412 Varja Yogini Teachings

The fourteen principles [Tib. de nyi chu shi]687

I want to mention to you the fourteen principles. Pabongka Rinpoche put the fourteen principles of Heruka into the Vajrayogini long sadhana. This Vajrayogini long sadhana has them as well as the eleven yogas. The medium sadhana has the eleven yogas, but the fourteen principles are not included. If one practices this teaching with the fourteen principles, which are mentioned in the 51 st chapter of the Heruka tantra, then even somebody who has committed all the five limitless non-virtues actions in the earlier life (that means in your youth) is bound to attain the ultimate enlightenment at the end of their lives. You will, by practicing this. If you can say the long sadhana, it is good for you. But if your time does not permit it, you might as well say the medium or the short sadhana. Whenever you can, when you have additional time, like on weekends and holidays, when there is no additional work, try to do the long sadhana. It is very helpful. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche said that Dechen Nyingpo very often said.

If you do this and work hard on this, you will definitely develop outer and inner Vajrayoginihood in this lifetime. If you are lazy or unlucky, you may not be able to develop it in this lifetime, but if you constantly work, then at the point of death, the Dakas and Dakinis will receive you and definitely take you to the pure land of the Dakinis and in that very life you will definitely obtain enlightenment.

So when you have such a profitable and easy way of doing it, why not do it?

If you look into the Vajrayogini sadhana, though it was very easy to talk to you on the basis of eleven yogas, Tsongkhapa’s special way of doing it is on the basis of the fourteen suchnesses. It is quite difficult, you have to really know it well, but basically, according to the tantra itself, there are [fourteen] suchnesses. There fourteen suchnesses according to the completion stage, the inner completion stage, there are fourteen suchnesses in the outer development stage. The fourteen suchnesses in the outer development stage should correspond with the sadhana and there are little verses that you can recite. There’s a little tantra verse, that says688,

(1) Cloth, five mudras(2) Wisdom branch, (3) dagger and tent,(4) Sing with Ahli (5) Kahli,(6) Cause empty- preliminary,(7) Follows sound.(8) As much as concluded, that much activity rises(9) Satisfy with nectar; (10) obtain Nirvana.(11) Offer hand, (12) initiation, (13) wear protection armor.(14) Make mantra offeringsTherese are the fourteen ways.

These are the words from the tantra. When you look at it, it doesn’t [seem to] mean anything.

1.Cloth. When they say, “cloth, dress” what does that mean? I believe dress is originally in classical Sanskrit, veerna; it can be translated into cloth, or base, or place where you stay. In this case when they say cloth or clothes, it doesn’t mean cloth, it means the place where you can meditate. That is how tantras work. When they say cloth, it means where you can meditate, so it refers to the quality of the place where you can practice any mother tantra practice, or anything.Five mudras. Mudras means action, act, gestures, and also actor, performer. So that is talking about the quality of the practitioner.

687 Also called ‘fourteen suchnesses’ or ‘fourteen essential topics’.688 For the Tibetan, see Geshe Lobsang Tharchin, Subline path to kechara Paradise, pg. 10. For listing and the connection with the outer development stage also see Akhu Sherab, Sri Cakrasamvara. Ein Kommentar zur Praxis der Vorstellungssnufe nach der Luipa-tradition, pg. 27-28.

Preliminary 57

on clear light, and I am working for buddhahood, I am trying to achieve buddhahood. I am meditating’. You somehow have to recognize how this mind is thinking: ‘I am doing this. How is this thinking? Where am I, focusing and saying that I am meditating on clear light? What kind of me is perceiving? It is sort of in there, it is me who is doing it.’ If you work, you get these thoughts, you’ll see it. When you begin to see what kind of me is observing, what me is meditating, don’t be modest, saying: ‘Who am I to do this?’ Don’t go that way, because then you run away. Have a little pride and say: ‘I am meditating, I am working for enlightenment.’ And when you have that little I, try to hold it. If you are too modest, that I escapes, and that is a problem. Don’t let it escape. Acknowledge: ‘I am meditating, I am practicing clear light here’. But: ‘Who is that me? What is it? What is the object me? And what are the aspects of that me? And what is the experience of that me?’ That are the questions you have to raise. When you raise those questions, you’ll probably see no aspects and no focus, from whatever angle you look. In our normal condition we sort of see it is there, the big I; normally we don’t see that it is not there. When you begin to get hold of that I, which is in that condition, meditating on clear light and working for enlightenment, if you could catch it—rather than modify and run away—if you could have that ‘I am here working for enlightenment, it is me here’, you have an important point, one of the most important points, point number one: the recognition of the I. Actually this is the point which you have to refute; that is the point of refutation. When you begin to find that I while focusing on clear light, you find what Changkya Rolpai Dorje calls: ‘a kind of huge lump’. In mahamudra they call it penbrün, something you really cannot catch, like a cloud or something. This is a point; we begin to find it, instead of merely playing with words like: ‘selflessness, I-lessness, emptiness’, which give you nothing to pinpoint to. When you get that sort of ‘lump’ here, recognize it and leave it there. Be careful, it is very fragile, you don’t want to destroy it right now, because you have to know how it is not there. When you really search a lot, you’ll lose it; search for it tenderly. If you keep on looking for it, it is very hard to catch it. Here we talk about the meditating I, ‘I the meditator’. Pabongka used this the other way round and tells in Liberation in the palm of your hand that when somebody says in the middle of thirty or forty people: ‘Hey, you thief!’ and you say: ‘Who me?!’ you catch the I, that me that cannot stand to be called a thief in public. Pabongka used that, but in this particular teaching they used the ‘I the meditator’. I think ‘I the thief’ is easier to catch than ‘I the meditator’, because the first one really hurts your ego badly. Another method according to the tradition is being at the edge of a high cliff and think: ‘Oh, I am going to fall!’ That is another point where you can catch it. Normally the object of refutation is pervasive and you can’t really catch it. When you can’t catch it, you can’t do anything with it; being pervasive is its hiding place. So, recognize the ‘I the meditator’. Once you have that ‘lump’ or ‘cloud’, once you see it, where are you pointing to? You can’t point outside, you have to point inside. Our identification is the physical appearance, the five skandhas. But when I see five skandhas, which one is me? I heard a joke. One day some people came from Tibet to Dharamsala. Among them was a woman who went into trance all the time. One day in the trance she ran into His Holiness and His Holiness said: ‘Who are you?’ She said: ‘I am Trishana’, which means ‘five sisters’. And His Holiness said: ‘Yes, but out of Trishana which sister are you?’ As she had no idea she ‘whoop’, went off the trance and fell down. She was pretending. The point is, when you can’t pinpoint it, you disappear. You have to pinpoint which one it is, but you cannot really. If it is the form, then the other skandhas are left out, so it is not the form. Besides that, the form will disappear, and are you going to disappear? No. Likewise each one of the skandhas has the separation of I and that skandha. You will see that clearly with your intelligent mind; no problem. So, if the I is not one with the form, is it then separate from the form? Then we are back to the same old beginning: ‘Where are you?’ That is again back to zero. If it is not oneness [with the skandhas], it must be separateness; if it is separateness, where are you? Get that?

Generating the Field of Merit 93

The western one is Chenmisang, Virupaksha; and the northern one is Namdösa, Vaisravana. Thus we have completed the field of merit.

2. Inviting and dissolving the wisdom beings193

de dak go sum dor je sum tsen hum yik ö zer chak kyu yi rang zhin ne ne ye she pa nam chen drang yer me ten par gyur

st. 14. At their three doors the triple gem signs, From HUM light hooks invite Wisdom Beings From native abodes to be inseparably bound.

(Tibetian symbl.) Each one of the beings of the merit field has OM, AH, HUM, representing (Tibetian symbl.)vajra-body, vajra-speech and vajra-mind.You yourself are generated in the yidam-form or the lama-form, with a letter HUM at your heart-level. From the heart-level [of all the beings in the merit field] light radiates and invites [the wisdom beings]. (Tibetian symbl) The light, özer, goes hook-shaped. Like you throw a hook to catch the fish, (Tibetian symbl) you are going to ‘fish’ all those enlightened beings. Where are you inviting them from? From their natural place, their ‘natural abode’, rangzhin nene. That should be the actual dharmadhatu, rang-zhin choying. When you have first become enlightened, you become sort of part of a huge galaxy of all-knowing (Tibetian symbl.) consciousness, remember?194 I believe that this is referring to the natural(Tibetian symbl.)abode, dharmadhatu. From there you manifest [in a form] suitable to the individual’s capability, understanding, need, requirements, willingness and wish.

Now you are going to invite the wisdom beings. What kind of wisdom beings are you inviting? As you have meditated, whatever you have meditated, whatever you have projected, all of those, everyone of them, you are going to invite. If you find that Lama Dorjechang sitting on the throne is very inconvenient, you can invite him – I am quite sure – on a nice sofa-seat. Yeah true, why not? You can have the merit-field suited to the western culture. Instead of putting a bunch of thrones up there, you can put up a bunch of sofa-seats; everybody sitting on the sofa and talking to each other. Your field of merit you can have that way. I don’t see any reason why not. In reality it is the manifestation of the Lama; the Lama is part of them and they are part of the Lama; they are buddha, the buddha is them; they are the yidam, the yidam is them; they are dakas, dakinis, each one of them; there is no separation. So if you want to make a new tree with all sorts of different men, women, sitting on sofas, talking, it would be okay. Perhaps not smoking; maybe you can give them ‘grass’, that’s probably okay.

Audience: This merit field is it, except for the central figure, exactly the same as explained in Pabongka’s Lam Rim?Rinpoche: Yes, Pabongka’s is the latest version of it. It differs slightly, but that is okay, it doesn’t matter. Pabongka has this southern tradition. So this is slightly different and also there is a place for you yourself to go. That is why there is an empty space195. The Lama Chöpa tree and the Lam Rim tree are almost the same; so it is okay.

chö nam rang zhin dro ong kün drel yang na tsok dül jei sam pa ji dzin du chir yang char wei kyen tsei trin le chen

193 Literature: Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Great treasury of merit, pg. 107-113. Dalai Lama, The union of bliss and emptiness, pg 88-91.194 See page 50195 In the category of the lamas right and left is an empty space.

94 Nagrim: Lama Chopa Guru Yoga Kyap gön dam pa kor che shuk su söl St. 16 Though the nature of things is unchanging. Your acts of love and wisdom dawn To suit the many minds to be tamed. Please come with O Holy Lord!

The invocation now. In the LTWA- translation the verse pünstok delek comes first. In the version we have provided you for this retreat, we have put the verse chönam rangzhin first. What we did is not new. It has been done by Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and even before by Pabongka Rinpoche and Dagpo Lama Rinpoche. This is the southern business, so the Yankees may not like it. But that is how it goes. Also rabkar gesem and dechen nangle we switched, as you noticed earlier. It is the southern style and there are a lot of reasons to do so. A translation of this verse says ‘Even though phenomena are by nature completely free of coming and going’. The nature of all phenomena is what? Emptiness. Therefore the question of coming and going does not rise. You know what the question of coming and going really means? When you yourself look at the mirror, you will see your reflection in the mirror. If you don’t think about it—and because we know it—it reflects immediately, right? If you would not know immediately how it reflects and looks like, you would have to go into the mirror and look out and you would have to get out of the mirror and look into it. If you do not know the reflecting business, that is the way you have to go to comprehend that. That is the coming and going business actually196. So, in one way the nature of emptiness has nothing coming, nothing going; in another way it reflects as it is. You don’t have to put efforts in to get it shown there [in the mirror]. The usual example in buddhism is the reflection of the moon; the moon shines and every water on the earth has its reflection. [As moon] you don’t need to put in efforts to show in each river, in each lake, in each pond. When the moon comes, it automatically reflects. You don’t have to put in any efforts; you don’t have to come and you don’t have to go. In other words they are giving you two points: the nature of phenomena has no talk of going or coming; therefore (a) it is there all the time and (b) it is automatic, effortless.

Audience: That doesn’t mean inherent existence, does it?Rinpoche: No! Whatever is there, is dependent. If there is no water, you can’t see a reflection. There is no inherent existence, don’t worry about it. Just forget inherent, primordial, and all of them for a while.

The second line says: ‘However, to suit the needs of the individuals’. The needs rather then the moods. Sometimes our moods are so bad and it will never be right, so needs are more important than moods. Whatever their need is, may you manifest as it is, like reflections of the moon in all directions. Chiryang charwei means as you have seen it. Kyen is the knowledge or wisdom part of it, tsei is the compassion part of it, trinle197 is the activity part of it. You manifest according to whatever the need of the individual is, by your kindness, by your wisdom, by your activity. That’s what it is. You, the great protector, kyapgön, with your retinue, may you come here. So you are inviting them from the dharmakaya into the physical form198. That is why you bring this [verse] up first.

pün tsong de lek jung ne dü sum gyi tsa gyü la ma yi dam kön chok sum pa wo kan dro chö kyong sung tsok che tuk jei wang gi dir shek ten par zhuk.

St.15 All time source of consummate blessedness, O Root and Lineage triple gem Guru-Gods,

196 Also see page 14.197 Part of Rinpoche’s name, there translated as virtuous conduct.198 Rupakaya.

148 Nagrim: Lama Chopa Guru Yoga

Within that [joy and happiness] we generate the bodhimind and particularly the special bodhimind of this [practice]: actually visiting every realm, and emptying it276, not only re- lieving the sufferings and pains of the beings therein, but also transforming their minds into dharmakaya and their physical appearance into rupakaya. We totally purify every existence and we achieve the wishes of the enlightened beings to permanently relieve the sufferings of beings. Not only their suffering are relieved, but also they become pure beings, pure buddhas.

Within that joy and happiness we generate the field of merit as Lama Lozang Tubwang Dorjechang.

Lama Lozang refers to Tsong Khapa, Je Rinpoche’s name Lozang Dragpa of which only the first part is picked up here. In the case of Je Rinpoche you pick up Lama Lozang, - the first part of the name - but for others you don’t. For example, for Pabongka Rinpoche you use [in the lineage payer] the name Kyabje Dechen Nyingpo or you say Trinley Gyatso. It is not right to say Pabongka Trinley Gyatso277.

Pabongka RinpocheIn his poetry Pabongka refers to himself as Dechen Nyingpo, ‘The king of bliss from the palace of bliss’, which refers to Heruka. Since then he became known as Dechen Nyingpo. He has gone beyond the Pabongka lineage. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche always said that Pabongka Jampa Tenzin Trinley Gyatso is not Pabongka, meaning that he does not belong to the Pabongka [reincarnation] lineage. He happened to be recognized as that, but otherwise he is the reincarnation-lineage of Changkya Rolpai Dorje, guru of the emperor of China in the 18th century. Among the great enlightened beings there is nothing of not liking each other, but somehow – for our ordinary appearance –there is always some disagreement going on. That is human nature. Even today we are witnessing that. During Pabongka’s period the Thirteenth Dalai Lama was always – to put it in our ordinary language—watching where and how to catch Pabongka. Pabongka at that time –though not high ranking at all, really a low- ranking person—became extremely popular. He didn’t have any labrang278 at all. In my case, [my previous incarnation] Tashi Namgyal died as official abbot of Gyüto, while Kyabje Ling Rinpoche was the deputy-abbot. When Tashi Namgyal died the managers –one of them being Sonam’s279 uncle –decided not to pick up a new incarnation. So all his possessions were distributed. At the end they took one of his carpets to Pabongka and said: ‘We began [the distribution] with you and now with gift we close down.’ But Pabongka insisted a reincarnation was searched for. One of the managers started crying and prostrating, saying: ‘If you ask me to jump into the fire or the water I will do so without any hesitation, but please don’t tell me to search for a reincarnation.’ When Pabongka asked why he replied: ‘For two reasons: first, there are too many reincarnated lamas already and second, if the lama becomes good and helpful to the people, it is of course a source of joy, but if the lama becomes wild and crazy, all negativities will fall on my neck’. Pabongka insisted however, and then the manager said: ‘I have distributed everything, there is no horse and no people left to go and search throughout Tibet.’ Then Pabongka said: ‘You don’t have to do that, first just look in Lhasa itself’. Still the manager was not convinced and went to see another powerful lama, geshe Samdong Rinpoche, a living Yamantaka, and he also agreed with Pabongka. Pabongka said: ‘When I was young, I had nothing, no wealth at all and on top of that no food to eat. Everybody had at least a little bag with barley—flour. For several days I couldn’t get any food. I ran from Sera monastery down to the sand, filled my bag with sand, and put a little barley on top to

R See page 35277 Rinpoche remarks that westerners like to clarify everything and so add up the name Pabongka where it should not be done. Among other things the used name depends on the number of syllables in the verse.278 See note 7.279 The Sonam working with Rinpoche.

Making Requests 149

smell and taste a bit. I lived on that for several days. This is what I did and look what I am today. So don’t worry.’ That way he refuted every reason they gave. That was Pabongka. Later, Pabongka became very popular. He had a little retreat-area. People from Lhasa came to see him every day; they even had to line up. The Thirteenth Dalai Lama lived nearby in his summer-palace, but nobody went there because everyone was scared of him. So he said: ‘Why is everybody going to that side? What am I doing here?’ And he tried to catch Pabongka on the slightest mistake. The Thirteenth Dalai Lama was very powerful, he had political, economic, military and spiritual power, all together, but he found this very difficult. One day Pabongka went to eastern Tibet and as Pabongka was huge and couldn’t travel, they carried him in a sort of chinese carriage, a palanquin. When he came back to Lhasa the Thirteenth Dalai Lama said: ‘There was a report that you have been traveling in the palanquin, which is only authorized for the Dalai Lama and the regent. Why did you?’ He called a government-gathering and Pabongka had to stand there for twenty days to give an explanation. He gave no other explanation than: ‘Well, people had provided that, so I sat down and they carried me.’ At the end the Thirteenth Dalai Lama gave him a punishment: three days of prostration outside the palace, and seven days of prostration to each of the three large monasteries. Pabongka introduced the southern style of the refuge tree, which he had learned from his teacher Dagpo Lama Rinpoche280. The Thirteenth Dalai Lama asked him: ‘What proof do you have?’ He simply said: ‘It was taught to me by Dagpo Lama Rinpoche.’ The Dalai Lama replied: ‘He was a stupid villager281 gone crazy – Dagpo Lama Rinpoche had passed away already – and you picked that up and made it popular in the Dharma capital. What proof you have? You are personally responsible for an explanation. If you have something to explain, explain. If you don’t have something to explain, you should be subject to prosecution.’ That was the order. The order normally came through a chamberlain and someone else, and they both happened to be Pabongka’s disciples. As they had to do something, they invited Pabongka to the chamberlain’s house for lunch and during the lunch they explained the order to him. Then Pabongka called his manager, told him what the order of his Holiness was and asked him what to do. The manager said to himself: ‘I knew it. If I don’t put fire under him, he is not going to do anything.’ He answered Pabongka: ‘Well in economic matters I am responsible. This is a Dharma matter, I know nothing about that. It is up to you; you have to reply. If you have anything to say, it is time for you to speak, because they give you the opportunity to explain. And if you have nothing to say, you have to say: ‘I am sorry, I made a mistake. Whatever the punishment is, I will take it. Not only I made a mistake, my master made a mistake and I am sorry, I have to consider him unfit to be a master.’ Pabongka’s face turned completely black. He looked to the other managers and they also nodded. Then he said: ‘Do I have to say that Dagpo Lama Rinpoche was wrong?’ The manager said: ‘Yes, you have to.’ Then Pabongka said: ‘I can’t say that’. ‘Then you will have to explain’. ‘Okay’, Pabongka said, and he asked one of the chamberlain’s people: ‘Please write it down, I will dictate.’ Pabongka dictated: ‘If your Holiness really wants to see it, by the time this explanation reaches you, you will be in your room such and such. If you look to your right and count the numbers down, on the third shelf you’ll find volume such and such, please take page number so and so and on line seven is quoted: ‘…’. Then turn left and you will find book such and such, take page so and so…’. The chamberlain took the message, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama read it and said: ‘At my right take that volume out.’ Everything was proved right. Then he said: ‘Forget about the left.’ Then he asked the chamberlain: ‘Did you know and tell him I would be in this room?’ ‘No.’ ‘Okay, go home, forget about it. No reply.’ That is Pabongka’s quality. He probably would have said ‘Sorry, I made a mistake.’, but he couldn’t say his master had made a mistake. That was Pabongka.

280 Dagpo Rinpoche Jampel Lhundrup. Dagpo Rinpoche who now lives in Paris has been recognized as his reincarnation.281 Dagpo Rinpoche came from a village in the very southern corner of some remote area.

156 Nagrim: Lama Chöpa Guru Yoga

The original Migtsema was four lines, the others are extended versions. Since the Lama Chöpa is coming through Gyelwa Ensapa and Ensapa is the one who made the nine-round Migtsema, that one is recommended here. If you do it within the Lama Chöpa, especially when you do the 100,000, you should do at least 108 or 111 nine-round Migtsemas and continue with the four-lined one.

At the same time it is very important to do your practice properly and constantly. If you have too many practices to do, you may not do them at all. That is why it is very important – particularly for those of us who are caught in the ninth non-leisure293 – to do the practice compact, short, with not too many words to say, yet extended enough to really get into it. If a practice is too short, you’re not getting the kick out of it. I don’t think this practice is difficult to do; if you do the Lama Chöpa you don’t have to do the Ganden Lha Gyema, you don’t have to do both.

Audience: If you want to do your 100,000 Migtsemas in the context of the Lama Chöpa, do you need to do 108 of the nine-round Migtsema before switching to doing the four-round one?Rinpoche: Yes.

Audience: If you are just doing the Lama Chöpa you could just say the four- or the five-lines Migtsema?Rinpoche: No. You should say the nine-round Migtsema 108 times, and then switch [to the shorter one].

Audience: Sometimes I do my Migtsemas in the car while driving…Rinpoche: How many do you say a day?Audience: At least one hundred.Rinpoche: Okay, Then you can’t make 108 of the nine-round Migtsema per day; it won’t work… Here we are talking about what you do when you are doing a lot of them, like in a retreat. Otherwise, when you do a couple of them, it doesn’t matter whether you say the nine-round Migtsema, the six-round Migtsema, the five-round Migtsema or the four-round Migtsema. That is why I try to tell you: relax. If you want to build op so and so many Migtsemas within the context of the Lama Chöpa, [what I told you first] is what you do.

Activities done through the practice of the Migtsema[Rinpoche relates another story of Pabongka]: While in a big teaching he got an order from the Thirteenth Dalai Lama to make rain immediately. Pabongka said to the disciples gathered there, they should say the Lama Chöpa and during the visualization of the field of merit he suggested to put a syllable MAM at the heart-level of Lama Tsong Khapa and in the hole of the zero the letter HUM. The syllable MAM is a character MA with a zero on top, representing the second M. (THERE ARE 2 SYMBOLS ON THE LEFT AND RIGHT OF THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH, PLEASE REFER TO ORIGINAL TEXT)

So, he said, [during the recitation of the Migtsema] from the letter MAM and the letter HUM in the heart of Lama Lozang Tubwang Dorjechang light radiates, this light will become a cloud and the cloud will shower rain wherever there is a need of it, particularly at the city of Lhasa, and particularly at the flower-garden of the Dalai Lama. He suggested to visualize that way and indeed they got quite a good amount of rain that day. As the rain continued to fall, he used another letter to stop it.

Through the Migtsema and through the Lama Chöpa not only do you have the things [we just talked], but you can also bring rain, stop rain, give protection, give healing etc.

If you do hand-healing, the light that is generated from the MAM in the heart of Lama Lozang Tubwang Dorjechang, you visualize passing through your hand, particularly [flowing out] from your

293 See page 9.

166 Nagrim: Lama Chöpa Guru Yoga

five or six malas all the time and when he said mantras it went ‘pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom’ and another mala [was said]. When I was a kid one day I was walking next to him, didn’t understand a thing, so I went with my ear very close to his mouth and: ‘Om Mani Padme Hum!’ he shouted in my ear. I believe he was doing the mental recitation. About the vajra-recitation and all this you will learn in the completion stage; then it is necessary. Vajra-recitation is the mantra rising within your body, going up and down. There are techniques to open your chakras. There are two techniques to open your chakras. One is bumpa chen holding the air like a vase313. You know, it is talked about at the completion-stage of Heruka and Vajra Yogini314, and also elsewhere. It is sort of holding the air from down and up, that is called vase-like recitation.

Then also commitment recitations, wrathful recitations, knowing all seven ways of recitations is this point. 9. Knowing how to change the practice. If you, the practitioner, do everything perfect, everything in order, without faults and yet you cannot get achievement, then the lama should be able to change something. He also needs to know how to do that.

There was a guy who was practicing Heruka perfectly all the time and yet it did not work. Finally, his teacher said: ‘Why don’t you change it?’ ‘What should I change?’ he asked. The teacher said: ‘Instead of a Heruka face why don’t you put on a donkey face?’ The guy started meditating a perfect Heruka with a donkey face and the moment he did so, it worked. This is how you transform.

Since then there even came up a complete practice of Heruka with a donkey face. It worked not only for that person, it worked for a number of people, particularly for Sekong Dorjechang, the holder of this mystical Manjushri wisdom book before Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo.

How did this book come to Pabongka? Somehow Pabongka had the idea of going to attend some dharma teachings of Sekong Dorjechang, but he did not really do it. He sort of delayed and delayed, thinking: ‘Sekong Dorjechang is not a monk,’ and all this sort of things. Besides that there was no need, like having to take some teachings from him which he did not have already. Because of all these reasons together he delayed for a while. The final blow he got was when Sekong Dorjechang was giving a big teaching for a couple of thousand people and started scolding Pabongka’s teacher Dagpo Lama Rinpoche: ‘A villager sitting in a corner in a remote area, what does he think he knows?’ and blablabla. That stopped Dechen Nyingpo completely to go and receive any teaching from Sekong Dorjechang.

Then how was this teaching transferred finally? The day Sekong Dorjechang died, Pabongka had a dream. He dreamt that he was going to see Sekong Dorjechang. A number of people had lined up and he had to line up also. He has a small bell and vajra to offer to Sekong Dorjechang. When he reached near him – he was sitting on a huge throne so Pabongka had to look up – Sekong Dorjechang was looking slightly upset, but didn’t say a word. He handed over to Pabongka the vajra and bell he was holding, saying ‘gold made, please take it’. He gave it to Pabongka and took the small one he had. That’s how the transition was done.

When Sekong Dorjechang was cremated, everybody saw different things. In the fire of the burning body Buddha was seen, Vajra Yogini was seen, Heruka, Guhyasamaja, Yamantaka, the people present saw all different visions in that fire. But one quite close friend of Sekong Dorjechang, a disciple, whenever and wherever he looked, saw a huge donkey in the fire. He thought: ‘I’m a terrible guy, everybody sees great things and I am only seeing a donkey.’ He asked: ‘What is that?’ One of the people explained: ‘He showed you the donkey, because he’s continuing the joke’. However Sekong Dorjechang was through this guy giving the message to everybody that in actual reality he was a living Donkeyface Heruka.10. Knowledge of generating and consecration of the mandala.

313 Vase-breathing, Literature: Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Clear light of bliss, pg 54-55. For a first introduction see Gelek Rinpoche, Healing and selfhealing through Tara, pg. 53.314 Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Guide to the dakini land. Pg. 166.

184 Nagrim: Lama Chopa Guru Yoga

This is an important point: the primordial mind or actual lama’s mind and your own consciousness and that of the yidam become inseparable. The absolute lama, your own consciousness and that of the yidam , whatever your practice might be, become one.

There is a certain little confidential, more restricted teaching on this. It is called ‘Rising the illusion body within yourself’. I just like to mention that this teaching is there and we gradually have to pick it up rather than going into it right now, while the tape recorder is running and everything will be transcribed. These things are there. Not even a word of them is mentioned, neither in the Lama Chöpa text nor in the commentaries. That’s why I have been circling around it. When the duplicate lama dissolves to you and you—your own consciousness and the yidam’s—become oneness with the consciousness of the actual lama, that oneness should be focused on carefully. Such a mind of oneness should recognize emptiness and such a mind of oneness should also be in a joyful nature. That’s how you receive blessings. That is really the meaning of ‘joyful’ here in this verse, ‘Out of delight, an emanation of the lama dissolves into me…’

Guru mantras When you dissolve the lama within you, to your own consciousness, in form of a letter HUM [at your heart is Yamanaka, then you dissolve into emptiness and then] once again arise as Yamanaka. At your heart level, on sun and moon discs you have a letter HUM. It is surrounded by OM AH HUM and the guru mantras up to the mantra of your root master, [which is] golden-reddish colored.

[Gelek Rinpoche’s name mantra 336, golden-reddish, is:

OM AH GURU VAJRADHARA JINA SHASANA SUKALYANA VIJAYA SARVA SIDDHI HUM HUM]

In my case of course I use the mantra of Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, golden-yellow in color:

OM AH GURU VAJRADHARA SUMATI JNANA SHASANA DHARA SAMUDRA SIDDHI HUM HUM

In a circle within that mantra you can have Tsong Khapa’s mantra, golden-reddish:

OM AH GURU VAJRADHARA SUMATI KIRTI SIDDHI HUM HUM

What you really need to have within this mantra is Buddha Shakyamuni’s mantra, golden-yellow:OM MUNI MUNI MAHA MUNIYE SVAHA

The innermost mantra, blue in color, is:OM AH (GURU) VAJRADHARA HUM.

Finally you have in white, red and blue:

OM AH HUM, OM AH HUM, OM AH HUM.

336 Clarification of the mantra by Aura: ‘Gelek Rinpoche has two different names 1) Gyelten Gelek Namgyal, childhood name given by Pabongka Rinpoche. 2) Later it changed to Ngawang Gelek Trinley Namgyal, name given by the Tibetan regent Takdrak Rinpoche when Rinpoche -at the age of seven- took his full monk vows. Nyare Kentrul is not a name; it is a title. The mantra used here ‘Jina Sashana…’ refers to the translation of the first name; the other one ‘Vagindra…’ is the translation of the second name. Translation of the mantra used here: JINA = Gyelten = Buddhadharma; SASHANA = Ge = Auspicious Virtue; SUKALYANA = lek = Joy; VIJAYA = Namgyal = Victor; SARWA SIDDHI = all the siddhis. So Rinpoche’s mantra OM AH GURU VAJRADHARA JINA SASHANA SUKALYANA VIJAYA SARWA SIDDHI HUM HUM] says: OM, AH, You who are Guru Vajradhara, Buddhadharma, Auspicious Joy, Victor, bestow on us all virtues, all victory and all attainments, HUM HUM’.

Preliminary explanation 35

Lobsang Jigme Wangpo and Tehor Kangsar Jangpo 44. Both gave it to Pabongka Jampa Tenzin Trinley Gyatso who is referred to as Dechen Nyingpo 45. Also the two Gandens, Ganden Tendzin Namnyi and Ganden Dhargyey 46, who were master and disciple, took this teaching from the Sakya tradition and gave it to Ngulchu Dharmabhadra. The two Gandens are not so well known, but Ngulchu Dharmabhadra is very well-known. Very Famous. He elaborated this teaching.

So there are two different sources: one from the Tsarchen and one from the Ganden lineage. Those two lineages continued up to the great Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo.

Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo 47

Pabongka is considered to be a living Heruka. That’s why he is referred to as Dechen Nyingpo, which means ‘essence of great bliss’ — a technical term for Heruka. Dechen Nyingpo himself had taken the teachings from the Sakya, from the Nyingma and from the lineage of Ganden Tendzin and Ngulchu Dharmabhadra. He collected the teachings from those various sources.

Pabongka was not an easy person. He was an extraordinary person, a great master, particularly for the Heruka body mandala and the Vajrayogini practice. He had a special responsibility for the mother tantra. In the beginning Pabongka was not a big lama at all in Tibet. He did not have high titles: he did not have anything. He happened to be an incarnate lama, but really poor. It is interesting. In the monastery, he did not show much scholarship at all, as though he was slightly on the dull side. The geshes would just insult him and would sometimes even use him as an example of lesser intelligence. Then, after he passed through a geshe examination and had been studying with many great masters, like Gondro Kendro Ngulchu – he studied with more than 38 masters – he took teachings from a very important master, referred to as Dagpo Lama Rinpoche. Dagpo is an area in Southern Tibet. Pabongka studied under this Dagpo Jampel Lundrup and from that time on he somehow developed. If you read Pabongka’s collected works, everywhere, even in his poems, he talks about Dagpo. Every teaching from Pabongka you read, whether it be Yamanaka, Vajrayogini, Heruka or Hevajra, Lamrim, logic or Prajnaparamita, he always talks about Dagpo Lama Rinpoche, though he lived in Dagpo only for a very short period. Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo purposely visited [the province of] Dagpo [again] when he chose to pass away and he passed away there [at the age of sixty-three. That was his master. Again, Dagpo Rinpoche was just a poor monk, not even an incarnate lama, just a regular poor monk. Under him, Pabongka studied the Lamrim and somehow there he got some development. It seems that it opened up everything. He became a master of everything. Even the learned geshes had to go and consult Pabongka and he really became the master of Tibet, certainly of the Gelugpa tradition and more or less of all Tibet in the 1920s and 1930s. And if you look today in the Gelugpa tradition, H.H. Trijang Rinpoche, H.H. Ling Rinpoche, Song Rinpoche, no matter whoever, there is not a Gelugpa lama who is not a disciple of Pabongka. Somehow or other, every lineage comes through Pabogka. So, Pabongka used to be poor and really sort of ordinary and came up in forty years to be almost the outstanding master in Tibet. Outstanding in everything.

Pabongka Rinpoche and the Thirteen Dalai lama. During the thirteen Dalai Lama’s period, Pabongka was giving teachings and a lot of people were following him and respected him. But somehow he was never acceptable to the Thirteen Dalai Lama, who was always looked for some excuse to punish Pabongka – always. Both were great Lamas. The thirteen Dalai Lama is a true incarnation of Avalokiteshvara and Pabongka was a true incarnation of the wrathful Avalokiteshvara, i.e. Heruka. He

44 He is not mentioned in the lineage prayer.45 See page 23446 The last one of these is to be found in the lineage prayer.47 1878-1941. Biography or Memoirs: Tsongkapa, The Principle Teachings of Buddhism, pg. 4-12; Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in the Palm of Your hand. Pg. 10-15.

36 Vajra Yogini Teachings

was an actual living Heruka. That is why he is referred to as Dechen Nyingpo. So if you trace them back, they are both Avalokiteshvara. But the thirteenth Dalai Lama was Dalai Lama and he had the power. If you read Pabongka’s biography is says there that he landed in the Dalai Lama’s court four, five times. Somehow, the thirteenth Dalai Lama always had to find some excuse to punish Pabongka.

One such excuse he found when Pabongka went to Eastern Tibet. At that time Pabongka was becoming quite old, not very old, in his late fifties, but he was of huge size, he was gigantic – to use ordinary language, he was big and fat. He had to be lifted by two or three people and could not move very much. Therefore he was carried around in one of these palanquins that is carried by 4 or 6 people. That’s how Pabongka traveled. It is considered a privilege. When he came back to Lhasa, the thirteenth Dalai Lama had heard about the way he was carried. So he summoned him and asked, ‘Who gave you permission to travel in a palanquin?’ So he made him do prostrations in Norbulingka, the summer palace of the Dalai Lama, during the government meetings. He had to do prostrations there for seven days and also for seven days in Drepung, Sera and Ganden monasteries. In addition, he had to make offerings and distribute money to all the monks there. Now the problem came when Pabongka started with the prostrations. It was the Dalai Lama’s order, so he had to follow it. Now, in the government’s court most of the officers there were his disciples. They were scared of the Dalai Lama in one way and in the other way they were scared of Pabongka prostrating. So when he started the prostrations everybody was either moving this way or that way, trying not to be in front of Pabongka. It was similar when he prostrated in monasteries. Drepung had about twelve thousand monks at the time, Sera seven thousand and Ganden five thousand. Normally, Drepung was supposed to have seven thousand seven hundred, Sera five thousand five hundred and Ganden three thousand three hundred, but the numbers had increased very much. When Pabongka started prostrating at Drepung, everybody got up, because everybody was Pabongka’s disciple. This sort of thing happened a number of times.

The last is the most interesting one. Pabongka introduced the Southern Lamrim tradition, called Shargvu. This tradition somehow was not popular in Tibet and one could not find much of a proof of where it came from; it was not available in the regular books. So some talk among the learned scholars had started, saying, ‘How come this Pabongka has introduced this funny system of the Southern tradition of Lamrim? He went to some corner of Tibet, a little village, where he found an old monk who was sitting in retreat somewhere and then he brings us such a thing called the Southern tradition of the Lamrim.’ The Southern tradition was what Pabongka had studied under Dagpo Lama Rinpoche. Then Pabongka started giving teachings in Lhasa. At that time he had a large number of followers, almost all the monks of the three great monasteries besides almost ninety percent of the lay people in Lhasa and the surrounding areas. Wherever Pabongka gave teachings there were bound to be three to four thousand people. So people started talking about where this tradition might have come from. Finally, the thirteenth Dalai Lama wrote Pabongka a note, saying, ‘It seems that you are introducing such a strange teaching called the Southern tradition of Lamrim and I have carefully observed the 18 volumes of Tsongkhapa’s work and have found no trace of it. So where did you find such a thing? If you have a way to prove it, you should prove it within two days. If you can’t prove it, you should surrender and declare yourself a fraud.’ That was the note Pabongka received. Moreover, it was backdated to two days earlier and it was not delivered until one hour before he was supposed to appear in the Norbulingka. So, it was almost the deadline. There was hardly one hour’s time. And Pabongka was a very slow-moving person. They had to hurry very much. Pabongka wore the normal robes and went to Norbulingka. Normally, every explanation or punishment was done in the place where the government officials gathered together, sort of publicly. But the chamberlain of H.H. the Dalai Lama as well as most of the senior officers happened to be Pabongka’s disciples. So, instead of calling him into the public gathering place, they called him into the chamberlain’s house first. Normally, when you receive an order of the Dalai Lama, you have to

bow down and the officers would not get up, no matter whoever you might be. But in this house on that day, the chamberlain had built a little throne and asked Pabongka to take his seat there. It was a throne in the sense that on the bed he might have added an extra cushion or something. So Pabongka sat there and the two officers sat on the floor. And then they informed Pabongka what was going on with that order. Then Pabongka said, ‘I would like to consult with my manager.’ The two officers said, ‘Yes, by all means.’ Pabongka said to his manager, ‘Well, His Holiness gave the order. What shall we do now?’ (Pabongka was a peculiar person, according to his manager. The manager said, ‘Unless I was able to start his fire, he would not act. He had to be pushed a little to get excited’). The manager replied, ‘If it has something to do with economic affairs or if it has to do with administration of the labrang, then I am fully responsible and know how to reply. But this is a spiritual matter. This is dealing with the teachings and I am not the one who sits on the throne and teaches. It is for you to answer. His Holiness is saying that these teachings you have given, this so called Southern tradition, if it is a true teaching, you have to prove it today. You have to be able to say, ‘This is true because of this and the proof is here and Buddha has also said it there and Buddha’s disciples in India have said it somewhere and this Lama has said it is in such and such a book’. In this way you have to prove it today and if you can’t, you have to give them a scarf and say, ‘I am very sorry, I have cheated everybody. From now on I will behave myself.’ That’s what you have to do and there is nothing to seek counsel from me for.’ Pabongka looked at the government officers and they sort of bowed down a little and did not say anything. Then Pabongka asked the manager again, ‘is it really that serious?’ and the manager answered, ‘His Holiness is not only a spiritual leader, but also has political power. So it is up to him what punishment he will give to you. He can also openly declare that the teaching is not genuine and then nobody can practice it. It is his decision.’ Then Pabongka asked the government officials, ‘Is that possible? Would His Holiness really go to that extent?’ and they said, ‘Yes, he may do it.’ So Pabongka thought for a moment and then said, ‘Under these circumstances, I shall reply. I shall dictate and you go ahead and take notes.’ Then Pabongka started quoting, ‘The Buddha said in this sutra and that sutra and in the collected works of the Buddha in volume such and such this is written and right at this moment Your Holiness is sitting in your room and if you look at your back in the third shelf, open that book and read on page 146 at the back side the 6th line, there it says this, this, and then, if you look at your left side, on the second shelf, the second volume number, this and this, pull that book out and there it says this, this, this….’ And the officers looked at Pabongka, startled, and busily took notes. And Pabongka continued, ‘This is the proof from the Kanjur and if you read this book by Asanga which is available in Your Holiness’s room on such and such a shelf in the outer volume whose color is this and the inner book is this and then if you look at line this, line that, page number this and this you will find it. And from the Tibetan tradition, look in the works of your late master, Purchong Jampa Rinpoche, in volume number four of his collected work, which is in Your holiness’ bedroom on such and such a shelf and the color of the cloth is this and the page number is that.’ That’s what Pabongka dictated and afterwards they read it out and it was okay, a dictation with good poetic words and everything. That was then presented to His Holiness. His Holiness checked his volumes and it happened to be correct! Everything! And then His Holiness made a lot of inquiries about who had informed Pabongka that this volume was there and that volume was there, but everything proved to be correct.

I have talked to Pabongka’s manager-disciple who came to India and lived there for many years. I was studying Tibetan history at that time. He was a very old man, in his early 90s. Before he died, I had a detailed talk with him, and he told me what happened in this period. Pabongka’s biography was not available at the time to us in India. Later, when the Chinese opened Tibet, it came out. Now it is available in two volumes. This story is also included in his biography, I noticed later. I happened to be the last person to interview this manager and he told me many things. With tears, because he was dying. He was already on his deathbed and after my interview he did not live for more

38 Vajra Yogini Teachings

than a couple of weeks. His memory was very sharp and he regretted many of the things he did. Pabongka called him 'son'. Actually he was his nephew or a first cousin or something, but he always called him 'son', although he behaved so wildly. Everybody knew. This manager called himself 'The man of Rolex'. He bought himself the best horse, the best gun and the best watch, which was a Rolex. Even my father said about that manager, 'This man is wild.' My late father, Demo Rinpoche, was also one of the best among the great disciples of Pabongka. He studied with H. H. Trijang Rinpoche and before he passed away, he told my brother — I was already in India at that time — 'I have only one regret in my life.' He himself was the younger half-brother of the thirteenth Dalai Lama, who had squeezed Pabongka a little bit. My father did not like that, so he insulted the thirteenth Dalai Lama many times. Before he passed away, he said, 'My only regret is that I have insulted H. H the Dalai Lama on several occasions rather badly. I did this because of Pabongka, who is my master. I requested him a number of times to protect Pabongka and he did not listen, so I insulted him several times.' This manager was really wild. Even during Pabongka's teachings, when there were two thousand to three thousand people and something happened outside the teaching hall, perhaps somebody was not behaving properly or something, the manager would not hesitate to get up and give him a slap. Straightaway. He would pick up somebody's shoes from the back and hit anybody. And nobody would say anything, because of Pabongka. Pabongka Rinpoche sort of always ignored what he did. He let him do anything.

My previous incarnation was a Gyüto tantric college abbot. When people were supposed to look for my reincarnation, they decided not to go ahead with it at all. Finally Pabongka insisted, 'You must look for the reincarnation, it is very important and you have to do it.' And the disciples of Pabongka, especially the senior manager who would normally listen to whatever Pabongka said, requested, 'If you tell me to jump into the fire, I will jump. If you tell me to jump into the river, I will jump. But don't tell me to look for that reincarnation, because it would be a big problem for me. If the reincarnation happens to become a good lama, it is okay, it is useful. But in case he turns out to be a wild one, then all his non-virtuous actions will fall on me. So it is better if I jump into the fire.' But Pabongka still insisted and in the end they had to listen to him. Then the manager tried to find excuses. He said, 'We have no money, we have no people, nothing, everything has already been distributed.' Then Pabongka said, 'When I was young, I had no money, I had nothing, not even tsampa48.' Pabongka said that he used to fill up his sack three quarters full with sand up and put a little tsampa on the top. So whenever he was hungry, he smelled the tsampa and took a little bit. That's all. That is how poor he was. And now he said to that manager, 'There is so much wealth accumulated around here now, and even though the 'son' is throwing some here and there, there is still a lot available. You have only excuses. This is not right. They are not correct reasons. You have to look for the reincarnation'.

Pabongka's manager was really wild. He told me at the last minute that he had done only one good deed. That was when the late Reting resigned as the regent in 1938 and handed over the regentship to another Rinpoche called Talungdra. Before he did, Reting wrote Pabongka a note asking Pabongka if, as he had to be away from the regency for three years, would Pabongka act as the ruler in the mean time on his behalf? Pabongka informed his manager, 'Look, this has come. Would you like us to accept and become regent of Tibet?' and he showed his manager the letter. The manager said, 'I will think tonight. This is a political matter, I will decide and tell you tomorrow.' Pabongka agreed. The next morning the manager came up to Pabongka and offered him a scarf, prostrated three times and said, 'We don't need any regency at all; whatever you are and the teachings you have given, that is good enough. Please remain as you are and don't accept the regency.' At first Pabongka seemed to be taken aback, 'People are trying to give me the regency from right and left. When I get such an offer, this fellow here has a chicken heart. He can't even accept it.’

48 The Tibetan staple food.

Preliminary explanation 39

The manager thought that this remark did not really suit Rinpoche’s thought, but anyway he said, ‘Whether it suits your thoughts or not, if you become regent, all the good work you have done will be damaged. You will have to deal with political matters and then everything will be finished. Every commitment of the master-disciple relationship will be broken. There will be nothing, so please don’t accept!’ That’s what he requested. Pabongka was actually very happy about that. He rejected the offer and Talungdra became regent. After that, Pabongka left for the South of Tibet and he wrote a letter to his manager, when he was only one day from Lhasa, in which he called him ‘son, the only son, the essence of the heart’. That is what Pabongka’s manager told me.

Pabongka was a staunch Gelugpa. Look at his work: he does not say anything bad about other traditions, but he always shows the extraordinary qualities of Tsongkapa’s teachings. Some people were saying that he was not Manjushri or Avalokiteshvara, but a devil manifesting in the form of Avalokiteshvara. Some people go to that extent. In true reality, that is not the case. However, some unfortunate incidents took place in Eastern Tibet. There were a lot of insults, really bad incidents. When Pabongka went to the East, to Kham, the Bönpos49 attacked Pabongka so much. All the böns in Kham gathered together and continuously, day and night, directed black magic against Pabongka. That happened a number of times: there were a number of incidents. Once, when Pabongka was going over a high pass and it was all snow, suddenly a huge storm came and everybody was carried up and down by it and there was quite a lot of damage. There was no harm done to human life, but quite a lot of material damage. Finally, when they made it to the other side of the mountain, Pabongka said, ‘No one should come into my tent.’ He sat there for a while and when the thunder came, together with lightning, Pabongka collected the lightning in his pocket and kept it there for a while. Finally he called somebody and told him’ Take this here and throw it outside, that way.’ And when they threw it out, they could see sort of red colored light and liquid inside the lighting and this burnt the grass and everything. He had collected it like that. Such things happened a number of times.

That manager, I think, kept all that in his mind. Without Pabongka knowing about it – he told me personally – he went into those bönpo monasteries and when he found out that there were forty or eighty people there, he collected three hundred volunteers, went there at night and punished them. He destroyed those places, burnt them to the ground. He did that, totally. Even Pabongka himself said, ‘What happened here? The other day I saw there was a monastery, and now there is nothing. What happened?’ The manager kept on telling him, ‘Oh, you are mistaken, nothing was there’, but actually, that’s what he did. People thought it was a bit much, and many took it for granted that it happened on Pabongka’s order. So some people started to insult Pabongka and began saying bad things, all because of this manager’s act.

Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo’s previous incarnations. Pabongka is said to be not really the reincarnation of Pabongka, but of Drupchen Nagpo Chöpa [Nagpopa]50, that is the great siddha Kanhapa, and also of the great Changya Rölpai Dorje. If you read the biographies of Pabongka’s previous incarnations written by Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, you will see both Nagpopa and Changya Rölpai Dorjel listed there, but not the previous Pabongka. That sometimes happens in the Tibetan incarnation tradition. They switch each other’s lineages. Sometimes somebody occupies somebody else’s place and they cannot get it. So they are sort of pushed out. It happens quite often.

Heruka actually appeared to Pabongka when he visited Cimburi in Tibet, where there is an image of Heruka. This is where the Blood drinker’s mountains are. This name refers to Heruka [Drinker of blood]. There is a story about that place in Nagpopa’s biography. Pabongka went to this area three times in his lifetime. When he first went there, this image spoke to him, opened the mouth and a tre-49 A non-Buddhist sect.50 Also called Krishnacarya or Krishnapada, student of Jalandarapa. Probably lived in the 10th century. For more about him, see pg 61, Biographies; Keith Dowman, Masters of Mahmudra, pg.123-131, 390-391; David Templeman, transl. Taranatha’s Life of Krishnacarya/kanha; Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Essense of Vajrayana, pg.16

40 Vajra Yogini Teachings

mendous amount of nectar came. He collected the nectar from the mouth of Heruka in the presence of sixty or seventy people. 51 This nectar was made into nectar pills. Our current nectar pills originate from there.

Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo and the lineage. That cave in Cimburi where Pabongka received the nectar from the Heruka image, was the place where Heruka promised him.

From now on for the next seven generations,Whoever practices my teachings, I will protect and help.

Fortunately all of us are within the seven generations. I was very fortunate to receive the Heruka body mandala and every teaching on it from Pabongka at the age of four. I did not know that until my brother came out of Tibet and told me that my father had left the message that when I became twenty-five years old, I would have to say the body mandala sadhana, because Pabongka had given the initiation especially for me at the age of four. So I have been fortunate and that way you have shifted up too; you are within the third generation.

Pabongka was asked by Heruka and Vajrayogini to combine the Sakya Vajrayogini teachings with the techniques that Tsongkhapa had given for the Heruka practice. These came from Tsongkhapa’s writing on the Secret precepts of Heruka, the Elucidation of all Hidden Meanings [Tib. Be dōn kun säl]. That’s why he said that if he got a piece of cloth from a Sakya Lama and one from a Gelugpa lama and stitched them together, it would be good. By combining the Sakya techniques with those of Tsongkhapa, the great Pabongka contributed a lot on this practice. He wrote the long Vajrayogini sadhana called Dechen Nyur Lam, Short Path to Great Bliss. That has everything in it. You really don’t need detailed teachings: read that slowly, it has everything in it. So Pabongka said that from him on it is not only the short lineage from Vajrayogini to Pabongka, but also the long lineage and the combined teaching techniques.

Je Tsongkhapa and Vajrayogini. There is also a big question on Tsongkhapa’s relationship to Vajrayogini. A number of people have said that in Tsongkhapa’s eighteen volumes of work not a single word is devoted to Vajrayogini. The lineage masters continuously told us that Tsongkhapa kept this practice as his hidden heart treasure. So Tsongkhapa had been practicing that, and he had a lot of techniques for the Vajrayogini practice, many of which you will find in Elucidation of all Hidden Meanings, though they are quite irrelevant to the Heruka practice. It was Pabongka who made it very clear that Tsongkhapa had so many techniques and who combined all together and that is how the lineage has come through. 52

Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche Then, of course, you know that the ownership of the general teachings and particularly of the mother tantra has fallen on to the late Kyabje Trijang Dorje Chang. I don’t have to talk much about Trijang Rinpoche. Most people know him. His is the teacher of H.H. the present Dalai Lama. He was a great living Buddha who passed away in 1981 at the age of 81. His reincarnation has already been found. I have taken the Vajrayogini initiation and teaching many times from H.H. Trijang Rinpoche, from Kyabje Lhatsun Rinpoche and many others.

Kyabje Gomo Rinpoche 53

However, I myself was not practicing Vajrayogini very much. I was sort of taking it a little easy. Then there was the great Gomo Rinpoche. He was a really simple and humble man. He walked around like

51 In the Yamantaka teachings Rinpoche told, ‘Pabongka visited the site with a group of people and spent the night there. They made tsoh offerings and during tsoh 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.

52 For the story on Je Tsongkhapa and Vajrayogini, see page 63.

53 1922-July 31, 1985. Biography: Gomo Tulku, Becoming a Child of the Buddhas. Pg. 87-90. Also see page 64.

Preliminary explanation 43

Kyabje Rinpoche was at first living with my father, Demo Rinpoche. Then when everybody was put in jail he was separated and driven from my father’s house. A kind lady had kept Kyabje Rinpoche with her, no matter how many problems it caused for her. Kyabje Rinpoche was originally planning to go in the ‘ja’ lus the rainbow body, and his body had already become very small. My brother told me that our father wanted him to always take care of Kyabje Rinpoche and when they had to go up some staircase he used to carry Kyabje Rinpoche. He said that he was even lighter than a little baby. When I remember him he was normal, like 5 foot 5, and later he became very small. A number of times he told me that he would like to go in the rainbow body, probably he was planning to do that, had the Cultural Revolution not obstructed that.

One day, they were going to give him a public beating. They had trained people to beat and they were ready for him. Our young Red Guard chap came up to call Kyabje Rinpoche. So that kind lady was very sad and told Kyabje Rinpoche. ‘It is time for you to go.’ Kyabje Rinpoche asked her. ‘Can I ask a favor from this kind gentleman who has come to call me? I would like to make a huge incense offering, a sang.’ And she said, ‘Rinpoche, it is the Cultural Revolution, it is impossible’. To which he said ‘Why don’t you ask him? He may permit it.’ She said, ‘All right, if you like. I can ask him, but it can cause us both more trouble.’ So she went and asked this man. ‘This old man wants to make a sang before he goes.’ The fellow laughed and said. ‘Crazy old man, let him do whatever he wants to.’ So she went and made a huge sang and then went to tell Kyabje Rinpoche that the sang had been allowed.54 [Kyabje Lhatsun Rinpoche voluntarily left his body before the Red Guard could take him to the public beating. His body remained seated in the meditation posture.]

Kyabje Lhatsun Rinpoche was almost a contemporary of Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo. Pabongka greatly respected Kyabje Lhatsun Rinpoche and the latter was also a student of Kyabje Pabongka. They were almost the same age. There were several occasions with Kyabje Lhatsun Rinpoche, which I never remembered but that Lochö Rinpoche mentioned. He said that Kyabje Lhatsun Rinpoche thought it was a mistake by the printer to write on the sadhana that people without having the teaching should not read it.

If you look into the [long] sadhana it says it is the sadhana of the Naro Kachö and it also says that those who have obtained the initiation and blessing but have not obtained the teaching should not look into it (55). That is specifically underlined. If you had one of the books printed in old Tibet it would have a vajra cross on it. It is breaking the vajra commitment if you look into the text before getting the teachings. Normally, whenever you have received the initiation you can read and practice the sadhana, but in the case of Vajrayogini you can’t. That’s why during the initiation there is no commitment of sadhana, only a mantra commitment. After receiving the teaching you have the sadhana commitment.

Lochö Rinpoche kept that in mind and later asked Kyabje Trijang Dorje Chang whether that was the case. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche got very much annoyed with Lochö Rinpoche – Lochö Rinpoche told me that himself – and said, ‘What nonsense you are talking. Dechen Nyingpo does not make any mistakes. The reason for the restriction is the body mandala. Didn’t you see the body mandala? Then tell me, how can people do the body mandala before being taught?’ He really scolded him for a little while. So it is because of the body mandala.

[Rinpoche reads more of the lung]. It is always proper to introduce the lineage sources. We have done that. Just now you don’t need to meditate, the first three outlines you can go without. But when the fourth outline comes you have to meditate. And you have to meditate in your own time – not us here together in the teaching place. If possible you meditate [on the teachings] four times twenty-four hours. If not possible, three times, but at least one time.

54 End of tape. Rest of the sentence from memory of another time Gelek Rinpoche told the story.

48 Varja Yogini Teachings

and they become the Heruka’s sixty-two deity body mandala, exactly like Wangchuk’s representatives. These days you find twenty-four sacred places in India. In order not to show it externally, after the conquest he used the same faces and the same names that Wangchuks had given, but all of them were now under his feet. If you look at Kalachakra or Vajrayogini or any other deity, you see they have somebody under their feet. That represents what they have conquered. In the case of Heruka and Vajrayogini, both are standing on top of Wacgchuk [Skt. Bhairava. Engl. Fear creator] and his consort, Dutsema [Skt. Kalaratri. Engl Time marker]. And as Wangchuk was effective and controlled everything above, on, and under the earth, now Heruka occupies the place above, on, and underneath the earth. That is the first reason why Heruka is very effective to us.

2. The mandala is still open. Normally, when Buddha gives tantra, he manifests the mandala and after having given the tantra, he closes the mandala. After that only drawings done from memory and things like that remain. To represent the closing of the mandala, any sand mandala that is made gets wrapped up after the initiation. When they make a sand mandala people work so hard. Nowadays it is a real sand mandala, but in earlier days the ‘sand’ was powdered precious and semi-precious jewels. It costs a fortune, people put in a life’s savings to make a mandala! Yet they used it for a few days and then they would throw the powder dust in the river and let go. But somehow, the Heruka yab-yum mandala has never been dismantled. It continuously remains even today – it is still open, facing the universe. This universe is an extra-ordinary universe. The people are great, sharp and kind, with great wisdom, lazy as well as having great enthusiasm. This is our universe. Very unusual. Being capable in the positive means equally being capable in negative. Mind you, that means, if Hitler had some into contact with compassion, the world today would have been different! We are good at bad things, so we are also great at good things and that is why we are special. So, normally when attachment etc. is up, the good things don’t work very well, but the Heruka tantra is opposite; it works better in the degenerate age, because the mandala is still there. That is the second reason why mother tantra in general, and it particular Heruka yab yum, which is the top ornament of the banner of the mother tantras, is very important.

Nagpopa and the Heruka Chakrasamvara myth. How do we know Heruka had conquered Ishvara? Nagpopa had given one of the followers of Ishvara the initiation of Heruka. This fellow practiced Heruka very secretly and he kept a drawing of Heruka in secret. Now the ruler of that area happened to be a follower of Ishvara and he came to know about it. He arrested the man and confiscated the thangka. But he gave it a ‘fair trail’. He got someone to draw a thangka which showed Heruka under the feet of Ishvara and locked both of the thangkas up in a room for seven days. In the meanwhile, the Heruka practitioner was locked up in jail. The kind said to him, ‘If after seven days nothing has happened, I will execute you, but if something extraordinary happens, I will think about it.’ That was the last king’s ‘fair trail’. After seven days, the Heruka thangka that fellow was using, had become mush brighter and more dignified than before, and the other one, which [was drawn with] Heruka under Ishvara’s feet, had been turned upside down and now showed Ishvara underneath and Heruka above. Then the king and his whole country switched to Heruka. That’s how we knowthat it works.

3. The dakinis of the twenty-four sacred places are around. Ishvara, or rather the devil, has manifested all the non-virtuous actions we do, our rough decisions, etc. In our time Wangchuk is becoming more active. There are more opportunities for people to have attraction, obsession, hatred, anger and so on. These Bin Laden type of people are coming up more and more. So when we, our delusions, become more active, the delusion-conquerors have to become more active as well, otherwise they will not be able to control them. You have dakas and dakinis who are born in the area. They are called ‘field-born dakas and dakinis.’ So that is happening here in our world, not in the pure land. One set of twenty-four places is supposed to be in India. These are places like Jalandara, Kulutara and so on. But Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche very often said,

Preliminary explanation 49

Wherever Heruka practitioners are, there will be the twenty-four places.Therefore there are twenty-four sacred places in China, in Tibet and in Mongolia.

In Tibet, Cimburi is one of the major ones. So if you have good practitioners in America, there will be twenty-four places in America too. It is the commitment of the dakas and dakinis to follow the practitioners. If you look into the Yamantaka tantra, it says:

Wherever in the ten directions there are practitioners, the dakas and dakinis will follow them.

If that is the case for the father tantra, then the mother tantra, which is quicker and more effective, there is no doubt that they will definitely follow. There will definitely be twenty-four sacred places in the West, if we can provide the opportunity for them. Through these blessings become quicker and more effective. If you want to know about that in detail, you can read the Buton Rinchen Drub’s67 De jog [Demchog] be don and Je Rinpoche’s Elucidation of all Hidden Meanings68. Since there are twenty-four sacred places around you, then whichever is closest [is your support]. There is a jurisdiction: like the police jurisdiction in the various states, similarly they have a jurisdiction: wherever you are nearest, that dakini will come and help you. Twenty-four places in India are mentioned, however these twenty-four places are also connected with the physical body of each individual. There are twenty-four places within the body which correspond to the twenty-four external places which are labeled Jalandhara, Kulutara, etc.69 Any individual practitioner of Heruka and Vajrayogini, no matter where they are, will automatically produce the twenty-four holy places physically in the environment of that area. So there is actual ‘field work’ going on. It is like a company who sends field agents of field workers out. Because of these three reasons the Khorlo demchong70 is so effective.

For Heruka there are three different divisions: 1) Luipa System; 2) Nagpopa system; 3) Drilbupa [Ghantapa] system. Out of these, the Drilbupa or bell system, is considered more important than the two others. It has two parts: 1) Outer – five deities; 2) Inner – body mandala or sixty-two deities. The body mandala is considered to be much more important. The essence of all these is the female kachō [i.e. Vajrayogini].

2. Three reasons why the Vajrayogini practice is more important than the Heruka1. It is the great collection of instruction [Tib. me ngak du chewa71]. Vajrayogini is the essence of the essence of the Heruka tantra. Virtually the Heruka practice cannot give you anything, which this Vajrayogini has not. Whatever benefits and advantages are available in the Heruka practice are also available in Vajrayogini. (As we can always see, the female consorts are more powerful – I am just joking). Particularly the body mandala [is very special and very important]. Vajrayogini’s body mandala more effective to the individual than any other body mandala. A lot of other deities do not have a body mandala at all. Take the Yamantaka practice. Yamantaka has the generation of deities on the body, which is like stacking the deities against the body72, Guhyasamaja has little more than that; there is the development of a body mandala, but that is a rough body mandala, not [using] the subtle parts of the body; In the Heruka body mandala, you develop not only the external, rough body, but also the internal winds and nerves and drops; these are generated into the form of deities. So that is more effective than the rough [body mandala in Guhyasamaja]. In addition to that, the Heruka body mandala has a

671290-136468Elucidation of all Hidden Meanings [of abridged Chakrasamvaratantra]: Khorlo dompa bde mchog bsdus rguyd kyi rgya cher bshad pa sbas don kun gsal. Ref. Yangchen Gawai Lodoe. The paths and grounds of Guyhyasamaja. Pg. 152.69See glossary, Entry; twenty-four sacred places.71Skt. Chakrasamvara: khorlo is chakra is wheel: demchog is bliss.71men ngak ‘du chhe ba72The sense of organs are marked by deities. See Gelek Rinpoche. Yamantaka teachings Ch. VIII – Purification of sense bases and body, speech and mind

50 Varja Yogini Teachings

complete set of initiations. You generate a complete mandala and take the full initiation for the sixty-two deities of the body mandala. Guhyasamaja and others don’t have that. If you listen to the Guhyasamaja teaching, they will tell you how important the body mandala is, but when you come to the Heruka level, it is even more important because it is not the rough body that is used, but the subtle drops and energies that are generated in the form of deities. The Vajrayogini body mandala is even more important; more effective and quicker. It is not only the drops and energies at the different parts of the body, but it is the subtle drops and energies, rooted at the central channel at the heart level, that are generated as deities. All is concentrated at the root of the heart-chakra. That is really the innermost body mandala, at the core of the heart. This is important, because when you collect the airs, you will ultimately collect them into the central channel, particularly at the heart-chakra level. This is the ultimate secret short cut of yogis and yoginis. Practicing the body mandala at the heart level is very helpful to develop simultaneously born great bliss. Also, it makes it easy to develop the clear light. That is why this practice is considered to be so profound and quick, quicker than quickest. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche used to give and example for this: eating sugar cane. Other tantras would be like the sugar products. When you come to the Guhyasamaja, it would be like chewing the gur, the molasses. When you come to Heruka, it is like chewing the sugar cane itself with the skin. When you come to Vajrayogini, it is like taking the essence, when the skin of the sugar cane is removed. Kyabje Rinpoche taught this and he said. ‘Normally this example is used for the Lamrim, but you can also use it here.’ That makes it extremely swift in achieving the siddhis. All methods from father and mother tantras, particularly from Heruka, have been collected in here. Whatever the essence of the Heruka practice is, it has been collected [in this Vajrayogini practice]. The Heruka practice is based on fourteen principles (de nyi chu shi)73. There are eleven yogas, too. All that is in the Heruka sadhana and if you want to say it, it takes almost all morning, really, three to four hours. It is very long and yet that is the shortest version which Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche made for the benefit of busy persons like us. The shortest Yamantaka sadhana you have is one page. This one has thirty pages and it cannot be shorter than that. The essence of that has been collected and condensed into the Vajrayogini practice. So when the Heruka tantra has already the condensed essence of other tantras in it, and the Vajrayogini has the condensed essence of Heruka, it really has to be and is a great resource of many different methods.

2. It is easy to practice [Tib. lak tu lang dewa74]. This practice is such a tiny little thing! I used to think that at the development stage you get this much only, but when you get to the completion stage you will get huge teachings. And when I got to the completion stage teachings, I got a big surprise. There wasn’t so much words. And also the meaning is almost given here [at the development stage], except for a few little techniques here and there. So the deeper you go the lesser and lesser the words become. That’s true. The Vajrayogini text is very small, the sadhana you have to say is very little, what you have to meditate is very little. I don’t mean the practice is little in terms of time, but in terms of organized stages. So it is very simple and easy to recite. That’s what we need, something short, easy, yet with all the benefits. Why is it easy? The other tantras have so many deities, so when you practice, when you have to think and meditate on the mandala, then while meditating on the principle deity, you forget the retinue and while meditating on the retinue you forget the principal deity. I am sure some of you are doing the Guhyasamaja. That has thirty-two deities and if you visualize them, you will know how difficult it is. I am sure you don’t have them all together for even a single minute. And even if you have the deities, you don’t get the mandala, and when you have the external protection realms, you don’t have the persons inside. forget about the different seed syllables. So it is complicated. And if you go to the Kalachakra… forget it! Three hundred and something deities! So this here is easy to practice. It is only a single deity, a single lady standing there and no trouble, and just the double triangular mandala, that is all, finished. It is so easy to practice.

73Also called the fourteen suchnesses. See page 41274lak tu blang bde ba

Preliminary explanation 55

mantras, these practitioners behave in a crazy way. Many of the great kings and mahapanditas have adopted a totally different life style. It was a little bit like Atisha, who as crown prince tried to get permission from his parents to renounce the throne. He surrounded himself with crazy people and began to behave like this John Walker. Actually, if you become a Taliban, you are going too far, but they adopted a hippie-kind of life, and people may treat you as crazy. So some people do that and walk around with that langali stick. I might have given you some wrong information: on his second level you do one million mantras and then you can go round with the langali tree and so forth. Traditionally, you are supposed to do a longer retreat which is supposed to be each of the thirty-two syllables multiplied by 100 000. The combination of all those is then to be multiplied again by 300 000. Whatever that is, it is a huge number.87 Pabongka’s commentary, however, mentions that it is sufficient to do one million mantras in order to do the Langali tree practice. With that you may be able to see Vajrayogini somewhere among the human beings. That is why we talk about going to brothels and places like that. The sign of Vajrayogini is that she has some kind of swirl on her forehead. The individual practitioner will see that. The practitioner has put a swirl on his or her forehead as well [made from sindhura used during self-initiation and special rituals related to the langali-tree practice]. Then there is some light connection between the practitioner’s swirl and the one on the forehead of that woman. That is the sign of Vajrayogini receiving you. If even that fails, you have to say even much more mantras and then go with the Langali tree and search in the cemeteries. Again, by searching, you will find someone there and the swirls will connect.

All of these practices are mentioned in the long prayer at the end of the sadhana. Instead of the dakinis searching for you, you search for them. That’s how it works for the medium level. For many people that happened. This tree is not hollow, you have to cut the inside out and put the substances in it. After doing the Langali tree practice, you go wandering around, you get lost in the big cities. Traditionally in India, that’s what happened and those practitioners mostly ended up working in whorehouses. They met Vajrayogini in the form of prostitutes. That is how a large number of practitioners came in close contact with Vajrayogini. Many times Vajrayogini would appear as a haggard, old whore. I remember one story where someone like that worked as the servant of a whore and there was so much work to do, there was hardly time to sleep. About 1980 a young monk from Nepal went with the langali tree and searched. H.H. Trijang Rinpoche was still alive then, it was in his last years, and Kyabje Rinpoche was joking, ‘It is better to be careful, otherwise you’ll land in jail.’ That is what I remember and I am wondering whether he landed in jail or in dakini land. This practice is not very relevant for us, so I don’t want to go into detail.88

3. The third category – the least ones. The least able person will get help – and here the lama comes into the picture – at the time of dying: one then should be able to focus on Vajrayogini and get the feeling of saying the sadhana and the mantra and your friends can help you to focus on Vajrayogini who is inseparable from you spiritual master. And you just concentrate. Because of that the dakas and dakinis will appear to you and invite you to come to Dakini Land with them. So if you think they are just waiting for you there, perhaps that is not right. The idea of saying the sadhana and the mantra has to pop up in your head first. This is the possible if you think like that every day. Your mind gets used to it and then it works.

[Rinpoche tells the story of a lady who was a Vajrayogini practitioner and was dying. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche told her to] keep on concentrating on Vajrayogini. And he told the tantric college monks who had started the recite the Guhyasamaja self-initiation as usual, to change their sadhana immediately to Vajrayogini. This was in order to make her hear the Vajrayogini practice while she was dying: all the Lama Gyupas with their deep voices, reciting the Varjayogini mantra. The reason is this, that the least

87 Geshe Kelsang Gyatso mentions 10 millions. Ref. Guide to Dakini Land, pg. 201.88 Also see Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Guide to Dakini Land, pg. 201-205

56 Vajra Yogini Teachings

one will be [receiving by the dakas and dakinis at the time of dying]. So when you die with the feeling of saying the Vajrayogini sadhana and mantra, then:

If I die before achieving Buddhahood.may the dakas and dakinis reach me in the bardowith flowers, banners, umbrellas and music and incenseand may they take me with them to the Dakini Land.

When you are dying, if you are good at it, you should do the practice of the transference of the soul or the uncommon inconceivable yoga and you should be able to leave with this: try to avoid ordinary death and obtain Vajrayoginihood. As I told you, Gomo Rinpoche has pointed that out a number of times and many of [his students] have gone through this89. You fix your date and you go – like a bird flying from a stone. A bird has nothing to look back to. When the bird flies from the stone, there is nothing left, just the stone. Most important for that practice is not to have any attachment at all. If you have the slightest hold, you are finished. The obstacles can be so profound. You may think, ‘If I die, what will happen to my husband or my girlfriend or boyfriend? Will I see him or her? What can I do? Can I talk to her?’ All this, if that happens, you are finished, totally finished. Remember that! Or if you think, ‘What will happen to my house? Who will take care of my children? Will they be able to do it? What about this and what about that? You will be finished, you’ll get stuck. So just forget about it. They are human beings, they can take care of themselves. They are educated, they have two hands which definitely can feed one mouth, without any problem. Think that way. You are the one who has a problem now. You are the one who is going through an unknown route. So don’t worry about them. Totally forget about them. If you do have some wealth, or any little thing to which you are attached, say, a security blanket or a teddy bear, such a thing can cause you problems. I warn you, it can cause you problems. Even just a teddy bear can cause you problems. It has no value, really, neither monetary nor spiritual value, nothing. However, you are so used to it and sometime you need it and try to hold on to it. But at the time of death, if you have something like that, if you remember that and try to touch that, you are finished. A small thing like that can get you stuck. A big thing, no doubt. As I told you, one of Gomo Rinpoche’s disciples had attachment for a new shirt, so he landed in the General Hospital Emergency Room90. That’s what it is. This is important, that’s why I try to mention it in detail.

All three are without dying, within the timeline, and to do that is only possible with the Vajrayogini practice. That is the quality of this practice. No other deity has this. Persons who are unable to attain enlightenment in the lifetime can still do so [or go to the Pure Lands of Dakinis] in the barbo. In the barbo we experience a tremendous number of delusions in the form of hallucinations. Some are good, some are bad and the bad ones are really bad. They are greatly intensified. In the barbo you have a tremendous amount of noise pollution. Also, for example, if there is a little bit of fire, it becomes tremendously intensified and it feels like you are in the middle of hundred acres of bush fires with huge flames. So there are tremendous numbers of hallucinations. Sometimes you get good hallucinations. They may connect you to your practice and you may find yourself saying the Three OM mantra. That is a good sign that someone is waiting for you and is trying to receive you. In that case, even though you may not get to the Pure Lands of Dakinis with the body, you may be able to get there without the body. The body is not necessarily used as vehicle.

4. The least of the least ones. If you are very unlucky, if everything has gone wrong, even if you have gone wrong at the last minute, you will meet a lama in a very short number of life times – three, eight or at the very least within sixteen generations – who will give you a teaching on this practice, and when you will study this, it will be very easy to obtain enlightenment in that very life time. That’s why this practice is so important. Pabongka says that he himself heard countless accounts of people having

89See the story of the shirt on page 4290See page 42

Preliminary explanation 63

visitors would come the next day and he instructed him not to stop them, but to let them in. In the Tibetan retreat areas you would find little rocks which you could crush against each other and they would produce a high-pitched noise. At about mid-day, this high-pitched noise was there and the attendant looked down and saw some people approaching. One of them was an old guy, thin, tall and bearded. Then there were four others and he could not figure out whether they were male or female. They were dressed like nuns. He told Purang Lotsawa, who asked him to let them in. When they entered, Purang sat on his usual seat and they all sat around him. Purang invited them to have food and drink, so the attendant served them and then Purang send him out and told him not to come back, no matter what sort of sounds he might hear. There were all sorts of big noises after that and the attendant got curious, so he peeped through some kind of hole and saw the bearded guy sitting on a throne, the four others around happened to be women and Purang was sitting in front of them with folded hands. Then golden, burning lights came out from each of the five guests towards Purang and he swallowed all of them. By the time the whole ritual was over, the participants had all vanished, including Purang. The explanation is that the burning lights were mantras of Heruka and Vajrayogini. The Heruka root mantra is: OM SHRI VAJRA HE HE RU RU KAM HUM HUM PHAT PHAT DAKINI DZALA SHAMVARAM SOHA and the Vajrayogini root mantra is OM VAJRA VAIROCHANAYE SOHA107 Heruka’s essence mantra is OM SHRI HA HA HUNG HUNG PHAT108. Vajrayogini’s essence mantra is OM SARVA BUDDHA DAKINIYE VAJRA VARNANIYE HUNG HUNG PHAT PHAT SVAHA. The bearded guy happened to be Heruka and the four women were the four essence dakinis, Lama, Kandarohi, Rupini and Dakini [Tib. Lama, Tukyema, Suchema and Kadroma].

Je Tsongkhapa and Vajrayogini109

Tsongkhapa went one time to do his famous purification retreat in the Wolka mountains on the order of Manjushri given to him by Lama Umapa. Manjushri had selected eight of his disciples to go with him. All eight of them had little caves of their own in the area. Tokden Jampel Gyato, the famous meditator, happened to have the cave closest to Tsongkhapa. He was the most important meditator in Tsongkhapa’s entourage. He kept on seeing funny things. He would see a strange women, a middle-aged lady, wearing a funny yellowish cape or maybe a red nun’s dress and a yellow hat. So he was thinking, ‘Who is this women and where does she come from and what is she doing in Tsongkhapa’s cave all by herself’ But whenever someone went into the cave, they could never find anyone. Somehow she would sneak in and out of Tsongkhapa’s cave. He wondered where she would come from. The caves were right up in the mountains. It must be 15,000 or 20,000 feet up. So this woman came and went and it is said that it was Vajrayogini personally who appeared to Tsongkhapa as a human being. This continued until he completed writing his great commentary on the Heruka practice, Elucidation of all Hidden Meanings [Tib. Palden Kun tse]. After that she appeared in her own form as Vajrayogini, not as a human. This is clearly mentioned in Pabongka’s commentary. So we don’t have to worry about whether Tsongkhapa did or did not teach Vajrayogini.

Well-known names in the Ganden tradition are, of course, in Beijing China, the famous Changya Rolpai Dorje. And in Beijing too, the disciple of Changya Rolpai Dorje, Tukem Dharma Vajra, also reached the final development through the Vajrayogini practice. And then Takpu Tenpey Gyeltsen Dorje Chang, that was also because of Vajrayogini. Even one of the Chinese leaders, a lady who was something like a leading minister in the Emperor’s court, the wife of one of the Chinese was lords – the Tibetan call her Sung Gyi – also left with the body for the Pure Land.

107This pair of mantras is called by Gesha Kelsang Gyatso essence mantra. Ref, Essence of Vajrayana, pg. 264. Needs a check with Rinpoche.108This pair of mantras is called by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso close essence mantra. Ref. Essence of Vajrayana. Pg. 264 called Needs a check with Rinpoche.109Also see page 40.

64 Vajra Yogini Teachings

Then of course, the great Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo, I talked about him. I don’t have to talk about the great Kyabje Trijang Dorje Chang, he is quite familiar to so many people. Many people were fortunate enough to meet with him and attend teachings and talk with him. Many of you did not meet him, however, the teaching still continues. Then I mentioned Gomo Rinpoche, Gomo Dorje Chang110, how he passed away. I even mentioned to you that during his cremation, people have seen the Vajrayogini in the fire, all his disciples. There were about five hundred people at the funeral. Normally they had no teaching connections. They told me that while the body was burning, the head did not burn at all. All that was left from the neck was a thin pen like a stick on which the head was still stuck and even the crown was not burning and people were saying, ‘Now we will have to build a stupa and keep the head in there’. Then, by the time the strangers started leaving and only his close disciples were left, the visions started. There was a big sound, like something bursting, and someone near the fire shouted, ‘There is a vision, come and watch!’ Everybody jumped there, even the monks who were saying prayers, threw their books and ran there. Everybody who was there could see it. Some saw Vajrayogini, some Tsongkapa, some Padmasambhava, some Buddha. When they tried to take photographs, they later showed something like a piece of gold burning, yet light radiating. If I talk in detail how he died, I will be just telling stories. So this will be sufficient. Apart from these examples, Vajrayogini has been giving continuous teachings, guidance and protection to various lamas throughout the lineage. We still have the continuation of these great masters’ prayers, teachings and support, in other words, the forced behind. This is the normal American language ‘May the force be with you’. 111Almost like that. So if we practice this, we have a great opportunity.

To conclude, I just want to say something which Tomo Geshe Rinpoche mentioned when giving Vajrayogini initiation one time. Lex and Sheila Hixon and Aura were there and I was asked to translate. Geshe Rinpoche started the initiation and said, ‘The speaker has no qualifications, but the lineage carries a tremendous amount of blessings’. That is very true, this lineage carries very special blessings. So we are very fortunate to be able to do this teaching. We heard about many people who did get the benefits of this practice. Who is eligible to get benefits? We are. It all depends on us. There is no lack of practice. There is no lack of information. It is up to us how much we are willing to do ourselves. There is no question on how much we can do. It is the question if we are willing to do it. If we are willing, there is no limitation. Such is the human capacity. But if we are not willing, all the limitations come. Normally, in any deity practice, if something is done wrong, if the mantras are not properly said, the numbers are not correct, the sounds are not right, there will not be any achievement. In Vajrayogini that does not apply. If you have just profound faith and keep on saying the mantra alone, the purpose will be fulfilled. Pabongka says in his commentary, ‘There Is no other place anywhere else where it says that just reciting a mantra is good enough’. Pabongka says, ‘If you say the long or medium sadhana, together with the minimum commitment of mantras and if you can say a few more and on top of that, do a mantra retreat of 100 000 or 400 000 mantras [Tib. le rung] plus observe, the celebration of the 10th days [Tib. tsi chu] – if you do this carefully, there is no doubt that you will definitely go to the Pure Lands of Ka chō. (Some people asked me whether I would be organizing a mantra retreat. But I am not going to do that. I have done my own and I organized the first one for you. Now this is your job. If you want to do it through the sangha council, this would be an appropriate job for them.)

(Double Vajra Sign)

110For Gomo Rinpoche also see page 40111This phrase comes from the Star Wars movies.

66 Vajra Yogini Teachings

think, what do you concentrate on, what do you keep in mind. It is the practical teaching and the lama is not supposed to look into the books during the teachings. The teaching is repeated four times and meditated four times. The nyum tri is the experience teaching. One will teach the first outline and nothing more. Let the person meditate and let results develop. When they get results you give the second instruction. Let it take time, whether it be a week or a month or a year and then give the next instruction. These are the special Gelugpa ways of teaching.

I have been trying to give you the oral transmission of Pabongka’s Vajrayogini commentary. You need those three things: initiation, teaching and oral transmission [Tib. lung]. There are so many commentaries on Vajrayogini, like Takpu [Tenpe Gyeltsen]’s and Ngulchu Dharmabadra’s. Sometimes the oral transmissions of those are given together. But here I am only reading to you from Pabongka’s. For those who are not familiar with it, lung means sound. If you hear a teaching from a living lama, that becomes an oral transmission. If you hear something from tapes or through multimedia applications, I don’t think it really serves the purpose. However, I found that if I am reading the whole commentary to you I also start talking about it. That would take too long to go through. Perhaps I will do the lung only for the sadhana. That is sort of enough. I don’t have to go through the tri lung118. You can do the Vajrayogini teaching in two ways: either you read from a commentary, explain it and go through the whole thing, or, without reading anything, just teach on the sadhana and give the oral transmission of the sadhana. That will also do. If I go by the second option, I could finish tomorrow. Alternatively I could drag this teaching out for ten days.

[Rinpoche reads the lung of Pabongka’s commentary up to the 4th yoga and then continued reading just the lung of the long sadhana. On the last day he continued reading the lung of the commentary]

Four rounds of explanationThree of the types of teaching mentioned have to have four rounds of explanations. In other words, we should go over the teaching four times. In the Sakya system they do all four rounds in detailed explanation, but in the Gandenpa119system we don’t. The first round we talk in detail, the second one is shorter than that, the third one will be very concise, and the fourth one will be the repetition the next day. You are also asked to meditate on it, if possible four times, if not, three times, if not, two times, but at least one time. You have to say the long sadhana during the teaching period. Up to wherever the teaching has gone, you have to concentrate, below that you can go fast. So every day it will go longer and longer. That’s how you do it. [Amherst 1985:] I don’t know how we should do it now. We can’t do the nyum tri. Pabongka always did the nyum tri. We cannot do that, it is out of the question. For the ngal tri I have no experience to show you this and this, like the doctor showing students the details of a corpse. I don’t think I am qualified to do that. So the question is between the two, the she tri and the nyam tri. It will be easy to do the she tri, that is just read it and talk to you. Nyam tri will be a little bit more difficult for me, but will be more effective for you people. So that will be very reasonable. But in that case, once we reach the fourth outline, you will have to do all I have mentioned to you. If I do this teaching as nyam tri, I am supposed to read the commentary only during the lung and apart from that, I am not supposed to look into it during the teachings. [Ann Arbor 2000:] We hope to do the one where the student experiences a little bit too. For that we have to repeat everything four times. We will repeat the three times here and the fourth time is when you meditate on it separately. That is why we have included one session for the sadhana. In that session, whatever we have covered up to that point should be said together and at that time try to remember what we have talked about. That will serve the purpose. The idea of saying the sadhana together is118 The oral transmission of the teaching [Tib. Khrid]119 The Gandenpa system, the Ganden Kagyu tradition and the New Kadampa all refer to the Gelugpa.

Preliminary explanation 67

that we build the experience of repeating it one time. The other three repetitions will be during the teaching itself. The first is when I talk in detail, then I will repeat that in a short way. The next day I will repeat shortly what we have talked the previous day.

[Nijmegen 2001:] we’ll do the she tri. We go through the sadhana, explain it, look a little bit in the book, and talk. We’ll do the teaching in four rounds and your job is to meditate.

One of the disqualifications of not receiving a teaching is to say mantras during the teaching. You cannot say mantras during the teaching. There was a guy coming to my teachings who would always take out his mala and say mantras the whole time. For a long time I didn’t say anything. Then, in one initiation, I publicly mentioned it. He quietly got up and left. He never came back. Apparently he had a commitment of saying some million mantras of a particular deity.

Preliminary recitationThe preliminary practices we are saying before the teachings [Tib. de dro] are so important. If you give the teaching without these pujas, the transference of the lineage is not complete; it is not considered sufficient. That goes for Yamantaka and Heruka as well as for Guhyasamaja. For the Lama Gyupas in the tantric colleges there is an exemption, because the whole monastery is doing it. Otherwise, without the preliminary practices the teaching is considered incomplete. That is the Pabongka tradition. Pabongka used to do the de dro very slowly. You have to do it slowly. Whether you are going to have development and effects from the practice, depends on how precisely and carefully you do this puja. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche told me this.

For Lamrim you have to do the jor cho120, for Nagrim121 you have to do the de dro. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche told me that with folded hands, saying how great Pabongka was. That was, I think, the last time I talked to him before he got sick. It was during the period when Song Rinpoche was giving the Heruka body mandala teachings in Dharamsala.

One day during these teachings. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche was walking across and we had these loud speakers in the Tushita [institute]. The umdze122 who was leading the puja was going extremely fast and Kyabje Rinpoche heard this when he was walking past. That night he told me “How can you do this? Did Kusho Song not say anything to that?” Then later that day, Kyabje Ling Rinpoche invited Song Rinpoche for lunch and told him that he could not do the de dro so fast. The next day Song Rinpoche told the umdze to go very slowly.

Kyabje Ling Rinpoche told me that when he first took the Heruka body mandala teachings from Pabongka, he sent him a request to attend the teachings. Pabongka replied that he was most welcome, but that he had done the initiation already, however, for his sake he would do it again. So he did the whole initiation again and all the people who attended the teaching, including Kybje Trijang Rinpoche, had the initiation twice that time. My father was there as well.

The teaching was supposed to start at 1p.m. But Pabongka often had visitors, especially officials from Lhasa and no matter how many people attended, it was something like two thousand people, he made them wait. Kyabje Rinpoche told me “I was especially angry with a man called Gajang Tenpa. He was a very talkative chap and might have come during that teaching like seven or eight times. When Gajang Tenpa came to see Pabongka Rinpoche, I used to go back. There was no way that we were going to start before 5pm, no way. So everybody was waiting. Sometimes it would be as late as 7pm. But even if it was late, Kyabje Rinpoche would never rush.” That is what Kyabje Ling Rinpoche said, “Lama Dorje Chang would never rush”

For Heruka you have a tune to sing, the equivalent of the taye gyal wai123 in Vajrayogini, it is called si pai sum pa and it has a long tune, it takes about 10-15 minutes for four lines. He always used

120 Probably the long Lamrim preliminary prayers A Necklace for the Fortunate, as in Pabongka Rinpoche. Liberation in our hands vol 1.pg 249-270121 the stages of Secret Mantra i.e. Vajrayana.122Chant Master.123 Prayer for the Revelation of the Dakini’s Lovely Face

Preliminary explanation 73

insisted on that. I am sure he had tremendously important reasons, which are beyond our comprehension. Then, there are people who just blindly follow wherever the wind blows. If you continue to remain doubtful, your wisdom cannot develop. If there is no conclusion the questioning becomes wild, crazy wisdom. It is wisdom without discipline. Everything is questioned, without conclusion. When you are just observing something it is very easy to criticize. But to provide a solution is difficult. So doubting without reaching a conclusion becomes crazy wisdom in a bad way. It is actually not wisdom at all. The wisdom that you had has been made into craziness. In Tibetan that is called shal wai sherab: the wisdom that has no morality. It becomes harmful, rather than helpful.3. It is not contrary to the chapter of special instructions [Tib. tama ke samba maloba] That means the system of outlines is in order. The steps are not mixed or upside down .If that goes upside down, this point is not covered anymore. Therefore saying the sadhana is important, because [in the sadhana] the order [of the practice] is kept – like the eleven yogas in a correct sequence. That makes you move to the next step. Whether short sadhana or long sadhana the order has to be maintained. One should not and cannot take a little piece here and a little piece there and try to make it into something: this is definitely completely prohibited. Then it is like new age, picking up something here and there and putting it together into something of your own. This will not work here.4. Satisfactory inspiration of reverence and faith [Tib. nyuge ke sumba tsimba]. Faith and respect strong enough that you are fully content. Individual practitioners should build strong satisfaction with the practice, fully contented faith in and respect for the practice. You cannot go on and continue the practice together with having doubts. This would be a total waste of time. It won’t do any good for anybody. So, you need profound respect or faith.

1. The river of initiations continuing. Coming back to taking the four initiations daily in short form during sadhana practice. The Cittamani Tara Guru yoga version may be a little too short. It just mentions that you are taking the initiations. You will not actually be able to follow, when you just read through, unless you are thinking very well. During the process of visualization, the Guru gives the initiations and then dissolves to you. Some sadhanas don’t have the taking of the four initiations, but they must have the dissolution of the guru to you, because otherwise you can’t mix the guru’s consciousness with yours and without that, there is no way you can get into the dharmakaya. The taking of the initiations is optional. This and the dissolution process are separate steps, but they are linked. Even the four initiations are all separate things, but are linked.

The first, the vase initiation, is purifying the body and introduces you to the five Buddha families. The secret initiation is the introduction to mahasukha140 from the point of union of lama yab-yum. The wisdom initiation is introducing yourself in the form of mahasukha. The word initiation explains the union on the basis of the experience of mahasukha from the third

initiation which developed on the basis of the lama yab-yum’s mahasukha on the second level.

In the sadhanas, the words you are saying indicate levels of practice. That’s why, in Tibetan Buddhism, the verbalized practice is much more emphasized than the Zen style of just sitting. Every step you go through is verbalized. However, nowadays we make everything shorter and shorter and shorter. For example, Pabongka Rinpoche says that the very short six-session yoga is not enough, but Ganchen Rinpoche is using that. Sometimes I wonder whether in these times and conditions it might not become appropriate to use it.

The first or vase initiation, through the divine water, purifies ordinary appearance and the belief in it. In Vajrayana, the obstacles are ordinary appearance/perception and ordinary conception. The latter is much more important. The first, the vase initiation, has a lot of parts, there are eleven sub initiations of the five Buddhas, and at every one of them, the water is sprinkled to symbolize the washing away of ordinary appearance/perception and conception.

140 Great bliss. Maha is great: sukkah is bliss. Tib. dewa chenpo

78 Vajra Yogini Teachings

the lifetime. There are a lot of stories about Vajrayogini appearing among normal human beings, particularly in the areas you don’t expect it, such as the red light areas.

And then, particularly this practice also has an uncommon inconceivable practice. And also, you can even practice something of the completion stage in the development stage. And in particular this Vajrayogini has a body mandala. And that body mandala is not like the Heruka body mandala, where the deities are put at the outer end of the channels, sort of between the skin and the flesh. Vajrayogini’s body mandala is at the inner end of the channels, it almost touches the heart.

3. Treatise Validation. The techniques and teachings I can also claim to be validated, because I try not to use my imagination at all. It is only what I heard from the teachings and what is further confirmed by the texts that I use. And if I have not heard it and not seen it in the texts, I don’t use it. Also, different texts and commentaries have different explanations. So whatever I have heard and remembered - the stories and details are not counted, but the short essence what you can meditate and conclude, that is always perfect, there is no doubt.

4. Experience Validation. Then the experience. Again, I cannot claim any experience. However, during the number of different teachings, I tried to meditate and tried to feel it and I did not have any gap in the meditation on whatever was said during the teaching: there was no gap between myself and the meditation. I tried to mix my mind with that and I continue to say the sadhana, short or long, and try to think wherever and whenever I can. That’s why I think that validation is also there. So these four validations you fortunately have perfectly there.

Personal experience. In addition to the four [qualities of the] oral transmissions and the four validations [nyengyu tsema zhi nes], whatever we have been talking about, all the tantras and shastras, and the practice you have been saying, all of them give development. If the individual develops in that manner and that development is expressed out, it is called yu dun dam: the essence of the meaning of the tantra actually materializes as the personal experience of the individual. That is the Kadam tradition. That is addition to those eight. That makes nine altogether.

Summary of significant points:1. This practice is really very short: minimum syllables and maximum message. In short words it

contains the essence of the whole Heruka tantra. That doesn’t mean, however, that your commitment of saying the Heruka sadhana is substituted. Saying OM AH HUM may contain the essence of the Three Purifications, but if you have a commitment of doing the sadhana, you have to do it.

2. Saying the manta alone is good enough. Especially these days we enjoy attachment and lust so much. In this period of time Vajrayogini especially appears as a female here and there. This has special significance.

3. This practice has the common and uncommon inconceivable practice.4. Also, even if your development stage practice is not very well established, you can still practice

some completion stage.5. In Heruka all the body mandala deities are put at the outer ends of the channel. Here in

Vajrayogini, they are at the inner ends of the channels.6. Both Heruka and Vajrayogini have a method of obtaining siddhihood. However, to go to the Pure

Land with the body is only mentioned in Vajrayogini.7. In the Sakya tradition there are still some inconvenient parts. These have been corrected. The

essence of the tantra has become personal experience, the experience of the Gelugpa tradition. When this is added up it becomes even better than the traditional Sakya teaching. Pabongka said that he took the clothes of the Sakya and Gelug tradition, stitched them together and it has become an extraordinary quilt. We have to carry the lineage of the Sakya tradition, because Tsongkhapa only came in 1357. Buddha came 2500 years ago. There is a gap of one and a half thousand years. That is where the unbroken lineage is very important and in this case it comes through the Sakya tradition.

90 Vajra Yogini Teachings

in addition to that, ordinary perceptions and conceptions are your obstacles. Whatever appears and is accepted like that, is ordinary perception/conception, and that is the object to be destroyed in tantra. That is why you need the pride as the yidam.

Questions and answersAudience: Can you sleep after dawn?Aura: Just visualize it is still before dawn [joke].Rinpoche: Generally, Buddhist practitioners are not supposed to stay up at night: you are supposed to sleep early and get up early. Throughout the lineage, up to Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and Ling Rinpoche, everybody went to bed around 9 or 9:30 p, with the exception of special cases, and you would always find them up by 4 am. Up to my masters, that was the practice. I am the only terrible chap who does not get up. Although I get up, I go back to sleep. It has nothing to do with electricity or anything, but it makes the practice easier. You will realize, if you get up early in the morning and do your practice, how good it is. When you let other activities occupy your day and do your practice at the last moment, you may even forget, or you may be drunk or you may not be sure whether you have done it or not, and that way it does not work. So normally, Buddhist practitioners are expected to be up at 4 am, if not, by 5 am, and if not, then my 6 am. I do not believe they sleep after 6 am. Really, that is terrible. I am sorry. Accordingly, you have to go to bed early, too.

Audience: What if you want to stay in bed after waking up? I like to think a little about the dreams that I had and then get up. Can’t you just visualize that you are getting up?Rinpoche: Maybe you are taking it too literally. You don’t have to imagine getting up and walking around. Waking up here mainly means awakening from sleep, whether you then stay in bed or not. You can lie in bed as long as you want to. Your first conscious thought should be to rise as Vajrayogini. And if you have to make a choice between hanging on to your dreams and practicing the yoga of rising, it is up to you. I would rather let the dream go than the yoga of rising. As for the method of suddenly popping up as Vajrayogini, again it refers to your first conscious thought, it does not mean you have to physically suddenly pop up.

Audience: I have read that you could visualize the lama in the form of Buddha Vajradharma or Hero Vajradharma and with or without consort.Rinpoche: all these choices are there, but I try not to mention them. I am trying to keep it simple and consistent. But you can do anything you want to.

Audience: I have difficultly visualizing Buddha Vajradharma with consort in this situation.Rinpoche: Yes and they are right in front of your nose. Be careful, your head may get smashed!

THIRD YOGA: EXPERIENCEING THE NECTARThe nectar tasting has to be done mainly in a mantra retreat. It is not compulsory to do it every day, or even in a teaching retreat. A teaching retreat is not really restricted. You can go out and meet people. In a mantra retreat you really lock yourself in. Now of course we have permission from Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche to do retreat and still do everything else, as long as we do at least one session a day. The rule is that you have to be back on your cushion before the end of the next day. I used to do this for a while. I did one session very early in the morning, then went wherever I had to go and the next day I came back before midnight and did one session on the same cushion. With some retreats 169 we now have relaxed it even more, saying that if you do at least the first 10 000 mantras on the same cushion, you can then do

169 That’s the case e.g. with the Ganden Lha Gyema

92 Vajra Yogini Teachings

You have to be very careful. There are certain lamas in the Tibetan traditions who, just two generations ago, have used five meats in actual form: human flesh, elephant flesh etc. and not only in their life-times, but over generations. Pabongka and Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche even used to name them and Song Rinpoche used to go on and list them all in order, I will avoid naming them, if you don’t mind. If you mix such a pill with your nectar pills, you are in trouble. Not only will it not help you, it will harm you in your development. There are some with big names, like “The Essence of 84000” and all these should not be used. Nowadays, the nectar pills are different medicinal herbs mixed together like aru, puru, kyuru etc. this is easy to make. Even if you don’t have a nectar pill, it is okay: you can use anything that you have blessed with the inner-offering blessing.

So this tradition insists on the pure Kadampa tradition nectar pill. This is not sectarian propaganda. However, it makes a big difference to the practitioner. You can learn from the other traditions and study, but you should not use their nectar pills, if you are following this particular path. If you are not following this, then of course, you can do anything you want. You can even follow Osama Bin Laden, that is also fine. Pabongka says that if you have very good development you can use the inner offering substances as they are listed – literally. But without this development, if you do that it becomes very dangerous.

One of the best Kadam tradition nectar pills recommended here, is Panchen Rinpoche’s nectar pill [Tib. dütsi ribu]. According to both Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, the best nectar pills are the ones made by almost all eight Panchen Lamas during their lifetimes. The first Panchen Lama’s nectar pill was known as dütsi me bar ma. That means “flaming nectar pill”. It is so called because when he was preparing them, they started burning. Wisdom fire was burning from them. Everybody could see it. However, the pills did not get roasted. Nowadays these pills are very rare. After all, he made them in the 1600s. If you get one, excellent, if you don’t get it - - almost all the nectar pills carry and consistent continuation substituted from there, a bit of the substance from there is carried continuously down.

Also recommended is the dütsi ribu from Pabongka, the ganden tse me kyi dütsi ribu, the unmixed pill of the Ganden tradition, which was given by Heruka Chakrasamvara178. Other nectar pills have been made thereafter continuously and we are still getting some of those. We try to get the ones made in the upper and lower tantric colleges which are also considered to be authentic – at least up to 1959 in Tibet.

In Tibet, when we had lots of nectar pills. It was recommended to take three pills in the morning, otherwise one pill. Nowadays this is completely out of question: nectar pills are very difficult to get. If you get a good nectar pill, put it in a bottle [of whiskey] and it will remain there and you can it from there. I don’t think I have any extra nectar pills to spare, but I can do what I normally do – if everybody picks up their own inner offering bottle, I can give you a drop of my own inner offering. If you keep a little bottle of alcohol in which you have mixed that little drop of nectar, then though you don’t have the nectar pill itself, you do have a continuation.179

1. The yoga of experiencing the nectar according to the creation stageThat nectar is by nature the five meats and five nectars purified. If you are in retreat, you taste from your inner offering. The traditional teachings tell you to eat everyday three nectar pills or at least one, or if not, taste some inner offering that has been blessed with a nectar pill. You may not be able to do that in every day life every day, but when you are doing a mantra-retreat it is compulsory. In order to taste the nectar, the ring finger of the left hand has to be used. There are a lot of reasons. Because Vajrayogini is mother tantra the left is more important than the right, the night is more important than the day, the female is more important than the male. That is what you have to remember here in mother tantra. Nowadays, some people just take a drop of their inner offering and put it directly in their

178 see page 34179 like a homeopathic solution.

102 Vajra Yogini Teachings

goes through your mouth to your heart where the Varjayogini is that had dissolved into light and which is at the latter BAM at your heart. It makes offering to her and fully satisfies her.

Then there is go sum gawa sum – the enjoyment of the three pleasures through the three doors. The commentary says.

Enjoy the three blisses of the three doors, body, speech and mind.

The techniques of the three purifications of the Heruka practice are included here in the Varjayogini.There are two systems, but we only have to do one of them here.1. Meditating yourself into the form of Vajrayogini is the pleasure of the body.2. Tasting the nectar through the mouth is the pleasure of the speech3. Swallowing the nectar which reaches the BAM at the heart-level, which is in reality the Lama

Vajrayogini, satisfying her and bringing great bliss and happiness to her who is inseparable from your own consciousness, gives pleasure to your own mind.

With that we have concluded the fourth repetition of the first three yogas.

For today, please do repeat the tsib cha194. Originally, that means the Lama will repeat once and then one of the students will repeat back. But later on Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche allowed that everybody will read it back once. Also, traditionally, it should be said from memory, but this is almost out of question, because we would have to learn it in Tibetan , so we hope that the Lama Yidam will give us permission to do it this way195.

FOURTH YOGA: YOGA OF THE IMMEASURABLESCollecting the Vajrayana materials

You should have an image of Vajrayogini, whether it is a drawing or whatever, whether three-dimensional or two-dimensional. It is very important to have collected all the proper materials for the initiations, such as bells, vajras , katanga etc. There are twenty-one or quite a number of them together. For those who had a maha-anu-yoga tantra initiation, it is part of their commitment to keep them and you have to keep them secret. Do not show them to anybody. The bell and vajra you have here, everybody will see, so you should not use them as that secret material; it [has become] an external thing. Internal things you hide, you don’t show to people.

The accumulation of these materials is very important. When these materials are complete, the dakinis will come like “the geese landing in the lotus lake”. Just as, in the West, you say that bees are drawn to sweets, Tibetans use the example of geese drawn to a lotus lake. If your materials have not been touched by anyone with broken commitments, and also if you have no broken commitments, these materials will draw the dakas and dakinis automatically towards them.

For that reason, you keep the drawing of these things. For those who have newly taken the maha-anu-yoga teachings, a picture is available. You normally keep that in your sadhana book, which you don’t show to anybody. The drawing is enough, you don’t have to carry the katangas and vases and all that. Even in old Tibet we used to do that. People would have the actual things, but they are the external things. When people took the maha-anu-yoga tantra initiations, it was understood that they would keep this drawing. It was not even part of the teaching to tell it. In the West, there is no way of knowing that. So in the later part of the teachings of Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and Song Rinpoche, they made a commitment for the lama who gives a teaching to say, “Here you are, keep it!”

194 see not 148195 for the tsib cha see pg 411

116 Vajra Yogini Teachings

when you are doing a hundred thousand refuge mantras you can also do that with those words. It is shorter than lama la kyabsu chio, etc. You may be able to use this shorter version. I have to say “may be”. It is always better to leave it there than to say “you definitely can”. One should not be too decisive. In the West people want to have a decisive statement. But in our case, we always want to be indecisive and not absolutely clear. It has to be ambiguous. You know why? Because there are fewer downfalls that way and you don’t mislead people. Expressed badly, it is a safety measure. In a good way, it helps not to make a lot of mistakes. If you make mistakes yourself, that it okay, but if you mislead people that is not good. When lamas clearly claim to be Buddhas they will say things very directly, otherwise it is always “That may be the better way”. Usually, the answer is “ I don’t know’. However, when you are attacked and you are right, you can very decisively defend your viewpoint and when you are wrong, you are wrong, you give up. Anybody can make mistakes. There is nothing wrong with saying “I don’t know” and there is nothing wrong with being indecisive. [laughs] This really goes against the Western behavior.3. To accumulate 100,000 refuges you can also use the verse of taking refuge and generating bodhimind together:

sangye chö dang tsoh kyi chok nam la I take refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha jang chub bardo dag ni kyab su chiuntil I obtain enlightenment dag gi jin sok gyi pai sönam kyi By practicing generosity and other perfections dro lo pän chir sangye drub par shok May I be able to obtain enlightenment

for the benefit of all sentient beings.

When you are doing a lot of refuge takings, say them nicely and slowly. Nobody is going to chase you. If you have one hour, say whatever you can say in one hour. Whether you say twenty or hundred or thousand, does not matter. You are not rushing for numbers, but for a solid refuge. When you say a lot of those mantras, remember that the words are just words, and that the visualization and the thoughts about what refuge means are the most important. These are all points from the Lamrim.

Story of Attar. When Pabongka started learning from Dagpo Lama Rinpoche, in Dagpo, four monks were in retreat. They were all building up to one hundred thousand refuges. All of them were going as fast as they could except one monk by the name of Attar. He was going really slowly and was way behind. After some time, the others couldn’t wait anymore for Attar to complete and became very impatient. So they came to him and asked him how many he had done, and how many still to go; they started calculating and indicating to Attar to go faster. But he paid no attention. After some time they asked him “Gelongla, how many have you done now?” to which he replied “Are you people only going for the numbers? If you want to build up your numbers, why don’t you go like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, that is easier for you!”. Then they were embarrassed and could not tell him anymore to speed up.

This story was related by Dagpo Lama Rinpoche, who was Pabongka’s teacher, in his teachings. He in turn related it in his teaching and then Kyabje Trijang related it in his teaching, so it has become part of the teaching now, so much so that even you get to hear it, even down to the name of Attar.

Whatever time it takes, spend it properly. If you can spend one hour, that is good. If you can spend ten minutes, that is also good. Don’t try to rush and finish hundred or thousand in ten minutes. If you only finish three in ten minutes, that is good, it is enough. During the teaching period you try to do a little more, like twenty- one or so, but otherwise three is good enough. It does not have to be a hundred thousand. If you just keep saying a hundred thousand from your mouth and give it no thought, it will be nothing; it will be a valueless hundred thousand. That’s it. Think about the proper causes of refuge: the fear of falling into the lower realms and samsara and having faith that the objects of refuge can actually help. In addition to that, for Mahayana refuge you need the spirit of enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. Just as you recognize your own suffering, that much [you recognize that] all the other sentient beings suffer. Then rely on Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

134 Vajra Yogini Teachings

b. SambogakayaRemaining in that void, very relaxed manner for a long time doesn’t serve any purpose. You remember Chandrakirti saying:

Compassion is absolutely necessary at the beginningCompassion is absolutely necessary during the contemplation period because it is your inspirationWhen you become fully enlightened compassion is also an absolutely necessary thingThe mind of compassion makes enlightened beings move

Then you think.

This is my truth body and as such it is not available to anybody. If it were only for my own purpose I could relax and nicely float here, but as not everyone is in that position and I have committed myself. I have to do something! If I remain unavailable to anybody, I cannot help anybody. Therefore, in order to help sentient beings I must take a form and appear. (If you can generate such a mind, it is good. At the enlightened level, what you think will happen, it is almost like that.)

Then by thinking that, you suddenly appear like a bubble out of water. A lotus and a sun cushion appear and, on that, you appear as a beam of red light, about one cubit [or taller]. That is your perception and then your conceptualization is that this red beam of light is your sambogakaya. It substitutes bardo. You are going through a transition. The objects of refuge have now dissolved to you and your transition has gone first into dharmakaya and now into sambogakaya, next you are going to go into nirmanakaya.

The texts will tell you that this light is about the size of one cubit which is eighteen inches. However, the advice on that is that you can visualize that light a little bigger than that, so that it will match your size when you are sitting down, because you will become Vajrayogini from that. In fact. Kyabje Ling Rinpoche used to say here the size of the light is one cubit, particularly for Yamantaka, but also for Vajrayogini. But Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche said it could be one cubit and above, whatever is easier for you. If you want the limbs coming out of the light beam and you don’t want a short Varjayogini, you might as well visualize the light as human size, but if you can manage to extend the body [later on] it is fine [to have one cubit of light].

Qualities of the sambogakaya. The sambogakaya is not evident to everybody. It is the ultimate form body, which has five qualities:

1. 1. Certainty of time [Tib. du nge pa]247. A lot of people think there is only the present and no past or future. That is a total mistake. If the sambogakaya had no past, then the person attaining it could not have accumulated merit. In that case, how could it attain the sambogakaya? If it had no future, he would be unable to help anybody. So it is a big mistake to say there is only a present. A lot of people say that, even some respected teachers. Panchen Sonam Drakpa made it clear that the sambogakaya remains until samsara has become empty. So don’t hold on to the present alone.

2. Certainty of location [Tib. Ne gne pa] 248. T< The body of beatitude dwells in the Akanishta Highest Heaven [Tib Ogmin], particularly in the area known as Gandavyuha Pure Land, the Pure Land of the Densely Packed.

3. Certainty of Dharma Tib. chö nge pa].249 It spontaneously and automatically teaches the Mahayana teachings.

4. Certainty of retinue [Tib. kor nge pa 250]. It only teaches to the selfless persons who have achieved at least the visionary path [or path or seeing]; these are the aryas, not ordinary persons.

247 dus nges pa248 gnas nge pa249 chos nge pa250 khor nge pa

Fourth yoga: Immeasurable yoga 165

Ghande- sandalwood-scented water with two purposes. This is an Indian tradition. In India it was always hot, so they tried to cool you down, sprinkling you with this scented water. The second purpose was to make you smell nice [The mudra is the two opened hands with outstretched fingers, palms facing away from you, parallel to each other]. It signifies rubbing the chest with ointment. In Yamantaka, the ghande mudra comes earlier, just after padyam. The reason is that, as Yamantaka, you are wrathful, hot and sweating. So the cooling water is applied first. Nyunde- the food offering for taste consciousness. [The mudra is very similar to the first one, argham]. It is putting the two hands together in the manner of indicating 'please eat!' Shabda- music for the ear consciousness30. When you have bell and vajra, you hold them and it is time to ring the bell. In our tradition we don't put anything on the altar to symbolize music. Other traditions put a conch shell or sometimes a ting sha, the small cymbals. If you want to put a piano up there or if you do not want to put anything, it is fine, it doesn't matter.

How t use bell and damaru. The bell should rings at your heart level and the clapper should hit the inside of the bell at the front and the back. [Ringing the bell] symbolizes wisdom. Wisdom has to be remembered by mind. The base of the mind is at the heart. That's why you ring the bell from the heart level, except in cases where you ring into the four directions. When you hold the bell, be aware of the face engraved on it. This should be kept against the thumb of the left hand. The index finger should press it on the top and the other three fingers should hold it from the middle, with the last finger slightly turned outwards, because you don't want to dampen the sound. Then you ring. Don't ring too fast and not too slow, but regularly, away from and towards your heart level. When you stop ringing the bell, you do one fast shake. Using bell and damaru together, the bell has to start and the damaru follows. That is the Ganden Kagyu tradition. Using the damaru first would be wrong. At the end the bell stops first and then the damaru stops. When you put vajra and bell down, you always put them back with the hugging mudra. You do the same when you pick them up. When you play the damaru you do not start playing a drum roll very fast. There is even a number of Tibetans who do that. However, this is not the practice of the tradition which Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and Kyabje Ling Rinpoche were following, and neither Pabongka Rinpoche and Kangsar Rinpoche. You play slowly and regularly, and only at the end you go tanggggg [do a drum roll]. The damaru should be held at the navel level. The purpose of the damaru is to rise the tummo, to make you excited at the level of tummo which resides at the navel. This is why you play the damaru from the navel level. The Kagyu [Drikung Kagyu] and Nyingma tradition hold their damaru up much higher, but that is their system. There is nothing wrong with that. I am talking here about the small damaru, not the Chöd drum which is always held at shoulder level. I have seen some people playing the small damaru as if it was some small Chihuahua or Lhasa Apso dog's ears flopping about. When you play the damaru, it is not the whole hand that moves, but only the thumb and index finger of the right hand. You should hold the vajra in the right hand and still be able to play the damaru with the same hand. If you are not used to that, you let the vajra go a little bit down from the hand. Ling Rinpoche, Trijang Rinpoche, Pabongka, all the great masters of the lineage would always play the damaru from the navel level, not up somewhere. The clapper of the bell should hit both sides of the bell [the front and the back], not just one. You play the damaru slowly and regularly and when you finish you do so with just one tanggggg. This is the system. You should not hold the damaru away from your body, but close to the body and at the navel level. When you start playing the damaru, you slowly start, you don't start with crescendo. A lot of lamas do that, but it is not correct. You only do a crescendo at the end, only one time and then just stop. Paru Dorje Chang was very wrathful and particularly when incarnate lamas tried to do a few more tanggggs at the end, he would hit them with a long stick that he had beside him.

307 These eight are the traditional gifts to welcome a high guest to the house.

VFIFTH YOGA: GURU YOGA

Correction of thoughts:

As usual, do kindly generate a pure thought as given by the Lamrim teachings. And visualize yourself not in ordinary form, but in the form of Vajrayogini, being in front of the Lama Vajrayogini in the mandala of Vajrayogini. Then listen to this teaching, which is loaded with the benefits of the Vajrayogini practice.

Review of the lineage and the yogas so far— fourth round of explanation

Lineage. This practice has been kept in the Sakya tradition as one of their Thirteen Golden Dharmas and then finally, through Tsarchen Chögye Gyelpo, it came into the Gelugpa tradition. It also came through Ngulchu Dharmabhadra and his disciples to the great Pabongkapa. Pabongka combined the techniques of the Sakya tradition with the special techniques given to Tsongkhapa by Manjushri, which don't exist in the Sakya tradition. He also included the ganden nyengyu techniques, which are the Gelugpa unwritten techniques, spoken from one person to the other. Nyengyu means not only oral; it is the sort of teaching that is not given in public, but that like a family treasure is passed from relation to relation. Pabongka combined both these techniques and made it possible for lazy people like us to obtain Vajrayoginihood within the shortest time- span without much effort. Then it came through Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche and also through Gomo Dorje Chang to me in an unbroken lineage. We are very fortunate to be able to listen, think about and practice such a great yidam. Both of us, me talking and you listening, are very fortunate. That is the great result of very good collective karma, which we have accumulated together. So be very happy about it and rejoice in that and pray that all of us may benefit. Milarepa has said:

The person sitting in the mountains and the person working in the city and providing the facilities will both obtain enlightenment together. There are great omens.

Like that, we should pray that all of us will obtain Vajrayoginihood, one after another or together, whatever is the best possible way. [Now Rinpoche reads and people repeat the tsib cha, the teaching in short form in Tibetan up to the current point]. 323

Initiation. This Vajrayogini is actually referred to as a blessing, a jinlab324. The uneducated will call it Vajrayogini wang, an initiation, but it is actually the Vajrayogini jenang. The blessings of the Vajrayogini sindhura body-, mind- and speech-mandala are given by the proper introduction of the outer, inner and secret yogini. A person who has received this is fit to practice this teaching.

323 See page 102 and 411.324 Literally: ' to cause your ability of quality to change'. Ref. Geshe Lobsang Tharchin. Sublime path to Kechara Paradise, pg43.

210 Vajra Yogini Teachings

more. Now above this and the most important is the Kusali offering. The Kusali people offer their bodies. Offering your body is the best offering. The offering of the body is the greatest most expensive sacrifice, because it is the most valuable thing we have. Therefore it accumulates the greatest merit. We would be willing to give away any wealth we have for the survival of our body. If you make the sacrifice of that body without any attachment, without any second thought, it really accumulates tremendous merit.

We have taken a number of different births during our journey through so many lives, but we have never been able to utilize our body in this great way. In Sutra Mahayana when the practitioners reach the path of action, and in Theravada in the system of the four results — stream enterer, once returned, non-returner and no more learning — when they reach the level of non-returner, they have no hesitation to give away their lives for the benefit of the Dharma. So far we have never had an opportunity to use our life in the best way like that. In our case it is like this: We have to die, but we die without purpose; we can't take the full advantage of it. However, here we can use our body as a tsoh offering.

Visualization-meditation of the Kusali host offering

(Musical notes, please refer to image attached )

Rang sem Kachö Wangmo teb sor tsamchi wo ne tön tsa wei lama dangzhel jor dze ching lar yang chir tön terang jung min gö gye bu sum gyi tenglü po nying pey töpa kog ne kelde nang hlag ma sha trag rüpa namtub te pung la chen cher zig pa yijang tog bar je dü tsi gya tsor gyur OM AH HUM HA HO HRIH (3x)390

My mind the Queen of Dakini HeavenJust thumbnail size, emerges from my crown,Faces [or kisses] my root Guru and then returns,Slicing off the skull of my old body, she turns it over,Puts it on a human head tripod that magically appears,She chops up my other flesh and blood and bones,Heaps it all within and with a blazing wide-eyed starePurifies, transmutes, and magnifies it into an ocean of elixir!

You meditate:I took so many bodies from beginningless time until now, but none of them had become useful. This time I have got a good body, so I take the best benefit out of it. Therefore, I make the offering of my body to the Supreme Field of Merit, that is, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. I will offer my body; I will take the essence out of this body and make offerings to the Supreme Field of Merit, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. By doing so, I will obtain a great benefit for this life.

Rang sem Kachö Wangmo teb sor tsam — 'My mind the Queen of Dakini Heaven, just thumbnail size'. That is about an inch. This is the selfless self, the 'I' that accepts 'Me' as label. It is the relative 'I'. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche used to say, though it says the size of a thumb, the thumb size might not be easy, particularly a few words down in the verse, it might not be easy, so whatever is convenient for you is good.

390 Rinpoche: 'You need both the Tibetan and the English here, because of the tune that fits the words'.

224 Vajra Yogini Teachings

The story of the fish. In the Tsang area, close to the Nepal border, there was a lama, supposedly an incarnate lama. He might not have been a very good lama. He seemed to have been politically manipulative and, in that manner, received a lot of gifts from various people and became a very wealthy fellow. When he died, he was reborn as huge fish in a lake in the same city. That fish had many, many other animals living on its body and they were poking holes into its flesh and living off it. During the summer when he moved around, more animals would come and make their homes on his body. During the winter, he did not manage to dive right below the surface of the water, which has become ice, so some parts of his body would stand up above the ice. Pabongka especially went to see this fish and thereafter used that as an example during his teachings all the time. He said that if you don't know how to properly digest gifts, just saying that you are a Dharma practitioner, is not so easy. In the Wheel of Sharp Weapons teachings Pabongka gave, he used that example. Whether that lama was a bad lama who could not properly digest the gifts, or whether he purposely acted in that way as a guide for future people [we don't know]. Pabongka went to see this fish and at that time around ninety per cent of the Tibetans were disciples of Pabongka and his disciples, that is counting Great Tibet from Amdo Nepal. So this lama might have purposely acted like that in order to benefit a great number of people. The fish was there for many years. After Pabongka left, the fish was gone as well. This actually happened.

We call that kor. That really means 'hard to digest'. You need iron teeth in order to eat and digest it. For some people there is no danger, for some there is. When you are unable to pay that back, it becomes len cha. [The effect of it is that] in your lifetime you may get some monetary benefit, sure, it is meant for you, it is dedicated, but somehow you can't get it, it slips by you. That is the len cha which you have not paid. That is when you are lucky. Unfortunate people will not be able to cut that, so they get very big prosperity in business, etc. Dharma practitioners will definitely have a hard time. If a Dharma practitioner is doing very well in the material sense, it is not necessarily a good sign. If one always has to work hard for it, sweat for it and then get through reasonably, then it is a good sign. Why? Because you have been cutting your non-virtues. People who are accumulating more and more non-virtues, and yet enjoy good results in business, prosperity, money, everything, they are exhausting their good karma. If they don't exhaust their good karma, they are unable to go to hell. Really, don't laugh. This is how karma works.

Dharma practitioners will always have a hard time. But don't worry about it. Dharma practitioners will never be hungry. They will never be left out without getting something. If that could happen, Buddha and the protectors would have let you down. But that will never happen. Somehow something will come and you make ends meet. But you always have a hard time. Your fortune is never going to be excessive. Don't think you will become a millionaire. If you want to become a millionaire, give up Dharma and go. So what about kings who become Dharma practitioners? When previous good deeds give us the results, we will be born into a wealthy situation. It is possible. I am not categorically denying that a Dharma practitioner could ever become a multi-billionaire. But it is most unlikely. And if you did become a multi-billionaire, it would not be something to be very happy about. But in any case, you always make ends meet. Those born as kings are born because a great amount of virtue was already accumulated. Take, for example, the Dalai Lamas of Tibet. From the 5th to the 14th they were born as rulers, born into wealth. But that is different. They have all their virtues always well developed and that's why they have the results. So the more you accumulate, the more it will grow and then the results will automatically come up. But we, the beginners who are at the starting point, always have a hard time. But don't get discouraged by that hard time. That hard time is a good time for us.

So these four categories, A B C D, are your guests. While you are saying the sadhana, you visualize that the dakinis you created make offerings to them. They offer tremendous amounts of elixir. In reality, it is your own flesh and blood, but in purified form, in nectar form. How to offer?

234 Vajra Yogini Teachings

O Ganden Dhargyay, friend of dark age beingsO Dharmabhadra435, upholder of the Ganden Tradition,I pray to you, please grant ecstatic wisdom!

O Losang Chopel, Lord of Sutra and Tantra,Perfect on the keys of all Sutra and Tantra paths,O Jigme Wangpo, Sage who glorified both Sutra and Tantra —I pray to you, please grant ecstatic wisdom!

Jigme Wangpo is the teacher of Pabongka.

O Dechen Nyingpo436, blessed by Naropa,Who like Naropa, taught us well the keysOf the good path of development and deliveranceOf the heavenly Naropa Dakini —I pray to you, please grant ecstatic wisdom!

The verse, 'O Dechen Nyingpo, blessed by Naropa...' was composed by Ngulchu Jigme Wangpo. He actually composed it as a general verse to the root guru, not to a particular lineage master. But later, when Pabongka gave this teaching it became identified with Pabongka. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche used this verse for Pabongka, because he was perfectly fit for that. Up to here the names of all the lineage masters have been completed. You have to keep on adding up the lineage. I told you it is the backbone of the practice. The next verse is for Losang Yeshe which is Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche.

O Losang Yeshe, Vajra-holder, treasuryOf the ripening and freeing teachings of the Vajra Queen,The supreme quick path to win the Vajra Exaltation —I pray to you, please grant ecstatic wisdom!

O Chökyi Nyima, great owner of sutra and tantra,Head Dharma-holder, pilot in the vast sutra-tantra ocean,Keeper of the sutra and tantra lineage treasure —I pray to you, please grant ecstatic wisdom!

Then I also have taken this teaching from Kyabje Gomo Rinpoche, Cho kyi Nyima437. As I mentioned to you earlier, he has given a number of teachings to me, especially this detailed teaching on the development stage has come from him. So I added that up. This completes all the lineage masters up to now. It should be altogether 39 or 40 or something like that.

Audience: You forgot to mention yourself.Rinpoche: Oh, no. I have taken this Vajrayogini initiation and teaching from Gomo Rinpoche. I requested him to give this teaching on the basis of Pabongka's commentary and he agreed. There were a number of people there that day like the late Lama Yeshe, Bakula Rinpoche, and I am not sure if Lama Zopa was there or not. Gomo Rinpoche made everybody wear monks' robes, including myself. It took place in Bakula Rinpoche's house in Delhi. Gomo Rinpoche put big thrones up for all of us. Then he suddenly said, 'Well, I don't think we have to give this teaching either on the basis of the sadhana or Pabongka's commentary. I think I can just do it based on the eleven yogas.' We had been chit-chatting for a while and had lunch which was served by Bakula Rinpoche and then the teaching took only a couple of hours. That was it. Later Gomo Rinpoche said to me, 'But when you give it next time you

435 Ngulchu Dharmabhadra436 This refers to Pabongka Rinpoche. For his biography see page 35.437 Nyima means 'sun of dharma'. For Gomo Rinpoche's biography see page 40.

Fifth yoga: Guru yoga 237

My Guru's throat AH radiates red elixir light rays.They dissolve into my throat.They purify my verbal sins and obstructions.I attain the secret initiation.The blessings of the Guru's speech enter my speech.

Likewise, from the AH at the lama's throat comes red light Each ray of red light has a red AH at its tip. The light dissolves into your throat. It purifies the speech and all negativities through speech.

The secret initiation is obtained, you are empowered to meditate on the perfection stage and the seed of the result sambogakaya is laid. You obtain the Lama's blessings of the speech.

My Guru's heart HUM radiates dark blue elixir rays of light.They dissolve into my heart.They purify my mental sins and obstructions.I attain the wisdom intuition initiation.The blessings of the Guru's mind enter my mind.

Similarly the letter HUM. Blue light comes from the Lama's heart. Each ray of blue light has a blue HUM its tip. The light dissolves into your heart. It purifies the non-virtues of mind.

Then the blue HUM dissolving to you is the wisdom initiation, the seed of the dharmakaya is laid. You obtain the Lama's blessings of the mind.

My Guru's three place letters radiate white, red and dark blue elixir rays of light.They dissolve into my three places.They purify my physical, verbal, and mental sins and obstructions.I attain the fourth initiation, the precious Word initiation.The blessings of the Guru's body, speech and mindenter my body, speech and mind.

Similarly OM AH HUM. Then the word initiation is when from all these three points white, red and blue lights come and together dissolve to our body, purify negativities created through body, speech and mind and you obtain the blessings of body, speech and mind of the Lama. This fourth initiation lays the seeds for the ultimate union, zungjuk439.

Tsongkhapa's specialty. One important thing here: The light comes from the letter OM at the forehead of the lama. The tip of each light ray carries a live letter OM which also makes the sound OM. The same with the letter AH and the letter HUM. The live letters on the tip of the light rays again is an uncommon technique.

The Vajrayogini practice comes mostly through the Sakya tradition. But a number of things have been added up since Tsongkhapa's experience. Pabongka made a big deal out of that. He said it is like weaving a cloth. You use two materials, because you have warp and weft. The information of the Sakya would be like the warp and the information coming in from Tsongkhapa are woven into that. So it becomes like a new blanket, woven out of the Sakya and Tsongkhapa systems. The live letters are coming through Tsongkhapa. You may be wondering why that is so important. There are a lot of reasons which make a difference at the completion stage level. Since this is the preparation for completion stage, it is considered important to use it already over here.

439 tantric term for buddhahood.

Sixth yoga: generating oneself into the deity form 263

that what he did was some crazy stuff. Some of Trungpa's methods might have really looked slightly crazy. For example, he had people run around in khaki uniforms, but that may have had its own reasons and values beyond our comprehension. But many of his practices are correct. So Tsongkhapa, because of his high moral standing and his tremendous scholarship, was able to convince people that Marpa's teaching was great. This is written in Tsongkhapa's secret biography. In the nine mixings, the example clear light, meaning clear light, impure and pure illusion bodies, and so on are mixed. Let's call this se va at this stage. The Tibetans pronounce is as se wa. I don't know if 'mixings' is really correct. This word might have been originated in the old Indian Buddhism, so it could be Sanskrit and then it came into Hindi where today it means service. I am not saying that this is the case, but it might have happened that way. Up to example clear light, the whole practice is all imagination. You visualize. Above the example clear light the practice becomes actual. For example, up to that you imagine all the dying stages; at this level, these stages of death actually appear to you, without really dying. The transition takes place at the example clear light. So even in the beginning of the completion stage the practice still relies on imagination — up to the example clear light. Pabongka very clearly said in his commentary on Vajrayogini, that at this level the actual signs of dying literally appear to the practitioner. He or she can then pick up the signs and at the end of that they can mix that with the ordinary dying stage. That means that when you are really going to die, because of your daily training, you will be able to pick up the last stage of the death process and work with it. This stage is itself called 'clear light' because it is connected with emptiness. When you are able to do that, instead of losing control over the process, you will gain control. Due to this you are able to rise as just the combination of energy and mind. This combination will be able to take the illusion body. When that happens you have perfected the death. Consequently you don't have to go into uncontrolled ordinary bardo and ordinary rebirth either.

The example clear light is further divided into two layers. The last is the ultimate example clear light. If you achieve that, then in that very lifetime you are guaranteed to obtain full enlightenment. Nothing can then interrupt that. Therefore, if you can train yourself in thinking about the clear light right now, then when the actual death stage of that clear light arises, you may be able to mix them together, which is actually known as the first mixing. In that case you will probably be able to achieve enlightenment without having to go through the bardo. That is why all the effort we are putting in even now are not mere intellectual ejaculations, but are real efforts. When you are meditating on emptiness, what happens? Emptiness perceives the exact opposite of ignorance or ego. The ego-view says yes, it is solid. The emptiness-view says no, nothing. But when you look at death and clear light, it doesn't go opposite. It is not that one says yes and the other says no. They are very similar. It is just like with the Heruka mandala. This mandala functions in just the same way as Ishvara [Tib.Wangchuk] has manifested456, but has taken it over internally, without having any disturbances. It is very smoothly managed. Even the names are not changed. Even the physical looks are quite the same. Just like that, here the practitioner is training very similarly to the mundane death process and replaces it with clear light. The same process happens for bardo and illusion body and for rebirth and the result rupakaya. Such a practice, artificially simulated by mind, is called development stage. When this simulated practice becomes actual it is called completion stage.

How do we actually do this in the creation stage? Look into your sadhana. After you have dissolved the Guru, the sixth yoga starts.

That same BAM grows ever bigger, encompassing the limits of space, revealing all animate and inanimate things as the bliss-void reality. Again, it gradually contracts from its limits and becomes an extremely subtle BAM letter, which gradually dissolves from below up to the nada-drop-tail. Again the nada becomes imperceptible, the Truth

456 See page 47.

340 Vajra Yogini Teachings

At the navel on a moon disc you generate red Vajravarahi, Dorje Phamo. Actually she looks different from the Vajrayogini picture you have. You find her sometimes in the Kagyu-tradition. She is standing on one leg, with one hand high up and with a little pighead [in her hair]574. At you heart level you have HAM YOM, blue Shinjema. In your visualization, you think that there is a red Vajrayogini at your navel, a blue one at your heart, a white one in the mouth, actually on the middle of your tongue, just where some people have this piercing. Then you have a yellow one at the forehead, a green one at the crown and one smoky-colored or blue-black one, like Yamantaka, for every joint. The Chandikas are at every joint — there are eight such joints — two each at shoulders, wrists, hips and ankles or alternatively just one at the hairline in the middle of the forehead which covers for all the joints. Some teachings, including Pabongka's commentary, will tell you that. It is an important point where all the parts of the body are joined. But then Kyabje Trijang, during a teaching on Heruka, said that in Vajrayogini you can't do that, you have to have a protection deity on all the joints. Sometimes it happens that way. The teaching on certain point will not come where you would expect it, but somewhere else. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche made that comment when he was pointing out the differences between the body mandalas of Heruka and Vajrayogini. We should remember that. Perhaps he did not put it into the Vajrayogini commentary because it would directly contradict what Pabongka had written and at the same time Pabongka might have been written it for a purpose, maybe to hide the actual way it should be done. You can have either a Vajrayogini or a mantra letter. It does not matter. Although they have different names here, you visualize them all as Vajrayoginis who have the special function of protection. Each of these syllables is facing out in the same direction as you. They are standing up, except, at the crown, the respective deity-letter lies flat. At the forehead, the protection deity-letter stands where the hairline meets the forehead. So the syllables radiate this network of subtle light rays and they completely shield you like armor, like a coat of mail575 on your body. When you say those mantras you pronounce Chrim Mom and Chrim Chrim instead of Shrim Mom and Shrim Shrim, although some Tibetans do that. The teaching tradition insists that it is Chrim.

4. Initiation and sealing576

PHAIMMy heart center BAM radiates light-rays that invite the consecration deities, the glorious living and environmental Chakrasamvara mandala.'May all transcendent Lords please openly confer initiation!'Having so prayed, the eight guardianesses of the doors and corners scare away demons, the heroes recite auspicious verses, the heroines sing vajra songs, and Rupavajra and company present their offerings. The Lord grants his permission to confer initiation. The four mothers together with Varahi raise up their jeweled vases filled with the five elixirs, and consecrate me with anointment on their crown.'Just as all transcendent Lords were anointed as soon as they were bornSo do we now confer anointment with this pure water of the gods!'OM SARVA TATHAGATA ABHISHEKATA SAMAYA SHRIYE HUMSo pronouncing, they confer initiation filling my entire body. All taints are purified.The overflow water stays on my head and transforms into a crowning Vairichana-Heruka Father-Mother.

This is the same as in the actual initiation. The initiation deities are the Heruka body mandala deities. The system of doing it is the same as inviting the wisdom beings. You start with PHAIM. The meaning of the mantra PHAIM is 'compel'. It compels the object to come. It is forcing them, making them swear

574 For a picture see Appendix.575 A coat of mail or chain mail is a medieval garment made of links of metal woven together — like knights sometimes wore.576 Literature: Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Guide to Dakiniland, pg. 142-143. Geshe Lobsang Tharchin. Sublime Path to Kechara Paradise, pg. 194-197. Geshe Jampa Tegchog, Kommentar zum Vajrayogini Tantra, pg61.

390 Vajra Yogini Teachings

was to have people do the retreat together and in the evening I would come and give explanations to the group. But that did not work. People could not manage to come in for sessions at set times. This was not possible for them. So I had to make it very open and free and people came in for a session whenever they could, including after midnight. So I could not do teachings during the retreat, because it would have delayed the mantra saying, as well as because people could not be there together at the same time.

So, you can do that retreat in a loose way, that is, even some days only do one or two sessions. You only have to make sure that you do at least one session in every 24 hours on the same cushion and for that you have to say at least 100 mantras and do the complete long sadhana. If you miss, if you can’t get back to the same cushion in time, you are breaking the retreat. You can actually miss one night and still be within the 24 hour period – if you have a date [laughs]. Let’s say you are from Singapore and you have a date in Australia. You do an early session in Singapore, get on the plane, arrive in Australia, spend the night there, come back before midnight the next day and get back to your cushion and do session. But if it is a minute after that, you have lost everything. Actually, midnight is not the actual cut off point. The next 24 hours really start with the first light from the east in the morning. To make midnight the cut-off point is a safer measure. So you can spend one night out, but the second night you must get back. I do that a lot of times. I do the early session, hop on a place and go and come back the next morning or afternoon and do another session.

One time, however, I missed it. I did a White Tara retreat, which was 100,000 eleven times which brings it to one million hundred thousand. I could not do it, I had to break in between. It is funny, Kyabje Ling Rinpoche did that. He broke a 600,000 and started again and finished it off. It took about a year to complete. He counted that as eleven hundred thousands. This is because there are ten letters in the mantra OM TARE TUTARE TURE SOHA. So it is one million but you add up one hundred thousand. The same things happened to me and I did continue the same way. I should have kept my mouth shut but I told Lochö Rinpoche that I did this retreat but had to break at 600,000. Lochö Rinpoche said: “In that case, you cannot count the mantras.” And that was the end of it. If one of your Gurus tells you that you can’t count it, that is it, you can’t count it. Of course you can count it as a great and long retreat, but you can’t count it as a full eleven hundred thousand mantra retreat.

On the other hand, Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche made it very clear that in the case of Vajrayogini you can do four separate retreats of 100,000 and count that as a 400,000. He said that a number of times. I guest it depends perhaps on the moods of the lama you talk you. If he is in a good mood you are okay. If he is in a bad mood, you are in trouble. So, if you are planning to do a retreat on your own over a considerable length of time you have to make sure that you don’t have any interfering traveling arrangements. You cannot go away for more than a day. You should really sleep near the retreat place. That may be the case for two or three months. If you cannot do that, you have to plan a full time retreat. If you can do four long sessions a day, you can complete 100,000 mantras in ten days.

If you do a group retreat, the advantage is that you will feel obliged to come in and do regular sessions. The group energy will chase you. That way you finish quickly. If you do it alone, it normally takes much longer. The first few weeks you may say thousands , but then it is getting less and less and you are just doing the minimum and then it could even take six months. The obligation to each other in a group may not be a very comfortable feeling, but on the other hand it helps to move together.

Fire Puja 657

At the end of the retreat you need to do a fire puja. It is part of the retreat. If you cannot do one straight after the retreat, you do a tsoh offering and continue to do the long sadhana every day until you can do the fire puja. If you miss the long sadhana for even one day, your retreat is gone. You have to re-do it. This is a funny rule. Therefore you should not allow for any emergencies [to cut your practice.] So the

657 For the ritual in English, see Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Guide to Dakiniland, pg. 441-493. Also see Sharpa Tulku and Michael Perrott. A Manual of Ritual Fire Offerings with the Vajrayogini (Naro Kachö) part on pg. 125-140. For general fire puja details, see Sabine Leuschner, Handbuch zum Tantrischen Retreat, pg. 73 – 102

Remaining yogas 409

Vajrayogini practice within the Lama Chöpa:Yogas 4 and 5 are included in the first line that connects with the Lama Chöpa:

Light comes from the body of the lineage tree and especially Vajrayogini.

That includes all the offerings made as part of the Lama Chöpa. Then you briefly go through the three-kaya practice which covers the 6th yoga. The sentence:

The light transforms into the self-illuminating body of Vajrayoginim which enjoys enlightenment covers 6th, 7th, 8th yoga. Saying the mantra covers the 9th yoga.

In the Yamantaka four-line line sadhana, it says

The light transforms into the nirmanakaya Yamantaka which enjoys the four branches.

The four branches covers generating the commitment being, wisdom being, making offerings, inner offering, recitation, praises and so on. Actually, the whole sadhana is included in the four branches. If you think about what the four branches are, you have to actually revise the whole longer sadhana.

Pabongka, who create these four-line sadhanas, did this for the benefit of the then regent of Tibet, Reting Rinpoche, who was a young, jolly fellow at that time and didn’t do any sadhanas. Pabongka tried to make whatever best possible practice for him under these circumstances. Actually this is very helpful for me. Pabongka had provided a list of reading material for Reting Rinpoche and did not make him read all the books, but suggested to read certain excerpts, important essential passages. It was almost like a course.

The important point with these short sadhanas is that you should have the visualization from the long sadhana in your mind, even when you say these abbreviated sadhanas. The words are shortened but the visualization shouldn’t be. The 5th yoga is still the 5th yoga. You have to visualize accordingly.

(THERE IS A SYMBOL OF A DOUBLE VAJRA HERE)