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0:00:04.3 Dutch translation

That is the 9th point. The 10th point is the caste divisions among the tantras. So of course we have the four tantras and out of the first tantra, cha gyü, Tibetan, is the caste divided into two, which is samsaric and non-samsaric castes, jig ten dang jigten len de pai. These are the two basic divisions in the cha gyü. This may be useful information.

0:03:38.8 Non-samsaric caste also has three divisions, that is: the Tathagata caste, the Lotus caste and Vajra caste. These are the non-samsaric castes of the lower tantra. The samsaric castes are the nö jin caste and nga dzen caste (Tibetan) nö jin is normally translated as yaksha and the other is the raksha caste. These are the samsaric castes in the charya tantra. Sometimes you find, when you are taking the initiation, they say that it is pämai rig (lotus caste or family). When you are taking Avalokitesvara 11 face initiation, they will say it is the lotus caste or family or kriya tantra, charya tantra, like that. That means charya has been divided into samsaric and non-samsaric families.

So together these are the five castes of the charya tantra. In that the kriya and charya tantra are the same.

Yoga tantra is different. That again has the lotus family and vajra family, and then activity family, ratna or jewel family. This is the yoga tantra. Maha anuyoga tantra has how many families? 6, the five buddha families plus Drukpa dorje chang. The five buddha families are Ratnasambhava, Amogasiddhi, Amithaba, Vairochana and Akshobhya and the sixth is the Vajradhara caste, Dorje Chang.

0:07:52.4 When you talk about Maha anuyoga tantra they will only tell you about the five buddha families, because everybody is belonging to the sixth, the Vajradhara caste. But when you divide it, basically you divide it into six. This is how the tantras are divided into families or castes.

0:08:20.9 In addition to that, Maha anuyoga tantra is divided into two: father tantra and mother tantra. Okay, so when you introduce tantra, what else are you going to introduce? (laughs)

0:08:45.1 Dutch translation

0:11:00.4 That is the 10th point. The 11th point is why is there the division into father tantra and mother tantra and what does that mean? There are many different viewpoints expressed on this. Even before going into father – and mother tantra, certain people will not only say there are father – and mother tantras, but they also say there are neutral tantras. So three divisions. Many Tibetan traditions will accept that, but Tsongkhapa doesn’t. He only accepts father and mother tantra division and does not accept neutral tantra at all. I give you the reasons. It is quite easy. Father and mother tantras sometimes they are also called method and wisdom tantras. Why father and mother tantra? A lot of people say that the male tantras are father tantras and the female tantras are mother tantras. A lot of people say that if the principal yidam in the mandala is male or female, according it becomes a father or mother tantra. So there are a lot of different viewpoints on this. But actually, what Tsongkhapa accepts and gives reasons for is this:

0:12:48.7 When you obtain enlightenment – as I mentioned to you, through wisdom and method – what is the Maha anuyoga tantras’ wisdom? It is the clear light and related points.

The method is the illusion body and it’s related practices. The development of illusion body and clear light. Clear light is the real wisdom and illusion body is the real method.

0:13:34.3 Some tantras will emphasize to develop clear light. Certain tantras will emphasize to develop illusion body. Every tantra will emphasize everything. So it is even wrong to use the word “emphasize”. I should say “geared up towards”. That means: from the beginning of guru yoga practice to the end of completion stage, wherever you go, it is always geared up for you to develop certain points.

Unless I give you examples you will not understand. For example, if you look in Yamantaka properly, since most of you are familiar with that - I am sure a number of you are saying the Yamantaka sadhana – even in the guru yoga it says “I pray to you, So and So, to develop the two siddhihoods.” Then, if you go down to the Vajrasattva recitation, Vajrasattva will purify and this and that and rebuild the dignified look of Vajrasattva and this and that.

0:16:04.1 On the other hand, if you look at mother tantras like Heruka body mandala or even Vajrayogini practice, there the guru yoga will simply say: pray for enlightenment (0:16:17.7) and even if you look at the Vajrasattva recitation it will just simply purify. It does not say: purify and rebuild strength and all this, like Yamantaka has. If you look into these two points you will notice the difference. That is the sign that Yamantaka, from beginning to end, wherever you look, is geared up to the development of the illusion body. Everywhere it is dignified and this and that (Tibetan) if you look, it purifies non-virtues and then: si ji dang tu tob pun sum tsok par gyur. It comes back once. In Vajrayogini it doesn’t come back, jang chen tak par gyur. Even in Heruka it goes jang chen tak par gyur.

0:17:12.8 If you go through and it doesn’t come back to rebuild the strength, etc, that means that this whole tantra is not really geared towards the development of the illusion body, but to the development of clear light. You are getting my point?

Both tantras will talk about illusion body, both will talk about clear light, but every method is geared towards one of these developments. You understand? That’s why, whenever it is geared to develop clear light, it is the sign that this tantra is a mother tantra. If it is building the illusion body, then it is father tantra, like Guhyasamaja.

0:18:16.7 So for a simple practitioner, many people simply practice Solitary Hero Yamantaka and say the Vajrayogini practice. That’s because of these two: gearing up to clear light and gearing up to illusion body. That’s why Tsongkhapa’s very important yidams are Guhyasamaja and Heruka, because of these two reasons. Yamantaka is added up to have protection and things like that. But if you look at each tantra, - I have to mention it here – it is the system of each tantra to say “I am complete. I have every method of clear light and every method of illusion body.” If you look at Yamantaka, that will say, “I have the complete illusion body and all the important points mentioned in Guhyasamaja, because I am carrying in one of my hands the intestines of people. That’s the sign that I have the complete illusion body. Then in another hand I hold the stove, which means that I have the complete teachings of the clear light, etc, from the Heruka tantra.”

0:20:12.0 Every tantra, each system, will say “I have this, I have that, I have completed.” Every tantra has their own system of saying that. When you talk this particular tantra you will talk about it. But when talk generally, - and this is the point you have to see – both cannot be both tantras. One has to emphasize on one. That means it has to be in a major way geared up towards certain developments. So every point has been directed towards that. So when you are focused on the clear light every point will go to develop it. Even when you say mantras, even when you say the guru yoga, even when you say the seven purities or whatever, even during the meditation on the protection rim, each one of these points is geared up towards a certain development. That’s why the division comes. You understand now?

0:21:18.1 That is one of the reasons why they recommend even for simple practitioners to do two: Solitary Hero Yamantaka and Vajrayogini, for example. Practice these two together, because of these reasons. Is that enough now? (laughs)

0:21:42.8 Dutch translation

0:28:28.5 I think I will go to the next one. This is a bit easy. We were on the 11th point and now we do to the 12th point. That is which yidam is what? Which deity belongs to what? This is easy, but becomes difficult if you go through the list. They are fantastic, you go through this, this, this, this – that is very difficult. Also it makes it easy too. So I made subtitles in between. This is a list drawn up by Ridzin Ga dön. I have this page here and read out what is what. These are mostly the commonly known, more important ones [of the Kriya tantras].

0:29:50.5 Briefly saying, there are thub pa lha sum chu song nga (spelling???) Buddha with the 35 deities. The first goes into the se gyu la. Then Amitabha Buddha with the 9 deities, Mitrupa 13 deities, White Umbrella with 29 deities, Ushnishavijaya 9 deities, Manjushri 5 deities, Avalokitesvara 13 deities, Avalokitesvara 5 deities – that the 11 face Avalokitesvara, Dön sha 5 deities, Avalokitesvara resting on a Lion 5 deities….

I give you now the names of the deities and I just have to say which belongs to whom. That’s for those who are familiar with these, otherwise it’s not really that important. Okay, if you want it detailedly: there is mandala introduced with the Buddha with the 35 deities, which is called thub pa lha sum cho tso nga. Similarly, the Amityus Buddha as the principal and then there are 9 other deities and that mandala is there. That is called Amitayus with 9 deities. Similarly, Mitrupa. That is most important for purification, particularly there are a lot of rituals for when people pass away. That is Mitrupa with 13 deities. Then there is a deity called White Umbrella which has 29 other deities in one mandala, then Ushnishavijaya, Tsuk tor nam par gyel ma, a female deity, with 9 deities in the mandala, then White Manjushri with 5 deities, Avalokitesvara with 13 deities, Avalokitesvara with 5 deities, which is the 11 face Avalokitesvara and among the Vajrpanis there is a blue – just Vajrapani. Every Vajrapani is blue, okay, but the name of this particular Vajrapani is Blue Dress Vajrapani, then there is Hayagriva or Tamdrin with 17 deities. A lot of people think straight away that Hayagriva is Maha anuyoga tantra, but there is Hayagriva with 17 deities.

0:33:31.1 hmm, there are lots of lists now. Dorje Chung nga dang bar wo sa cho gu (spelling???) I even have no idea what that is. That’s black Vajra Garuda with 19 deities. Also the 5 deities Lo jun ma (spelling???) this is very common. Lo jun ma is the leaf dress deity. Most of them you will find in the ringjung gyatsa and all this. Lo jun ma and 5 deities, they wear dresses from tree leaves. Then Saraswati and Yang je ma, that is very common, then Ser dze ma, the deity on 7 peaks. There are lot of lists. Now commonly and very important, Tara, white, green, etc,. Not all Taras belong to Kriya tantra. Chittamani Tara belongs to Maha anuyoga tantra. There are lots of divisions. And Zambala with 9 deities. Roughly, these are the kriya tantras.

0:35:27.0 Then many of the Vajrapanis, nam nam ngon zhen (spelling???) ka don nun ji (spelling???) and all different Vajrapanis, many of them belong to Charya Tantra, most of them, except the normal, common Vajrapani that we have, which we are going to do tomorrow and that is the Maha anuyoga tantra Vajrapani. Otherwise, many Vajrapanis belong to the Charya tantra.

Now maybe there is no point of reading this list, because you people don’t know these…anyway, this is what the points are, this is just introducing….

Now Maha anuyoga tantra is more important. I will jump there. There are two different Guhyasamajas. The normal Sang wa du pa or Guhyasamaja, we get and Sang dub Jampel Dorje. Then there are three Yamantakas, black, red and Jigje, the wrathful Yamantaka, which also has three: the Solitary Hero and 13 deities and 49 deities Yamantakas. These are the most important. Then Cha dor khor chen, the Great Wheel Vajrapani. You had the initiation last year or the year before last, from the late Serkhong Rinpoche, as part of the Enlightenment Experience. These are Maha anuyoga tantra.

0:37:55.3 On top of this, Heruka. There is 5 deity Heruka, 62 deity Heruka, 29 deity Heruka and they all belong to Maha anuyoga tantra. In addition to that, Hayagriva, Kalachakra, Vajrayogini, Anema (spelling????) , Kurukulla, Kye dor [Hevajra), Avalokitesvara Gyalwa Gyatso, Tamdrin Pema Gawang, and there are the 21 Taras of the Nye wai (??? Spelling) system, which you find in the ring jung gyatsa, is the Maha anuyoga tantra. These are the most important commonly known ones. For those who are familiar, I just read the names, so that you get a rough idea who belongs to whom. That’s it, that is the 12th point. I just read the list and later, if you hear it, you may know. Very commonly we have practiced White Tara, Green Tara and that is normally kriya tantra, but as I mentioned the 21 Taras from the Nyewai system is Maha anuyoga tantra, as well as Chittamani Tara, which is also Maha anuyoga tantra. Most of the Vajrapanis belong to the Charya tantra, but there are certain Vajrapanis in the Maha anuyoga tantras and also in the Charya tantra too. Then commonly we know Guhyasamaja, Yamantaka, etc, and they are all Maha anuyoga tantra. Okay, what makes the difference, whether it is Maha anuyoga tantra, how do you know?

0:40:17.6 If you don’t know the deity, if you don’t know anything about it, how do you know? Then you have to look through its tantra or you read a text and see if you can find a completion stage practice mentioned in that. If so, it’s Maha anuyoga tantra, if not, then one of the lower tantras. This is simply how I look. Really, that’s what it is. There are thousands of different yidams and who is going to know who is what? So how you look, that is the real point.

0:40:57.9 When it is Maha anuyoga tantra it always has the completion stage. If that is not there, then it is not Maha anuyoga tantra. That’s all. Okay, I will stop here for a break.

I mentioned the ring jung gyatsa, because a lot of people had the ring jung gyatsa.

0:41:13.9 Dutch translation

0:43:00.9 Should we continue? Otherwise we can take a break here now. Mabybe I can go one more? That will make it easier later. Okay, everybody is saying no (laughs). From Point 14 onwards it will be easier. Then it becomes the normal, practical points. Anyway, now we stop here.

0:43:46.9 dedication prayers

0:46:07.0 prayers lama chom den de…..mandala offering

0:48:14.4 Where did we stop earlier? Point 12 is finished. I read all the names of the yidams where they belong, those very long boring lists.

Point 13: what kinds of persons are fit to practice this Vajrayana?

The qualities of the practitioners. That is a very important point for us to know. The most important thing for Vajrayana practitioners is that out of the 6 realms it is very strongly recommended to be in the most important, the human realm. That also human beings of today’s time, rather than even during the time of the Buddha or anything, but the degenerated age. I am jumping off following the text’s style, otherwise it will be very boring and what levels there are. I will come out at today’s time, the degenerated age, which is the most suitable person to practice the Vajrayana practice, even more important than during the fortunate eons. That is because in the degenerated age, No 1, we don’t have much time. We are very busy and really cannot spend any time to gain something for us for permanent benefit. We can spend time doing this and that, which we consider more important than out permanent benefits. Are you getting what I am saying? If not, I can make it more simple for you and that is: nowadays we consider everything important, except spiritual things. That is the time for us. Everything has time limits or there is money involved. So we value that. What we don’t value is the thing of actual value which will give us ultimate happiness once and for all. We don’t consider that important.

0:51:24.6 That’s because it cannot be measured in terms of money, nor in terms of time. There is nobody that says we have to finish at such and such a time. Even if your spiritual master or somebody says that, it doesn’t matter, because we are not paid for it. That is the degenerated age. That’s what we do. So we don’t really have time to do a long practice of 3, 4, 5 eons. We need something that happens quickly and is the easiest to do. That’s more beneficial for us. Also, the quality of the life we possess. Did I talk that last night? A little bit. So the quality of our life is also perfect for Vajrayana practice, and that includes completion stage practice, because the essence of the completion stage is the collection of airs and energies inside, within the central nadi, the central chakra and you concentrate on it. Also for that, this particular life is very suitable, not only suitable, but the best available. Other lives are not that useful and valuable, so from the life point of view we are fit. The life we have not only makes us fit, but we have the best life for Vajrayana practice.

0:53:28.5 However, it is up to us to prepare the foundation. The moment I say foundation you may understand, like in the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions and even Sakya nowadays, the four foundations, so you have to do 100,000 prostrations, 100,000 mandala offerings, 100,000 Vajrasattva recitations and 100,000 guru yoga. These are the four foundations they talk about. But I am not talking about that at all. Particularly, in Tsongkhapa’s tradition, he does not emphasize these four foundations at all. It’s not that doing that is wasting time, I am not saying that. Do not misunderstand. But Tsongkhapa did not emphasize that.

If you do the 100,000 mandala offerings and 100,000 prostrations, what will happen? You have good exercise, no doubt, you will lose some weight. I should be doing that, actually. I do need it, however, I can’t do it. I am not insulting the system, so please don’t think that. Suppose if I do 100,000 prostrations and mandala offerings, I am quite sure I will lose a little weight and it will be very good for me. And that’s what’s I am going to get. But I do not concentrate and prepare my mind, by merely physically doing the 100,000 mandala offerings and 100,000 prostrations, they will not be done very good. I will not gain much, compared to the time I spend on it.

0:55:53.0 Why are these emphasized in the first place? For purification and to prepare yourself. But what you really have to do is your mental preparation. Mentally, what do you have to prepare? You have to build the base. What is the base? As I told you to earlier, bodhicitta and method on the one hand and wisdom on the other hand. These are the two solid bases on which you build your Vajrayana practice. How do you develop wisdom? By studying, by thinking, by meditating.

0:56:42.1 How do you gain wisdom? How do you gain spiritual development? Let me talk about wisdom, then you can understand the method part too. How do you gain wisdom? By saying OM ARAPATZANA DHIH all the time you are not going to gain wisdom. Okay, it is Manjushri’s wisdom mantra and it helps, I don’t deny it, but this is not the way to gain the wisdom. The first thing you have to do is learn about it. What is it? How is it? What is it really about? People may say, “He is Gelugpa, that’s why he emphasizes learning.”

0:57:47.6 Don’t misunderstand. If you don’t learn, you cannot think. If you cannot think you gain nothing. I tell you the truth. It is not emphasizing learning for itself. Learning is fantastic, it is endless and there are lots of things to learn. I am not asking everybody to become a professor of Buddhist studies. I am simply saying you need to know what to think. How do you gain spiritual development?

0:58:26.9 Tibetan

Tang po gya chir tö pa mang du tsal

bar du sung ngu tham che tab la chen

ta ma nyie jung kun du dam zö la….(spelling??)

This is how we learn. By hearing, listening, reading, by pouring in the information from the right source, you gain understanding. That is called tö jung gi she rab, understanding following learning. That will be your basic understanding. That basic understanding is rebuilt and built up by thinking. You have to concentrate and think and put your efforts in it. Then you become more familiar and gain a better understanding. That is called sam jung gi she rab, understanding following thinking. After that you can meditate and concentrate on it. Then you can a solid understanding, gom jung gi she rab, understanding following meditation.

0:59:36.2 This is what we call spiritual development. You may call it realization. For all of them, you have to put effort in three times. The first is basic understanding, the second is thinking, the third meditating. Then you can solid understanding or realization. This is what we call spiritual development. This goes from A to Z, not only in tantra, but also in sutra, from the beginning, guru devotion to ultimate enlightenment. Every point, wherever it is, this is what you have to do.

1:00:29.6 Tö sam gom – these three things are very important. Hearing, thinking and meditating. Each one of them will gain you something and your understanding will get better and better and become solid and stable. That’s called spiritual development. If you leave that side and look for spiritual development somewhere else you will never find anything. That is the wrong way. Any practice, anywhere, that’s how it works. Even in the ordinary lam rim beginning level, this is how you gain realization.

1:01:17.0 The only thing you have to do is the object of your meditation has to be the subject. You follow what I mean? That subject you have to find by yourself.

If I tell you: this is the subject and if you meditate on it, you gain nothing of it. If I tell you, “The table is emptiness by nature” and you keep on thinking that the table is by nature emptiness you will gain nothing. You yourself have to find out that the table is empty. Until you have found that, you have not found the object of your meditation at all. This goes from A – Z. That is the general rule. If you want development, this is how you have to do it. Every point. The points are mentioned, even in the Lam Rim. The signs of development are also mentioned. So you have to wait till you gain that sign. Until then you have to meditate. But first and foremost you have to find the object. The object you can only find by what we call analytical meditation. This is why, as I told you there are very important points Tsongkhapa taught.

1:02:59.6 Tsongkhapa was the only person to accept analytical meditation as meditation. Nowadays a lot of people do accept it. But until he came in, among the Tibetan scholars, they have not accepted that in the Tibetan tradition. They said that meditation is only concentrated meditation. But Tsongkhapa emphasized that when you do concentrated meditation on any important point first you have to find the object. And it is you who has to find the object, because if I tell you what the object is it doesn’t work. That is the truth. Until you find the object you have to the analytical meditation and thinking. You have to give various reasons, counter-arguments and then you gain some kind of solid understanding. You find a solid object. Once you have found that, then concentration is needed.

1:04:13.5 Tsongkhapa emphasized analytical and concentrated meditation, not only combined, but interwoven. That is very important. It has to follow one after another. It is woven within each other. Otherwise you have no object. What do you meditate on? It is just like this: I tell you the table is empty and you think: the table is empty. What are you going to get out it? You may gain some sort of concentration power a little bit. Without analysis, no concentration meditation will ever bring you any spiritual development, with the exception of Shamata. Besides that, it can bring nothing additional. Nothing. From the guru yoga level of the sutra path to the ultimate confirmation of clear light and illusion body together, every point, wherever you concentrate, you have to find the object by yourself. You hear about the object from your teacher. You will read about it, but when you concentrate you have to find your own object. If you say the words that some people tell you or the words that are written in the books and you concentrate on that, you get nothing.

1:05:46.2 No matter how much you spend your time, it will be a mistake. So you have to find the object and then concentrate. You will see day by day, week by week, a difference in your spiritual development. You can notice it. But don’t try the higher levels in the beginning. You must try at your level, your own level, wherever you are. If you are stuck at guru yoga, let it be stuck with the guru yoga. And think about guru yoga and the importance of life side by side. You can do that, because guru yoga does take a long time and the importance of life doesn’t take that long. So one or two, side by side, you can do.

1:06:40.8 Thereafter, one has to follow the other, because the current development will be the cause of the future development. For example, if you look at the importance of life, it is difficult to find and impermanent. Seeing the importance of life will automatically bring you to how difficult it is to find. Knowing how difficult to find it is will automatically raise the question within you: how long is it going to last? Automatically, one pushes the other. Once you start hitting or breaking a point, lots of things will go automatically, a little bit. Until you break through this is the most difficult part. How you break it is this: first learn, then think, then concentrate and then gain realization. This is for every point, whatever you do, any meditation you do. That is important. If you sit idle it is nothing. You are just sitting idle.

1:07:50.4 Sitting idle is sitting idle, doesn’t matter which way you sit. It definitely gives you some mental and physical relaxation and comfort, because you keep your mind totally busy and then after that you give it a gap to relax. So naturally, when the physical relaxation comes, you feel better. Similarly, when the mental relaxation comes, the mind feels better. That’s all you can get. Besides that, nothing. If you want spiritual development, that’s what you have to do. Okay, you have to.

1:08:31.4 So the basis you have to prepare is wisdom and method. Method is the bodhicitta or altruistic mind. That is based on great compassion. Great compassion to all sentient beings is based on compassion for yourself. Unless you have compassion for yourself you can never expect to have compassion for others. Never.

Tsongkhapa made it very clear:

Rang de wai pong chen du me…..Tibetan….when you think about yourself, your lack of happiness and having a tremendous amount of miserable causes for misery and trouble, if you then feel nothing, how can you expect to gain compassion for others. That’s true. Until you can have compassion for yourself you can never have compassion for others. In order to gain compassion for yourself you have to know your own true situation, your own nature of samsara, how it functions, what it is, all this you have to know.

1:10:03.7 These are the basic foundations or preparations for a person, to have either the basic development or good understanding and these are fit to be Vajrayana practitioners. This is point 13: who are the persons fit to practice Vajrayana.

On this point, some people may think: I have no development, no preliminary preparation for whatsoever. So I am not fit to be a Vajrayana practitioner. I don’t have this and that development. But you don’t have to worry, because Vajrayana is great and very rare and if you cannot take the opportunity this time it is very difficult to find such an opportunity again. Therefore it is recommended to practice it, even if you make a mess out of it. Doesn’t matter.

I give you a simple example. There were 60 people waiting for an arhat called Wösung or Kashyapa to give them teachings. That was during the Buddha’s life time and he was going to give teachings to these 60 people. There were fit and eligible to obtain the path of seeing, the Arya or special path, where you see sunyata. But five minutes before Wösung could come in, Manjushri went in before him and started giving them a Mahayana teaching, instead of Wösung giving them Theravada teachings. So these people were not qualified to be in Mahayana at all.

1:12:54.9 They totally misunderstood what Manjushri said and developed such terrible misunderstanding. With the resulting karma, when they died, they all fell into a hell realm. That happened. Wösung got a shock and asked, “How can Manjushri do that? These 60 would have become fully developed. While they were waiting for five minutes, he just slipped in and did this. How could he do this? Impossible!”. So he went and complained to Buddha, “How could Manjushri do this? So bad.”

Buddha said, “No, Manjushri did very good, better than you. That’s why he went in before you. Although these 60 people have developed a misunderstanding and had to go to a hell realm, meditate yourself and see how long they are going to remain there. They will be there only for a very short period and they will be reborn and will be fully developed and will be able to obtain total enlightenment. If you had taught them the Hinayana path, they would have developed the path of seeing and understood sunyata, but still they would have stayed stuck there for a very long time. So Manjushri’s method has been better than yours.”

1:14:47.8 That’s one thing. Another thing is what the great master Purchog Kyabgön Rinpoche, the teacher of the 12th Dalai Lama and 13th Dalai Lama said. Somebody asked him, “These tantric practices and initiations are very dangerous and not very good. How can we do it? We should not do it.” So Kyabgön Rinpoche said, “Do not hesitate to take it. There are so many methods and you can be all right. Even if you are broke a vow or something, and you cannot purify it or something, even then, if you go to a hell realm with tantric background, there is a tremendous difference between that and going to a hell realm without tantric background. You will be down there quick, short and hot. But very quick.”

He is talking about a person of the worst, worst quality, and I am sure none of us are the worst quality, so such a person will go to the hell realm for a hot and short period and will come up and develop enlightenment. Compared to that, an ordinary person who is not taking the tantric path and will try to develop his first step and will still be stuck in there, accumulating merit and purifying by the time this other person has gone down and come back up, developed and even obtained enlightenment. So even by that time the other person will still be stuck there, trying to break through the first point.

1:17:11.0 That is the difference. I had to say it is dangerous, I am sorry. It is dangerous, really. In tantra, there is no in between, it goes either up or down. They say it is like a snake travelling in a bamboo that has no holes. So the snake can only go either up or down. There cannot be anything in between. Similarly, in Vajrayana you can only go up or down. There is no between, really. But 90% of the people normally go up. (laughter) Yes, there are bonds, there are commitments and everyone of us breaks the vows tremendously, because they are meant to be broken (laughter). With these commitments, somehow or another, we get this and that. Don’t think commitments is saying the sadhanas or mantras. No. The vows carry a lot of commitments. So we break them here and there all the time.

1:18:49.2 However, there are methods of purification. It is also so easy. There are so many easy ways. By opening the mandala and looking at it, by entering into the mandala once, you do. All the non-virtues you have accumulated for millions of eons are purified within the matter of seconds. So there are such great benefits. If you look from the simple cause and effect point of view, 90% will go down, but from the tremendous amounts of methods that are given, 90% of people will go up. Really. This is what really compares. Very important in tantra is that one should not have misunderstanding of this and not have doubt. Okay. So that is enough about what sort of person can be practicing tantra.

1:20:10.7 [to translator] Sorry, I am going so long. You should stop me really, otherwise I can forget, okay?

1:20:35.3 Dutch translation till end of file 1:33:17.3