaca, Snow Lion Publications 1996. Nalanda Translation Committee. The life of Marpa the translator. Boston, Shambhala 1982. Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo, Kyabje Meditation of Vajrabhairava. Dharamsala LTWA 1990. Pabongka Rinpoche, Heart spoon, encoragement through recollecting impermanence. Boston, Wisdom Publ. 1995. Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in our hands, vol. I and II. ed. Tharchin Mahayana Sutra and Tantra Press, Howell 1990, 1994. Pabongka, Liberation in the palm of your hand, ed. Richards. Boston, Wisdom Publ. 1991. Phabongkha Dechen Nyingpo, Kyabje. Meditation of Vajrabhairava; The procedures for doing the serviceable retreat of the Glorious Hero Vajrabhairava with the sadhana Victory over evil. Dharamsala LTWA 1990. Phabongkha Dechen Nyingpo, Kyabje. Self-initiation of Vajrabhairava. Victory over evil. Dharamsala LTWA 1991. Senge, Tri Gyaltsen The profound path of the great secret, Yamantaka cycle texts, vol. I. New Delhi Tibet House, 1995. Shakyamuni Buddha, The Voice of the Buddha, Lalitavistara sutra, 2 vol. Dharma Publ. 1983. Shantideva, Bodhisattvacaryavatara. Dharamsala LTWA 1982. Sopa, Lama and Hopkins, Jeffrey. Cutting through appearances, Snow Lion Publ. 1990. Thurman, R. Life and teachings of tsongkhapa, LTWA 1982. Thurman, R. (transl) Yamantaka Ekavira, materials for retreat. AIBS 1988 Thurman, R. (transl) Vajrayogini Great Bliss Festival. Punya House 1987 Thurman, R. The Central Philosphy of Tibet Earlier edition: The speech of gold; reason and enlightenment in the Tibetan Buddhism. Delhi, Motilal Barnasidass, 1989. Thurman, R. The Tibetan book of the dead. Bantam Books 1994. Thurman, R. Wisdom and Compassion, the sacred art of Tibet. Tibet House New York, 1991. Tsongkhapa, Je. Juwelenkorb, Zwei Sadhana zum 13 Gottheiten Yamantaka. Chödzong 1999. Weishaar-Günter, Dr. C [hrsg], Symbole zur Praxis von Yamantaka, Chödzong (Germany), 1999. Zopa Rinpoche, Lama. A Chat about Yamantaka. Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive, Weston, 1999

XV INDEX A A (short A), 253 Abidharma. g Abidharmakosha, 116, 235, 246, 261, g Abidharmasamuccaya, 246 Abiraksha, 113 absolute. See relative and absolute accumulation of merit, 142, 206, 285, 289, 290, Also see merit from the lower field, 159 from the supreme field, 144, 149–59, 149 Achala, 200 activities, 203 corresponding to buddhahood, 340–67 activity mantra, 335 Agni, 107, 109, 113 AH, 100 air. g air mandala, 299 Akanishta. g Akashagarbha, 327 Akaya, 107, 108, 113 Akshobhya, 97, 162, g consort of, 336, 346 all-in-one, 51, 272 altar beginning of the retreat, 400 during the reatreat, 400 Amithaba, 97, 164, g Amoghasiddhi, 164, g Amritakundalini, 199 Aparajita, 199 arhat, 206, g arya. g

Aryadeva quoted, 75 Atisha, 49, 144, g attachment, 12, 131, 238, 249 as the path, 320 avadhuti. g Avalokiteshvara, 60, 327, g

B Bakula Rinpoche, 75 balancing, 380 banga. g banners, 91, 401, g bardo, 234–37, 260, 296, g as sambogakaya, 221, 237, 301–5, 339 development of, 238–41 experiences, 251–52 questions on, 245–48 six bardos, 302 bardoa, 234, 235, 240, g five qualities, 235 base, path and result, 176 dharmakaya, 185 nirmanakaya, 259, 316 sambhogakaya, 255 sambogakaya, 233, 257, 258, 259 Basuma, 107, 108, 113 bell, 83, 162, 401 Bero Shagdrum, 16–18, 53 bhumis, 303, 304 bikshu. g Bimachitrime, 107, 108, 113 blessing. g bliss, 101, 297, g bliss-void, 31, 78, 86 essence of phenomena, 32 bodhicitta. Also see bodhimind relative and absolute, 143

bodhimind, 5, 7, 40, g generating, 159 wishing and action form, 159 bodhisattva. g Bodong Rinpoche, 21, 22, 27 body mandala, 325 body-mind combination, 146 bone costume, 80 Brahma, 12, 107, 108, g Buddha. g buddha nature, 176, g Buddha’s bodies. g Buddhadharma. g Buddhapalita, 188, 190, g Butön Rinpoche, 21

C Candrakirti. g Chachika, 154 chakras, 42, 229, 230, 292, 347, 352, g crown chakra, 100 heart chakra, 73, 101, 102, 114, 145, 149, 292, 343 names, 347 Chamundi, 107, 112, 116 Chandra, 107, 108, 113 Chandrakirti, 92 quoted, 33 Changya, 26 Changya Rolpai Dorje, 26, 61– 63, 302 channels, 35, g central channel, 35, 149, 165, 240, 291, 292, 298 side channels, 149 chanteu. g Chekawa, Geshe, 19 chod. g

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clarity, 351, 353, g and pride, 354 and stability, 352 clear light, 181, 183, 256, 329, g actual, 181 base, 179, 181 child, 181 dharmakaya, 181 example, 181 mixing mother and child, 180 relative and absolute, 181 commentaries, 9 commitment being, 326, 327, 328, g commitments, 125, 130, 206, 217, g in vajrayana, 379 of the five buddhas, 161–66 compassion and wisdom, 33 great compassion, 32 completion stage, 182, 239, 291, 320, 349, 389–94, g concentration, 39, g concentration being, 327, 328, g confession, 157 consort, 267, 320, 325, 346 levels of, 346 two kinds, 320 contaminated and uncontaminated, 31, 34, 85, 239, 267, 274, 297 contaminated. g correspondences. See symbolism crossed vajra. See vajra

D Dakini Land. g dakinis. g Dalai Lama, 26, 27, 56 fifth, 57 seventh, 58, 61 quoted, 6 sixth, 59–61 death, 29, 251, 295 as dharmakaya, 142, 174– 91, 285, 338 four qualities, 184 coming back from, 180, 186

eight stages of dissolution, 177–80, 182–83 eight stages of dissolution, 291 focus at time of, 186, 252 process, 293 meditation, 294 questions on, 248–51 what to do at time of, 241– 43 dedication, 159 delusion. g Demo Deleg Gyatso, 20 Demo Rinpoche, 27 demon. g dependent existence. g dependent origination, 72, 210, 211 and emptiness, 187, 308 Desi Sangye Gyatso, 59 desire, 33, 34, 169, 198, 223, 229, 301, 355, g desire realm. g development stage, 182, 268, 300, g function of, 181 gross, 348–54 purpose of, 348 stable level, 357 subtle, 354 Dharma. g Dharma king, 109 Dharma King Chögyal, 29, 112 dharma protectors, 346, g Dharmabhadra, Ngulchu, 9, 12, 116 dharmadhatu, 32, 184, g dharmakaya, 31, 34, 73, 180, 192, 290, g, Also see death as dharmakaya base, 181 four qualities, 73, 90 path, 181 practice, 71–74, 75 yoga of death as, 174–91 Dharmakirti quoted, 40, 71 Dhyani buddhas. g dinzup. g Dipamkara. See Bero Shagdrum direction protectors. See protectors disciple, 268

four points to observe, 38 how to measure, 40 qualities, 38–41 dissolving, 71 divine pride. g Dondrub Rinchen, 23 dorje. g Dorje Chang. See Vajradhara Dorje Jigje. See Vajra Bhairava Dorje Rolangma. See Vajra Vetali, Vajra Zombini Dorje Sempa. Zie Vajrasattva Drakri Dorjechang, 64 dratsang. g drilbu. See bell drops, 140, 145, 153, 198, 234, 239, g, Also see indestructible drop Drukpa Kunleg, 52 dualistic appearance. g attitude, 126 notions, 7 preconceptions, 168 dutsi ribul. g DZA HUNG BAM HOH, 374 dzok rim. g

E earth mandala, 193 ego, 327 eight acceptances, 12 eight bodhisattvas, 82, 327 eight cemetaries, 227 eight laughs, 318 eight stages of dissolution at death, 177–80 eight worldly dharmas, 169 emptiness, 181, 185, 202, 208, 210, 275, 307, 311, 329, 330, 351, 380, g acknowledging, 71 and protection, 307 discussion, 187–91 example mirror, 330, 331 example moon, 331 focus on, 75 how does it work, 72 inner offering, 90 meditation on, 183–87 object of, 307 object of negation, 139, 187 of offering materials, 102 of phenomena, 103

Index space-like, 275, 276, 293 two emptinesses, 99 enlightenment. g Ensa nyinggyu, 280, g Ensa nyinggyu, 23, 111 eon. g equanimity, 32, 168–70 evam, 257, 325 evils of the triple world, 73 existence relative good enough, 209 existentialism, 308, g extended prayer, 205–13, 212, 263, 378–83

F faith, 39, 306 father tantra, 12, 24, 214, 267 fear, 163 field of merit, 137, 144, 273, 298, g accumulation of merit, 149– 59, 290 invitation, 144–49, 290 one of the best, 148 supreme and lower, 144, 290 fifteen direction protectors. See protectors fire five-colored, 195 fire mandala, 193 five buddhas, 93, 335, g five consorts, 94 five deities, 325 five meats, 95 five meats and five nectars, 87, 93, 104, 115, 133 five nectars, 133 five paths, 229, 255, g five points on the protection wheel, 202 five qualities Vajrabhairava, 25–29 five sense offerings, 343 five wisdoms, 86, 93–94, 128, 145, 317, 319, g of the base level, 176 food blessing, 105 form realm. g formless realm. g four activities, 203, g four anti-dote powers. g four classes of tantra. g four concentrations, 229

four element mandalas, 299 four extreme views of existence, 175 four generosities, 162 four immeasurables, 168 four initiations, 8, 391 four joys, 85 four levels of tantra, 10, g four maras, 116 four mindfulnesses. g four noble truths. g four offering goddesses, 229 four periods of life, 177 four powers of purification, 129 four qualities death as dharmakaya, 184 four steps of showing noninherent existence of self, 187 four ways of being terrifying, 35 four ways of birth, 142, g

427

uncommon, 390–92 Gyeltsab Je, 53–55, 271 gyeltsen. g

H Halha, 26 Halha Jetsun Dangpa, 26 hallucinations, 251, 252, 258 hatred as the path, 12 Hayagriva, 199 Heart sutra, 209 Hélène van Hoorn, 252 Heruka, 88, 147, 261 Heruka tantra, 24 highest yoga tantra. g hinayana. g HUM, 315, 327 hundred-syllable mantra, 117, 283 HUNG, 183, 194, 398 five wisdoms, 145 hungry ghosts, 117, 235, 236, 241, g

G Ganden. g Ganden Kagyu, 29 Ganden Lha Gyema. g Ganden Tripa, 54 Ganesh, 107, 108, 113 Gauri, 154 Gedun Tendzin Puntsok quoted, 213 Gelek Rinpoche, 24, 64, 69 Gelugpa, 21, g Gen Nyima, 40, 97 Gen Pema Gyaltsen, 44, 97 Gen Yundung Rinpoche, 42 generation stage. g ghande, 46, 114, 334, 342 Ghantapa, 12 ghosts, 45 Ginsberg, Allen, 83, 289 quoted, 241 Gonpasar, 42 grasping, 169 gross body, 328 Guhyasamaja, 10, 24, 34, 93, 147 Guhyasamaya. g guru-devotional practice, 50, 67, 150, 264, See gurudevotional practice obstacles, 67 guru-yoga. g

I I. g ignorance, 29, 211, g illusion body, 28, 256, 261, 306, 329, g imagination, 269 becoming real, 340 indestructible drop, 140, 234, g Indra, 107, 113, g inherent existence, 210, g initiation, 37, 126, 331, 335, g four initiations, 8, 325 self-initiation, 37 initiation deities invocation, 335 making offerings, 335 instant generation, 70–81, 274– 76, 337 review, 137–41 why important, 70 interdependent relationship. See dependent origination intermediate state. g intestines, 28 invitation field of merit, 144 inviting the guru three different ways, 147 invocation direction protectors, 106

428

Yamantaka teachings

mudra, 106 peaceful and wrathful, 106 wisdom beings, 329 wisdombeings verse, 329 Ishvara, 12, g

J Jambudvipa. g Jataka stories, 238 joy, 73, 168

K Kagyu. g Kangsar Dorje Chang, 22, 23, 68, 69, 131 Kanjur. g kapala. See skull-cup karma. g Karmayama, 116, 406 offering to, 375–77 karuna, 31, g khatanga, 28, 322, 406 Khedrub Je, 21, 22, 23, 53–55, 271, 325 Konchog Gyeltsen, 23 Ksitigarbha, 327 Kumbera, 107, 108, 109, 113 kumunda, 108, 343, g Kusali practice, 277

L Lalitavajra, 12–15, 52, 149, 333 how he obtained the teaching, 12–15 quoted, 40, 46, 118 Lalub Jangchub Dorje, 17, 18 Lam Rim, 313, g and the sadhana, 137 overview, 5–8 lama, 10, 36, 65, 148 and yidam, 144, 150, 186, 238, 252, 271, 282, 391 during teachings, 7 what it means, 150 layman's practice, 353 Lhundrup Pandita, 121, 302 lineage entreaty to, 50–70 initiation, 22, 50–68 prayer and lamrim, 137 systems of visualizing, 51 teaching, 22, 68–70 unbroken, 36

visualization, 50, 64 lineage prayer, 50, 138, 270– 74, 337 and lamrim, 131 and refuge, 273 Ling Rinpoche, 22, 24, 50, 53, 64, 69, 181, 214, 264 quoted, 29, 96, 344 Lion-faced Dakini, 17, 50 Longdo Lama, 286 longevity, 95 Losang Chogyen. See Panchen Lama, first lotus, 12, 229 Lower tantric college, 23 Lower Tantric College, 55 lung. g

M madhyamika. g Madhyamikavatara, 33, 210 maha annuttarayoga tantra, 10 maha anuttara yoga. g Mahabala, 200 Mahakala, 109 mahasiddha. g Maheshvara, 107 Maitreya, 327, g mala. g mandala, 172, 381, g description mansion, 224 eight cemetaries, 227 element mandalas, 192 four mandalas, 341 generating, 212 generation of environment/mansion, 221–31 meditation of, 303 pride of, 231 review, 356 symbolic meanings, 228 wisdom, 341 Manjushri, 305, 311, 314, 326, 327, g and emptiness, 330 appearing at three different levels, 34 causal Vajra-holder, 220 five forms of, 233 invocation verse, 329 lama, yidam, protector, 29, 109 mantra of, 360

nature of, 329 peaceful and wrathful, 173 peacefulandwrathful, 29 praise, 30 sambogakaya, 237, 254, 258, 315, 382 uncommon practice, 34 wisdom being, 326, 328 Manjushri nama sangiti, 13, 100, 253 mantra recitation, 360–66 blessing mala, 359 mantras. g activity mantra, 365 essence mantra, 366 hundred-syllable mantra, 366 Manjushri's mantra, 360 root mantra, 363 wisdom-showering mantra, 366 mantrayana. g Mara, 108 maras, 116, g Marpa, 19, 20, 144, 160, g meditation. g analytical, 183, 306 analytical and concentrated, 81, 304, 307, 310, 324, 351 duplicate vajras, 354 eight stages of dissolutions at death, 182–83 gross development stage, 352 mandala building up, 352 looking round, 352 mandala in drop, 356 subtle development stage, 354 Tsongkhapa on, 72 wandering and sinking mind, 352, 354 meditation, mantra and mudra, 333 meditation/visualization burning obstacles, 364 collecting wisdom, 360 cutting ignorance, 361 during teachings, 173 eight stages of dissolution at death, 177–80, 182–83, 291

Index lineage, 50, 65 Manjsuhri's mantra, 360 offerings to self-generation, 341 purifying sentient beings, 362, 363, 364 root mantra, 363 seven wisdoms, 362 uncommon guru yoga, 390– 92 using skull mala, 364 Vajrasattva, 127 washing impurities, 361 meditation/vizualisation Vajrasattva, 124 meditations on eight stages of dissolutions at death, 177–80 merit wisdom merit, 184 merit. Also see accumulation of merit relative and absolute, 144 wisdom merit, 181 merit relative and absolute, 205 merit absolute merit, 208 merit relative and absolute, 285 merit wisdom merit, 285 merit, 288 merit. g method. g Middle Way, 210, g MIGTSEMA, 360 MIGTSEMA, 23, 208, g Milarepa, 19, 92, 160, 285, 287, 382, g quoted, 349 mind. g mo. g Mother Earth, 108, 113 mother tantra, 24, 28, 214, 267 motivation of a teacher, 38 mudra, 162 mudras, 114, g generating offering goddesses, 112 hook mudra, 106, 333 hugging mudra, 83 inner offering, 345

invocation mudra, 333 lotus mudra, 113 merging mudra, 399 origin, 154 outer offerings, 114 protection, 108 snapping fingers, 342 threatening mudra, 28, 326 Tsongkhapa on, 346 vajra folding, 154 music, 343

N nada. g nadis, 35, g naga. g Nagarjuna. g Nagpopa, 87, 156, 196 nang che tob, 153, 179 Naropa, 144, g Nazo Sugchenma, 12 Nechung, 27 nectar, 65, 95, 96, g, Also see three qualities of nectar, Also see five meats and five nectars of pristine awareness, 126 nectar pill, 46, 87, 132 Ngo Lotsawa, 19 ngondro. g Ngönje Gyalpo. See Sumbharaja nihilism, 308, g Nildanda, 199 nirmanakaya, 259–60, g correspondences, 317 practice, 74, 77 yoga of rebirth as, 314–24 non-virtue. g Nyingma. g

O object of negation, 189 obstacles, 106 clearing, 88 in offering, 278 in torma offering, 106 outer, inner, secret, 27 protection wheel, 202 three kinds of, 98 two kinds, 29 Odivisha, 12 offering food offering, 134, 278

429

inner offering, 132, 133, 338, 344–46 consecration, 86–98, 277 gesture, 344 sprinkling, 99 to protectors, 115 what is possible, 97 laying out, 118 mandala offering, 119–21 non-virtues into, 105 non-virtues into, 97 obstacles into, 115, 278, 280 outer, 281 outer offering, 333, 335, 341–44 consecration, 279 consecration, 98–101 set-up, 98 three qualities, 101 to protectors, 114 outer, inner, secret, suchness, 121 placing the offerings, 46 secret offering, 346–47, 391 self-generation, 282 consecration, 118 six significanses, 118 suchness offering, 347, 391 three significanses, 118 to Karmayama, 375–77 torma, 106, 132, 279, 373 consecration, 279 obstacles into, 134 torma blessing, 101 what it should be free of, 347 wrathful, 98, 118 offering goddess, 115 offerings five qualities, 156 four significances, 156 inner offering, 164 outer offering, 154–57 secret offering, 164 suchness offering, 164 three kinds of obstacles, 98 Ogyen. g, Zie Uddiyana OM, 104 OM A RA PA TZA mantra, 360 OM AH HUNG, 96, 97, 105, 132, 133, 277 correspondences, 104 OM HRIH SHTRIH mantra, 365

430

Yamantaka teachings

OM SHUNYATA MANTRA, 174, 338 OM SVABHAVA mantra, 90, 174, 187, 191, 208, 293, 380 OM VAJRASATTVA AH mantra, 130 OM YAMANTAKA mantra, 366 OM YAMARAJA mantra, 363 oral transmission, 52, 57, 146, 147, 150, 173, g ornaments, 173 outlines, 260, 302, 396 importance of, 263 Ling Rinpoche, 9 review by means of, 265– 305

P Pabongka Rinpoche, 6, 64, 68, 208, g lineage, 61 nectar pill, 88 quoted, 6 reincarnation lineage, 63 Padmasambhava. g palden. g Palden Lhamo, 107, 112 Panchen Lama, 26, 57 first, 23, 56–58, 117 second, 58 pandit. g Pawo chigpa. g peace, prosperity, power, wrath, 106 perception and conception, 70, 73, 324, 349, 350 PHAIM, 319 phowa, 18, 242, 293, 295, 296, g place of practice, 42–46, 268 practice difficulties, 213–19, 309 praise Manjushri, 31, 347 to the Lama, 150 to Yamantaka, 151–53 Praise to Buddha, 210 Prajnaparamita, 8, g prayers, 203 preliminaries, 49–135, 269–83, 337 to the completion stage, 389–94 Preliminaries. g

pride, 130, 310, g, g of the deity, 349, 350, 357 pride and clarity, 231, 303, 324, 351 protection wheel, 272, 308 common, 192–96, 298–300 five point, 202 uncommon, 196–204, 212, 300–301 four activities, 203 moving, 202 protecting through hiding, 202 protectors. g dharma, 241 direction, 280, 282 direction protectors, 106, 117, 375 fifteen, 107 important, 109 invocation, 106–10 sending away, 117 why in Yamantaka form, 118 three types of, 107 Tsimulra, 207 psychic heat, 24, 28, 85, 342, g puja. g purba. g pure land, 241, 303, g questions on, 243–45 purification, 132 four powers, 158 sense bases, 324 purities recollection, 357–59

Q qualities of the disciple. See disciple qualities of the teacher. See teacher qualities of the vajra-master, 36

R Ra Lotsawa, 15–20, 30, 43 and a kadampa lama, 30 reincarnation, 22 rainbow, 378 raksha, 107, 109 Ratnasambhava, 162, g reality source, 221, 222, 227, 228, 229, 232, 301, g rebirth. g as nirmanakaya, 339

rebirth as nirmanakaya, 314, 327 refuge, 121 refuge taking, 159 rejoice, 158 relative and absolute, 32, 209, 271 Rendawa, 23, 25 renunciation, 6, 138, g request, 391 retreat, 37, 206, 37, 379 review, 313, 337–40, Also see extended prayer by means of the outlines, 265–305 by mens of extended prayer, 205 instant generation, 137–41 mandala, 356 rebirth as nirmanakaya, 327 rupakaya, 31, 205, 285, g

S sacred objects how to treat, 81, 316 sadhana, 166, 262, g Sakya, 25 Sakya Pandita, 144 Sakyamuni buddha. g samadhi. g Samantabhadra, 124, 327 practice, 119 sambogakaya, 213, 253, g five qualities, 255 practice, 75 practice, 74 yoga of bardo as, 237 samhogakaya symbolic meanings, 255–59 samsara. g definition, 34 samsaric gods. g sangha. g Sangwa dupa. See Guhyasamaya Saraswati, 154 SARVA DHARMA, 175 Sarvanivarana viskambini, 327 secrecy, 40 seed-syllables, 398, g seeing path, 182 Segyu lineage, 23, 111, g self. g self-cherishing. g

Index self-existence. g self-generation, 118 self-initiation blessing vajra and bell, 84 mandalas, 341 outer offerings in, 98, 343 vajra and bell in, 276 selflesnesses. g sentient being. g Setrabpa, 43 seven inner guests, 107, 109 seven kisses, 66 seven limbs, 205 seven precious things, 343 seven purities, 149, 207 seven qualities of food offering, 343 seven qualities sambogakaya, 66 sexual energy, 165 shamata. g Shambala, 286 Shang, Lama, 27 Shantideva. g quoted, 9 Sherab Gyaltsen, Aku, 100 Sherab Senge, 23, 55 Shinje. g shunyata, 210, 290, g siddha. g siddhi. g sindhura, 13, g sinking mind, 352, 354 six awarenesses, 5 six ornaments. See: Yamantaka ornaments six paramitas. g six root delusions. g Six session yoga, 166 Six-session yoga, 167, 379 skandhas. g skull-club, 406 skullcup, 88, 92, 95, 100, 115, 401, 402 slokas. g Song Rinpoche, 40, 270, 294, 305 south, 122 space produced and unproduced, 330 spirits, 88 spiritual master. g stories

Amala show me your long hand, 45 Bero Shagdrum, 16–18 Changya Rolpai Dorje, 61– 63 Drugpa Kunleg, 52 Mrs Lalu, 67 Nagpopa, 87 Panchen Lama and Könchog Gyeltsen, 57 Ra Lotsawa, 15–20, 16 Sixth Dalai Lama, 59–61 Tsongkhapa meets 2 disc., 53–54 Vajrayogini, 87 wise horse, 238 Yamantaka and Yama, 29– 30 Yamantaka tantra, 12–15 stove, 28 stupa. g subtle air/energy, 234 subtle body, 328 subtle body and mind, 140 subtle consciousness, 380 suffering three kinds of, 138 suicide, 249 Sumbharaja, 197, 212, 232, 301, 403 supreme field of merit dissolving, 175 sutra. g sutrayana. g symbolism five wisdom correspondences, 317 mandala, 228 mudras, 154 nirmanakaya, 318 nirmanakaya correspondences, 317 OM AH HUNG, 104 sambogakaya, 255–59 vajra and bell, 81–85 Yamantaka's body, 357–59

T Takkiraja, 199 Tandu Rinpoche, 242 tantra. g father- and mother tantra, 10 four levels of, 10 Yamantaka tantras, 11

431

Tantra in Seven Chapters, 38 tantrayana. g Tarmadote, 18 Tathagata. g Tathagathas, 335 teacher qualities, 36–38 teaching how to give and receive, 41 rules, 173 teachings of the Buddha, 9 ten minds, 203 ten wrathful protectors, 198– 201, 404 Terma. g thangka. g Central Philosophy of Tibet, 190, 264 theravada. g thirty-seven practices, 357, 358, g three faults of listening, 8 three human heads, 92, 115 three kayas, 104, 305, 339, g Three principles, 138, 188, 308 Three Principles. g three qualities of nectar, 133 three realms. g three sufferings, 138 three times. g three ways of consecration, 325 three ways of purifying, 127 three wrathful activities, 202 three yanas, 164 three-kaya practice, 70, 71–77, 284, 325 Tibetan arts of love, 165 tikle. g time, 330 Tolungpa, 144 Tomo Geshe Rinpoche, 242, 274 tongue blessing, 270 torma, 46, 106, 279, g, Also see offering offering preliminary torma, 106 permission to eat, 110 transference of consciousness. g, See phowa Trijang Rinpoche, 67, 213, 214, 294, g quoted, 27, 190 Tripitaka. g

432

Yamantaka teachings

triple being, 339 triple world, 34 Trungpa Rinpoche, 69 Tsimulra, 207 tsok, 122, 325, 377 Tsongkhapa, 21–22, 23, 53, 188, 308, g biographies, 23 innermost practice, 25 on meditation, 72 praise to Buddha, 210 Praise to Buddha, 21 unbroken lineage, 36 tulku, 77, g tummo. g, See psychic heat Tushita, 243, 244, 252, g twenty-five factors of existence, 175 two accumulations. g two emptinesses, 99 two kayas, 209 two melting systems, 71 two paths sutra and tantra, 10 two purposes, 124, 145 two stages of vajrayana. g two truths, 209, g

U Uddiyana, 12, g Umapa, lama, 23 uncontaminated. See contaminated and uncontaminated union, 31, 115, 161, 329, g clear light and illusion body, 31 three things in mind, 84 Union, 266 Upper Tantric College, 55 Ushnisha Chakravartin, 200

V Vairochana, 97, 161, 222, 301, 315, g vajra, 82, 162, 401, g crossed, 82, 222, 229, 300 meditating duplicate vajras, 316 wrathful, 82, 315 vajra and bell consecration, 276 how to place, 81, 401 how to treat, 81

outer, inner, secret, 81–85 symbolism, 81–85 way of blessing, 85 Vajra Bhairava, 12, g vajra body, 104, 349, 392, g vajra ground etc., 194 Vajra holder causal, 232–34, 252–55, 305 resultant, 314 vajra master, 162 Vajra master. g vajra recitation, 292 Vajra Vetali. See Vajra Zombini Vajra Zombini, 14, 50, 52, g Vajradhara. g Vajrapani, 327 Vajra-patala, 200 Vajrasattva, 122–30, 221, 267, 301 meditation, 121, 267, 282 recitation, 131 visualization, 126 Vajra-sharp, 315 vajrayana positive practice, 76 result path, 10 Vajrayana. g Vajrayogini, 37, 76, 87, 161, 165, 213, 261, g Varahi, 154 Varuna, 107, 108, 113 Vasubandhu. g Vayudeva, 107, 109, 113 vinaya. g Vishnu, 12, 107, 108, 113 visualization. g, Also see meditation/visualization not losing previous, 300, 314 oneself as the deity, 80 purification, 127 voidness. g vows. g bodhisattva vow, 160 four universal vows, 166 renewing, 121 vajrayana vows, 161–66

W wandering mind, 352, 354 water jar, 46 water mandala, 193 white bodhicitta, 85 White Lotus Sutra, 120

wisdom, 215, g and music, 343 clarifying, 39 corrupt, 39 crazy wisdom, 67, 297 gone wild, 215 wisdom being, 326, 328, g wisdom beings, 335 dissolving, 334 entering, 329 invocation by mantra, 332 invocation verse, 329 make offerings to, 333 why invite them, 333 wrathful activities, 202, 203 wrathful deities, 203, 301

Y yab yum. g Yama, 29, 107, 113, g outer, inner, secret, 35, 152 Yamantaka, 29, 198, g consort, 12, 14, 346 different systems, 20 forty-nine deities, 25, 261, 315 mandala, 12 nine heads/faces, 318, 321 one face, two hands, 50, 52, 74, 77, 78, 88, 107, 137, 170, 273, 353, 359, 383, 402 ornaments, 79, 320 outer, inner, secret, 35 physical appearance, 77–80 purification sense bases, 324 Red and Black, 12 resultant Vajra-holder, 312 Solitary Hero, 25 five qualities, 25–29 story of, 29–30 symbolism of the body, 318 Thirteen Deities, 25 thirty-four hands, 322 three beings, 326 relevance in our life, 328 without implements/ornaments, 173 wrathful and peaceful, 29, 173 Yamantaka tantra, 11, 14 different systems, 24 Yamaraja, 29, 30, 107

Index five Yamarajas, 109 four activities, 113 Yamas four activity, 107 Yeshe, Lama, 250 yidam. g, Also see lama and yidam actualizing, 307

actualizing, 265 and buddha Akshobhya, 94 gain closeness, 37 generated through 5 wisdoms, 317 getting closer to, 206 killing, 249 principle in mandala, 78

433

yoga, 161, g of vast and profound, 351 yogi/yogini. g

Z Zen, 332 zhine. g

Born in Lhasa, Tibet, Kyabje Gehlek Rimpoche was recognized as an incarnate lama at the age of four. Carefully tutored by Tibet’s greatest living masters, he received specialized individual teaching at Drepung Monastery, the nation’s largest monastery. In 1959, Gehlek Rimpoche was among those forced into exile, fleeing the Communist Chinese who had occupied Tibet since 1951. While in India, Rimpoche as a member of a group of sixteen monks, was chosen to continue specific studies with the great masters who had escaped Tibet, including the Dalai Lama’s personal tutors. At the age of twenty-five, Rimpoche gave up monastic life. In the mid-70’s, Gehlek Rimpoche was encouraged by his teachers to begin teaching in English. Since that time he has gained a large following throughout the world. Coming to the U.S. in the mid-80’s, Rimpoche later moved to Ann Arbor, MI and in 1987 founded Jewel Heart, an organization dedicated to the preservation of Tibetan culture and Buddhism. Today, Jewel Heart has chapters throughout the U.S. and in Malaysia, Singapore and the Netherlands. A member of the last generation of lamas to be born and fully educated in Tibet, Gehlek Rimpoche is particularly distinguished for his understanding of contemporary society and his skill as a teacher of Buddhism in the West. He is now an American citizen. Gehlek Rimpoche’s first book, the national bestseller, Good Life, Good Death, was published in 2001.

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Jewel Heart is an educational and cultural center whose doors are open to all. Its purpose is to transmit the essence of Tibetan Buddhism in an authentic and accessible form. Jewel Heart provides guidance and practical methods to anyone interested in spiritual development, as well as to those who wish to follow the traditional Buddhist path.

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Jewel Heart Transcripts 1. Gehlek Rimpoche. Ganden Lha Gyema; The hundreds of deities of the land of Joy.* Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen 1991. revised November 1999 A commentary on guru yoga in the tradition of Lama Tsong Khapa [Teachings USA, Study material Jewel Heart Students] 100 pages 2. Gehlek Rimpoche. Karma; actions and their consequenses. Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen 1991. revised 1997 An introduction to the concept of karma and how to deal with it in daily life [weekend course and 2 lectures, Nijmegen 1989] 40 pages

3. Gehlek Rimpoche. Love and Compassion. Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen 1992. revised 1997 The Altruistic Mind and the Six Perfections [weekend course and lecture, Nijmegen, 1991] 54 pages

4. Denma Locho Rinpoche. The Wheel of Existence. Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen 1992. revised 1997 Explanation of the cyclic nature of existence following from ignorance and neurotic patterns [teachings Nijmegen 1987] 45 pages

5. Gehlek Rimpoche. Six-session Guru Yoga.* Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen 1992. second edition August 1998 The guru yoga as a requirement for the practice of Highest Yoga Tantra Short explanation USA summer retreat ’91, restricted] 52 pages

6. Gehlek Rimpoche. Self and Selflessness. Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen 1993. third edition May 1998 The nature of the Self in Buddhist philosophy [weekend course+2 lectures, Nijmegen 1985/86] 60 pages

7. Gehlek Rimpoche, Lam Rim Teachings; teachings 1987-1991, 4 volumes. Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen 1993. Comprehensive teachings on the Graduated Path to Enlightenment in the tradition of Lama Tsong Khapa [teachings Ann Arbor, USA, 1987-1991] 818 pages in 3 ring binders

8. Gehlek Rimpoche, Transforming Negativity into Positive living. Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen, april 1994. Practical advice on how to deal with negative emotions in daily life [12 Tuesday night teachings, US, fall 1991] 88 pages

9. Gehlek Rimpoche. The Three Principles of the path to highest enlightenment by Je Tsong Khapa; tuesdaynight teachings. Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen, 1994. revision in action 2000-2001 Detailed commentary on the Three Principles of the Path: Determination to be free, Altruism, the Perfect View [Tuesday night teachings, Ann Arbor, USA, 1987-1988] 193 pages

10.Gehlek Rimpoche, The Three Principles in a short commentary. Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen, 1995. Week-end seminar on the Three Principles of the Path [weekend course + lecture, Nijmegen, 1994] 52 pages

11.Gehlek Rimpoche, Healing and Selfhealing through Tara* Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen 1996 revised and extended edition August 1999 Healing practices based on the Deity Tara, a manifestation of the active aspect of compassion of all enlightened beings. 5-day workshop Nijmegen 1995 + teachings USA 1996] 162 pages

12.Gehlek Rimpoche, Three main short vajrayana practices* Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen 1997. second and extended edition April 1998 Short commentaries on the Six Session Yoga, the Short Sadhana of the Solitary Hero Vajrabhairava and the Short Sadhana of Vajrayogini 74 pages

13.Gehlek Rimpoche, Guru devotion: How to integrate the primordial mind*. Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen 1997. 14. Commentary on the Lama Chöpa – the Offering to the Spiritual Master [study material Jewel Heart students, restricted] 280 pages

15.Gehlek Rimpoche, Solitary Yamantaka teachings on the generation stage* Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen 1997. second edition August 1998 Comprehensive commentary on the Generation Stage of the Solitary Hero Vajrabhairava, including reviews and discussions [Yamantaka teachings 1980, 1985, 1993-1995, study material Jewel Heart students, restricted] 460 pages

16.Gehlek Rimpoche, Odyssey to Freedom; in sixty-four steps Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen 1998. The Graduated Path to Enlightenment in easy-to practice form 173 pages

17.Gehlek Rimpoche, The Perfection of Wisdom Mantra. Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen 1998. The Perfection of Wisdom Mantra and the Five Paths of the Mahayana [Tuesday night teachings, Ann Arbor, USA, 1995-1996] 104 pages

18.Tarab Tulku, Nearness to oneself and openness to the world. Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen 1999. Four selected topics [Teachings Nijmegen, 1993, 1998, 1999] 98 pages

19.Gehlek Rimpoche, Lojong, training of the mind in eight verses. Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen, 2000. Commentary on Mind Training based on the root text by Langri Tangpa [teachings Nijmegen, 1996] 78 pages

20.Gehlek Rimpoche, Lojong, training of mind in seven points. Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen, 2000. Commentary on the Mind Training based on the root text by Geshe Chekawa [Teachings Nijmegen, New York, 1999] 98 pages

21.Gehlek Rimpoche, Vajrayogini Teachings* Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen Comprehensive commentary on the Generation stage of Vajrayogini [Vajrayana study material, restricted] 402 pages

22. Gehlek Rimpoche, Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life - Chapter 1 Detailed Verse by Verse Commentary on Shantideva’s Famous Work 155 pages

23. Gehlek Rinpoche, Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life – Chapter 2 Detailed Verse by Verse Commentary on Shantideva’s Famous Work 201 pages

24.Gehlek Rinpoche, Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life – Chapter 3 Detailed Verse by Verse Commentary on Shantideva’s Famous Work 174 pages

25.Gehlek Rinpoche, Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life – Chapter 4 Detailed Verse by Verse Commentary on Shantideva’s Famous Work 220 pages

25.

Gehlek Rimpoche, The Practice of the Triumphant Ma – Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen 1996, revised edition August 2002 Healing practices based on the Deity Tara, a manifestation of the active aspect of compassion of all enlightened beings. This transcript can be read by the general public, no requirement of an initiation

5-day workshop Nijmegen 1995 + teachings USA 1996] 162 pages

26. Gehlek Rimpoche. Ganden Lha Gyema; The hundreds of deities of the land of Joy. A guru yoga practice for the general public. No requirement of an initiation. Transcript Jewel Heart, Nijmegen 1991. revised August 2002 A commentary on guru yoga in the tradition of Lama Tsong Khapa [Teachings USA, Study material Jewel Heart Students] 100 pages •

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