Archive Result

Soundfile 20071007GRGRVAJ6

Speaker Gehlek Rimpoche

Location Ann Arbor

Topic Vajrayana

Section 6 out of 8

Transcriber John Thornton

Date 3/26/08

We have been talking about mandalas. We talked about the drawing mandala, the jewel or jewel dust mandala, and the body mandala. As far as the body mandala is concerned, many of those yidams do not carry a body mandala. The body mandala is normally carried by, for example, Heruka and Cakrasamvara. They also have the Luiva system and the Kadampa system. We call it the bell system and the Luiva system. The three most important yidams of Tsong Khapa are Yamantaka and Guyasamaja and Heruka. We have the thangkas here. The Yamantaka we follow is the 13-deity Yamantaka, not the solitary hero Yamantaka. The Heruka we have is the Luiva style of Heruka, not the bell style of Heruka. But there is the Luiva system, Kadampa system and Chivo system. The Chivo system has two-outer five-deity and inner body mandala. Most of the body mandalas are referring to the Heruka body mandala. Yamantaka has different beings on the body, but that is not a body mandala. Guyasamaja has a body mandala, but there is no initiation into the body mandala at all. So when we talk about the body mandala we are talking more or less about the Heruka body mandala initiation. We do the initiation. Cittamani Tara has 32-deity body initiation. This is an inner initiation, not a body mandala initiation. Also you have Vajrayogini, who has a body mandala at the heart level, but that has no initiation. So we are talking mostly about a Heruka body mandala.

Then also, instead of generating external material into a mandala, the lama who gives the initiation generates his or her own body into the physical mandala of the Heruka. When you enter the disciples into the mandala, they also enter through the body itself. There is no separate mandala at all. The physical aspects of the lama’s body are made into a mandala. Like the case of Heruka, his spines are Mount Meru's and things like that. So each one of them go that way. These are the different mandalas. I should conclude this.

Using photograph post cards are new, and started after we got to the United States. They use them now in India too. They should be, are supposed to be, part of the drawing mandala. I hope it is right. Everybody seems to use it anyway. The most important thing is not the material that you use; it is the generation. The drawing is used as some kind of representation of the jewel dust mandala or whatever.

Oh, there is one more: that is the meditative mandala. There is not so much difference between the meditative mandala and the body mandala. There are a number of body mandala initiations available, because the Heruka body mandala initiation is continuing. Sometimes, in the meditative, maybe there are exceptional cases. The criteria for this is both the lama who is giving the initiation and the disciple who is entering into the mandala have to have a very stable focus. You are not supposed to lose focus through the whole initiation. There are the four stages of the initiation, and at each stage, it can have quite a number. Depending what it is, sometimes there are 11 different initiations. So during that whole period, both the lama who gives the initiation and the disciple have to have a strong focus on the meditative mandala. These are the few people who can do that. That is why there is the concentrated mandala or whatever you call it.

So that is about the divisions of the mandala. So after the mandala is created, how do you create a mandala with drawings, sand? You do it just like we do a sadana, you should build it from emptiness and say the rituals slowly. If you lose Vajrayana ground or something, then if you want to build a vajra fence, there is no foundation. There is nowhere to go. It will be hanging on the air. It won’t work. Even if there is a drawing or jewel dust, it won’t work. Sometimes the drawing itself is the representation of the mandala, but not the mandala itself. So the lama who visualizes the mandala and the disciple who enters are not thinking of a flat thing. When you enter the mandala you make a request and you are outside the gate. The lama becomes inseparable with the yidam, but there is an activity lama who is manifested. It is like a small lama pops up. You know somewhere I heard, someone teaching that you create yourself and you have a small guy. Some new age person teaches that. I don’t know whether someone told me about it or where I heard about it. Someone told me. This is similar to that, not a small guy, but a duplicate lama. The lama of the Yamantaka, in that it the activity lama duplicate is a simpler Yamantaka, not the one with 16 faces and all that, who looks like an attendant. No that is not right, not an attendant, but more like a secretary who goes in and out and carries messages in and out. So somehow you are out there and making requests. The first and foremost request is to give you the vows of the refuge. These are the three important vows they give you-the Refuge, Bodhicitta, and Vajrayana. But if you look in the lower tantras, they don’t have the Vajrayana vows so there is not Vajrayana commitment. In the lower tantra the commitments are refuge plus Bodhicitta. There are no Vajrayana vows or commitments in the two lower tantras.

After that, the door opens and the activity lama comes out and pulls you through the door. It is like an electronic door that opens and shuts. They had those electronic doors 2500 years ago you know! It opens and shuts behind you by itself. So what you do inside is that you do prayers, requests, prostrations and circumambulations and such. You know everyone is blindfolded at that time. You don’t see anything. The activity lama takes you around and then you are introduced to the lama yidam with prostrations and this and that.

The most important part of the Vase Initiation is the Five Buddha Family Initiation. In each one of those families, the principal is introduced. Each one of those initiations is made permanent and consecrated through the vase. That is why it is called the vase initiation or the water initiation. Even though the most important is the mdiyiva, the water initiation. If you are bald-headed it is the opportunity to cut a little. Still at the end of that, the water is sprinkled. So that is why there is a Vase Initiation.

Then there is the Secret Initiation. Over here it is called Relative Bodhicitta Initiation. Right? I don’t know if it is bodhi-mandala or bodhicitta mandala. Sem is mind and citta is heart. This- the technical name-dhicitta, one mind, is bodhicitta – one mind, one heart. In another way it refers to semen, so relative bodhimind is the Secret Initiation. The reason it is called secret is that people are initiated into the mandala by tasting the lama yab-yum. That is why it is call relative bodhimind or secret initiation. The material used is not as the book describes. It is simply yogurt and maybe inner offering and blessed. Blessed in Vajrayana is three points-corresponding with OM AH HUM. First, HUM purifies, the –potential, smell and taste. AH, transforms the material into nectar. Third, OM, is multiplying the substance. Corresponding with that are other initiations. It is ordinary material of yogurt and ordinary material like blood or whatever, it is blessed and used and the individual is initiated in that manner. The material you use is supposed to be secret.

Bangachinmo is the hidden name for female organs. So then that is what happens is the

Wisdom initiation. In the case of male, the disciples are introduced to the consort. And finally the introduction to the joy, the joy representing bliss. The joy that you use as an example is ordinary sexual joy. Even the individual tantra is based on how great the joy is. For example in the Kriya, the joy is looking at your consort, nothing more. The second is touching. Then the third is the hugging and so forth. The fourth is the actual union of two sexual organs, so that is the highest example of the joy we ordinary mortal experience, supposed to be. If you look at it carefully it is all built up on each other,

That is the external example. The external example is because we know it. Then the fourth initiation is absolute bodhimind mandala. We call it Word Initiation.

It is only word, nothing else. Actually it is the introduction enlightenment. We call it word initiation is because of the expression of reality is emptiness. It can only be explained by words. Remember lower tantras have fewer initiations. All Maha Tantras have the Vajra Master Initiation. If you want to make it something else take the vajra master out. If you look at the Vajra Master Initiation in Tibetan, it says dharma king enthronement. People some times make this a big festival, which is fine. It is fine as long as you don’t break the initiation system.

So that is the fourth initiation. The fourth is introduction, only by word, meaning nothing to show, nothing to say. So I think it substitutes. Some have bigger explanation.

Now I will tell you why. The explanations probably have something in the Yamantaka long prayer. Does anyone have the Yamantaka Long Sadana here? Jonathan, you have it, good! In there it says by the divine water of the vase empowerment, may ordinary appearance and the belief in it be purified. In the Sutrayana our biggest obstacles are negative emotions and negative karma and its consequences. It Vajrayana it changes. Why? It presumes that you have taken care of that. Not because Vajrayana is different. So instead of that you get the ordinary appearance and the ordinary perception. Those are our obstacles. Here in Vajrayana these are what we attack, even between appearance and perception also. Appearance doesn’t harm you that much, but perception does. Tilopa had said to Naropa, “Appearance will not touch you, but a perception will hold you, so let perception go. So the appearance is not a problem. The ordinary perception is the problem. So according to the Guyasamaja prayer, it says the vase and the river stream of the Ganja River, the Vase Initiation, what we try to purify is ordinary perception and appearance. Appearance is not really bad. Why is appearance not that bad? Because the moment you talk about Vajrayana we are in a different atmosphere, different physical dimension and different circumstances. Even every physical existence is different. We are talking about a pure land. Mandala is a pure land, nothing but a pure land. Anything impure we don’t want to exist in the pure land. That is why everything has to be purified, washed away. In Sanskrit it is artishka, which means wash away. So it is because of the pure part. Impure should not be there. Particularly what is most important here is the ordinary perception and the ordinary appearance. So what is happening is in the Vajrayana system when you look at thy people you see the pure aspects of the people, not the impure aspect of the people. I should see two horns on someone standing over there and all of those, you know like Yamantaka with horns and hands and all of those. That should appear to me and I should accept that.

In the Gelupa System they don’t say much. That is why in the Nyingma System, when I interviewed D. Rinpoche for a radio broadcast, I started one question, and he asked me, “What would you like me to say?” I said, “Anything you think best and for the benefit of all people and also anything with the Nyingma tradition.” He said, “Okay” and he sat there and he kept talking for 45 minutes with out interruption. Afterwards he said, “Okay Rinpoche can I hear it now?” I played 10 minutes back and he said, “Okay now.” In that interview he said, “In traditional Tibet, every male is Avaloketishvara, and every female is Tara and every teacher is a living Avaloketishvara. Every tree, when the leaves move, the sound is not an ordinary sound but the dharma.” So by the power of the initiation the impure aspects of that should be washed away. If the lama, mandala, and disciples are perfect, the impurities will be washed away. However, for us, even if we do one thousand initiations, it is still not washed away! That is where we are. So that is it.

The words here are not clear. The translation: by the supreme empowerment that follows this, the sphere of clear light. Not clear here, but if you look in the Guyasamaja it is clearer. In the secret initiation, the tasting and the sound and speech and energy becomes inseparable as well as the essence of the air circulation and movement. That is what the secret initiation said. What does that mean, the essence of the body impure is purified. Then impure speech does not appear. The pure speech is the essence of energy. The essence of energy is what we call clear light. That is why secret initiation is connected with this. Okay?

The third initiation like the hook of joy may bring the mind in the form of clear light. So what you do during the initiation, it is the lama introduces you to the consort. That sexual union with the consort visualization is called wisdom. The wisdom is the mind in the nature of joy recognizing the reality, the wisdom, the ultimate reality. You have bursted all the mystery of life and see what is really the essence in there. It is recognized by the joy-nature mind, not just the ordinary mind.

To introduce the joy nature mind is why you bring the sexual union in here. The fourth one is introducing to the ultimate union, clarifying all the doubts. That’s why at the 11th hour when you are dieing the lama comes and gives you the fourth initiation. Ultimate union means a number of things: body and mind union, relative and absolute union and wisdom and method union. All kinds of unions are talked about here. Whatever you talk, ultimate union refers to total enlightenment, the Buddha Vajradhara state and its seven qualities. Guyasamaja tells you about the seven qualities. Don’t ask me to count them! Don’t let me explain because it is going to take time. (Hartmut puts up a chart of the seven points.)

So anyway, Buddha qualities. In the Vajrayana they will talk about seven qualities. In the Sutra they talk about 80 major signs and 80 minor signs and all of that. In the Vajrayana, there is no separation between body and mind. That is really what they are talking about. Wherever their mind is, the body is. If the mind thinks about it, the mind will know about it, because there is no misinformation. It becomes the body/mind functioning on the same frequency. That means the body and mind have almost no separation. Where mind is, body is. We may or may not have the right information about something. If you see something, as an enlightened being, you have the right information. The moment they think about it the body is there. They know what is to be known because their mind is there. This is really the definition of total enlightenment. We can’t even imagine it. Like if I think about downtown Tokyo, I have been there so I know, I have a picture. If I think about Johannesburg, where I have never been, I have to imagine something and I get a picture and it may be right or wrong. I may not get the right picture. But enlightened beings would get the right picture. Not only do they get the right picture, but the moment mind is seeing it, the body is there as well.

The whole idea of kagju is union, represented by male and female. It is this, body and mind no separation and relative and absolute truth merged into one. That is what enlightenment is all about. So the fourth one is introducing to the ultimate union, thereby we may clear all the doubts about the union. That is what the fourth initiation is supposed to do. That is why you hear sometimes at the 11th hour before you become fully enlightened, the Lama in whatever yidam form appears and gives you the initiation. That is the union initiation and last initiation lifts the individual form from the extraordinary to total knowledge state, the ultimate enlightenment state. That should be enough for initiations, the reason, purpose, and how it is. During the ritual you can’t explain those, because the initiation would take four or five days instead of a day or do. It is not going to work. But if you are giving the initiation you should know what you are doing. If

you don’t know what you are doing, it is not going to be an initiation.

As a part the initiation, there is one more thing. Like you have Cittamani initiation or other initiations, if you look in Tibetan language, some people have a Vajrayogini Initiation. but actually they are blessings, a Vajrayogini blessing. Why? They have fourth initiation will come in a blessing form, not as an initiation. They don’t do five Buddha families; they don’t do all this. That is why you can’t receive a Vajrayogini Initiation or a Cittamani Tara Initiation before getting any full-fledged, full Mahayoga initiation. With out that, it is just a blessing. However, there are very exceptional people here and there once or twice, so there may be exceptions here or there. Even I told you I received Vajrayogini before anything else. So there may be exceptional cases, but other than that, normally not.

Now the genen aspect of it, the two-hour, three-hour business, we have a lot of them these days. Traditionally the genens are fourth initiations. Now we have a lot of them. What people did is they took out generating the individual in the physical form of the yidam. That version is taken out. Then, the body blessing, speech initiation, mind initiation, quality initiation, activity initiation. Sometimes it is only body, speech and mind, depends on sometime five, sometimes seven, sometimes eight, sometimes three. It becomes a real blessing, just a blessing that they give, nothing to do with initiation. That is what is happening now. Although they say, “Oh yes I received an initiation,” but it is really a blessing. I don’t know what every one else does, but this is what I was taught from Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, so that is what I do.

Then longevity initiation is totally separate. The Longevity Initiation comes in such deities as Tara and Padmasambhava. All these longevity initiations in Tibet they give to everybody, like Kalachakra initiation, without any restrictions. They do it because of longevity and health reasons or whatever, but it is the custom. That is what it is. That is neither this four initiations or the two or the three or what I taught you earlier. It is simply for purifying, healing and increasing life strength and energy. It is almost a ritual. So that is how it is done. You should be quite clear in yourself. Don’t rely on the words “initiation” or “empowerment,” because it depends on who is talking what. These Tibetan words make a difference. That part should be clear.

After receiving the initiation, then the second point, maintaining purity, is most important. Initiation is you just receive and empowerment. It almost looks lie you become a member of the club. You join the club. You have paid an entrance fee sort of thing. Then after all you pay a huge amount of money for your membership, and you want to use the club and go there and use the facilities, work out, whatever. So the maintaining aspect is keeping vow and commitment. That is the individual maintaining purity. Let me look at what he says here. Here he says….he is a Mongolian. There are a lot of different Vajrayana explanations. These Mongolians make it shorter because they can read Tibetan that well. So this guy writes very short but in very harsh language-but very learned and great. He says during the initiation whatever commitments you have taken….like six session yoga we do three ties a day and three times a night. So what they did is they made up this stuff and put the words together. You say the words first. A lot of people say three times a day –three times in the morning and three times in the evening. Then there was permission given to do them six times once a day. The earlier masters tried to give us a break so we don’t have downfalls.

During the initiation, people knowingly or not knowingly have a lot of commitments. Americans really do keep their commitments. Tibetans are not so good at that. I even know a couple of people, she did something so she had the commitment of not having any sexual misconduct, and I can’t do that and I can’t do that, etc. That is an example of how people keep their commitments. That is great. The initiation is full of commitments. So what you have to do, a teaching should be done on the 50 verses of guru yoga and an explanation of downfalls. Really these are the important things. Even if you can’t do that, in the detailed Six Session Yoga, they count all these downfalls. It is in the Six Session Yoga itself. The detailed Six Session Yoga has all of those. These are normally in these Vajrayana teaching, you don’t teach that. Now we are putting them up together-the fourteen root vows, five Buddha family commitments, they are all there.

You are not alone, even back in Tibet some people know and some people don’t know what their commitments are. You know they want you not to have downfalls. This guy says no root downfalls, especially first and seventh. The first is guru relationship and the seventh is keeping secret. They say the other downfalls, even if you get them, within 24 hours you should purify. Here he says, if you received all four initiations and you don’t have a downfall and you protected your practice, even if you do nothing, within 16 lives you will get enlightened. This is also the quality of the Vajrayana. It is dangerous as well as also quick advantage. All of them, if you really look at it, what makes it? It is the wisdom that makes a difference. The wisdom that you get in Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana, there is no difference. However, in Mahayana there is bodhimind. That is extremely important. In the Vajrayana it is the joy and bliss. The traditional teachers taught us the mind itself become in the nature of joy. So thereby all the energy is put together and it becomes powerful. So in the Vajrayana quality, it is the method aspect, the joy aspects of it. What they utilize is the wisdom of emptiness and compassion. And then every Vajrayana thing that we are talking about is making the mind more intensified rather than anywhere else. That is what you have to maintain. So then this guy says within 7 days or 16 days you get enlightenment. But if you don’t keep commitments, if you don’t keep them, you will go to the hell realms. That is the explanation of how to maintain commitments.

Next, how to practice. Basically it is simple-development stage and completion stage. Quite simple in this way. So now let me talk a little about the development stage. What is the development stage? According to what the First Panchen Lama says, these two stages try to do a number of things. The basis of all is they try to collect all energy everywhere within the central channel. The moment I say “energy” some of you are shaking your heads. You may be thinking what, I don’t know. What I am thinking is the air circulation. The air, in essence it is speech. Speech is air. Air is the horse. Mind is the horse driver. So when you collect all the energy, it means all air, which means essence of the horse, which means mind is accompanying because it travels around by riding air. Does that make sense? In other words mind does not fly buy itself, it goes with air. Very often in Vajrayana it is described as the horse-carrying mind. So when you collect energy you collect the mind. So in the body you put it with the essence of the mind, it is the mind body speech and the physical body together.

When you look at an artist, how much he works. Allen Ginsberg, not only reads poetry by speech, but he also reads with his body. In fact he broke a chair! So putting it together makes a difference. You are putting essence of body, speech and mind together for a purpose. How powerful that is going to be! That is why they say collecting energy at the central channel, at the heart level.

So when this happens, actually it happens two ways. One way it happens is through meditation. The other way it happens through death. So the First Panchen Lama said it is not the meditatively collected energy at the central channel. It is not collected at the central channel by meditation. It is causal to development completion stage. It also corresponds with death, bardo and rebirth, any one of those three things. And mind newly created is the definition of clear light. Normally we don’t go in that detail, because the Mongolians have a great many learned teachers and scholars, but the normal Mongolians are very argumentative and may not get it. For debate sometimes you have to do that. That is why-you know people go with conditions-if this, then this if not then this, so it becomes argumentative. We say normally it is the corresponding with the normal human beings who are in this continent. By “gthsihc” they mean Asia. It corresponds with their life, death, bard, rebirth, and then created yoga. So here instead of yoga he uses the word “new,” and not being created by meditative. So that is the definition of genen.

Now the debate goes how does development stage work within the individual. If you look into the sadana, it begins with the lineage prayer and then that is followed by instantaneously arising. The reasons for that is that in ordinary form you cannot bless ordinary peoples. Here is the requirement of blessing the inner offering so all this blessing activities you must do and therefore you have instantaneously arising. Instantaneously arising is also in the tradition. It comes though everywhere, not only in the Gelupa, but also in the Sakya and Kadju, and others. The difference in the Gelupa is this. You cannot be instantaneously arising. You can’t just do it. It has to be gradually. So instantaneously arising itself should have a three-kaya practice, short-but in three-kaya form.

So how does the three-kaya form work in that? The basis of all is emptiness. Emptiness is the basis of everything. One who can establish emptiness, can do and establish everything else. If they cannot establish emptiness, nothing can be established because it is static. There is no room. It is static. Because there is room you can do anything. So emptiness the basis of all. From the emptiness itself, that emptiness corresponds with Dharmakaya. We use three-kaya. First is Dharmakaya. Even in ordinary practice we do dieing stage and Dharmakaya combined together. In instantaneously arising, you may not have time to go through the dieing stages. Especially when you say group sadana together. The group is going to say instantaneously I arise and this and that. You can’t say, “Wait a moment I am not there yet!” You can’t do that. One doesn’t do that.

So the first is Dharmakaya. Then the second is Sambogakaya, the enjoyment body. This is not only death and rebirth, but is also the Buddha’s existence is divided into Dharmakaya, the special enjoyment body, and Nirmanakaya, the manifesting state. Corresponding with this is death, bardo and rebirth. So instantaneously arising here is light. In the case of Yamantaka it is the blue light aspect. After that starts popping up the head and hands and all that. So that is how instantaneously arising works. So light is bardo, the Sambhogakaya and the physical appearance is the Nirmanakaya. Then arising, blessing all the offerings, and accumulation of the merit-both the merit merit and the wisdom merit. These are related material but not development state itself. Development stage begins with the death stage of Dharmakaya, the eight stage dissolving our own physical body and elements: four outer and four inner. The earth, the water, the fire, air, dissolving into consciousness. Anyway, we have all these 8 signs: mirage, smoke, sparking lights, candlelight burning, then, white, red, black and finally clear light death, the clear light of the dieing stage. During that period we have all these signs, because those are the signs that the knots in the central channel are released. The sign of releasing the knots is you have these appearances. That is one way of entering the central channel. The other way is through meditation. One way is the natural stages of dieing, which is duplicated by the meditating state. So we copy it in the meditation state. If we wait for the dieing stage, it is too late. Maybe it is unnecessary. By that time the development will be over.

Death corresponds with Dharmakaya. So thereby within that emptiness you are building the basis of the mandala and the mandala itself. Then the individual rises from the physical form, in the form of the Sambogakaya, in the case of Yamantaka it is Manjushri. This prayer you have. This is solitary hero, right? It goes: “having with stainless reason examined the meaning of the mantra….may I become habituated with the peerless wisdom.” That is describing the Dharmakaya level. That is: “by the absorption of the ten wrathful ones, the great …may I too come to possess this power.” This is not part of the three kayas, but it is an additional thing. That is the generating of the mandala:” In the center of this mighty wrathful wheel is the inconceivable mansion…by meditation upon it may the supreme Buddha field be produced.” I am not going to explain it; that is what we do in the Yamantaka teaching. So the development means taking from this emptiness, the basis of the mandala itself, the earth, water, fire and air mandala and above that is the protection realms. At the center of that you create the base of mandala. In the case of Yamantaka, it is triangle and out of that accross (It is page 11 of the orange document.) I am not going to explain it. If I did, it would be a Yamantaka teaching. So the development stage needs the mandala, the earth mandala, the fire mandala, the water mandala, and the air mandala and above that the outer inter protection rim. At the center of that you create a mandala. In the case of Yamantaka it is a crossed vajra. In the case of different yidams it is different. At the center the palace, the mandala of moving –“In the center of the palace is the mandala of air, on which firmly rests the moon. Seated on that is ….may I attain Sambogakaya.” Then from here you raise yourself out of Dharmakaya and enter Sambogakaya. That is the development stage.

If you keep on forgetting you are not developing, you are doing the bear chasing the rabbit. The Tibetan teachings they tell you the bear chases the rabbit, and but he goes there and sees a mole and starts to it, and another one. Then he gets another one. Finally he gets only the last mole and he goes away. So if you have the later ones and miss the earlier ones, you are the bear chasing the rabbit. So if you do the bear chasing the rabbit it is going, going, gone.